The meeting had been over for twenty minutes, but Jeff was still slumped in the leather chair at the head of the conference table, phone in his hand, thumb frozen over a screen that had gone dark three times. The other investors had filed out. The caterers had cleared the silver. Somewhere in the building, a vacuum hummed.

Christian appeared in the doorway, loosening his tie with one hand, a half-empty glass of water in the other. He watched Jeff for a long moment before crossing the room and lowering himself into the chair beside him.

"You checked out somewhere around the Q3 projections," Christian said. "Didn't even laugh at my joke about the Venezuelan textiles."

Jeff didn't look up. His thumb traced the edge of the phone case. The leather had worn smooth at the corner from weeks of the same gesture.

"Jeff."

The name landed like a hand on his shoulder. Jeff let out a breath, long and slow, and finally set the phone face-down on the mahogany. The wood was cool. Solid. Real in a way the last twelve hours hadn't been.

"Something happened this morning," he said.

Christian leaned back, crossed one leg over the other, and waited. The glass of water balanced on his knee, perfectly still.

Jeff rubbed his face with both hands, then let them drop. "Bella showed up."

"The model from the after-party. Coconut Grove." Christian's voice was flat, but his eyes had sharpened. "The one you drove home."

"Yeah. That one." Jeff stared at the ceiling, at the recessed lights he'd approved himself, and thought about how different they looked from flat on his back in bed, with a woman's hair spread across his chest and the weight of a night he couldn't remember settling into his bones. "She came to surprise me. Brought breakfast. Homemade." He said it like the word tasted strange. "She got my address from someone at the show."

Christian's brow lifted a fraction. "And?"

Jeff didn't answer. He reached for the glass of water Christian hadn't touched, took a long drink, and set it down carefully, aligning the condensation ring with the grain of the wood. Then he told the story.

—

He'd woken up with a weight on his chest and a cramp in his left shoulder, the sun already too bright through the gauze curtains he never remembered to close. Two bodies on either side of him. Dark hair and brown skin, matching sets, sisters or friends or something—he hadn't asked. They'd been at a lounge in South Beach. The night was a blur of tequila and a shared bathroom mirror, lipstick smiles and the sound of a zipper going down.

He remembered the condoms. He always remembered the condoms.

The one on his left stirred, stretched, rolled over and smiled at him with sleep-crusted eyes. She was pretty in the morning light, younger than he'd thought, maybe twenty-two, with a small tattoo of a crescent moon behind her ear. He didn't know her name.

"Morning," she said.

He'd opened his mouth to respond when the doorbell rang.

Three chimes, deliberate and musical. The kind of ring that belonged to someone who'd found the right button on the panel, not a delivery driver stabbing at random. Jeff had gone still, one hand still pressed to the small of the girl's back, his mind catching up to what his gut already knew.

The second ring came faster. Impatient. He threw off the sheet, grabbed a pair of sweatpants from the floor, and pulled them on as he crossed the living room, his bare feet slapping against the cool marble. He didn't check the peephole. He should have checked the peephole.

He opened the door, and Bella was standing there.

She was holding a paper bag folded closed at the top, the kind from a bakery, with a grease spot blooming through the bottom corner. She was wearing a sundress, yellow, with thin straps and a hem that brushed her thighs. Her hair was pulled back. No makeup. She looked sixteen and fifty at the same time, and the smile on her face was the kind that took a running start at trusting someone.

The smile lasted exactly as long as it took her eyes to travel past him, into the apartment, to the edge of the bed visible through the archway. To the two girls sitting up, sheets pulled to their chins, identical expressions of confusion and boredom on their faces.

The bag hit the floor. The sound the pastries made—soft, crumpling, defeated—was worse than anything she could have said.

"Bella." He reached for her, his hand closing around her wrist. She was warm, and her pulse was hammering, and she looked at his hand like it was something she'd found on the sidewalk. "Bella, wait—"

"Don't." Her voice cracked on the single syllable. She pulled her arm back, and he let go because he didn't know what else to do, and took one step back, and then another. Her eyes were wet but she wasn't crying. Not yet. "I brought you croissants. I woke up at six and walked to the bakery because you said you liked the ones with the almonds, and I remembered that, Jeff. I remembered that."

"Bella."

"I just—" She pressed the heels of her hands to her eyes, hard, and when she pulled them away her mascara was smudged but she was still holding it together by a thread so thin he could see the light through it. "I really thought you were different."

She turned and walked to the elevator. He stood in the doorway, barefoot, the morning light falling across the ruined bag of pastries, and watched the doors close on her face.

He didn't follow.

Behind him, one of the girls laughed. A short, bright sound, like breaking glass. "Who was that?"

He didn't answer. He picked up the bag, carried it to the kitchen, and threw it in the trash. Then he went back to bed and finished what he'd started, because that was what he did, and the whole time he couldn't stop thinking about the sound the pastries made when they hit the floor.

—

"And you called her?" Christian asked, when the silence had stretched long enough to demand filling.

"Seventeen times." Jeff's laugh was hollow. "Straight to voicemail after the first three. Then she blocked me."

"Rightfully." Christian said it without heat, a statement of fact. He finished his water and set the glass aside. "So what are you going to do?"

Jeff spread his hands. "I don't know. That's why I'm sitting here, staring at the ceiling like a fucking teenager." He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, and looked at Christian with something raw in his pale blue eyes. "I don't usually care. You know I don't. They come, they go, they leave a toothbrush in my bathroom that I throw out the same day. But this one—" He stopped, worked his jaw. "She brought me croissants."

"And you rewarded her with a view of your double feature." Christian's mouth twitched. "Sentimental as ever."

"I know. Fuck." Jeff dragged a hand through his hair. "Help me fix it."

Christian was quiet for a long moment, his cold-tea eyes fixed somewhere in the middle distance. Then he said, "Flowers."

"I sent flowers. She sent them back."

"Then something unexpected. The grand gesture. You're a billionaire, Jeff. Think like one."

Jeff stared at him, and something clicked behind his eyes. He picked up his phone, scrolled through his contacts, and pressed a name. The line rang twice before a woman's voice answered, cautious, wary.

"Maya? It's Jeff Wulkan. Bella's friend. We met at the after-party." He leaned back, the leather creaking under his weight. "I need your help."

The conversation lasted six minutes. By the time Jeff hung up, he had a note open on his phone: Movie night. Rooftop. Tonight. Projector. She loves When Harry Met Sally. Don't fuck it up.

He looked at Christian, and for the first time all day, the hollow behind his ribs felt a little less empty. "I need to borrow your projector."

—

The private lounge had a rooftop terrace that Jeff almost never used. It was a stretch of polished concrete and potted palms, with a view of the bay and the city beyond, the lights of Miami smearing across the water like spilled paint. He'd had the idea at four in the afternoon and had spent the next five hours turning it into something that didn't look like a desperate attempt to buy forgiveness.

String lights draped across the pergola. A white sheet stretched between two posts, the projector balanced on a stack of books. Pillows and blankets arranged on the daybed he'd had brought up from the guest room. A bottle of wine breathing on the low table, with two glasses and a plate of the same almond croissants from the bakery, fresh, warm, the paper bag folded open like an offering.

He stood in the middle of it at nine-thirty, hands in his pockets, and tried to see it through her eyes. It looked like a setup from a movie. That was the point.

She showed up at ten after.

The elevator doors opened, and she stepped out in the same yellow sundress, arms crossed, hair loose now, her face a careful wall of distance. She looked at the lights, the sheet, the croissants, and her chin trembled before she locked it down.

"Maya told me," she said. "I almost didn't come."

"But you did."

"Don't make it weird."

Jeff took a step forward, then stopped. "I'm not going to make excuses. What you saw this morning—that's who I've been. I'm not going to pretend it wasn't happening. The girls, the nights I don't remember, the mornings I wish I didn't. That's been my life for a long time." He paused, and when he spoke again, his voice was lower. "But I don't want it to be anymore."

She looked at him for a long, slow moment, her eyes running over the setup, the croissants, his hands hanging open at his sides. "You said you liked the ones with the almonds."

"I remembered you remembered."

Something cracked behind her eyes. She took a step forward, then another, and stopped three feet from him. "I'm still mad."

"I know."

"And I don't trust you."

"You shouldn't."

She pressed her lips together, and then she moved past him, toward the daybed, and sat down on the edge of it. She pulled a blanket over her lap and looked up at the sheet, where the projector was casting a blue glow against the white.

"If you're going to show When Harry Met Sally," she said, "you'd better have the remote. I'm not watching the sad part twice."

Jeff let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. He picked up the remote, settled onto the daybed beside her—giving her space, a full foot of cushion between them—and pressed play.

They watched in silence for an hour. She laughed once, at the diner scene, a reluctant laugh that escaped before she could stop it. He felt it land somewhere in his chest and stay there, warm and foreign and terrifying.

When the credits rolled, she reached for a croissant, broke it in half, and handed him one of the pieces. "This doesn't mean you're forgiven."

"I know."

"But it means you get a chance." She bit into the croissant, and he watched the tension in her shoulders ease, just a fraction. "One chance, Jeff."

He turned toward her, and she turned toward him, and the space between them closed like a held breath finally released. She tasted like almonds and salt and the faintest edge of crying she'd done earlier, and he kissed her like he meant it—like he hadn't meant anything in years and was only now remembering how.

Her hand found his chest, not pushing, not pulling. Just there, palm flat over his heart, as if she were counting the beats. He covered her hand with his own and pressed it harder against him, let her feel the rhythm he couldn't control.

"I don't know what I'm doing," he said against her mouth. "I don't know how to do this right."

"Then figure it out." She pulled back just far enough to look at him, her eyes dark in the string-light glow. "But do it with me."

He kissed her again, deeper, and this time she didn't pull back. She leaned into him, her body soft and warm and trusting in a way that made something in his chest ache. His hand slid to her waist, found the hem of the sundress, and lingered there, asking instead of taking.

She answered by pulling the dress over her head and letting it fall to the pillows.

The city lights spread out behind her like a crown of stars. The string lights traced the shape of her shoulders. She was bare in front of him, her skin golden in the warm glow, her breath catching just slightly as his eyes moved over her. He reached out and traced the line of her collarbone with his fingertips, felt her shiver.

"You're beautiful," he said, and the words felt thin, not enough, but they were the only ones he had.

She didn't answer. She pulled him down to her, and they sank into the pillows together, and the space between them became skin.

His mouth found her throat, her shoulder, the soft curve where her neck met her chest. She tasted of salt and warmth and the faint sweetness of the croissant. His hand moved lower, tracing the dip of her waist, the flare of her hip, the heat between her thighs. She gasped when he touched her, her back arching, her fingers tangling in his hair.

"Jeff." His name on her breath, broken open, and he wanted to hear it again.

He moved over her, the weight of him pressing her into the pillows, and she wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him closer. He pushed inside her slowly, watching her face, the way her lips parted, the way her eyes stayed fixed on his. She was wet and tight and perfect, and for a long moment neither of them moved—just the pulse of her around him, the beat of his heart against her chest, the city glittering behind her head like a witness.

Then she moved, a small shift of her hips, and he answered her without thinking. The rhythm built between them, slow at first, then deeper, harder, her nails raking down his back, his breath ragged at her ear.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said, and he meant it, and he didn't know if he could keep that promise, but for this moment, under these lights, with her heat wrapped around him, he believed it.

Her climax came in a shuddering wave, her body clenching around him, her voice breaking on his name. He followed her a beat later, his face buried in her neck, the world narrowing to the sound of her breathing and the aftershocks of her pleasure still pulsing around him.

They lay there for a long time, tangled in the blankets, the projector humming softly, the credits of the movie long over. He was still inside her. Neither of them moved to change that.

Bella was the one who finally spoke. Her voice was quiet, careful, the words finding their way out like someone crossing a dark room without a light.

"Jeff."

"Yeah."

"If we do this—if I stay—will you cheat on me?"

He went still. The air between them changed. He pulled out slowly, gently, and rolled onto his back, staring up at the string lights that traced a canopy above the daybed. He could feel her watching him. He could feel her waiting.

And because he was Jeff Wulkan, and because the only thing he'd ever been good at was telling the truth when it cost him, he said, "I love women."

The silence that followed was not the comfortable kind.

"I love the way they smell. The way they laugh. The way they look at me like I'm the only man in the room." He kept his eyes on the lights. "I've spent twenty years chasing that feeling. It's the only thing I know how to do. And I don't—" He stopped, took a breath. "I don't know if I can stop."

Bella was quiet for a long time. When she spoke, her voice was steady in a way that hurt more than crying would have. "So you'll be with me, and you'll keep screwing other girls, and you want me to be okay with that."

"I want to be honest with you." He turned his head to look at her. "I want to be a good boyfriend. I want to come home to you. I want to wake up next to you and make you breakfast and watch movies on rooftops and figure out what it means to love someone. But I also—" He swallowed. "I also love pussy. I love the chase. I love the first time. I love the way a different body feels under my hands. And I don't know if I can promise that part of me away."

She sat up slowly, pulling the blanket around her shoulders. She didn't look at him. She looked at the city lights, the bay, the line where darkness met water.

"You're asking me to share you."

"I'm asking you to know me. All of me. And then decide."

She was quiet for another long moment. Then she shook her head, a small motion, almost invisible in the dark. "I'm not built for that, Jeff. I thought I could be. I thought if you were sweet enough, and the night was perfect enough, and the croissants were warm enough, I could convince myself that wanting someone meant accepting being half-chosen." She stood, the blanket falling away, and reached for her dress. "But I can't."

He sat up. "Bella—"

"No." She pulled the dress over her head, smoothed it down. Her hands were shaking. "You gave me honesty. That's more than most men give. But honesty doesn't change what I need." She turned to look at him, and her eyes were dry, and that was worse. "I need someone who wants only me. Not someone who wants me and a dozen other women. And I'm not going to apologize for that."

She walked to the elevator and pressed the button. The doors opened. She stepped inside, and just before they closed, she said, "You're not a bad man, Jeff. You're just not ready."

The doors slid shut. The elevator hummed downward.

Jeff sat alone on the rooftop, the string lights swaying gently in the breeze off the bay, the projector still humming, the croissants growing cold on the plate. He looked at the city, at the millions of lights, the millions of windows, the millions of women behind them.

He didn't say anything. There was nothing left to say.