“Because I hated you.” The words slide smoothly out of my mouth. I immediately realize what I've just said and regret it, but it's too late.

Ethan is staring at me, hurt and disbelief overtaking his features. He hardens his expression. “Wow. You hated me because I was a bad boss?”

“No. It was from before you were my boss.”

“‘Hate’ is a strong word for someone you didn't even know, isn't it? You had never even met me before you started working for me.”

“But I had,” I say softly.

“When?” Ethan asks, frowning. “Kitten, I would've remembered meeting someone like you. Do you know how hard it was for me to keep my hands off you when you were still my assistant?”

“No,” I say honestly, taken aback by his confession. Ethan was always professional and even distant as my boss.

“Well, it was. Now, when was it that I saw you and didn't even notice?”

“It was a long time ago.” My heart starts to race. Am I really going to tell him the one thing I’ve always hidden from him? Is he going to hate me when he finally learns the whole truth?

“How long?” Ethan asks.

“Eight years.” I hold my breath as I watch his face for a reaction.

“Eight years?” Ethan asks incredulously. “But you would've been…thirteen?”

“Yeah.”

“How did we… Where did we even meet?”

“At your office.”

“At my office?” Ethan’s forehead creases as he strains his memory. “That would've been when I was just starting out, at my first shopping centre.”

“Yeah. Here, in Flint.”

“What were you doing there? What was a thirteen-year-old doing at my office?” Ethan asks, his disbelief slowly replaced by confusion.

“Well, I wasn't there on my own…”

“Would you just…” Ethan runs his hand through his thick, dark hair and lets out a big sigh. “Would you please just tell me the whole story and not make me guess anymore? I need to know why you hated me.”

For a moment, I remember tangling my fingers in that hair myself, when he ate me out against the glass wall in his apartment. But this is not the time for dirty daydreaming.

I start to answer, “It's a long—”

“I have all day,” he cuts me off.

“Don't you have to go back to work and—”

“I’m done for the day.”

“I don't even know where to begin.”

“Start from the first time we met.”

“Well, I heard your voice before I ever saw you. It was—”

“Hey, I remember who you are,” Mom says as she suddenly appears beside me.

I didn't even hear her coming. I was too focused on Ethan to pay attention to my surroundings. It takes everything in me to evade Ethan's questions and come up with a way to tell him a story I never expected to tell.

“You’re Ethan Hunter, aren't you?” Mom asks. Her voice sounds more surprised and curious than anything else.

“Yes,” he says, raising a questioning eyebrow at me. From his perspective, this day must be getting weirder and weirder.

Here's my mom, recognizing him but not knowing anything about the fake marriage. Where does she recognize him from? Why doesn't she read the articles about us that are everywhere?

For a moment, I feel embarrassed for my mom because of how weak she has been; and then a wave of guilt comes over me for feeling that way. Mom has been my sole support system for years and she tries her best, even if she's not very good at parenting.

“I knew I’d seen you somewhere.” Mom says.

“And where was that?” Ethan asks, glancing at me. He's finally going to learn the answer.

Panic grasps my heart. Logically, I know nothing disastrous is going to happen here, but I can't help feeling like I’m losing my grip on the situation.

“Oh, you probably don't remember. It wasn't a very pleasant meeting, to be honest. I don't think you want to hear about it,” Mom says.

“I’d actually like to hear all about it, if you don't mind jogging my memory,” he says.

“Oh.” Mom pauses, then says, “We—uh, my ex-husband and I, that is—we wanted to rent some space at the mall, but our store wasn't a good fit for it.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Ethan says.

“Oh, it's water under the bridge,” Mom says, waving a hand. We’ve never discussed Ethan or the toy store beyond her depressed ramblings, but her indifference still surprises me. She continues, “So you two know each other?”

“You don't keep up with celebrity news, do you?” Ethan asks, smiling.

“No, my partner thinks it's silly,” Mom says.

It's one of the reasons why I’m going for serious journalism—so Mom can read my writing without risking Frank’s anger. It’s also the reason why I dared to agree to the fake marriage, knowing Mom would either not even find out about it, or dismiss it as a lie.

“I see,” Ethan says, glancing at me once again. “Well, Megan and I, we used to work together.”

“Oh, at Hunter Corporation?” Mom widens her eyes when Ethan nods. Turning to me, she says, “You never told me, Megsy.”

“I told you I got a personal assistant job, Mom.” I was relieved when Mom first came and interrupted us, but right now, she’s making it impossible for me to talk to Ethan. I say, “Actually, Mom, Mr. Hunter and I have something important to discuss.”

“Oh, I’ll leave you two to it, then. Wait, are you asking her to come back and work for you again?” Mom asks Ethan. “She seemed really down when she came home and told me she’d gotten fired. If you could persuade her to stay, that would—”

“Mom,” I cut her off. She can be a little too chatty sometimes.

Even if Ethan were just my employer and he were about to offer me my old job back, it wouldn’t be a good idea to talk about how sad I was about losing it. How is that supposed to help me negotiate better terms for this hypothetical job?

“Oh, sorry. I said I was leaving and I’m still here.” Mom laughs, then says, “Megsy, you can do whatever you want and go wherever you want. But I’d love it if you could stay. I’ve been thinking about visiting the city more often.”

“Okay, Mom.” This is the second time today I’m hearing about her wanting to spend more time in the city, which makes me curious, but I have more urgent things to worry about right now.

Like the man at our doorstep who’s staring at me with his piercing blue eyes, as if I’m a puzzle for him to piece together and figure out.

“Okay.” Mom smiles and walks back inside the house.

“Have you told your mom anything at all, anything related to your life?” Ethan asks when she’s out of earshot.

“What does it matter to you?” I snap, annoyed at how intrusive he’s being, although I regret the words as soon as they come out of my mouth.

I feel like he’s crossing a boundary by coming here to my family home, speaking to my mom, and judging me. But what I did to him was so much worse. I lived in his home and enjoyed being treated like family, while I was actually gathering evidence against him so strangers could judge him.

“Sorry,” I say. “It’s just that Mom doesn’t fare well with change, so I prefer her to think that my life is normal and stable. I don’t want to stress her out.”

“Maybe you don’t give her enough credit,” Ethan says.

“Maybe you don’t know her enough to comment,” I say, unable to restrain myself.

“Okay, fair enough,” he says. “So based on what your mom said, we met when your parents wanted to rent retail space in the mall?”

“Yeah.” I can already feel heat starting to creep across my cheeks as I get embarrassed over my own prejudice.

“And that’s why you hated me?”

“Yeah.” My face is so hot it must be flushed red right now. I add, “But that’s all. That’s not the whole story.”

“Okay. So tell me the whole story.”

“That was the day everything in my life started to go wrong. My parents lost their livelihood. They got stressed out. They started to argue more often—a lot more often—and eventually, they got divorced. I never saw my dad again, and my mom fell into deep depression.

“Things have never quite recovered to the way they were before that meeting at your office. It was… I started to look at my life as being divided into two: before you got involved, which was when everything was good; and after, which was when everything started to go wrong.”

“Wow, that’s…uh, that’s a lot of things I wasn’t even aware of causing, kitten,” Ethan says, sounding more than a little confused.

“I know it was stupid now,” I admit. “I was confused, you know? Everything went wrong and I didn’t know why. I needed to blame it on something, because things couldn’t have changed that much from nothing.

“In my mind at the time, you were the one who ruined everything, and getting back at you would fix things somehow. I know now how messed up my thoughts were.

“But I never questioned myself because, well, there are many people out there who hate your guts and tell the media that you’re basically scum of the earth. So even if I didn’t arrive at my conclusions logically, it still seemed like the right thing to do. I’d be helping a lot of people by making you pay for everything you’d done.

“Sorry,” I say softly.

I feel a little better after vomiting out all my secrets, even if I realize how embarrassing that whole tirade is. It reminds me of the time I went out clubbing with Kira until four in the morning and threw up on the sidewalk—I instantly felt better, but also embarrassed.

I slowly raise my gaze to look at Ethan. I’m nervous to see how he reacts after hearing everything.

Would he think I’m stupid? Would he think I’m just a blonde airhead? Or a vengeful person who spends all my time concocting evil schemes?

Please don’t hate me, I plead quietly in my heart.

Only minutes ago, I was resigned to a life without Ethan. I had accepted my fate as a villain in his eyes.

But now, with him right in front of me, I can’t help but hope.

I know it’s dumb and I know it’s entitled. But the very fact that he’s still here, even after listening to my nonsensical thoughts…

That must mean something, right?

Even if we can’t go back to the way things were, maybe we could be civil to each other, at least?