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I lift her off the counter, turn her around, and press her forward over the kitchen island with one hand flat between her shoulder blades. The lights are off except for the small lamp over the stove, and in its low amber glow, I can see the curve of her spine and the pale skin of her thighs. I drag her panties down her legs, and she steps out of them. My belt is open in seconds. When I free my cock and run the swollen head through her slick folds, she drops her forehead against the marble and bites down on her own wrist.

"Look at me," I say.

She turns her head. Her cheek rests against the island, her hair spilled across it, and her eyes find mine over her shoulder, furious and pleading at the same time.

I push into her in one long, slow stroke.

She's tight and wet and so hot that I have to stop with my hips pressed flush against her and breathe through it. Her body still takes me as though it remembers. I lean over her, one arm braced beside her head, and cover her mouth again as I begin to move. I fuck her deep and hard, dragging almost all the way out before driving back in, and the island creaks faintly under her hands. Every muffled sound she makes goes straight through me. She pushes back to meet every thrust, as if she's as angry as I am and just as unwilling to let go.

"Do you feel that?" I ask against her ear, without slowing.

"That's not fucking duty. That's not a fucking obligation. That's me, Blaire. It's always been me."

She whimpers against my hand. Her inner pussy walls clench around me, and I feel her fighting it, fighting me, fighting everything I said in this kitchen.

I pull out, turn her around, and lift her back onto the counter. I need to see her face.

She wraps her legs around my waist, and I fist my wet cock as I guide myself back into her, slower this time. Her hands come up to frame my jaw. For a moment, neither of us moves. We stay joined, her forehead pressed to mine and her breath shaking against my lips, and the anger in her eyes breaks open into something so raw that it nearly destroys me.

"Ross," she whispers.

It's the only thing she says. It's not the word I want to hear, and I don't ask her for it.

I move inside her again, deep and steady, grinding against her clit on every stroke. She buries her face in my neck to stay quiet, and I feel her teeth graze my skin. Her heels dig into the backs of my thighs. I slide one hand beneath her and pull her tighter against me, and when she finally comes, it's with her mouth pressed hard to my shoulder, her whole body shuddering and her inner walls pulsing around my cock until I can't hold back any longer. I drive into her one last time and come with a low groan I barely manage to muffle against her hair, my fingers digging into her hips as I empty everything I have inside her.

Afterward, we end up on the kitchen floor with our backs against the cabinets. Her skirt is twisted around her hips, my shirt is half unbuttoned, and she's sitting between my legs with her spine against my chest. I have my arms around her. She lets me keep them there. Neither of us speaks. The dishwasher finished its cycle at some point without either of us noticing, and the house is so quiet that I can hear the refrigerator hum and the faint creak of a floorboard settling somewhere upstairs.

I press my mouth to her shoulder. She doesn't pull away, but she doesn't turn toward me either.

"This doesn't fix anything," she says finally.

"I know," I say.

"You can't stay. If one of them comes down in the morning—"

"I know, Blaire."

She's quiet for a long time. Then she lifts one of my hands from her waist and laces her fingers through mine, and she holds on as though she's afraid of what will happen if she lets go. She doesn't say she loves me. She doesn't say anything at all. But she doesn't let go of my hand until nearly two in the morning, when I finally stand, button my shirt, and let her walk me to the door.

She doesn't kiss me goodbye. She touches my chest once, over my heart, and closes the door softly behind me.

I sit in the car outside her house for a long time before I start the engine. For most of my adult life, every city I've lived in has been measured by its distance from Kensington Holdings, and every place I've called home has really been a place to sleep between meetings. Tonight, I sit on a quiet street in San Francisco looking at a narrow townhouse with two little boys asleep on the second floor and a woman who still hasn't forgiven me, and I realize there's nowhere in the world I'd rather come back to.

Chapter Thirty-Seven

Blaire

Idon't sleep after Ross leaves. I lie in bed with my skin still warm where his hands were and watch the ceiling turn from black to gray, and every time I close my eyes, I hear him say it again: I crossed that ocean before I knew they existed.

For weeks, I've held on to one belief the way you hold a railing on a staircase in the dark. Ross was here because of the boys. He had found out he had sons, and the Kensington in him had done what Kensingtons do: claimed what was his and called it duty. As long as that was true, I could keep him at arm's length. I could let him love Wells and Miles without ever asking what he felt for me, because I thought I already knew the answer. I was simply the woman standing between him and his heirs.

Now that belief is gone. He bought his way onto the Pembrokes' lawn for me, with no idea that two little boys were about to come running across the grass. He was going to say something to me that afternoon, and whatever it was, it had nothing to do with them. I can't unknow that. It strips away the one defense I've been hiding behind, and without it, I no longer know what I'm protecting, or who I'm protecting it from.

Ross comes back on Thursday for dinner, the way he always does. He's easy with the boys and careful with me, and he doesn't mention the kitchen. He waits until Wells and Miles are upstairs brushing their teeth, then leans against the counter across from me.

"They should know soon," he says quietly.

"Not tonight, but soon, Blaire. Wells is already asking me questions I'm not allowed to answer."