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“Right,” he cuts me off, shoving his hands in his jeans.

“I don’t want to leave like this.”

“You don’t want to leave at all,” he utters.

“You’re so sure.”

“Yeah, I fucking am because you’re still here.”

“Because I hate this animosity between us. Can’t we just try to—”

“No.” He shakes his head adamantly. “No. Fuck no. You know why. We started out heart to heart, and we can’t go backward from that.”

“I don’t fit in your world.”

He darts cutting eyes back to me. “What’s wrong? Didn’t like the party?”

“Sure,” I retort dryly. “It was grand.”

“That’s what you expected, right?” His chest bounces. “This is how you see me living?”

“Whatever, Crowne. It’s your life.”

He reels on me. “That’s the opposite of how I live my fucking life, Natalie. I’ve been there, done it all. That’s so far from how I’m living—it’s comical.”

“Seemed pretty comfortable to me,” I snap.

“Easier for you to believe because it makes leaving easier on you. But it’s just another lie you’ll tell yourself.”

I cross my arms. “So, what, are you telling me that party was just for show?”

Within a heartbeat, he’s lifting his phone to his ear and barking a command. “Get them downstairs and cut it in half.”

“What are you doing?” I ask. “What is this?”

The music stops abruptly, the pulse of bass now absent from the walls as mixed protests sound from the partygoers down the hall. Easton takes a step toward me.

“You’ve been making backward comments for the last two days, Natalie. Apparently,thisis how you see me living, even though you spent four days witnessing the opposite back in Seattle. I could tell you all day, every fucking day, that this is not what my life is on the road, but . . .actionsspeak louder, and thoughwordsare supposed to be your kryptonite, mine don’t seem to doshit.”

I gape at him as he draws closer.

“I’ve been bashing myself against you painfully for the last forty-eight hours, fighting like hell to get past your barricade—back toyou.” He slaps his chest. “I’ve given you more than I have most after a lifetime of fucking knowing them. What the hell do I have to fucking do?”

“I don’t understand what you want!”

“Oh, the fuck you don’t, Jesus,” he cups the back of his head in exasperation before pointing toward the door. “Thatis not my fucking life. That’s not my future, either. The truth is really fucking boring. I’m up by 7 a.m. running, and I eat my fucking vegetables. I listen to podcasts or music if I’m not driving. I write, rehearse, play, work out again to exacerbate the energy I never seem to run out of after a show, and it’s lights out after a shower.” He takes another step toward me. “I’ve already lived my rock fantasy bullshit out and had my fill—in my earlyteens. I want no part of it. That’s not my life, Natalie, and it won’t ever fucking be.”

He takes another step forward, forcing me to look up at him.

“You can say it’s our parents’ history keeping this from happening—”

“It is,” I interrupt.

“That’s notallit is,” he fires back vehemently. “I heard you in Seattle. Every word you said, and I took them to heart. So, what isthis? This is my way of getting rid of what doubts I can control because this thing, this thing between us, to me, is worth the fucking effort.” Another step. “Intelligent men don’t let life-changing women pass them by without trying to grasp onto them with both hands. I don’t need endless months to figure out you’re that woman for me. I’m not most men, Natalie. I know exactly what I don’t want, and it’s everything outside of that door. What I do want is standing in front of me, and the idea of letting her walk away from me a second time is fucking eating me alive.”

Unable to swallow, I try and fail to control my breathing as he palms the door on either side of my head. “I haven’t touched another woman or even had the desire to since I was inside you.”

My lips part in shock, while somewhere deep inside, I get confirmation I already knew that to be the truth.

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