“Do you like it more than San Diego?”

His smirk falters a touch.

“Gus told me that’s where you moved from.”

He nods slowly. “I figured it was time to come home.”

“Home?” I repeat lightly. “I thought home was Poughkeepsie. Or was it Albany?”

“Both, actually.” His lips twist in thought. “You remembered.”

“Of course I did. I remember everything, Kyle.” I hear the vulnerability in my voice and I hate it. I clear my throat and attempt to steel my nerve. “Unlike you, I’ve never forgotten.”

“I haven’t forgotten anything,” he says quickly, sharply, piercing me with a look that is somehow both hard and soft. “Not a second of it.”

The air in this meeting room has suddenly turned electric.

So then why the act? I want to ask, but I bench that question for the moment.

“When did you move to San Diego?”

He shifts and settles back in his chair, as if to get comfortable. “Two weeks after I left Wawa.”

With not so much as a call or email or anything to me?

He drums his fingertips over the table’s smooth surface in an unhurried tempo, his gaze never leaving mine.

Waiting for me to ask my next question.

My phone vibrates in my pocket with an incoming call. I ignore it. This exchange between Kyle and me feels so much more important than anything else at the moment. “How is your family doing now?”

He sighs heavily, his eyes drifting to the window behind me. “Fine, I guess. I don’t have much to do with them anymore.”

“Are they out?” I don’t need to elaborate.

Kyle turns his head, as if checking the hall behind us to make sure there aren’t any eavesdroppers hovering by the door. It gives me a sublime view of his profile—of that long, slender nose that used to nuzzle against my neck, of those full, soft pouty lips that spent many nights against mine. Does he still kiss like he used to, I wonder, or has that changed along with the rest of him?

“Yeah. Well, my dad and Ricky are, anyway. They were released a few years ago. Max got into some trouble while inside, so his sentence got extended. He gets out in a few months.” Kyle doesn’t say anything for a long moment, and I assume that’s all the information I’m going to get. But then he offers, “They were living in Albany for a bit, but they decided to move to San Diego. Last I heard, my mom and dad are back together, and Dad and Ricky were working construction. Probably looking for their next scam.”

“You don’t think they’ve learned?”

“Oh, I’m sure they’ve learned. They’ve learned all kinds of things being behind bars for that long. Like, how not to get caught next time,” he mutters sarcastically, his gaze shifting to the table again.

His opinion of his family hasn’t changed much, I note. In all fairness, I’ve never met them, so it may be true.

“Do they know you moved to Lennox?”

He shrugs nonchalantly, but then shakes his head. “I didn’t tell them. Maybe my little brother did. If not . . . I’ll find out when I call my mom at Christmas.”

What must it be like to have such a dysfunctional family? Not that the Calloways are a poster child for family ideals. Dad and I do dinner and drinks on December twenty-third so he can pass along whatever gift Greta chose for me before he jets off to his yacht in the Cayman Islands. I spend Christmas on Martha’s Vineyard, sipping berry cosmos and listening to Elton John’s holiday tracks while Aunt Jackie gets bombed and Mom admires the twenty-foot designer-decorated tree. Though, now that Rhett and Lawan are in America, maybe we’ll break out the ugly Christmas sweater tradition again.

What are Kyle’s Christmases like? Obviously he spends it with this woman he’s seeing. Likely with her family, too. Do they lounge around in matching ugly sweaters and woolen socks, getting drunk on spiced eggnog and playing board games? Do they draw names for Secret Santa and playfully argue over who gets the task of peeling potatoes?

Who even is Kyle anymore?

And why did he come here?

I watch him closely.

It’s a moment before his gaze lifts to meet mine. That perpetual shadow lingers in his eyes, one that I never saw that summer at Wawa. Maybe it has come with his wisdom and pain.

Or maybe it was always there and I only see it now, because of my wisdom and pain.

“Why did you request a transfer to this building?” I ask evenly.

His jaw tenses. I wait several long moments, but he doesn’t answer.

“You knew this was my building, didn’t you?”

He swallows, his gaze averting to his folded hands on the table.

“Gus told me you put in a request to come here. Why?”

Silence.

“I need to understand, Kyle. Otherwise I’m going to have to give Gus details about our history and then he’s going to have to report it to Rikell, and—”

“I needed to see you again,” he blurts out. He looks up at me, nothing but earnestness in his eyes. “I just . . . I wanted to see you again.”

Such a simple admission, and yet my chest swells with elation. “Why? I mean, why now? It’s been thirteen years.”

He sighs and reaches up to rub the back of his neck. “Like I said, Max is getting out in a few months, and from what my little brother told me—”

“Jeremy. That’s his name, right?”

Kyle’s eyes flash to mine, a flicker of surprise in them. “Yeah.”

How easily the minute details about Kyle come back to me, all these years later.

“He still talks to my mom. She told him that Max is coming to California when he gets out. Apparently he was asking all kinds of questions about my job and if I could get him in.” Kyle snorts. “An ex-con working in security. Right. Anyway, that’s when I started thinking that it was time for me to leave California, cut them off completely. I figured I could come back this way. I knew Rikell has contracts all over the country.” He drags his finger across the wood grain of the table. “I was working the night shift, flipping through a business magazine that someone left in the lobby. You know, just killing time and trying to stay awake. There was this big write-up about these father-and-daughter real estate business tycoons.” His lips curl into a knowing smirk. “And there you were, in this long, black dress, standing on a stage.”

“The American Entrepreneur article.” They used a candid shot from the night of my big promotion announcement, of my father and me standing side-by-side in our formal wear, toasting to another good year.

“It was a good article. I mean, I don’t read those kinds of things, but I liked reading about you. Where you went to college, things you’ve said and done—you know, all that.” He smiles, more to himself. “It was weird. I kept thinking, ‘I knew her way back when.’ ”

And better than I’ve let any other guy know me since.

“The article said you were in Lennox, learning the ropes so you could take over the company when your dad retires.” Kyle bites his bottom lip, as if deciding whether to continue. “I asked around and it turned out Rikell does the security here. And I thought to myself, if that’s not the universe telling me something . . .” A flush creeps across his cheeks, his eyes glued to the table in front of him. “That’s when I realized how badly I wanted to see you again. I wanted to see if you’ve changed.”