"I was never here," Lucas said under his breath, sliding what looked like a cell phone into his jacket pocket. Breaking into Jacob's building wasn't a one-man job, even when I had access to the schematics for the security system. I could manage a little routine B & E on my own, but getting into the penthouse undetected required hacking skills beyond my reach.

"Appreciate the help," I said as Lucas turned to go.

"Charlie finds out, I'm blaming you."

He disappeared into the night, leaving me alone in Jacob's rooftop garden. Normal access to the penthouse was through the elevator, but overriding the main security system and the cameras would leave a trace, not to mention the elevator opened right into the foyer, providing no cover if Jacob or Abigail happened to be wandering through the penthouse for a late night snack.

The garden access let us skip the elevator, though it had required climbing up the fire escape. Good thing neither of us was afraid of heights. I had a five-minute window to pick the lock on the garden stairs and get into the penthouse before the door’s sensor reset itself. That was the easy part.

I slipped into Jacob's penthouse, silently locking the door behind me, and made my way down the hall to the guest room. The penthouse was dark and silent. I’d studied the floor plans in my office a few hours before and knew exactly where I was going.

I found Annalise asleep in a big black canopy bed, half buried under a fluffy white duvet.

We needed to talk, but I didn't want to scare the hell out of her. I turned on the bedside lamp and waited. Her eyes flicked under her lids, her nose scrunching and then releasing as she gradually came awake.

"Lise, wake up. We need to talk."

I kept my voice low and soothing, trying not to alarm her, but she shot bolt upright, eyes flying wide. When she spotted me, they narrowed. but she didn't make a sound.

Not until she hissed, “Get out."

I held up my hands in front of me, palms out. "I will. I'll leave as soon as we talk. There are things you have to know. Things we have to work out. Then I'll go, I swear."

She was silent for a long moment before she sat up straighter, gathering the duvet around her like a shield. Inclining her head toward the armchair in the corner, as regal as a queen, she said, “Sit over there. I don't want you near me."

I'm not going to pretend her words didn't slice through me. I deserved her anger. The distance between us and her tear-swollen eyes were all the reminder I needed.

I'd hurt her. I'd made so many excuses for myself, had so many reasons, but at the end of the day it all boiled down to this—my bad decisions had broken her heart.

All I could do was hope there was a chance to fix it.

"I was never supposed to make contact," I said. I didn't know if I had the right words, but I'd start with the truth. "I was supposed to be on campus, keep an eye on you. I was not supposed to engage. You weren't supposed to know I was there at all. Your freshman year you never noticed me."

She stiffened, and a muscle on the side of her jaw flickered. She didn't like that, didn't like knowing I'd watched her for a year before I gotten careless and let her see me. She wasn't going to like the truth, but it was all I had to give.

"I didn't lie in my reports, and Cooper reamed me out when I admitted I took you out for coffee. Maxwell Sinclair threatened to fire me. You were my first assignment with Sinclair Security. I didn't want to lose the job—there aren't a lot of companies like Sinclair—but I couldn't be invisible anymore. Not to you. It got so you were all I saw. I’d close my eyes at night and dream of you. It started to eat at me that you didn't see me back. I'd see your smile, the way your eyes lit up when you'd talk to your friends, and I was jealous. I was greedy. I wanted that part of you for me."

"You didn't even know me," she said. "And it's more than a little creepy that you were watching me to protect me from a stalker and essentially ended up stalking me yourself."

When she put it like that, it was creepy. So much for the truth setting me free.

“I wasn't the one sending you flowers and scaring the shit out of you."

"No, you were the one following me and then lying to me about who you were." Her voice wobbled, sending a flash of pain through my heart.

"I lied,” I admitted. “I lied to you over and over. I had a million ways to justify it—to myself, to the Sinclairs. I'm not going to excuse it. I was wrong. I finally talked to you, took you out on a date, and I lost my head. That's the only way I can explain it to you. I just fucking lost my head over you. I figured you'd be different in real life. We'd go out, you’d be boring, or annoying, and that would be it. You'd go back to being a client. A job. I led myself down a path, one lie at a time."

She wanted me in the armchair, but I couldn't sit still. I rose and paced at the end of the bed. She said nothing, just watched me, her eyes silently tracking me, back and forth.

"First I told myself I'd take you out for coffee, and that would be the end of it. Then I told myself I could keep you safer if I stayed close. That who I was didn't matter. That my intentions were good."

"You were still lying."

"I know. I'm not saying it was okay. I just need you to understand that I didn’t have a plan to deceive you. It started small and grew, one lie at a time.”

I shoved a hand through my hair, wondering if there was anything I could say that wouldn’t make me sound like a creeper.

Probably not.

“Aiden was right. I was too old for you. Not just in years but the things I'd done, the things I was trained to do. You were too good for me. You were the oldest daughter of the Winters family. I was insane to think it could work. The Sinclairs wanted me off the job. Aiden wanted me off the job. I was completely fucking in love with you, and you didn't know who I was. The whole thing was a disaster.”

"If you’d just told me the truth, we could've figured it out," she said, her voice low.

"You say that now, and looking back, yeah, maybe we could have. But at the time? At the time it seemed smarter to wait. Then it was too late, and you were gone."

So quietly I almost couldn't hear her, she said, “You didn't come after me. You knew why I ran. I thought I was keeping it a secret, protecting you, but you knew exactly what was going on. You had to know that letter was bullshit, and you never came after me."

"I didn't believe the letter at first," I told her.

I was torn. As angry as I'd been at Aiden Winters, I was oddly reluctant to throw him under the bus. Knowing Aiden had deliberately come between us would only hurt Annalise more, but I wouldn't lie to her again.

Carefully choosing my words, I said, "Aiden gave me the letter, and then he backed it up. I didn't want to believe any of it, but he told me that guy you left with was your high school boyfriend, that you needed a fresh start. I should have known he was covering for you. I should've known it was a lie. But half the time I could hardly believe you wanted me. Looking back, I think I spent most of our time together waiting for it to fall apart. It seemed inevitable."

"I told him to give you the letter," she said, dully. "I told him to make sure you didn't come after me. He could've told me who you were, what was going on."

"He fucked up. We all fucked up." I raised my hands in the air, helplessly. "He loves you, and he didn't know how to help you. I loved you, but I didn't believe in you."

Annalise rubbed the heel of her hand against her cheek, wiping away a tear. Fuck. The last thing I wanted was to make her cry again.

Her voice shaking, she said, "I appreciate you telling me the truth. Now I want you to leave."

"I'm not done."

"I think you are," she said, her voice stronger.

"No, I love you, Annalise."

"Don't—"

“What? Don't tell you I love you?"

"It's too late, Riley. We can't go back."

"I don't want to go back, Lise. We have a mess behind us. Lies and misunderstandings and so many years we wasted. I don't want to go back. I want to go forward. I love you. I want a life with you."

"Riley—" Her voice cut off, and she made a little choking sound. She drew in a long breath and said, "I don't believe you. This is still a job. I'm still a job. How do I know this isn’t a charade to get me back home? How can I believe anything you say?"

I stopped my pacing and sank back into the armchair, bracing my elbows on my knees and staring her down.

"There's nothing I can say," I admitted. "I'm not going to ask you to trust me. Given the circumstances, that would sound ridiculous. I can promise you I won't lie to you, but you don't have a reason to believe that either. I can look you in the eye and tell you that I'm in love with you. I've been in love with you since before you knew I existed and I'll be in love with you until the day I die. But I can't make you believe me.”

"Then I don't know what we're supposed to do," she said, studying the duvet in front of her, refusing to look at me.

"I do. Tomorrow, you're coming back to Winters House. Together, we're going to finish this job. Were going to pretend we're happily engaged until we drive your stalker crazy enough to come out in the open and then we’re going to take that fucker down. We’re going to set you free. And if you still don't believe that I love you, I'll figure out how to prove it to you. I know you love me and I understand that you can't trust me. Not yet. But you will."

"I already decided to come back," she said. "We've never been this close to catching him. I'm not backing down now. But things are going to change."

Cautiously, I asked, “What things?"

"For one, you're moving out of my rooms—"

"Lise, it's not safe—"

She made a cutting motion through the air with her hand. "It's safe enough. I don't want you in my rooms. That's my first condition. Non-negotiable."

I gritted my teeth and said, “Fine. I'll move into Jacob’s suite. What else?"

"No more PDA. You can hold my hand, but no kissing, no snuggling, and I'm not sleeping with you again. Do you understand? I'm coming home so we can finish the job, and I'm using you to play my fiancé because starting over would be a huge waste of time. But I don't trust you. We're not together. If you can't work with that, I'll tell everyone we broke up, and I'll find another way."

I closed my eyes in resignation and leaned back into the armchair. I'd rather she’d jumped out of bed and thrown her arms around me when I told her I loved her, but I'd known it wouldn't be that easy.

She was coming home, and she was giving me a chance, even if she didn't want to.

Annalise loved me. To the marrow of my bones, I knew she loved me. Just as deep, she knew I loved her.

She was hurt, so fucking hurt, and it was my fault. She was afraid to trust me. I’d earned that. But as long as she was coming home, I had a chance.

This time, I wouldn't waste it.