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He stiffens as I brush his hip reaching for the cupboard.

When I mentioned La Mer in bed, he looked at me like a vengeful god ready to rain down fury on hapless mortals. He’s clearly not over it.

“On the patio,” he bites out before I’ve had a chance to take a sip. “I don’t want Natalia worrying about this.”

We head out to the patio overlooking the ocean and take seats on opposite sides of the table.

“Talk.”

Though I don’t owe him an explanation, Mischa is his nemesis. I understand why he’s taken aback.

“I played Wild Fest this year. My career hasn’t just recovered. It’s exploded,” I say. “When the top one hundred list came out, I was swimming in offers. The single I released last fall got new life. I have money.”

Sometimes it still feels like a dirty secret.

“I don’t own a house, but I could. I could support not only my cousin’s charity but half a dozen more.”

His jaw works as if he’s proud of what I’ve done but disinclined to deviate from the point he dragged me out here to talk about. “You realize it’s not because of the list. It’s because of you. You embracing who you are. Playing with joy.”

His gaze drops to my wrist, where I’m fingering the tattoo.

It doesn’t feel like joy lately. But I don’t say that. “I want to play La Mer. That hasn’t changed.”

The warmth behind his eyes is banked. “Only thing that hasn’t.”

He rises and crosses to a hedge of bright-yellow flowers, pulls off a dead bloom, and tosses it away.

I want to ask why he left the way he did. If it was worth breaking up what we had.

But I’m afraid of the answers. If he says it was worthwhile, it’ll hurt all over again.

If he says it wasn’t… then what? We can’t go backward. I’ve started to build a future on my own terms, gigs around the world, even if they don’t satisfy the way I thought they would.

There’s no way I’d give this man a chance to break my heart again. I’ve done brave things in my life, and stupid ones. Inviting in a man who makes me feel as if I’ll never be as worthy as his vendetta would be the most foolish.

“You must have changed too,” I say.

“My parents were liars,” he says abruptly. “Building a legacy for them is moot.”

The hurt in his voice has my chest tightening. “What are you talking about?”

“After Tyler and Annie’s housewarming, I received a call from my investigator confirming my parents’ life was a lie. They weren’t trying to get out, Raegan. If Mischa or his parents killed them, it was to prove a point. For internal justice. Not because they were leaving.”

Horror washes over me. I close my fingers around my mug to avoid reaching for him. “You didn’t tell me.”

“Mischa burned down the club that night. I didn’t have a chance.”

I can only imagine what he was going through.

He spent his life trying to do penance for what he thought was his fault—that his parents were getting out of the Ivanov’s business on account of him and died trying. It must feel as if he never knew them. The anger he must have, the questions… None of which he’ll ever get a satisfying answer to.

Fuck. It’s not as if this changes everything, but I wish he’d told me.

“So, why continue trying to bury Ivanov?”

Harrison rubs a hand through his hair, looking the kind of rough-around-the-edges he rarely shows the world but shows me because of what we are. What we were.

“He’s already shaped my past. Not only through his actions, but indirectly, through who I thought my parents were. He’s had even more influence than he realizes. I won’t let him have my future.”