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"Aren't you?" she asks.

I take a step toward her, then stop myself, because she needs to hear this without me crowding her.

"I crossed that ocean before I knew they existed, Blaire."

She stares at me, and I tell her the rest.

"I bought my way into the Pembrokes' party with a donation because I found out you'd be there. I spent the weeks after London telling myself to let you go, and I couldn't do it. I was standing in front of you on that lawn with the words halfway out of my mouth when Miles came running across the grass. I didn't come for them. I didn't know about them. I came for you."

Her lips part, but she doesn't speak, so I keep going before I lose the courage I spent seven years refusing to find.

"I loved you then," I say.

"I loved you in my family's library, I loved you the night I let you go, and I never stopped, not for a single day of those seven years. Every catalog essay and article with your name on it found its way to my desk because I asked my assistant to find them, and I read every word without once picking up the phone. I measured every woman I met against you and hated myself for it. When you walked out of that restaurant in London and told me you didn't want me, I believed you, and it nearly broke me. Now I know why you ran." I hold her gaze.

"The boys changed my life. They didn't create what I feel for you. That was already there, and it's been there the whole time."

Blaire's eyes are bright. She presses her fingers against her mouth, and when she finally lowers her hand, her voice isn't steady.

"You don't get to say that and expect it to fix everything," she says.

"I don't expect it to fix anything," I say.

"You broke my heart, Ross. You decided I wasn't worth the risk, and then I found out I was pregnant and decided you didn't get to know." She shakes her head slowly.

"We both did something unforgivable. I don't know how two people come back from that. I don't know how to trust what happens next, and I'm not going to pretend I do just because you finally said the words."

"I'm not asking you to pretend," I tell her.

"I'm asking you to know it. What you do with it is up to you."

"And if I don't know what to do with it?" she asks.

"Then I'll still mean it tomorrow," I say.

She looks at me across the kitchen for a long time. The anger hasn't gone anywhere. It's in the set of her shoulders and in the way her fingers grip the edge of the counter. But something else is there too, something raw and unguarded that I haven't seen since London, and for once, neither of us tries to hide it.

I don't know which of us moves first. One second she's gripping the edge of the counter, and the next, she's in front of me with both hands fisted in my shirt, and her mouth is on mine.

It isn't gentle. She kisses me like she's still angry, like she wants to punish me for every word I just said, and I let her. I take the anger and give it back. I drive my hand into her hair, tilt her head where I want it, and kiss her until the fight goes out of her mouth and something hungrier takes its place. She makes a sound against my lips, low and desperate, and my cock goes hard so fast it aches.

"The boys," she breathes.

"Then you'll have to be quiet," I tell her.

I lift her onto the counter. She gasps at the cold marble under her thighs, and I swallow the sound with another kiss while I push her skirt up to her hips. Her knees fall open for me without being asked. I drag my palm up the inside of her thigh until I reach the damp heat of her through the thin cotton of her panties, and I stroke her once, slowly, just to feel her hips jerk toward my hand.

"You're soaked," I say against her ear.

"You were fighting with me, and you're soaked."

"Shut up, Ross," she whispers, but her fingers dig into my shoulders and pull me closer.

I hook the cotton aside and slide two fingers into her. She's so wet they sink in without resistance, and the sound she makes is too loud. I cover her mouth with my free hand. Her eyes fly to mine over my fingers, wide and dark, and I hold her gaze while I work her slowly, curling forward, pressing my thumb against her clit in tight, unhurried circles. She shakes against the counter. Her breath comes hot and fast against my palm. When I feel her start to tighten around my fingers, I stop.

She glares at me. I take my hand away from her mouth.

"Not yet," I tell her. "Not like this."