Still, this was her moment. She was being recognized for her contribution to Latinx representation in media. There was no reason for her to—

“I’ll go too,” Lily said. “My feet are killing me. Remind me to throw these shoes in la basura.”

Well, that changed things.

Ashton pulled out his phone. “I’ll get us a car.”

Tanya shook her head. “Pictures first. Then you can all leave.”

As she herded them over to the Latinx in the Arts photo backdrop, Jasmine sidled up next to Ashton and whispered, “I tried.”

“I know. You didn’t have to. But thank you.”

Jasmine gave him a reassuring smile. “We’ll leave soon, okay?”

It was almost another hour before Tanya released them, and by the time Ashton climbed into a car with Jasmine and Lily, he was practically vibrating with nerves. Jasmine shot him worried looks on the ride back to the Hutton Court, but Lily—who’d taken her heels off immediately upon getting in the taxi—kept up the conversation well enough that he didn’t need to contribute much.

In the elevator, they all pressed the buttons for their floors. Lily—still barefoot—got off first, and when the elevator stopped on Jasmine’s floor, Ashton got off with her. Once they were in her suite with the door firmly shut behind them, she caught him in a tight hug.

“I’m so sorry,” she said into his chest. “You hated it. I knew you would hate it.”

He wrapped his arms around her like he’d wanted to do all night, and breathed in the soothing citrus scent of her hair. “It’s not your fault, querida. I’m an adult, and I agreed to go.”

“I know, but—”

He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her deeply. “It means more to me than I can tell you that you tried to give me an out, twice. And while it’s true that I don’t enjoy events like that—”

“No kidding.”

He smiled, and continued. “I was happy to be there to support you and the others.”

“If you say so.” She took his hand and led him to the sofa, where they sat and got comfortable—Jasmine kicking off her own high heels and Ashton shrugging out of his suit jacket.

“Do you want wine?” she asked. “I have a bottle of chardonnay in the fridge.”

He shook his head. “I drank more than enough at the open bar.”

She put a hand on his knee. “Do you want to talk about it?”

He covered her hand with his and looked down at the splay of their fingers. The truth was, he never wanted to talk about it, and he’d decided that if he didn’t talk about it, it couldn’t affect him. If no one else, aside from his family, knew what had happened, it couldn’t haunt him.

That mindset didn’t work. It still affected him. And he very much wanted to tell her. Now.

Before he could talk himself out of it, he said, “Around seven years ago, someone tried to break into my house.”

She gasped, and the hand on his knee squeezed. “Oh, Ashton.”

“I had a stalker. A fan. He’d been writing to me a lot. Letters, packages, that sort of thing. All of the mail got filtered through my agency, so it took a while for anyone to notice it had gotten excessive—and aggressive. And even when my agent’s assistant realized it, I didn’t want to believe it was a concern. I had enough to worry about without some overzealous fan, so I put it out of my head. Until . . .”

Jasmine shifted closer, her eyes shining with sympathy. “Until?”

He took a deep breath, let it out slowly. He had never talked about this with anyone who hadn’t already known, and putting it into words was almost like reliving it. A reminder of the fear, of the destruction of his sense of safety in his own home.

It was why he wouldn’t live in a house. He felt safer in apartments with doormen and security systems, high above the ground. No one could break his window when he was ten stories up.

She was waiting patiently. He wanted to kiss her, to forget about the Incident and lose himself in her touch, but it suddenly felt imperative that he get these words out. He swallowed hard and continued.

“Until he found out where I lived and tried to break in.”

Saying the words out loud made him realize that this was the crux of his ongoing fear. Ashton had always thought that the scariest part of the whole thing was that the intruder had broken Yadiel’s nursery window, endangering that which was most precious to him. But in telling Jasmine the story without mentioning Yadiel, Ashton realized . . . it was still pretty scary. The whole thing was scary.

And maybe . . . it was okay for him to have felt afraid. To still feel afraid.

Jasmine gently tugged on his hand, pulling him into her embrace. Ashton clung to her, letting her warmth anchor him. She held him for a long time, stroking his hair and his back, and he took the comfort she gave, soaking it in and letting it refill the well that had been empty for years.

Finally, she whispered, “Thank you for telling me.”

He let out a shaky breath. “Thank you for listening. I think . . . I’ll stay here, tonight, if that’s okay.”

He swore he could feel her smile against his hair. “Of course.”

Ashton eased back first, because he got the feeling she’d hold on to him for as long as he needed it. And while he was starting to realize that he did need it, he knew she had to be tired.

They got ready for bed, taking turns in the bathroom, and then climbed under the covers together.

In the dark, all cozy under the covers with the soft whirr of the air-conditioning unit insulating them from the outside world, Ashton finally found the courage to ask her something he’d been wondering for a while. “Jasmine?”

“Yeah?”

“What happened with McIntyre?”

She let out a sigh and he felt her deflate next to him. “You want the whole story?”

“Not the whole thing. Just . . .”

“The end?”

He felt like a dick for asking. But he sensed that, like him, Jasmine also carried a burden. “Yeah.”

She shifted, tangling her legs with his. “Well, he broke up with me. Via tabloid.”

Ashton’s eyes widened, though she couldn’t see his reaction. “No.”

“Oh, yes.” Her voice held a trace of amusement. “I thought he was traveling for a pop-up concert. It turned out he was in Mexico with my doppelgänger—you might remember seeing her picture before I broke the TV in the fitness center.”

At the time, he’d wondered about that, but of course, hadn’t wanted to ask.

“Anyway, he told a reporter—my nemesis, Kitty Sanchez—that we were over. It was supposedly an exclusive interview but was probably just some offhand comment while he was leaving the plane at LAX. The quote ran with the photos of him making out with this other actress, and I . . .” She shrugged. “I found out while I was buying paper towels at Target and saw my own face on the cover of Buzz Weekly.”

He was stunned. “That must have been terrible.”

“Yeah. I had to buy the damn magazine to find out that he’d broken up with me. They didn’t even have the decency to put the pertinent info on the cover.”

“Jasmine, please don’t take this the wrong way . . .”