She pulled in a breath that heaved her chest, and then she breathed fire. “You really don’t feel anything, do you? He said you were cold and heartless, but I didn’t really believe it until just now. You don’t care about anything but yourself, do you? You’re a robot, just like he said. And a terrible lay. That,” she said, hatefully looking down my body, “I believed.”

“Takes one to know one,” I answered, forcing a smile. “It’s almost time for your cake.”

She glared, shoulders square, blocking my path.

“If you don’t let me go, we won’t be able to start,” I reasoned with a single desire—to get as far away from her as I could.

“Stay away from him,” she said through her teeth.

“My pleasure.”

I clipped away on shaky legs, making my way through the crowd and backstage. The crew didn’t need anything from me but a point to my watch, and in seconds, the music stopped so the DJ could announce her birthday. The cake would roll onto the dance floor, one of Katy Perry’s dancers would pop out, “Happy Birthday” would be sung, and the balloons would drop.

On autopilot, I watched the cake come out, finding my intern up on the catwalk with a crew member holding the rope to the balloons. The happenings went on around me, and I observed with clinical detachment, my mind somehow both present and a thousand miles away.

You really don’t feel anything, do you?

How I wished she were right. The sting of her salt burned to my bones. But it wasn’t just the words she’d spoken. It was the truth in them. Maybe this was all my fault. Maybe I’d pushed him away, or maybe I’d been too bold. Maybe I was cold. Heartless. Unlovable and unable to love.

Maybe it had been me all along.

I felt Kash near with a gathering of my senses, of my nerves, as if they were reaching for him. When I turned, I found worry written all over him—in the line between his brows, in the flattening of his lips, in the draw of his shoulders and the tightness of his fists at his sides.

And I cracked under the pressure, the scaffolding crumbling just because he was here, and he was safe, and he was strong enough to carry my burden with me.

He said nothing, just wrapped me up in his arms, slipped a hand into my hair to cup my head, holding me to his chest like a precious thing. And I breathed him in, the scent of earth and soap and musk.

They started singing when he leaned back to inspect my face as if for wounds. “Who do I need to kill?”

My laughter surprised me. “They’re not worth a felony.”

A flicker of a smile. “Tell me.”

“Brock caught me upstairs.”

Kash tensed.