I gripped the railing, leaning into the wind. “You get to choose which way this plays out. We either talk, or we don’t. We can keep the physical and leave the rest behind.” That’s what I should’ve wanted. To get the high of sex with Crosby without the complication of him knowing things that I didn’t want to divulge. But, somehow, the idea made me incredibly sad.

Crosby’s eyes flared with a heat that seemed to make them almost glow. “Poking at you is too fun to let it go. You’re the most fascinating woman I’ve met in a long time. Maybe ever.” He sighed, rubbing at the scruff along his jaw. “It was my ex-fiancée.”

My body gave a swift jolt. Crosby had been engaged. It didn’t match up with the man I’d thought him to be. He was too reckless, never thought about the future, lived only in the moment. But I’d realized over the past couple of days that what I truly knew about Crosby would fit in my pinky finger. “Do you know why she’s calling?”

Crosby returned his gaze to the ocean. “My closest friend, the one she cheated on me with, dumped her. She expects me to come crawling back.”

I let out a low whistle. “Do you want her back?”

“I’d rather take a header off the back of this boat and aim for the propellers.”

Now there was a hint of the Crosby I knew. “She’s not taking ‘no’ too well?”

“I don’t think she’s ever heard the word before.”

My mouth curved. “Maybe we should set her and Grant up, they seem to have that in common.”

Crosby turned towards me. “He cheated on you?”

“He did.” Once word got around that Grant and I were done, the lovely Lacey Hotchkiss had shared that they’d been sleeping together off and on since the ninth grade. I knew there were others, but the fact that he’d been intimate with someone who had been so cruel to me had almost been more than I could take. But things only got worse from there. “I can’t really bring myself to care about the cheating. But he was my first love—what I thought was love, anyway. Those relationships always carry their own special brand of scars.” Mine were just deeper and uglier than most.

“I guess Alicia was my first love. We met while I was in law school at some charity gala. That should’ve been my first clue to run for the hills. But she was beautiful, charming, fragile. I liked being the one she leaned on. But I never had enough of what she needed.”

“And what was that?”