Willow looked at her, considering if she was right. He remembered her last show, the way she’d stood hugging her fans and talking to them for hours, even though she found it uncomfortable. “I don’t know why you think that, but you’re wrong. Now, come back and let me hug you.”

She pulled away further. “You want me to be honest again?”

He did, but not if it meant their relationship had to end. In that case, he’d take bullshit all day. He forced a smile. “Lay it on me.”

“I don’t know if I can love anyone.”

Willow’s heart skipped like a bad file. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t think I really love anyone. Like, I don’t wish other people well. I don’t care about making them happy. I only care about music. Sometimes I think I’d be happier living in a cave with my keyboard.”

“What about your friends? You don’t think you care about them?”

“Maybe, but they give me things, drinks, praise, entertainment. They’re all transactional relationships. I don’t think love is possible.”

Willow rubbed a thumb over his lower lip. It might have hurt to hear Eden say that, but only if you believed she meant it. Looking at her red face and defensive body language, he called bullshit. “You think love is possible.”

“How do you know?”

Another open-ended question. He sensed that what she really wanted was to be told the opposite—you are nice, you are loved, you are capable of love. And boy had she come to the right man for that. Willow opened his arms wide. “We can talk about this if you get back in here.”

She flinched. “Willow…”

“You want to. You wanna get hugged. And I want to as well. So come and get it.”

She sucked her lower lip into her mouth then scrambled onto his lap like she was clambering across a ravine. Willow held her close, pressing his face into her hair. “You know what I think?”

“What?”

“You’re trying to talk yourself into believing you’re a bad person.”

Eden pulled back, staring down at her chest. It was a testament to how serious the situation was that Willow barely looked at her tits. “Baby, whatever’s on your mind, you can tell me.”

“Why can’t you tell me?” she shot back. “Why do I have to be the vulnerable one?”

“Okay.” He scanned his memories. “You wanna know something about me?”

“Yes.”

“When I was a kid, everyone at school used to stare at my dad because he was in a wheelchair.”

The defiant look went out of Eden’s eyes. She took his hand. “You don’t have to do this.”