I really wanted to be able to hate him.

I was still sitting there, staring blankly at my computer screen, when my doorbell buzzed. I sighed, and didn’t move. I didn’t feel like talking to anyone. It was probably just the mailman; he could leave whatever it was with the retired lady who lived on the first floor and was always home to collect everyone’s mail.

But the buzzing didn’t stop. It kept going, insistent, until I finally gave up and hauled myself off the couch. If there wasn’t some kind of emergency, I was going to be really annoyed.

I shuffled down the six flights of stairs to the building’s foyer. Someone was standing in the vestibule, a tall person, a man wearing a long overcoat—

Oh God.

I hauled open the door. Of course Carter had come to see me, when I was still in my pajamas and hadn’t even brushed my teeth yet. He came into the main lobby, shaking snow off his coat. I didn’t even know it had started snowing.

“How did you know where I live?” I asked, the first words that spilled out of my mouth when I opened it. I sounded suspicious, even to myself. Well, I was suspicious.

“Henry told me,” he said, and at my blank look, “My driver. You had—remember, he dropped you off here, so—”

“I remember,” I said, folding my arms. “So you just decided to invite yourself over.”

“Well,” he said. He had the courtesy to look sheepish. “I didn’t know how else to get in touch with you. Germaine wouldn’t give me your phone number.”

“You asked Germaine...” I shook my head, disbelieving. What was he doing here? “What do you want?”

A door creaked open, just a sliver, and I saw Mrs. Jenkins peering out at us. I smiled at her to show that I was okay. She didn’t go back inside her apartment.

Carter had turned at the sound, and now he turned back to me and said, “Is there somewhere else we can talk?”

“You mean like my apartment?” I asked. “Is this your usual tactic? You show up at a girl’s apartment and invite yourself up?”

“I’m not—that’s not what I’m. You aren’t usually so...” He trailed off, blinking. “I know I screwed up last night, but I didn’t think...”

He was right; I was usually a lot more, well, submissive around him. But I was on my home turf, now, and he’d caught me off guard. I was confused and lashing out. I closed my eyes, trying to regain my equilibrium. “Okay,” I said. “You can come up. It’s a mess, though.”

“I won’t mind,” he said.

We climbed the stairs in silence, him following me. I frantically tried to remember if there was anything particularly gross or embarrassing in my apartment. I’d washed dishes the night before, and most of my dirty laundry was in the hamper. It was too late to worry about it anyway. He was here.

When I opened the door and walked into my apartment, I saw it through his eyes: the tiny, cramped space, the hideous flowered sofa I’d gotten for $50 at a thrift store, the twin bed shoved against one wall with the sheets rumpled. I was fiercely proud of my apartment: I owned everything in it, and I paid rent every month, and it was mine. It had never looked so shabby to me.

I sat on the sofa and tried not to look at his expression as he came through the door. I remembered his clean, bright, airy penthouse, and felt ashamed. He looked incredibly out of place standing in the doorway of my tiny, dingy apartment, wearing a coat that probably cost a month’s rent.

He didn’t belong in my world. It was too small to hold him.

He made a slow round of the apartment, looking at the dishes draining beside the sink, picking up and examining the little animal figures I collected. I said nothing while he moved through the small space. I had the strange thought that if I stayed very still and didn’t speak, he would forget I was there.

But at last he stopped pacing and turned to face me, leaning against the kitchen counter. “I’m sorry about last night,” he said.

I didn’t respond; I couldn’t think of anything to say.

He paused for a moment, as though he was waiting for me to speak, and then said, “I shouldn’t have asked you to do that. I thought—well, it doesn’t matter what I thought. I made a mistake. I’m sorry.” He looked down at his hands as he spoke, fiddling with a button on the cuff of his coat.

He was nervous, I realized. I wasn’t sure what to make of that. “You thought I would want to,” I said, half-questioning.

“Yes,” he said. “Or—I suppose I did. I wasn’t thinking. And then you safeworded out, and I—” He broke off, and shook his head. “I was mistaken. I hope you’ll forgive me.”

It was a good apology, by just about any measure, but I didn’t want to forgive him just yet. Something in me had been badly hurt in that moment when he ordered me to suck another man’s cock, and I was wary of giving in too easily. I didn’t want him to think that he could do whatever he wanted and be instantly forgiven as soon as he fixed me with that sad, blue gaze.

So I said, “Who’s Carolina Ramos?”

I regretted the words as soon as I spoke them. I sounded like a jealous girlfriend. I wasn’t Carter’s girlfriend, and I had no right to be jealous. But as hurt as I was by what happened at the club the night before, I was more hurt by the thought of Carter kissing some model the same day we had shared coffee in his apartment. The day after I lost my virginity to him.

But he didn’t know that, and I couldn’t blame him for it. What to me had been a night I would remember in vivid detail for the rest of my life had been, for him, just another Friday evening. I was positive that Carter hadn’t been a virgin in at least a decade. Everything that was special about that night was probably completely mundane to him.

I was so busy beating myself up over my inability to keep my mouth shut that it took me several seconds to notice Carter’s reaction.

Instead of getting annoyed or defensive, he was smiling.

That annoyed me. “Is something funny?” I snapped. I didn’t like being laughed at, especially not when I was in such a vulnerable position, still in my pajamas with a billionaire in my apartment.

“I grew up with Carolina,” he said. “Our mothers are best friends. She’s like a sister to me. Where did you even hear her name?”

“Some gossip blog,” I mumbled, embarrassed. I shouldn’t have jumped to any conclusions.