Yet, if we’re honest, there are contradictions in science too. Take the moon, for example. Using uranium-lead dating, geologists dated fragments of the moon and determined it was 4.51 billion years old. But if you calculate the rate at which it is moving away from the earth and then reverse it, the moon would have been sitting on top of the earth only 1.55 billion years ago. A direct contradiction to the big bang cosmology.

So there were contradictions in life everywhere. Even in my beloved world of academia. I just hadn’t wanted to admit it. I wanted it to be safe from that. Yet, you can’t hide from life. It was messy and convoluted and emotional, and I was done cowering behind excuses.

Which was why I cycled to work the day after I confronted Rhys about Marcy with a dreamy expression on my face but an ache of guilt in my chest.

Since then Rhys and I did more than just have hot sex. Sometimes he made love to me. I knew it, lying beneath him as he gazed into my eyes and moved inside me. It was magical and stunning and stole my breath. So, of course, every time I thought about those moments, I couldn’t help my goofy goddamn grin.

However, I’d also every now and then get an image of the hurt on his face when I told him we were from different worlds. My guilt was real. I shouldn’t have had an entire conversation in my head about our relationship without him out of fear, and I’d spent the last few weeks since that night trying to show him that I wasn’t afraid to throw myself into this relationship.

As Rhys’s training intensified, there wasn’t a lot of time to revel in our newfound certainty in each other this past week, but I was there to show support—like I did when he so cleverly made his proposal to developer Kyle Garret—and to help with any last-minute details for the charity event.

Which was now upon us.

Tomorrow was the big fight, and I had prehistoric-sized butterflies in my belly about it.

Rhys had been avoiding Fairchild for the last few weeks and so far, the billionaire had not made any moves toward killing my career. There had been some coverage about him in the news lately that he was under possible investigation for tax evasion. Rumor had it, there was more to it than just that. The word “fraud” was being tossed around. My hope was that Fairchild would stay too preoccupied by his troubles to bother us.

However, I was still sick with worry about it and attempted to hide that concern from Rhys. He had enough on his plate. Somehow, he knew anyway, assuring me every now and then that me losing my job was the last thing he’d allow to happen.