I should tell Gwen everything right now.

I slam the oven door a little harder than necessary considering it wasn’t the one to punch me and fuck up my life.

“Are you hangry?” Gwen asks from the kitchen island, completely oblivious to my inner turmoil.

How the hell do you tell someone you care about that their entire perception of you is a lie?

I visited my publicist today and brought both my agent and lawyer along with me. I’m not an idiot. If shit hits the roof with Dave, my career would be over if the Blades had no idea what was going on.

That’s what Dave wants. He wants to watch me crumble until I’m dragging my sorry ass back to Southie and knocking on his door, begging for scraps.

Fuck that.

Fessing up to people you admire and respect that you’ve been inadvertently enabling your coke-addicted brother for the last few years? There’s no other words to say except that it sucked, and it sucked a lot.

There were no moves to suspend me, for which I was incredibly grateful, but there’s still the small, minor detail that . . . Dave has disappeared. His phone hits a dead-end each time I call, and I’ve visited his apartment twice now with my lawyer—nada.

Even the landlord mentioned that Dave just up and left a few weeks ago.

Which means he’s been planning his takedown for longer than I was even aware, sometime between my last visit at the start of the month and the night down in Brockton.

With no paper trail to follow, all we can do is wait. My publicist is ready to contain backlash, but there’s no point in airing my dirty laundry to the public if Dave only plans to hold his blackmail over my head for the rest of my life.

I pull down plates from the cabinets, along with glasses for some wine.

On the ice, hockey is a controlled environment. Sure, random shit happens. People break rules whether intentionally or not. People get elbows to the face and we’ve all tripped our opponents with our sticks.

It happens.

But even with its randomness, hockey is a game of rules and regulations.

Real life doesn’t always reflect the same moral codes or ethics—at least, douchebags like my brother don’t. It takes everything in me not to sink into the memories of that night. Some people claim that tragedy acts like a highlighter, illuminating every moment until each second is bold and vivid and so damn slow that you worry you’ll never escape its brutal wrath.

The night that I stabbed my father, I was only eight years old. I remember little, aside from the blood staining my hands, purple bruises blooming on my mother’s face, and a kitchen knife protruding from my father’s leg.

Everything else is a black abyss of tears, my mother sobbing to the police, and my brother standing off to the side, watching with a look of glee on his face and covered in blood.

I feel Gwen’s hand to my shoulder like a balm to my nerves, just before she slides her arms around my waist and snuggles against my back. “Something’s wrong,” she whispers, “you’re way too quiet.”

“Maybe I just wanted to cook you a nice meal?”

With a small upturn of her nose, Gwen lets me get away with the lie. We sit at the table and drink our wine and chow down on the baked chicken I prepared for us, along with the roasted vegetables.

Gwen expertly smooths over my awkwardness by telling me about her day. “The poor curator,” she says, shaking her head as she stabs a slice of chicken off her plate, “there he was just bringing the panda’s food and then bam.”

“Butt stuff,” I tease, feeling my mood lighten with the hilarity of the story. “What a way to get initiated.”

I’m treated to Gwen’s husky laughter. “Poor panda is more like it.”

My brows shoot up. “Poor panda? First it was the poor curator and now you’re swapping loyalties?”

She gives a delicate shrug. “I mean, the panda was probably lonely.”

“Buy him a panda blow-up doll. Problem solved.”

Gwen rolls her eyes but her smile is so bright and lovely, and it’s all for me. “Only a guy would ever suggest that.”

“That’s because women are worried about the panda when, in reality, it’s the poor curator who’s getting reamed.”

She wrinkles her nose at that, and it’s so damn cute that I catch her hand and kiss the fluttering pulse at her inner wrist. Being able to touch her whenever I so please . . . fuck, it feels good. No, it feels right. No matter what sort of shit Dave pulls, I’m not willing to give Gwen up—what we have is too special.

I refill her wine glass and then do the same to mine. “Have you heard from your mom at all?”

Her shoulders droop and she stares at the Chardonnay like it might have all the answers to her questions. “No. I should probably call her—scratch that, I know I should. But I feel like I’ve just reached my breaking point, you know?” She takes a sip of the wine, then rotates her wrist, allowing the Napa Valley blend to gently swirl in the bowl of the glass. “It’s weird, I guess. You can know someone your entire life and still not understand why they do the things they do.”

Gwen’s astute observation hits way too close to home. Have I ever understood Dave’s motivations? Not really—unless they truly boil down to anger and jealousy only. It’s no way to live, and over the years . . . well, I guess I’ve been holding out hope that Dave’s been operating with something more than just revenge on his mind.

Considering he tied you to a chair, probably not the case.

I tip my wineglass to my lips and down it in one go.

“You had me thinking about something the other day,” I say, setting the glass down on the marble and pushing onto my feet.

Gwen’s blue eyes follow me. “You mean, you can think about something else besides your penis?”

Laughter climbs my throat. “Minx.”

She lifts her hands. “Just asking a question for womankind everywhere.”

“Yeah, well, how does womankind feel about my penis?”

My cock strains against my jeans when she trails her gaze down my chest to my crotch. “We like him, a lot.” Her mouth tilts upward. “He’s just so damn pretty.”

I didn’t think it was possible to fall in love with a woman over talk about dicks. Hell, it’d almost be preferable if that weren’t the case. But with her blue eyes shining with mischief and her wineglass still clasped in one hand, I know that there will never be another woman who matches me like Gwen does.

In some subconscious way, I’ve known that for years. It’s why I only ever involved myself in superficial relationships where the “deepest” we got was just burrowing under the covers. From the start, Gwen has captivated me like no one else—showing, in return, that I’m the right man for her has proved marginally harder.

With a finger to her chin, I angle her face to best receive my kiss. My lips slip over hers, soft and easy, and my palm moves to the back of her head. She moans against my mouth. I hear the clink! of her glass hitting the marble just before she turns fully in the stool so that she can rest her palms on my hips.

I try to imagine what we look like together—a tatted-up man with hard edges but with, according to her, pretty-boy model looks. A redhead with smooth, creamy skin and the kindest heart behind her steel exterior walls.

A guy from Southie. A woman from Boston’s upper elite.

Romeo and Juliet, Boston-style.

I nip at her bottom lip and then pull back. Her skin is flushed, and I doubt I’m any better when I rasp, “I have something for you. Then, after that, be sure you have a plan for your fantasy kiss. I’m going to deliver on it, one-hundred percent.”

I leave her sitting on that stool, her fingers pressed against her lips, her legs spread because I’d taken my place between them. The urge to turn back around and make love to her on the kitchen island is strong.

But she deserves something from me first—it belonged to her father and now it should belong to her.