Then he leaned over and kissed my cheek. Not my lips, not my neck, not any part of me where he wouldn’t have kissed his great-aunt Emily. And all that old self-doubt, all that insufficiency, started creeping in.

Parker had said he would never move on from Greer, and I should have believed him. He obviously hadn’t. Worse still, I could tell myself whatever I wanted to, but I hadn’t moved in with Harris because of Parker. I mean, sure, yes, I’d wanted to leave myself open to the possibility of love, but, come on. I had wanted to leave myself open to the possibility of Parker.

As he put his hand on the doorknob, I thought that I’d made a mistake. Maybe he just didn’t see me in that way. Maybe the kiss was a fluke. Well, this was humiliating. It was defeating. But I still had manners. “Parker,” I said. I was going to thank him for dinner, for making my night out so nice. He turned back to me and, before I could say, Thank you, before I could even think about it, his lips were on mine. I can’t say whether I kissed him or he kissed me, but I think it was more like a magnetic pull took over and we were together, the way we were meant to be.

His hands were in my hair, and our clothes were in a scattered trail from the front door to my bedroom. And I realized that I hadn’t stopped smiling for a single moment. Not one. The thoughts would flood in later, the concerns, the questions. But, for now, having Parker Thaysden as close to me as a man had ever been felt like coming home.

It must have been four a.m. that I woke up in a panic. And then I realized that the hand on me was Parker’s. And he was shirtless and beautiful in my bed. I kissed his chest, which was in close proximity to my face, savoring the manly smell of it and the real, unwaxed chest hair. I kissed his neck as I buried my head in, and then I sat straight up, realizing what the panic was for. I loved him. I was in love with Parker Thaysden. It wasn’t a fling or a crush or a one-night stand or, arguably, the best sex I had ever had. This was real. And I realized that my fear wasn’t the fear that I’d get attached and he’d leave me like with Thad or even Mason. No, I was afraid because I loved him so much I couldn’t bear to be without him—and he was never going to love me as much as he loved her. He was never going to be able to give his heart to me like I had given my heart to him. And I hadn’t even known I was doing it.

“Lia?” he asked sleepily. Now he sat up, too, rubbing his eyes. Then he kissed me and was smiling, and he looked so happy that I thought I should just let it go, play it as it came. But it was only delaying the inevitable. If I thought I loved him now, imagine after six months of dates and memories and future plans. But I think, ultimately, it was the way my heart was beating out of my chest in panic that made me say, “I can’t do this, Parker. I just can’t. I can’t be in her shadow. I can’t be second best.”