Charlie was quiet on the walk across the palace grounds to my apartment.

“I’m sorry about Jack,” I said. “He thinks he’s looking out for me. Which I appreciate. But sometimes I think he forgets we’re not teenagers anymore.”

Charlie’s eyes slid to meet mine. They were full. Bluer than before. “It’s all right. I like that he looks out for you. We should all have someone like that in our lives.”

There it was again—that sadness.

“Who’s that someone for you?” I asked.

He tilted his head in a half shrug. “Used to be my mom. But after she died, I had to look after myself. My brother, too.”

My throat tightened. It was starting to make my head pound.

“I’m sorry you were left alone.”

Charlie’s handsome lips pulled into a tight grin. “No more sorries, okay? Today was a really great day for me.”

We’d slowed our steps. I couldn’t look away from him.

“It was a great day for me, too,” I said softly.

He looked at me for a beat. Then another. Searching my eyes. Hesitating. Thinking.

It was overwhelming.

I was overwhelmed. Because this bloke wanted something from me I wasn’t prepared to give. But damn if part of me didn’t want to give it to him. Give in.

He opened his mouth, like he was going to say something. Then he blinked, the look in his eyes contracting. He’d thought better of it.

He started walking again. Kept his gaze trained on his feet as he moved beside me, only looking up when we passed Kit and Emily’s apartment. A sprawling four story, twenty room behemoth, it was the grandest of Primrose’s residences.

“You’re lucky,” Charlie said, looking back down. He had his hands in his pockets again.

His voice was different. A little deeper.

I thought he was talking about the palace. About living here.

“It is lovely,” I said. “A little isolating sometimes. The walls—”

“No.” He looked up. Met my eyes. “You’re lucky to have your family. They’re awesome, Jane.”

I blinked. He’d caught me off guard.

Again.

My pulse fluttered, a million tiny butterflies spreading their wings inside my skin.

I looked away. Looked down at my feet. I had to.

“Thanks,” I said. There was that tightness in my throat again. “I think so, too. I’ll keep them. For now, at least.”

“You should,” Charlie replied. “Growing up, I dreamed about having a family like yours. Everyone around the table like that. It was always very…quiet in our house. It was just my brother and I most of the time, waiting on our mom to come home.”

I noticed one of his shoelaces was untied.

“Careful,” I said, nodding at it.

Charlie knelt down to tie it and grinned. “Jack must’ve done it while I wasn’t looking.”

I scoffed. It made my throat burn.

“So you really were alone a lot,” I said, my eyes latching onto his as he stood. It hit me full force all over again—how handsome he was. Especially when his eyes were thoughtful like this.

He scratched the back of his head. I noticed he only did that when he was uncomfortable.

“You could say that, yeah. I take it you weren’t?”

“Never,” I said. “Not with four kids in the house.”

“But you had to have grown up in a big house?”

“We did.” I nodded. “But we were still always on top of each other. I think my parents wanted it that way. It was pure chaos. Someone was always screaming or bleeding from their head.”

Charlie arched a brow. “Sounds serious.”

“Probably explains why Jack is the way he is,” I said, grinning. Charlie grinned back. So much bloody grinning with him. “But it was fun, too. I think we all miss those times.”

Charlie’s grin faded a bit. We started walking again. We were quiet for a beat.

I wondered what to say. I had a million questions for him. Some of them serious. What is it that makes you sad?

Some of them, not so much. Want to fuck again?

I didn’t understand how Charlie made me feel at once a little panicky—like I needed to be alone, I needed space to think and digest—and a lot hungry. Like I couldn’t wait to see him again, even though he hadn’t even left yet.

Or maybe I knew this feeling, and I was just too chicken shit to give it a name.

“Penny for your thoughts,” he said.

We were almost at my door. I slowed my stride. The air was still warm and soft. Just how he’d felt wrapped around me last night.

“Honestly?” I said. “I need a cigarette.”

He let out a breath. Whoosh. “Thank God you said that. Mind if I join you?”

I looked at him. “I didn’t know you smoked.”

“I don’t.”

I kept looking at him. His gaze was teasing. Pained.

“I don’t either. Come on, then.”

I led him around the side of my apartment to the garden out back. Settling at the table there, I dug my pack of cigarettes out of my bag and reached for the ashtray I hid behind a table leg. Charlie took the chair across from mine, where he’d sat last night for dinner.

“Why so sneaky?” Charlie asked, helping himself to two cigarettes. He lit one, gave it a good draw. Handed it to me.

I took it. “Thanks,” I said. I put my lips where his had been half a heartbeat before. I could taste him. His mouth.

I remembered how his mouth had felt on my skin last night.

Charlie lit his cigarette. The sting of the smoke relaxed me.

“I honestly don’t do it that much,” I said, watching him inhale. “I only smoke when…well.”

“When what?”

I flicked the end of my cigarette with my thumb. “When I need to think.”

“Ah.” Charlie exhaled a tidy plume of smoke. “So you need to think about me?”

I blew out a breath through my nose. A small laugh.

“A little bit. Yeah.”

Another beat of silence. My heart felt soft and strange inside my chest.

Three days. Had it really only been three days since I’d met this man?

“Exciting news for Aly and Rob,” Charlie said, tapping some ash into the ashtray. “No surprise there. At least not for me. They seem to be head over heels for each other.”

“Oh, absolutely. They’re besotted. Sometimes the PDA gets a little intense. But they’re cute, aren’t they? I already know that baby is going to be a heartbreaker.”

Charlie’s eyes met mine. A little uncertain.

“Do you want kids?”

I shrugged. “I’m not sure. I haven’t been bitten by that particular bug yet. What about you?”

He ran his free hand through his hair. “Honestly? I haven’t ever really spent much time thinking about it. Being that settled—being that certain about stuff—it’s always felt far off, you know? But I guess it really isn’t anymore. Which is scary.”

Licking my lips, I looked at him. “How so?”

He gave my question some thought before responding.

“I thought things would be different. I thought I’d be in a different place in my life. A freer place, where I was further along.”

I scoffed. “Charlie, you own a bloody company. You’ve accomplished what other people only dream of. How much further do you want to go?”

His eyes were searing when they met mine. “A lot further, Jane.”

“What does that mean?”

“Means I’ve failed. I’ve fucked up.”

My heart throbbed. One beat. Then another.

I blinked away the burn in my eyes.

“What the hell have you fucked up?” I asked.

A beat. Then: “We’ve screwed up everything.”

“‘We’?”

“I mean me. I’ve screwed up everything.”

Exhaling, I gathered my knees up to my chest. “I know what that feels like. I never thought I’d be thirty one and divorced. But here I am.”

“That bothers you,” he said. “Not being thirty one, but being divorced.”

I took a drag. Let it out. “Not as much as it used to.” I looked down, tapping my cigarette into the ashtray. “But I’d never failed at anything before. Never failed so much as an exam. But then I go and cock up this massive, important thing. And I do it publicly. It’s been really hard not to beat myself up about it. I feel like I carry it around with me in my pocket—that disappointment of not being able to make my marriage work.”

Charlie patted the pocket on his breast. “I keep my disappointment right here.”

I scoffed, stomping out my cigarette. I felt lightheaded.

“It”—my voice caught—“it gets really heavy sometimes, yeah?”

Charlie looked at me. “It does. Especially when you’re scared you’ll mess up again.”

Yes.

I focused on the scrunched up stub of my cigarette. Focused on my breathing. I hadn’t told anybody that.

I knew it meant something that I’d told Charlie.

Slowly—carefully—he reached across the table and took my hand. I let him take it. His fingers felt warm and sure around mine. Real.

“You’re doing better than you think,” he said. “Starting with running out on all those douchebags at The Ascot.”

I scoffed. “That was the easy part. The hard part is…”

His eyes flickered with something I couldn’t place. “Trusting yourself.”

God, I needed another cigarette.

“All my life I’ve been warned the vultures are out there,” I said carefully. “But I wanted to believe I knew better. I didn’t. The fact that I’d let someone get so close to me and pull the wool over my eyes like that—it fucked with my head. For a while after my marriage blew up, I couldn’t tell up from down. I didn’t know who I was. I spun out completely—I’m sure you saw the headlines.”

A muscle along Charlie’s jaw jumped against the skin. His eyes were hard and sad and stormy, all at once.

God damn it, I couldn’t read this man sometimes, and it was driving me crazy. I wanted him to talk to me. Tell me everything.

Then again, I didn’t. I couldn’t let him talk to me without letting him in.

I looked away.

“It’s taken me a long time to get my equilibrium back,” I said. “I had to claw through the rubble, you know? Rebuild myself one brick at a time. Find myself. I feel like I’m finally getting somewhere. I like where I am. I like my life. Minus all the douchebags, of course.”

He swallowed. Audibly.

“And you don’t want to get destroyed again.”

He let go of my hand. My skin pulsed from the memory of his touch.

I shivered.

“Yeah,” I said.

He tugged a hand down his face, pulling at his scruff with his fingers. I felt the scratchy sound in my clit.

I wanted him to stay again.

I needed him to leave.

“I’m very sorry that happened to you, Jane.”

I lifted a shoulder. “I’m a better person for it. At least I hope I am. I’ve learned from my successes. But I can see now that I’ve definitely learned more from my failures.”

Charlie was looking at me now, studying my face. I couldn’t read his expression. There was pain there. Lust. That sadness, too.

“My turn to ask,” I said. “What are you thinking?”

His eyes flashed. “I’m thinking I’ve never met anyone like you. You’re opening up my eyes—making me see things I haven’t seen before.” He shook his head. “I guess what I’m trying to say is you’re not what I was expecting.”

Heat bloomed in my cheeks and between my legs.

“You’re not what I was expecting either. Not at all.”

For a second I thought he’d ask to stay again. And for a second, I thought I’d actually say yes.

Instead, he grabbed the pack of cigarettes between us and opened it, sliding the lighter inside before closing the top. He handed it to me.

“I should get going,” he said.

I blinked. “Yeah. Of course. Do you need a ride, or…?”

“I think I’ll just grab a taxi outside the palace if that’s okay,” he said, standing.

I stood too. My heart and my thoughts were scrambling as we walked through the house to the front door. I followed him out onto the steps.

“If you go to the main gate, security will escort you through the pedestrian exit,” I said, crossing my arms.

Charlie was standing close. I loved the shape of him. His size. Everything about him lit me up.

He looked at me, hands in his pockets. “Thanks for last night. And for today. I’m not just saying this, Jane—I had a really great time with you and your family.”

“They didn’t scare you off?” I said, smiling tightly.

“How could they? Your sister in law makes a mean mac and cheese. And your brothers are excellent cheats at Monopoly.”

“Never a dull moment in the Thorne family.”

Charlie took a step closer, his trainers catching on the brick step. “When can I see you again?”

“Um,” I said.

“Right.” His turn with the tight smile. “You need time.”

I swallowed. “Thanks for understanding.”

“I hope I hear from you,” he said.

Then he slid his hand onto my face, gently. My pulse skipped. Angling his head, he ducked down and closed his eyes and put his lips on mine. The feeling was so sweet I had to close my eyes against it. He kissed me slowly, savoring my mouth. Just a hint of last night’s lewdness. His fingertips were in my hair, blunt and curious, and I found myself rising into his kiss.

Losing myself in the feel of him.

This lonely, scruffy, sexy boy.

I felt the ground giving way beneath my feet. That sensation of stepping into the deep end of the pool. My mind resisted the sudden change—it was screaming danger, danger, get the fuck out now—but my body liked the feel of it. The weightlessness. The freedom.

I hadn’t felt anything like it in a long, long time.