At the Bowery Mission on Friday, we make up a small group: me, Christian, and a single photographer. The photographer and I tuck ourselves into various corners of the kitchen and linger near the serving line for as long as it takes to get several photographs that will circulate online and in various press outlets.

I can’t take my eyes off him.

He’s so cocky, so self-assured, so self-centered. He uses women and then discards them seemingly by the week. He buys whatever he wants and never thinks twice about whether he deserves it. His money is all that matters to him.

At least, that’s the image he projects most of the time. He lights up the room at the Purple Swan, charms his dates, tells dirty jokes—he’s at the center of everything.

But at the Bowery, he’s someone else.

The charm is still there, but it’s warmer, softer, not so in-your-face. He speaks quietly to the people who move through the serving line, politely, in a welcoming tone. Everyone smiles at him as he dishes out portion after portion of steamed vegetables onto the waiting plates.

Even the way he moves is different, restrained somehow, as if he’s fully aware of the power his body carries over people and is reining it in. He is graceful. Considerate. Humble.

He doesn’t spare a look over at us, doesn’t play up to the camera, not even once.

Christian is a natural.

The transformation is incredible to witness.

Even though he doesn’t look at me, my eyes stay locked on him. I take the opportunity to study him without the laser focus of his eyes on mine—the cut of his jaw, the fullness of his lips, the sandy color of his hair.

He’s mine.

No. He’s not mine, and he may never be. A night of incredible sex does not a couple make, no matter how much I wish it was true when I lie in my bed without him by my side at night.

I watch him dishing up meals to people who need them, and something breaks open in my heart. It’s a tiny shift, like a pebble falling down a mountain face, but for the first time since I found out about what Derek did, I glimpse a future where not every decision about men is a knee-jerk reaction based on his disgusting betrayal.

This is also the first time I’ve ever seen Christian’s gentlemanly side. In front of my eyes, he is literally becoming a gentle man.

Not that I want a shy man. No. Not at all. The way we wrestle together in bed, the way he dominates me, it’s something I’ve been craving for years without knowing it.

That’s his real self, too.

I instinctively know it’s true. In bed together on Tuesday, there was no need to posture. God knows I didn’t. God knows I couldn’t even stop myself from begging to be taken. That was raw. And the way he took me, again and again—that was absolutely him, down to the core.

Now I’m wondering which side of him—the party-obsessed playboy who views women as accessories or the quiet man in front of me—is the real Christian.

Maybe it’s a pointless thing to think about. I’m not the same in every situation. He’s not either. And when I think of his arrogance the day we first met—the way he practically commanded me to ride home with him—a shiver of pleasure runs down my spine. I can’t get enough of him. I want all of him.

I nudge the photographer with my elbow. “Let’s go.”

“You don’t want more shots?”

“Do you have three good ones?”

He glances at the screen on the back of his camera and gives me a confident nod.

“We’re good. We’ll meet him outside.”

The photographer and I circle the block, and soon enough we’re back outside the Mission with two reporters who are here to cover an announcement from Christian. I prepped him earlier this afternoon. I’ve engineered this entire event to look like it’s rather spontaneous—you’d be surprised how little it matters if you call in the press—and like it comes straight from Christian’s heart.

How he was acting inside, though…this cause is important to him.

There is more to Christian than meets the eye.

When I picture his face as he interacted with each person in the line, how he spoke to them as if they were of the same social class, acquaintances he was happy to see, the way his muscles worked and flexed as he served the food, my heart aches and warms at the same time.

Then it pounds.

It’s way too early for this. I haven’t even been able to completely disengage myself from that house in Colorado. I have the contractors texting me updates every day, and for one reason or another, things are being delayed.

I’d sell it for a loss if I had more savings, but I don’t. Derek liked to travel, so we took the risk while we were still young and free.

Turns out that he was much freer than I was. What a dick.

I swallow the rage that’s boiled up and shake my head to clear the negative thoughts. The point is, I can’t be falling for Christian.

He comes out the entrance of the Bowery and I move toward him. A calm comes over me to see him.

It’s absurd. It’s true nonetheless.

“You were great in there,” I say with a smile, my voice low.

Christian smiles back. “It was good.”

“It was like you were a different person,” I tease, as we walk toward the photographer, toward the reporters.

Something in Christian’s face shifts abruptly. He’s still smiling, but it doesn’t look quite so real anymore. Am I imagining it, or is he shifting away from me?

What did I say?

I reach out for his arm, arrange my face as if I’ve remembered something important at the last moment. He turns toward me, his back to the press.

“Are you all right?” I keep my voice low.

“Yes,” he says, his smile back. “I’m good.”

“Did I say something wrong?” I can’t let this thing between us affect my job, but if I don’t fix whatever this is, I don’t know how I can help him.

“Of course not,” he says, but I don’t believe him.

“I meant that it was amazing to watch you with those people. That’s all I meant.”

His face softens, relaxes, and my heart rate slows.

“I know that’s what you meant,” he says, softly, gently, and I know that if we weren’t on the job, if there was no one around, he would lean down and kiss my cheek right now, cocky persona or not.

As he turns back toward the press, confusion zings through me. Is there something he’s not telling me?

It doesn’t matter. It can’t destroy the way my heart sings when I look at him.

The emotion is deafening.