It sounded more rehearsed than a Broadway show.

I cocked an eyebrow at him and folded my arms over my chest. “You don’t care?”

He shook his head. There was something light about him. Not just his body language, but his expression too. I believed him.

“We were kids. He was jealous, and you were…” He licked his lips, considering his next word.

He was still my first. My first lover. My first boyfriend. My first sexual partner.

Dean’s eyes dropped down as he finished softly, “And you were with the wrong guy. I never should have stepped between the two of you, but I did, and I don’t regret it for a second. We were a good couple, Millie, but Vicious and you…”

Another pause. Rosie listened closely behind us. Her face told me she was pretty sold too. Dean just had it in him. The ability to sound genuine and believable, no matter what he said.

“You were obviously meant to be together. Even if I didn’t completely believe that before, I do now, because of the sacrifices he made for you. That’s a first. And a last. Give him a chance, Millie. He deserves at least that.”

I loved the silence that followed Dean’s speech. We all processed it. Everything that had been said. Without being dramatic, Dean told me that he was okay with what Vicious and I did. With what we were, and weren’t. With what we could have been or could be, if I still wanted to.

“You should probably stay for coffee,” Rosie said then, still reading on her iPad.

“Nah.” He shrugged, jerking me by my shirt into a big suffocating hug.

It felt nice.

It felt safe.

But mostly, it felt platonic.

“If I stay, I’ll hit on your sister, and that’d be really messed up, now wouldn’t it, Millie?” he whispered into my ear.

And just like that, the touching moment was gone.

I had a blast at my new job. Brent was talented and worldly and knew everything about everything. We talked art every day and got ready to throw another event, an exhibition in which we planned to show twenty contemporary paintings about nature and love.

One of those paintings was going to be mine.

And it was going to be quite interesting, too. It wasn’t a cherry blossom tree, like I’d thought I’d paint.

But it was definitely a true definition of the word love.

Rosie had started working as a barista again. She was feeling well. We ate pasta a lot, but sometimes bought ground beef and made meatballs. She understood how much the exhibition meant to me, so she let me paint into the late hours of the night while locking herself in our bedroom. (We only had one and we happily shared it.) I opened all the windows, even though it was still cold, and hoped for the best.

There were so many questions I wanted to ask Vicious. How come he was still in New York? What happened with his father? Was he poor now? Well, not poor, obviously. More like un-rich. And what were his plans for Jo?

But I bit my tongue and said nothing every time I poured myself out of the station and saw his tall, broad frame, wrapped in a delicious suit and overcoat. He’d nod curtly and join me as I walked.

Two and a half months after he started escorting me home, it happened. The inevitable moment I’d expected, but dreaded.

He wasn’t there to see me home.

My face fell and my muscles slacked when I realized he wasn’t waiting for me. It wasn’t so bitterly cold anymore—though nowhere near warm—so I shook myself out of my coat and walked a little too fast out to the street to inspect. Maybe I’d missed him. Maybe he’d gone around the corner to the Turkish grocery store to get himself a cup of coffee. He liked their bitter, muddy coffee. Every time he came early enough, he treated himself to a cup and drank it while he was waiting for me.

He also read the Wall Street Journal and checked the Asian stock exchanges on his phone. It was almost like he made this arrangement about his downtime with himself.

I looked around, my eyes gliding over the brick buildings, the throng of people hurrying everywhere, the old brewery staring back at me, and the industrial buildings rising from the dirty crumbling concrete.

He wasn’t there.

My heart sank. I should’ve known his little mission had an expiration date. There was only so much a man could take, and especially a man like Vicious, who’d never had to beg for a date before. I’d refused to give him ten minutes of my time to listen. Not even five. He had every reason to stop coming.

I knew all that, but it didn’t make me feel any better.

I plugged my earbuds back into my ears, shoved my hands into my pockets and made my way to the apartment, passing by all the junkies sitting on the sidewalk against walls and holding cardboard telling their sob stories. I always fumbled in my pocket and gave them some change. And I always tended to give the change to the people with the dogs.

I crossed the street and jaywalked back to my apartment, almost reaching the entrance of my building, when I saw him. He jogged from the direction of the subway, looking a little flushed. Vicious. I bit down my smile and tugged the earbuds out of my ears. When he was about a foot from me, he stopped, straightening his tie with his hand.

“Hey,” he said. His hair was a disheveled mess, and I liked it. I liked it a lot.

I remembered how it felt in my hands when he went down on me in Dean’s office. I cleared my throat and nodded. “Are you okay?” I asked.

“Yeah, yeah. I just wanted to let you know that next week, on Thursday, I won’t be able to make it. Something came up. I’ll call a taxi and make sure it picks you up from work.”

“No need,” I said. “You owe me nothing. And besides, I have an exhibition at work that night. I’ll probably stay until late, anyway.”

He shot me a weird look, tearing his eyes from my face and focusing on the building behind me, like he was trying to remember something. “Give me five minutes of your time?” he asked, as he did every single day, five days a week, excluding weekends.

“Nope. Bye, Vicious.” I turned around and slammed the door in his face. Admittedly, it didn’t feel good. It felt really bad the first time I did it, and as time passed, it had become worse and worse. I now absolutely hated myself for doing this to him.

But still, I did it.

Because protecting my heart over his had become my priority.

The problem was, I had been right all along. Loving someone was essentially wanting to make them feel good, and not the other way around.

No matter what Vicious felt for me, I knew exactly how I felt about him.

And I didn’t hate him. Not by a long shot.

It was almost a week later when I received the call. Afterward, I took an early lunch break, jumped into the subway, and bolted straight into Vicious’s office building. The receptionist in the lobby knew me from my brief time as Vic’s PA and let me in. When I walked into the reception area of FHH, however, I was met with a new face of a young receptionist who’d replaced Patty.

I knew Patty had already retired because I kept in touch with her, mainly by email, so this wasn’t news, but I didn’t have time for pleasantries.

“I need to see Mr. Spencer.” I knocked on the reception’s counter with my knuckles, not offering any further explanation. Every hair on my body stood on end and hot shivers ran down the length of my spine. I was that angry.

The receptionist, pretty and bored and disinterested, batted her eyelashes a few times at me. “I’m sorry, ma’am, do you have an appointment?”

“I don’t need an appointment,” I breathed out, flinging my arms in the air. “I’m his…his…” What was I to Vicious, exactly? Friend? No. Lover? Ha! Ex-neighbor? But I was more than that. I shook my head, not really feeling like dwelling on the subject right now. “He’ll want to speak to me. Please, just tell him Emilia is here.”

“I can’t do that, I’m afraid.” Her tone was not in sync with my mental and physical state. She looked so jaded and sleepy, and I felt like a kernel of popcorn about to pop at any moment. “He doesn’t want any interruptions when he’s working.”

“Look…” I leaned over the counter, seriously tempted to grab her by the collar of her white shirt. “I know he’s a jerk, and you’re afraid that he’ll be even more of a jerk to you if you disobey his rules. But I’m telling you. If he finds out I was here and you didn’t let me in, he’ll fire you. Just like that.” I snapped my fingers. “So please, just tell him I’m here, waiting for him.”

She stared at me with a peculiar expression before punching in his extension and bringing the phone to her ear.

“Sir? I have a woman named Emilia here for you. She says it’s important.” She waited a few seconds, muttering a “mmm-hmm” punctuated with a nod, before her head snapped up, her gaze meeting mine.

“He said he doesn’t know any Emilia, but he does know a girl named Help.”

Darn you, Vicious. I rolled my eyes and leaned my elbows against the counter. “Tell him it’s important and that he’s a bastard.”

Her mouth hung open and her light brown eyes stared at me like I’d just tried to recruit her to the SS.

I repeated myself calmly. “Tell him that.”

She did.

And it almost made me forget how angry I was for one second. A faint smile tickled my lips.