We stepped into our apartment, our bodies covered in sea salt. We’d dried off on the bus ride back to Sorrento from the Baths of Queen Giovanna, but my skin felt too tight.

I trailed my fingers down his chest, plucking at the top button of his shirt. “Do you want to take a shower?” I asked, my voice sultry.

His jaw sharpened, but there was something other than hunger in his eyes. Something darker that I didn’t understand.

Before I could fully analyze it, he crushed his lips to mine, communicating the hunger I’d read in his features. There was something else in the kiss: desperation.

Did he feel as raw and exposed as I did after our intense afternoon?

We tore at each other’s clothes, stripping down to nothing and making our way through the apartment in a primal frenzy. He fucked me in the shower, pinning me against the wall as he took me hard. He claimed me fully, biting my neck and pinching my nipples to the edge of my pain threshold. I took everything, gave him everything he demanded of me. When he came inside me, I saw stars.

The water started to go cold, and we finally got out of the shower and dried off. He abruptly left the bathroom, turning from me so he could get dressed.

Cold closed over me, leaving me shivering in the absence of his embrace. I followed him into the bedroom without bothering to put on clothes. I was too concerned with his sudden distance to go through my normal routine.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, hating that he’d already covered his body.

He turned to me, his features schooled to an unreadable mask. “I have something for you.”

I stepped toward him, closing the distance between us so I could hold him. “What is it?”

He extricated himself from my arms and handed me a small black jewelry box.

I hesitated. “You really have to stop getting me gifts.”

“I wanted to get this for you. You need it.”

The answer was enigmatic, and my stomach dropped. Something was wrong.

My fingers trembled as I reached for the box. Dread flooded my gut, but I flipped open the lid.

My heart squeezed. “I can’t accept this. It’s too much.”

The Edwardian pendant I’d coveted in the window of Cavendish Antiques in York lay nestled in the black velvet lining of the box. Its elegant curves and shining pearls didn’t fill me with awe and longing as they once had.

“I want you to have it.”

I peeked up at him. His pale eyes were shadowed, his lips thinned. His jaw hard with determination.

“Why?” I feared his answer, but I couldn’t stop myself from asking.

“You said you wanted a symbol that you belong to yourself. You deserve to be free, Addison.”

A lump formed in my throat. “What if I don’t want to be free?”

I reached for him, but he caught my hand, denying me the contact I craved.

“I can’t be with you,” he said, his voice gravelly. “You were right, but I was selfish. I didn’t listen to you.”

“You can,” I insisted, desperate. “We can make this work.”

“No. I won’t do this to you. I can’t tell you when I’ll come back to you. I can’t even promise that I will. Anything could happen to me, and you’d never know. I don’t want you living your life waiting for a ghost. You deserve better than that.”

I flipped the box closed, the audible snap echoing my denial of his words.

“You don’t mean that.” Anger rose alongside my pain. “You think you don’t deserve better. But you do. You…” I choked on the words, but I forced them out. “You deserve to be loved.”

His expression hardened to granite. “I have to go.”

“What? No! You said you’d stay for the week. It’s only been three days.”

He was pulling away from me, shutting me out like he had in York when I’d asked him to be vulnerable with me. He clearly thought he’d shared too much with me while we were at the baths, and now, he was putting up walls between us. He thought he was protecting himself by denying his vulnerabilities.

“This is bullshit,” I seethed. “You’re scared. You stopped being stoic for fifteen minutes, and you can’t handle it. I’ve made myself vulnerable with you. I let you tie me up and spank me, but you can’t fucking talk to me about anything real without shutting down.”

His face hardened to stone, but he didn’t reply. He took a step around me, and I moved to block his path. His hands closed around my shoulders, and he shifted me out of his way, tearing away the barrier I’d tried to form.

Tears blinded me as I spun around. He was walking away. He’d picked up his bag, and he was heading for the door.

“Coward,” I seethed. “You’re a fucking coward, Scott.”

I couldn’t even rail at him properly. I still didn’t know his last name.

I didn’t know anything about him, but I knew him.

He stiffened, and his steps faltered.

“Don’t go,” I begged.

I watched his shoulders lift as he took a deep breath and let it out again. He opened the door and stepped outside. He closed it behind him, locking himself out of my life.