“I want . . .” She licked her lips and took a breath. Could she say she wanted him? Could she say she loved him? She smoothed her hands over his chest and gripped his shoulders, and he watched her with rapt attention. She wished she were better with words. She wished she could let her body speak for her. Her body always knew how to communicate perfectly with his. Even now, she found herself responding to his nearness, leaning in close, fitting against him just right.

His Adam’s apple bobbed, and he pulled away. “Come on, then. Let’s get back to your place. Unless you want to try it in the car?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Sex, Stella.” The words were hard and clipped in the night air.

Her lungs constricted so tight she could barely breathe. “That’s not what I was going to say.”

“Then we need to end this farce. Because I don’t have anything else to give you.”

“But you do. You listen to me and talk to me and—”

“I will never be able to talk to you like that asshole in there. I don’t even want to. I’m too stupid to give a shit about math and economics.”

“That’s not true. You are smart.”

“I’ve amounted to nothing. I’ve gone nowhere. I fuck people for money, and when that’s not enough . . .” He met her eyes with a steady, serious gaze. “I think about stealing it. I plan it out in my head, who I’d take it from, the lies I’d say, how I could cover my tracks. Because I’m just like my dad.”

She shook her head. What was he talking about? He would never steal. She had no doubt of it.

“You wanted to know why I hate him. I’ll tell you the whole reason.” He paused for a heavy second before saying, “He’s so good at cheating he’s famous for it. He was in the news a while ago. Haven’t you heard of him? Frederick Larsen.”

“I don’t . . .” But even as she spoke, the familiar sound of the name dredged up memories. She drew in a sudden breath. “The con artist. He seduced women and . . .”

“Stole from them. He told everyone he owned a software company. He was gone so often on ‘business trips.’ My mom knew he cheated, but he always came back. Until three years ago when he disappeared and his other wife showed up on my mom’s doorstep looking for him. It turned out every dollar he earned came from some swindled woman. And he swindled my mom the worst. Before he left the last time, he cleared out her bank accounts and cashed out on enormous loans in her name. She had to mortgage everything to the teeth to pay them off, but even that wasn’t enough. She was going to lose the shop and her house she’d worked so hard for. My sister was going to have to drop out of school because we suddenly couldn’t pay for it.”

He turned away from her and began unknotting his tie with violent jerks of his hands. “The job I’d been so crazy about—the one I’d traveled across the country for, thinking my family was home safe with my dad—paid such a small amount I had to quit. I didn’t have any skills that paid quickly, not like you. So I took this thing my father gave me, my body that’s the same exact height as his, my smile that looks just like his, and I sold it. I fucked half of California with it, day and night for months, and I used that money to help make everything right. But by that time, my mom got sick, and she . . .”

The tie fluttered to the ground, and he loosened his top buttons like his shirt was suffocating him. He covered his eyes with his palm as he breathed raggedly.

Stella stepped toward him hesitantly. She placed her hand on his face, finding it drenched with hot tears. Her throat was too swollen to speak, so she wrapped her arms around his neck and held him with all her strength. He buried his face in her hair and held her back.

“It’s not your fault your dad did that horrible thing, and you’re nothing like him,” she whispered. How could he possibly believe that?

“If I’d been there, I might have noticed what he was doing, and I might have stopped it.”

“Shhhh.” She smoothed her fingers through his hair. “Even if you’d been there, you wouldn’t have found anything until it was too late. He fooled tons of people. That’s what he’s good at.”

He tightened his arms a fraction and pressed a kiss to her cheek. When he spoke, his voice was rough and intimate, bare. “The crazy thing is, even after all he’s done, even with how much I’m ashamed of him and hate him, I still miss him. He’s my dad. My dad is a lying, cheating criminal, and I love him.”

Stella had no words for Michael at that point, so she continued to hold him. What did you say when someone hurt like this? All she could do was rest her beating heart next to his and hurt with him.

After a moment and an eternity, Michael pulled away. Wiping at the tears on her cheeks, he said, “I accepted your proposal because I wanted to help you with your issues, and it’s clear we’ve worked through them. You’re ready for a real relationship now. If some bastard doesn’t want you because you’re autistic, he doesn’t deserve you. Do you hear me? You have nothing to be ashamed of.”

The blood drained from her face, and her heart stopped beating. “You know?”

He smiled slightly. “I figured it out after that first night at my mom’s.”

He’d known all this time? Was that good or bad? She didn’t know. “You want to leave?” she heard herself ask.

“It’s time for me to move on, Stella. We’re not giving each other all the things we need.”

She understood at once he meant her, that she wasn’t enough for him. Because of who and what she was, her impairments and eccentricities, her label.

Black hopelessness dragged her down. It had been naïve of her to hope she could seduce him. Her chin quivered, and she bit the inside of her lip to still the motion. “I see.”

He brushed his fingertips across her cheek, tucked tendrils of hair behind her ear. “You need more than sex, and I can’t give you those things.”

She looked down at her shoes. Maybe it had just been sex for him, but for her, as pathetic as it sounded, it had felt like love.

He smoothed warm hands down her cold arms and squeezed her hands. “Thank you for these past months. They were special to me.”

Not special enough.

“Thank you, Michael. For helping me with my anxiety issues.”

“Promise you won’t be hiring more escorts after this.”

“No more escorts. I promise.” There was only one escort she wanted.

“Good girl.” He breathed a kiss into her hair. “I’m going to go now.”

“I can drive you home.” She didn’t want them to part yet.

“I’d prefer to call a cab. I want to clear my things from your place, and it’s better if you’re not there when I do that. Take care, okay?”

“Okay.”

He dug her key fob, phone, and cards from his pockets and handed them to her. “Good-bye, Stella.”

“Good-bye, Michael.”

Statue-still and numb, she watched as he left. Then, she turned around and walked inside. Her preference was to go home, but he wanted to collect his things in peace. All other exit strategies were out, as well. The thought of passing by him in the parking lot or on the road filled her eyes with fresh tears.

Better to return to the dinner. It was the last place she wanted to be right now.

After going to the bathroom and fixing her makeup as well as she knew how, she seated herself at the table.

“Where’s Michael, Stella dear?” her mother asked quietly.

“He left. We just broke up.”

Philip smirked.

Aliza cast Stella a pitying glance from the other side of Michael’s empty chair and placed a hand on Stella’s shoulder. “Men like him need to be free, darling.”

Stella pushed Aliza’s hand off without a word.

Her father narrowed his eyes in displeasure. She knew how he felt about any kind of rude behavior. “It’s all for the best.”

For once, her mother had nothing to say. She merely watched Stella with concerned eyes.

“You can do much better,” Philip added. The directness of his gaze said that by better he meant him.