When Diego walks up to Liam and me, I’m ready to walk out of his life. Of course, I need my purse first, and I run up the stairs with him following close behind. I’m ready to leave and get in the car and drive out of Florida and never look back. But then he pulls me onto his lap, and we’re staring at each other.

“This is going to jeopardize your deal if it gets out,” I whisper. “I don’t want to do that.”

“It’ll be fine. How will it get out? And so what if it does?”

So what if it does? So what if all of the New York gossip sites find out the one thing I’ve been trying to hide for years? After that politician shamed me? No. No thank you. I don’t want to become a bigger national headline than what I've already experienced. I’ve seen what that can do to women.

Destroy them.

I don’t say any of this to Diego because he’s looking at me with big, naïve eyes. Sometimes he’s so innocent, this boy who’s lived most of his life online. It’s only in that moment that I realize this, and I also come to another conclusion: I need to leave to save him and his business. Leave and save everything he’s worked for.

Walk away, as much as it will break my heart.

If these photos get out — and I feel like they eventually will, given that whoever has these photos are torturing me with them — it could jeopardize his deal and his whole life.

What mega company wants to buy a smaller company embroiled in a sex scandal?

He strokes my hair gently, and my head hurts because of how much I love him. He’s telling me that the deal doesn’t matter to him, but I know it does. After his childhood, how can I put something like that at risk? He’d ultimately never forgive me.

My chest constricts as if there’s a firm weight on it. It’s the realization that I must leave him as soon as possible that takes my breath away.

It’s for the best, I remind myself as I shift in his lap, straddling him. It’s to save his business deal. It’s to save me from the inevitable shame when someone calls me a slut and humiliates me more.

It will save me from even bigger heartbreak when he realizes that I’m not worth ruining his life over.

I press my mouth onto his one last time, the force of my kiss shoving him back into the sofa. One of his hands is in my hair, and another is on my ass, and I’m moving, rocking, on his cock.

One last time.

“Cata, I love you.”

“Just kiss me,” I whisper.

I’m wearing a little dress, and his hand slips underneath the hem then down my panties, grazing my butt until he reaches my wet core. I’m needy for him, grasping and writhing. He finger fucks me from behind, and I moan into his mouth, gasp, because his big fingers feel so good.

I stop devouring his mouth long enough to put my lips to his ear. “I don’t want you to protect me,” I whisper. “I want you to fuck me. Now.”

These words, this insistence, are totally out of character. It’s like my emotions are so jumbled from anger and shame and lust that the only thing I can do is cater to my basest needs. And right now, I need Diego. For the last time.

He roughly flips me onto my back and hikes up my dress. I start to shove down my panties, but he has other ideas, slipping his fingers into the lace holes and tearing. I go for his zipper, and he turns his attention to that, also, freeing himself. Within the blink of an eye, his hard length is inside of me, making me gasp from the fullness.

We lock eyes as he fucks me and I stare at him with a mixture of defiance, love, need.

“Like that,” I whisper. “Faster.”

He frowns a little, and I know that he’s already on the verge of coming, he’s so turned on. Even though I’m sopping wet, I’m not close to having an orgasm, and I won’t allow myself to come. It’s my punishment for what I’m about to do, which is break his heart.

It’s for his own good.

He thrusts harder and harder, and I gasp and cry out. He feels so damned good that I could come, if he would only reach down and thumb my clit. But I won’t ask, and won’t do it for myself because this is all for him.

It’s the final time, although he doesn’t know it yet.

“I love you,” he says in a raspy voice. “God, Cata, I love you.”

I pull his head toward me and kiss him as he comes. His body shudders violently and then I stroke his back, soothing him.

I love you too, Diego. That’s why I’m leaving you. I don’t want to ruin your life.