She looked so heartbroken, standing there, completely vulnerable to him. She'd given her whole self to him and he'd...taken.

Approaching her, he swallowed, fisting his hands at his sides so he wouldn't reach for her. He needed to hold her, love the hurt right out of her. But he knew he couldn't do that.

He looked down at his bare feet. "She didn't run. She got a front-row seat to my fuckfest of a life, and she didn't run. She didn't think anything of it because her family's just as messed up." But a truth struck him, so he could look her in the eye. "I didn't let her in. Yeah, she knows about my shit, but she's not...she and I..."

"What? Just say it. Why can't you just say it? It's not like you can hurt me any worse than you already have." She turned, and he didn't know if she'd given up on him. But then he heard the shower cut off and she returned with a towel around her. "You lied to me."

"I've never lied to you."

"Bullshit. Reverse the situation. Imagine you're just finding out about Jonathan right now. How would you feel, after spending these last three days together, holding me in your arms and hearing me say, My boyfriend'll be waiting for me at my dad's house? Can you even imagine what that would feel like?"

He sure as hell could. The rage-the betrayal-shook him to his core, and it hadn't even happened to him. "I wouldn't be standing here right now." She was so much stronger than he.

"I feel like every moment I thought was so special was just you getting off. Maybe I'm just more convenient, being right across the hall. You have to walk into town to hook up with Brittany or any of the others in your harem."

"Jesus, Nicole, you know that's not true. I don't care about those girls." Okay, he had to just get it out because nothing would make him look more like an ass than what she already thought of him. "I don't know what to say. I...you're nothing like Kelsi. We are nothing like...you have to know how I feel about you."

Her features collapsed in total disappointment. She brushed past him, giving him a whiff of that fragrance that narrowed his world to them, together, under the covers, naked bodies entwined.

Normally, she took her time slathering on her scented body lotion. This time she rubbed it quickly into her skin, threw on her clothes, and focused on packing up her toiletries.

The first three hours of the ride to the airport, he'd driven so Nicole could sleep. The next two and a half hours she'd driven. As the car slowed in the clot of traffic narrowing to the departure terminals, she edged nearer to the curb.

He motioned ahead. "Go all the way to the end."

"But your airline-"

"Go."

Not a chance would he leave without setting her straight. He'd had time to get his thoughts in order.

He never freaked out-he couldn't afford to. No matter the situation, he had a clear head so he could handle crises. But the fear of losing Nicole? It had loosened a screw. He'd lost his balance. But he was back on solid ground now.

She pulled over at the very end of the terminal, well ahead of the cars dropping off passengers. They sat quietly for a moment. She looked straight ahead, tapping her fingers on the wheel.

Okay, enough of this shit. He shifted his seat back as far as it could go, then lifted her onto his lap.

"No." She struggled, pushing him away. "Stop it."

He situated her in his lap and threw an arm over her thighs to keep her in place. "I didn't mention Kelsi because when I left her in August I was done. Completely done. Not because she'd done anything wrong, but because I wanted to get out of there and start a new life. As far as my feelings for her? I felt... grateful."

Her expression turned angry, like she didn't believe him. Well, he was sorry if it made him sound like a piece of shit, but it was true.

"I've lost a lot of relationships because of my mom-I don't speak to anyone in my family, and whatever friendships I might've started in school ended the moment my mom pulled one of her stunts. And believe me, in my small town, everyone knows what my mom does." Her name could be counted on to show up in the Police Report section of the local paper several times a year. "But Kels didn't care about any of it. She was always there for me."

He tipped her chin, wishing he could take the pain he'd caused away. "What we have? You and me? It's on a whole different level. I know you think I've slept with a dozen girls since I got here, and I guess I can see where you'd get that idea, but I haven't. I've only been with you."

"You wouldn't have stayed with a girl for two years if you only felt grateful to her."

This was what he loved about her. She was real. "You're right. In the beginning I did have feelings for her. But, still, not the way you think. It was never what we have. Look, Nicole, I fucking hated my life. I worked my ass off so I could get out of there. And Kelsi? She's everything I hated about my life. Her ties to my mom, her attitude, her lifestyle-she represents everything I couldn't wait to get away from. Did I care about her? Sure I did. I was grateful to her for helping me manage my mom."

"Then don't try to pretend you had no feelings for her so you can get back in my good graces."

"Well, I don't know how to get back in your good graces. There's no fucking way I can explain to a girl like you what my fucking life is like. You won't understand that Kelsi and I weren't exclusive." He hated to say it. Hated her expression. "We partied, Nicole. We got wasted. She wound up with other guys, and I wound up with other girls. But we had each other. I was overworked and overstressed, and she was there and more than willing, and that's the relationship we fell into with each other. So, when I left, I was ready to go. And, no, I don't think about her. I don't want to think about her."

"But you're going to see her."

"Yes, I am. She's part of my group of friends. Just like Jonathan is for you."

"And you're going to get wasted, and she's going to be there."

"Yes, that's right. But I'm not going to touch her. I don't want her."

"You say that now, but people do things when they're wasted." She gave him a look that said, Believe me, I know. "It's only been three months, Dylan. You're going right back into that world."

She said world like it was a used syringe she'd found on the street. Her disgust lit the fuse inside, and a flash fire of shame burned through him. "I told you that you weren't going to like me. I told you not to get involved with me." He lifted her and dumped her back in her seat. "I knew this wouldn't work." He was such an asshole. He'd known from the beginning not to get involved with Wilmington girls. He'd been right to focus on the girls from town.

Fuck him for letting this one in. He shouldered open the door and slammed it shut. Opening the trunk, he pulled out his duffle. He'd already filled her gas tank, so at least he didn't have to burden her with that expense.

He threw the bag over his shoulder and strode into the terminal, never looking back to see her leave.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

Landed. Let me know you got home.

Nicole looked up from reading Dylan's text to find her dad and Gina watching her.

"Mr. Hot Sexy Pants?" Gina's chair scraped back on the hardwood floor. She gathered the lunch plates from the table and carried them into the kitchen.

"And that's my cue to head back to my office for a few hours." Her big, burly dad got up and ducked out of the room.

"It's not like she's flipping out or anything," Gina called after him. "Jeez, you'd think you were a drama queen the way the O'Donnell men scatter when you have a problem."

"Is that normal? I mean, if I'd had a mom or sisters, it might not be so bad, but they don't talk to me about anything."

"When I become the Man Guru, I'll get back to you on that." Gina set the dishes on the counter next to the sink, just as Inna instructed. Their housekeeper hated when people stacked plates and cups inside-said it made her job harder and broke things. "In the meantime..." She nodded toward the cell phone in Nicole's hand. "You gonna answer him?"

She supposed she would. I'm home.

"What'd you tell him?" her friend asked.

"Just that I'm home."

"So...you're not going to ask him if he broke up with you?"

"Not ready to hear it."

"Yank the Band-Aid, pull the trigger. Just get 'er done. You know it's killing you not to know." Gina leaned back against the counter, arms folded across her stomach.

Honestly, Nicole was devastated. To go from the kind of intense intimacy they'd shared to losing him-just like that-it left her reeling. She couldn't get over the way he'd dumped her into the driver's seat and walked away from her. "I don't know what to do."

"Of course you do. You talk to him."

"No, I know that. But I mean I don't know what I want."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning, even if he didn't break up with me, I'm not sure I want to be with him. I can't give my whole heart to someone who can't give me more than a tiny slice of his."

Her phone buzzed. His name filled the screen.

"Him again?" Gina asked.

Sorry. "He says he's sorry."

"That's it?"

"He's a man of few words."

She shook her head. "You're being ridiculous. You've known him five minutes. Trust takes time to build. Give him a break."

"I think he gave himself one."

"Nicole, sweetie. We are women of action. What do you want?"

She wanted to get back into bed with him, feel the heat of his hard, muscled body, feel those strong arms tighten around her. He made her feel loved, cherished, wanted. "I don't know. Everything was so perfect and then..."

Gina pushed off the counter. Reaching into the waistband of her black leggings, she pulled out her phone. "Perfect, huh? Memory is such a fluid thing, isn't it? Let's find us some perfect." She scrolled down. "Okay." Her friend read from the screen. "He brought home three hos tonight. WTF?"

Nicole remembered the night she'd written that one. He'd visited her in the Sculpture Gardens that afternoon. She'd thought it had meant something, that he'd take time out of his day to be with her. He'd even shared a cookie he'd picked up at the Trough. But then he'd come home that night with three townie girls, flaunting them in her face. Well, flaunting. He didn't actually flaunt. It had just felt like it.

Gina continued reading. "Having great talk, then his phone rings, and he just leaves me. Who the hell is he talking to all the time?"

"Okay, I get it. Not perfect." But the last three days sure had been.

Her friend's gaze was still fixed to the screen. "I literally know nothing about him other than what I see with my own eyes."

"Stop. I get it."

Gina started out of the kitchen. "Come on, I have to do my nails before we go out tonight." She led the way to Nicole's bedroom, shut the door, peeled off her oversize sweater, and flopped onto the bed. "I want something dark and ugly. What do you have?"

"Get it yourself. I'm having a crisis here."

"It's not a crisis. Crisis is what you lived through with your mom and fuckface. This one's your own doing because you won't talk to him."

The last two and a half years with Jonathan had been traumatic. She'd tried to save him, tried to get him to choose her over booze. She'd been with him for three and a half years-a lot longer than Dylan and Kelsi-but she'd never mistakenly refer to him as her boyfriend.

Gina got up, pulled off her long sleeve T-shirt and rolled the manicure table closer to the bed. Her friend grabbed a hideous shade of puke green. "This one's disgusting." She held it between two fingers like it was a dead mouse.

"Thank you. You bought it for the prom I never went to."

She smiled, her eyebrow piercing catching the overhead light. "I did." Struggling to open it, she scowled. "Hey, it's never been opened."

The door flew open. "Yo." Brandon leaned into her room, and then froze when his gaze landed on Gina. His jaw hung open. "Fuckin' put some clothes on, Gina. Jesus."

"Bite me." She didn't even look at him as she carefully applied polish to her pinkie toe. "We're in triage over here, if you care even a little bit about your sister. Besides, the door was closed, dickhead."

Nicole watched her brother's expression carefully-he wavered between pissed off and lustful. "You should knock first." And then she turned to Gina. "And I don't know why you need to be half-naked to do your nails."

"I can't do it when I'm all constricted. It's art."

Brandon tore his eyes reluctantly off the bountiful curves nearly bursting out of her friend's skintight cami. "Dad wants you to go to the store. We need snacks."

In a flurry of motion, Gina screwed the cap of the bottle back on before lobbing it at him.

Luckily, Yale's starting quarterback caught it. "What the hell's your problem?"

She got off the bed, big boobs bouncing, hips strutting. "Bill didn't ask you to come in here and tell Nicole to go to the store. He asked you to go, but you're too self-involved to do it."

Her brother smiled. "She likes shopping for food."

Nicole's phone rang. Her heart flew up into her throat. Of course, it could be James. It could be anyone. But she wanted it to be Dylan. She unearthed it from the bedding.

When she saw his name light up her screen, anxiety stabbed into her nerves. "Hello?"

"Hey. We're still sitting on the plane."

That was it? That was all he had to say? "Okay. Got plans with Kelsi tonight?"

He sighed. "Yes."

"Cool. Have a great week." Her thumb stabbed the off button, and she tossed her phone aside. She felt too hot, her clothes too tight. Her stomach hurt, and she had a hard time taking in a full breath. Oh, God, was she having a panic attack? She had to breathe. Nothing was wrong. This wasn't trauma. Just because the man she'd given her body and soul to was spending Thanksgiving in the arms of his ex-girlfriend didn't mean her world was falling apart.

When she looked up, she found Gina and her brother watching her. "I'm fine. I overreacted." And then she closed her eyes and tilted her head back. "God, I'm such an idiot." He'd warned her against getting involved with him. Why hadn't she listened?

"What happened, sweetie?" Gina sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing her arm.

"Nothing. He's waiting to get off the plane." Her friend turned blurry, viewed as she was through the wall of tears Nicole refused to shed. Because Gina was right. It had never been perfect. Yes, they did great when they shut out the world and clutched each other in the deep of night. But they lived in the real world. And that world involved his mom, his ex, and all the baggage Nicole herself dragged with her. "And his girlfriend's waiting for him to get home."

She looked up through the screen of tears to find Brandon looking at Gina...enraptured. What the hell? She had to blink away the tears to be sure, but he seemed to be looking at Gina with want. And that made no sense. None at all. Her brother was the clean-cut frat boy, the All-State quarterback for three years in high school. And Gina was a pierced, tatted, foul-mouthed...pin-up girl.