“Parking lot, I think.” I looked over and saw that the cougar was gone. “Lose your friend?”

“Fuck her,” Flynn said.

Kat laughed. “That’s what we thought you had planned. What happened?”

“It’s like a negotiation,” Flynn said. “We couldn’t come to terms.”

“More business shit,” I said, then swallowed the last sip of my cabernet as Flynn and Kat laughed. “Another round?”

“Hell, yes,” Flynn said, as he signaled for one of the waitresses. “I’m off work for a full thirty-six hours.”

I’d finished two more glasses of wine and was feeling the effects of it by the time Evan came back. Cole wasn’t with him, and I watched the disappointment play across Kat’s face, becoming all the more pronounced when Evan refused to explain why Cole was blowing us off. “Work stuff,” he said, which was hardly a satisfactory explanation.

What was worse was the way he was distracted for the rest of the evening. He was nice to my friends, saying the right stuff, laughing at their jokes, buying rounds of drinks. But he felt absent somehow. I put up with it until we left, but in the car, I demanded answers. “What’s going on, Evan?”

“Business,” he said. He stopped at an intersection, and shot me a sideways look. “It’ll blow over.”

“So what’s the trouble?”

“Problems,” he said. “At Destiny.”

I licked my lips, remembering his red, raw knuckles. “That guy? Larry? Are the girls okay?”

He focused on the road. “They’re fine. It’s being dealt with.”

I could tell he was getting irritated, but I pressed on anyway. “So is this a legitimate business thing? Or should I be worried that the FBI is going to swoop down on you?”

He yanked the wheel to the left even as he slammed on the brakes. I squealed, the sound of my voice matching the sound of the tires as he careened into a parking lot and killed the engine. “What the fuck, Lina?”

I gaped at him.

“Seriously,” he demanded. “What the fuck?”

I shook my head. “What’s going on, Evan? Did Cole hit you on the head? Because your mood has turned on a dime here, and I don’t know what’s going on, but you’re taking it out on me.”

“Are you staying?”

“Staying?” I repeated, because I was completely confused now.

“Are you staying in Chicago, or are you heading off to Washington in just over a week?”

“I—” I licked my lips. “I just want to close this distance, Evan. Cole burst in and you ran off with him, and when you came back, it was like you were lost behind a wall. And I get that. There’s stuff you can’t talk about—stuff we both know about but that we’ve been avoiding, and it’s my fault, too, because I’ve been skirting around the edge, as well.” I sucked in a breath, not sure if my pounding pulse was because of my words or the lingering result of his reckless driving. “I don’t want evasions anymore. I don’t want stories or allegories or what-ifs. I want you, Evan. I want the real you.”

I was spilling out my heart to him, watching his face, searching for softness, for acceptance, for relief.

Instead, all I saw were hard lines and angles. I saw regret, too, and it sent cold prickles of fear through me.

He turned away, his attention focused on some point outside the front windshield. “I want that, too,” he finally said.

I exhaled in relief and waited for him to say more. To tell me the truth. To finally let me see what was underneath the knight’s armor.

But that wasn’t what he said.

“Are you staying in Chicago?” he repeated, this time speaking very slowly and very clearly. “Or are you heading off to Washington in a week?”

“Dammit, Evan,” I shouted, losing all patience now. “Why do you keep asking me that?”

He continued to face forward, but his voice had the same edge that I was feeling. “Answer the question.”

“I—yes,” I snapped. “You know I have a job. And in a few days, I’ll even have a place to live.”

He put the car back into gear and pulled out onto the street. I sat frozen, certain that we’d just crossed some line in the sand that I hadn’t even realized he’d drawn. When we reached my condo, he passed the valet stand and pulled to the curb. He sat silently, and it took me a second to realize he was waiting for me to get out.

“What the fuck, Evan?”

“You’re not being true to yourself, Lina,” he said, turning to face me. “Don’t expect more from me than you’re willing to give yourself.”

eighteen

You’re not being true to yourself.

For the rest of the night and into the next day, his words ran through my head over and over, like some horrible children’s ditty that had turned into a pernicious earworm.

You’re not being true to yourself.

At first I was pissed. I paced and I drank and I managed not to throw things, but only because I liked all the things that were in Jahn’s condo, and I’d already sacrificed one coffee cup to Evan Black.

So I worked off my anger by burning calories, stalking wildly around the condo, muttering to myself like a madwoman and making up some pretty damn fine curses in the process.

You’re not being true to yourself.

Then I sat. And I tried to watch television in order to drown out the annoying little voice that kept popping into my head, telling me that he was right.

But the voice was too loud and I couldn’t concentrate. Not on CNN, not on streaming episodes of Buffy. Not even on the fine figure of Gordon Ramsay cursing out all those little chef wannabes.

You’re not being true to yourself.

Goddamn Evan Black.

He was right.

He was right, but I was scared to change. I’d been living my life under someone else’s terms for so long that I wasn’t sure I knew how to do anything else. For that matter, I wasn’t sure I knew how to be me.

Dear god, I’d made a mess of it. My parents hadn’t lost just one daughter, they’d lost two. Because they didn’t even know Angelina, not anymore. I’d been trying so hard to be Gracie for them that I’d completely buried their youngest daughter.

You’re not being true to yourself.

Yeah, wasn’t that the understatement of the year? And it had only taken falling in love to make me finally see it.

“Ms. Raine?”

I was on the patio, standing by the glass barrier, looking out over the lake, though I wasn’t really seeing it. Now I turned in response to Peterson’s voice. “Yes?”

“Can I bring you anything? You should eat some lunch.”

“I’m not hungry.”

“You didn’t have breakfast.” He paused. “Is there something I can help you with, perhaps?”

“No.” He couldn’t help me, and I was having one hell of a time helping myself. For that matter, I was having a hell of a time getting my head on straight.

I knew what I wanted—I wanted to stay. I wanted Evan. I wanted to work for the foundation.

I wanted to be true to myself. But I was scared of stepping off the path I’d paved for myself. And I was terrified of disappointing my parents.