The fact that he wasn’t bolting out the door suggested that this might turn out to be a good morning after all. But I wanted to know for sure. “You look pensive.”

“I’ve been lying here thinking about the way I’ve treated you.” He frowned. “I don’t like guilt, Lexie. I try to avoid it.”

His perturbed countenance made me snort. “You have your moments.”

“I’ve made you work your ass off.”

“True.”

His eyes grew black. “I put you in a shit position with Phoebe.”

“Also true.”

“I was insulting because I didn’t want to admit I was attracted to you.”

Wow. Okay. I had not expected him to freely admit that. The fact that he could apologize caused the warm, mushy feeling in my chest to expand. “And now?” I held my breath, waiting in hope for a positive answer.

Caine’s eyes dipped to follow his fingers as they whispered across my collarbone and down over the rise of my breasts. I shivered under his touch and he looked up at my face. “I held who your family is against you when I shouldn’t have. You can’t help where you come from. Just like I can’t.”

I stared up at him, relieved he’d finally realized the truth in that.

His lips curled at the corners in this sexy smirk. “You know you’re the only one who dares to yell at me. I’m not sure I like it.”

I assessed him and the amused arousal in his expression. I grinned. “I don’t think you hate it.”

Instead of smiling at my retort, Caine grew suddenly serious. “You were right last night, you know. You deserve better. That’s why … I have something I need to tell you.”

My stomach dropped. “You do?”

“I don’t want to hurt you, but you need to know the truth about your father and grandfather.”

The look in his eyes told me I did not want to know whatever it was he had to tell me. “Caine …,” I whispered.

“Edward was the one who paid off my dad. Not Alistair. Your grandfather gave my dad the blood money to keep my mom’s death and your dad’s involvement in it quiet.”

I felt like the bed had disappeared beneath me and I’d just smacked into the floor. Hard. I stared at Caine as I attempted to process what he’d just told me.

My grandfather, the one person I thought I could rely on, was a part of the ugly family history. He’d tried to cover up my father’s sins? Why? It wasn’t for my dad obviously, because he’d gone on to disinherit him. It was to protect the Holland name. To protect their place in society. I felt sick.

If Grandpa was capable of that…. then what kind of man was he really?

Memories of his soft words, his tenderness flooded me. The man I knew was so at odds with the man Caine was telling me he was. And if Grandpa was the one who’d paid Eric off, then that meant my father wasn’t as terrible as I thought. He was still terrible … but he wasn’t the only catalyst for Eric’s suicide.

Oh my God.

“Are you sure? How do you know?”

Caine’s eyes were hard. “Because I was there when he did it.”

“Oh my God.” My chest ached so badly.

“Lexie?”

I looked up into Caine’s troubled gaze and realized something. Caine had just told me the last thing I wanted to hear … If it had been anyone else, if they had kept this from me and then blurted it out in a moment when I was vulnerable, I might have held it against them. But not Caine. In fact, my concern was not only for myself but for him too, and that was when I realized that what I felt for him was real. “You must hate them so much.”

“Hate is giving them too much power.”

In that moment his strength washed over me, and the hurt, the pain I was feeling at his revelation was diminished a little by the fact that he was here with me, and the look in his eyes was tender. “You’re the one real thing in my life right now,” I said upon the sudden realization. “You should know I don’t want to let that go.”

He brushed the tips of his fingers across my cheek and said, “I’m not the guy you’re looking for, Lexie. I’m never going to be that guy.”

That hope I was feeling unhooked itself from my chest and plummeted into my stomach, causing a flurry of nervous ripples in it. “What are you saying?”

Regret clouded his gaze. “You’re looking for something special even if you won’t admit it. And me? I can’t compromise, I can’t change, and I can’t do forever. It’s just not in me.” He caressed my arm with his knuckles and there was the heated purr of a growl in the back of his throat as he continued. “But I don’t want this to end just yet either. We like each other. We want each other.”

I looked up at him, surprised. I’d thought we were about to discuss my departure from his life, not—

“And the sex is …” He grinned wickedly. “I don’t know about you, but I’d really like to explore that some more.”

My body tingled just at the thought of it, but I didn’t know how to respond. I already knew I was emotionally invested in Caine. Sex wouldn’t be enough for me. Would it?

“I’m selfish enough to ask for more time with you, Alexa. We could enjoy this together for however long it’s good, and then we would walk away when it was time to end it—no harm, no foul.”

Looking up into his handsome face, I wondered how on earth I was supposed to respond to such a suggestion. As Caine looked at me I caught the warmth in his gaze while he waited for my answer. He’d never looked at me that way before. There was something in that look. Something … more.