I pace in front of the windows, confused and overwhelmed. My entire home is saturated in her scent, and she’s barely been here eight hours. While she fell right to sleep last night, I laid awake thinking about everything.

And I do mean everything.

My brain is a maddening mess of thoughts.

No stone gets unturned.

I contemplate every possible outcome of my perfect problem sleeping in my bed. She’s most definitely a problem though. Little, beautiful, no-longer-a-virgin Cerys has infected my mind. It was a weak place to begin with. Slivered and cracked from an abusive childhood. A small child can only take so many beat downs by vile adults before they start retreating into themselves. Before they start imagining new realities for themselves. Before they start planning futures that may never exist. By the time I turned eighteen and hit the ground running, my mind was already fragmented into a not-so-beautiful kaleidoscope of insanity. It’s taken everything in me to keep it all on a tight leash. And admittedly, the past year, it’s been running away from me like an abused animal who can’t stand his owner. The irony is not lost on me.

But now?

Now, the madness is off the leash and running rampant.

Gone. Gone. Gone.

I have a meeting with an Italian businessman later this morning, and I can’t find it in me to care. It’s the biggest potential deal in my entire career. If he wants to sell me a beautiful piece of property in Venice, Darden Hotels could be looking to expand there in the near future. It’s a dream come true.

And yet . . .

My dreams are fuzzy clouds of nothingness.

A fog of pretend.

Something a child dreams up.

Reality snores—yes, she snores—in the other room, and for once, I want to stay rooted in the moment. Live in the realness of life and not the possibilities. But with living in the present and not focusing solely on what’s out in front of me, who the fuck am I anymore? James Darden is a conqueror. A planner. A goal smasher. James Darden reaches for what he can’t have and he makes it his.

Always reaching and reaching and reaching.

What happens when I have it in my grasp?

I don’t know what to fucking do with it, that’s what.

The toilet flushes in the other room, and I freeze. My gaze is locked outside where I can stare straight ahead at the building across the street. Above where I’ve figured is Cerys’s apartment, the curtains are pulled open, and Olivia prances around looking blonde and tall and uninteresting. I’m baffled how in less than twenty-four hours I can go from obsessing over taking that woman out to fucking the virginity out of her future stepdaughter.

I’ll get bored of Cerys.

The thought causes an ache to form in my chest.

Right?

I get bored of everything.

It’s an inevitability. A known future. Storms of feelings that will eventually break land and obliterate us both.

I’m doing this.

Me.

Ruining it all because I can. Because I will. Because it’s the Darden way.

“You’re probably not even mine,” he sneers. “Your mother always was a whore.”

The voice, so harsh and cruel from my past, leaves me shaking and my heart racing.

Not real. Not real. Not real.

My past sometimes haunts me when I’m feeling stressed out. Right now, I’m feeling really fucking stressed out.

“Hey,” a sweet voice croaks, shoving all hateful ghosts back into their box and slamming the lid closed. “I wondered where you went.”

I turn my laser-sharp focus on her and track her with my intense stare. She’s put back on her black dress, but her messy hair is a fright. My fingers twitch to force her to kneel before me so I can run my fingers through each tangle and smooth them out for her. Instead, I fist my hands.

I’ll break her.

I’ll break her heart so it matches my mind.

I’m going to do it, and I can’t stop myself.

“Hey,” I reply, my voice harsh and hateful, not unlike the one of my father. My chest aches further to the point I don’t know how much more I can take.

“I could make you breakfast,” she squeaks out, nervously biting on her bottom lip.

She’s a gorgeous mess. I should have stayed in bed. I should have carried her into the shower with me. I should have claimed her again and again and again.

“I don’t eat breakfast.”

She winces at my words and looks past me at the heavily falling snow. “Okay,” she breathes out and walks over to the windows. “Would you like to come over and have lunch later? I make a mean grilled cheese.”

Yes, Cerys. I would love to have a motherfucking grilled cheese.

“I have a meeting,” I bark out.

Her chin lifts, and she points at the windows where Olivia chatters on her cell phone. “What a great view,” she says softly, all sarcasm gone.

Where did you go, Cerys?

Did I accidentally shove you into the box too?

I rub at the tension on the back of my neck and let out a heavy sigh. “I’ll have one of the bellhops see to it that you make it home okay.”

She jerks her head my way and regards me with watery eyes. “Just like that, huh?”

My nostrils flare because her scent is intoxicating. It makes me want to forget my responsibilities, let down my guard, and slide into bed with her. Take the time to stroke the tangles from her hair. Take all day to remind her how beautiful and funny and interesting she is to me.

“Not all of us are children who live with their daddies. Some of us have work to do.” I close my eyes, hating how my words sound. I’m cruel. Just like him.

When I reopen my eyes, she’s gone. Seconds later, she has her coat and shoes on. As she retreats in her yellow coat and messy hair, I can’t help but follow. I wonder if it’ll always be this way. She’s running away from me because I’m a fucking psycho and me following because I’m a fucking psycho.

She turns the knob, but I slam my hand on the door above her and lean my body against hers. I inhale her hair and run my fingers through the ends.

“Cerys,” I murmur, begging for her to find me in my inner darkness and shine a goddamned light on me. God, how I need her light.

“I’m leaving.” Her voice cracks, and I can hear the emotion in it.

Suddenly, panicked and fearful of her not within my sight, I clutch onto her hips. I nuzzle my nose in her hair and nip at her shoulder through the strands. She lets out a surprised gasp, and then laments, “James.”

So desperate, like the way my head is chanting her name on repeat in my head.

So sad.

“I’m a fucked-up man.” That’s my only explanation. It’s the only bone I’ve ever offered anyone. I don’t know how to explain myself. This is me trying with every fiber of my being to do so. I can feel her slipping from me, and I don’t know what to do.

“No shit?” Her sarcastic, almost amused tone, has me eager to rekindle what we had last night.

I slide an arm around her waist and haul her over to the couch. The need to have this woman—to show her with my body how much I physically need her—is overpowering.

“I don’t understand you,” she proclaims, her voice tearful and confused. “I don’t understand you, James.”

Hell, I don’t understand me.

“I know,” I grind out. “I’m sorry.” I am, but I don’t know what to do about it.

I bend her over the back of the couch and shove her dress up. Her panties get yanked down her thighs as I simultaneously free my cock from my slacks. I slap at her cunt from behind with my cock, and I can tell she’s not wet for me. Gently, I finger her sensitive clit. I hardly know her, but I already know exactly what her body likes. As though my fingers were created to pleasure this part of her. And much to my delight, she rocks her hips and gives me the sounds that indicate she’s enjoying my touches. It doesn’t take long before her legs are quivering and she’s crying out my name.

James.

It crawls from her lips like a question.

As though she’s asking, “Why are we doing this? What are we doing?”

I have no answers because I don’t know. I just know I need her more than anything I’ve ever needed. Gripping my throbbing cock, I slide the tip along her now wet entrance and drive all the way into her with one quick thrust. She screams—fuck, I know she’s still sore—and fists the cushions on the couch.

“Tell me to stop,” I choke out. Tell me to be a better man.

But she does nothing of the sort.

“Please,” she begs. So many words hang thick in the air. She wants more than a brutal fucking over a couch.

She wants everything.

And I don’t know how to give it to her.

I fist her dress in one hand under her coat and dig my fingers into her fleshy hip with the other. Pound after pound, I try to fuck into her my feelings. My thoughts. My desires. But wordless proclamations mean nothing.

“Cerys,” I hiss.

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

She’s driven me to utter insanity.

There’s no coming back.

“I know,” she sobs. “I feel it too.”

With her sad words, I groan out my release. I can’t be the man she needs. I’ll never be. Which is exactly why I need to get my dick out of her fertile cunt. But I can’t. I drain myself inside of her. Wishing and hoping and praying for futures I’ll never have. And when I’ve had her completely, I pull out and stagger away.

On shaky legs, she stands and turns her teary eyes my way. I stuff my wet cock back into my slacks as she pulls her panties back up into place. Her eyes plead with mine. Beg me to crawl out of my head and into her arms.

“I could cook you dinner,” she murmurs, her last attempt to save me from myself.

I reach my hand forward. My fisted hand because I’m so fucking furious at what an asshole I am. She grips my fist and kisses my middle knuckle. Her fingers uncurl my own and guide me to cup her jaw.

“James, say yes,” she pleads, her tears leaking out and soaking my flesh.

My thumb swipes one of her tears. “We’ll see.”

She swallows and nods.

I watch her leave, and this time, I don’t follow.

“I want you to cook me all my meals,” I mutter long after she’s gone from my home. "Even breakfast. I'd eat breakfast for you."

Turning, I wait for her. Soon, in the middle of the snowstorm, a flash of yellow dances across the street. And before she walks into her building, she turns to look up. I doubt she can even see me from down there. Regardless, I palm the glass with one hand and rest my forehead to it.

“I want you to come back. I want you to stay.”

But my words go unheard.