Heads swivel in my direction the moment I enter Write’s Funeral Home over in East Cambridge.

I don’t recognize a single soul, and the truth of that nearly pulls a laugh from my unsmiling lips.

Here I am for my father’s funeral and none of his friends recognize me and I sure as hell don’t recognize any of them. Maybe if I hadn’t just retouched my blond roots with more red hair dye, I’d be greeted with hugs instead of blank stares . . .

Or maybe you should just accept the fact that you and your father never had a relationship.

Tugging my cardigan tighter around my shoulders, I stop to sign the guest book. The names listed there don’t ring a bell:

Greer Smith, Norwood, Massachusetts.

Viktor Choctov, Fall River, Massachusetts.

Sam Gilton, Nashua, New Hampshire.

I grip the pen in my left hand and press the ballpoint to the lined sheets of paper. In another universe, today would go differently. My mother would be here at my side, and I’d be surrounded by family as opposed to complete strangers. I’d stand up at the front of the funeral home by my father’s open casket with my uncle and cousins, and even though my heart would feel scraped raw after losing my dad, I would know, at least, that I wasn’t alone.

Unfortunately, alternate realities aren’t a thing in my world and the only truth I have is that I am Mark James’s daughter. A daughter he hasn’t seen in ten years, and a daughter who has enough regrets to make even a sinner feel angelic.

Feeling the sting of tears behind my eyes, I scrawl my name beneath Mr. Gilton of Nashua.

Gwen James, Boston, Massachusetts, daughter of Mark.

As though I need further proof that I do, in fact, belong in this funeral home to pay my respects like everyone else.

On impulse, I write my mother’s name just below mine.

She’ll never know, and seeing her name there appeases some level of guilt inside me.

At least this way, we can all pretend Adaline isn’t completely selfish.

No one turns to greet me as I skirt around groups of people reminiscing about my father.

“Such a good guy,” one man says, “you’d never know from the way he worked his classroom and the ice rink that he’d been sick for over a year now.”

I don’t know what it says about me that I didn’t even know my dad was sick until my Uncle Bob called me with the news of my dad’s passing. Guilt thrives in my soul, relentless and domineering. It takes everything in me not to turn around and hightail it back to my car.

Don’t ever bail.

Strangely enough, it’s my father’s last words to Adaline before their divorce was finalized that propel me forward. Like a shield, I tug on my cardigan again, wrapping my arms around my middle as I step into the back room.

I spot Bob over by the casket, shaking hands with a broad-shouldered man whose shaggy brown hair is a touch too long to be remotely fashionable. A leather jacket encases his torso, despite the fact that it feels like a million degrees in here. He claps my uncle on the shoulder, issuing a farewell if I’m guessing right, and then turns around.

Faces me.

And no matter the fact that we’re surrounded by twenty-plus people in a small, heated room, I feel like I’ve been submerged into the icy waters of Boston Harbor in the middle of February.

What is Marshall Hunt doing here?

He approaches with slow, measured steps, as though giving me time to acclimate to his presence in a space that doesn’t belong to him. Not that it belongs to me, either, really.

My gaze latches onto Bob, and I can’t help but wonder if Marshall knew my dad. But how?

I don’t have the chance to give it any further thought because in the next breath, he’s standing before me. Tall. Broad. Handsome in that pretty-boy model way of his that I remember so acutely.

“Gwen.”

It’s all he says, and there’s got to be something wrong with me because that’s the moment I choose to lose it.

A sob peels from my soul, and it should be loud and noisy the way it feels clanging around in my chest but it’s not. The sound of my heart breaking for a man I never had the opportunity to know is silent and steady, just like our relationship over the years. Pushed into nonexistence because my mother saw fit to keep us separated, and by the time I’d reached adulthood, Mark James was done playing the games of his ex-wife and a daughter he barely knew.

“Come with me.” Marshall tangles his hand with mine, leading me from the room and down a hallway. I should put up some sort of protest—I never let a man take control—but perhaps it’s the shock of seeing Marshall, someone I haven’t seen since college, that keeps me quiet.

He pauses outside a doorway, gives a rap of his knuckles against the wood. When there’s no reply, he pushes the door open and pulls me inside. “You need air,” he says, releasing my hand to go to the windows.

I swallow past the lump in my throat. “You could have brought me outside.”

I expect to hear his quiet, familiar laugh, but the only sound is the creaking of the window scraping past chipped paint as he hauls it up and into place. “I could have,” he finally says, “but I figured you’d rather have a moment to yourself where you’re not being stared at by everyone your father knew and you didn’t.”

“You know me too well.”

The words slip out before I have the chance to stall them, and Marshall gives a slow shake of his head. “Nah, but I wish I did.”

My fingers twitch at my sides, and I step forward. “Marshall, I—”

He holds up a hand. “Gwen, that’s not why I brought you in here.”

“Then why did you?”

“Honestly?”

I nod.

“You looked like you needed a hug from someone who cared.” His voice is like velvet, a soft caress that reminds me of hot summer nights and languid hours spent curled in a lover’s embrace. “Let me be there for you.”

Let me be there for you.

The tears threaten again, itching my nose and burning my eyes, and I tilt my face up to the ceiling. Over the years, I’ve grown an impenetrable outer shell. I’ve worked hard to show the world that I’m not a woman on the verge of shattering on the inside.

No one sees the hurt.

No one suspects the insecurities.

No one but Marshall Hunt, a guy too young for me who can’t be on my radar. I know my track record with men, the way I’m only in it for the sex and nothing more, the way I’m more likely to have a one-night stand with a random stranger than give a guy I know the chance for a relationship.

I would ruin a man like Marshall, and I would hate myself even more than I already do.

But when his pewter eyes meet mine, silently commanding that I give in and accept what he’s offering, I can’t say no.

He reads me without a spoken yes. Strong arms envelop me, circling my waist and pulling me up against the hard planes of his chest. I catch the scent of his cologne and—who am I?—nuzzle my nose against his pecs.

“I’ve got you,” he rumbles, running a hand over my hair. “I’ve got you, Gwen.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, fighting the stream of inevitable tears. There’s no doubt about it—I don’t deserve a guy like Marshall. But for the span of a breath, I allow myself to wonder what it would be like to have him, to wake up each morning and know that he’s in my corner. To come home each night to a hug just like this one, and a man who would move mountains to see me happy. To love and be loved, for once, in return.

And then I push the wisp of imagination away.

If I’ve learned nothing else over the years, it’s that there’s no point in hoping. Life will always bite you in the ass with reality—and it always hurts like a bitch.