When she opened up, she expected a smile at her appearance. Or some smartass remark.

Instead, Diego met her gaze. “What happened to us?” he asked quietly.

The sentence shocked her and gave her heart an odd kick. “Um…we got naked to some hopefully mutual satisfaction. The end.”

“Definitely mutual satisfaction,” he said without a smile. “But I’m not talking about last night, and you know that.”

She drew in a deep breath. “Then that’s a far more difficult question than I’m equipped to handle right now.”

“You going to let me in?”

She moved aside. When he caught sight of the open container of ice cream, the corners of his mouth twitched. “Rocky road?”

His favorite, too. Daisy gestured to it, and he made himself at home on the couch, patting the spot next to him.

She hesitated. Not because she didn’t want Diego. She did. She wanted him badly. But she also knew what a terrible idea it would be to give in to temptation again. She could fall for him, hard.

Hell, she already had. A decade ago, and nothing had changed. But she could at least try to avoid getting hurt again.

He cocked his head. “Problem?”

“I’m trying to decide if I can trust myself to sit next to you.”

He nodded as if he understood. “Which way are you leaning?”

“Towards running for the hills.”

An almost-smile appeared. “I won’t bite. Unless you ask real nice.”

“It’s not you I’m worried about,” she muttered, making him laugh.

Ignoring the way the sound scraped at her good spots, she sat, making sure not to touch him. Because if she did, she knew herself. Once she felt the heat and strength of him, her brain would shut off, and her body would take over. But that wasn’t going to happen tonight. Or any night. It couldn’t, or she’d fall hard for him again and not be able to get up.

She expected him to devour the ice cream like in the old days. Back then, date night had sometimes been watching TV and eating ice cream on the couch—and then ignoring the TV and ice cream…

Diego turned to face her. She could feel the weight of his gaze, and she held her breath. Don’t ask me again…

“What happened to us? What went wrong?”

Damn. She sighed. “Diego, you know.”

“What I know is that you went to New York for that scholarship when you could have stayed and accepted your other offer right here in San Francisco.”

Daisy did her best to temper herself. He knew she’d grown up rough, always needing to have her own back. Leaving had been her one chance to get out of the gutter, and yeah, she’d taken it. But…she’d also regretted it.

With twenty-twenty hindsight being what it was, she now knew that she’d taken that offer rather than let her biggest fear come true—that she’d never make anything of herself. That she’d end up just like her mom, living off welfare and just barely getting by. “The San Francisco offer didn’t come with a full ride. I couldn’t afford that option.”