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“Tell me about you. This thing between the two of us is crazy. I feel like I know you deeply, but at the same time, like I don’t know anything. Back in Spain, you didn’t give me much information about yourself.”

“Why did you leave? I know that what happened between us was just as intense for you.”

“How couldn’t it be? You were my first.” She looks away. “My only one .”

“What?”

“I don’t want to discuss this in detail right now, but Mike and I . . . We’ve never . . . Please, let’s not ruin everything by bringing him into it. It’s enough to say that my marriage was never consummated.”

I want her to tell me more about it, but I let it go. However, I wouldn’t be myself if I didn’t investigate what I need to know. “I’ll talk about myself. But if we’re starting over, I need to understand why you left, Zoe. This is how my mind works: organizing one room before going into another.”

“I need to get dressed. It’s a serious subject, and I don’t want to talk about it naked.”

I reach out and turn on the lamp .

She holds the sheet against her body as she gets up. I stare at her without turning away. We both know that, after tonight, even better than before, I know every piece of her body, every curve, because I did a study on my goddess.

Looking embarrassed but paradoxically, with defiant eyes, she drops the fabric, allowing me to see her.

My dick reacts. “Are you teasing me?”

“No,” she says, but I know she’s lying because her nipples are hard.

“Want to talk or fuck?”

“You said you wanted to clarify . . .”

“The past can wait a little longer.” I stand up, and her throat moves when she sees my arousal.

I move my hand on my dick, and she follows every move attentively.

“Kneel down, Zoe. I want to fuck your mouth.”

Obediently, she does as I say. But I’m surprised when, after just licking the head of my cock, she takes me deep.

The feeling of her hot tongue, her soft, hungry mouth engulfing me, is so good that I’m afraid I can’t stand it.

I never let others hold the reins during sex, but seeing her being brave enough to take the initiative is turning me on.

I thrust my hips forward, and she gasps, but soon enough, she gets the hang of it.

“Just like that. Take me whole, Zoe. You suck it really good.”

I caress her face, seeing my naked woman swallowing my cock. I pinch her nipple, and she sucks me harder.

I reach my limit.

“I’m going to come. Relax your throat. I want to see you drinking me, love. Swallow it all.”

I hold her face and go deeper. Once, twice, three times, before I pour myself into the warmth of her mouth.

I close my eyes for a second, the intensity of the orgasm knocking me out of orbit.

I bend down and pick her up, placing her in my lap. “You’re not going anywhere anymore, my Zoe. You should never have gone anywhere.”

It’s already morning, and now I see we were pretty optimistic to think we could have any serious conversation in our first forty-eight hours together.

We didn’t leave the room except to eat. I took the opportunity to dismiss the nurse because the doctor had already left.

Zoe left our room to say goodbye to her, and the shyness of realizing what Beth would think made me see how young she still is.

Now, with the house just for us, I make some pasta while she watches me from a stool by the kitchen island.

“Tell me why you left. The serious subject you said we would talk about.”

“It wasn’t because of the money you left in the envelope, although it crossed my mind . . . Anyway . . .”

“I would never offend a woman like that.”

“I know that now, but I’d only known you for a very short time. To be honest, I still don’t know you.” She brushes a strand of hair out of her face. “What I’m trying to say is, yes, I was offended by the money, but I would have left anyway after what I found out.”

“Let’s clear up the money issue. I was going to buy that fleet anyway, which made me, in a way, your employer. You didn’t get paid for the time you worked there. You were in a foreign country, after all the shit you’d been through, and penniless. I didn’t want you to stay with me because you had to but because you chose to. That money, despite being more than stated in your contract, was a security for you.”

“I ended up using it anyway,” she says, cheeks red. “I wouldn’t have been able to leave if I hadn’t. But I’m not sure I understood what you said.”

“You said you didn’t know me well, Zoe. The opposite is also true. I figured that everything that happened between us was mutual but there could come a time when you would want to leave, and you were too shy to talk to me. ”

“Since you’re clearing up a few points, let me do that too, . I was very young . . .”

“You still are.”

“Yes, but I knew what I wanted when I agreed to be with you. I would never let a man touch me against my will. It never crossed my mind that money was security for me. I’ve never had a serious boyfriend. And as I said before, that wasn’t what made me leave but rather an error in judgment.”

I drop the knife I’m using to cut the tomatoes and approach her. I’m not easily surprised. “You misjudged me?”

“You introduced yourself as Xander Megalos. That morning, when I called you Xander to your maid, she corrected me, saying that you went by Lykaios. I had heard your name many times in one of the foster homes I lived in. I went through several, as I told you, but in one in particular, there was a little girl. She was quadriplegic after a serious car accident. Her name was Pauline Lambert.”

Ice spreads across my chest. I know who she’s talking about. How could I forget?

Tears run down her cheeks, and I want to comfort her, but I don’t know if that’s what she wants.

“Her mother, Ernestine, painted you as the devil himself. The man responsible for the accident was drugged . . .”

“What?”

“Let me finish, please. She repeated every day that, because of you, my best friend, my only friend at that time, couldn’t walk or sit up, among other horrible things that I don’t want to remember. At the time, I had recently lost my mother. It was already the third temporary home I’d stayed in, and Pauline and I built a very strong bond. I ran laps without wanting to, stayed in the rain for a little while, and jumped on one foot just because she couldn’t do any of that. It was for her that I became a model. That was her dream, the last request she made when I left her house. Remember the day we met?”

“You were taking pictures.”

“Yes, with a little doll in my hand, symbolizing her. I loved her with all my heart. In return, I hated you, the man who hurt my friend. But even when I found out your real name, I didn’ t want to believe it, so I went to Ernestine’s house. She repeated the whole story she had told me when Pauline died.”

“She died?”

“Yes, at a very young age. Right after Macy adopted me.”

I run my hands over my face.

Holy crap. I would never have imagined such a thing.

I walk to the stove to turn it off. “If you’re here with me, I assume you already know the whole truth.”

“I know, and that’s why I made a decision, . When we first got together and I found out who you were, I thought fate was mocking me. Now, I think differently. I believe we met because that’s how it’s supposed to be. I’m not asking for anything because I’m not completely free yet, but I’m not leaving this time. If this thing between us ends, you’ll be the one having to say goodbye to me.”