To her surprise, he nodded, still very serious. “Yes. Yes, you did.” He lifted one of her hands to his mouth and kissed it. “But in a good way. As fast as this happened, I already can’t imagine my life without you. I just wish I could make you understand the reasons behind my rules. Kissing like I love kissing you was another major no-no. It’s why that kiss you saw me give Serenity was the only time I kissed her that entire night. And it was only because I panicked.”

Regina peered at him, still finding that hard to believe.

Taking a deep breath, he suddenly looked very determined. “I’ve always been a loner, Regina, my whole life. My home life wasn’t anything I wanted to share with anyone. It wasn’t pretty.” His jaw went taut as she’d seen it before when his expressions would go so icy all of a sudden, so she squeezed his hand. “My father was abusive, mostly to my mom but also with me sometimes if I ever tried to defend her, which happened more and more as I go older. Then, the only time I ever allowed myself to get close to anyone and open up even just a little bit was with the girl I told you about.” He shook his head. “It’s a long story, babe.”

“You said she wasn’t a girlfriend.”

“She wasn’t, and she’s not the whole reason for my fear of attachments.”

Fear? He’d called it a rule. Never once had he mentioned a fear, and this girl was part of the reason? Swallowing back her sudden anxiety, Regina reminded herself this was a long time ago. Obviously, he’d seen the unease on her face because he reached for her other hand.

“It’s complicated, Regina, not the part about her but—”

“Then tell me the part about her. You said she wasn’t your girlfriend but it’s a long story. I’m curious now.”

Brandon’s head fell back for a moment; then he inhaled deeply and began. He went all the way back to when he was a kid. Her name was Sofie. He’d grown up down the street from her and what he referred to her junkyard dog brothers. No one dared mess with her unless they had a death wish.

“I lived in that house in the neighborhood,” he said then took a bitter drink of his tea. “You know the one. There’s one in every neighborhood—the one where the cops have to be called out at least once a week because of some domestic disturbance. My family was the only trouble in the otherwise peaceful upscale neighborhood. I was known as a loner and a loser, and, yeah, when I was a lot younger, my way of dealing with being called a loser or looked down on was to act out. So I pissed her brothers off a lot. Even got my ass kicked a few times, so, of course, there was no way I was allowed anywhere near her where her brothers were concerned.”

Regina listened intently as he fast forwarded to his senior year in high school. Sofie was all grown up and really turning heads, including Brandon’s. He said he really thought he’d made a connection with her because she was in his Geometry class and they sat together. Sofie had told him she’d come to realize over the years he was misunderstood, not bad like everyone made him out to be.

“We talked a lot, and I thought we’d gotten pretty close.” He shrugged. “Closer than I’d ever been to anyone in my life. And then I left to join the Marines. Long story short is during a leave when I came back she was all grown up and in a relationship. But that didn’t stop us from having a moment.” For the first time since he’d begun talking, he broke their eye contact, looking down at his glass. “I kissed her, and not only did she let me but she kissed me back. Up until then, it was the only time I’d kissed someone, and it didn’t feel meaningless. I thought she felt it too.” Finally, he looked up and met Regina’s eyes again. “I was wrong. End of story.”

“What do you mean you were wrong? Did she tell you or you just assumed?”

“Nope, she told me.” He shook his head. “I was nothing more than a curiosity to her, a chance to be with the forbidden bad boy, to kiss someone other than the only other guy she’d ever kissed—her boyfriend. But she called it a mistake. I was probably the biggest mistake a good girl like her ever made.”

“How good could she be?” Regina asked, trying not to sound as bitchy as thinking about this girl made her feel. “She let you kiss her when she had a boyfriend.”

“Yeah, well, like I said, she took it back real fast and sent me packing. She didn’t want anything to do with me after that. Of course, when her brothers found out about our moment, they made me out to be the villain who’d taken advantage of their innocent little sister. One of them even made it a point to come down to my place and warn me of what would happen if I ever came around her again. So that was that.” He squeezed her hand but sat back when the waitress arrived with their desserts.

Regina had just about lost her appetite. Brandon thanked the waitress and motioned for her to eat as the waitress walked away.

“She’s not the reason I swore off attachments of any kind, okay? She’s just been the closest thing I ever had to one. I’d been so far off the mark it confirmed I didn’t do them—I was no good at them. My dad was cold and heartless with no desire to connect with anyone. It wasn’t a surprise. I didn’t even cry at his funeral, but then when my mom was killed less than two weeks later, I went completely numb. I didn’t feel anything. I never cried. I didn’t take time off work. Hell, I didn’t even give her a proper good-bye. No services, no nothing. Just took her ashes and dumped them out in the lake the way we discussed at my father’s funeral just weeks earlier. She didn’t want services, but as her only son, I should’ve given her a proper good-bye. That’s when I became convinced that I’d turned into my dad, and I wasn’t about to put another woman through the hell he put my mom through.”