I turned into the drive to Winters House, reaching up to hit the remote for the gates. Slowing the car, I prepared to stop, not sure I’d be able to get in.

I’d left Winters House not long after the scene with Annalise. I wouldn't have put it past Aiden to change the codes and lock me out. I wouldn't even have blamed him.

He was no innocent in this mess, but neither was I. I'd had plenty of opportunities to come clean with Annalise and every time I'd put it off. Somehow I'd managed to convince myself that my lies weren’t a big deal.

They weren't what was important.

I loved her. That was what mattered.

I winced as I remembered the agony in her eyes, the sheer undiluted pain as she'd realized the truth. I'd made a lot of miscalculations in my life, but none as bad as this.

Cooper heard it in my voice, probably already had a clue when he saw I was calling from the office on a Sunday. We'd worked together for over a decade. I couldn't hide anything from him. His response had cut to the bone.

"Get your ass back to Winters House and make it right, you fucking idiot. You'd better fix this before she kicks all of our asses. I don't care how badly you fucked up your personal life; you have a job to do. You two were getting close to drawing this guy out in the open. You can’t give up now. Suck it up and take what you have coming."

Lucky for me, Evers was out of town, sparing me his commentary. Knox, on the other hand, sent a text.

I knew you'd fuck it up. Fix it, or I'll shoot you.

I think he was kidding, but with Knox, it's hard to tell. I didn't care what any of them thought. The only person I cared about was Annalise. Her ring weighed heavy in the pocket of my jeans. I pulled it out and set it on the desk in front of me. The princess cut diamond sparkled under my office lights, the delicate, intertwined platinum bands so perfectly her.

I’d known it was hers as soon as I’d seen it, but that was nothing next to the way I’d felt every time I spotted it on her finger. It marked her as mine. My Lise. My love.

I'd spent most of my savings to buy this ring. All I wanted was to put it back on her finger. Not as a charade. Not as part of a job. I wanted her to wear my ring because she knew I loved her and she loved me back.

I'd been so close. I'd had her in my arms. I'd been inside her, been skin to skin, tasted her breath, felt her heart beat against mine.

For the first time in eleven years, I was whole.

I was home.

And I'd fucked it all up.

Now I had to fix it.

I made one more phone call and finished what I'd come to my office to do, setting in motion the first part of my plan to win back Annalise. I shoved the ring into the small watch pocket of my jeans. I wanted it close until I could put it back on her finger.

Before I went after Annalise, I had to settle things with her family. Assuming they let me back on the property. As the first set of black metal gates swung open, admitting me to the estate, the knot in my chest loosened.

I checked my rearview, making sure the gates closed securely behind me and made my way to the second set of gates protecting the inner courtyard of the house. I never had to reach for the remote. A friendly wave from the guard, one of ours, and I was on my way.

I left my car in the courtyard. I half expected Aiden to kick me out, telling me the job was over. I wouldn't go without a fight, and I wasn't giving up, but if Aiden wanted me out, I couldn't force him to let me stay.

I didn't bother to knock, letting myself in. I took a hard right down the hall and around the corner to Aiden's office. He sat behind his big polished desk, a crystal tumbler in front of him, half full of whiskey.

At the sound of my footsteps, he raised one dark eyebrow, his face blank, impossible to read.

I stopped in front of his desk, folded my arms across my chest, and said, "I'm not leaving. I'm not walking away from this job, and I'm not walking away from her. I know I fucked up. I know she's hurting and it's my fault, but I'm going to fix it."

I braced for an angry response, ready to shout the house down, to throw a punch, anything to prove to Aiden Winters, to the whole clan, that I wasn't going anywhere. The fight drained out of me when Aiden let out a breath and flung his hand toward the leather chair opposite his desk.

I sat as he stood. He crossed the room to pick up a crystal decanter and another tumbler.

"Whiskey?" he asked, not waiting for my answer. He poured three fingers into the glass and came back to the desk, bringing the decanter with him. Sitting, he slid the glass across the desk toward me and nodded at it. "I'd offer you the good stuff, but my family keeps stealing it."

I took a sip, the smoky, peaty flavor of the whiskey rolling over my tongue. I wasn't a whiskey connoisseur, but this was a hell of a lot better than what I usually drank.

“Where is she?” I asked.

“Still with Jacob. He said she was sleeping and Charlie was with her.”

"I'm not walking away," I said, again.

“I’d think you were an idiot if you did," Aiden said, with a sigh. He took a sip of whiskey, seeming lost in thought before he said, “You know, I was only twenty when my parents died. When I came home and took over at the company. Took over the family. I'm barely three years older than Annalise."

"Seems like more."

Aiden let out a wry laugh. "Sometimes I feel a million years old. I did the best I could. I fucked up a lot. I managed things at the company pretty well, considering, but the rest of it—"

“You're not responsible for everything," I said. He made a dismissive sound and took another sip of the whiskey.

A few hours ago I was happy to blame Aiden for his share of this mess. Now, looking at him, seeing my own guilt reflected in his dark eyes, I couldn't bring myself to point the finger.

If he'd fucked up, so had I. His mistake was born out of love. Mine came from fear. To my way of thinking, that let him off the hook. Mostly.

“I lied to you,” he said. “I gave you her letter, and I lied to you."

"I know."

"I'm sorry," he said. "By the time I realized I'd made a mistake, it was too late to take back. You were too old for her, and you met her under false pretenses. You were only supposed to keep an eye on her. You were never supposed to talk to her."

“Why didn't you just fire me?"

"Would you have left her alone? If I'd gone to Maxwell Sinclair and had you fired, would you have disappeared?"

I took a long drink of the whiskey and set the tumbler on Aiden's desk. "No. I would have come clean with her. I would've told her the truth and waited until she forgave me for lying."

"Exactly why we didn't fire you. Lise has always known her own mind. As long as she wanted you, there wasn't much I could do about it. No sense in taking you off the job if you weren't going to leave."

"But then the stalker came after me, and you saw your chance to get me out of her life," I said.

Aiden didn't deny it. "You were too old for her."

"Bullshit," I said. “It wasn't my age. It was me. Who I am. Or who I’m not. I came from nowhere. I was a nobody. Not good enough for a Winters. Admit it. That's what it was about. I didn't have the right pedigree for Annalise, and the first chance you had, you got rid of me."

"You have got to be kidding me," a female voice said from behind me. I turned to see Charlie standing in the doorway of Aiden's office, her ocean blue eyes spitting fire. "Who do you think you are? Uncle William? I expect this kind of crap from him, but not from you, Aiden. You lied to Riley because you didn't think he was good enough for Annalise? How could you do that to her?"

Aiden gave his little sister a pained look and shook his head. She snagged his glass and sat in the leather chair beside mine.

"What were you thinking?" she asked, sounding bewildered as much as angry.

Aiden looked from Charlie to me and said, "I was thinking that I didn't know what to do. I was thinking that Lise couldn't shake the stalker, that this guy who was supposed to be protecting her had charmed his way into her bed. I was thinking that I was in charge of the whole fucking company, the whole family, and I had no idea what I was doing. And when she said she had to run to save Riley I thought it solved a lot of problems all at once."

"You could get her away from the stalker and me at the same time," I said. I didn't like it, but I could see his point.

Aiden leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his desk. "If I'd had any idea she wouldn't come home, that she'd keep running for over a decade, I swear I never would've done it. I figured she'd stay away for a few months, on the outside, and then she'd come home, and we'd regroup and figure out what to do."

He shot a guilty look at Charlie and went on, “You were too young to realize, and we didn't tell you, but two months after she left we started pushing her to come back. We had someone following her, someone from Sinclair. He got too close, and he spooked her. She dropped completely off the radar for over a year. She was a ghost, and we were terrified. After that, I was afraid to push too hard."

Charlie rolled the whiskey glass between her palms, staring into the caramel colored liquid before taking a long sip. "That's why you never said anything about Lucas, even when Uncle William did. That's why you stuck up for Jacob with Abigail. Because of what happened with Lise and Riley."

"Because of them," he agreed. "And because of Elizabeth. I learned firsthand that background and money don't make a marriage. Love is what counts." Aiden met my eyes. "I knew she loved you. I didn't believe you loved her."

"I did. More than anything," I said.

Charlie leaned forward in her chair and pinned me with a steely look. "Not enough. She gives you a letter, Aiden sends you packing, and you just walk away?"

“It was complicated,” I said, knowing it was a weak excuse. Life was always complicated.

Aiden said I was too old for Annalise, but I'd been too young to understand what was really important. I'd been worried about the differences between us. Afraid I’d lose the job I loved—a job that would be very difficult to replace if I got fired for sleeping with the client. I'd let all of that pile up in my head, let it convince me Annalise had decided I wasn’t good enough for her

What I should have done was burn the letter, tell Aiden to fuck off, and gone after Annalise.

"And what about now?" Charlie said, setting her jaw in a mulish scowl.

I wanted to be pissed at her, but I knew she'd spent the last few hours with Annalise. Charlie’s outrage was on behalf of the cousin she loved, who'd been hurt enough.

I leaned forward, meeting Charlie's angry eyes, and said, "I love her. I have never stopped loving her. I'm going to do whatever I have to do to make her believe that."

Charlie settled back in her chair and finished off the rest of her whiskey. "I hope you've got a good plan because right now she never wants to see you again."

I had the beginnings of a plan, but I was saved from explaining when Lucas Jackson leaned in through the office door. His unusual light green eyes landed on me for an almost imperceptible moment, his wink a flash, before he grinned at Charlie and said, "Princess, you done raking these two through the coals? We've got work to do. Let these dumbasses clean up their own mess."

She set Aiden's tumbler on his desk. "I'm going home with my husband. You two better figure out how to fix this. If you run Annalise off again, the rest of us will never forgive you."

Aiden watched her leave, shaking his head. When she was safely out of earshot, he said, “Thank fucking God for Lucas Jackson. Now it's his job to keep her out of trouble."

"I didn't believe it when Cooper said they were together. He was the president of a motorcycle club. And not one of the nice ones," I said.

"There are nice ones?" Aiden asked, raising one eyebrow. He shrugged a shoulder. "He was only with the Raptors to avenge his brother. He's actually pretty clean-cut if you look past all the tattoos."

I couldn't hold back a laugh. Lucas Jackson was clean-cut? Were we talking about the same guy? Lucas worked for Sinclair now, headed his own division, but he hadn't changed that much.

Aiden shrugged again. "Whatever. He'll kill anyone who looks at my baby sister the wrong way, and that's all I care about anymore. She's happy, and he'd do anything to keep her that way. You could say my criteria for acceptable mates has changed over the years."

"That's all I want," I said. "A chance to spend the rest of my life making Annalise happy."

"Good luck," he said, sardonically. "You have to get her to talk to you first."

He had a point. Fortunately for me, I had a plan.