She hasn’t changed one bit. She’s still as beautiful as ever and smart as hell, too. I hadn’t expected her questions during the interview to be so on point.

Being around her again makes it impossible not to remember how she looked beneath me. Every single second we were together is etched into my memory. The way she said my name. How she liked it rough—the way I like to fuck. She made me crazy, hell . . . she’s making me crazy right now. Even though it could never be more than the one night, I’m still pissed at myself for leaving her the way I did. I should’ve stayed all night and explained how I was feeling. But instead, my stupid ass bailed.

Chandler steps out to take a call, and she’ll barely look at me as she rushes to gather her things, which makes me rake my hand through my hair in agitation. We used to be pretty close, friends even. But we never really spent time together until she interned here. Then there were a lot of early mornings, late nights, and even weekends spent working on projects that brought us closer together. So, even though I get why she’s cold toward me now, I hate it, and I hate myself for ruining what we had.

“Have a good day, Roan,” she tells me, slinging her purse strap over her shoulder, and I have to make this right.

“I’m sorry, Mia.” My voice is barely a whisper, but she brings her eyes to meet mine.

“For what?” She laughs a little awkwardly.

“For what happened.”

“What are you talking about? Nothing happened, remember?” She raises her eyebrows at me.

I know why she says that; it’s because we agreed not to tell Chandler before we even slept together. It doesn’t make her indifference toward me any easier to handle.

“You know what I’m talking about.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t, Roan.” She sticks to her guns. It’s one of the things I find sexiest about Mia. Her strength and resilience are unlike that of any other woman I’ve ever known.

I step closer to her, moving until my body is a few inches away from hers. She ignites everything inside me, just as she always has. My brain is screaming at me to stop, to let her go. But my body wants the opposite. Too bad for my body, Georgia fucked me up in a way I can’t seem to move on from. She broke something in me that I’m pretty sure will never repair itself. It’s why I ended things with Mia before they started, because I’m no good for her, and I’d end up ruining her life like I did Georgia’s.

Still, I have her attention, and I don’t know if I’ll have it again anytime soon. “That night was amazing,” I tell her and touch her face, her soft skin scalding the backs of my knuckles.

She backs away as if my hand is tainted with the plague and glances to the door.

“Just let it go.” Those little words knock the air from my lungs. It’s as if she can’t feel the spark between us anymore, which maybe she can’t. I had my chance, and I killed it.

I know better than anyone how it feels to be walked out on. Even then, that didn’t stop me from leaving Mia that night. It’s been years since Georgia walked out on me, and the pain is still so strong.

It must have taken me too long to say something else, because the next thing I know, Mia turns her back on me and leaves. I feel like a fool standing in the middle of the conference room watching her walk away.

I’m still standing there and staring at the door when it opens again, and Chandler walks in.

“Where’d she go?” he asks.

“She had to go.”

“Without saying bye?”

“She said bye to me.”

Chandler pulls out his phone and calls her. As soon as she answers, he lays into her good-naturedly.

I’m not sure what it is about Mia, that makes me so irrational, but there is something. Something within her that tugs at my heart strings, something that makes me want her more than I’ve ever wanted any other woman in all my life.

I head into my office to find the light on my phone blinking. I check the message, and by the time it ends, my heart is in my throat. I grab my car keys and bolt out of the office without a word to anyone, heading to the girls’ school.

When I get there, Maisy is sitting waiting for me just outside the nurse’s office, and I rush to her side.

“What happened?” She has ice over her lip, and her only answer is to point into the clinic at another girl who has blood running down her face. I won’t believe for one second that my little girl did that to her.

“She was running her mouth about Ria, saying she was a slut, so I hit her.”

Hearing my baby girl use that word makes me cringe. “Did she swing first?”

She shakes her head, and I sit in the stiff ass chair next to her, wondering why in the world this is happening. “Come on, Maisy, you know the rules. You don’t swing until the other person does.”

“Dad, you weren’t there. She didn’t only call her a slut. There were other words, too.”

“Then you tell a teacher.”

“And what, be a snitch?”

“Oh my God, Maisy, you’re in seventh grade for Christ’s sake.”

“So?”

She may have her mother’s eyes, but that natural instinct to fight lives just as much inside her as it does me.

The other girl’s parents walk in, and we both stop talking. The mom and the dad glare at Maisy and me. The girls go to a private school, so everyone knows everyone here, which isn’t always the best thing. The mom continues to shoot us hateful looks as the dad talks to the receptionist. I really want to yell at her and tell her to teach her daughter some manners, so my daughter doesn’t have to do it for her. The only thing I actually do is run my hands over my face and hope they don’t decide to press charges. The odds don’t look in my favor as the parents rush into the clinic, so I prepare myself for the worst.