My curiosity was eating away at me, and even though I shouldn’t have asked the next question, I did. “Do you think your parents watched the show tonight?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. I know they are still representing child actors and have opened their own acting school. For all I know they’re putting my face on their promotional posters. But I can’t spend all my time looking back and reliving the worst parts of my life.”

I startled at that, my heart rate jumping. It was like he’d seen inside my head. Because all I did was look back and relive the most humiliating part of my life.

He put his arm across the seat behind me. “Do you ever find yourself doing that? Reliving hard times?”

“Recently? A whole lot.”

“Is that what caused . . .” He trailed off, his hand hovering next to my neck, and I could feel the warmth from his skin, even though he didn’t touch me. “And is this why you don’t date?”

“My scars? No. I usually only feel a little self-conscious about them when somebody stares and makes comments. Usually I forget because it’s just a part of me now and they’re not that bad.” It was one of the things I liked about Noah, that he didn’t stare or say rude things.

“Can I ask what happened?”

“I was in an accident just after I graduated from high school. I got rear-ended by a drunk driver and glass from the windshield got embedded in my neck. The settlement from his insurance company paid for college, and I saved the rest. Which I’m using to live on now, because somehow I thought I’d start a business and people would just call me. I had no idea how hard it would be to get it off the ground.”

“Sounds like you could have used a four-hundred-and-forty-euro tip.”

“Ha-ha,” I said, nudging him slightly with my hand.

Then he looked at me. The way that Malec had looked at Aliana after their first bout of hand-to-hand combat.

And I knew what that meant.

He wanted to kiss me.

Again I felt like I’d been lured. Only this time it was into a sense of complacency. Him sharing things, trusting me, telling me these stories about himself—it made me forget myself and my own fears. At his expression, they came rushing back.

As my heartbeat pounded out a panicky rhythm, I realized just how close we were on this seat. As if my body had been subtly making its way over toward him, like he was a giant magnet that I was helpless to resist.

So I started inching my way toward the door, wanting to put some space between us. Because he was too much and it felt a little like my throat was starting to close in on itself.

“Why are you afraid of me?” he asked.