She leaves me in the world's worst position: waiting six hundred feet in the air like a worried, blue balled fuck while the summer breeze turns into a frigid wind.

I don't get her message until I'm going down, taking the very last elevator of the night, heading for my car waiting on the curb. The tower shuts itself down fast, becoming one more deserted sentinel watching over the city, and all its unlucky, condemned, damned citizens.

Population: me.

Home is worse than ever. I sit in my penthouse all night, waiting for her to respond to my texts, wishing I could punch out my idiot self from twenty-four hours before, when I thought I'd put my dick in Tina to soothe the tension.

There's no excuse.

I fucked up big time, despite her hall pass. I almost acted on it, until I saw I couldn't get hard with anyone else. I don't even know how she found out, where she got those pics, but I'm certain it involves a malignant twist of fate.

At some point, I crash out in my living room. It's light again when my phone goes off, its volume waking me like an air raid siren.

No text, but an email. It's from her. I open it in a frenzy, clenching my jaw as the words drift across the screen.

Cal,

It's over. Whatever big mistake we almost made last night, it isn't happening again.

I won't let it.

It's not all your fault. I don't know why I expected you to behave like an angel when we agreed no sex, no complications, no craziness. I even told you to do whatever, without knowing you'd already gone and done it.

I'm sorry. It shouldn't hurt so much. But it does.

Finding out where you went really messed with my head.

I still owe you the favor, and I'm not bailing over this. We just can't be joined at the hip when there's no good reason to be.

We're not actually engaged. We're not in love. We're not even friends – exactly like you said.

It's taken me a long time to realize how much sense the first rules we laid down make.

Do your thing. Call me when you need me. I'll be there.

Otherwise, I'm staying at my parent's house.

If your dad or anybody else questions it, tell them it's sick family I'm taking care of. Tell them whatever. I don't care anymore.

I'll be in touch. Not for a couple days, though, unless it's urgent.

Fuck.

I haven't eaten since dinner last night, and digesting her words on an empty stomach tastes like bile. Pacing my marble floors, I turn over the options in my mind, one hand on my phone, ready to call her and explain everything.

Trouble is, I have no proof.

She won't say it to my face, but she's disgusted with me, and why the hell shouldn't she be? Sure, it's a two way screw up, but we'd both be in an infinitely happier place if I hadn't gone after easy pussy in my weakness. If I'd just stayed home, taken her a night earlier like she wanted when I saw those bedroom eyes, I wouldn't have built my own prison. At the very least, I'd be able to think, without my desire rotting in every angry, denied inch of me, degrading into rage.

There's a wisdom in her words I can't deny, despite how furious it makes me.

My crime is doing a one eighty when I should've stopped her from ever getting her hooks in.

Hers is dissolving my discipline, my strength, everything that's gone to pieces ever since the day I reached out and dragged her into my life because there wasn't another choice.

I hate my stupidity, my loss of control. Hate it so fucking much I run for the bathroom, where I think I'll vomit, but I can't even expel the poison twisting my guts in agony.

She hates me.

I hate Maddie, too.

Hate her like mad for the effect she has on me. She's put me on the edge of ruin, knotted my heart and soul. They're gradually strangling me like a noose she crafted with the black cords of the past, and I'm the fucking moron pulling it around my own neck.

My fist goes into the silver wall, leaving a heavy dent. Blood seeps from my scrapped knuckles. I wash my hands, splashing water over my face, desperate to cool the red hot insanity bleeding out my pores. I stare at myself in the mirror like a maniac for the next few minutes.

Goddammit, no. It isn't hate.

It's something much worse.

Love, with a capital L. So heavy it'll break every bone in my body.

I don't know how to get her back. I can't wipe yesterday from existence.

But if I don't find a way, I'm all kinds of fucked.

I probably already am. Because if I'm brutally honest, maintaining the charade for my old man is the last thing on my mind when I stare, and plot, letting the fireball exploding in my heart torch through me.

There's no mercy in its flames. They touch everything I thought I ever knew, and turn them to cinders.

* * *

I give her two days for space, the max I can tolerate.

Day three, after work, I take my Tesla straight from the office into the university district.

There's no hesitation, no creeping up to the house as soon as I'm parked. I've been rehearsing what's coming in my head for forty-eight hours. It'd take a bus screaming down on me with its brakes cut to stop it.

I bang on the door and drop my fists to my sides. I expect doll to appear for about a second before I sweep her up in my arms, but the face behind the door when it opens is younger and way too relaxed.

“Well, if it isn't Mr. Millionaire Player himself. Come to kiss and make up with your fake bride?” Kat Middleton is possibly the only woman on the planet with half her sister's good looks, and ten times her sass.

“No. I'm here to talk with the whole family. Is Maddie home? How about your folks?”

She twists her lips sourly, giving me a look. I hear the TV behind her, leaving little room to lie to my face. “Did you not get her note? We don't need your games around here, Calvin. It was hard enough for her to sweep your stupid engagement under the table for mom and dad's sake...”'

“I got the email, and I don't care,” I growl, filling the doorway, pushing past her. “Where's a good place to talk?”

I'm not taking more delays. I head for the kitchen, leaving her racing after me.

“Kat? Who's that?” Mrs. Middleton pops up from her living room recliner as soon as I enter the kitchen next to it.

Her lazier half, Maddie's dad, stays glued to the TV, too caught up in his thriller explosions on the screen to care. It's a few more seconds before I see doll. She's just come downstairs, dressed more casually than I've ever seen, jean shorts and a tank top hiding her little body.

If I didn't have the whole world's weight on my shoulders, begging to be dropped with precision, I think the instant hard-on raging in my pants would put me on my knees. “Doll,” I say softly before I cross the room, ignoring her wide-eyed look.

There's nothing soft at all about how I throw her over my shoulder, put her against the counter, and give her the hottest mouth-to-mouth this home has probably seen in decades.

Fuck, she tastes good. Sweeter than usual because she tries to fight me. Tries, and completely fails. Surrender comes roughly ten seconds after my lips smother hers, re-taking what's always been mine.

What the fuck were you thinking, doll? I ask her silently, grunting when her sharp nails go into my neck. Did you really think I'd quit over lies? Misunderstandings? A note by Google pigeon?

“Kat!” Her mother calls again, no longer a question. “Someone want to tell me why your sister's necking with a complete stranger in the middle of my lasagna prep?”

Kat just shrugs. “Not my problem, ma. Why does everybody always look at me? He's here to have a heart-to-heart with the whole family, or so he says.”

Shit. I notice, too late, that when I threw Maddie on the counter, her thigh crushed a pack of flat noodles. Cheese is on the floor. An open can of crushed tomatoes teeters on the edge, saved by my fingers at the last second when I lift her up, shooting her mother a sympathetic look.

Finally, her old man is on his feet too, arms crossed as sternly as his eyebrows while he surveys the damage to tonight's dinner.

“Sorry for the intrusion, people. It's a little messy, yeah, but that's how it's always been, hasn't it, Maddie?” I look her in the eyes and see the hurt, the confusion, the shame because I've forced my way back without more than an ugly word.

“Put me down, Calvin. Now!” Her tone tells me she isn't playing around.

Neither am I. It's not until a couple seconds later, when I haven't so much as let her toes touch the floor, that she adds some teeth to her threat. Her palm crashes across my face. Pain blossoms up my jaw, into my temple. She lands gracefully, released from my arms, and I smile like a fool as I touch the burn I thought I'd avoided.

“Madeline, just what the hell's going on?” Her dad booms. “Tell me. I'll throw this idiot out if you don't want him around.”

“No, Mr. Middleton. I deserved it,” I say, stepping closer to the living room, where the entire family has lined up, watching me like the crazy intruder I've become. “I'll tell you guys the truth because I'm done screwing off. A few weeks back, Maddie and I got engaged. We fell in love longer ago than that. If you're wondering where she's been since she came back from China, why she hasn't stayed at home, well, she's been at my place,” I say, watching her mother's head whip toward Maddie, surprise stretching her face. “Everything was perfect. We planned to do this the easy way, make the announcement over a normal dinner or something, but that's out the window now, it seems.”

Her dad looks past me at the ruined lasagna ingredients strewn around the counter, seething. I'll make it right soon, once I know he won't clock me out cold for upsetting his eldest daughter, and his eats.

“Calvin?” Deep lines criss-cross her mother's thoughtful face. She studies me, creeping closer, the dark eyes she shares with Maddie going wide when it hits her. “Calvin Randolph? From Maynard? Sweet Jesus. And after so much drama, too...nobody knew you stayed in Seattle.”

“Oh, he's here, all right,” Kat says, a smirk on her face. She scurries aside a second later when her father approaches, rolling up one sleeve, officially at his limit with the tornado I've brought into their house.

“Not for long. Calvin, Randolph, whoever the hell you are, I want you out. Go. I'm not asking twice.”

He's dead serious. I give Maddie a look, caught in a twist I never planned for. A physical confrontation with her old man wasn't a scenario I imagined. Guess I'll have to stand my ground and loose a few teeth to his fist. I'm not moving until I get what I came for.

I stand there, feet anchored to the floor, unmoving.

For a few precious seconds, I think she'll let nature take its course, or at least her father's rage, weaponizing the muscles he hasn't lost from years working the loading docks. Then, when he's close, ready to shove me through the stove, she jumps up, reaching for his shoulders.

“Daddy, please. Just wait. Listen. This isn't all his fault.” She talks like the words disgust her.

I'm heartened, and also the luckiest SOB in the world. Shaking my head, I step closer, trusting her hands on his shoulders will keep his cannonball sized hands from splintering my ribs. “No, beautiful. I'm not letting you take the fall. You folks want the truth? I'm the only reason things are so screwed up here. I was an idiot. Kat told Maddie what I did, and she was right to run. I played with the heart she promised me. I took it for granted. That's a mistake I'm never making again.”

“Finally!” Kat says, throwing up her hands, smiling at her mom. “Dad, Maddie's right. Let him talk. I'm just sorry there's no popcorn.”

I don't bother glaring. Kat's snark, her parent's confusion and anger, plus the volcanic tension fades. It's background noise.

It's doll in front of me, and only her.

My woman, my claim, my charade and my reality, standing there in her casual wear looking more beat down, humiliated, and vulnerable than ever.

She's in this situation because I took a fall for her years ago. I tangled us in chains we could've avoided.

Now, maybe it's her turn to bear the weight. Difference is, I can't fucking stand it.

Walking past her father in full gorilla-mode, I put my arms around her, and hold on until she slides into me, relaxes, sobbing against my shoulder. “This is my fault. Nobody else's. What happened at the bar – or should I say what didn't happen because I couldn't bring myself to do it – was a hell of a blunder. Last error I swear I'll ever make with this angel.”

Fuck it, I'm going off script. Can't even remember the words I spent the evening practicing in my office between conference calls with the marketing team and new whale investors for RET.

“Maddie, look at me. You deserve better, and sure as I'm standing here in front of you like a goddamned fool, I swear you'll get it. I'll bring it.” I wait a small eternity for her eyes. When she digs herself out of my shoulder, and finally looks at me, seeing the pain on her face is like staring at the sun.

If I wasn't deadly serious before, I feel like I'm taking a vow in front of God himself now. My heart threatens to beat itself out of my ribs. Squeezing her tighter, I pause to reassure her with my lips, laying them on hers softly, honestly, more real than they've ever been since I had my soul ripped away seven years ago.

“It's insane, but I love you. I still want to do this. Give me one chance to treat you like the diamond you are, keep you hanging on my heart through the good, the bad, and every ugly fucking thing that's bound to come. You'll see this fool can learn, and I'll make you stop regretting the day I sent you the ring.” I close my eyes, pressing my forehead to hers, no longer giving a damn about the audience gathered around us, if I ever did at all. “I'm not asking for more favors. Just a second chance. You owe me nothing, doll, but if you'll give me another chance to prove everything I'm saying – this time for real – you'll see. I'll go to hell before I ever let you down. If I don't make you the happiest woman on earth like you deserve, that's too good a place for me.”

“Shut up, Cal. One more,” she whispers, her faint voice trembling. It's a miracle she's able to get out at all after I've brought shock and awe to her entire family.

I don't care if she's speechless. I don't care that their suspicious eyes stab us repeatedly like daggers. Her lips tell me plenty more than words ever will when they collide with mine a second later.

We kiss like stars branding their light on the Seattle sky.

We kiss for our own heartbeats, slowly merging, becoming one as our lips find peace.

We kiss through her parents swapping soft, hurried whispers I can't make out, through Kat sighing, shaking her head, muttering just loudly enough to pick up her words.

“It's your funeral, sis. But I'd probably give the asshole another chance, too.”

* * *

Her family never congratulates us on the bizarre engagement announcement, but I don't think they're horrified by the idea by the time we're leaving. It'll take time, and I'll win them over.

Slipping Mr. Middleton a five hundred dollar apology with a tip about the best pizza place in town helps. I listen to Maddie gathering her things upstairs, her mother hovering, hitting her with a thousand questions.

What little I catch from the conversation tells me I've patched the worst damage.

Miracles do happen.

Mrs. Middleton's questions echo in my head several times over on the drive home.

Are you really sure, Madeline? I mean, spending your life with him?

After everything that happened ?

I stayed on the sidelines while they talked, resisting the urge to jump in. Glad I did, too, because Maddie's response would've thawed the coldest heart.

Mom...it's my choice. Love doesn't choose. Frankly, we should've been together years ago. He's different now. The things they said about him were wrong. There's more than neighborhood gossip, bad press, a police report the bully's father paid to have altered.

Give it a little time. Give us a chance. You'll see it, too.

There's no one else I'd rather marry than the boy I thought I'd lost forever.

Touching. Honest. Everything except the part about me being different.

To her, different means better. I'm not the same clueless kid who stumbled into disaster, true, but there's no sane argument it ever helped me mature, made me a better man, or taught me an important lesson.

I learned nothing. Only how random, cruel, and unforgiving this world can be. And how fucking rare second chances are.

Sure, I love her spirited defense, but her ignorance about what happened scares me. Doesn't she know I'd trade it all to go back in time to the day everything went up in flames for a chance to un-fuck my life?

In the slow, rainy commute to my condo, I don't know what to believe.

But it's progress. I've got her in my car.

“So, when do you want to tell me what the heck that was back there?” she finally says, giving me a disbelieving look.

“You don't know? It's the only way we'll ever make this work without blowing ourselves up,” I say. “I can't lie anymore, Maddie. Neither can you. We tried to strip this down to its base essentials: cashing in a favor. We played our parts, and failed every time. It's more than that, doll. We both know it. It's a whole fucking mountain of more.”

“You seem serious this time, at least,” she says quietly. “That's the only reason I'm going home with you.”

Rain patters my black hood as we ride through the dark city streets. I say nothing until we're a few miles from home.

“Doll, I'm being honest when I say nothing happened with Tina. You gave me that hall pass, and yeah, I thought about using it. But I never did. What your sis, Kat, saw in the bar is where it ended.” I pause, studying the jealousy tensing her lips into a thin line. “I brought her upstairs to my room, and almost got sick to my stomach. I couldn't go through with it. Not with you on my mind, knowing you were at home, sleeping off my bullshit after I walked out. Gave me a lot of questions, and one right answer. I came home. Crashed down next to you where I belong. Forgot her, and it's never felt so good.”

The anger on her face dissipates. Slowly, she reaches for my hand, gripping it loosely with her fingers over the console. “I believe you.”

Her ring is back where it belongs, its gold warmth glowing against my knuckle. Christ, I'd kill to see it wrapped around my cock.

“All I needed to hear.”

“No. No, it's not,” she whispers. “You do have a heart in there somewhere, I think. Hard to believe at times. But then you let it out in front of everyone back there. I just wish you'd do it more often. Maybe this wouldn't be so hard.”

She's fucking right. A little honesty would've saved us a ton of heartbreak.

I told myself before I brought her back I had no interest in ever revisiting those dark, painful chasms in my life I left behind. Too bad it took so much hell to realize how stupid that was.

I can't escape it. Can't ignore it either.

Just having her around every day picks at old scars. And I've realized I'd rather open them up and bleed my heart out if the alternative is losing her thanks to the time bomb ticking in my head, leading me to self-destruction.

By the time I pull the car into the garage, I'm hanging onto her fingers so hard it hurts.

I can't lose my doll again.

I swear I fucking won't.

My sanity, my fortune, and the life I thought I wanted will go up in flames before I ever fuck up with her again.

She thought this was pretend a few weeks ago. So did I when it started.

Truth is, we tried to fool ourselves harder than the rest of the world after seven years apart. It was always real – always – and I'm done dancing around her thinking this is anything less than serious.

* * *

Upstairs, I bring us some wine. She looks out of place, sitting on my plush leather sofa in the same worn summer clothes she brought from home. Misplaced or not, the outfit gives her curves a dangerous, wholesome, cock-teasing quality that calls me next to her, and makes it pure torture keeping my hands away.

“What happened after Scourge?” she says, giving me a probing look over the top of her wine glass.

“Like you don't know? Jail happened. John got killed. My entire life circled the drain, and I've had to claw back a fraction of the respect that should've came naturally with the Randolph name. Dad's work ethic never recovered from the firm. He blamed me more than he ever did Taliban mortars for killing my brother and fucking up our family. He's an idiot for that, but for the broken heart that took down mom in the end?” I shrug because I don't know.

I never do.

“That wasn't me. His drinking and womanizing killed her. He shut down and abandoned her after my brother's funeral. I could only do so much. Her heart attack came because he wasn't there for her.”

Maddie reaches for my hand. I'm saying more than I have for years about the whole fucked up situation, and also not saying much at all.

“Cal, it's okay. I'm not out to hurt you. I to understand. Talk to me.” Her eyes are huge, forgiving, beautiful. Can't stand them on me for more than a couple seconds before I throw more wine down my throat.

Another mistake. Each sip catalyzes the jittery mix of self-loathing and desire every look from those eyes brings.

I'm being tested. She wants to know if I'll stay honest, continue opening my heart and letting it spill out the same way it did earlier, guts and all.

“Talk changes nothing, doll. We can't erase seven years in a few kisses and a confession.” I move closer, wrapping an arm around her neck, every fingertip igniting when her soft skin brushes mine.

How does she feel this good? It's beyond chemistry, the reaction that always starts the instant her body touches mine.

It's electric, magnetic, and a hundred other kinds of mystifying fuckery I can't describe without a science PhD. She puts me on edge in the best and worst ways, using some voodoo I'll never understand in ten lifetimes.

“I'm not trying to erase anything. I can't,” she says, brushing my arm. Her hand massages my bicep, the same gentle touch she used on her father. “I want you to let me in so we can undo the damage. Have you ever wondered if the reason we're not making much progress with your father is because you're holding in so much venom?”

“No. It's too early to see results. We wowed the board and the senior managers. If we're able to win over Joe and Stefan, plus Mrs. Anders, odds are they'll look the other way if his will locks me out of ever having a stake in the company. Or at least they won't block a vote when Spence and Cade take their dads' places, and try to give me a hand.” It's a longshot, but it's my last hope if the old bastard doesn't have a sudden and serious change of heart.

“I don't think it needs to be that complicated, or so risky,” she whispers, twining her hand with mine. Fuck, the girl is pure black magic, button brown eyes and a soft smile built in kindness and shadowed in sexy. “Look, I'm not trying to make you re-visit anything you don't want to just because there's a lot I don't know. I'm trying to help. Cal...let me make this better. Give me details, take me through the years I missed. Then I'll be able to help the way I really want to.”

We share a look. The only thing worse than going on a tour of the three year tragedy after I got yanked out of Maynard for a six by eight cell is ignoring this raging need to get my dick inside her by any means possible.

How does she do it? Shine on like the fucking sun itself, magnificent and brutal, without burning up in her own desire?

I don't know, but every man has his limit. She's touched mine several times over.

“Cal...” She says my name again, bringing a hand to my face, grazing my stubble.

Swallowing the last dreg of wine, I take her hand, pull her onto my lap, and stare into those soft, searching hazel eyes. “No. I owe you something, doll, but I'll be damned if I'm letting you under my skin under these conditions.”

“Conditions? What –“ I cut her off, grinding my hips into hers, pressing my hands to her ass. I push her down so she's able to feel how hard I am. “Oh. Ohhh.”

“Now you understand. You want under my skin. I'll let you in, but not while it's an unfair trade. You get my skin, I get your clothes, and then I take every inch of what I've wanted since the day you sauntered your sweet little ass back into my life. I take it until I've had my fill, as hard and deep and long as I want.”

“Oh, God.”

I stiffen when I hear her moan. Rocking my cock harder against her clit through our clothes, I give her a moment to swoon, to breathe, to say her prayers.

It's better to get it out now, while I'm digging my fingers into her hips, telling her with every rough imprint what's coming.

It's scorching, it's serious, and it's so fucking overdue.