“It was a great job. I loved it, and I was good at it.”

“Tell me what happened,” Eli pleaded.

“I got a promotion, but some of my colleagues didn’t think I deserved it. They decided I must have earned it on my back.” She tried to smile but felt her lips twist bitterly. “No one believed I’d earned it on my own merit. I was too young, too inexperienced, and the editor had made no secret of his interest in me.”

Eli’s jaw ticked, but otherwise, he didn’t move.

“It didn’t matter that I’d never slept with him or led him to expect anything from me. No one wanted to work with me anymore. They whispered about me behind my back, and it became unbearable.”

“I’m sorry you went through that,” he said. “But you survived. What does it matter to us now?”

“I haven’t finished,” she told him. “The worst of it was that the editor actually thought I would sleep with him. He said—” She choked on her words, tears of shame rising at the memory. “He said,” she continued gamely, “since everyone already believed it, I might as well make it true.”

“That bastard,” Eli swore, looking for all the world like he wanted to tear someone’s head off. “I’ll—”

“You’ll do nothing,” Aria interrupted. “It’s in the past. I’ve moved on, but I couldn’t stay in that job with those people. I had to get out of there.”

“So, you went home?”

“Yes. Mum and Dad let me move in, no questions asked. I bought my cottage and eventually took the job at the Chronicle. Do you understand where I’m going with this yet?”

“No.”

Aria breathed deeply, fortifying herself. “I know what it’s like to be called a gold-digger and a whore, Eli. I won’t put myself in that position again. I’m not strong enough to handle it. That’s why we can’t be together.”

“I’m sorry about what happened to you,” he said, and somehow, he was at her side again, caressing her cheek with his thumb and swiping a tear from the corner of her eye. “But you can’t believe I would ever let it happen again.”

“You couldn’t stop it,” she countered, shrinking back from him.

He gripped her chin and tilted her face toward his. “If anyone hurt you like that, I swear I would make them pay.” His eyes were dark, intense. Thrilling. “If my parents can’t get over themselves, then good riddance to them.”

The words were reckless, and he couldn’t possibly mean them. If he cast aside his family, he’d inevitably grow to resent her.