I know it’s a fair question but the way he asks it stings. My voice spikes. “I wasn’t hiding anything.” I push a stray curl out of my face, but it falls right back. “I just...I wanted to forget all that stuff.”

I wrap my arms around myself, the room suddenly too cold to bear. I can feel the tears wanting to fall again.

To my surprise, Nate eases a hand over my leg. I expect his touch to be harsh and distant, the way his words feel, and I almost recoil in anticipation of our skin coming into contact, but his fingers are warm and so is the look in his eyes. “Hey, don’t worry about it,” he says, and there’s a gentleness in his expression that I don’t think I’ve ever seen before. “I get it.”

I meet his gaze and hold it. “You do?”

“Yeah. This is nothing compared to the shit people at Regency Prep got off for.” He laughs, and a torrent of relief washes over me. “Especially Taylor and her friends. They broke whatever laws they wanted and not because they had to. Because they could.”

He says that, and I instantly want to know what kind of things he’s talking about. What has Taylor done? Is he talking about the two friends who were in that room with her at the party? But I don’t ask. The moment doesn’t feel right.

A section of my hair slips loose again, and this time, when I go to swipe it back in place, Nate reaches over and does it for me. His hand lingers, rounding my ear then easing along my jaw to cup my chin. “Look, it’s just one job. There’ll be other opportunities. Forget about Taylor, all right? You don’t need her or her father or any of those fake-ass people.”

That makes me smile, but it’s grim.

I’m so grateful for Nate’s softness in this moment that I don’t recognize the anger at first—bubbling at the surface, fighting its way through. That bitch got me fired.

The feel of Nate’s lips on mine, soft and warm, snaps me back into the present. I kiss him back, and when he speaks, his voice is low and quiet against my skin. “Yo...I love you.”

The words shock me into stillness.

They’re just words, but they mean so much in this moment. More than I ever thought they would. Or could.

Nate’s staring at me, but I feel totally and completely speechless. I want to say something, but there is some synaptic glitch between my brain and my mouth, and I can’t get the words out.

Nate strokes his thumb over the curve of my lip and my breath shudders. “I do. For real. I love you. You know that, right?”