Caught Up In Us

Lauren Blakely

Copyright 2013 by Lauren Blakely

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Printed in the United States of America

First Printing, 2013

Cover Design by Josyan McGregor

www.LaurenBlakely.com

This book is a work of fiction. No part of the contents relate to any real person or persons, living or dead. All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author. This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, any place, events or occurrences, is purely coincidental. The characters and storylines are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Table of Contents

About

Also by Lauren Blakely

Coming Soon

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Preview of new adult romance novel The Thrill of It

Previews of Playing With Her Heart, Trophy Husband, Pretending He’s Mine and Far Too Tempting

Acknowledgements

Contact

Caught Up In Us

Genre: Adult Contemporary Romance

(NOT appropriate for younger readers)

Five years ago, Kat Harper fell into a dizzying summer romance with her brother’s best friend Bryan. It was a mad, crazy love full of kisses all through the night — but he broke her heart and she had to move on.

Five years later, Kat is finishing her graduate degree and building her business as a jewelry designer, when Bryan, head of his own successful company, walks back into her life. Bryan has been assigned to Kat as her new business mentor and the rules are clear. No hanky panky permitted. That works for both of them. Kat needs to grow her business to help her parents; Bryan needs to run a clean operation after his former business partner’s romantic scandal that rocked his firm.

Kat can handle that because she's totally over him... right? Except, he still makes her laugh. And he remembers all the things she likes. And he's more handsome now than he was then. Then there’s the spark between them — the simply undeniable chemistry.

Can they resist each other? Or are they willing to risk everything for a second chance at first love?

Also by Lauren Blakely

Available at all fine e-tailers

The Thrill of It

Every Second with You

The Start of Us

Pretending He’s Mine

Trophy Husband

Playing With Her Heart

Far Too Tempting

Coming Soon

Stay tuned for my first erotic romance series releasing in April and May. The Seductive Nights series is a sensual, emotionally-charged story and includes the prequel novella First Night and the novel Night After Night...The novel NIGHT AFTER NIGHT is currently available for pre-order in the Apple iBookstore.

ABOUT NIGHT AFTER NIGHT:

A sensual, emotionally-charged erotic romance from the New York Times and USA Today Bestselling author Lauren Blakely...

He plays to win and isn't afraid to break all the rules...

Fiery bartender Julia Bell has been hit on by her fair share of customers, but has never been tempted to dip so much as a toe in that particular dating pool. She wants a man who can claim her body AND captivate her mind. Enter Clay Nichols, a lawyer with a dirty mind and a mouth to match. Confident, sexy, and commanding, he takes Julia to new heights of pleasure. And after one unforgettable weekend together, he craves more of her. If only she hadn't taken off without saying goodbye...

Julia has no room in her life for commitment, not while she has serious trouble breathing down her neck, thanks to the criminal dabblings of a former flame. She doesn't want to involve anyone she cares about in the kind of danger that's chasing her and that's the problem with Clay-she's falling for him. Hard. He makes her heart race, and sets her body on fire.

He's determined to keep her in his life, no matter the cost. She's the woman he desires in every way. But when the past threatens to destroy any chance at a future, she has to make a choice—keep running, or give love a shot with a man who can hold her imagination, and her heart, night after night...

Dedication

This book is for the readers.

For all of you — the lovers of words and romance.

Chapter One

He was my first favorite mistake.

I hadn’t seen him in five years, and now as he walked to the front of the small classroom, every muscle in my body tensed, and my brain went into hyperdrive as I told myself not to think of lights going down in movie theaters or of hot summer nights miles away from here tangled up in him.

Be strong. Be cool. Be badass.

I ran my index finger across the silver charm I made when I left for college, as if the miniature movie camera could channel steely resolve into me, as it had these last few years. Even though I’d absolutely moved on. That’s why it hadn’t even occurred to me that he might be here today, even though, technically, I suppose I should have known it was a possibility since he graduated from this same business school. We even walked around this campus together the last time I saw him, as we made plans with each other, as we made promises to each other.

Until he broke my heart and became a charm on my necklace instead — the very first one, and the inspiration for my jewelry — a cold, metal reminder that mistakes can make us better.

But I was safely on the other side now. I was over Bryan, over the anger, over the whole thing. I was totally fine, thank you very much. Except, as he neared the whiteboard with the name of the class, Experiential Learning, scrawled in blue marker on it, I was being educated on a new definition of the word unfair. Because I so wanted to be the girl who didn’t even notice he was here, but instead I catalogued every detail, from the slightest trace of stubble on his jawline, to the way his brown hair still invited fingers to be run through it, to how the checked navy blue shirt he wore had probably never looked quite so good as when it hugged his arms and stretched across his chest.

Bryan froze when he saw me. His green eyes hooked into mine for the briefest of moments, and maybe for real, or maybe just in my imagination, I saw a tinge of regret in them. But then he recovered a second later, and flashed a quick, closed-mouth smile to the class. Of course it wouldn’t bother him to see me here. He didn’t care about me then. He wouldn’t care about me now.

But I could pull off indifference too, so I looked away first. There. Two could play at this game.

Bryan stood next to the professor at the head of the classroom, along with the other business school alum who would be matched with my fellow graduate students for this mentorship program. In his trademark three-piece suit, spectacles and a silk handkerchief, Professor Oliver was his usual peppy self as he introduced the mentors. One of the gals ran a venture fund she’d started herself, another had been a superstar skateboarder then launched a line of skatewear that was now hugely popular with teens, one of the guys oversaw a firm that had designed some of the most successful iPhone apps, and another founded a health video service.

Then there was Bryan Leighton, five years older than me, and I already knew what he did for a living. I knew other things about him too. I knew what his lips tasted like. How his arms felt under my hands. How his kisses went on and on and I’d never wanted them to end. And like a snap of the fingers, I was back in time, no longer a graduate student, no longer in the first row of the classroom. I was just a girl fresh off high school graduation, wrapped around her brother’s best friend. Bryan was running his hands through my hair, and kissing my neck, and I shuddered. Everyone else, everything else faded away. He was the only one there.

I could have stayed trapped like that, beholden to the memory of the way he felt, the things we said. The words only I said.

I gripped the charm to break away from the past. I let a tiny kernel of latent anger in me start to come out of hiding. I needed that anger, because I needed to focus on the present, and there was no room for him, or those kind of memories, in it. I was a different person now. I was a savvy twenty-three. I’d already earned my bachelor’s degree from NYU, and now I was finishing my master’s degree from the same school and growing a business, all while paying the rent in a Chelsea apartment. I wasn’t that lovestruck teenager anymore. Besides, there was just a one-in-five chance I’d be paired with him. Wouldn’t it make the most sense for my professor to match me with the skatewear gal since we were both in the fashion business? I was a jewelry designer after all, with a line of necklaces already selling well online and in several boutiques around the city.

Professor Oliver rocked back and forth on his wingtips, full of energy, while he rattled off names of my classmates, then the mentor they’d work with. The first student was paired with iPhone guy. Okay, there was a one-out-of-four chance now. I crossed my fingers. Venture Girl was partnered off next with a different student. One in three. I made a quick wish on an unseen star. Professor Oliver read off the names of another student and the health video service guy. I took a deep calming breath. Clearly, the professor was saving me for the skateboard gal. She looked so cool too, so hip with pink streaks in her black hair and cat’s eye glasses. Yes, she’d be a perfect mentor and I’d learn so much about a business that wasn’t that different from mine.

I held my breath and hoped. But Professor Oliver called out someone else’s name for skateboard gal. My heart dropped, and I felt my insides tighten.

“And that means, Ms. Harper, that your business mentor for this semester will be Bryan Leighton. Allow me to officially introduce you two.”

Bryan held out his hand, as if it were the first time he was touching me.

“It’s a pleasure.”

“All mine,” I said, wishing there weren’t some truth to my words.

Chapter Two

One of the reasons I’d wanted to attend New York University’s Stern School of Business was for this class. Today would be our only day in the classroom. The rest of the semester we’d spend time with real businesses, tackling real issues, and gaining insight into how to make our fledgling little ventures better. Ever since a boutique owner in my hometown had stopped me at age nineteen and asked where I’d gotten my unusual and eye-catching charm necklace — I’d made it myself, I proudly told her — I had wanted to learn the ins and outs of building a bigger business. I never told her the genesis of my jewelry line. I never revealed to anyone but my best friend Jill that I’d started it out of rejection. That it was fueled by hurt. The charms were my way of taking something back, taking me back after Bryan’s callous brush-off. If I were a rock star, I’d have Taylor Swifted him and written one of those anthemic I don’t love you anymore songs. Instead, I did the only thing I could do. I turned to my one talent and uttered a quiet screw you, Bryan Leighton with my jewelry.

The boutique owner had started carrying my necklaces and the My Favorite Mistakes style had become a — well — a favorite in her store, and soon at my parent’s shop too, then at others in Manhattan. The trouble was my charms were all handmade. By me. And the grassroots nature was getting a little challenging. I needed practical skills and knowledge to grow, and I was more than ready to get them through this mentorship.

But that wasn’t the only reason I needed this class. My parents had stumbled into hard times when the tough economy hit the tourist town of Mystic, Connecticut where they ran a little gift shop and had for years. They took out a loan to keep inventory stocked, and I hated to see them struggling especially since the store was their nest egg, their third kid, their key to an eventual retirement. They’d worked so hard my whole life, putting my brother and me through college, weathering many storms of the financial and the health variety for years. Now they were within spitting distance of retirement, and I wanted to do all I could to make sure they could enjoy some well-deserved time off. I’d taken out loans to pay for business school, but they weren’t due for several years, so my plan was to ramp up my own business quickly to help pay off theirs.

So, really, was it so much for me to want to learn in a distraction-free fashion? Working alongside the man who’d broken my heart one summer night five years ago wasn’t conducive to focusing. Especially not when he looked even better than he did then. He’d had a sweet boyish face when he was in his early twenties. Now, he was twenty-eight and while the boyish charm was still present in spades, there was also a sophistication to his features, to his style, to his clothes. Five years running a corporation would do that to you. As I sat down next to Bryan, I did my best to put on my bulletproof even though I could tell his arms were even stronger and more toned, and that his forest green eyes could still reel me in with one look.

I gritted my teeth. This was not going to work. Clearly, I’d need a new mentor. I had to graduate, and I had to succeed in this class. I tried to picture my strong and sturdy mom, from the way she’d managed her recovery from a car accident years ago with a tough kind of optimism, to how she could stare down an overdue loan notice by brushing one palm against the other and saying, “Let’s get to work.”

Work. Yes, work. I was laser-focused on work.

“This was my favorite class when I went here,” Bryan said, breaking the silence.

“Oh. It was?”

“Well, I guess it’s not a class, right?” he added, correcting himself, then laughed awkwardly. He must have been nervous. That made me feel the slightest bit vindicated. “What do we call it? A workshop?” I shook my head. “Not an internship,” he continued, and I shook again. “Practicum?”

I wanted to laugh at the word, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. Instead, I shook my head once more.

But he was agile at playing both parts and picked up the baton of the conversation himself. “That’s kind of an awful word, isn’t it?”

“It’s dreadful.”

“Terrible.”

“Wretched.”

And as if no time had passed, we were back in banter, one of the things we’d always done well — play with words.

“Whatever you call it, the class was my favorite. When you couldn’t tear me away from the statistics and econ books, that is.” He flashed his lopsided smile that showed off straight white teeth.

He was trying to smooth over the past, but I wasn’t going to have it. I wasn’t going to let myself go any further in the chatter, the conversations, the back-and-forth that had fueled us that one summer. So I didn’t respond, giving a curt nod instead.

The other students chatted with their mentors, and the buzz and hum filled the small classroom. I glanced over at Professor Oliver, who looked as if he were about to whistle a happy tune as he watched how well the initial “get to know you” session was going. But it didn’t matter if everyone else was getting along with their mentors. My success or failure would be based on what I accomplished outside of the confines of this classroom as I worked in close quarters with my mentor.

I had to be re-matched with someone else.

Bryan and I didn’t say anything for a stretch. He locked his eyes on me, then lowered his voice. “Look, Kat. I had no idea.”

“No idea what?”

“That you’d be in this class.”

This was supposed to make me feel better, but it didn’t. It made me feel worse. He probably wanted out of this too-close-for-comfort deal as much as I did. But I couldn’t let on that he’d pierced me again. “It’s nothing. I’ll just ask to be reassigned,” I said coolly, praying Professor Oliver would agree. He had office hours tomorrow morning. I’d be lined up outside his door ready to make my request.

Bryan shook his head, and lifted his hand towards me, as if he were about to rest his palm on my leg, or my arm. I inched away. Almost imperceptibly, but enough for him to notice. He clasped his fingers together instead. He parted his lips. Paused. Then, in a low voice that sounded smoky at that volume, he said, “But I’m glad you are. I’m glad it worked out this way.”

I’d spent the last five years juggling classes and making jewelry, building my business and moving past my first big love. The last thing I needed was to be thrust back into the fire. I would only get burned again.

******

I was the first one to leave the classroom. I made a beeline for the ladies room where I busied myself reapplying lip gloss and trying to fluff out my dark brown hair to pass the time. I grabbed an always handy clip and twisted my long hair into a quick updo. I tucked a few loose strands behind my ears.

I looked at the time. Only a few minutes had passed. I brushed off a piece of lint from the short suede boots I’d snagged at a bargain price from a vintage shop in the Village, then readjusted the neckline of the chocolate-colored top I wore that brought out the brown in my eyes.

Another minute gone.

I rooted around in my purse for my mascara, touched up my lashes, then checked the time once more. Satisfied that Bryan had likely left the building, I ventured out. I dialed the number of my parent’s shop as the heels of my boots echoed across the wide hallway. I wanted to talk to my mom, but I also needed to root myself to the realities of my life. My parents, my plans for them, my goals for the business. My mom’s voice alone had the power to ground me and keep me steady.

“Mystic Landing. How may I help you?”

“Hey, Mom.”

“Hey, sweetie,” she said, and dived into her usual million questions. “How are you? How’s school? How’s Jill? How are My Favorite Mistakes?”

“I’m great. School is fine. I’ve never had a better roommate. And I’m working hard on the business. But, how are you? What’s going on with you and Dad and the shop?”

I could picture her waving a hand in the air to make it seem like my question was no big deal. Then sharing a smile as a customer walked into the store. Then again, maybe there weren’t that many customers.

“Everything is just fine. A young woman even came in this morning and tried on one of your necklaces.”

“Awesome. Did she buy it?”

“No, but she said she’d come back tomorrow.”

“So, are you still getting plenty of late summer tourists?”

“Oh sure. Of course,” she said quickly, but I wondered if she was just trying to seem strong for me.

“What have you been up to today?”

“I rearranged some of the window displays.”

My heart sank. That could only mean business was still slow. If there were customers, she wouldn’t be spending her time prettying up the windows. She’d be at the cash register, working the counter, ringing up little sundries and gifts for all the tourists who streamed in.

The very same counter where I was standing five years ago when Bryan asked me out on our first date.

Blinders, Kat. Put your blinders on.

We talked more about her day, then I told my mom I loved her and said goodbye.

As I left the building, I nearly dropped my phone when I saw Bryan waiting for me. The image I had wanted most to see all those months after he left me.

Chapter Three

He was framed by Washington Square Park and late afternoon clouds behind him.

“Fancy meeting you here,” he said as I neared him. His friendly manner made the coil of anger rise perilously close to the surface. But I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of knowing he could set off fifty different emotions in me with one look. Impervious would be my new watchword.

“Who would have thought,” I replied, keeping a distance in my tone. I reached for the movie charm, touched it once, as if it brought me power and strength. Nearby, a mime walked an imaginary dog and a grown woman in a Glinda dress created giant bubbles with a wand, to the delight of a few toddlers chasing them.

“So I was thinking,” he said. “What do you say we start over? Just forget the past, and move on, and we’ve got a clean slate. We just met today.”

“Easy for you to say,” I muttered under my breath.

He raised an eyebrow. He hadn’t heard me and I chose not to repeat myself. Crossing my arms, I waited for him to make the next move. So he tipped his forehead to an open bench. “Want to chat for a bit?”

No. I don’t want to chat with you. I don’t want to be near you. I don’t want to let you close to me again in any way, shape or form.

Except, I might have no choice but to be civil with him. I’d do my damndest tomorrow to switch mentors, but if I couldn’t pull it off, then I’d have to be cordial. Sure, a clean slate seemed as good a ruse as anything. I could pretend he’d meant nothing to me. After all, I’d been over him for a long time. Seeing him again had simply stirred old memories, like dust in an unused room. You cough a few times, then leave.

I played along. The past was gone, and I’d just met him today. I smiled the kind that didn’t reach my eyes, and I extended a hand. “Nice to meet you. I’m Kat Harper. I’m an aspiring jewelry designer.”

He shook my hand. “Bryan Leighton. I run Made Here. We make things like this,” he said, and fingered the onyx cufflinks on his sleeves. “Nice to meet you too.”

We walked to the bench. It was long enough that we didn’t have to be too close. I sat on the far end, hoping he’d take the hint. But he barely left any room between us when he joined me. With him so close I couldn’t think straight. I could only wander over to the part of my brain that remembered how we couldn’t keep our hands off each other that summer. He was always touching my back, my legs, my waist. If hands had any sort of permanent memory, mine surely recalled the lines of his flat stomach, his firm chest, his sculpted arms.

Stop!

I pictured profit and loss statements. The array of numbers erased the images of us.

He leaned an arm against the back of the bench. “So tell me about your jewelry designs, Kat,” he said, then looked down at my necklace.

I thought about how I’d answer anyone else who’d asked the question. I’d say: I always loved dressing up as a kid and rooting through my mom’s jewelry box to find bangles and necklaces and rings. But they hardly fit so I began making my own jewelry, playing around with designs and styles. I started with necklace-making kits for kids, stringing together beads and baubles and little charms on wire. In junior high I even sold some of my necklaces at local craft fairs, then moved onto heart pendants in high school. After I turned eighteen I had the idea of making a charm necklace. But one that meant something. One that celebrated the mistakes we made as we moved past them.

Instead, I kept my reply clinical. “They’re charms that mean something to the wearer.”

“My Favorite Mistakes,” he said.

“How did you know?” I was surprised he knew the name of my line.

He gave me a sheepish grin. “I like to stay on top of things. Know who’s up and coming,” he said. I wasn’t sure if this was personal, if he’d been researching me because of our past, or simply because he was a smart businessman. I reminded myself not to read anything into it. This was business, purely business. Then he moved his hand towards my neck. “May I?”

“Do you want me to take it off?” I asked, tripping on the unintended double entendre. I wanted to kick myself.

“I like it on.” Running a finger against a miniature skyscraper charm, he grazed my skin and a spark shot through me. I looked away, so he couldn’t read my eyes, and see what I’d felt. I stared at the sky instead. The clouds had become grayer. There was a heaviness to them that spelled rain soon.

“What’s this one?”

“A friend of mine in college had a lead on a super cheap sub-lease on the upper east side that I almost moved into before I started the MBA program. I didn’t get the apartment, and I was devastated at the time.”

“So you made a charm?”

“It all worked out for the best. Because now I have a great roommate and an amazing place in Chelsea,” I said giving him another sanitized answer. If I’d wanted to let him in, I’d have told him the full story. That it was a good thing I didn’t move into that building, because then I went to see an odd little musical theater showcase in Hell’s Kitchen. I wound up hanging out with the cast afterwards, including the lead actress, an amazing girl named Jill who had just nabbed a rent-controlled apartment in Chelsea that was handed down to her from her aunt. She needed a roommate; I needed a place. Now she’s my best friend, and we also have the one cheap and cool apartment in all of Manhattan. Plus, she practiced her audition songs in our living room for an off-Broadway modernized version of Les Mis that she’s in starting this week. She landed the part of Eponine and she’s awesome.

“Chelsea is great. Very eclectic. Perfect for you,” he said.

I stared at him sharply. I resented the assumption that he thought he still knew me. “How would you know?”

“Know what?”

“What’s perfect for me. How would you know?”

“It just seems very you. Chelsea, that is,” he answered, stumbling on his words as I dug in.

“But you don’t know me anymore. You don’t know a thing about me.”

He nodded once, taking my brusqueness on the chin. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m sorry.”

“For what? What are you sorry for, Bryan?”

“For…” he started, but then the Glinda-clad woman ran past us, a giant bubble trailing behind her that the children chased.

I took a quick breath, reminding myself to let go of all these warring emotions. To feel nothing.

“Chelsea is great,” I said, like a robot. Then I took the reins of the conversation, pointing to another charm, this one a silver book with the pages open. “I almost majored in English when I started college. I wasn’t sure I was going to study business as an undergrad. But at the end of my freshman year when a shopowner started carrying my necklaces, I switched to business. So my almost-major is another favorite mistake,” I said, and this time he got the whole tale because everyone did. This was a true story, and it was also the backstory on the Web site for My Favorite Mistakes.

He nodded. “I like that. Very smart decision, and a good way to acknowledge the road not taken. And this one?” He fingered the movie camera, his hand resting on the space just above my breasts. My chest rose and fell, and I tried to steady my breathing.

I called up my recollection of a risk management class lecture so I could deliver an offhand answer. “Oh, that one. I just made that to remind myself not to spend too much time watching movies.”

Because movies had been our thing. Our first kiss had been in a movie theater.

He was still touching the camera, but he was looking straight at me. As if he could read the lie.

I shifted the focus away from me. “And you? What about your business, Mr. Leighton?” I asked, as if I were a curious reporter.

He let the charm drop, and the metal he’d touched felt warm against me. He held out his arm, showing me the cuffs of his sleeves. “These bad boys. Women seem to love to give them as gifts.” He nodded to his cufflinks, as if to say it was okay to touch them. I resisted, banishing all thoughts of unbuttoning the black onyx, of taking off his shirt, of watching the fabric fall away from him to reveal his smooth chest, his firm stomach, his trim arms. Instead, I rewound to the morning, trying to remember if I’d dropped an umbrella into my purse, because the sky was about to split open.

“We make them at a factory near Philly, along with tie clips and money holders. But the cufflinks especially have taken off like crazy in the last few years. Especially with those books that have them on the cover. American-made, and a perfect gift from a girl to a guy. Or a guy to a guy, in some cases.”

“Right. Perfect gift.” I stood up and brushed my hand over my skirt, then gestured to the clouds. “I better go.”

He rose too. “You going back to Chelsea?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll give you a ride. I have my car.”

“I’m fine. I’ll walk or take the subway.”

“Kat. It’s about to pour any second.”

I patted my purse. “I have an umbrella in here.”

“Wouldn’t it just be easier not to fight for a cab, not to get soaked, and not to have to take the subway?”

Before I could say no again, he was giving his driver our exact location as the first drops hit my head. We walked quickly to the curb while the rain picked up speed. Moments later, Bryan held open the door to his town car for me. A drop fell in my eye. I blinked it out, then bonked my head on the top of the door as I got into the car. “Ouch!”

A sharp pain radiated across my forehead.

“You okay?” Bryan asked, as he slid in next to me. The windows were tinted, but the partition was down, so I could hear the faint strains of music from the satellite radio, and I could just make out the words to Jack White’s cover of Love is Blindness. I almost wanted to ask the driver to change the channel because the lyrics turned my heart in knots with dark wanting.

I pressed my palm against my head where it smarted. “I just don’t know how that door got in the way of my head,” I said, and Bryan laughed.

Then he gently placed a palm on my forehead. “Does it hurt?”

“A little,” I whispered, letting down my guard for a moment. Brushing my dark brown bangs from my face, he held my gaze in a way that chipped away at all the walls I’d rebuilt with him in the last hour. I flashed back to the movie theater in Mystic, to our first kiss, to how I’d had no need for barriers then.

“Do you need ice for it?”

“Do you have ice?”

“Of course. Fully stocked.”

“I think I’ll be okay.”

“Then let me just give you a kiss to make it better,” he said, and moved towards me. I closed my eyes and breathed out, slipping away into the feel of his tender lips on me. He stayed there for many more seconds than he needed to. He was inches from me, and I could feel the warmth from his body, as I let myself enjoy his kiss on my forehead.

He pulled away. “All better now?”

I nodded.

“What’s your address?”

I gave it to him, and he told the driver, then he looked back at me again. His green eyes were darker, more intense. “It’s really good to see you again, Kat.”

I grasped mentally at numbers, at logic, at images of my parent’s store, at the sound of my mom’s voice. But they were all wisps in my hands, falling through fingers, as my double-crossing heart longed to whisper it’s good to see you too. His gaze stayed on me, and his eyes said so many things, all the things I’d wanted to hear.

I could feel the whole back of the car grow smaller and bigger at the same time. Everything faded away, the din of the music from the radio, the strangers on the street ducking under awnings and opening umbrellas as they sought cover. He was all I saw, sitting next to me, looking in my eyes. I wished I could say I was thinking of business, of my jewelry line, or even of mundane things like where I’d left the quarters for the next load of laundry, because that would all prove I was as impervious as I’d aimed to be. But when your first love tells you how good it is to see you again, you don’t think at all. You just feel.

I felt my traitorous heart jumping, my belly flipping.

Stupid body trying to trick me.

Somewhere, I caught the dangling end of the anger still in me, and held on tight so I wouldn’t fall into his arms. “This is a nice car,” I said crisply, by way of changing the subject.

He cleared his throat. “Yeah. Thanks. So, I was thinking it would be a good start to this mentor thing if I show you the factory. Can you go with me on Friday?”

“Let me just check my schedule and get back to you.”

Then I turned away, and stared out the window, as if the rain-soaked New York streets were endlessly fascinating, high-fiving myself for playing it cool.

Chapter Four

I first met Bryan in my driveway one summer day when I was seventeen. I’d heard of him; my older brother Nate had roomed with him through most of college at NYU and into business school there too. But I’d never met Bryan myself. He grew up near Buffalo and went home for school breaks. Then, the summer after I’d graduated from high school, Bryan stayed with us for a few weeks to help run Mystic Landing.

My parents rarely vacationed and hardly ever took time off. My mother had spent most of my high school years recuperating from a devastating car accident that had required multiple surgeries and countless physical therapy sessions. She was finally herself again and to celebrate, my mom’s sister had convinced my parents to spend a few weeks at her lake house in Maine. Nate and I would watch the store while they relaxed by cool blue waters and underneath crystal skies.

They packed up, hopped in the car and drove north, and hours later, I met the man who’d become my first love. From the moment he arrived, I was a done deal. I swung open the front door, ran to the car, and gave Nate a huge hug. Then Bryan got out of the passenger side, wearing a white tee-shirt and worn jeans, which is near about the sexiest thing a man can wear. When he slung his duffel bag on his shoulder his shirt rose up, revealing a sliver of his firm and flat stomach. I tried to look elsewhere because otherwise I’d only think about the way his blue jeans hung just so on his hips, and where the cut lines of his abdomen led to.

So I checked out his arms instead. I’ve always thought one of the reasons some men work so hard on their arms is because of what women think when they encounter nicely sculpted ones. You picture the man above you. You imagine running your hands up and down those arms as he moves in you.

But he wasn’t just a beautiful body. He was the whole package. He had a trace of stubble on his boyish face, and the softest-looking dark brown hair I’d ever seen. His eyes drew me in, those forest green eyes with flecks of gold. Eyes you could gaze into, eyes that invited long simmering looks as they saw inside you.

Nate introduced us, and Bryan put his bag down and gave me a sturdy hug, rather than a handshake. I was wearing one of my own necklace designs, a silver chain strung with a lone heart pendant in midnight blue. His chest pressed into the pendant, and I could easily have let my thoughts run away right there.

Then he spoke to me. “I feel like I know you already. Nate says you’re a huge movie fan. That when you’re not making necklaces you’re at the local theater. I’ve always said there’s nothing better than skipping class for a matinee.” Then the grin came, the lopsided smile I’d fall hard for.

“Matinee and popcorn. Doesn’t get any better than that,” I said, and I was sure the words came out all bumpy and clunky, out of sync with what I was saying silently — How did my brother have such a ridiculously good-looking best friend?

The three of us hung out that night, ordered pizza, and lounged on old plastic chairs on the deck, under the stars. I listened as they talked about school, and what was next for them both on the work front. Nate planned to look for a job in the technology industry at the end of the summer, and Bryan had scored a gig in Manhattan that started in a month. They weren’t college boys anymore since they both had MBAs, but they weren’t working men yet either. They were in this sort of in-between time.

I was in an in-between time too. Only I was five years younger, so I figured I should get out of the way of their guy talk.

“I better go to sleep. Since I’ve got the Mystic Landing morning shift and all,” I said, and then went to my room and pulled on a pair of loose shorts and a gray tank top with a pink Hello Kitty across the chest. I brushed my teeth, washed my face, and walked back down the hall to my bedroom when I bumped into Bryan.

“Sorry,” he said, then glanced at my tank top, and lingered with his eyes a little longer than he should. I didn’t mind, but when he realized what he was doing, he looked up. “You like Hello Kitty?”

“Uh, yeah,” I said, thrown off by his remark.

“That’s really cute.” His lips quirked up.

“Really?” I couldn’t tell if he was putting me on.

He nodded. “Yeah. Definitely. Hello Kitty is totally adorable.”

“Wow. Nate never told me his best friend was such a huge fan of cartoon cats.”

“I’m personally a bigger fan of Bucky from the comic Get Fuzzy.”

“I love that crazy Siamese.”

“I defy anyone who doesn’t find cats amusing to read that comic.”

“That is an awesome challenge. Let’s make posters and start a campaign.”

“I’m so on it.”

“I’ll even break out my Get Fuzzy tee-shirt when we start planning a march to the capital.”

“Generally speaking, I’m good with all cartoon cats, especially when cute girls wear them.”

Then he walked off. That was all he said, and I was left alone in the hall, my mind buzzing, my skin tingling. I didn’t fall asleep right away. I replayed our conversation. We’d hit it off, right? I wasn’t imagining it. There was something in that kind of instant repartee, wasn’t there? Especially when I thought of that last moment — cute girls, cute girls, cute girls.

The next morning, I probably spent more time in front of the mirror adjusting my hair and touching up my lip gloss than I usually did. Then I walked into town and stopped at the local cafe for my regular.

After I left, I was surprised to find Bryan waiting outside Mystic Landing. He had a cup of coffee in his hand, and the ends of his dark hair were still wet. I was near enough to breathe in that clean, freshly showered scent. “I’m a morning person too. Hope you don’t mind if I share the morning shift with you. Nate’ll sleep past noon anyway.”

“Not at all,” I said as I hunted for the keys in my purse.

He tipped his forehead to my drink. “Must have just missed you at the cafe. Coffee, too?”

I shook my head. “Caramel macchiato. Only frou-frou drinks for this girl.” Then, I leaned in closer to him and dropped my voice to a faux whisper. “I even got an extra shot of caramel.”

He pretended as if I’d just the most scandalous thing in the world. “So decadent.”

“And you?” I asked, because I had a theory that you could tell a lot about a guy by his coffee drink. Any guy who ordered soy, chai, or more foam was going to be high-maintenance. If a fellow asked for the water to be extra hot, he was destined to be cold and emotionless because the water at any coffee shop is already scalding; if you needed it hotter, you had no feelings. When boys wanted herbal tea, I’d run the other way because that meant they’d be far too interested in yoga, new-age crystals and feng-shui’ing my life. I had no problem with those things, but their collective by-product was often not enough showering, and I was a big fan of the just-showered look and smell.

Then there was the man who ordered just coffee. Simple, straightforward, knows what he wants.

Bryan tapped the top of the plastic lid on his cup. “Coffee. Just coffee, nothing more. I like my coffee the way —”

I held up a hand. “I don’t want to hear one of those customary guy jokes. I like my coffee the way I like my women — hot, strong, with cream.”

He narrowed his eyes at me. “I wasn’t going to say that.”

“Oh. Sorry. How do you like your coffee then?” I turned away and slid the key into the lock.

He lowered his voice, and spoke in a dark and smoky kind of whisper. “The way they drink it in Paris. Black.”

It was a good thing my back was to him. Because something about the way he said Paris sent shivers up my spine. It was as if his voice was caressing my back. “Have you been?” I asked, because it had been my dream to go to Paris. To wander in and out of boutiques and shops and see all the necklaces and bracelets and jewelry. To be inspired by the designs.

To fall in love, by the river, under the lamplight.

“Only once. But the company I’m starting to work for has offices there, so I’m hoping go back,” he said. As I opened the door, I thought: take me with you, take me with you, take me with you.

We worked the morning shift together that first day, and we clicked with the customers. He’d chat up a pair of vacationing sisters about a coffee table picture book, then hand off to me, and then I’d do the same with a couple considering a serving plate. We had a sort of instant rhythm and sense of how to make a store like this work.

“We’re like a tag team,” he said after I rang up another sale, and I smiled in agreement.

Nate arrived in the early afternoon to take over. As I grabbed my purse from behind the counter, Bryan placed a hand on my arm. “Matinee and popcorn?”

My stomach flipped. I nodded a yes, mumbled a goodbye to my brother, and left the store with his best friend. We walked the few blocks to the six-screen cinema, picked a Will Ferrell comedy, and opted to share a medium popcorn. We went the next day to see a thriller, then the next for a sci-fi picture, and after that we saw a silly film with talking animals in it, laughing the whole time. When the movie ended, I told him it reminded me of a film I’d seen a few years back with my mom, then proceeded to rattle off how it compared to every other talking animal flick, as if I were a too-serious film critic opining needlessly. “But the pig in Babe did set the standard for linguistically-capable animals on screen.”

“You’ve pretty much seen every movie, haven’t you?” he asked.

“I wouldn’t say every movie.”

“But most?”

I shrugged. “I see a lot of movies.”

“Why? I mean, besides the obvious. That movies are fun.”

“Isn’t that a good enough reason? Just for entertainment?”

“Totally. So that’s the reason?”

“Sure,” I said, but I was smiling the kind of smile that said there was more to it.

“All right, Kat Harper. What’s the story?” He motioned with his hand for me to spill the beans. “Tell me where your love of movies comes from.”

“I think it’s because of what movies have always meant to my family. All these big events in my life were marked by movies. When Nate was in eighth grade and won the election for class president, we all went to see the re-release of Raiders of the Lost Ark, because it was this great action adventure, and I gripped the armrest when Harrison Ford raced against the boulder. The time I was picked to design the cover of the junior high yearbook we went to see Ocean’s Eleven. That’s just how we celebrated things. I even remember when my grandmother died. We went to the memorial service. I was twelve and I read a poem at the service, and then we decided that we should see Elf. Which probably sounds like a weird thing to do after a funeral.”

Bryan listened intently. “No, it doesn’t. Not at all.”

“It was really the perfect movie to see, because I think we all just needed to not be sad every second, you know?”

“It actually makes perfect sense,” he said. I looked at him and the honesty in his face and his eyes. He understood. He got it. He got me. I kept going.

“But I guess it all started with my mom. She’s a huge romantic comedy fan, so she started showing me all the great ones. Sleepless in Seattle. Love, Actually. Notting Hill. You’ve Got Mail.”

“And do you still love romantic comedies?”

“I make jewelry. I drink caramel machiattos. I wear Hello Kitty to bed. Of course I love romantic comedies,” I said with a smile as we neared my house. But I didn’t just love them. I wanted to live within them. I wanted a love like in the movies.

Bryan cleared his throat. “I think there’s a romantic-comedy we haven’t seen at the theater. Do you want to go again tomorrow?”

“Yes,” I said, and I’m sure it came out all breathy sounding.

We saw the movie the next day, and it was the kind where you long for the hero and heroine to kiss, and when they do, near the final frame, you feel this tingling in your body, and you want to be kissed too. I stole a glance at Bryan only to find he was stealing a glance at me.

“Hi,” he whispered in that voice he’d used when he talked about Paris.

“Hi.”

He reached a hand towards me, slowly, his eyes on me the whole time, as if he were asking if it was okay. I nodded a yes. He ran his fingers through my dark brown hair, then his mouth met mine, and we kissed until the credits rolled, slow and sweet kisses. His lips were the softest I’d ever felt, and his kisses were of the epic kind, the kind that made you believe that movie kisses weren’t just for actors or for stories, that they could be for you, and they could go on and on, like a slow and sexy love song that melted you from the inside out.

When he pulled away, he leaned his forehead against mine. “Kat, I’ve wanted to do that since I first met you in the driveway the other day.”

“You have?”

“Yes. You were so pretty, and then you were everything else.”

My heart skipped ten thousand beats. He was a movie kiss, he was the name above the title. He was the one you wanted the heroine to wind up with so badly that your heart ached for her when they weren’t together, then soared when they finally were.

“I think you’re pretty cool too,” I said.

“But we probably shouldn’t tell Nate. You know, since I’m his buddy and you’re his little sister. Not to mention the age thing.”

“Yeah, you’re right.”

So it was our summer secret.

Chapter Five

I’d deliberately resisted Internet stalking Bryan for the last few years. Sure, I knew his company was a generous supporter of the NYU business school and had endowed a new wing of the library last year. I also knew he’d started Made Here four years ago and had grown it quite nicely. But that was because I read business news, and you couldn’t miss his success story. Timing was everything and he’d capitalized at just the right moment with his product line. But more so, he knew the mood of the country shifted and that people wanted American-made goods, so he retrofitted former lugnut factories for cufflink manufacturing and then led the rapid growth along with his business partner. I hadn’t dug any deeper in the last few years. Nor had I tracked him on Facebook or hunted out anything else in recent months. The less I knew about him, the better off I was.

Besides, I’d had a boyfriend through most of college, Michael Preston. We were together for three years. Three tumultuous years. Michael was an actor at NYU and I first met him after a performance of A Streetcar Named Desire. He played Brando’s character and he was breathtaking on stage, all raw emotion and power and want. But that intensity he brought to the stage he brought to the relationship too in the form of rabid jealousy and insecurity. One evening our junior year, he showed up at my dorm, banged on the door, and collapsed on the floor in a heap. “I didn’t get the part,” he moaned. He’d been at a callback for the role of the youngest son in Long Day’s Journey Into Night.

“I’m so sorry, Michael,” I said and pet his hair.

He propped himself up on an elbow. “You don’t love me enough.”

“I do love you,” I told him.

“Then marry me. Marry me now. Let’s have a secret marriage. Prove you love me by marrying me.”

I was twenty. Even if I wanted to get married, I wasn’t going to do it secretly. But he looked at me so seriously, and with also something like anger in his eyes. I laughed nervously.

“You don’t love me enough,” he repeated.

Love me enough. What did that even mean? Maybe he was right. Maybe I didn’t love him enough. All I knew was when he showed up drunk at three in the morning the next night, it didn’t feel like love. It felt like stalking. He kept appearing in the middle of the night. Sometimes, I let him in just to shut him up so I could fall back asleep. He’d lie in bed with me and wake me up at three, four, five in the morning by poking his finger in my ear. “Stay up all night with me. To prove you love me.”

I couldn’t prove I loved him enough, nor did I want to, and given the unexpected and unwanted late-night visits, I was even more grateful when I was accepted into a study abroad program for my senior year. I had to get away from him, but I also wanted to be in France.

I took off for the city of lights and lived there for my senior year of school, immersing myself in the language, the food, and most of all the artisanal jewelry. My days were filled with cobblestoned streets and stone corridors of universities older than the United States, and my nights were rich with lamplights and a winding river and the occasional kiss with a young Frenchman. Once I returned to New York and started business school, there was even less room to think of Bryan.

Now, it was finally time to follow his Internet trail. But only because I needed to be armed with information so I could make my case in front of my professor. So I did the thing I hadn’t done for years. I sought out information about Bryan online. The very first result shocked me.

Made Here Business Partner Ousted by Board Following Affair

The link was to an article in a New York newspaper from a few months ago. I checked out the photo of Bryan’s ex-business partner, a standard sort of average-looking guy. As I read the article, several lines stood out. “At the board’s insistence, Kramer Wilco has stepped down as co-chief executive of Made Here, the high-flying manufacturing startup that’s been earning tidy profits in the last several quarters. Wilco admitted to being involved with an intern at the Made Here factory outside of Philadelphia. When it was discovered the intern was seventeen and a senior in high school, the board made it clear he needed to go. Wilco started Made Here with his business partner Bryan Leighton four years ago. Leighton did not return calls for comment, but a spokesperson said he will run the company solo now.”

I slumped back in my chair. I’d had no idea his firm had been touched by this sort of scandal. Was Bryan the one who discovered the affair? How had he handled it? Was he cool and clinical? Or pissed off and fuming like I would be? I Googled Wilco next and clicked on an interview he’d done with a business news channel a year ago after Made Here inked a new deal with a large retailer.

“What’s the biggest challenge your company faces in the quarter ahead?” the reporter asked at the end of the piece.

“Honestly, now’s not the time to talk about challenges. Now’s the time to just focus on our new partnership,” Wilco said, but there was a curtness to his answer and a snappish sort of tone in his voice. He wasn’t the most affable guy, that was for sure. Bryan would have done a much better job with the interview, coming across as warm and smart.

Then I shook my head as if I could rid myself of the thoughts. Why was I wasting any mental energy on how Bryan would have managed a cable news interview? Much less on how he felt when his business partner got caught canoodling? Bryan’s feelings didn’t matter to me anymore. I read a few more articles on Made Here’s business strategy, then researched the skatewear gal so I was prepped for tomorrow. I shifted gears and tended to some online orders, responded to some emails, and checked out a few of my favorite European design blogs. Then I worked on my other classwork, keeping a laser focus the whole time. It was nearly midnight when my roommate Jill, with her dark blond hair and deep blue eyes, threw open the door and announced she was home from an epic dress rehearsal in which the cast of Les Mis had kicked unholy musical ass. I laughed and listened to her report.

When she was done, I clasped my hands together. “You will never believe what happened today.”

“Tell me.”

I proceeded to share every single detail of my afternoon. “Isn’t that the most ridiculous thing you’ve ever heard? I’m marching into my professor’s office and requesting a new mentor tomorrow.”

Jill smirked.

“What?”

She rolled her eyes.

“Okay, what now?”

Then came a shrug and a knowing look. “I’m just saying, it doesn’t sound like you hated the kiss as much as you’re making it sound like you hated the kiss.”

“I hated every second of it,” I said through tight lips.

“Yeah, keep telling yourself that, my kitty cat.”

*****

The next morning Jill woke me up bright and early by throwing a sports bra on my face. “Rise and burn, sunshine. Rise and burn.”

I rolled over in bed and shielded my eyes. “Go away.”

That made Jill jump onto my bed and bounce up and down.

“How is it you can rehearse til midnight and have the energy to go for a run at seven in the morning?”

“I’m a vampire. I don’t need sleep. I survive off the nectar of my Broadway ambitions. And let’s not forget I was actually up til past midnight listening to you tell me all about Mr. Hottie McCufflinks.”

I swatted Jill with a pillow, then sat up in bed.

Jill clapped. “I won. Let’s go run.”

She was already in her leggings, sports bra and a tight tee-shirt, with her long blond hair looped in a hair tie.

“Fine,” I said, then brushed my teeth, yanked my hair into a ponytail and pulled on workout clothes. We ran when we hit the sidewalk of Twenty-Second Street heading for the West Side Bike Path. The sun was rising, and it promised a warm September day, free of rain.

“So what’s your plan? How are you going to resist him during your mentorship?” Jill started, arms tucked properly by her body, feet hitting the ground in perfect runner’s stride. Back in high school, when Jill wasn’t nabbing starring roles in musical theater productions, she was a runner for her cross-country team. Oh, have I mentioned she’s also finished five marathons? I must have been crazy to run with her because when it comes to sports I specialized in walking, just walking, and only walking. That’s why I only ran with her once a week and even then I spent most of the thirty minutes consumed by one singular, solitary, painful thought: Please let this be over as soon as humanly possible.

“I’m asking for a transfer. But even if I can’t get one, I don’t like Bryan, so it’ll be fine.”

“Ha.”

“Besides, he doesn’t like me either,” I said in between breaths.

“I find that hard to believe.”

“Jill, he didn’t like me five years ago. Why would he like me now?”

She gave me a sideways glance. “He did like you then. He just freaked out. Got scared or something. That’s what I’ve always believed and you know it. As for why he likes you now – duh. You’re you and you’re hot.” Jill slowed down her running. Delighted, I followed her lead into a more comfortable jog. “Besides. He. Kissed. You.”

I scoffed. “He kissed my forehead.”

“For. Ten. Seconds.”

“Anyway, it was nothing. I hit my head, and he was just being nice. Nothing more will happen. Because there is nothing going on.”

Jill cackled.

“What?”

“Kat. Seriously. You always fall for the hot ones.”

“Who doesn’t fall for the hot ones?”

“True.” We jogged past a pair of twentysomething guys running shirt-free. “Nice abs,” Jill called out, and the guys gave her a thumbs up. Jill was such an actress — she never had a problem speaking her mind or standing out in a crowd.

“Besides, how do you know he’s hot?”

“I looked up his picture. I looked him up too because I know you’re all Miss Resistance when it comes to Internet stalking, but I’m not. You know he’s single, right?”

“He’s twenty-eight. I’m not surprised he’s not married yet.”

“No, I mean he’s really single. Broke up with some publicist type he was dating on and off for a few years.”

“It if was on and off, it’ll probably be on again. Plus, allow me to remind you that – “ I slowed down and made a megaphone with my hands “– He. Doesn’t. Like. Me. Hello? Don’t you remember why I started My Favorite Mistakes?”

“Of course. But people change. And he’s clearly realized the error of his ways.”

“Look, I can’t mess up this mentorship. I know this makes me a freak, but I actually like my parents and want to help them. So I’m all-work-and-no-play-Kat for the fall.”

“I’ll believe that when I see it,” she said playfully. “And don’t worry. I like your parents too.”

“Good. That’s why I can’t even go there,” I said, in between heavy breaths from running.

“No. That’s why you have to be smart about it. Strategic. So whatever happens will have to be a secret. Between you, him, and me. And when you kiss him again, just make sure no one sees you,” Jill said, then gave me a big wink.

I shook my head, but I was smiling at her persistence, even though I knew I couldn’t take chances, whether anyone was looking or not. I had too much at stake, most of all my own bruised heart.

Chapter Six

I knocked on Professor Oliver’s door, but it was wide open. He was that kind of a teacher. The door was never closed.

“Come in, Ms. Harper,” he said, and gestured to the chair near his desk. “I’m delighted about the assignments this semester, and I hope you are too.”

“That’s why I’m here, actually. While I have the utmost admiration for Mr. Leighton and all that he’s achieved as a chief executive at his company, I’d very much prefer a mentor in the retail sector,” I said.

Professor Oliver cocked his head to the side. “But Mr. Leighton is a perfect match for you.” I winced at the words perfect match. Sure, I knew Professor Oliver didn’t intend anything by them, because he wasn’t talking match in the romantic sense. In fact, entanglements were expressly forbidden. He’d posted an image of a stop sign on his class Web site and the sign read: “No Mentor-Protege hanky-panky. Or else an F.” That was how he wrote, with words like hanky-panky. But it was the or else an F directive that scared me.

I pressed forward. “I had really hoped Lacey Haybourne, who founded the skateboard line, would be the best pair-up for me. We’re both, essentially, in the fashion industry,” I said, adding more details on why the change made sense.

Professor Oliver nodded thoughtfully as if he were considering my request, and I felt like I could exhale for the first time since Bryan had walked into the classroom yesterday. That I wasn’t going to spend the next three months encased in some sort of dormant anger. Professor Oliver picked up a fountain pen that reminded me of one I’d seen at the upscale Elizabeth’s department store recently. He twirled it between his thumb and forefinger. “Let me shed some light on why I made the match. For My Favorite Mistakes to grow and become a powerful jewelry brand, you’ll need to learn about scale. About production. About manufacturing. That’s the field Mr. Leighton is in. And what I think your business needs most is this sort of —” Professor Oliver paused as if to consider the words, “— horizontal learning.”

Horizontal learning.

Damn.

I knew he meant our businesses had shared attributes, though Bryan’s was, of course, multinational. Still, I issued a warning to my brain. Don’t go there. Don’t imagine anything else horizontal with Bryan Leighton. Don’t picture him laying you down on a hotel bed and taking off all your clothes. Don’t even think about his lips on you.

“I understand sir. I just think —”

“Ms. Harper,” Professor Oliver said gently, but firmly closing a door on my final effort. “Bryan Leighton will be your mentor, and it will be great for you. Thank you for your understanding.”

I was clearly dismissed. I turned to leave, deflated that my negotiation skills were sorely lacking, and frustrated that I’d have to spend three months with someone I’d spent five years trying to forget.

“Oh, one more thing.”

I looked back, and he handed me a business card with a phone number. “My wife wants to give one of your necklaces to a friend. They’re going to be huge, your jewelry. Can you give her a call?”

“Thank you, sir.”

On the way out, I called Professor Oliver’s wife, who promptly informed me that she didn’t just want my necklace for a friend. She had much bigger plans, and wanted to discuss them over lunch so we agreed to meet later in the week. After I hung up, I Googled her to see if I could prepare in advance, but when I entered her full name into the browser on my phone — Claire Oliver — I found nothing to connect her to the retail jewelry business.

I’d have to wing it.

Then, I bit the bullet and emailed Bryan to let him know that Friday would work to visit his factory. I stuffed my phone, which I kept in a sparkly Hello Kitty case, underneath my eReader, my wallet, and some tissues at the bottom of my purse, hoping out of sight, out of mind would rule the rest of my day.

Not that I was waiting for his reply. Not that I wanted to see him again. Not at all.

*****

I’d picked out the perfect outfit to meet Professor Oliver’s wife.

I zipped up my A-line skirt, slid into a pair of black pumps and adjusted my purple scoop neck top one more time. I’d snagged the shirt from a shop in Brooklyn that always had amazing deals on clothes so I could look sharp at the occasional business meeting without blowing my budget. My dark hair was blown straight, and I had just the right amount of makeup on. Lipstick and some mascara. I grabbed my electric blue purse, a cute retro number, because it was large enough to hold more necklace samples in different styles, lengths and colors, as well as an assortment of charms.

I left the apartment and caught the subway to my meeting on the Upper East Side. I hadn’t looked at my phone for an entire hour, so I allowed myself a quick peek on the train. I’d been on a once-an-hour diet since I sent Bryan the note yesterday so I figured I deserved many pats on the back. That was good restraint, right?

When his name appeared in my email now, I squeaked out an excited oh.

I wanted to smack myself. What was wrong with me? I didn’t even like him.

Control. I had to stay in control, so I didn’t open the email right away. Instead, I triple-quadruple checked the charms in the inside pocket of my purse, I appraised my lipstick in the train window, and I peered at the time on my watch. Then, as if I’d proven myself to the judge and jury of me, I took a breath, and calmly tapped on the note.

Kat — I trust we’re still on for tomorrow? I’ll send my car to pick you up at 9 a.m. if that works for you. Are you one of those rare breeds who can manage the morning without caffeinated assistance? (By the way, if I was an emoticon guy I’d insert one here, but I’m not a practitioner of smiley face symbols and/or Internet abbreviations.) If not, please let me know your caffeine preferences these days and whether you like coffee, tea or one of those fluffy drinks with lots of milk and made-up sounding names.

My best,

Bryan

I re-read the note several times, always stopping at the same spot — these days. Had he truly forgotten my tastes? He knew well and good that I worshipped at the altar of fluffy drinks with frothy flavors. Maybe he was simply playing along with the whole “we just met routine” he’d tried on the other day in Washington Square Park. Or maybe he’d forgotten the details of me since I’d never really mattered to him. Fine, it was just a coffee preference we were taking about. Still, if he couldn’t remember, then I didn’t want him to know I marked time on my calendar by counting down the days until Starbucks added salted caramel hot chocolate to its menu for those delirious few weeks near the holidays. I didn’t want to confess I’d try any drink with an -ino ending.

I hit reply.

Bryan — The time is fine. I’ll take my coffee with a splash of cream, please.

Best,

Kat

I re-read my note. It didn’t sound like me one bit. Normally, I’d try to say something clever in reply, like I am not familiar with the concept of being perky, peppy or even awake sans those magical energy imps found in coffee or tea. But he hadn’t earned the right to banter again. Besides, if I didn’t let him in, he couldn’t hurt me. The train pulled into my stop and I exited, walking quickly up the steps and into the sunshine of a late Manhattan morning. As I waited for the light at the crosswalk, I glanced at the screen to see Bryan had already written back.

Kat — Funny, I seem to recall you were rather fond of caramel-itos and mocha-treat-os. Wondering what else I’ll learn about how your tastes have changed in the last five years. Oh wait, we’re starting over, so this is all new information to me. Black coffee with a touch of cream it is then.

No emoticon inserted here intentionally even though I would wink if you were here in person.

My best,

Bryan

I fumed and I soared at once. How could be possibly act like we were starting anything over? Had he forgotten the way he’d dumped me? And yet, I felt the tiniest zing race through me when I read his words. Because he did remember details of me. But it was time for my meeting, so as I walked into a small restaurant with crisp white tablecloths, stainless steel vases holding lilies, and waiters wearing perfectly knotted ties, I extradited Bryan and his coffee winks from my brain.

*****

Mrs. Claire Oliver ordered a Cobb salad with the dressing on the side. I followed her low-cal lead, opting for a Caesar with light dressing. She drank iced tea and I did the same. She was a pretty woman, with dark blond hair, cut in a straight and sharp bob, haunting brown eyes, and creamy white skin. She wore a sea-green blouse, designer jeans that probably cost more than my rent, and a pair of suede cutout Giuseppe Zanotti heels that were the height of haute couture. She was impeccably put together, like a Hollywood star appearing on a talk show, and she was younger than I expected. Professor Oliver had to be in his fifties, but I was betting his wife was no more than thirty-five.

“Mr. Oliver tells me you’re one of his best students,” Claire said as the waiter walked away.

“He’s very kind to say that.”

“I’m sure he wouldn’t say it unless it were true. He thinks you’re going to be a superstar in your field. I wouldn’t be surprised either, because I think your designs are top-notch,” she said, and she wasn’t the warmest woman, but there was something admiring in her tone.

“Thank you, Mrs. Oliver.”

“You can call me Claire.”

“Claire.” It felt funny to call her by her first name. She was my professor’s wife, she was older and she was so perfectly high-fashion that I felt as if I should be deferential.

“Kat, the reason I wanted to have lunch with you is I have a proposition for you. Your designs have such great promise, and I absolutely see a tremendous market for them. But what you’re lacking is distribution. So I’d like to show them around to a few buyers I know, get a pulse on the market, and see if we can’t get you into more stores.”

There wasn’t a chance I’d say no to her or to anyone making such an offer. Still, I wanted to know who she was working for, or if she was a middleman for herself. “That would be amazing. May I ask which stores or which buyers?”

She waved a hand as if to say let’s not go there. “Don’t worry about that. My connections are good.”

I wanted to know more, but if she was taking a chance on me, I’d have to take a chance on her. We discussed more of the specifics, the cut she’d receive of sales, her plans for showing my line around, and her vision for how women around the country would be giving and getting these necklaces as gifts come holiday time. I mentally crossed my fingers because maybe, just maybe, this could help me help my parents.

“Now, you said I could see more of your designs.”

I opened my purse and took out my latest necklaces that showcased an array of charms.

She nodded and touched each one. “Some of your designs have a modern and sleek look. But others have a sort of European sensibility. Where do your inspirations come from?”

“Definitely from Paris. I lived there for a year.”

“Ah, the most wonderful city in the world,” she said to me in French.

“There is nothing better,” I replied in the same language, and we talked more about our favorite places in Paris. I told her I adored the shopping in the Marais, and that my heart would always be in Montmartre with its curvy, cobblestoned streets, but that the best deals were to be found at the open-air markets. “The jewelry there, the charms and trinkets, and the things you never thought could be charms, like tiny little keys, are a total steal.”

“You are a woman after my own heart. I love shopping at the open-air markets with the fruit and flower vendors and vintage jewelry sellers as much as I love the Champs-Élysées.”

Then, she excused herself for the ladies room. As I waited for her return, I noticed a sharply dressed man enter the restaurant and walk towards a woman with wavy auburn hair. She lifted her face to him. He leaned down and kissed her, a long slow hold. I started writing their backstory. This red-haired beauty and this well-dressed man must be newly in love with just a handful of dizzying dates behind them, I surmised, as he kissed her one more time. Or maybe they were each other’s first love back when they were younger. Maybe they met when she was fresh out of high school and he was a newly minted business grad. Maybe they fell in mad love five years ago, and never fell out. Maybe they were still crazy about each other to this day, and kissed every time as if it were the first time.

Ha. The whole scenario sounded implausible. Besides, those kind of kisses only happened in the movies.

Chapter Seven

Bryan’s sleek black car with tinted windows was parked outside my building at nine on the dot the next morning. Even more impressive than the punctuality was the consideration — the car wasn’t idling. The engine was off. Most drivers left the cars running while picking someone up, and, frankly, I couldn’t stand that. I’d have to compliment his driver.

Then Bryan stepped out of the car, wearing dark jeans, a white button-down shirt, and a tie with cartoonish giraffes on them.

“Oh.”

“Did the giraffes surprise you?”

“No. I just thought you were sending a car. I didn’t know you’d be in the car.”

“Since I need to go to Philly too, I figured I could bum a ride with you. That okay?” he asked playfully.

“Of course.”

He held the door open, and I slid into the car. I smoothed out the soft folds on my green skirt as the driver turned on the engine and we pulled away.

“Glad to see you weren’t idling,” I said in an effort to be civil.

“If I were president, I’d sign a bill forbidding idling at the curb.”

I smiled despite myself. “Especially for people checking their phones.”

“Oh, well, idling and checking your phone would get you a jail term under my regime.”

“You run a tight dictatorship.” I kept up the volley because I could do better than mere civility. I intended to be so cool, casual and goddamn witty that words would become my shield to protect me from any stupid leftover feelings for him. Vestigial feelings, of course.

“Know what else I’d ban if I were president?”

“Cauliflower?”

He laughed. Damn, I was on fire.

“Actually, I was going to say those asparagus that have stalks the size of baseball bats. So you were kind of close. But I’d also abolish the word moist.”

I curled my nose. “That word must be destroyed. Along with slacks.”

He made a slashing motion with his hand. “Pants. Only pants!” Bryan gestured to the drink holder. There were three coffee drinks in it. “As promised.”

“Someone joining us?”

“No. I brought you the black coffee with a dollop of cream. And I also brought a caramel macchiato. In case you were just pretending you liked black coffee,” he said, then flashed a flirty smile.

“Why would I pretend I liked black coffee?” I kept my tone serious, even though he’d seen through me, and against my better judgement, I found I liked it. But I wasn’t going to let him know that.

“Who knows? But mostly, I just wanted to see if I could remember —” he started, then corrected himself. “I meant, guess. I wanted to see if I could guess what kind of coffee drink you really liked.”

I looked from the coffee to the macchiato to Bryan. I let my hand hover over the first drink, then the second, as if it were a shell game. “Hmmm. Did he guess right? I wonder, wonder, wonder.”

He raised his eyebrows expectantly. I reached for the coffee and took a drink. It tasted like bitter sludge. I wanted to spit it out. I wanted to wince. Instead, I took a long swallow and fixed on a fake smile. “Mmmm. There is nothing like a coffee to get the day going.”

He snapped his fingers in a win-some, lose-some gesture. “Damn. I really thought you were still a macchiato girl. I even got an extra shot of caramel in it too,” he added.

I took another drink. I’d never liked coffee, but somehow the harsh taste was the reminder I needed not to give in, even to the fact that he’d remembered the extra shot.

Soon, the car slowed to a stop and the driver came around to open the door. I gave Bryan a quizzical look. We’d only been driving for five minutes. “I thought we were going to Philly?”

“We are. By train,” he said, then held out a hand.

I waved him off. I didn’t need help stepping out of the car. We walked into the train station, down the escalator, to the tracks, and into the first class car. It was quiet and air-conditioned, with leather-backed dove gray seats.

“Would you like the window seat, Kat?”

I nodded, then sat down, wishing I didn’t find politeness, consideration and manners such a turn-on. He sat next to me, his leg brushing against mine. I should have shifted my body, moved a few inches away, but instead we simply stayed like that, legs touching, as the train pulled out of Manhattan and picked up speed. He answered emails on his phone, and I read some chapters in a business book that had been assigned in one of my classes.

As we sped through the suburbs on the way to his factory, I thought about the skater gal, and what I would ask her if she were my mentor. I’d want to hear the story in her own words of how she started her business. So I went with that, closing the book and speaking in my best curious student voice. Because that’s how I was going to act with him.

“Would you tell me the story of Made Here? I’ve read the version on your Web site, but I’d love to hear it from you.”

He put his phone away, and held my gaze, and in that second I felt an electricity, a tightly coiled line between the two of us. He had a way of making me feel as if he were touching me, even if we were inches apart. Maybe it was because he wasn’t afraid to look me in the eyes, or to hold onto the look. Nor was he afraid to be close. Whatever the reason, the effect was heady, and it was dangerous. Perhaps I should pretend he really was the skater gal. I pictured him wearing cat’s eye glasses and a black wig with pink streaks. There. I’d never been a fan of men in drag, so the image helped me focus.

“I suppose it all began when I was reassigned a few weeks after I started my first job out of graduate school. I was supposed to work in New York, but I was sent to Paris instead for a year…” he said and kept talking, but it was as if someone knocked me out of time. I thought he’d stayed in New York after he ended it with me.

“You were there for a year?”

He nodded. “Yes. I was sent there right after…” his voice trailed off. Right after he broke up with me.

“It’s okay. You can say it. I’m a big girl. Right after you broke up with me.”

He sighed deeply. “Yes. Then.”

I held out my hands. “See? That wasn’t so hard to say. We just get it out there in the open and move on.”

“Okay. So there it is. Out in the open.”

“And now we go back to the whole we just met routine. Good?”

He nodded.

“Where did you live?” I asked, shifting the talk back to Paris.

“In the Latin Quarter. Across the river from Notre Dame.”

“Me too.” I pictured the flat I’d lived in with a hip and trendy young French couple. The narrow staircase that wound up four flights. The cramped kitchen and even smaller bathroom. But it was Paris, and from the window in the second bedroom I had a view of the river and Notre Dame and farther beyond I could see Sacre-Coeur. A torch singer who lived across the street from me used to fling her windows open in the evenings, and she’d sing while cooking, songs about love gone awry. She had one of those voices like whiskey and honey, the best kind of voice for those songs. I half expected her to slink around her flat in a sexy, sequined red dress like a cabaret singer. “So you went to Paris for work. But this was before Made Here?”

“The company I worked for right out of business school had an office there. I thought I’d just visit it from time to time. But instead, they relocated me. So I spent a year in Paris, learning the ropes, and the firm did a lot of business with small suppliers who made handcrafted special goods. High-quality watches, and leather bags, and wallets and such. And I was able to observe some of the processes, the handiwork, the craftsmanship. It got me thinking I could do the same back in the States, but I had to capitalize on something that was on the cusp of being popular but that wouldn’t just be a trend. That’s when the cufflink idea came to me, so when I returned from Paris I connected with Wilco,” he said, referring to his former business partner. “He was the money guy. I was the idea guy. So he raised the capital and I started building the business. And voila. Four years later, here we are.”

I noted that he didn’t say anything bad about Wilco, when it would be so easy to disparage the man given the trouble he’d caused for Made Here. “Voila, indeed. So I take it you’re fluent?”

“Oui.”

“Moi aussi.”

He raised an eyebrow. “So then I can flirt with you in French and it’ll be like a secret language just between us,” he said to me in French.

Flirt. Secret. Us. What was he doing using words like that? Playing with my emotions? “Yeah, not so secret, Bryan. A few million people speak French.”

Then I turned to look out the window. We were passing through a beautiful town in Pennsylvania, rushing by farmhouses and stately white homes with impeccably trimmed green lawns and shrubs.

He peered out the window too, his body moving closer to mine, doing that thing he did where he migrated into my space. I could feel his chest against my arm as we watched the towns zoom by. Soon, he reached his arm across my back, his hand touching my shoulder. Technically, it was the sort of thing friends might do. But it didn’t feel like we were friends. It didn’t even feel like flirting. It felt like foreplay.

And I didn’t want to pretend anymore.

I didn’t want to be mean anymore.

I didn’t want to toss barbs at him anymore.

I wanted him to touch me, so I didn’t dare move. I didn’t risk a look or a glance. The moment was full of too much heat that I didn’t trust myself. I thought I was over him. I thought he’d earned the spot I’d tucked him in back in the far corner of my mind. I was wrong. I had been forcing him there for five years. Because now, with him by my side, inches away, looking out the window of a racing train, I knew all I’d done was white knuckle it through. I’d faked my way through every other relationship, when all I was doing was resisting him. He was the only one I’d ever wanted like this, and my body was on fire for him.

He leaned in to whisper to me, and I closed my eyes. I felt as if I might collapse into him. “The towns are so pretty, Kat. Don’t you think?”

“Yes,” I managed to say without melting into his arms.

“And sometimes, I think, they’re even prettier five years later. Just like you. You’re even prettier now, and you were beautiful then.”

I wanted to turn my face towards his and let him devour me in kisses, let his hands find their way underneath my shirt, and onto my skin. I could see kisses on my neck, lips on my belly, legs wrapped around him. It was almost too much to bear. I tried to shake the images – these pictures of him on me, in me, under me – but they’d staked out a home.

Somewhere, there was a modicum of restraint in me, because I didn’t answer him.

Soon, the train pulled into our stop. We both rose, and I noticed his cheeks were flushed. He looked at me, his eyes darker than usual, full of unsaid things.

Chapter Eight

I’d had a few boyfriends before I met Bryan, but none of them serious. I was the artsy girl growing up, so I was always drawn to those types too, and went out with a dark-haired hipster guy who inked comic books when I was a junior in high school, then to senior prom with a totally beautiful golden boy who looked like the quarterback but wrote like a poet, including a sonnet for me tucked inside the corsage.

I liked them both, but they didn’t compare to Bryan. They didn’t come close in any department, not in my heart, and definitely not in the kissing division. Any girl who says she doesn’t keep a list of best kisses ever is lying. She may not have a pen-and-paper list, but she knows in her head who rocked her world and made her more than weak in the knees. Bryan was my butterflies-in-the-belly, my soft-and-hungry-and-neverending kisses. He was all the kisses I’d ever want. Because he was kind, and he was witty, and he always wanted to know more about me, and maybe that’s why he kissed like a dream – he was my dream guy.

One summer night Bryan and I went to the water and stretched out on a blanket on the sand. As I ran my hands over his chest and his stomach, he made this noise, like a low growl and a sigh all in one, and I wanted to pull his perfect body to mine and move against him.

“We can’t do more than kiss,” he said as my fingers explored the underside of his tee-shirt while the midnight waves rolled along the beach, then back out to the ocean.

“Why?”

“Because. Because I’m your brother’s friend. Because I’m older than you.”

“You’re only five years older,” I pointed out.

“I know. But you’re seventeen.”

“So? I’m old enough to know what I want.”

“I know, and I want it too. But it’s wrong.”

“Would it be wrong then when I’m eighteen?”

I looped my hands around his back and wriggled my hips closer. From the feel of him against me, I doubted it would be wrong. I was sure it would only be right.

“Kat.”

“Would it be wrong when I’m eighteen?” I repeated, bringing my lips to his, and running my fingers across his smooth, strong back. He shuddered under my touch, and I felt powerful. I felt wanted. I felt like the girl who was becoming irresistible to the boy.

“No.”

“So then…” I let my voice trail off. He was leaving for New York in a week to start his job. I was starting school a month later. Nervous hope clanged inside me. “I’m going to be in New York soon too. I’m going to NYU.”

“I know, and you’re going to love it. But my job is going to take me out of town a lot,” he said, and my heart sank. I wanted to be more than his summer love. Summer romances, by definition, are bittersweet. They have an expiration date. “Don’t be sad, Kat. I’m totally falling for you, and I don’t want to take advantage of you. I like you that much.”

That made me smile and feel better about the possibility of an us, even though it seemed like grasping at the edge of a cloud.

A few days later, we were at the movies again, and I kept thinking about what he’d said about falling for me. I was falling for him too, and then some. Age difference or not, brother’s best friend or not, I wanted him to know. I wanted to put it out there, obstacles be damned. After the credits rolled, and the lights came up, and we were the only ones still in the theater except for an usher cleaning the front rows, I looked in his green eyes, took a breath, and said, “I’m falling for you too.”

He smiled, the kind that only spelled happiness, and pressed his forehead to mine. “Kat, will you come visit me in New York next month?”

I was a pinwheel of colors. I was the winner at the carnival. The boy I wanted wanted me. “Of course.”

And so we made plans. I’d take the train in on weekends to visit him, and we’d do all those things young couples do in New York. Walk through the Village holding hands, kiss by the fountain at Lincoln Center, bring a picnic to Central Park and find the most secluded spot. Then, when I turned eighteen at the end of the summer, we’d do more. We’d do everything. He would be my first, and there was no question I’d waited for the right guy.

We went to a restaurant in Little Italy the first weekend, and he touched my legs under the red-checked tablecloth the whole time, sending me into the most heated state. When we left, I pulled him against me and we made out in front of a closed hardware store next door, not caring who was walking past us.

Another time, we spent the afternoon in the Impressionist galleries at the Metropolitan Museum, where I showed him my favorite Monet, one of haystacks in the snow. He said he liked the way the artist crafted shadows in the sun. Then, Bryan pointed at the folds on a dress in a Renoir and mused that they seemed like diamonds. I looked at him, at the way his green eyes studied the painting, and it all seemed too good to be true – here I was with someone who was gorgeous, and funny, and who actually liked looking at art – but yet, it was true.

The next weekend he said he’d found the perfect store for me, and he brought me to a cobblestoned block in the Village and held open the door to a tiny little Japanese manga shop. I gave him a quizzical look. I wasn’t into manga.

“Just go in. You’ll see.”

After I passed the shelves of comics, I saw the most fantastic display. A wall full of Hello Kitty jewelry – bracelets and rings and hair clips and necklaces and keychains and every adornment imaginable with the cat.

Bryan was smiling, as if he’d brought me to buried treasure. “I thought you might get a kick out of it.” A nervous grin came next. “But then again, you make such amazing stuff this might all seem silly to you.”

I placed my hand on his arm. “I love it. No matter what I make, I will always love Hello Kitty. It’s a life-long kind of thing we have going on.”

“Good. Pick anything you like.”

I studied the displays, checking out a rhinestone necklace, a white and pink pendant, a silver and black chain. Then rings in all shapes and sizes. I showed him a cute, sparkly ring. “I do love this ring.”

I moved over to the necklaces. Bryan shifted closer and slipped his hand onto the small of my back, touching me underneath my tee-shirt. I closed my eyes because it felt so good I wanted to purr. The slightest touch from him was intoxicating.

“One more week until your birthday,” he whispered.

I leaned into him, savoring the feel of his body against me. That we were in a public place barely crossed my mind. All I could think of was him.

The girl behind the counter cleared her throat. I opened my eyes and managed to choose a sparkly number, with pink stones for the cat’s ears. It was kitschy and that’s what made it so adorable.

“Wait for me outside,” Bryan said.

I did as instructed and a minute later, he left the store, dropped a tiny white bag into his wallet, and then fastened the chain around my neck. “It’s just a little necklace, but I wanted you to have something from me. Something you liked,” he said, and he sounded so sweet and nervous too.

“I love it, Bryan. I totally love it.”

“You do?”

“Yes.”

Then, his hands were in my hair, and he kissed my neck, my earlobe, my eyelids. I sighed and swayed closer. I was floating, I was flying, I was in Manhattan with the man I’d fallen in mad, crazy love with.

“Why aren’t we just in your apartment right now?” I whispered.

“Because if we are, I will not be able to resist you.”

“You’re not doing a good job resisting me right now.”

“I know. Can you even imagine what it’ll be like if it’s just you and me?”

“Yes,” I said softly. “I can imagine. I think about it all the time. I’m so crazy about you. I want to be with you in every way.”

“Me too. Let’s go walk around NYU. You’re going to be there in just a few weeks.” He held my hand and squeezed my fingers when he said that, his touch a visceral reminder that we’d be together then. We wandered around the campus for the next hour, and with each building, dorm and classroom that we managed to find open in August, I grew more excited about college.

“I can’t believe I’m going to be here soon. It’s going to be amazing.” We walked along the outside of one of the dorms. “Did you love it here?”

“Yes. I loved it. College is everything they say it is.”

“What do you mean?”

“That it’s the time when you find yourself. When you figure out what you want. And when you have a ton of fun.”

“I can’t wait to start. I know I’m going to love it.”

“You are,” Bryan said, but there was something sad in his tone.

I looked at him. “Hey. You okay?”

“Totally.”

“Because you sounded…”

“I’m fine.”

But he grew quieter as we checked out the campus bookstore, and a cafe where I said I would probably do all my homework, and the library, which was speckled with students for the summer session. His mind was elsewhere, and he didn’t tell me where he’d gone.

At the station on Sunday night, I thanked him again for the necklace.

“You should always wear it,” he said before I caught the last train to Mystic. His voice was wistful, and when he kissed me goodbye, the moment had become melancholy. I didn’t feel like a girl who was returning in a week for her eighteenth birthday. I felt like a girl being sent off with only a Hello Kitty necklace to remember him by.

When I called a few days later to confirm our weekend plans, his voice was different. Strained and distant.

“I don’t think you should come in,” he said.

Something didn’t compute. We’d been planning this weekend for more than a month. “Why? Did something come up at work?” My shoulders started to tighten with worry.

“No. It’s just…I don’t think we should.”

“Should what?”

There were so many ways to answer the question, but the scariest one was the one he said next.

“I don’t think we should be together.”

I looked at my phone briefly as if it were a radio, mistakenly tuned to a channel I could no longer understand. I brought the phone to my ear and said the only thing I could think of. The thing I was clinging to. “But I’m totally in love with you, Bryan. One hundred percent and then some. And I want to be with you.”

Then I waited, and I waited, and I waited.

Words didn’t come.

The silence choked me. It was as if hands were on my neck, gripping me.

How could I have misread him so badly? He’d said he was falling for me. Where else do you fall but in love?

Then he spoke, and his words were sharp glass. “I have to go.”

Breaking the clasp in a single, fierce pull, I ripped off the necklace, then tossed it into the trash, stuffing it at the bottom of the can.

That was the last time I spoke to him.

Even now, five years later, those words rang through me. I could hear them, the pause before he spoke, the shape of each and every syllable. I have to go.

That’s exactly what he did. He left.

Chapter Nine

The factory was loud and busy. Machines whirred, conveyor belts hummed, parts rattled and people chatted. Bryan gave me the guided tour of the whole operation, stopping along the way to talk with his employees, from the managers who ran the facilities to some of the men and women at the end of the line who worked like master jewelers with loupes, carefully and painstakingly putting the finishing touches on pair after pair of fine platinum and pewter and silver cufflinks for the line called Sleek. Made Here also created cufflinks from recycled materials including old watches and bike chains that had a deliberately worn and purposefully tarnished look for the Scuff line. The factory had once made lugnuts for hubcaps. With his expertise in engineering and his vision for solving problems in unconventional ways, Bryan had retrofitted the former auto parts factory for Made Here’s goods, and the result was a mixture of automation and craftsmanship.

“You know what I really want most for the recycled line?”

“What would that be?”

“The lover’s bridge in Paris.”

“Just take the whole bridge and chop it up?”

He laughed. “No. The padlocks,” he said, referring to the locks that hung on of one of the bridges arcing over the Seine. Lovers wrote their names on locks, hooked them to the links and tossed the keys in the river as a promise. It was a popular spot for locals and tourists and the net effect was every year the old locks had to be cut and tossed away to make room for new proclamations of the heart. “I’ve been trying to work with the city of Paris for years. To find a way to buy the used locks from them — the ones they have to cut off every year. But, French bureaucracy is, well, French bureaucracy.”

My eyes lit up, and for one of the first times with him in this go-round, I spoke from the heart. “That would be amazing, though. What a perfect gift. A pair of cufflinks made from padlocks on the lover’s bridge.”

“Right? Wouldn’t it be? And it’s not as if the city cuts the locks because the couples broke up. They only throw them out because they need room for more. So what if I could take those off their hands and turn them into something?”

“Do you think it’ll happen?”

“I’ve made some headway. But it’s a project I can’t delegate. I’m the only one at the company who’s fluent enough to converse with French civil workers.”

“Well, if you need any help, you know where to find me. But I should let you know, I charge extra for my translation services.”

That earned a brief smile. “Let me show you more.” He pointed to the machines that moved the parts along in a precision-timed fashion. “That’s how we can turn out product quickly and on time by keeping the process moving,” he said, then we stopped at a section of the factory floor where workers took their time handling the materials to turn them into the beginnings of new shapes and sizes.

One of the guys who was assembling parts from used bike chains gave Bryan a quick nod.

“Hey Joe,” Bryan said.

“Hey Boss Man,” Joe said.

“How’s the wife? Does Megan have her teaching degree yet?”

Joe nodded. “Just a few more months and she’ll be able to start working in the school district.”

“That’s fantastic. Keep me posted.”

As we walked away from Joe, I made a mental note that Bryan knew his employees’ wives’ names, and what they did for a living. If he were a jerk, it would be so much easier to dislike him, as I wanted to. But instead, it was getting harder to pretend he was nothing to me.

We popped into a quieter area with glass walls where a dozen people in white lab coats were doing the finishing work on the cufflinks, tie clips and money holders. “Looking good, guys. I’m psyched about the progress you’ve made this month. Make sure Delaney knows how you take your coffee or latte or whatnot. We’ll do a pick-me-up all around today from Stella’s,” he said, and I assumed Stella’s must be the local coffee shop.

There were some hoots and cheers as we left and headed to Bryan’s office on the second floor. His assistant, Delaney, cradled a phone receiver as she scribbled down elaborate notes. She was cute and perky, and had a librarian sexiness to her with black glasses and blond hair fastened in a bun.

Bryan held the door for me, and I followed him. His office was functional, but it didn’t scream overly masculine. I couldn’t stand those too mannish offices decked out in chrome and black that seemed to shout I am powerful. Bryan’s workspace was simple, with a large wooden desk, a gray couch, a navy blue chair, and a few framed awards on the wall. I checked them out; they were given by the Eco-Alliance. From the train, to the car, to his entire recycled line, he practiced what he preached, and I was impressed.

Another brick in my wall came down.

We chatted for the next hour about the manufacturing process, his distribution strategy and the supply chain challenges he’d been facing lately. Delaney knocked on the door, and then asked if it was time for the Stella’s run.

“The usual for me,” Bryan said. “Kat? You want something?”

“Just an iced tea would be great.”

Bryan tilted his head as if he were trying to figure me out. I was throwing him curveballs. He’d expected one thing from me, but I gave him another.

“And whatever you want of course, Delaney. And if you could see what the finishing crew wants as well,” he said, referring to the employees he’d promised the coffee to.

As she left, Bryan asked me more questions about My Favorite Mistakes and how I envisioned growing the business. The truth was I didn’t entirely know, and I admitted that. Soon, Delaney returned with the Stella’s run, carrying a cardboard drink holder with an iced tea and a coffee.

As she handed Bryan the coffee, I pictured her tripping and spilling it on his shirt and then fumbling through cleaning it up like on a bad sitcom. But she was graceful and poised. “I have the papers from the board on the Wilco termination,” she told him. “I’m just reviewing their comments and emailing them to you for your two p.m. call.”

“Great. Thank you. I look forward to reading them.” Delaney left, and closed the door behind her. “She’s very involved. Eager to learn. So she has a lot of responsibility,” he said to me, as if he felt the need to explain why Delaney was reviewing termination papers.

“So she’s clearly a lot more than just a minion,” I teased.

He laughed. “Definitely. But let me tell you this. Minions are overrated. Once you have them, they come in your office and want things.”

“Minion management. Never thought about that before.”

“Oh, it’s not like the old days when you could beat them with a cane.”

“I bet HR comes down pretty hard on you for that,” I said and that cracked him up. He sat down in his chair, still laughing and not paying close attention. Then, he spilled his coffee on himself.

Now it was my turn. “I’m so sorry for laughing,” I said in between big chuckles. “That was just so unexpected. It’s usually the other person who spills the coffee. You don’t usually spill it on yourself.”

His eyes widened. “Evidently, I’m the world’s biggest dork.”

“It didn’t burn you, did it?”

He shook his head as he stood up, placing the half-empty cup on the low table. The front of his white shirt was covered in a coffee-colored blotch. “No, it wasn’t that hot. I can’t stand the way some places make their drinks scalding, so Delaney always makes sure it’s a civilized temperature.”

He walked to a small closet in the corner of the office and took out a new shirt. “I guess I better change.”

“I’ll leave,” I offered, and started to rise.

“I don’t mind. Unless it makes you uncomfortable.”

Uncomfortable was not the word I’d use. More like turned on. When I looked over at Bryan, he was already unbuttoning his shirt, and I was quite simply rooted to my seat. If Channing Tatum were in the office taking off his shirt, I’d find it physically impossible to do anything else but stare at the spectacle of him undressing too. Bryan reached his cufflinks, and I watched as he deftly removed them, then laid them on top of a nearby bookshelf. He took off the shirt, and rested it on the back of a chair. He wore a white tee-shirt underneath.

“Your tee-shirt is stained too.”

He glanced at the front of his shirt. “Let’s call this a major win for you for making me laugh so hard.”

I mimed making a check mark on a scorecard, feeling pretty good about the way power was flowing these days. I was the one steering the ship. Then, I sucked in a breath as he removed his tee-shirt. All my anger slinked away, all my hurt crept out quietly. I was left only with the one thing that had never been far away for the last five years – desire for him.

I stared and I didn’t try to play it cool. He was hot, and I wanted to enjoy the view. His chest was broad and firm, his arms strong, and his stomach as flat as the earth was rumored to be before Columbus discovered the truth. There was the slightest trace of hair running from his belly button to the waistband of his jeans, disappearing beneath his clothes suggestively. He reached for a fresh tee-shirt in the closet, and a crisp, clean button-down too.

Fuck it.

Fuck the act. Fuck the cool girl routine.

So much for my plan to be tough, to be civil, to be immune to his charms. I threw that playbook out the window and started writing a new one – one that was filled with payoff. This was the real starting over, because he’d called me pretty, he’d remembered my coffee drink, he’d told me he was glad to see me. This wasn’t one-sided and I was going to take what I wanted most right now. To be touched. To be kissed.

I removed my bulletproof vest, and spoke my mind. “Come here.”

He walked to the back of the couch and leaned down, his face inches from me.

“Hi,” he said softly.

“Hi.”

“Can I?” he asked, and then reached a hand into my hair, letting my dark brown strands fall through his fingers. I leaned into his hand, like a cat, as my answer. I wouldn’t be surprised if I had started purring.

“Kat,” he said in a hungry voice.

I looked into his eyes, those crisp green eyes that drew me in. “I need you to kiss me now,” I said, as if it were a command.

“Consider it done.”

I closed my eyes as his lips brushed mine with a softness, tenderness and eagerness all wrapped up in one. I felt as if the whole office, the factory, the city was gone. There was nothing else but this kiss and I melted into him, as I had with all our kisses five years ago. But then, there was something new, something less innocent, as the kiss shifted into another gear. The way his lips suddenly crushed mine was feverish. It was frenzied, and it was electric, and full of need. I needed to feel him. I needed to touch him. I explored his arms, traversing the shape and size of his forearms and the strength in them, and then outlining the sharp contours of his flexed biceps, until I returned to his chest, then down to his belly, so trim and tight that I longed to touch and trace and hold onto his perfectly cut waist all through the day and the night.

He stopped, moving to the door, locking it this time, then returning to the couch with me.

“We can’t go all the way. Not even close,” I said, holding up my hand as a stop sign to sex.

“I’m good with that. But we don’t have much time for anything.”

“Do you want to stop then?”

He shook his head, and nodded to the bulge in his jeans. “Hell no.”

He wanted me as much as I wanted him. But did he like me too? Or was I just the girl who was hot for him and so, why not? A part of me knew better. A part of me knew I should pull back the reins. But there was a bigger part of me in that moment that didn’t care. Because my body had no questions and no qualms. Inside all I felt was the weight of five pent-up years of missing him. My mind was a jumble, a mixed-up mess of hurt and want, but I didn’t know how to sort out the crazy rush of thoughts, and frankly, I didn’t want to. I was burning for him, so I let my body lead me on.

I touched his soft, thick hair that I’d missed running my hands through, then traced the back of his neck in a way that made him groan. Bryan’s hands drifted lower, down to my waist, and I didn’t stop him. I wanted his hands everywhere. All over me. He shifted me over, pulling me on top of him so I could feel how hard he was through his jeans. I straddled him on the couch, my knees on either side of his hips, our clothes still all the way on, my flowy skirt spread across his thighs.

I began to move my hips barely, subtly, with my bikini underwear and his jeans forming a layered barricade between our bodies. I closed my eyes again, kissing him, grinding against him, feeling like I was in high school again, where having clothes on doesn’t stop you from getting off. His hands slipped underneath my top and made their way to my breasts, and the way he touched me with such tenderness and such desire made me gasp.

My lips fell away from him and I buried my face in the crook of his neck. The temperature in me soared as I pulled his taut chest to me, thrilling at the feel of his body rubbing against mine. His hands dipped under my skirt, touching the back of my thighs in a way that made me race even more. He hadn’t even gotten into my panties and I was already so close.

“It’s not going to take me long,” I told him.

“Nothing would make me happier than to make you come,” he said, and then managed to slide a hand between my legs. The slightest touch was all I needed. I moved my hips as his fingers hit just the right spot. I pressed myself against his hand, moving up and down, as I moaned in the lowest voice possible in his ear. “Bryan, it feels so good.”

“Kat, you have no idea…”

He layered kisses on my neck as I kept up the rhythm I needed. He gripped my waist firmly, keeping my body close, making sure I would make it all the way. Then I bit my lip as the intensity tore through me. There was no just about, no almost, no close but no cigar. I pressed my mouth to his shoulder to muffle my sounds, then collapsed onto his chest. We remained quiet for a moment, only the sounds of machines far away flickering in the background.

“That was so unbelievably sexy,” he said.

“Really?”

“If I kept a diary, which I don’t I assure you, this would go down as one of the hottest moments ever.”

“I can still feel it. Like in my whole body. I can feel it all over. How good it was with you.” I was vulnerable and I didn’t care. I was in the afterglow and the flush made me say things to him that I would have kept secret if I hadn’t just come in his office. I trailed my hand across his chest and looked in his eyes. “Let me touch you.”

Before he could answer, Delaney’s voice boomed through the buzzer. “Hi, Bryan. Just a reminder you have your board call in ten minutes to go over the final Wilco papers. The notes are in your email.”

Bryan cursed under his breath. “Thanks, Delaney,” he said in a perfectly professional voice. He could easily switch gears. When she hung up, he looked at me, and the longing had been stripped from his eyes. He was a man ready to conduct business. “I have to do this.”

I heard the echo of I have to go and I felt myself hardening. I put my shell back on as I adjusted my skirt and smoothed away the just-been-screwed look in my hair, thinking the saying was appropos for many reasons. I was nothing more than a quickie in the office to him. That was it. That was all. I took some small solace in the fact that we hadn’t gone that far. Fine, he’d seen me as turned on as I’d ever been my whole life over, but at least we’d done nothing more than kids in high school do. That’s all we’d ever be. Teenagers bumbling through adulthood, not knowing what to do or say. But what he didn’t say spoke volumes. He didn’t say he liked me. He didn’t say he was sorry for breaking my heart. He didn’t ask me to have dinner. He simply said, “I need to focus on this call.”

“Of course.” I downshifted to my crisp and business-like tone. I could toe to toe with him in this department. He pulled on his tee-shirt, then his dress shirt.

“But let’s take the train back to New York. The four o’clock, okay?”

“Sure.” I gathered my bag and my books. “I’ll just be —” I said and waved in the general direction outside his office.

He settled into his desk chair, but his eyes were already on the computer screen and the email with the Wilco notes. He sighed heavily and dropped his forehead into his hand. “Fuck,” he said in a low voice, and I suspected he wasn’t going to have a very good phone call with the board.

Served him right with the way he was blowing me off. At least I’d had an orgasm, and he hadn’t. Small victory, but I’d take it.

I grabbed my iced tea, left his office, and said goodbye to Delaney. Then I called a cab as soon as I left the factory. There was a two-thirty train back to New York that had my name written all over it.

Chapter Ten

The music drowned out my day and my night. Jill and her castmates had grabbed guitars and jumped on stage at the bar post-show to jam out an impromptu version of Les Mis’ popular song One Day More. The show itself was amazing; the producers wanted to mix things up so they fast-forwarded the story to modern-day France and added guitars and drums to the orchestra of the off-Broadway production.

Now, we were at a nearby club in Soho, celebrating opening night of the month-long run. Imagine One Day More performed as a power ballad. Because, yes, Jill could handle a guitar too. She jammed hard on her Stratocaster and the amps howled out chords. The guy who played Marius, a young actor named Reeve, whipped the audience into a frenzy as he led the song. When he reached the chorus, he thrust the mic towards the crowd and they responded with the words they’d either known for years or learned when the Hugh Jackman movie became a hit.

My brother Nate was with me, but he was at the bar refilling our drinks. I raised an arm and sang along, the music smashing through my body, and echoing across the whole lot of us jammed together in front of the tiny stage. Reeve was a certified babe. He was tall and lanky, wore hipster jeans, and a tee-shirt with a vest. He had the requisite long hair that fell in his eyes while he sang. I’d met him once during rehearsals, and had asked Jill if she’d be into him because he seemed her type. He was straight, quite rare for a musical theater man. But Jill had reminded me of the old adage about not getting involved with people you work with. Good advice, indeed.

Maybe I should go for Reeve. Maybe Reeve was exactly what I’d need to get Bryan Leighton and his too-business-like approach out of my system. Maybe it was time to return to actors and other artists. Bryan had called me a few times after I took off from his factory that afternoon, but I didn’t pick up. He emailed too. He wanted to know where I was. If I was okay. If something was wrong.

My reply was simple: I forgot I had an appointment in the city. The factory is amazing, and I am learning so much.

I didn’t say anything more, and certainly not anything personal, and definitely not a thanks for the O! He didn’t reply, and his radio silence the rest of the evening affirmed that I’d made the right choice to bail.

Reeve belted out the final verse to the song, then mimed strumming a guitar solo alongside Jill as the song faded to its end. “Thank you so much for coming to the show, and to hang out with us all afterwards. You are a kickass audience, and you rock my red and black world,” Reeve said, and several women shrieked and held their arms out towards him.

As the singing actors put away their instruments, I found my brother at the bar. He handed me a vodka tonic. I’d probably only have a sip. I’d never been much of a drinker. “You sure you’re old enough to drink?” he asked.

“Oh, ha ha. You know I have been for two years now.”

He shook his head playfully. “You still seem like the baby sister to me.”

“Well, duh. I always will be.”

Maybe I didn’t need Reeve or another man to take my mind off Bryan. Maybe hanging out with my brother would be enough. I hadn’t seen him in several weeks. He was on the road a lot since he worked in business development for an advertising technology startup. He was a manager and hoped to be promoted to director soon. Until then, he had to put in a ton of hours visiting clients in the less-glamorous cities around the country. Nate clinked my vodka tonic with his beer, and said, “To good music, and to my little sister.”

If you looked closely, you could tell we were brother and sister. We had the same cheekbones, high and sharp. But where I had brown eyes and even darker hair, Nate was a sandy blond with all-American blue eyes.

“How are Mom and Dad? How did they seem when you there?” I asked. Nate had visited them earlier in the week while on his way to see a client in Boston.

“They’re hanging in there. Dad’s a little nervous about the loan coming due, I suspect, but Mom’s Mom. All stoic and tough and we’ll get through this. She’s trying out a few sales and mixing up the inventory a bit to see if that sparks some interest. And, get this — she’s doing one of those online daily discount type of deals next week.”

My mom had always been more of a traditional marketer, depending on foot traffic and tourist bureau promotions. That she was trying new things like online deals was perhaps a good sign. “I think I’m going to take the train out and see them tomorrow. I need to get away for the weekend.”

Nate raised an eyebrow, and I realized I’d said more than I intended. “Why? Don’t tell me there’s some dude you’re running away from?”

With that, I spilled my drink on the bar.

“I guess I was right,” Nate said knowingly, as he grabbed a napkin to clean up.

“That was just a really strong drink.”

“Strong? Sure. I’m sure it was so strong it took til your third sip to spill it. Now, spill. But not your drink. Who is he? And what did he do to you?” Nate made a fist with one hand and smacked his other palm. “Because I will seriously hurt him.”

I laughed nervously. “It’s nothing,” I said, because it was nothing. What happened with Bryan was truly nothing. Besides, Nate and Bryan weren’t best buddies anymore, but they kept in touch, so I didn’t need Nate to know. “I swear. Just someone at business school I liked isn’t into me.”

“Is he crazy?”

“Maybe.” I was relieved when Jill bumped her hip against me. Reeve was by her side, and had a heavy-lidded look in his eyes. He was wearing guyliner.

“Were we awesome or were we awesome?” Jill asked.

I’d already told her she was stunning as Eponine, belting out a nearly heavy-metal-esque version of On My Own. But I wanted her to know that the encore of One Day More was just as spectacular.

“You were the freaking bomb,” I said, then introduced Jill and Nate, and Nate and Reeve. They ordered drinks, and the guys chatted for a few minutes about the show. Jill pulled me aside.

The club had started blasting recorded songs through the speakers so we were surrounded by the din of music again. “How did it go today? Did anything happen?”

I pressed my teeth against my bottom lip and shook my head.

Jill pointed at me. “That’s your tell. When you do that thing with your teeth. So what really happened?”

I wasn’t going to be able to fool Jill, nor did I want to, so I gave her the quick version. Her dark blue eyes widened when I told her what went down on his couch. She held up her hand, waiting for me to high-five her. I gave her a quizzical look.

“Kat, you pretty much dry-humped him in his office. That is fucking ballsy,” Jill said, with a mischievous grin.

“Stop! Don’t call it that. He used his – ” I wiggled my fingers.

She put her hands on her hips and gave me a pointed stare. “Fine. You dry humped him and he fingered you for the payoff. The fact that you want him so badly you can practically get off just through your clothes is a sign. I went out with this singer from an indie band a year ago. Stefan, remember?”

I nodded and Jill continued. “I wanted him so badly that the first time we did it, I was calling out his name within ten seconds of him being inside me.” Jill had a wistful look in her eyes, and I could tell she’d taken a trip back in time.

“Why are you telling me this, Jill?”

“Because. Because sometimes it’s just so good that it’s like all they have to do is touch you and,” Jill tapped my arm with her index finger, “And you are 50,000 degrees hot for them.”

“So, are you going out with this Stefan now? Are you dating him?” Like a good cross-examiner, I knew the answer before I asked.

Jill shook her head.

“See? That’s my point. What does it matter? He might have my number in the chemistry department, but I want the whole package, and I’m obviously not going to get it with him.”

Jill sighed heavily. “Fine. Be that way.” She tipped her forehead to Reeve. “I know someone who might want to take your mind off Bryan.”

“He is cute,” I admitted.

She nudged me with an elbow. “He thinks you’re cute too. Let’s go chat.”

When we returned to the boys, Jill struck up a conversation with Nate, sliding into her role as wingwoman.

Reeve moved closer to me. “So, you liked the show?”

“It was great.”

“What did you think about the modern feel of it?”

“It was the best. Master of the House was like a Jay-Z rap, and when you sang Empty Chairs at Empty Tables you sounded like the lead singer of Arcade Fire, and they’re only my favorite band ever.”

“Arcade Fire pretty much sets the standard for musical awesome. They’re amazing.”

“And so was your show. I was definitely into it.”

“What else are you into, Kat?” he asked.

I wasn’t sure if it was a prelude to a line, so I answered him directly. “Movies. I like movies. You?”

“I’d like to star in some movies,” he said. “I have an audition next week for a Joss Whedon film.”

“Wow. That would be incredible.”

I’d dated an actor once and it hadn’t worked out, but Reeve had the self-confidence Michael lacked. So as we talked about our shared love of all things Joss Whedon, I let my mind wander to his mouth, imagining what it would be like to kiss him. His lips were red and full, and he smelled of sweat and beer and the adrenaline of a fabulous opening night. I bet he tasted good, like charisma, like stage presence, like a star in the making who knew how to perform. I bet I’d enjoy the kiss. But I couldn’t kiss him tonight. I’d already been kissed by someone who could turn me inside out. By someone who had tilted my world.

When the night wound down, Reeve asked if I wanted to go somewhere quieter and have a nightcap. The offer would be tempting to almost any girl, but it was wasted on me. “I think you’re incredibly talented and will have an epic career,” I said to Reeve. “I have an early wake-up call tomorrow so I should go.”

I was caught up in Bryan, no matter how hard I tried to protect myself. He was the one I wanted. He was the one I’d never stopped wanting. I only wished Bryan wanted me in the same way. Body and heart.

Chapter Eleven

I spent the weekend working with my parents at their store, which took my mind off the way I’d run out on Bryan, and the way he hadn’t seemed to care. I prepped with my mom for her online deal, and helped my dad sort through some overdue bills. I even slipped one from a vendor into my purse. I’d pay that bill myself thanks to an order for ten necklaces that had been placed online over the weekend from a shop on the Upper West Side.

My parents took me to the train station on Sunday night, and walked me to the tracks. My mom still had a visible limp from the car accident and probably always would, but she kept up.

“I know why you came out this weekend, my Katerina.” My mom was the only one I let use my full name.

“I came here to see you guys,” I said, trying to dodge and dart.

She gave me a sharp, stern look, the kind only moms can give. “You’re worried about us. But we’re going to be fine. The store is going to be fine.”

“Yes, you need to focus on finishing school, not checking up on us,” my dad said.

“I took care of My Favorite Mistakes in the evenings and I did homework when there weren’t any customers,” I said, then winced. I shouldn’t have brought up the obvious. But then, maybe I should. The sagging store was the elephant in the room and they were trying to deny it. I was struck by the realization of how very alike we were. The three of us trafficked in everything-is-fine here attitudes, but inside we were trying to stiff-upper-lip it through life’s challenges.

“And that’s what you should focus on, Kat.” My dad pulled me in for a goodbye hug.

I hugged my mom next as my train pulled into the station. But before I boarded, I looked back at them, gathered up my courage, and said, “I know times are hard for you guys. I’m going to help. I promise. I have a plan.”

Then I hopped on the train, and waved. I didn’t want to give them the space to fashion a no.

*****

The next few weeks raced by in a blur of classes and homework for my Innovation & Design class and my Management course. I took copious laptop notes during school hours, and turned those notes and research into reports and projects. I filled many other hours perusing the latest European design blogs, bringing custom orders to the boutiques around the city that carried my line, and tending to online sales. I was wearing a tread on the sidewalk from my apartment to the nearest post office from the number of times I went there to ship orders. I stayed up late and woke up early, and I was exhausted, but I couldn’t complain because I was on track for a strong quarter, and I would be able to peel off a little bit to help my parents. It wasn’t enough, but it was a start. I didn’t hear from Claire Oliver, but I kept checking email and my phone, hoping for some sort of update from my professor’s wife.

All things considered, the work and the business were the easiest parts of those weeks.

The real challenge, and I hoped to earn an A for avoidance, was steering clear of one-on-time with Bryan when I went to his midtown offices as part of the mentorship. The first time there, I attended a meeting as the design team presented the new additions to the holiday line for his approval. I left the conference room quickly when it ended, but he followed me down the hall, calling out to me.

“Hey Kat,” he said.

I stopped, turned around, and adopted a how-can-I-help-you look?

“Um, I’d love to know what you thought about the new additions?” he asked, but he didn’t sound like the same guy who’d just signed off on a new series of cufflinks. He sounded nervous.

“They’re just great,” I said, then gave him a double thumbs up, like a politician.

“Do you want to sit down and talk some more? I’d really love your detailed feedback.”

I looked at my watch for effect. “Oh. Darn. I would, but I have an evening lecture I need to get to in twenty minutes. I have to go.”

Then I marched off to the elevators, hoping the last words were not lost on him.

He tried again the next week when I ran into him at the water cooler, and he awkwardly asked me to check out copy for an ad slated to run in GQ.

“You’re reviewing ad copy now?” I asked in a questioning tone. I’d never known CEOs to be involved at the level of ad copy. A CEO’s role in marketing was more at a budget and branding level.

“Yeah. Sure. I always do,” he said, but his cheeks turned red, as if it were simply an excuse. I followed him to his office, but stood in the doorway, forcing him to bring the ad sample to me.

“Maybe just move the tagline over here,” I said crisply, and pointed to the left hand corner of the photo. “I have to go meet with Nicole now.”

Then I dashed off to see Nicole Blazer, a smart and stylish pint-sized redhead. She was one of Bryan’s early business advisors on the design side, and also served on the company’s board. She had the kind of gravelly voice that you think comes from smoking. When we first met, she shook my hand and said, “I don’t smoke. Never have. Was just blessed with this kind of huskiness.”

“Huskiness rules,” I said, and grinned. I had a feeling we’d get along fine.

Today, as I stepped into her office, she gestured to an array of tie clips and money holders on her desk. “Prototypes for a new line. Today, your job is to be a fresh pair of eyes and tell me what sucks and what doesn’t suck.”

She was direct and I liked it. There were no mixed messages or awkward questions with Nicole Blazer. I pointed to a gold money holder. “I have this theory that gold is becoming passé.”

“Gold passé? How’s that frigging possible?”

“Well, not gold as in the only thing that actually keeps its value. But gold jewelry. Rose gold is all the rage.”

“Right. Of course.”

“But what if you were to try the next thing after rose gold?”

“What would that be?”

I flashed back to the Impressionist art I loved so much, to the way the painters played with light and shadow to show different times of day. “What if it were possible to make a sort of sunset gold? Or morning light gold? Rose gold is basically just a tinting. Maybe the same could be done with your tie clips and money holders, but the gold almost looks as if it’s reflecting the time of day.”

She nodded appreciatively. “Damn, girl. I like that idea.”

I also spent time with the operational team. I’d weighed in on some challenges with suppliers they were facing, suggesting strategies to spur along some of the more difficult ones. John Walker, head of operations, had even implemented some of my ideas. But a new wrinkle in the supply chain woes emerged later that week.

“The Silversmith in Brooklyn said they’re not going to be able to meet the timeline with bike chain parts,” John said during a meeting. “We need to come up with a replacement within a week.”

Bryan’s features tightened and he rubbed his hand over his chin. His green eyes were hard and intense. He didn’t look at me once, and that was fine with me.

The meeting continued on like that for another hour, and when it ended without a clear resolution from anyone, Bryan said he was going for run. I took that as a cue to leave. Besides, I needed time and space away to try to research possible replacements for Silversmith. I stopped in the temporary office to grab my bag, and then headed for the elevator banks. I sucked in a breath when I saw Bryan there, wearing a gray tee-shirt and running shorts. He pressed the down button.

“Hey.” His jaw was still tight. The stress of the meeting and the supply complications was taking its toll.

“Going for a run?” I said, then wanted to kick myself. Not only was it patently obvious he was about to exercise, he’d also announced it.

“Running helps me think. I swear I do my best problem solving on the trails and bike paths.”

“I find I do a great job keeping track of how much I never want to run again when I’m running.”

Bryan’s features softened and I saw the sliver of a smile form. “That’s right. You’re all about walking.”

The elevator arrived and he held out his hand. I stepped in first and stood in the opposite corner. “I’ve been known to traverse the city on foot. I dare anyone to take me on in a walkathon.”

“Quite a dare. I’d love to take you on.”

I looked away.

He drummed his fingers against the elevator bar as the car descended. “So does walking help you think? What do you do to blow off steam or escape or whatever?”

“I go to the movies.”

The elevator reached the first floor. As the door opened, he said my name in that smoky voice. “Kat.”

There was a pang of remorse in his tone. Instinctively, I took a step closer, all my self-preservation falling away.

“What is it?” I asked softly.

“Nothing.” He was ice again. He repeated the word as he walked out of his building, and started running the second he hit the sidewalk.

*****

The cinema around the corner was showing the newest Emma Stone movie, but I couldn’t stomach romance now. I bought a ticket for a Ryan Gosling action flick. I needed improbable car chases and ridiculously implausible getaways. I slinked down into a seat in the back, leaving the looming pile of homework, necklace orders and the supply chain issues untouched for the next two hours.

There were only a few other people in the theater for the mid-afternoon showing on a Thursday. Some solo movie goers had snagged seats near the front, and there were two pairs of friends in the middle rows. Maybe they were blowing off steam too.

As the hero hacked into a laptop, an idea flashed before me. I’d once made a custom necklace for a computer programmer-turned-bestselling author and had scoured the city for the charms she wanted — floppy disks and motherboards I cut down to size. The vendor I’d hooked up with had started expanding into other recycled materials, including old tires and worn-out bike chains.

I made a mental note to track down the name later, and then returned my focus to the screen.

When Ryan Gosling scaled an impossibly high ledge, I caught a flicker of movement at the back of the theater. I turned to look, and I froze when I saw Bryan. He was still in his workout clothes, and even in the dark I could see the slight sheen of sweat on his brow and his tee-shirt. He scanned the aisles, and when he spotted me, he didn’t look happy. His jaw was tense again as he walked across the aisle. His eyes were lined with anger, and his fists were clenched. He sat down, turned to me, and placed a hand on my cheek so I was looking at him.

“You’re making me crazy,” he whispered in a hard voice.

“I am? Why?”

“You act like nothing happened.”

“What are you talking about?”

“How can you just be like this? Like it was nothing what happened?”

“How can you?”

“I called you that day. I emailed you that afternoon. You totally blew me off, and I’ve been looking for every chance to talk to you.”

“You haven’t been trying that hard.”

“Bullshit, Kat. I’ve tried to talk to you every time you’ve been by and you know it.”

One of the guys a few rows ahead turned around and gave us a dirty look as Ryan Gosling smashed open a door with his elbow.

Bryan lowered his voice further. “Do you have any idea what I’m going through at work?”

“No. Why would I?”

The guy looked back again. “Keep it down, okay?”

I tipped my forehead to the exit. Bryan took me by the elbow and guided us out. As the door to the theater swung shut, we were alone in the dark hallway.

“I’m doing everything to keep it quiet, and you can’t say a word. Promise me you won’t say a word.” His voice was laced with equal parts stress and fear.

“I promise.” I wanted to reach out and run a hand gently over his cheek. He seemed to need it, but I kept my hands to myself.

He took a deep breath. “Wilco is suing us for wrongful termination. That’s what went down the day I had to take that board call at the factory. We learned he was suing. It’s totally ridiculous because he was in the wrong. He crossed every line imaginable with the intern. But the board is pissed, and I’m pissed, and I can’t take a chance. The guy’s unhinged, Kat. He calls me at my home and hangs up. Does the same to Nicole too, and she’s also seen him skulking around near our offices. I thought I knew the guy. I thought I knew what to expect, but now everything has changed. And on top of that, my board is incredibly conservative and I have to do everything properly. I can’t have a trace of anything that isn’t 100 percent professional. Which makes it really incredibly difficult when all I want to do is finish what we started.”

Everything inside of me turned hot. “You do?”

“I have not been able to stop thinking about that afternoon. I have not been able to stop thinking about you.”

My heart leapt into my throat. “Really?”

He moved closer. He was so dizzyingly near to me it was as if every nerve ending in my body was exposed. The possibility that this wasn’t one-sided made me deliriously giddy. That it was more than just a romp on the couch in his office.

“I think about you all the time. I think about how beautiful you are and how smart you are and how funny you are, and how I want nothing more than to take you out to the movies, and hold your hand and laugh at the same time. Or not even at the same time. To laugh at different things. To learn more about what you think is funny. Like, I don’t even know if you think it’s funny when people fall down stairs. Do you like pratfalls?”

His eyes were sparkling and playful.

I grinned so wide my face would hurt, but I didn’t think I could feel anything except happiness right now. “I love pratfalls. I love non-sequitur humor, and I love dark humor, and I especially love stupid humor. I laugh when I see videos of guys being pushed down hill in shopping carts, and when they slip in their socks and fall down stairs. Well, as long as they don’t really get hurt.”

“Of course not. You’re not a jerk. You just appreciate good physical comedy.”

“That I do. And what about you? What do you laugh at? I mean, besides Bucky from Get Fuzzy.”

“Ah, she remembers.”

“Of course I remember.” I punched him in the arm, and even though I wanted him to touch me all over, it meant so much more to me that he wanted to talk. That he wanted to know me. How I’d changed. How I hadn’t changed.

“I remember everything too,” he said softly, and I felt a ribbon of heat rush through my body. “To answer your question. Cartoon cats are still a yes. I’m almost embarrassed to admit this, but I like those silly Internet pictures with dogs saying ridiculous things. I mean, not really saying ridiculous things. Just captions. Like this one husky dog, and there was a caption that said ‘Oh you ran a marathon. How heavy was the sled?’”

“I saw that one too. I loved it. So did my roommate because she’s run five marathons.”

“That’s impressive. And I like late-night talk shows. I like politics, so I especially enjoy political humor and the late-night guys are the best.”

“What about movies? What are your favorite movies?”

“Well just in case the guys committee is listening I’ll tell you The Fast and The Furious. Or The Hangover.” Then he lowered his voice and whispered. “But I’ll admit to you, only you, that it’s actually Casablanca.”

Pinch me now, I thought. Wake me up from this dream. Because right then, I closed my eyes and watched that perfect film unfurl in front of me, a romance that left you breathless no matter how many times you’d seen it. I could feel myself sinking into that heady state, like I was under a spell, transfixed, and I could touch the scenes, feel every sensation the characters felt zip through me. They’d always have Paris.

I felt wobbly, and I swayed toward him. He caught me, and wrapped his arms around me, tucking me close to him. He pressed his chin against my head. “Kat.”

I melted into him, savoring the feel of his chest, even under his sweaty tee-shirt, against me. Here with him, I didn’t have a care in the world. Even though being with him was the riskiest thing in the world. I closed my eyes and flashed back to my parents, to the store, to my plans. Then to Professor Oliver, and his wife, and my business. Everything else was so much more important than a mere feeling. I knew that. I really did. But yet, I didn’t want anything more in my life right now than this moment, this closeness, this man.

“I’m dying to kiss you. I want to take you out to dinner, and walk around the city, and talk about anything and everything.”

I could barely feel myself anymore. My whole body was edgy, floating. This couldn’t be happening. But it was. I felt light-headed, like I’d just taken a painkiller and gotten that warm flush where it kicks in and spreads throughout your chest and belly. The little hairs on my arms were standing on end.

“But I can’t,” he said.

“Why?”

“I can’t risk it. The Wilco thing…”

“But she was a high school student. Wasn’t she seventeen?”

“Yeah, but still. He’s hunting out dirt. He’s hunting out anything right now.”

“I’m twenty-three. I’m not an intern. I’m just a…”

“A protege. At a school where we endowed the new wing of the library. It’s too close. No one has said anything to me, but this is my choice. This is how I have to be. I have to be above reproach. I don’t want anything to look bad for Made Here, and I don’t want anything to look bad for the school. That’s why I couldn’t even email you anymore. I can’t have a trace of impropriety.”

I half wanted to add that I had to be a good girl too, but what was the point? I didn’t need to dole out my stakes as well. There needn’t be any one upsmanship.

I nodded into his chest. I didn’t like these rules, but I understood them.

He placed a hand under my chin and lifted my face so I was looking at him. His lips were so close to me. “But maybe I can call you?”

“Of course.”

“Can I call you tonight?”

I was a pinball machine, buzzing and humming, saying yes, yes, yes. Then I remembered the name of the vendor.

“I would love that. And, you may want to try Geeking Out in the Red Hook neighborhood of Brooklyn. Great guys, and super speedy with parts.”

He shook his head appreciatively. “Do you have any idea how hot it is that you are so damn business savvy?”

“No. Are we talking broiling, boiling, or scorching?”

“Smoking.” Then he pulled me against him for a moment, and I could tell exactly how hot I’d made him.

We left the theater a few minutes later, and when we turned the corner Bryan bumped into a balding man wearing a pinstriped suit that reeked of old money.

“Hello, Mr. Caldwell,” Bryan said. I noticed this was the first time Bryan had addressed someone by the honorific Mr.

Mr. Caldwell gave him a strange look. “Seeing a movie?”

I tensed, and Bryan straightened his spine too. Crap. This was exactly what he was trying to avoid.

“Actually, I just finished a run, and bumped into Kat outside the theater. Kat, this is James Caldwell, who’s on our board.” His eyes widened as he said the last few words, but he didn’t need to worry – I got it.

I shook hands with James Caldwell and assumed a most proper and poised look, as I said, “It’s a pleasure to meet you, sir.”

“Mr. Caldwell, Kat is working with Made Here through NYU this semester.”

Caldwell raised a thick gray eyebrow. “NYU?”

“She’s in the graduate business school,” Bryan added quickly.

What? Did I look seventeen like the intern?

Caldwell nodded. “Glad to hear this is all business.”

Seventeen or twenty-three, the message was clear. There was to be no hanky-panky.

Chapter Twelve

My phone was mocking me. It was sneering, as I carried it around like a lifeline leashed to me, a hard brick reminder that I was waiting for a call. I curled deeper into the dented corner of the mustard-colored couch, laptop on my thighs as I worked. Jill and I were mirror images, as she sat cross-legged on the other end, tapping away on her computer too. Her hair was twisted up in a red chopstick and a few dark blond strands framed her face. “Do you have any idea how many technical white papers I authored today on nuclear fusion?”

I gave her a look. “Let me guess. Zero?”

She nodded. “Yup. That is exactly right. But I am, in fact, almost done with this list of recommendations for my group of Upper East mommies on their training and diet for the next few weeks before the New York City marathon.” Jill was making headway as a young actress, but she still took on jobs on the side as a running coach. She operated a few running clinics and clubs, especially for men and women who wanted to tackle marathons for the first time, as well as 5Ks and 10Ks. “If I’m going to finally finish this book-length email, I’m going to need a beer. But we have none in this apartment, and it should be considered a crime to be beer-less.”

“Then you should make sure no one carts you away to the pen, Jill.”

I stretched my arm to the coffee table, grabbed Jill’s wallet and tossed it to her. She caught it in one hand, placed her laptop on the couch, and went in search of the nearest six-pack at ten o’clock at night.

I wandered into the kitchen and reached for an apple inside the three-tiered, silver-looking wire basket that hung by the side of my kitchen sink. I needed to throw the crappy contraption out. But it reminded me of my parents. They had one of those baskets too, towering with fruit – apples, oranges, nectarines, lemons that threatened to spill out – in our home in Connecticut. I washed the apple and then headed into the living room. I sat on the window sill and took a bite.

This probably sounded crazy but my parents really are those people. As in those people you can’t believe still love each other madly after all those years. They’ve been together for thirty years and my mom still makes breakfast for him every morning. She’ll set the table with the same green and white checked plates, and the same matching cloth napkins that we’ve had since I was in high school. Then he’ll come downstairs, give her a kiss on the cheek, and they’ll have breakfast together. He’ll do the dishes and clean up and they’ll walk to the store holding hands. When the workday ends, they’ll return home and repeat the same routine for dinner, with him taking out the garbage or mowing the lawn as she cooks. After dinner, she’ll reach for a bar of dark chocolate from the kitchen cupboard, breaking off a section. He’ll have bought either Scharffenberger or some fabulous Belgian chocolate bar. “I never want you to run out of chocolate,” I overheard him whisper to her once after he’d picked some up from the grocery store.

It was almost enough to make you gag, if it weren’t totally 100 percent legitimate.

So when my mom admitted earlier tonight on the phone that the online daily deal had bombed, my heart withered a bit for them. “I’m so sorry, Mom.”

“Well, you know, you’ll just have to keep me stocked in chocolate, my Katerina.”

“I will. I promise. Even though I know it won’t come to that.”

I took another bite of the apple, as I raised the shades halfway to look out onto Twenty-Second Street. A cab pulled up outside the building. A slim man emerged. He had a strong jawline and a regal, Yul Brynner-esque bald head. A woman with a pixie cut stepped out next. She laughed at something he said. Then he reached for her waist and pulled her close, because he simply had to kiss her right then and there. Soon, they walked into the building, holding hands.

I wanted to do that with Bryan. I wanted to walk down the street with him. To kiss him in public. To share a car back to his place, my place, any place. But then, I’d also take what I could get, so when my phone finally rang, I pounced on it.

“Hello?”

“Hey. It’s Bryan.”

My heart leapt. I was the girl in high school, waiting for the quarterback to call. Fine, I’d never dated a football player, and I didn’t even care for most sports. But I bet the zing I felt was precisely the same.

“Hey. What are you up to?”

“Talking to you.”

I rolled my eyes even though he couldn’t see me. Now we really sounded like teenagers again.

“Same to you,” I said, as I placed the half-eaten apple on the coffee table.

“What’d you do tonight?”

I gave him the rundown, then asked the same of him.

“Work, work, and more work. I heard back from the city of Paris on the padlocks. They said they’re trying to make some arrangements for a deal, so that’s good. But the best part is this amazingly brilliant MBA student I’m working with may have saved the day for us.”

I bounced on my toes. “Really? Did Geeking Out come through?”

“They’re putting a competitive bid together tonight. I should have it first thing in the morning, but they said they could meet the timeline.”

“Damn. I rock.”

“You totally and completely rock.”

“So where are you right now?” I asked as I walked down the hall to my bedroom. I didn’t know when Jill would return with her beer, but I didn’t want to be interrupted.

“My apartment. Finally. Car just dropped me off.”

“So calling me was the first thing you did when you got home? Nice.”

“I walked in two minutes ago.”

“I don’t even know where you live.” I shut the door to my bedroom and lay down on my bed. The one luxury I afforded myself was the bedding. A shimmery purple duvet covered the bed, with pillows in rich shades of red and dark blue.

“Sixtieth and Park.”

I wanted to whistle in admiration. I pictured the block perfectly, seeing it on a rain-soaked night, the quiet street glistening, lined with beautiful brick brownstones. He probably lived in one of those buildings. Double doors, four stories, hardwood floors, white-paned windows that opened on the kind of street that romantic comedy heroines strolled down, holding hands with their lovers.

“What’s on tap the rest of the night? More work?”

“I’m calling it a night on the work front. No more email, no more reports. I’m just kicking back on my couch talking to this girl with my cell phone pressed against my head. I’m probably getting a brain tumor, but c’est la vie.”

“You’re not one of those Bluetooth people? You haven’t been walking around with the headset in your ear all evening?”

“God no. I can’t stand the Bluetooth people.”

“They do that constantly in New York. On buses, on subways. Even in stores. They leave those damn things on all the time.”

“Maybe they are waiting to receive messages from the Bluetooth Uni-mind.”

“Oh, I can so picture that.”

“So, you’ve finagled my Bluetooth secret, Kat. What else do you want to know?”

I shifted to my side, and played with the tassel on one of my purple pillows. What did I want to know about Bryan? “I got it. Shoes on airplanes. On or off?”

“On, of course. As if I would ever take shoes off on a plane.”

“Totally agree. Why do people do that? Stretch their big stinky feet out in front of them and even walk up and down the aisles without their shoes.”

“I’m telling you, that’s another thing that would be abolished should I become president. You would be forbidden from removing shoes on planes. And from clipping your nails in public.”

“You have my vote.”

“You know what I like to do on planes?”

“No. What?”

“Sometimes, I go a little wild and I leave my cell phone on.”

“It doesn’t work up there.”

“Right, but instead of turning it off when we take off, I just go crazy and leave it on silent. And then I like to see how far up we can go before it stops getting messages, and then I like to see how high we are when it starts picking them up again on the way down.”

“You renegade.”

“I know, Kat. I’m not afraid to be a bad boy like that.”

“Are you though? A bad boy?”

He didn’t answer right away. He must have been weighing the question and what I really meant. I wasn’t sure what I really meant. “Do you want me to be a bad boy?”

I rested my head on the pile of pillows. “I don’t know,” I answered honestly. “I just want you to be yourself.”

“I am myself. With you, I am definitely myself.” If we were at a club, the music would have just shifted from a fast, poppy song to a slower number, the kind of tune that made you want to dim the lights. “If I were with you right now, I’d be myself too.”

“What would you do?”

“If I were with you right now?”

“Yes.”

“Where are you?”

“On my bed.”

He was quiet, but I could hear him breathing, and I pictured his chest rising and falling as he stared up at the ceiling of his brownstone on Sixtieth and Park, closing his eyes, imagining me so many blocks away. “What are you wearing?”

“Jeans. Black cami with a Hello Kitty design.”

“Ah, of course. I believe you once said it was a life-long love, you and Hello Kitty.”

“We’re still going strong.”

“And underneath?”

“Black bikini briefs with a light blue stripe.”

“So you want to know what I’d do if I were with you right now?”

“Yes.”

“I wouldn’t kiss you yet. I’d touch your naked skin. I’d run my fingers down your arms, and watch as you shivered at my touch.”

I closed my eyes and listened.

“I’d kiss your belly through your shirt, and you’d wriggle a little bit, trying to tell me with your body that you wanted more.”

I murmured something about wanting more.

“Then I’d come up for a kiss, hovering over you, my arms on each side of you.”

I longed to touch his arms, to trace how toned and strong they were.

“I’d kiss you for the longest time, and you’d be pressing your hands against my back, wanting more.”

“I would,” I managed to say, as I started to unbutton my jeans.

“And when I was sure, absolutely, totally, completely sure that you were turned on beyond a shadow of a doubt —”

“—Which I would be.”

“Which you would be. I’d return to your stomach, and I’d start to lift up your cami thing. And I’d run my tongue across your belly, and I’d take off your top. And I’d finally be able to see those gorgeous breasts of yours in the flesh.”

“And touch them.”

“God yes. I’d cup them in my hands and lick them, and I’d run my tongue from between your breasts down to your jeans, and at that point you’d be unzipping them.”

“I already have.”

“Are your pants off?”

I skimmed off my jeans, pushing them to the foot of my bed. “Yes.”

“Is your shirt off too?”

“No.”

“Take it off.”

I put the phone on the bedcover and pulled off my tank top. Then I pressed the phone to my ear. “I’m back.”

“And are you just in your underwear now?”

“Yes.”

“Touch yourself, Kat.”

I did as instructed.

“Are you wet?”

“Understatement of the year.”

He laughed lightly. “Good. Because if I were there right now, I’d be the one touching you, feeling how turned on you are. Running my hand between your legs, and you’d be moaning, and moving your hips, and wanting so badly for me to take off your underwear.”

“Would you? Take off my underwear?” The question came out in quick breaths, as I followed his direction. My hand was between my legs, and I wished he were the one touching me. But this — this was good enough for now.

“I’d kiss you through your underwear first just to tease you and make you crazy. I’d lean down, and I’d kiss those black bikini briefs, and I’d smell you, and I’d get even harder.”

“I’d want to touch you so badly.”

“I know, but I wouldn’t let you. Because I’d have to taste you, and you’d be begging me to take off your underwear, and to touch you with my tongue. And it’s all I’d want to do too. So I’d oblige your request.”

I slid out of the last shred of clothing.

“Did you just take off your underwear?”

“Yes.”

“Is your hand between your legs?”

“Yes.”

“Are you imagining it’s me?”

“Yes. I want you so much.”

“There is absolutely nothing in the entire world I want to be doing more right now than going down on you, and tasting you, and eating you. I would run my tongue across you and you would put your hands in my hair.”

“I love your hair,” I said, and the image of my hands in his hair sent me soaring. It wasn’t going to take me long at all.

“And I’d start off slow and light, and I’d tease you with my tongue, tracing you and tasting your wetness. God, I bet you taste fucking fantastic. And you’d whimper and moan, and tell me how good it feels.”

“It feels amazing. It feels so incredible.” My whole body was lit up; I was ignited all over. Every part of me begged and yearned for him.

“And I’d speed up, running my tongue over you in ways you’ve never felt before. And you’d tell me how it had never been this good, how you’d never wanted anyone like this before.”

“I haven’t. I swear I haven’t,” I said, and my breathing was ragged, and my body was pulsing, and I could feel how intoxicatingly close I was to grabbing his hair and pulling his face between my legs. Oh, how I wished he were the one touching me.

“And I’d take you there. I’d lick you and make you crazy and make you say my name over and over, until you were begging to come. Until you were begging me to make you come.”

“Oh god, Bryan. Make me come. Please, make me come.”

“I’m so going to make you come, Kat. I’m going to make you come with my mouth and my lips and my tongue and I am going to taste you right now as you come in my mouth.”

And so I did, shouting his name, calling out, feeling the wave of an intense, otherworldy orgasm pound through me. I was a live wire, exposed and beating, and I wanted him to be with me right now, taking off his clothes, climbing on top of me, entering me, making me feel that way again and again and again.

Chapter Thirteen

Over the next month, Bryan was true to his cautious word in the movie theater. Wilco attacked Made Here and Bryan’s board with spurious claims, so Bryan didn’t leave a shred of evidence electronically about us. We didn’t email, we didn’t text, we didn’t leave any paper trails. Nor was there any evidence that could have been captured photographically because we hadn’t touched each other.

We had, however, engaged in many delicious encounters. We’d had sex in a limo, on the beach, in the stall of one of those sleek silver and black bathrooms at clubs after we’d danced pressed against each other to pounding music. We’d done it in a hotel room, in the shower, on an airplane. I’d been on my hands and knees for him, I’d ridden him, I’d taken him in my mouth.

Even though I hadn’t.

We were make-believe lovers, and we’d gone there in our fantasies, in our late-night conversations with phones pressed to ears turned red and throbbing. With breathless words, and longing, and so many sighs and moans. I knew now what Bryan sounded like when he came. I knew the way his breathing intensified, the way he said my name. I knew when he was close, and I craved so much to have my hands on him, body pressed to his, legs wrapped around him.

He knew too exactly how I liked it. How sometimes I wanted to be taken, pinned down by my wrists, spread, powerless, and filled up. How other times I wanted to be in charge, to set the rules, to tell him what to do, when and how.

When I saw him at his office for the mentor-protege time, we pretended we were good boys and girls who hadn’t said those things. One afternoon, I joined him and his team for an operational meeting in the conference room to discuss the supply chain plans for the upcoming quarter, and I practiced the fine art of restraint as I kept my gaze on my notes the whole time. Only once, did I meet his eyes, and when I did I saw as much desire in his as I felt. But the specter of his conservative board as well as the lawsuit hung over us, so I shelved all my dirty ideas, especially since we had an appointment at Professor Oliver’s office that same day for a mid-term check-in.

He pulled three chairs into a circle, and Bryan and I sat next to each other, inches apart, eyes on Oliver the whole time.

“Ms. Harper, tell me about the business challenges that you’ve weighed in on at Made Here.”

“I’ve been able to devise solutions for some of the supply chain complications that have arisen, from new timeframes to replacement suppliers,” I said, and then shared more of the details of the projects we’d worked on.

Bryan jumped in. “I can’t underestimate the value of this input, Professor. For instance, Ms. Harper’s swift and well-researched recommendation for a new vendor singlehandedly allowed us to stay on track with one of our key accounts.”

Professor Oliver beamed, then asked more questions we took turns answering. When the meeting was done, Bryan and I left together, getting a kick out of having pulled it off. As we hit the street his phone buzzed. “It’s Caldwell. I just need to answer this quickly.”

He stepped a few feet away, and as I reached for my phone to check messages, I nearly bumped into a curly-haired man wearing sunglasses and a long coat.

“Excuse me,” I said and glanced quickly at the man. His face was unremarkable. He was a standard sort of average-looking guy, but something felt familiar about him. I flipped through images in my mind, and finally settled on one – a photo I’d seen alongside the article Made Here Business Partner Ousted by Board Following Affair.

Was this Wilco?

I stiffened, recalling Bryan’s words. He’s hunting out dirt.

The man turned away, muttering something that sounded like a hiss, then swiftly walked down the street into midday crowds.

“Hey!” I called out, but I wasn’t sure what to say or do next. I was frozen momentarily, tense all over. Then I relaxed my shoulders, telling myself that the guy was probably was just some random fellow who happened to look like Wilco. After all, Wilco looked like every other ordinary guy. My nervous mind was playing tricks on me. That was all.

“Everything okay?” Bryan asked when his call ended.

“Yeah. I saw someone who I thought looked familiar. But it wasn’t anyone after all.” I didn’t need to add to his worry, especially since we’d been playing it so safe.

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

But I wasn’t entirely sure. I was quite certain though that we needed to continue being careful, especially when I searched for Wilco online again that evening. I studied his headshot closely, at the image of Wilco looking professional and proper in a suit and tie. Maybe my mind was still fooling me, but I couldn’t be sure if Wilco was the man I’d seen today. I clicked over to his Facebook page to hunt for less posed photos, but didn’t find any. What I did find, however, was another reminder to stay above reproach. Wilco’s status update was one line: Things I hate – hypocrites.

I shut the page quickly, as if someone or something might jump out of the browser and attack. I pressed my thumb and index finger against the bridge of my nose. I needed to get Wilco and his hostility out of my head, where he was lurking. I reached for my eReader and settled into my couch for a much needed escape into a story of a young woman with a tragic past who falls for a sexy Scotsman.

Yes, mind-blowing sex had a way of erasing all the bad.

*****

Later that night, Bryan called and asked what I’d been thinking about during the meeting.

“The one with my professor?”

He laughed. “No. The one in my conference room when you gave me this look as if you were doing very naughty things to me with your mouth.”

“Oh, you caught on?”

“Of course. So tell me.”

“I was imagining crawling under the conference room table and going down on you while you asked your team for supply chain recommendations.”

“Whoa.”

“You asked. I answer.”

“Oh, I like that answer a lot. Tell me more.”

“I thought I’d start as some of your guys were presenting slides on their picks for the next quarter. I’d casually drop a pen under the table, and no one would notice me as I bent down to pick it up. Then I’d make my way on my hands and knees to the head of the table.”

“What would you do then?”

“I’d touch your legs, and you’d be startled for just a second because you hadn’t realized I was under the table.”

“Ah, a surprise visit.”

“But you’d compose yourself quickly and appear to be listening attentively as I made my way up your legs, and to your zipper, and you’d be instantly hard knowing why I was there.”

“I’m pretty much instantly hard with you just in the room. Or talking to you. Or thinking about you. So, yeah, all the time.”

I laughed once because I liked the sentiment. “And you’d do everything to stifle a little moan as I felt how much you wanted me right then and there.”

“I’d be such a great actor I’d get an award.”

“But, I’m a considerate woman. I wouldn’t want to make things too difficult for you during a meeting, so I’d make quick work of you. I’d unzip your pants quietly, and inch down your boxer briefs so I could free you.”

“Mmmm.”

“And you’d appear to be listening to your team, as I ran my hand over you, feeling how hard you are and how much you wanted me to be touching you. You’d move nearer to me under the table and I’d answer by tracing a tongue up and down, teasing you with little flickers so much you’d want to growl.”

“Instead, I’d put my hands under the table and bring you closer.”

“And that would be my cue to take you in my mouth. So I’d wrap my lips around you, somehow smiling wickedly at how rock hard you are.”

“Like steel, baby.”

“Of course. And you’d taste so good to me as I took you all the way in.”

“And I’d grab your hair. I’d want to have you as deep as you could be.”

“It wouldn’t take you long since you were already so turned on.”

“Because I was watching you during the meeting, thinking about how low your shirt was, and how much I wanted to take it off.”

“And I’d taste you, and you’d grip me even harder, and I’d know you were going to come very soon.”

“I’d have to be very quiet, so no one knew that I’d never enjoyed a meeting more than this one.”

“This would totally be your best meeting ever, as I took you all the way in my mouth, and traced my tongue across you as my lips held you tight, and then you grabbed my hair even harder as you came in my mouth.”

Then he did, calling out my name as I were the best thing he’d ever felt.

He tasted spectacular in my imagination.

Chapter Fourteen

After a caffeine-fueled night of studying business tomes til the wee hours of the morning, I powered through a brutal test in one of my courses. When I filed the exam at the end of the class, submitting it from my laptop, I felt relatively good about my prospects of earning a strong grade. Marks in graduate school were less important than in high school or college since this was the end of the road for me as far as school was concerned. But I wanted to do well so I’d have the skills to grow My Favorite Mistakes. Maybe someday I could even turn it into a business like Made Here, with a board, stockholders, employees and revenues with many zeros. The business geek in me relished that thought as I left the class, headed down the wide wooden staircase to the first floor, and pushed open the door into the late October air.

Fall had coasted into Manhattan, bringing with it crisp air, and the temporary rush of gold and red leaves on the trees in the parks. I looped my orange scarf with white stars around my neck, and pushed on a pair of champagne-colored sunglasses to block out the bright midday rays. My brown boots clicked against the sidewalk as I checked the time on my phone. I had a meeting with Claire Oliver in an hour. She’d finally reached back out to me and asked me to meet her at the cafe at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, adding that since she and her husband were avid supporters of the museum, she had other meeting there too.

On the subway I checked my email for messages. But that was a mere Pavlovian response. There were no emails, no love notes, no sweet whispers at a restaurant, on the street, in public. As the train clattered through the tunnels, a quick burst of unease swept through me.

I thought of all the jokes Bryan and I made about acting.

We were acting in front of Professor Oliver. We were acting in front of the board. Acting as if we were nothing. But what if it was all an act?

What if we were nothing? Because, really, we weren’t anything. We didn’t go out to dinner, to the movies, to the grocery store. We didn’t leave my building holding hands. Because he’d never been to my building. Was he using me for sex? Or, rather, sex talk? Sure, we always chatted before and after. Every day I learned something new about him. I could tell you he liked French toast for breakfast, that he was a rabid baseball fan, and that he played Words with Friends on his phone with some of the guys at the factory.

Did that mean anything though? I didn’t know if we were a thing, or would ever be one. I didn’t want to be just a toy, a treat, an easy 900-number away. I wanted to be more. I want to be his everything.

Then there was the looming thing I didn’t know. Why he hadn’t loved me way back when.

The air felt colder as I emerged at Seventy-Seventh Street, as if October had taken a cruel turn into winter. Or maybe the cold was inside me, in my bones, as I found a new worry to gnaw on. I’d been having so much fun getting off that I hadn’t bothered to ask myself what was next.

I walked up the steps of the museum, hoping against hope that I could shed this desolate feeling for the next hour.

*****

“I showed these around to some buyers I know, and everyone is in love with your necklaces. They think they could be the next big thing,” Claire said, looking very now in a short red linen dress that I’d seen Jessica Biel wearing while shopping on Melrose Avenue in the pages of Us magazine.

“I’m so pleased to hear that, Mrs…Claire.” I quickly corrected myself, and she nodded in approval when I used her first name. We sat in the cafe, drinking afternoon tea in white china cups with a green vine design lacing the rim. “And, while we haven’t talked about this yet, I’d love to know more about the buyers, and who they’re buying for.”

She grinned like a Cheshire Cat, then mentioned two names that made me want to grab a pair of pom-poms and cheer wildly. The first was a distributor that supplied to the trendiest independent boutiques on the east coast, and the second worked for one of the largest and hippest department store chains in the country — Elizabeth’s. The chain was helmed by the reclusive and rarely-seen Elizabeth Mortimer, whose mother, also named Elizabeth, had started the first store in Seattle many years ago, then steadily expanded across the country. Elizabeth’s taste was legendary; a cocktail of trendy and timeless. She stayed entirely out of the limelight though, letting her stores and their displays do the talking. She was simply known.

I leaned back in my chair, gobsmacked. “Let me just catch my breath.”

The smile vacated Claire’s face. “The only thing is, we’d like to see more variety.”

I sat up straight, and pressed my lips together. The comment wasn’t quite a slap, but it wasn’t the compliment I’d hoped for. Whenever a statement is prefaced by the thing is, having said that, or however, chances are you won’t like what follows.

“Did you have something in mind?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. I wonder if you’d consider moving beyond the idea of favorite mistakes to include, quite simply, favorites. We thought that might broaden your base, and we all seem most fond of your European stylings, and we were hoping to see more in that vein — European Favorites.”

“So there could be My Favorites Mistakes and also My Favorites?”

“I rather like the sound of that.”

“I can do that. I can definitely do that.” I started flashing back to my time in Paris, then flicking ahead to the quirky little design blogs I visited each night. I’d need to cobble together my own style, of course. But inspiration often comes from looking at the work of others. Or from art, I mused, as I thought about the setting. Here we were in the belly of one of the greatest collections of art the world has ever known. “When would you and the buyers want to see them by?”

“Soon. Very soon. I think we can get your designs into their stores if we can mix up the look and I really want to get them in for the holiday season. Which isn’t that far away. Elizabeth’s is looking for just the right style to focus its holiday jewelry marketing on.” She steepled her fingers together. The look drawn across her porcelain skin and fine features revealed nothing.

I nodded several times. “I better go get started,” I said and I didn’t have to feign enthusiasm. Her “the only thing is” wasn’t that bad after all.

“Actually, Kat. I haven’t even gotten to the proposition part yet.”

“Oh. Okay.” I took a drink of my tea and waited.

She placed her hands flat on the table, her diamond ring catching the light. “Is My Favorite Mistakes open for a small seed round of investment?”

I nearly choked on my tea. I coughed a few times, and I could feel my face turning red as I hacked at the fancy table in the fancy cafe in the fancy museum. “Excuse me?”

“I want to be an angel investor. Think of it as expansion capital to fund the new design work.”

“Right. Yes. Of course. Absolutely. I’ll do it right now.” I wanted to smack myself. I wasn’t making any sense. I was so bowled over I could barely form words.

“So is that a yes?” Claire seemed on the cusp of annoyed.

I collected myself. “I would be thrilled. I would be absolutely thrilled to have you as an investor.”

When she shared the amount, I did everything in my power not to holler and thrust a victorious fist at the sky. Never in my wildest dreams had I imagined an investor.

“Now, the money is to be allocated solely to the business. You can’t use it to pay your rent or anything like that.” She wagged a finger at me and narrowed her eyes. She was being playful, but she was also serious. Given her tone, I felt compelled to respond with a salute.

“Absolutely.”

“But I do have some stipulations.”

“Of course.”

“First, you need to finish your MBA. I’m a big believer in the value of education, and even if this helps your business take off, you must finish your degree. Or else I’ll need the money paid back.”

“Totally. I’m definitely finishing my degree. I’m so committed I’m beyond committed.”

“Second, after you finish your degree and can focus solely on the business, I’ll put another round into My Favorite Mistakes at the same multiple.”

My heart sang. Everything seemed possible.

“Great.”

“Third. When we first met and you mentioned the markets in Paris and all the little trinkets and charms to be had there for a steal, and when my buyers mentioned they preferred your European stylings, I started thinking…”

Chapter Fifteen

“Paris, Mom! She wants to send me to Paris. And it’s a requirement.”

I was on the steps of the museum, my hand cupped over my mouth even though I wasn’t truly trying to keep my voice down. How could I?

“That is so wonderful.”

“She’s like a fairy godmother. And she’s making me, Mom, making me, go to Paris as part of the investment. To find vendors to expand my designs. Can you please just pinch me now because I must be dreaming!”

A group of school kids chattered noisily as they raced down the sprawling steps to the hot dog carts and pretzel vendors on Fifth Avenue. A curly-haired guy in sunglasses gave me the once-over as he walked past me. I shifted away from him, but then tensed all over, thinking he was Wilco. I scanned for him quickly, but he was already pushing through the revolving doors. I hadn’t gotten a good look, but what were the chances the guy was Wilco anyway? Besides, for a big city, New York was the smallest of towns and you bumped into people you knew all the time. Or, as the case may be, people who simply looked like people you were avoiding.

I pushed him out of my mind and returned my focus to the call. “I’m going to use some of the investment for the trip and to buy the supplies. But if the buyers pick up my designs, then I’ll ramp up the business quickly and I can help pay off your loan for Mystic Landing with my revenues.”

“Katerina, I’ve told you to stop worrying about us.”

“Mom. I want to do this. Just let me help. I mean, I know I don’t have the money yet, but I will soon. And nothing could make me happier than helping you guys.”

“Pssh. Enough. Tell me more about your trip to Paris. That’s what I really want to hear.”

I shared more of the details, told her I’d come out to visit before I left, and then said goodbye. I looked around at all the people streaming in and out of the museum, then up at the darkening sky. I shook my head in amazement. I was still giddy, and didn’t think I’d come down from this high for a long time, nor did I want to. I wanted to share it with someone else. Someone special.

Bryan answered on the second ring. “Hey,” he said in a sweet voice he used just for me.

“I have amazing news. Where are you right now?”

“Just finished up a meeting on the Upper East Side.”

“I’m at the Met right now. About to do some work on a new expansion project for My Favorite Mistakes, and I thought perhaps my mentor might want to join me for a few minutes. It’s a business meeting, of course.”

“I’ll be there in ten.”

*****

The morning light reflected off Monet’s waterlilies. The brushstrokes from the Impressionist master made me think about shapes, colors and new ways of looking.

“So I’m thinking I should totally add a line of waterlily charms to My Favorite Mistakes.”

Bryan played along as we strolled past paintings. “While you’re at it, why not throw in some haystacks too?” He tipped his forehead to another Monet. “Your favorite painting, right?”

My eyes went wide with the realization that he hadn’t forgotten the last time we were here five years ago. From the caramel macchiatos to Hello Kitty to haystacks, he’d held onto so many details of me. My heart felt bigger and fuller. “You remember?”

He shot me a smile, then nodded. “Yes, I remember.”

I wanted to wrap my arms around him and kiss him, but I resisted. “Maybe I should even get some of those melty clocks from a Dali.”

“Or, how about just a bunch of drip mark charms from a Pollock? Because I would have to think drip marks would qualify as a favorite mistake.”

We stopped to sit on a blond hardwood bench in the middle of the gallery, keeping necessary space between us. Bryan wore slate gray pants and a green and white checked shirt with recycled bike chain cufflinks. A tie that I longed to unknot completed the look. He rested a hand on the bench; I did the same. Six more inches and we could have been holding hands. I glanced at his fingers, and restrained every impulse to lace them through mine. This beautiful place had the bars I needed. We simply couldn’t do a thing here. There were too many people around us, tourists and school kids, couples and families.

“So when do you think you’ll go to Paris?”

“Claire and I talked about it and even looked up flights during our chat. I think in two weeks. Over Veteran’s Day weekend. So I won’t have to miss too many classes.”

He lowered his voice, but looked straight ahead. “Speaking of missing. I’ll miss you when you’re gone.”

My stomach flipped. I wanted to brush my lips against his, to run my hand over his arm. To let him tuck a strand of my hair behind my ear. Tenderly. He would do it tenderly. “Same here,” I said.

“Kat.”

There was something new in his voice. Something softer, more vulnerable. Something like love, perhaps? My heart trembled with hope at the possibility. I ached for him to feel the same way. I was falling for him again, and I couldn’t bear the thought that I would be smacked hard with the I have to go again. Of course, I hadn’t uttered a word about feelings this time around, and I supposed I could walk away from this strange us with some shred of dignity. I could protect myself from feeling that kind of hurt again. But at this point, even without the contact, even with the rules, I was all in.

He shifted gears. Back to banter. “So, you’re going to Paris, you’re going to find new designs, and make more necklaces and be a superstar, right? That’s the plan? And I can say I knew you when?”

“Ha. I honestly just want to make enough money from My Favorite Mistakes to help out my parents. Mystic Landing isn’t doing well.”

“I didn’t know that. You hadn’t mentioned that.”

I shrugged. “I’m pretty good at keeping some things buttoned up.”

“Tell me what’s going on. Maybe I can help. I do know a thing or two about running a business.” He held up his thumb and forefinger to show a sliver of space.

I gave him the rundown, then said, “They’ve been trying everything to drive more traffic to the store. And, frankly, I just want to help them pay off the loan so they can have some breathing room, you know? Things have got to pick up soon. I just want to buy them some time.”

“Hmm.”

“Hmm what?”

He stared at a Monet again, but he wasn’t looking at the painting. He was simply gazing off in the distance and I could see the wheels turning in his head. He looked back at me. “It might not be a traffic issue.”

“But there aren’t as many customers.”

“Right. But maybe the solution isn’t in driving more traffic. Sometimes it’s something else.”

“Well, let me know when you figure out what that is.”

“Would it be okay with you if I visited the store?”

I furrowed my brow. He couldn’t be serious. “You would do that?”

“Of course. I’d love to just take a look around, and see if I can come up with an idea. Their daughter Kat is my protege after all. It seems the right thing to do,” he said, and leaned a tiny bit closer to me without touching.

“That would be above and beyond the call of duty.”

“Consider it done, Kat.” Then he said my name again as if it were a strange object he’d never seen. “Kat. What’s the story with Kat? Your parents didn’t actually name you Kat, did they?”

“Like that’s so implausible?”

“It’s like a writer’s name. A made-up name. It has to be short for something.”

“Didn’t my brother ever tell you?”

“Never.”

“Never ever?”

“I swear.”

“So guess then.”

“Ah, so it is short for something.”

I nodded.

“Here’s what I think. I think people guess first that it’s short for Katherine, or Kathleen. Or even Kathy.”

“They do.”

“And then, they guess Katie, or Kaitlin or even Katalina.”

“Those are next.”

“And then the slightly more adventuresome guess Katrina or Katya.”

“Katya? You do your homework.”

The gold flecks in his forest green eyes shimmered with playfulness. “But, I don’t think any of those are right.”

“They’re not.”

He leaned his shoulder closer to me. “You’re Katerina.”

He pulled away to gauge my reaction. My eyes were big and wide and sparkling. They said everything.

He pumped his fist in victory. “Damn. I impress myself.”

“You should be since I’ve never told anyone the name and haven’t used it.”

“Why not?”

“My mom always wanted me to be Kat. My dad said I needed a real name, so they named me Katerina. But no one ever called me that. So I’ve always been Kat. Funny, because now my mom calls me Katerina.”

“Kat is a perfect name for you. But so is Katerina. Did you ever think about using it?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “I got used to Kat. Once you’ve had a weird name, you just don’t give it up when you’re older. It becomes a badge of honor. Like you made it through life with people saying ‘Here, kitty, kitty’ or ‘Cat got your tongue?’”

Bryan laughed once. “Tongue.”

“Tongue?”

He leaned closer without touching. “So many things I want to do with my tongue.”

I smiled knowingly at him. “Like what?”

He downshifted his volume. “Like taste you.”

I lowered my eyes, as if that small act would hide the way sparks flew inside me.

“Right here? At the museum?”

“Here. There. Anywhere. I think about tasting you all the time.”

“You do?” The sparks became fireworks, crackling and zinging.

“Sometimes when I’m in a meeting I have to force myself to focus because I’m thinking about burying my face between your legs.”

“I guess our minds are never really on the meetings.”

“I’ll sometimes imagine everyone else is gone, and I’m in a conference room just with you, and you’re in a chair. Maybe even the power chair. And you spin around. You’re wearing a tight white blouse and a short skirt and you call me over, and all you do is point to the edge of your skirt.”

“And what do you do then?”

“I get down on my knees and push up your skirt and go down on you.”

“I bet that makes it really hard to focus at meetings.”

“Incredibly hard.” I raised an eyebrow and followed his gaze to his pants. I wanted to press a hand against him.

“What if I put my computer bag on your lap right now as a shield? Would you touch yourself?”

“Right here? On the bench in the middle of the Impressionist Gallery?”

He nodded, and lifted his computer bag, holding it above my legs.

“Are you serious?”

“If you want me to be serious.”

I nodded my assent, and he laid his bag gently across my thighs. I glanced around. Museumgoers were preoccupied with still lifes and landscapes. I overheard snippets of conversations, but they were all static noise to me. All I could process were Bryan’s words, as he moved his mouth perilously close to my ear. “Pretend you’re reaching inside the bag, and instead slide your hand up your skirt.”

I’d like to say I was nervous or cautious, but the truth was I was a live wire and I craved only one thing right now — touch. So I followed his order.

“Are you touching yourself?”

I nodded. I was afraid if I spoke I’d cry out.

“Are you wet for me?”

Another nod.

“How much?”

“On a scale of one to ten?”

“Yes.”

“One hundred.”

He breathed out hard. “God, I want to taste you right now.”

I flipped through my mental rolodex of bathroom locations in the Met. “Basement level. There’s a two-stall bathroom off in a far corner.”

“Let’s go.”

I adjusted my skirt as he stood up. I handed him his computer bag and he positioned it strategically as we walked quickly past seascapes and portraits, then Egyptian relics and stone horses, until we reached the white marble stairwell at one end of the wing. I turned down the steps to the basement level, and he followed, and soon I found the quiet bathroom. I opened the door first, and peered around. It was empty.

“Coast is clear.” I pulled him inside, then into a stall. I shut the door and as I was sliding the lock in place, Bryan’s hands were in my hair, and his mouth was on my neck.

Then he moved to my lips. “This is what I’m going to do to you.” He pressed his lips on mine gently, and slid his tongue across them, licking once, twice, three times in a lingering and hungry way, simulating what he planned to do next. My knees wobbled. I was aching for him to touch me. I’d never been so turned on in my life, let alone in a fantasy. He dropped down to his knees, lifted my skirt, and pulled down my panties. Within seconds, his mouth was on me, and I gasped. “Bryan.”

Then I grabbed his hair, bringing him closer. I pressed my back against the wall, and gave in to the feeling of him tasting me for the first time. My god, he knew what to do with his tongue. He knew where I wanted him, and how to touch me in just the right way to send me spiraling. My hands dived into his hair as he explored me like a starving man, and I was the one thing that he needed. I’d never felt so desired; I’d never felt so wanted as when he placed his hands on the back of my thighs and brought me closer to his mouth. Then he made the sexiest sound, a breathy groan as he ran his tongue across me. It was enough to take me to the edge, knowing how turned on he was by doing this to me. I said his name as quietly as I could, but inside I was screaming out, feeling the sweet rhapsody across every square inch of my body, as if the world itself had been shattered into diamonds and starlight, brilliant and perfect as I stood there, awash in a dazzling sort of pleasure from the tips of my toes to the end of my hair.

He rose, and planted a gentle kiss on my neck.

“My turn,” I said, and he grinned in reply.

I kneeled, unzipped his pants and tasted him for the first time. He groaned quietly and said my name as he ran his hands in my hair. I took him all the way into my throat, drinking in the taste of him, the scent of him, the feel of him as he grabbed hold of my hair and I moved my lips and tongue up and down. Soon, he inhaled sharply as he came.

I stood up, and I was sure we both looked drunk and happy. He pulled me into a quick embrace and tucked a strand of loose hair behind my ear. “You are the sexiest woman I have ever known and I am totally —”

The door opened with a loud creak. I placed a finger on my lips. He stopped speaking. Someone went into the stall next to us. When the stall door closed, I motioned for Bryan to sneak out. He left quickly, and I adjusted my clothes, left the stall, washed my hands, and walked out.

I found him down the hall, and he had a goofy smile on his face. He started to reach for my hand, and I near about melted. Even after what we’d just done, the fact that he wanted to hold my hand meant so much to me. He didn’t though, remembering we had to be careful in public.

“I am going to sleep well tonight,” he said.

“Are you kidding? I’m going to sleep well.”

We walked up the steps to the main floor, when I saw a flurry of quick movement in one of the gallery doorways. Bryan jerked his head, then tensed. That same curly-haired guy in the sunglasses was dashing off again.

Bryan swore under his breath. “Be right back.”

Then he was off on some sort of search. A few minutes later he returned, agitated. He rubbed a palm over his chin, what I’d come to recognize as his tell when he was stressed. “I think I know who that was. I’m not sure because he was gone when I looked around. But I think that was Wilco.”

I flashed back to an hour ago when the same man looked at me on the steps. Then back to the other week when I’d bumped into him at NYU and written it off as a look-alike. Had he seen us go downstairs? Did he know where we were or what we were doing? Was Bryan the hypocrite he was ranting about on Facebook?

“I think he’s following me,” Bryan said in between gritted teeth.

I shook my head as fear snaked over me. “No. He’s following us.”

Chapter Sixteen

We have to lie low.

Those were the last words Bryan said before he hailed a cab for me and sent me home. He didn’t call that night. Or the next night. When he did finally call, it was for two minutes. He told me he’d call me again soon.

Soon.

When I showed up at Made Here’s offices for my work, I spent most of the time with Nicole Blazer in design. She showed me the new line of tie clips with the gold tints I’d suggested, then remarked that she was going to get one for her partner. “She likes to wear the pants in the relationship. And the ties,” Nicole said, as we looked at the first set of clips spread out on the coffee table in her office. I felt a pang of jealousy for Nicole and her partner, simply because they weren’t a secret, because they were something. They were an un-secret.

“Which one do you like?”

“I love them all. But especially this one.” I chose a clip that shone with the gold of a sunset.

“My favorite too! And Bryan loves that one as well,” Nicole said, then called out to Bryan who was walking by her office. “Kat has the best taste.”

“She does,” he said, but there was nothing more to his words. No wink and a nod. No knowing look.

“He’s just stressed about the…” Nicole let her voice trail off. No one seemed to want to say much about Wilco, but he was the undercurrent at Made Here these days. Wilco no longer worked here, but he managed to be omnipresent thanks to being unpredictable, and after a week of lying low it was pissing me off. I wanted to be on or I wanted to be off. I didn’t want this weird now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t middle ground. If we needed to lie low til the lawsuit was over, then we should just cool it completely.

I looked briefly at Bryan as he walked away. I turned back to Nicole, and saw she’d followed my gaze.

“Do you?” she asked, shifting her eyes down the hall. She didn’t have to finish the question for me to know what she meant. Do you like him?

“No. Of course not. I mean, not like that.”

She stood up and shut her door. “You’re blushing.”

I put a hand on my cheek. Stupid red cheeks. I didn’t say anything.

“Hey. It’s okay.”

I shook my head, as if I could rid myself of all that wanting, hoping, falling. I picked up another tie clip and examined it as if it were a long-lost archaeological relic. “This one is nice too,” I added, doing my best to focus on everything except waiting for Bryan.

But that night, I was so tired of it all. Of waiting for a call. Of playing pretend. Of being so undefined. When Jill returned home from her performance of Les Mis, I was ready to slam my phone into the wall.

“Hi.” It came out like a strangled mutter, as I burrowed into a corner of the couch with my laptop, and its open tabs of spreadsheets.

“Why the long face, my little porcupine?”

“Just busy.”

“Lie.”

“No. It’s true. I have to get ready for my trip, and I have exams, and I have —”

Jill cut me off. “That’s all true, I’m sure. But I have a crazy hunch you’re a crabcake because you’re not getting your nightly action.”

I threw a pillow at her. She dodged it artfully.

“Do you have any idea how much that would have hurt?”

“Hardly at all?”

“Exactly. It would have hardly hurt at all,” she said as she plunked herself on the couch and wrapped an arm around me. “I was going to give you a hug, but that’s cheesy, and besides you need this instead.” She promptly wrapped me in a wrestling chokehold, and pretended to pin me down. “You know I have two older brothers so I know every wrestling move under the sun. Now, spill. Why hasn’t Hottie McCufflinks called you in a week?”

“His ex-business partner is following us,” I managed to say while trapped under Jill’s powerful arm. I wished my roommate didn’t work out so much. She was toned and tough.

She let go right away and sat up straight. “Seriously?”

I nodded.

“That sucks. Why? You guys don’t even do anything in public.”

“I know.” I sighed, then gave her the update on the scrutiny Made Here was under thanks to Kramer Wilco’s inability to keep his hands off a minor.

“Let’s kneecap him,” Jill said.

“I wish. I mean, not really. Then again, maybe it’s the universe telling me to stay away from Bryan, right? It’s been nothing but obstacles with him from day one. Maybe this is the latest sign. Besides, if the universe intends for us to be together, then it’ll happen when we’re not in this weird mentor-protege thing. Maybe I should shut it down for him right now.”

Jill rolled her eyes and huffed. “I don’t believe in signs. I believe in words, and action, and doing. And what you’re doing is sitting and waiting and that is one hundred percent unacceptable. Even if he has to lie low because of lawsuits or whatnot, and even if you have to play it safe, you are not allowed to mope.” She grabbed my phone, slid open the battery pack, and took out the battery.

My eyes widened. “Jill!”

She dropped the phone carcass on the couch, ran down the hall to her bedroom, then skipped into the living room five seconds later. I stood up, hands on my hips. “What did you do?”

“It’s hidden, and I’ll let you have it back when you prove yourself worthy. For now, you’re going out with me.”

She grabbed my hand and pulled me to my room, then looked me up and down. “Put on some boots, grab a scarf, and let’s go.”

I pretended to be annoyed, but inside I was smiling. I was even happier when we wound up at the best twenty-four diner in Manhattan and ordered chocolate milkshakes and French fries and I didn’t have to check my phone once.

Jill grabbed the bill. As she was about to pay, I spotted an increasingly familiar face. But not a welcome one. Instinctively, I ducked, as beads of panic prickled across my skin.

“That’s him,” I whispered shakily. My stomach twisted, and I felt exposed. I was finding I didn’t enjoy being followed one bit. “Wilco.”

“The guy with the curly hair and long coat?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s creepy. I’m going to go talk to him.”

I looked up again, but stayed low in the booth, as if that would protect me from the line of fire. The trouble was, I had no idea what Wilco was capable of. Was he just trying to keep tabs on me? Or did he have other, less savory, notions in mind? “No. Jill, don’t.”

“We need to disarm him.”

I tried to grab her arm, but Jill rose quickly and walked over to Bryan’s former business partner. Wilco stood at the cash register, waiting for the hostess to seat him. I watched them carefully from the back of the booth. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but at one point Wilco held up his hands as if he were surrendering, then pushed them back into his pockets. It looked like he was touching something. Jill batted her eyes and said something that made him blush. Then she gave a flirty wave as he walked out.

Jill returned to the table. She didn’t seem rattled, but she was a good actress. She knew how to channel and conjure emotions. Meanwhile, I was a wreck and alarms were going off every minute inside me.

“What did you do?”

“I pretended I thought he was cute.”

“Eww. How did you do that?”

“I basically said, ‘Hey, I feel as if I’ve seen you around a lot.’ And then asked him a bunch of questions about himself, where he lived, as if I was into him. I think it threw him off. Because if you’re following people around, the last thing you want is someone to notice you, right?”

“Sure,” I said, but my skin was still crawling with worry, and then there was this drumbeat inside me. A reminder. That all the signs were pointing to Bryan and me being impossible. I had to stop being foolish, and start being wise.

Chapter Seventeen

I left for class the next morning still surrounded by the sense that there were unwanted eyes on me. I jumped when I saw a black town car at the curb. Bryan’s driver was waiting by the door.

“Hi. Bryan Leighton sent me for you.”

I had half a mind to say thanks, but no thanks. But I was so glad to see him, and relieved too to avoid the streets with their easy opportunities for Wilco to track me. I slid into the backseat only to find I was alone. “Excuse me. Where’s Bryan?”

“He asked me to drive you wherever you need for the next few days.”

“Why?”

“He didn’t say.”

I rooted around in my bag for my phone. This situation was veering too close to my college ex-boyfriend Michael, and I wasn’t someone who craved danger like a drug. But my phone was nowhere in sight. Then I remembered Jill had dismantled it, and I’d somehow gotten so used to the few hours of being phone-less that I hadn’t even looked for it this morning.

The driver took me to class and I expected him to drop me off curbside. Instead, he stepped out of the car, scanned the street in each direction and then placed a hand on my back and led me into the building, as if he were a secret agent on my security detail.

“What the heck is going on?”

“Just getting you safely to class, Ms. Harper.”

“Is there a reason I wouldn’t get safely to class?” I asked, even though I had a feeling the answer was the man in the diner last night. Jill’s strategy to disarm Wilco by flirting hadn’t quite rattled the guy as she’d hoped.

“I’ll be here when class ends,” the driver replied and that was clearly all the information I was getting.

Sure enough, the driver was waiting inside the lobby of the business school building in the early afternoon. I started walking towards the main door, but he gestured down the hallway, wrapped a hand around my elbow, and guided me to a back door that led to the building’s rarely used service exit. There, the car was waiting.

“Is someone going to tell me what’s going on with the cloak and dagger?”

“Just following orders,” he said, as he started the car.

“Fine. Then can you take me uptown?” I gave him the address of a cafe where I was meeting Claire, and he drove me there, standing guard outside as I Claire and I sipped hot chocolate and I tried to pretend my day hadn’t been turned upside down with covert affairs.

“I want a full report when you return from Paris,” Claire said. “I’ll be out of the country for a week. I convinced my husband to take me away on a technology-free trip to Tahiti.”

“That’s funny because I spent the whole day without my phone. My roommate hid it from me.”

“And see! You still made it to our appointment on time. Maybe we don’t need to be tethered to our phones as much as we think.”

But I was missing my phone because I had no idea what was going on. When it was time to head home I settled into the safety of the leather seat of the town car, closed my eyes and tried desperately to let go of the caged-in day, to forget about the run-in last night. Then, as we idled in the stalled Park Avenue traffic, I heard the driver’s phone ring. My ears pricked as he answered.

“Hello?”

In his pause, I could make out the gravelly sound of the other voice. Nicole Blazer.

“Yes?”

A pause.

“She’s with me right now.”

Another pause, and a strange fear ricocheted through my body.

“I’ll bring her now.”

He ended the call and looked at me in the rearview mirror. “Nicole says Bryan has been asking for you.”

*****

Nicole placed a gentle hand on my arm. “His hand is pretty banged up, and it looks like he might have broken one of the bones in it.

“What on earth happened?”

Nicole held open the pristinely painted white door that led into the foyer of Bryan’s four-story brownstone on Sixtieth and Park. “We were meeting with Wilco’s attorneys this afternoon to review the wrongful termination suit and attempt to settle. We were all there, and it was going fine, and Bryan stepped out for a minute, then walked back in, and Wilco blew a gasket. Stood up, sucker punched him in the gut, jammed him in the back, and smashed his hand into the table.”

My eyes widened with shock. “Oh my god. That’s awful.”

She nodded. “His attorneys were totally freaked out. It all happened so quickly, and they didn’t even know what to do. The security guard at the office rushed in and restrained Wilco, and when the police came a few minutes later, they found a knife in his coat pocket.”

I rewound back the diner. To the way he’d touched the inside of his pocket. He’d seemed so unhinged. “I saw him last night. He followed me to a diner. I think he had the knife then too.” I placed my hand on my mouth. A tear slid down my cheek.

“He’d been skulking around here too. My place as well. Last night, he kept calling both of us all night, saying nasty things. That’s why Bryan sent his car for you this morning. To keep you safe all day.” Nicole noticed my wet cheek and wrapped her arms around me. “Hey. You’re okay. Everyone’s okay. Wilco’s in police custody now for assault and battery. And the attorneys dropped him as a client, so there’s no more lawsuit.”

“For now.”

“For now. But really. That’s all there is. Right now.”

“Where’s Bryan? How is he?”

Nicole tipped her forehead to the staircase. “Upstairs on the living room couch. He’s a little loopy right now. We took him to the hospital to get him checked out. His hand was pretty messed up, so they gave him some pain meds. Then he kept asking for you.”

I felt some of the fear leave my body. “He did?”

Nicole nodded. “He said he wanted to see you. He wanted me to call you.”

She gestured to the stairs, and I followed her, unsure of what to expect. When I reached the living room, Bryan was stretched out on the couch, his head resting on a pillow, the TV on a low volume. He was wearing a checked button-down shirt and dark gray pants, but his shoes were off, kicked onto the hardwood floor. The sleeves on his shirt had been rolled up a few times. There was a bruise on his cheek. He smiled at me as if I were the answer to any question. “Hey you.”

I melted at the sound of his voice and the way he looked at me, his eyes so warm, his smile so soft. I liked him even more when he was a little loopy from meds. I walked over to him.

“Sit down.”

I sat gingerly on the edge of the couch, not wanting to hurt him. I pointed to his bandaged hand. “Does it hurt?”

“Not now. Those little white pills have worked their voodoo magic.”

I laughed once. “I bet. Are you okay?”

“Yeah. And if I’d known all I had to do to get rid of a lawsuit was let him land a few punches, I’d have done it sooner.”

“Don’t say that.”

“Kat, do you want something to drink?” The question came from Nicole.

“I’m okay.”

“Bryan? More water?”

“How about a beer? When can I have one of those? Or maybe we should get champagne to celebrate the suit being dropped.”

Nicole rolled her eyes, and headed upstairs.

“So.”

“So,” he replied and flashed me another one of his woozy smiles.

“Those pain meds must be good.”

“Not as good as you.” Then he reached his un-bandaged hand into my hair and pulled me to him, bringing my lips to his and kissing me softly. It was the last thing I expected, but it was the thing I wanted most in the world, and I gave in to the kiss, to the way his lips knew mine, to the way he tasted sweet and salty at the same time. “Now I feel much better.”

He closed his eyes and fell asleep.

*****

Nicole didn’t know everything. But she knew enough.

“It wasn’t that hard to figure out,” she said, as we sat on the metal stools in Bryan’s kitchen while he dozed. Nicole’s feet dangled; she looked even tinier on a stool.

“Really?”

“I noticed how he talked about you. And I think you’re pretty brilliant too, but there was something else in his voice. It was always more vulnerable at those times. And then yesterday in my office when you looked at him as he walked away, it all clicked.”

I dropped my head in my hands. “I’m so obvious.”

“No. You’re just in love.” Nicole sounded like a gruff, tough chick doling out truisms with that husky voice of hers.

“I guess it’s obvious. But we’re not supposed to be.”

She waved a hand in the air. “When are we ever supposed to be? I mean, does it ever happen at the right time? I met my partner on a work project too. There are always complications in every relationship.”

“So what did he say?” I was fishing for information, but I didn’t care. We’d been so careful. I couldn’t just accept the notion that suddenly all his concerns had flown out the window.

But it was more than that. I wanted to be something with him. I didn’t want to be his phone booty call. I didn’t want to be the girl who always had to lie low. I wanted to be out-in-the open and for real with him. All or nothing. That’s what I wanted.

“I just asked him point blank at the hospital if he had a thing for you. He said yes.” My heart fluttered, and even with Bryan banged up downstairs I couldn’t help but grin wildly. “And he was all worried about the board and how they’d look at this because of Wilco’s affair. And then there’s Caldwell, who’s Captain Conservative.”

“Right, and those are all still true.”

“Yes, but you’re twenty-three and not an employee.” Nicole reached out and took my hand. She had this satisfied look in her eyes, like a good matchmaker pulling off a match. “So when I asked him if it was the real thing with you, and he said yes to that as well, I told him I’d talk to the board and to Caldwell in particular. The guy’s conservative as hell, but he didn’t freak out when I brought my partner to the holiday party last year so I think I can convince him.”

This was all I wanted. To be more than just playmates. To be a real thing. A rush of happiness warmed me all over.

“What about NYU though? And the mentor program?”

“I told Bryan that as long as he recused himself as your mentor, everything should be fine.”

Ah, there was a catch. There was always a catch. Without this class how would I graduate?

Chapter Eighteen

You know when they tell you that you can have your cake and eat it too?

They’re wrong.

You always have to pay the piper. You can’t take the money and run.

As Nicole returned to her home, leaving me with a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Therapy, all I could think was Bryan might be free and clear, but there was no way I could come out of this unscathed. Not now at least. Whatever we might be would have to go back on hold once again. I couldn’t have him end the mentorship. I needed to finish school for a million reasons.

I went to the kitchen, feeling a bit like an intruder as I rooted around for two spoons. I’d never been in his place before, and now here I was, for all intents and purposes, taking care of him after a trip to the ER. I found a white wood-paneled drawer that held utensils. I grabbed two spoons, then two cloth napkins from the holder in the island and returned to the living room. Bryan was awake now, reading a book on his tablet. Night had fallen, so the only illumination was the screen. When he saw me, he put the tablet on the table. I surveyed his living room once more. The hardwood floors in his home were a polished blond, and the walls were eggshell, giving the room warmth. There were a few pieces of art on the walls — reproductions of the Magritte with an apple in front of a man’s face, and one of Mark Rothko’s abstract images in solid red. The couch was comfortable and classy in a dove gray color, and the coffee table was made of a sheet of sturdy glass atop two brushed metal blocks. His tablet rested next to his wallet, and I noticed the crinkled edge of a tiny white bag sticking out of his wallet. The bag was well-worn, as if it had set up camp there for years. Something about it felt vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place why.

I joined him on the couch, opened the pint and presented him with a spoon.

“My favorite. How did you know?”

“Nicole knew, silly.”

He tapped his forehead with the spoon. “Still a little slow on the uptake tonight.”

“It’s a good thing you haven’t had the ice cream yet or you’d have a huge chocolate spot on your forehead.”

He dug into the ice cream, and I joined him. We ate quietly for a minute. After a few bites, he put the spoon down on the coffee table. I placed my spoon and the pint next to it. “Did Nicole tell you?” he asked.

“Tell me what?”

“Anything interesting?”

I shifted so I could look at him. “Maybe you should tell me something interesting.”

He swallowed, and the soft sleepiness of the crazy day disappeared. He was Bryan again. Strong and in control. There was no hemming and hawing. No lengthy preamble. He was direct and clear, as he looked me in the eyes. “I’m totally in love with you, Kat.”

I was speechless for a moment. Overcome. This was the movie-like moment I’d wanted my whole life. Only it was real. It was happening. And I was no longer sitting in the theater in the dark, watching. I was the girl in the scene who was crazy for the boy.

And the boy loved me too.

I was a flood of colors. I was the center of a sunburst, as my heart beat faster, and happiness rushed all throughout the freeways of the intersecting veins inside my body, filling me with everything good in the world.

“I’m so in love with you, Bryan.”

He kissed me again. This kiss was deeper, closer. I was careful with him, sensitive to his damaged hand, and the tender spot on his ribs where Wilco had slammed a fist. But the painkillers must have muted all that, because Bryan seemed only to be enjoying every touch, every movement between us. My arms wrapped around his neck, while my hands worked their way up into his soft hair. His good hand pressed firmly onto my back, while his bandaged one rested by his side. I felt hungrier than I had that afternoon many weeks ago at the factory, but maybe that’s just because I hadn’t eaten anything for dinner. Then there were Bryan’s lips on mine, sweeter than the ice cream that would surely turn to a puddle if we kept going like this.

But we couldn’t keep going like this. We had to stop. We had to put the whole thing on ice for real this time. No kissing. No bathroom trysts. No phone calls.

I pulled back. “We need to talk.”

He tensed, but then shifted to a sitting position and to his standard business voice. “Okay.”

I was reminded how quickly he could segue from one mode to another. I wasn’t sure if this was an admirable trait or not.

“Nicole told me the advice she gave you. That we could pursue a relationship or whatever.” I found myself blushing and looking away when I said those words.

He smirked, then flashed that lopsided grin. “A relationship or whatever? Is that what the kids are calling it these days? Relationships or whatever?”

I pretended to punch his arm.

“Hey. I’m damaged goods now. Be careful.”

“Anyway. So yeah. Relationship or whatever.”

“Do we call it boyfriend-girlfriend these days? Or is that too high school? Lovers just seems so weird. Especially, since, you know, I haven’t seen you fully naked yet.”

“Okay. I thought we were being serious,” I said, but it occurred to me that maybe he was avoiding the serious conversation.

“Fine. I’m serious.”

“But we can’t right now. You have to tell her that even if we’re —” I stopped talking. I couldn’t bring myself to say in love out loud. I was too afraid the words were a fragile bubble that might burst.

“In love,” he said, completing the phrase.

“Yes. That we can’t be involved until I graduate. Professor Oliver won’t stand for hanky panky or else an F, as you know. And I have to get my degree. Not just to get the investment, but because I want to. So we have to really, truly, for real this time put everything on hold. Yes, we could sneak around. Yes, we could try not to be caught. And maybe we’d be successful, but I just don’t want to take the risk, especially with all that happened with Wilco. I feel like we only narrowly escaped. I want to do things the right way. I want to start over with you in the open, not in hiding.”

I’d always swayed with him, bent to my own wishes to be with Bryan no matter the cost. But there was more at stake now than us. “So I guess what I’m saying is you kind of have to be my mentor. You can’t recuse yourself or I might not be able to finish school.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Oh, so you’re kind of giving me an order.”

“Kind of. Or more like a request. Can you please let Nicole know you have to stay as my mentor for the next several weeks, and that we’re going to be good boys and girls, and then when I graduate, we can…”

“Be together?”

“Yes. But we really have to cool it til then. No taking chances. No calls. No nothing.”

“I think I could be amenable to waiting for you under one condition.”

“What’s that?”

He put his good hand on my waist and gently pulled my chest to his. Then he whispered in my ear, his voice low and smoky. “Let me touch you tonight.”

“Bryan! That’s not fair.”

“Fair to who?”

“You’re all hopped up on pain meds. I’m not going to take advantage of you.”

He scoffed. “First off, you could never take advantage of me. I will always want you.”

“But we’re supposed to be behaving! Didn’t we just agree to that?”

“Yeah. But think of me like a wounded soldier. You wouldn’t leave me without giving me a little something to keep me going for the next several weeks.”

“You’re terrible. We might as well just have sex then.”

“What a brilliant idea.”

I wagged a finger at him as if he were a very naughty boy. “The answer is no, no, no.”

He pressed his palms together – a sight that looked as amusing as it was sympathetic given his gauze-wrapped hand – and batted his eyelids. I pretended to swat him, and he deftly reached for me with his left hand, shifting my body alongside his and spooning me on the couch. He wrapped an arm around my shoulders, his right hand resting carefully on the couch. He layered kisses on the back of my neck that turned me inside out. He pushed my hair out of the way and traced his tongue lazily across my skin, over my earlobe, and down to my shoulder blade. He moved his hand to my waist, slipping his fingers underneath my sweater. I gave in to the feeling of his fingers dancing on the waistband of my jeans. His hand was warm, his skin was soft, he felt amazing. I closed my eyes.

“Good thing I’m left-handed,” he said.

Even though I could feel the soft little hairs on my arms standing on end, I moved his hand off my belly. “Yes. That means you can use your left hand to work the TV remote.”

He heaved a long, laborious sigh of playful resignation.

“You have a will of steel, and it only makes me want to get you naked even more. But for now, I surrender. Want to watch a movie?”

“I’d love nothing more.”

I handed him the remote and settled in next to him. We scrolled through the options on-demand, debating whether we wanted to see Pitch Perfect or Bridesmaids. Anna Kendrick was my girl crush, so that movie won. Plus, I didn’t have to worry about whether that sexy scene where the cop and Kristen Wiig spend the night together would make me break my vow.

Besides, it was better this way, curled up and warm in his arms. For tonight at least.

Chapter Nineteen

I surveyed my open suitcase, thumbing through my folded clothes and neatly aligned shoes. I was ready for four days in Paris. As I doubled checked that I’d packed a power adaptor, and triple checked that I’d included extra tights since November is cold in the city of lights, I chewed the inside of my cheek with worry.

What if I returned from Paris empty-handed? Or worse, what if I brought back a brilliant prototype for a new line of necklaces and it still wasn’t what Claire and her contacts at the Elizabeth’s department store had in mind? Where would my parents be then? I had a chance with Claire; it was in my grasp, and I needed to hold on tight and not let go.

I took a deep breath, shut my black suitcase and reminded myself not to catastrophize.

I left the suitcase in the middle of my purple comforter, and checked the inside pocket of my carry-on computer bag. My passport was safely tucked away, zipped up and secured. I looked up the weather on my phone. A storm was headed towards Manhattan in a day or so. I would probably just miss it, and escape the city in the nick of time. Maybe that was a favor from the universe for being good again.

I lifted the suitcase and computer off my bed and placed them on the floor, then pulled back the covers and slid into bed. I turned on my eReader, closing out the sexy Simone Noelle novella I’d finished last night and toggling over to the new book I’d downloaded about a college girl in love with insanely hot twin brothers. The story had started to steam up when I heard the sound of the door crashing wide open. Jill always had to make an entrance.

“KatGirl! I’m coming to get you and tell you my news!”

Her heels banged across the floor as she ran down the hall and jumped onto my bed, bouncing a few times on her butt.

“Tell me your news.”

“I got a callback for the new musical. The new Frederick Stillman musical,” she said, referring to the revered composer. Theater actors fell all over themselves to land roles in his shows, be they new productions or revivals. He was nothing short of a legend and had attained God-like status in the thespian community.

I knocked fists with her. “You are a rock star!”

She twisted her index and middle finger together. “Don’t jinx me. But I hope so! I hope I’m a Broadway star.” She flopped back on my bed. “Oh my god, Kat. This is my dream. This is my fucking dream. A role in a Stillman musical. It’s called Crash the Moon and the score is to die for. Well, the song they gave me. It’s a rock ballad I have to sing. But the casting director saw my Eponine and called me in for a supporting role.”

“I didn’t even know you were auditioning for it.”

“I didn’t tell a soul. I was so terrified I’d blow it, so I kept it totally secret. Now, she wants to bring me in for the producer. And, word on the street is that Patrick Carlson is going to win the lead. I might have a chance to act with Patrick Carlson. He only pretty much inspired me through all of high school.”

“Yeah, and he’s the one straight actor in musical theater, right?”

She laughed. “Pretty much. Well, him and Reeve.”

Patrick Carlson was a few years older than Jill, and had risen quickly as a Broadway star, nabbing a Tony already, as well as a long list of gorgeous girlfriends. He had chiseled cheekbones and the voice of an angel. You could fall in love just hearing him sing. Well, if you weren’t already mad about someone, that is.

“When’s the callback?”

“Next week. It’s a good thing you’ll be gone because I’ll pretty much just be practicing my songs the whole time I’m not coaching my newest half-marathon club.”

“You’re going to blow them away and make gobs of money as a star. Break a leg.”

My phone rang. Jill raised an eyebrow as she picked up the Hello Kitty-encased device from my nightstand and brandished it at me. “I thought you two were on ice.”

I sat up straight and looked at the screen. Bryan’s name blared across it.

A part of me wanted to hear his voice. Another part urged me to resist. Neither part had a chance to debate it because Jill swiped her finger over the phone.

“Kat in the Box’s line. How may I help you?”

I rolled my eyes as she waited.

“No, I don’t believe she is available. She’ll be free again to speak with you in about five weeks.” Jill spoke in a professional voice as if she were my receptionist.

A pause. Jill smirked and nodded several times. “My, my, my. Isn’t that just convenient that the padlock deal came through.”

My shoulders tightened with excitement. Padlocks. That could only mean one thing.

“Oh, really? Well, you definitely shouldn’t go anywhere near the Hotel Marquis that’s just three blocks from the Eiffel Tower on rue Dupleix when you go to Paris tomorrow.” Jill clasped her hand over her mouth in an overly dramatic gesture. “Oh my. I did not mean to just happen to drop the name of Kat’s hotel. Especially since you two have your chastity belts on. Pretend I didn’t mention it. Wipe it from your brain. I’ll make sure she knows to stay away from the W Hotel too. Ta-ta for now.”

She hung up the phone and I stared at her, mouth agape.

She shrugged. “What was I to do? He was giving you a heads up that the city of Paris called him in for some last-minute meeting about the padlocks, whatever that means. He didn’t want you to be surprised if you see him at the airport tomorrow. He said he had to move up his flight a day because of the storm.” Jill winked. “Convenient, that mother nature, isn’t she?”

Très convenient. Or inconvenient. Depending on how you looked at it.

Chapter Twenty

The lights of the city shone like fireflies as New York City fell away below me. The plane soared higher, and I worked on a crossword puzzle since all my reading material was of the electronic kind. Though I often wondered — if the power from a simple eReader could disable a plane’s navigation on takeoff, what did that say about the sturdiness of the plane?

I returned to the clue in front of me, filling in edict as the answer for a five-letter word for doctrine. How apropos, given my self-imposed edict to stay away from Bryan for the next five weeks. I didn’t even see him when I boarded, but I suspected he was in first class, and I was stuck in lowly coach.

As I finished the puzzle, one of my least favorite odors permeated the air. The scent of smelly man foot. The guy next to me had removed his shoes. I wrinkled my nose and tried to breathe in through my mouth.

“Ah, that’s better,” he said to the woman with him as he wiggled his freed feet in their white tube socks. The woman smiled without showing any teeth, and then began clipping her nails.

Great. Now, I had not one, but two of my least favorite human activities on public transit taking place in a two-foot radius. At least I had the aisle seat. I turned, shifting my body away from them and hoping the lady might gently remind her man of proper social mores.

But after several minutes of sweaty-sock-scented air and the clip-clip-clip of nail maintenance, I started to wonder if perhaps my seatmates might break out Q-tips next and check for earwax. I frowned at the image as the plane reached its cruising altitude, and one of the flight attendants strolled down the aisle, a purposeful look in her eyes. When she reached me, she bent down. She wore her hair in a perfectly coiffed twist.

“Bon soir. You are Ms. Harper?”

“Bon soir. I am.”

“If you’d like, I can move you to a row closer up.”

“You can?”

“Yes, the seats are much more comfortable, and there is a spare one.”

She didn’t have to ask twice. I grabbed my computer bag, unbuckled, and followed the sharp-suited woman. She escorted me out of coach, held open the blue curtain to economy plus and guided me through the cushier section. I spotted a few empty seats, but she didn’t stop. She marched forward to the next blue curtain, the one that led to first class. I slowed my pace when I realized where she was taking me. The empty seat was next to Bryan. He turned around, smiled with his eyes, and gestured grandly to the massive leather seat next to his, so large it could turn into a bed. He no longer had a bandage on his right hand.

“Would you care to join me? The seat is empty and I have plenty of miles, so it’s not a problem.”

“The guy next to me had his shoes off and his wife was cutting her nails. So, yes, yes, yes.”

“Those activities are forbidden under my regime.”

“I know!”

I took the seat, buckled in, and leaned against the buttery leather chair, feeling like a princess flying through the sky to Paris.

*****

“Would you like to see the wine list?”

A dark-skinned woman with light brown eyes proffered what looked like an invitation to a fancy party. I tried not to let my jaw drop. They weren’t just passing out diet sodas and seltzer here in first class. There were several varieties of wine on the list, not to mention cocktails. I looked at Bryan. “Are you getting something?”

“I’m not really a wine person. I’ll take a Glenlivet on the rocks,” he said to the flight attendant. Then to me. “You?”

I shook my head.

“Would you like a cocktail, then?”

“Just an orange juice, please.” I felt like a kid, but the truth was I didn’t trust myself not to pounce on Bryan if I had a drink or two in me. She nodded and walked away.

“Not in the mood? Or do you not really drink?”

“Not often.”

“What’s that all about? Any reason?”

“I wish I could say I had this horrible childhood and my mother was a raging alcoholic or my father was a drunk who beat me. Well, I don’t really wish I could say that. But you know what I mean. There’s no deep-seated childhood reason. No dysfunction I’m trying to avoid. The truth is I just don’t like the taste of alcohol.”

“Not even champagne or cosmopolitans or chocolate martinis? I would think you’d be all over the chocolate martinis with your sweet tooth.”

“Ugh. No. None of them. Those fruity drinks and sweet drinks – all they’re doing is trying to add enough sweet stuff to mask the taste of the liquor. And I can’t stand the taste of beer. I mean, I drank it in college. But now it just reminds me that I never really liked the taste even then. It’s like swill.”

“And hard liquors are out, I assume?”

“They taste like gasoline to me. Well, I’ve never had gasoline, of course. My mother would correct me now and say, ‘You mean they taste like gasoline smells.’”

The flight attendant reappeared with our drinks. She placed Bryan’s sturdy glass of scotch on his tray table, alongside my orange juice, and two glasses of water. After she left, Bryan held up his glass to toast.

“Hand all better?”

“Turns out I just fractured a bone. It’s pretty much back to normal now.”

“Good.”

We clinked glasses. “To a successful business trip to Paris.”

“I will definitely drink to that.” I took a sip of my orange juice. “So, how did it all come together? The padlock thing?”

“It’s not a done deal. But I’ve been waiting on the city, and I heard this week that there’s someone new in charge, and she’s open and wants to meet right away. There are a lot of tourists coming to the city for the holidays and then for Valentine’s Day, so they need to make room for new locks.”

“So here’s a question for you. If you hadn’t started this company, if you were doing something else entirely, what would it be?”

“You mean, like playing shortstop for the New York Yankees?”

“Yes. Like that.”

“Well, shortstop for sure. Otherwise, I’d have to say rock star.”

“Rock star would be awesome.”

“And after that I’d write for a wine magazine.”

I chuckled. “A wine magazine? I thought you didn’t like wine.”

“I don’t like wine. When you write for a wine magazine, you can say anything you want and no one will challenge you.”

“Explain.”

“You just make it up. You ever read that stuff?”

“Well, no. Obviously.”

“Oh, I do. Just for fun.” He launched into an imitation of a wine writer, pretending to hold a glass and swirl it with one hand, while taking notes with the other. “Mmm, I taste a little sandpaper. Yes, sandpaper and fresh soil.”

He sniffed an imaginary glass. “Faint aromas of shoe leather mixed with lightly toasted tar. It’s full bodied, velvety and long. With just a touch of gravel. Gravel. I mean, who the hell knows what gravel tastes like? But they write that. They say wine tastes like gravel.”

“I don’t think I’d want to taste gravel.”

“What are those writers doing? Getting down on their hands and knees and licking the road? The tar? The gravel? Just so they know exactly what the wine tastes like?”

I gestured to my orange juice. “You know, my orange juice tastes like it came from the sunshine-kissed regions of Florida, with just a hint of a tropical flavor, and an extra dash of pulp.”

Bryan raised his hands up, palms out. “See, you can do it, Kat. You can totally do it. You know what I’d like to really write about in a wine magazine?”

“What would you like to write about?” I took another drink of my juice.

“I’d say, ‘I like going to Bob’s Java Hut down by the ball park and getting an egg salad sandwich before a Yankees game. That and a $2 Bud. And I don’t even like Bud. But it’s good before a baseball game.”

I started laughing again, but I’d just taken a drink of my non-drink.

“The complexity of the egg salad sandwich, the mayonnaise from the grocery store, the smoky balance between the mayonnaise and the eggs.”

I laughed more and wasn’t quite able to swallow my drink at the same time.

“Sometimes I can even taste the shell from the egg. I can almost smell the chicken from where they failed to clean the egg.”

I felt a cough building in the back of my throat. I covered my mouth with my hand, trying hard not to spit out the liquid. I put my other hand on my chest, looking down at the tray table. I kept coughing.

“Oh, shit. I’m sorry, Kat.” Bryan handed me a glass of water. I shook my head, still coughing. My throat had constricted. I couldn’t swallow the juice. That left two ways out for the liquid – mouth or nose. I felt the orange juice swim into my nose. I reached for a napkin to cover my face, coughing more as the juice made its way out my nostrils and into the napkin. Hiding as best I could, I dropped my face onto the table.

“Are you okay, Kat?” He placed a hand on my arm.

I spoke in a muffled voice through the napkin. “You can’t take me anywhere. You should send me back to coach.”

“I couldn’t live with myself if I banished you to the land of smelly feet. I’m keeping you up here.” Bryan gently pet my hair. Even the soothing touch of his hand after my display of dorkitude felt good. “Besides, it was all my fault.”

I sat up straight. “You’re right. It is all your fault. You made me laugh. You totally did it on purpose. You sit there and launch into one of your riffs and you make me snort juice.”

“They say laughter is the way to a woman’s heart.”

I lowered my voice. “You already have my heart. You know that.”

“I’m just trying to keep it then.”

“You’ve always made me laugh. You’ve always made me happy.”

Bryan looked out the window for a moment, at the dark of the night rushing past the plane. He turned back to me. The look in his green eyes was intense and unreadable.

“What is it?”

“There’s something I’ve always wanted to tell you.”

“This can’t be good.”

“It’s not bad, I swear.” He placed his hands on his thighs. He parted his lips but didn’t speak right away. I watched him as he fumbled for words. I watched his throat as he swallowed. He closed his eyes briefly, then opened them to hold my gaze, a tight sharp line between us. I felt as if I were hanging on to something that could crash in an instant. “Do you remember when you told me you loved me the first time?”

That memory never hovered far from the surface. It was always there, waiting to be harnessed. How would anyone forget her first love not loving her back?

“Yes.”

“And I didn’t say it back. I said I have to go?”

“Do we need to reenact it?” My face tightened, and I stared hard at the seat in front of me.

“No. Because it was a lie.”

I turned back to him, as if he’d just spoken Russian. “What?”

“It was a lie,” he repeated.

“Why?”

“I was crazy in love with you then. Just like I am now. I’ve always loved you. I never stopped.”

My head was spinning. My heart was sputtering. I felt as if the plane had disappeared and I was flailing in the cold, dark atmosphere, not knowing which way I was tumbling.

“Why did you say that then?”

“Because after we walked around NYU together all I could think was that I would be holding you back. That’s why I was so quiet that day. I just kept thinking it would be wrong. That it would be unfair to you if you went to college and were already saddled with an older boyfriend. I wanted you to go to college, and meet other guys, and figure out what you wanted in life. I didn’t want to be the guy who dragged you down. I didn’t want you to go to college and feel burdened. I wanted you to experience life on your own terms. And I knew I was going to be leaving the country, and it seemed so unfair to you to ask you to wait for me. To be a long-distance girlfriend when I was off working.”

I scoffed. “So instead, you broke my heart.”

“I know.” He reached for my hand, and traced a line across my palm. His touch was so soft, but still I felt raw and exposed. “Forgive me for lying. Forgive me for breaking your heart.”

I looked deeply into his eyes, pools of green I could lose myself in. How I’d loved getting lost in him, and being found by him again. He leaned closer, pressed his forehead against mine, and took my hands in his. He whispered to me, his voice soft and full of brokenness, full of tenderness.

In some ways, this was what I’d always longed to hear. That he’d loved me then as I’d loved him. That it had never been one-sided. Though in other ways, this admission was a wound re-opened in a new, fresh way. Because he’d thought he knew what was best for me. But he was wrong. Feeling so damn unwanted by my first love hadn’t been good for me at all.

I pulled away from him. “I wish you had told me that back then. I wish you had let us make that decision together. Instead, you made me think you didn’t love me, and it hurt so fucking much.”

“I’m sorry, Kat. I’m truly, truly sorry.”

He looked so anguished. But that didn’t make my heart hurt any less, and it was aching right now.

“Hey, do you want to watch a movie?” he asked, worry lining his voice. He tipped his forehead to the screen on the back of the seats. “I think I saw Love, Actually on the list for this flight.”

One of my all-time favorites.

But I couldn’t. I couldn’t just go back in time with him as if that would take the pain away.

“I think I’m going to read,” I said, then turned away and buried myself in a book for the rest of the flight.

Chapter Twenty-One

The last time I went to the markets of Paris, I strolled. I lingered. I lolligagged.

This time I was efficiency personified as I tackled Port de Vanves. I was a businesswoman powering through table after table, row after row. I scanned quickly, writing off the items I obviously would never use on a necklace — candlesticks, picture frames, goblets.

I ignored the old clothes for sale, the chipped sets of china, and the antique mirrors. I stopped at a table with miniature figurines, tiny little cows and pigs and dogs and cats no bigger than thimbles. Some were brushed silver, some white porcelain. They were cute, and while I wasn’t so sure a cow was anyone’s favorite, there was something about the dogs and cats that spoke to me.

I asked the vendor how much. A round woman in a heavy tarp of a dress barked out a number.

“Too high,” I answered in French.

We bargained like that until she reached her rock bottom, and I scooped up nearly one hundred cats and dogs, tucking them in my wheeled shopping bag. I felt like a regular French woman, weaving her way in and out of the stalls, wheeling and dealing, snagging the best prices.

I continued on, passing strange-looking garden tools and old kitchen utensils, when I spied several tables full of brooches and pins. They were tiny things and would look so very French on a necklace, the perfect mix of new and vintage. I bought a few dozen, and then moved along to another aisle.

I walked past a table full of gray-haired men playing cards as they sucked on cigarettes. They were seated behind a counter displaying a messy array of hammers. I laughed silently, picturing a big, rusty hammer hanging from a slender silver chain. Yeah, that’d be a big hit, for sure. I looked ahead to the next set of stalls and spied a huge box full of antique skeleton keys. The box was at the foot of the card table, and it held hundreds upon hundreds of keys that must have worked in miniature locks because they were tiny, no bigger than thumbnails. They weren’t rusted. They had just the right look of weathered to them.

I asked the men how much.

“For the keys?”

“Yes.”

A man laughed, showing crooked, yellowed teeth. He took a drag of his cigarette, inhaling deeply. “No one’s ever asked before. You want to take them off our hands?”

“Maybe.”

“Five euros.”

I pursed my lips together and resisted breaking out in a smile. The keys were perfect. They were pretty, but they also said something. Keys were staples of charm necklaces, so they had universal appeal, but these particular keys had a unique look that stood out, a sense that they could unlock stories, or hearts, or secrets.

“Sold.”

I handed the man a bill, he stuffed it in his pocket, and gave me the battered cardboard box. I closed the tops, and managed to stuff the box inside my cavernous shopping bag. I wheeled it away, made a few more stops, then hailed a taxi. As we raced towards the Eiffel Tower, passing cafes full of people lingering on salads and breads and coffees, and bakeries peddling croissants and tarte normandes and chocolate eclairs, I replayed my three days in Paris. At a market in the Marais I’d found boxes of star, sun and moon trinkets, at a street vendor in Montmartre I’d stumbled across elegant glass hearts. I’d still have to do the hard work in assembling the necklaces, but I had the materials, and they looked both fresh and French. In the evenings, I’d taken myself out to dinner, at a bistro near Notre Dame, at a cafe tucked at the end of a courtyard, at a bustling Korean place around the corner from the hotel. I’d been alone, but Paris has a way of surrounding you so you don’t feel quite so lonely. I’d also stayed far away from the W Hotel near the Opera House, and from Bryan. The fact that I hadn’t set up my cell phone for international calling helped. No one could reach me easily.

The taxi driver stopped at the light at one of the boulevards, and I admired the buildings. They had that elegant centuries-old look about them with long, tall, open windows. When the light changed, the driver zipped across traffic, took a sharp turn and let me out at my hotel.

As I pressed the button for the elevator, the desk clerk called out to me.

“Ms. Harper. There is a message here for you.”

“For me?”

Perhaps it was Mrs. Oliver, but she was on her vacation. I hoped something hadn’t happened to my parents. The clerk handed me a small, white envelope. It was sealed, but my name was on the front. I opened it and unfolded a sheet of paper.

Kat — Remember when you said if I ever needed your translation services that I’d know where to find you? I do need help. Is there any way you can come to dinner tonight? The woman in charge of the padlocks has a My Favorite Mistakes necklace. She loves your designs, and would love to meet you. I think it could seal the deal. I hope you’ll say yes to dinner at 8. I can send a car for you.

—Bryan

There was a phone number for his hotel. I stared at the note, as if it would reveal my answer. Should I go? I still felt raw inside now that I knew the truth. I’d been tricked, and even if he felt he had to set me free during college, I’d rather he’d have told me he loved me before he left. Instead, he said nothing, and I was played a fool.

I was left empty-handed, a broken-hearted idiot.

But if my presence would help Made Here launch a new line of cufflinks fashioned from the leftover promises from the lover’s bridge, well, that seemed fitting, as well as the sort of thing a protege should do. It was business, after all. Only business.

I handed the paper to the clerk, and asked him to call The W and confirm a car for pickup.

*****

Orange flames glowed in the nearby fireplace, warming the restaurant. The waiter cleared away our dinner plates as Gabrielle Roussillon informed him that the meal was marvelous. She’d had rabbit and asparagus. I’d had chicken and roasted potatoes, and while I couldn’t vouch for the bunny, my French yardbird was indeed fantastic. The white tablecloth was now marked with a splotch of red wine from where Gabrielle had spilled some of her drink while talking with her hands.

Gabrielle was a chatty woman and had commanded the conversation. The pleasant byproduct of her loquaciousness was I could focus on her rather than Bryan as she told bawdy tales of the time she’d lived in Rome, and all her affairs with Italian men. I’d laughed, not simply to humor her, but because she was one of those in-your-face type of people, who could tell a saucy tale with a special sort of panache. She was curvy and broad-shouldered, with sheets of jet black hair. She wore a ring on her left index finger and mentioned a husband once or twice. I wondered if it was an open marriage. If he had a mistress, and she has misters, like her Italian lovers. It hadn’t seemed that long ago since she’d been in Italy.

She leaned back in her chair, and tapped a charm on her necklace. It was one of mine, and the charm was a pizza pie. “I don’t know if you remember this, but I ordered this one online from you a year ago.”

I flipped through my mental file of necklace orders. I certainly didn’t remember all of them, but a pizza pie charm stood out. “It’s not often I get a request for a pizza pie. I think I found it at a toy shop. I can’t believe that’s yours.”

“Small world. It’s for all my Italian men.”

“But, of course,” Bryan said. I didn’t look at him. I’d barely looked at him most of the night. My heart was still sore.

“And yours?” Gabrielle pointed at my throat. “What’s on yours?”

I walked her through some of my charms, telling her the same stories I’d told Bryan that afternoon in Washington Square Park of the English major I never became, and the building that I almost moved into.

“And that one?” Gabrielle touched my movie charm. “Were you almost a movie director?”

I laughed and shook my head. “No.”

“Then what is this for? Is it to remind you to stop watching movies?”

“Sort of.” I looked at the fireplace to avoid eye contact. I’d never told Bryan about the movie camera. I’d never told anyone but Jill what it stood for.

“Kat, Kat, Kat. A woman like me knows when a woman is lying. What is the movie camera for?”

I returned my focus to the French civil servant Bryan needed to charm. “It’s for a boy.”

“And who is this boy?”

“My first love. He was my first favorite mistake.”

“Ah. See! I knew it wasn’t just about the cinema. Tell me about him.” Gabrielle placed her elbow on the table and tucked her chin in her hand to wait for a story. I glanced briefly at Bryan. He was watching the two of us.

“I met him when I was seventeen.”

“Young love. The best kind.”

“And he was wonderful. And kind. And funny. He made me laugh. And he kissed like a dream.”

“So he definitely wasn’t a Frenchman, because they kiss like bores!”

“We used to go to the movies together all the time, and we made out in the theater.”

“That is why I say young love is the best kind. You can’t keep your hands off each other.”

I nodded, as waiters circled the small restaurant, clearing tables, and serving other diners. Low music played overhead, tunes like those sung by the torch singer who lived across from me when I called this city home. Songs of love gone away, or love gone awry.

“But he broke my heart.”

“And so you vowed to guard your heart from that kind of boy?”

“Yes.”

“And you still pine for this boy?”

“Yes,” I said, a hitch in my throat.

“You are beautiful and you are still so young. We cannot have a young, beautiful, smart woman in love with a boy who doesn’t care for her.”

“He does care for her.” The words came from Bryan. I turned to him, to look into his pine green eyes with their hints of gold. Those eyes practically infiltrated me with the way they knew me. “He always cared for her. He always loved her. He’s madly in love with her. She’s his Love, Actually. She’s his Casablanca. She’s the one he’d stop the bus for, the one he’d run through traffic for, the one he’d drive like a crazy man to the airport for and run through the terminal to stop the plane. Her name’s above the title for him. She’s the opening credit and the closing credit. She’s the love of his life.”

Then in a voice so low only I could hear, he whispered forgive me.

With the white tablecloth obscuring us, I reached for his hand. He laced his fingers through mine, squeezing tight. I squeezed back, and I let go of the hurt. I let go of the ache. I let go of the past.

“He is not a mistake then,” Gabrielle announced.

“He’s not. He’s the one,” I said.

Gabrielle raised her wine glass, now nearly drained of its contents. “So we drink a toast to love, and we drink a toast to business. You have a deal to buy the padlocks from the city of Paris.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Bryan opened the door to the town car he’d reserved. Gabrielle gave him a kiss on each cheek, then got inside. He shut the door, and we both waved as the driver sped off to take her home. We crossed the cobbled street and turned onto the sidewalk running along the river Seine. The muted yellow gaslight from the streetlamps flickered and illuminated our path along the slate-gray ribbon that sliced its way through the city.

“You were amazing back there,” he said.

“Oh, you’re too sweet.”

“I would call you a good luck charm, but I’m pretty sure it’s a hell of a lot more than luck that just went down in there. Brains, talent, beauty, brilliance. Is there nothing you can’t do?”

“I’m not terribly good at cooking or gardening.”

He snapped his fingers as if disappointed. Then he turned serious. “Kat, thank you. Thank you so much for what you did.”

“I’m glad I could be of help.”

Bryan reached for my hand. “Am I allowed to hold your hand? Or does that break the on ice rules?”

“I’ll bend on this one for just a moment.”

We turned onto the Pont du Carrousel that arced over the river. A dinner boat tour floated underneath the bridge, it lights drawing yellow squiggly lines along the water. The Louvre watched over us nearby.

“Would you bend on another one? Because I’d really like to kiss you by the river Seine.”

He gave no room to answer as he pulled me close and dusted his lips on me, leaving a soft, barely wet kiss.

“We should stop. We should be good.”

“We should. But I’m crazy in love with you, and if makes things better, I’ll never stop telling you that. Besides, I have five years of feeling it but not saying it to make up for. So I’ll say it again. I’m madly in love with you, Kat Harper.”

“Fine,” I said with a smile. “That earns you one more kiss.”

He pressed his lips on mine, tracing them with his tongue in a way that made me shiver. I looped my arms around him, underneath his jacket and against his shirt. I walked back a step or two until I met the railing on the bridge and leaned against it. He ran his hands through my hair, moving closer, as the space between us compressed. My body melted into his and I inhaled his cool, clean skin. I wanted to feel him, touch him, taste him, have him. I was crazy to be so close to him. I was foolish to ever think I could have resisted.

Maybe you could say I was selfish. Maybe you could say I was stupid. Maybe you could wonder why I didn’t wait five more weeks.

All of that and more was true.

But I ceased caring. I stopped reasoning. I tossed the rules out the window and threw caution into the river Seine because I was in Paris with the only man I’d ever loved.

I felt fluttery, twitchy, agitated. I didn’t know if it was fear or desire. Either way, there was no turning back. I was going there with Bryan, going to wherever we were going. I didn’t feel guilty, I didn’t feel naughty, I didn’t feel wrong. I stepped into our future as I broke the kiss. “Take me to your hotel room.”

I’d never seen a man hail a cab so fast in his life.

*****

The taxi slowed down for a light on the rue de Rivoli. I peered ahead, noting the clogged street in front of us, the boulevard packed with cars. We wouldn’t reach the W for another ten minutes at this rate, so I closed the scratched-up partition that separated us from the driver.

“It’s like you can read my mind,” Bryan said, and returned for a deeper kiss. But I wanted more than kissing and he knew it. He moved his hand across my leg, his fingers dancing down to my inner thigh. I opened my legs a little bit, an inch or two, enough to let him know to keep going.

He didn’t stop kissing me as he traced the outside of my panties. He’d always made me weak in the knees with his lips alone; now it was like double or triple the pleasure with his kisses and his hand. As I tasted the soft underside of his lips, he dipped his hand inside my panties, first pressing on my pubic bone, then making his way between my legs. He kissed me softly, while his fingers explored me, sometimes slowly, sometimes quickly, always the right way. I barely moved for the next few minutes, except to subtly push against his hand as his fingers glided over me and inside me and around me. He traced me lightly at first, then harder, pressing down in all the right places, savoring how much my body wanted him.

“Please don’t stop touching me.”

“I have no intention of stopping.”

He’d been a pro on the phone, narrating and guiding me, and bringing me to orgasm with words alone. He was even better in person, his hands like magic hands that knew how to make me moan, or sigh, or cry out as his fingers grazed across me, then narrowed in on the one place I wanted him most.

“Keep touching me like that. I want to be kissing you while I come.”

His hungry lips devoured me as he stroked me. My insides were lava, and my body ached for all of him. I wanted to fall away from his mouth, so I could moan, so I could sigh, so I could breathe heavily and say his name. But he kept kissing me, even as my lips fumbled at his, and I writhed, my breaths coming faster. He zeroed in and I bit gently into his lip, managing to gasp out the words I’m coming, as I finally let go of his lips.

I shuddered, and clasped his hand against me. I stayed there, basking in the aftershocks of the most intense pleasure, of the way the boy I’d fallen for, the man I loved, had brought me to this state. “You didn’t stop kissing me the whole time and there I was, coming while you were kissing me. It was like my two favorite things at the same time.”

“Good. Because there’s a lot more on the menu tonight,” he said, as the taxi pulled up to the hotel and Bryan handed several bills to the driver. He made a brief stop at the front desk and then we stepped into a waiting elevator. As the doors closed, he placed his hand on the small of my back. We made it to the fourth floor, down the hall, and to his room. He slid the card key in the door, and once inside, I tore off my coat, and he tossed off his jacket.

His room was heavenly, with a gorgeous gilded mirror and antique nightstands. French windows, fittingly, led to a balcony. But I had little interest in the surroundings when there was a king size bed with a soft, white, down comforter that called my name. I longed to be naked on it, with my legs wrapped around Bryan.

He stood behind me and ran his hands along my arms. He reached my hands, clasping my fingers in his and whispered in my ear. “Do you have any idea how much I want to make love to you right now?”

“How much?”

“More than I have ever wanted anything before.” He swept my hair from my neck and kissed me there, sending tingles of insane pleasure down my spine. I understood the meaning of the word swoon — I had become the very definition. He walked me to the bed, and laid me down, then pulled off my boots. He ran his hands up the inside of my legs. Every touch thrilled me. Every second of contact sent me higher.

“You have far too many clothes on, Kat.”

“Take them off. Take them all off.”

He unzipped my skirt, and gently removed it, placing it on the nearby chair. My sweater was next, and he made that groan I found so sexy when he saw me in only my bra and panties. Then it was my turn. I unknotted his tie, then began on his shirt, enjoying the release of each button, as I trailed my hands down the white tee-shirt underneath. Soon, his shirt was off, then I pulled the tee-shirt over his head. I took a step back to admire him. His chest was broad and sturdy, his stomach flat and cut, his waist trim and exactly the kind I wanted to hold onto. I ran my teeth over my bottom lip as I looked at his pants, at how turned on he was.

He unhooked my bra, and touched my breasts in a way that made me even hotter for him, if that were possible. He kneeled down to strip off my underwear, then kissed my ankle and traced a line up my calf to behind my knee. My insides were on fire. My body was a flame. He pressed a palm gently against my belly, guiding me back onto the bed.

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmured, as he returned to my thighs, grazing his tongue between my legs, tasting my desire for him.

I gasped in pleasure and arched against him, as he traced long, soft, lingering lines up and down.

“It’s better than on the phone,” I whispered between ragged breaths, as I grabbed at his soft, thick hair. I needed more. My body ached for his mouth on me. His firm hands hugged my thighs, and he made these sounds as if I were the sweetest thing he’d ever tasted.

The way he moved his tongue, the way his lips kissed me made me believe nothing else existed, and that this pleasure was all there was, it was all I felt, all I wanted. To be spread open to someone, to have his mouth devouring you, to say his name, and then to cry out in crazy ecstasy. Nothing could ever be better than this.

He moved up, and I was tipsy, buzzed from the most delicious drink ever — the way he knew me, the way the secret treasure map to my body had been his to follow. He looked satisfied with his work as he began to unbuckle his pants. I sat up to help. I was dying to see him fully naked. He stepped back from the bed, letting his pants fall down, then I pulled down his boxer briefs. God, he was beautiful, and carved, and hard as steel. My hand had a mind of its own and reached for him. He pressed his teeth against his lip, and cursed quietly in pleasure as I touched him.

Then he reached for a condom.

He hovered over me, and teased me with his kisses, keeping me on my back, brushing his lips across my lips, my cheeks, my eyelids, even the tip of my nose. I was startled that even a kiss on the nose felt good from him. Then again, everything felt good with Bryan. I sighed as he kissed my neck and then threaded his fingers through my hair, pulling me close.

I lifted my hips to him.

“Tell me what you want, Kat. I want to hear you say it.”

“I want you to make love to me.”

I didn’t know if he knew how big a deal it was for me to say those words. I never said “make love” to anyone before. Not to any other guy. I’d never known what it was like to truly make love because Bryan was the only person I’d ever loved, and I’d never been with him like this, like the way it seems on the silver screen, with the big love of your life. When young love and passion turn to smoldering tenderness in the sheets. The waiting, the wanting, the longing as bodies come together, skin against skin, nothing held back, no distance, no time, no pretending. It had always seemed so perfect, so epic, so out of this world.

Now, here I was, feeling more than I’d ever imagined.

I placed my hands on his firm, toned chest, tracing his skin, his muscles, searing them into my memory now that I finally could, now that I finally knew what he felt like. He parted my legs and entered me. I moaned as he filled me up. Who said it was supposed to feel this good? But it did. Beyond any and all reason.

“You,” he said, softly, looking at me. “You.”

He buried himself in me, and I was in another world, in another time. I was drowning in pleasure, swallowed whole by desire. I was all the air I’d ever breathed. I was the edge of reason, and nothing else existed but the feeling of him moving deep inside of me, his body touching mine at last. Heat rose in my chest, a fire radiating from the center of my gut to the tips of my fingers, the far reaches of my eyelashes, and through to the inside and out of my heart, as if it might burst with all the feelings — love, lust, want, and then, most of all, ecstatic and utter happiness. Completeness. All-ness. I was lost, and then I was found, and I was suddenly aware of every sensation in my body. Of how he placed a hand on my hip, how his breath tasted good, how the soft little never shaven hairs on the backs of my thighs stood on end. I’d gone to heaven, only I was alive, and everything felt ravishing, as he plunged in me, gripped my wrists, and brought me there again.

And when it ended, when we lay there sated in bed, I outlined his body with my fingertips, planting little kisses across the hard planes of his belly, the firm muscles of his arms, the breadth of his chest that felt like home. We were silent for another moment, then I felt his hand slip into mine.

It was the laughter, it was the movies, it was Paris, it was the hero holding a boom box in the rain. I knew at this moment that a thing could be more perfect. I had always wanted to believe you could have love like in the movies. Now, I knew you could. It’s not just Hollywood.

I could have this man for the rest of my life and never want for anything more.

Chapter Twenty-Three

“Something isn’t working.”

Charms and trinkets were spread out on the tray table. I’d aligned them along one of the silver chains I always kept with me. But they didn’t look right. I thought of my mom setting up displays in her store. She’d arrange some picture frames, then mugs, then perhaps a bracelet or too. Inevitably, she took one away.

“It’s what Coco Chanel has always said. Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and remove one accessory,” my mother had said to me, quoting the fashion icon.

Bryan looked up from the book he was reading on his tablet. We were on the same flight home, and he’d used miles again to upgrade me.

“There’s too much going on,” I said. “They need to be simpler.”

He grinned and returned to his book. I liked that we could talk constantly, or not at all.

Playing around with the design a bit more, I narrowed down the piece to a star, a key and a sun. I tapped him on the shoulder.

“I like it better. The question is when you get this big order from Elizabeth’s, how are you going to make them all?”

“Yeah. There is that.” I’d been so focused on the designs and assembling the perfect prototype that I hadn’t started to address the nuts and bolts. Soon, I’d have to. “I’ve always just made them myself.”

“You could keep doing that. If there were ten or twenty of you and several machines to help out as well.”

“Oh, ha ha.”

“No, I’m serious. You can’t be grassroots much longer, Kat.”

“I have to land the deal first.” I moved a star trinket to another position on the strand. But it still didn’t look right. “Crap.”

Bryan placed his hand gently on mine. “Hey.”

My agitation started to fade with his touch.

“You know, Kat. I happen to know this guy who runs a similar business. Makes gift items. Some hand-crafted, some machine-assisted. The products get rave reviews, and the business is growing like crazy. He knows how to manufacture something at scale and still make sure it’s beautiful and has a personal touch. Perhaps, I could see if he’d be willing to accommodate your new line of necklaces at his factory?”

I looked at him, wide-eyed and open-jawed. “You’d do that? How much would it cost me?”

He laughed. “First of all, of course I’d do it. Why would I not? Second, don’t worry about the cost.”

“You can’t just give me something for free because…” I let my voice trail off.

“Because? Because we’re back to not seeing each other for another four weeks starting in — “ he looked at his watch “—three hours when we land?”

“Not that.”

He put the tip of his index finger on the star trinket and pushed the star aside. He moved the other charms too. Then he pushed the mini skeleton key to the center of the chain.

“Not for free. I have a proposition for you.”

He told me his idea.

I nodded appreciatively. “That’s not a bad idea.”

*****

Bryan grabbed my suitcases from the luggage carousel.

“So I’ll see you in a month.”

“So this is it.”

We’d decided not to share a car back into Manhattan. That would be too tempting. He reached out to give me a hug, and I pulled in close to him, lingering in the crook of his neck, wishing I could smother him in kisses, and go home with him and do more than kiss. Do everything, again and again, all night long. Then, I spotted someone I knew at the next carousel. A dapper man. A sharp-dressed woman. Waiting for luggage.

No way.

There was no way my professor and his wife were here at the same time. But she’d said they were going on a trip. Theirs was an international flight as well.

Bryan’s arms were wrapped around me in a warm embrace, but I didn’t feel reassured. I’d gone too far and I knew it. I could see my world crashing around me, all the things I’d worked so hard for, breaking into pieces at my feet. I wasn’t supposed to get caught.

No hanky-panky or else an F.

Then, the professor turned and he wasn’t my professor after all. He was just a man who looked like him.

I relaxed momentarily.

But later that night, as I worked on my designs for Claire, using the curved-nose pliers on a key, I didn’t feel like I’d just returned home from a romantic trip to Paris. I didn’t feel like I was such a smart business woman. I felt like someone trying to get away with trickery. Someone trying to pull the wool over shareholder’s eyes, to fool the public, to get off scot-free.

Like a liar.

That’s precisely who I was now.

But that wasn’t me. That wasn’t who I wanted to be.

I had a choice. I had my future in front of me. It had to be a future I could live with. I had to be the me I could live with.

*****

My stomach twisted into knots, and I took a deep breath as I knocked on my professor’s door. It was open, and he was waiting for me. I’d called earlier to request the meeting so I wouldn’t back down when I arrived.

He gestured for me to come in. My boots clacked loudly on the tiled floor of the office.

“Have a seat, Ms. Harper. Good to see you. I trust you had a productive time in Paris?”

“I did. It was a great trip.”

“Fantastic. And how is everything going this semester with Made Here? We only have a few more weeks left, but the reports have been good, so I’m pleased.”

I gathered up all my courage. My shoulders rose and fell, and then I started. “I wanted to let you know that during the course of the semester and the time with Made Here, I have fallen in love with Bryan Leighton. Well, I suppose you could say I’ve fallen in deeper with him because I was already in love with him five years ago and didn’t stop.”

Professor Oliver looked at me quizzically and narrowed his eyebrows. “I’m sorry. I don’t understand.”

I steeled myself to say the words without tripping on them. I was clinical and business-like as I laid my confession bare. “I was involved with him when I was younger, and I’m also involved with him now. I could tell you that we tried to stop. That we tried to deny it. That we tried not to see each other. That we tried to wait until the mentorship was over. I could tell you how important this class is to me. I could tell you how badly I want to graduate. I could tell you how much Bryan values his company’s relationship with the school. Those would all be true. But what’s also true is that I broke your rule about being involved with your mentor. And because of that I don’t think he should be my mentor anymore.”

He nodded several times with pursed lips that formed a scowl. “I see.”

He picked up a pencil from his desk and began twirling it. Thumb to forefinger. Thumb to forefinger. Again and again. After several perfectly executed twirls, he put the pencil down, and looked at me.

“It would seem you have a problem then, Ms. Harper. You no longer have a mentor. Without a mentor, you cannot pass this class. Without this class, you cannot graduate.”

*****

Claire adored my designs. They exceeded her expectations, she declared over espresso and chocolate biscuits. But her admiration felt like a Pyrrhic victory. She’d detailed the conditions of her investment, and I’d made a conscious choice to violate them. I wouldn’t be able to finish my degree, and that broke the deal.

She held up the slim silver chain with the vintage key on it, shaking her head with pride. We were at a cafe on the Upper East Side. “This? Yes. I can tell you right now Elizabeth’s will carry it.”

I gave her a curious look. How could she make such a guarantee? But it didn’t matter. She could say all she wanted about Elizabeth’s, but she’d be taking it all back when I broke the news.

“I’m glad you like it. Really, truly, I am. But there’s a problem,” I said and then told her everything, including how her husband had the no hanky-panky warning posted on his Web site.

She cackled when she heard that. “I had no idea. Really? It says no hanky panky?”

I grabbed my phone, and tapped in his URL, showing her the screen.

She laughed even harder. “He’s one to talk.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was his student. He’s such a hypocrite.”

“Really???”

Even as my future with her circled the drain, I couldn’t help but join her in peals of laughter that echoed around the cafe. The couple at the table next to us peered over.

“You were his student?”

“Yes. I wasn’t even his protege. I was his actual student fifteen years ago when I went to NYU, and he was teaching management skills. Some management skills. He fell in love with his student while he was teaching her. For him to post that about no hanky panky is incredibly amusing. But those are his rules. And I respect them. And you must abide.”

I nodded, a heaviness in my chest. I would have liked doing business with her, but I would have to go it alone. I’d have to start over in my quest to help my parents. I pushed my chair away from the table, stood up, and offered her a hand to shake.

She waved me off. “This is what you’ve learned at business school? This is what you’ve learned from me?”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re just going to give up?”

“You made your stipulations pretty clear, Mrs. Oliver. And I respect them. I am so, so grateful that you were willing to take a chance on me, and my work, but I let you down. I’m not going to be able to finish this class. Or work with you.”

She pointed to my chair. “Sit back down.”

Her voice was commanding, imperious even. I immediately followed her order.

“In business school, did you learn that there is more than one way to solve a business problem?”

“Sure.”

“And would you say you have a business problem?”

“I suppose you could say that.”

“Then, think about another way around this. Think about what you need, truly need, to finish your experiential learning class.”

I needed a rewind button. I needed to have better tunnel vision. I needed to have self-restraint.

She kept speaking. “You need a mentor.” She waved a bejeweled hand airily. I bet she could cut the glass door off in seconds with the size of that ring.

“But that’s the problem, Mrs. Oliver. I don’t have a mentor anymore.”

She gestured to herself. “Am I chopped liver?”

I flinched from surprise. “What?” It came out like a stutter.

“I’d like to think I’ve been somewhat instrumental in your hands-on business learning this semester.”

I leaned forward, still not sure if she was truly serious, or if I could even pull this off. The class called for us to be paired with business leaders who ran actual companies. She seemed more of a benefactor, a generous angel investor. “You would do that, Mrs. Oliver? I mean, Claire.”

She took a sip of her espresso. “You call me Claire. But I have another name as well. I don’t go by it often, and I don’t really let many people know my other name. But the reason I am sure we can get these designs into Elizabeth’s stores is because I am Elizabeth Mortimer, and as the head of Elizabeth’s I would be delighted to finish out the semester as your mentor.”

Fairy godmother, I’d say.

*****

I raced back to NYU. The cab pulled up to the curb and I thrust several dollars in the driver’s hand, and pushed hard on the door. I ran up the marble steps to Professor Oliver’s office. He had office hours now, and was finishing up with another student.

I paced as I waited for the guy to leave. I reviewed my speech in my head, still marveling that Claire Oliver was Elizabeth Mortimer, head of the luxury department store chain that wanted to carry my designs. There was only one obstacle in the way — her husband.

The other student left, and I rushed to the door, then knocked.

“Hello again, Ms. Harper.”

He gestured to the same chair I’d sat in hours ago.

“If you’ve come to convince me to bend the rules, I should warn you, I’m not known for my mercy.” He spoke the last words with a smile on his face, but he was deadly serious. His kind manner could never be mistaken for leniency.

I shook my head. “I wouldn’t ask you to do that. Instead, I wanted to present a different solution. You said I needed a mentor to pass this class. Mentors are business leaders who are alumni. I don’t have one now, but I’ve been working closely this semester with a businesswoman named Elizabeth Mortimer. You might know her. She runs the Elizabeth’s stores. And via that relationship, I have gained two rounds of seed funding, an investment to fund design research, and a distribution deal in those department stores. Ms. Mortimer has guided me on design stylings, as well as offering insight into the best direction for my business.”

“Elizabeth Mortimer, you say?” He seemed amused.

“Yes. She is a very sharp businesswoman.”

“So I’ve heard. And it sounds like she has indeed been influential in your growth and development, Ms. Harper. But part of the requirement for the class is that the proteges help the business leaders solve real-world business challenges. How have you done that?” His normally chipper voice was laced with skepticism.

I thought of the conversation a few weeks ago when Claire, aka Elizabeth, had first presented the opportunity. “The Elizabeth’s stores need a jewelry line to focus their holiday marketing around. Elizabeth had been looking for a new style to draw attention. She loved the designs I brought back from Paris. I’ve also been able to line up a manufacturing partner to have them made in time. It’ll be a fast turnaround, but we can pull it off, and with her marketing and with my manufacturer’s savvy, I think we will have solved not only business problems, but provided an answer to the age-old question at holiday time — what do I buy for the woman I love?”

Professor Oliver pursed his lips and nodded a few times. “And Ms. Mortimer is open to this?”

I found it odd that we were discussing Ms. Mortimer as if she were not his wife. I supposed that was part and parcel of her veiled identity though. She wanted to be both Mrs. Claire Oliver and Ms. Elizabeth Mortimer.

“Yes. She would be willing to step in officially as my mentor for the rest of the term. So I will have Bryan Leighton for the first few months, and Ms. Mortimer to finish out the term. And, to be quite honest, that seems rather fitting for my business. Both have helped me tremendously to grow and expand My Favorite Mistakes. And I have, in turn, helped both of their businesses, as you know from the reports.”

He removed his glasses, picked up a white cloth from his desk, and cleaned the lenses. When the glasses were free of fingerprints, he put them back on. “Ms. Harper, has anyone ever told you that you’re not too shabby at negotiation?” He cracked a grin, and extended his hand. “Welcome back. I trust there will be no hanky-panky with Ms. Mortimer as you finish out the term?”

“None, sir.”

“Good. I do have a suggestion now for your business. Perhaps it’s time to move beyond the name My Favorite Mistakes since your business is moving beyond that idea.”

“What do you think would be a good name?”

“Seeing as I suspect you have a rather bright future in front of you as a jewelry designer, I would suggest a simple name. I would suggest your name. That is what all the fashion icons do. I think your customers will soon want to give and to wear Kat Harper necklaces.”

I smiled. “It has a nice ring to it.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

“Close your eyes.”

Bryan pressed his palms over my eyes as we reached the block with my parent’s store.

“Maybe you’d like to blindfold me?”

“I’ll do that later, don’t you worry.”

“Oh, I wasn’t worried.”

“Just keep them closed.”

“Since your hands are covering them, it’s safe to say I can’t see a thing. So don’t let me trip.”

“I won’t.”

He guided me along the sidewalk. I smelled the sea air, and it reminded me of long, lazy summer days here in Mystic. It reminded me of summer nights years ago falling in love. Right now with December upon us, the air smelled of pine and freshly falling snow. A few flakes drifted down from the darkening afternoon sky, promising a night by a warm fire and blankets of white in the morning.

I graduated two days ago. There was little fanfare, as is the custom with a business school graduation. I simply finished my exams, checked my grades online, and verified that I had, in fact, attained my MBA. The first person I called was Claire, who I now thought of as a super hero with a secret identity. She congratulated me and informed me that my necklaces were faring well the first week in her stores. The My Favorite Mistakes line was still selling online and in boutiques, but the Elizabeth’s customers favored my simpler styles. Rather than a star, a key and a sunburst jammed on one necklace, they were opting for single pendants, and embracing the European look of the charms, thanks to where I’d found them — the markets of Paris. Of course, there were shoppers too with quirkier taste, and for those the cat and dog charms appealed. Still others with a vintage flare liked the cameos and brooches. “Be charmed with a Kat Harper necklace,” Claire pronounced. “That’s the tagline.”

I’d have to remember to thank my parents for giving me a name that lent itself so well to jewelry, especially since I was starting to make real money from my work. I planned to pay off their loan in a few weeks from the revenue.

“Almost there.”

I held my hands in front of me, purple mittens keeping me warm. We passed the cafe. I could hear the bell on the door jingle when someone came out, and the tell-tale scent of coffee trailed behind.

“Here we are.”

I stumbled at the sight. He grabbed my elbow to keep me from slipping. Not only had Mystic Landing been transformed for the holidays, it had been totally transformed. As in a makeover and a facelift. There was a new sign made out of brushed metal, pretty window displays that married a sleek to a retro design, and a glass door that had been spruced up with the name of the store painted in my favorite color — purple.

He held open the door, and I wandered inside, mesmerized by the changes, my eyes the size of saucers. The old beige berber rug had been replaced by a warm cranberry carpet. The standard wooden shelves and displays had been extradited, and instead the frames and mugs, the books and cards, the vases and other gifts for sale were displayed on high and low wooden tables, some modern, some antique-y. It was the perfect mix of old rustic charm that had made this place a centerpiece of the town for many years, and a new twist to send the store into the future.

But that wasn’t all. The kitschier items — the little tchotchkes and such — had been banished. In their place were classier wares, small pitchers in brushed metal, a cute pink pot for making sauces, wine glasses with clever patterns on them. My favorite display was the his and her gift set, courtesy of Made Here and Kat Harper — a vintage key necklace coupled with a set of cufflinks fashioned from the padlocks from the lover’s bridge in Paris. It turned out Bryan and I were a good pair at a lot of things, including business partnerships. The chance to market this line of gifts together was Bryan’s proposition — that was all he wanted when he said I could make my necklaces at his factory. It was too good an offer to pass up.

My mom waved to me, and so did my dad. But neither one of them rushed over. They were too busy ringing up customers, and that made me so happy. Bryan had once said that maybe there was another solution to the store’s woes. It seemed he was right.

I turned to him. “Is my jaw on the floor right now?”

“Something like that.” He grinned, big and wide, and like he had a secret up his sleeve.

“Did you do this?”

He gave me a sheepish shrug.

“But how?” I knew he’d been out to visit the store and check things out. He’d told me that. He told me too that he was helping my parents figure out some new inventory plans. But this?

“That’s what I was up to. It’s a surprise. For you.”

“You did all this?”

He nodded.

“They let you?”

My parents were so stoic about taking help from me. I couldn’t imagine they’d accept it from Bryan, even if he was the boyfriend of their daughter.

“They did.”

“But how did you convince them?”

“I told them I wanted to do it as a gift to you.”

“And that was all it took?”

I eyed him skeptically. These were my parents we were talking about. There was a lull in the action at the counter and my parents came over, giving me quick hugs. My dad clapped Bryan on the back. They all looked like they had secrets too.

“Sort of.” Bryan glanced from my mom to my dad. They were both smirking.

“The floor is yours,” my father said, and took a step back, placing his arm around my mom, as if they were giving him space for something.

“What is it?”

“Well, see,” Bryan said, and I noticed the tiniest bit of red in his cheeks. He was nervous. “It’s really daunting being in love with a jewelry designer. You can’t really get her a necklace or earrings or even a ring to show your love, because chances are she has her own ideas in all those areas and might be a little particular. So this — “ he spread his arms out to indicate the revitalization of the store “— is my gift to you. But it’s more like a promise. It’s a promise that I don’t want to be your favorite mistake. That I want to be your forever mistake, if you’ll have me.”

My heart stopped for a moment, and I couldn’t move, or form words.

“What I’m really trying to say is I don’t ever want to lose you again. Now that I have you, I want to be with you always. Will you be mine?”

He bent down on one knee and my heart nearly stopped. But then he reached for his wallet. I raised an eyebrow, curiously, as I watched. He removed a tiny white bag that looked so familiar.

“You might remember the day I bought this. Back at a little shop in the Village with you. I’ve kept it since then. In my wallet, in this bag, for five years. I got it for you then and planned to give it to you as a promise. It’s just a little thing, but you always said it was a life-long kind of love you had for the cartoon cat.”

He reached into the bag and handed me a sparkly Hello Kitty ring, the same one I’d admired so many years ago.

“You kept this for five years?”

“Inside my wallet every single day. Kat, it’s always been you for me. Always.”

I grabbed his hand and pulled him to me, wrapping my arms around him.

“I’ll buy you a real ring,” he said. “But I want you to design it, okay?”

I nodded.

“So, this is a yes?”

Rays of happiness burst from my chest. “I’m yours. I always have been. I always will be.”

Then I kissed him, and though his kisses had always made me melt, this kiss was the very best of all. Because it was a new beginning. Here in my home away from home, in the town where I grew up, we’d come back to each other, and we weren’t ever going to let go.

THE END

Check out my other contemporary romance novels!

Trophy Husband, a New York Times and

USA Today Bestseller! (Chris & McKenna’s romance)

Playing With Her Heart, a USA Today

Bestseller! (Davis and Jill’s romance)

Far Too Tempting, an Amazon romance

bestseller! (Matthew and Jane’s romance)

Pretending He’s Mine, a Barnes & Noble and

iBooks Bestseller! (Reeve & Sutton’s romance)

And my new adult romance!

The Thrill of It, a Barnes & Noble and

iBooks Bestseller! (Meet Harley and Trey)

and its sequel

Every Second With You, a Barnes & Noble and

a #1 iBooks Bestseller!

Preview of new adult

romance novel The Thrill of It

Chapter One

The Thrill of It

Harley

I’m a sex addict and a virgin.

I know everything about sex and I’ve never done it, though I came close last night.

I know nothing about love.

I know men.

I can size up a guy in seconds. If he wants my sweet and innocent side, or my sophisticated persona, or if he just wants me to shut up and nod while he talks about his day, because some just want to talk. I know how he’ll like it, how he’ll want it, and I know by the end of the hour or two if he’ll request me again.

But those days are behind me.

The past is the past.

This is now.

That’s what I have to believe as I walk into a church in Chelsea off Ninth Avenue to repent. It’s a fading white church, rather plain looking, unmarked by flying buttresses or soaring angels. The white brick is streaked with gray from soot and dirt and New York itself breezing by over the years. There’s a requisite steeple on top, unassuming, but still there pointing to the sky, and a small plaque outside the doors that declares its non-denominational-ness. Every flavor of fucked-up is welcome.

On Mondays, you can find the alcoholics. On Tuesdays the former drug abusers. On Wednesdays this place is home to those trying to kick the gambling habit. And tonight? I will spend the next hour with people like me, who are addicted to love and sex, sex and love.

Some to both. Some to only one.

I know both in ways I never wanted to. But in ways I still long for too.

That’s the problem.

I am nineteen years old and I have kissed twenty-four guys, which amounts to four guys per year since my first kiss at age thirteen. I kept a running list of their first names and how they rated. They were all ones or zeroes. Those names on the list are all the reasons why I’m pushing open these wooden doors, the brown paint cracked and peeling.

Fitting. I am cracked and brittle too, hardened by all the things I saw, and mostly all the things I heard over the years.

I spot the first sign and I stop in my tracks. The blocky letters wallop me with the reality that I now belong to a club I never wanted to be in.

On a sheet of white paper the words SLAA-College have been written in all caps with a big blue marker.

How embarrassing. As if anyone can’t figure out what the acronym means. But still, I follow the arrows on the sign pointing to the stairwell, then down the musty wooden steps that creak at every footfall as they announce my descent to the basement. More signs are plastered to the flimsy brown plywall, more arrows directing me through the dark hallway, around the corner, then past another bend, deep into the bowels of the church.

My insides are comprised of knots tightening in and wrenching around themselves, pinching all my internal organs.

I wish, I wish, I wish that I weren’t going here.

But yet, I have to.

I took the fall and that brought me here.

I run my fingers across the fabric of my red shirt that’s touching my shoulder, tender today after my new tattoo. My reminder of who I was. But even so, the reminder on my skin is not enough to quell the nerves. They snake through me, setting up camp in every cell of my body, as I enter a standard-issue Sunday School room with thinning brown industrial carpet. Earlier in the week this room was probably crammed with cutesy blue wooden chairs adorned with drawn angels, clouds and fluffy bunnies. Now it’s filled with cold, hard, folding metal chairs for addicts. The walls are bare, except for a few inspirational posters — “Hang in There” with the kitten dangling from a branch, “Perseverance” with a man climbing a snow-capped mountain, and “Patience” with a lone woman standing at the edge of a cold beach in the winter.

I’m five minutes early and there’s one other person in the room. A thin woman with pink hair cut in a stick-straight bob rises and greets me.

“Hi. I’m Joanne. Welcome to the SLAA meeting,” she says, pronouncing the name of the group like slaw.

“Layla,” I mumble, not sure how words are even coming out of my mouth as I give her a fake name. There is no way I’d use my real name here. Besides, Layla is the name that brought me here. Layla is my other name. Layla is the other me.

I shake Joanne’s hand. It feels smooth and she smells like lavender. Maybe she just put on lotion.

“Coffee?” She smiles brightly at me, as if coffee is the answer to every addict’s deepest desires. Because it’s the only acceptable drug.

I am a junkie. I take what I can get.

I nod, barely able to speak. I sit in one of the chairs as Joanne pours coffee from a pot into a chipped ceramic mug with the slogan When in Doubt, Don’t.

Great. If only I’d had a collection of mugs emblazoned with Keep it Simple and Just for Today, maybe I’d never have slid down that slippery slope into Layla.

“I’m so glad you’re here, Layla,” Joanne says, flashing me another happy grin. “Do you knit?”

Crap.

Do I have to make small talk with her?

She gestures to her canvas bag, spilling over with yarn, steely blue knitting needles and what looks to be the start of a maroon scarf.

“I’m not very crafty,” I say and leave it at that as she talks about the scarf she is working on, and how she’s going to pair it with a matching sweater, and I simply smile at her without showing any teeth.

There. I’m keeping it simple.

I’d rather go mute for this meeting because my mouth feels like cotton and my head is a pinball machine and the last thing I want to do right now is talk about how my life has spun out of control.

Except for last night. Because there is one guy who didn’t make it on my list. One guy who never felt like a list. The guy from last night who inked my shoulder, and kissed my body, and who gave me something I’ve never felt before – touch without agenda. A true and real want. He didn’t want anything more from me than me. It was such a foreign feeling, but such a wondrous one.

I’ll never see him again.

Soon the room starts to fill and I keep my head down, doing everything I can not to meet their eyes. I don’t want to know what other addicts look like. I don’t want to know if they look like me. I stare at my shoes, my Mary Janes, the black buckle shiny because it’s always shiny because that’s what made me top of the line. I was the whole package – the shoes, the plaid skirt, the white blouse, the beyond-innocent look on my face.

I hate that I miss that me.

I miss her terribly.

Even after last night, and all that it could have become, all the ways it was different from the past, I still miss me when I was Layla.

The circle of chairs has been filled in with guys and girls. I scan their faces and all I see are their secrets.

Then my blood goes both hot and cold when he walks in. The guy from last night with the scar across his right cheek.

Trey

This is the last place I want to be even though it’s the only place I should be.

Seeing as how I have a permanent reminder on my face of what happens when you go too far.

I’d be able to handle this better if I could extradite the memory of last night from my stupid head. But I can’t because she’s staked a home in my skull, and the images aren’t going away anytime soon. That girl who walked into No Regrets, the West Village tattoo shop where I work, was the hottest girl I’d ever seen, and so damn innocent looking – a combination that killed my self-resolve to start over. She had a sweet smile, a sexy t-shirt and a skirt that left just enough to the imagination at first. She wasn’t like the women I was used to. She was the total opposite. She wasn’t like my regular customers at the shop either. She’d never been inked and she didn’t look like the type who’d want to mark up her body. She was the kind of girl who’d wear pearl earrings, blow dry her hair, and apply pink lip gloss. She was all Manhattan preppy, gorgeous blond hair, and brown eyes, and so not the type for a tat.

“Can you do a red ribbon? The one I sent you when I made the appointment?”

“Yeah. I can do whatever you want. It’s all ready for you,” I said, then brought her back to my booth, and showed her the transfer paper based on the ribbon design she’d sent me online. I figured it was a cause tattoo, like for all those charities that use red ribbons. “Anything special about red ribbons?”

“They’re special to me.” That was all she said on the subject. But we talked about everything else – music and school and what we wanted out of life – as she sat in the chair and pushed up her sleeve to her shoulder. It was a damn good thing I knew how to concentrate because I could smell her. She had on some kind of wild cherry lotion, and the scent drove me wild, along with her hair, her eyes, her body.

Which made zero fucking sense since I’ve never been attracted to girls younger than me.

Never ever ever.

But maybe the scar I’d landed last month was all I needed to change my ways.

When I was done with her tat she said thanks, then turned on those hot little heels and started to walk out.

That’s all.

Nothing more.

But I wanted more. My shift was over, so I followed her to the door. “Don’t go,” I said.

I didn’t have time to craft a line, or feed her some bullshit, and trust me. I know how to feed lines. I know how to spin them on the spot.

But I didn’t want to lie anymore.

We went out for coffee, we wandered around Manhattan, and we rode a midnight train where I first kissed her. There was this strange vibe in the air, like we were in Europe and had met on a backpacking trip, and only had twenty-four hours to spend. So we spent them together.

There was a ticking clock all night long.

We went back to my apartment near school, and I hadn’t had a thing to drink, but I felt buzzed and tipsy just being near her.

We didn’t go all the way. But she let me touch her. She wanted me to touch her. She told me she’d never let anyone touch her the way I did. Hell, if that wasn’t a crazy turn-on I don’t know what is.

Nothing could even compare to it.

So when I walk into my first meeting of Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, I grab the doorway and hold on tight. This whole room is rocking, like we’re on a ship and hit choppy waters. I must be seeing things. There’s no way she can be here.

My heart trips over on itself, then it sputters out of control and collapses.

Harley.

She’s the only girl I’ve ever been with who’s not older than me. She’s the only girl who didn’t feel like a fix.

And, evidently, she’s a lot like me.

No wonder the clock was ticking last night. We both took one final hit before going on the wagon.

I grab an empty chair and try not to think about her during the meeting. But it’s impossible. Because the night with her is the last I’ll have like that for a long time. Even this Joanne lady running the show issues the reminder – some sort of rule we should follow. A guideline so we can stop being fucked up from sex.

“And it’s recommended that you abstain from sexual, romantic or any type of love relationships in your first year of recovery,” Joanne says, while her knitting needles click faster and faster.

But I’ve never been one to heed warnings.

At the end of the meeting, I walk up to Harley, who calls herself Layla. “What were the chances?”

She seems nervous, worried. She looks down, away, then at me and whispers, “Everything I said last night was true.”

My heart thumps faster.

“Good,” I say, and wish her words didn’t turn me on so much. I know I need to stay away from her. But I don’t want to. I want something with her. “We could be friends maybe.”

She nods and smiles. “Yes. Let’s be friends.”

At least it’s something.

Previews of my

contemporary romance novels

Pretending He’s Mine, a Barnes & Noble and

iBooks Bestseller! (Reeve & Sutton’s romance)

Trophy Husband, a New York Times and USA

Today Bestseller! (Chris & McKenna’s romance)

Playing With Her Heart, a USA Today

Bestseller! (Davis and Jill’s romance)

Far Too Tempting, an Amazon romance

bestseller! (Matthew and Jane’s romance)

Preview of Playing With Her Heart

“I’m going to ask a lot of you, Jill. I have ridiculously high expectations for the show, and everyone has to meet them, and that includes the understudy for the leading role.”

“I won’t disappoint you.”

He leans forward, his elbows resting on his thighs, his hands clasped together. “Do more than not disappoint me. Exceed my expectations.”

The room seems to compress, to tighten into this one tense line from him to me as he holds my gaze, but his dark eyes give nothing away. I’m not sure if he’s trying to break me down, or to see if I can withstand the pressure. “I will give you everything, Mr. Milo.”

At last, a smirk plays on his lips. Then he whispers in a low, sexy voice that makes me heady for a moment, “It’s Davis. Just call me Davis.”

“Okay,” I say, then, as if I’m trying it on for size, I repeat his name. “Davis.”

He shakes his head twice and breathes out hard, and for some reason, I like the way he responds.

He walks over to his desk and I try to look elsewhere—at the walls, at the table, at the floor—but I can’t seem to stop checking him out, from his broad shoulders to his deliciously sculpted ass. I try to remind myself that I should not, under any circumstances, be looking at his fine ass as he grabs a spiral-bound thick set of pages.

The script.

It’s like a treasure. The book and music for the newest Stillman musical, and he holds it as such, as if it’s a great and powerful thing. I’ve only seen the pages from the audition scene. Now I’m about to dive into the whole story. I cannot wait, and when he hands it to me I take it reverently.

“Spend the next few weeks immersing yourself in it,” he says, and he’s still standing, so it’s clear that the meeting is over. I stand up, tuck the script in my purse and loop the strap over my shoulder. He walks with me to the door and as I’m reaching for my coat, I wobble in the too-big heels.

Stupid shoes.

But then his hand is on my elbow, instantly. He steadies me as I’m reaching for him so I don’t fall. When I look up at him, I can feel the flush of embarrassment creeping into my cheeks. I decide to make light of it. “That’s what I get for borrowing my roommate’s shoes. She has big feet.”

He glances down at the black pumps. “Nice shoes.”

As I follow his eyes, I realize my hand is on his shirt, my fingers fisted around the cloth, clutching it. I should let go. But I don’t. Because I can’t help but notice he has that clean and freshly showered smell that makes any woman want to lean in and lick a guy’s neck.

Close her eyes. Inhale, and trail a tongue all the way to his earlobe, enjoying the sound of a low groan.

“Nice shirt,” I say softly, running my index finger across one smooth button. Then I look up to find him staring down at me. His dark blue eyes aren’t cold anymore. They’re not keeping me at bay. Instead, they’re heated, searching mine.

It’s hypnotic the way he looks at me. Completely hypnotic, as the room goes quiet, the air between us charged.

I press my teeth against my lips and I think, but I’m not entirely sure because thought has vanished, that I nod briefly, almost as if I’m giving him permission. Then he bends towards me, and my breath catches. Before I even process rationally what’s happening his lips are on mine, and my pulse is racing. It’s barely there, just him brushing his soft lips against mine, but I want more. So I pull him closer and deepen the kiss. He groans and then suddenly his hands are in my hair, and he’s twining his fingers through my long, blond strands, and tugging me close.

I thought I was leading this kiss, but I’m not anymore because he’s claiming me, tracing his tongue across my top lip, then nipping at the bottom lip, then kissing me so deeply and with so much heat that I shudder. That only makes him kiss me harder, and everything else falls away because this is a kiss I can feel in every single cell in my body. Deep, and fevered, and possessive.

It makes me want things I’m not supposed to have.

It makes me want him.

My heart pounds wildly as he presses closer, so dangerously near to me that I’m longing for him to slam me against his body, to touch me all over. His lips own me, his hands want to know me, and I swear I might combust from this kind of electric contact.

He breaks the kiss and I’m honestly not sure where I am anymore. Or who I am. I look at him, at Davis, but everything is so hazy right now that I don’t know what to say. I don’t think he does either, because he doesn’t speak for a moment. He exhales deeply, collecting himself. As if he doesn’t know how the kiss transpired either.

“I’m sorry,” he says then steps back. He looks away from me, staring at some distant point on the wall. “That was a mistake,” he says quietly.

My mouth is open in shock. A mistake? That was a kiss that begged to become so much more.

But I manage to hide my embarrassment at having kissed my first Broadway director by doing what he hired me to do. Act.

“Yes. A mistake,” I say confidently.

“It won’t happen again,” he adds, now turning his gaze back to me, his eyes cold once more. Stripped of all that longing from seconds ago.

“Of course not. Thank you for the script. I’ll see you when rehearsals start.”

“Yes.” He returns to his desk and I grab my coat, my head cloudy even as my heart beats fast, my body still racing, still wanting.

Wanting more.

As I walk away, my lips feel bruised and so does my heart, especially when I hear him turn up the music now that I’m gone.

Preview of Trophy Husband

The stars twinkle and the night air is warm as we leave the Tiki Bar and walk slowly up Fillmore. At the top of the hill, I see my friend’s maroon Prius that I’m tasked with driving home tonight. I point to it.

“These are my wheels.” I click on the key to unlock the car. Then I reach for the door handle. But it doesn’t open. I try again. Same thing happens. “Damn. What is up with these hybrids?”

“They have to calibrate to your heart rate.”

“Then how the heck am I supposed to drive it home?”

“I know a trick,” Chris says.

“You do?”

“Want to give me the keys and I’ll show you?” he asks, holding open his palm for me.

But before I can pull away, he closes his fingers over mine, gripping my hand in his. That’s all it takes. Within seconds I am in his arms, and we are wrapped up in each other. His lips are sweeping mine, and I press my hands against his chest, and oh my. He does have the most fantastic outlines in his body. He is toned everywhere, strong everywhere, and I am dying to get my hands up his shirt, and feel his bare chest and his belly. But if I did, I might just jump him right here because I am one year and running without this. Without kissing, without touching, without feeling this kind of heat.

He twines his fingers through my hair, and the way he holds me, both tender and full of want at the same time, makes me start to believe in possibilities. Start to believe that you can try again, and it’ll be worth it. His lips are so soft, so unbearably soft, and I can’t stop kissing him. He has the faintest taste of Diet Coke on his lips, and it’s crazy to say this, but it almost makes me feel closer to him. Or maybe I feel closer because he’s leaning into me, his body is aligned with mine, and there’s no space between us, and I don’t want any space between us. I want to feel him against me, his long, strong body tangled up in mine, even though we’re fully clothed, making out on the street.

He breaks the kiss. “I wanted to kiss you all night.”

“You did?”

“Yeah, that key thing was just an excuse. Sometimes you just have to hit the button a few times to get the car to open.”

I laugh. “So you said that to kiss me?”

He nods. “Totally.”

“I’m glad you tricked me,” I whisper, as he bends his head and kisses my neck, blazing a trail of sweet and sexy kisses down to my throat, and it’s almost sensory overload the way he ignites me. Forget tingles, forget goosebumps. That’s kid stuff compared to this. My body is a comet with Chris. I am a shooting star with the way he kisses me. I don’t even know if I have bones in my body anymore. I don’t know how I’m standing. I could melt under the sweet heat of his lips that are now tracing a line down my chest to the very top of my breasts as he tugs gently at my shirt, giving himself room to leave one more brush of his lips. Before he stops.

He looks at me and the expression on his face is one of pride and lust. He knows he’s turned me inside out and all the way on.

“That was so unfair of me,” he says with a wicked grin. “Getting a headstart like that on all the other candidates.”

How can there be any other guys after a kiss like that? It’s a kiss to end all kisses, it’s a sip of lemonade in a hammock on a warm summer day. It’s a slow dance on hardwood floors while a fan goes round overhead, curtains blowing gently in the open window.

If he feels half as much for me as I do for him, then I want to sail away with him in the moonlight, and that scares the hell out of me. I have to extract myself before I let this go any further. I don’t mean the contact. I mean the way my aching, broken heart is reaching for Chris.

Preview of Pretending He’s Mine

He ran across town, showered, changed and caught the subway to the New York Public Library where Sutton was waiting outside by the lions. Damn, she looked sharp in black leather boots, a short skirt, and a black coat cinched at the waist. All that luscious hair was pinned up again and she had her glasses on. He couldn’t help himself. His eyes wandered to her legs, and just as he suspected, he saw the slightest hint of lace. Thigh-high stockings again. She was killing him, especially because she had that same plastic smile on as she did last night, and he couldn’t read her.

She leaned in and gave him a kiss on the cheek.

Hell, no. That was not going to do. “After six months together, all I get is the cheek?”

He shook his head and placed his hands on her face. He forced her to look at him, her blue eyes meeting his browns, and he gazed at her, as her pupils grew bigger and her walls started to fade away. Her body shifted the slightest bit closer, but he didn’t move. He stayed totally still. He wanted her to feel the weight of his stare. He wanted her to feel undressed with his eyes, unwound by his touch. And then, there it was. The slightest parting of her lips. He wasted no time, diving in for a deep and hungry kiss on the steps outside the library as book borrowers and researchers and students and tourists and anyone and everyone streamed up and down the steps. They were a postcard of kissing. They were the couple reunited after the naval hero was at sea. They were lovers who couldn’t keep their hands off each other after weeks apart. They were every kiss on every street that anyone ever wanted to gawk at, that anyone ever wanted to be. She moved against him, her chest lightly pressing against the cotton of his tee-shirt beneath his scratched leather jacket. Just when he felt her start to give in completely, he pulled apart, grabbed her hand and led her up the steps.

Still wobbly from the kiss, she missed a step and stumbled. In one swift move, he grabbed her elbow, then slid an arm around her waist.

“You okay?”

Her eyes were wide, the tiniest bit of shock in them. It would only have been a small tumble. It would only have caused a minor scrape or bruise. Still, she seemed glad to have been caught.

“Thank you.”

Then he stopped and gave her a soft kiss on her forehead. “I’m always happy to catch you.”

Preview of Far Too Tempting

I see Matthew Harrigan in the lobby, because it’s impossible to miss him.

He’s so good-looking that my friend Kelly once called him eminently lickable when she was checking out a picture of him online before Crushed came out. I begrudgingly agreed—because even though he’d ripped my first three albums to shreds, I also couldn’t tear my eyes away from the screen, either. He could make or break a musician, but he could probably make or break a heart, too, given the way he smiles with the most inviting grin and the way he’s a very eligible bachelor in New York City. Not just because of his post atop music criticism, but because of his pedigree. He’s scanning the crowd, always alert, dressed for the occasion in a tuxedo. He probably owns the tux, considering how it fits his tall and trim frame. Then again, he’s the sort of man tuxes were made for. The sort of man who has the means to own tuxes, and not simply because he’d been dubbed the most powerful tastemaker in rock music.

His dark hair falls deliciously on his forehead, and he has the most mesmerizing blue eyes. I swear they twinkle, and he can probably even use them to hypnotize any gal to do his bidding. And while I was 100 percent faithful to my husband when we were married, I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t noticed Matthew’s looks every single time I ran into him at an event. Because you just can’t look away from that kind of a face—that jawline, those dimples, that devilish fucking smile.

“Hi, Matthew,” I say as we walk past him. He flashes me his patented grin that sends a quick rush of shivers through me.

“You look absolutely stunning, Jane. Will you give me the first sit-down interview when you win?” he asks in that delicious British accent of his. Yeah, if he wasn’t already winning on looks and job alone, he has the trump card in that accent that makes me want to swoon and say yes to anything he asks. And while I’m sure he’s only saying I look stunning so I’ll agree to the interview, I still feel pretty damn good about myself tonight in my knee-length dark blue dress, with its sapphire-and-aqua pattern of swirls. Barely there straps hug my shoulders. My impossibly curly hair has been straightened into submission tonight, courtesy of Natalie, an expert with a flat iron. It falls long tonight, to the middle of my back.

“Of course, but I’m not going to win,” I say, giving him a wink, because why the hell should I not flirt back? The man is hot, and as I turn away, I hope those blue eyes of his are still on me.

Acknowledgements

Big thanks to Simone Noelle, who encouraged me to do this in the first place. Where would I be with you? Wait, don’t answer that because I don’t want to know. Heartfelt gratitude to all my critique partners – Simone, Cyn, CS and Kelli. You all helped me make this a better book with your feedback, some of which brought laughter and many knowing winks. Much admiration to my cover designer Josyan McGregor for creating a cover that blew me away. I look forward to making more beautiful covers with you! Huge thanks to my buddy Len for insight on running a business and managing a board. Massive applause to Taryn at My Secret Romance, who has become something of a fairy godmother. You swooped in and saved the day, lining up a whole coterie of amazing bloggers for the cover reveal and tour. You are awesome! Enduring love to my husband and kids, whose support and understanding in the proper care and feeding of an author – chocolate, tea, and quiet time – made this possible. Most of none of this would be possible without the support of my family. You guys are the best in the world and I’m so glad you’re my happily ever after.

Finally, to the readers who bought this book – you’re beautiful and I adore you all!

Xoxo

Lauren

Contact

I love hearing from readers! You can find me on Twitter at LaurenBlakely3, or Facebook at LaurenBlakelyBooks, or online at LaurenBlakely.com. You can also email me at mailto:laurenblakelybooks@gmail.com.

Table of Contents

About

Also by Lauren Blakely

Coming Soon

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Preview of new adult romance novel The Thrill of It

Previews of Playing With Her Heart, Trophy Husband, Pretending He’s Mine and Far Too Tempting

Acknowledgements

Contact