That script had been running underneath so many events in his life, guiding him like a director he hadn’t hired in a movie he didn’t want to be in. He’d run from Kincaid the first time when she’d sent him away because of that script, and it’d been a mistake. She’d been angry and heartbroken back then, not because they’d slept together but because he hadn’t stayed to work it out, to fight for their friendship. In Mexico, he’d realized he was doing it again. He was leaving before he got left. The coward’s way. The you’re-not-good-enough-so-why-bother way.

Fuck. That. Those were the two words that started screaming in his head and building this inner fire that he didn’t want to put out.

Kincaid deserved a guy who would fight for her, who wouldn’t run scared to protect his own heart. That was what Grace had been trying to tell him. Kincaid had been left so many times and in so many ways by the important people in her life that she now expected it. She had a theory that would get proven again. Ash would just be another person she was too much for. Another person who could easily be pushed away and not fight for her.

He’d always known she was the one for him.

The problem was he’d never truly believed that he was the one for her.

Not until she’d looked at him on the dance floor that night at the restaurant had he seen the truth. She didn’t see him as a second choice. As someone to settle for. The feelings he felt for her had been shining in her own eyes. Yearning. Attraction. Love.

More than friendship. More than history. He was the one she’d been looking for. He was the one who could give her the kind of love she deserved. And she wanted to give that kind of love back to him.

She was looking at him that way now, and he knew that finally, finally, he’d won the fight. Not with her. Not with Graham. Not with the shooters. But with himself.

He could be happy. He could be loved. He could spend his life with this amazing, smart, beautiful woman and not run anymore.

He could come home.

“Ash, please.” Kincaid gasped as he kissed his way down her neck and nipped at her collarbone. Her skin was salty sweet beneath his mouth, her heartbeat visible at her throat. She grappled for his hair as though she wanted to both keep him there and push him lower. “I need you.”

He would never get enough of hearing her breathless sounds, his name on her lips. He didn’t want to wake up another morning without her there next to him. “I need you right back, baby,” he said between kisses. “Do you still have the key for upstairs?”

She let out a sound of frustration. “No.”

Ash stared down at her parted lips, the wanting in her gaze, as fire raced through his blood. He wanted this woman in so many ways. To love her. To make her happy. And to have her like this, hot and needy and looking for him to make it better.