Stone passed me as we entered the tower room.

“Take a seat.” He pointed to the chair.

The leather was warm from the afternoon sun streaming in the window. The seat was large, something you’d curl up in, but I sat perched on the edge as if prepared to flee. The level of ease I wanted to reach around Stone clearly wasn’t about to be attained in the closeness of his office. He spun his chair to face me, and I handed him a copy of the list of things I needed to go through with him.

He barely glanced at it before adding it to the pile of papers on his desk. My guess was that by morning, it would have a coffee ring and more notes piled on top of it.

“It’s your meeting, Poppins. Fire away.”

“I need your social media passwords—”

“Facebook author page–Stone Logan. Gmail address login, password [email protected]_tt. Instagram–StoneMe. Gmail address, password . . .”

I scrambled for my pen as he reeled off his passwords and logins for all of his social media accounts without having to look them up. It made me suspicious that he was making this stuff up, but I’d soon know. When he’d finished, I scanned down the list.

“There’s nothing here for the private group.”

“What group would that be?” He watched me, his expression unreadable.

“You know what I’m talking about.”

Stone shrugged. “I fuck women and steal their voices—my cock renders them speechless, and my technique makes them hoarse from screaming my name. I can make any woman wet and panting using the words I write, my hands, my tongue, and my dick, but I can’t read her mind. Elaborate for me.”

I shuffled in my seat, consulting my notes, hoping he’d stop being so infuriating and that his ego didn’t always run rampant that way. There was no clock, but I swear I could almost hear the tension ticking off in seconds. I tapped my pen on my pad. “The Pussy Posse,” I muttered.

“I’m sorry. The what?”

He had to be kidding. I cleared my throat. “The Pussy Posse, your private fan group on Facebook.”

“You want access to my Pussies, Kit-Kat? Believe me, they’ll have the claws out if you shut down that page. I don’t think you want to go there.”

I was blushing again. He obviously considered me too timid to handle the group. “I’ve run private groups on behalf of other authors. I’m sure I’ll be fine.”

“Which authors are they?”

I could hardly tell him they were Mom’s FaithLit group. “You won’t have heard of them. They don’t write in your genre.”

“And I don’t read much in my genre. Try me. You never know.”

“They’re just a group of...older women.”

“And they write . . .?”

“Novels.”

“About?”

“About teenagers. Novels for young adults.”

“I write novels for teenagers, but mine are over eighteen. Could be some crossover there, Poppins.”

There wouldn’t be, no matter how much he grinned at me. “We’ll see.”

“Tell me what you plan to post for my Pussies.”

I wasn’t planning on posting anything in the hope that a lack of action would make the group move on. “I’ll check what you’ve been doing with the group and keep it much the same.”

“Dick pics.”

“You didn’t.” I tried to hide my horror, but I feared I’d just broken my own cardinal rule about not allowing Stone to see that he shocked me.

“I guess you’ll find out soon enough. I can take a few and send them to you so that you have something to post.”

“That won’t be necessary.” My face and neck itched, and I tucked an imaginary strand of hair behind my ear, consulting my notes again.

“Why’s that? Have you got your own supply to post?”

There had to be some sort of medication available to prevent blushing. Maybe something homeopathic. Maybe if I could stop thinking about the things Stone wrote, I would manage myself better in his company. Maybe if I wasn’t thinking about his dick pics. From this moment on, I vowed I would only read inspirational literature. And animal stories. Dog rescue stories had to be safe.

“Thing is, Poppins, the Pussies know my dick from all angles. I post a pic as a blank template, if you like, and they dress it up with cute little drawings, mustaches, glasses, props—”

“Enough.” I held up my hand. “I’m not interested in your...thing.”

“Thing! I’ll have you know women worship my thing on their knees. They make art from my thing. They make my thing sing.”

By the time he’d rendered his penis into some sort of pseudo-Seuss rhyme, I knew I’d never get the image out of my head.

“I don’t think I’ve met anyone more immature than you, Stone, but you’re going to have to come up with something better if you’re trying to drive me away. You will do the rewrite required for this book. On time. Which brings us back to business. I’d like a copy of the current file.”

Stone looked oddly smug. “Can’t do that. Those papers I was burning, they’re the last surviving copy of the book. I’ve deleted the files and the backups and burned the printouts. It’s all gone. That book no longer exists.”

Oh crap. I’d had some short assignments, but this one looked over before it even got off the ground. Less than a day into my job, and now I’d have to explain to Sarah that the book wasn’t quite as far along as we’d hoped. In fact, there was no book. I clenched my teeth and tried to breath with a semblance of calm.

“You should see your face, Poppins. It’s like you actually care.”

“I care about my job,” I ground out, my jaw so tight it ached.

Stone leaned back on his chair, his fingers laced at the back of his head, his legs stretching out, almost reaching mine. I cautiously tucked my feet beneath the safety of my chair.

“Your job’s fine. You need to relax. I’ll write another book.”

“Six weeks, Stone. You can’t just write another book.”

“Have you even read my books?”

That was a loaded question. I considered lying, but despite saying he wasn’t a mind-reader, I’m sure he’d know. “A couple of them,” I said, rolling up the corner of a page on my notepad, doing my best not to immediately jump in my head to one of the scenes.

“Then you’ll probably realize they don’t take too long to write. I experience things, and I turn them into a story. Anyone can do it.”

“They can’t do it like you, though. You have talent.”

Stone snorted. “I have a good memory for the finer details of a woman’s body, and I have a filthy imagination. I make sure the hero in my stories gives the heroine what every woman wants, and the readers lap it up.”

“And what does every woman want, exactly?” Sometimes, my common sense abandoned me. I’d just nudged the conversation in the direction he wanted, and I was sure I’d pay.

Stone leaned forward, his forearms resting on his thighs, his devilish gray eyes locking into mine, making it impossible to turn away. While I waited for him to speak, my throat tightened and my heart beat too high in my chest. His intensity was heady, and I was vaguely aware of tipping toward him.

“They want a man to gaze into their eyes. To trace their cheek with the back of a finger.”

His voice was low, unbearably sensual. The stroke to my face was light, barely there, but like a slap, I could still feel it when he took his hand away.

“Just here, on a woman’s lips, a light touch and...there you go. They’ll follow your finger like a puppy being teased with a treat.”

The tip of my tongue covered the middle spot on my bottom lip where his finger had pressed.

“Then he tells her to take her fucking panties off because he’s hungry. And once he’s had that first taste of the sweet juice between her legs, he looks her in the eye and says, I licked it. Now, it’s mine.”

Holy smoke. I shot back into my chair and pulled my legs up, curling them beneath me.

Stone sat back, too, a smirk on his face. “That’s how it’s done, Poppins. Any variation on that general theme will work. Even the women who like it rough like the juxtaposition of a bit of tenderness with their filth. Mostly, a woman wants to be the obsession of the man of her dreams. Not in a dangerous way. You don’t cross that line.”

“I see. And what do you, um, plan to write this book about? More of your sexcapades with your Posse?” Until Lily Clarke had come along, there were a number of fans claiming they were in Stone’s books.

“You’re quaint, Poppins. This one’s going to be different. This one’s about falling in love.”

It was my turn to snort. “You don’t just decide to fall in love.”

An eyebrow lifted, curious. “And how do you know that?”

“Because . . .” Because I never had, that’s how I knew. Even when I’d planned it with meticulous care, I’d never managed to do it. “It’s just fiction, right? These books you write.”

“If you say so. I’m not here to bust any myths though, so if fans want to believe it’s true, then it’s true. This is the last book of the series, so the manwhore needs his happily ever after. Sarah’s negotiating television rights for an amount that makes even my eyes water. The only way to end the series is for the hero to fall in love.”

“Love? Is that why you destroyed the original?”

His eyes turned to granite. I’d pushed because he’d made it so easy. I never knew the moment I’d become comfortable sitting here with him, but there was something in his manner that both set me on edge and made me want to stay. Perhaps it was the way that he aimed his entire self at me, making me feel like the most important person in the world. Maybe that was his skill. Or perhaps that was me projecting, and I had to be very careful about doing that.

Stone stood. “Let’s start again tomorrow. I’ll take you to your place, let you get settled.”

I followed him down the stairs. The mood was gone. Something about love had changed him. We piled into the jeep, and he drove me about a mile down the road, pulling into the driveway of a pretty Victorian villa. I was introduced to the owners, Mason and June Myers, a couple in their mid-sixties.

They were clearly very fond of Stone, and he of them.

“So, you’re going to keep our boy on the straight and narrow, Katrina?” Mason asked.

I was sure that was beyond my capabilities. “I’ll do my best,” I said with way more confidence than I felt.

“We were just saying last night that Stone needs a good woman to help him settle down,” June added.

“Don’t you worry about me. I’m good and settled,” Stone said.

June and Mason looked at each other, then laughed. “You need a wife to keep you in line, young man.”

There again was the flash of discomfort in Stone’s eyes. I shouldn’t have been concerned about it. I was here to do a job, get the book out of him, then move on with my own career. Stone was quite capable of taking care of himself. I was sure of that.

The guest house was situated at the back of the Myers’ home. It had a similar view over the river as Stone’s house. This town was going to kill me with pretty views if I wasn’t careful. Inside was a sitting room, a large bedroom, a bathroom, and a small kitchen, though I’d been invited to eat with the Myers whenever I wanted.

I sat with them that first night as they took turns filling me with stories about Stone, whom both clearly cared for a lot.

“He’s like a son to us,” Mason said, squeezing June’s hand.

“That’s him, there, at seventeen, with our Rip.”

June pointed to a photograph hanging on the wall of two teenage boys at the edge of a lake, looking suntanned and carefree. Abandoned kayaks in the background suggested they’d just come back from paddling in the lake.

“Handsome boys,” I said.

“They had a lot of fun together, didn’t they, Mason?”

“They were unstoppable. Start of summer, they’d pretty much vanish. Hiking, kayaking, bikes, you name it. Plenty of girls along the way, too, I imagine.”

“And what does Rip do now?” I asked.

“He progressed from the lake to the ocean. Travels the world studying sharks. It’s not the career path I’d hoped he would follow. I don’t know why he couldn’t be an accountant.”

Mason laughed. “Neither of those boys were ever going to do a normal job. They headed off to college, and before we knew it, Stone was in Europe, modeling underwear, and Rip’s decided on a degree in Marine Science and a PhD in shark behavior.”

“And now, we never see him unless we’re watching the television. My goodness, listen to me. You don’t want to be hearing this sort of talk. I’ve made a cobbler from some peaches I got at the market today. Let me get it.”

I stood to help her with clearing the table, but Mason set a hand on my arm and asked me to sit.

“Tell us about your work, Katrina. Do you travel from author to author, helping them out?”

“Gosh, no. This is my first assignment.” I went on to explain about how I hoped for a permanent position with CJM, and if that wasn’t forthcoming, that I’d like to start my own business. “This experience with Stone, if it is successful, would set me up to be able to help other authors.”

June and Mason told me stories about Springston, suggesting local areas of interest I might like to see.

“I’m sure Stone will take you sightseeing when he’s not busy writing. Who’d have thought that wild boy would finish up writing steamy romances?” June said, laughing.

I left them later in a much lighter mood. I thought I’d be tired, but once I’d packed my things away at the cottage, I found myself wide awake. I settled down with my laptop. It was time to do some detective work about Stone and Lily. Forearmed is forewarned, and all that, even though I wasn’t sure what I was arming myself for.

What I discovered was a tale worthy of one of Stone’s books. I hadn’t read the now destroyed manuscript, but if it was true he’d written about their relationship, I could see why. And I could also see why it wouldn’t work as the final book in the series. Apart from the lawsuit Lily had threatened, the story missed on the happily ever after.

Lily had been engaged, but for undisclosed reasons, she and her fiancée had split. That was when Lily and Stone hooked up and were soon the It couple around New York. There was Stone, dressed in a tuxedo at the premiere of Lily’s latest film. And, my God, Lily—she was stunning. My favorite child star in the best ever Disney series had grown up to become even more beautiful. Only a couple of inches shorter than Stone, she had silky black hair, almost to her waist. Her figure was gorgeous, her ivory, gold-trimmed dress showcasing everything Stone enjoyed off-camera. If she hadn’t been an actress, she could easily have been a runway model. I couldn’t take my eyes off the pictures of them. They looked so perfect.

I tried to piece together their relationship in chronological order, but it was hard to stay away from the train wreck which dominated the search results. Lily left Stone and went back to patch things up with her ex-fiancée, David Benjamin.

First date after the reunion was the Golden Globes. I lined up their red-carpet shot alongside the image of Lily and Stone at the premiere. Some women had all the luck. It was difficult to choose which guy was hottest. Looks aren’t everything. I’m not that shallow, but heck, they’re a good place to start.

David Benjamin was the all-American boy, the guy every girl wants. Or at least, the guy everyone’s mother wants for them. The sort of antithesis of Stone Logan. The teenage sweet, kind-hearted singer had become an actor, and now he was this mash-up of Ryan Gosling rolled into Justin Timberlake with a side of Chris Evans.

I couldn’t help a sigh, a twist of my mouth, and some wistful thoughts about what it must be like to be Lily Clarke. Did film stars and rock stars and handsome high-net-worth men queue on her doorstep hoping to be the one? What was that like? The only desire I roused in men came from the pack of construction workers who’d shout crude things when I passed their building site each morning on my way to the subway. And, let’s face it, they’d wolf-whistle a dog if its butt was cute enough.

I jumped over to the noisiest gossip blogs and read through the sparse, if not overblown, details of the main event—Stone and David’s fight in a private club. It resulted in a restraining order against Stone, which only served to increase book sales. Perhaps his ‘bad’ was all about sales. That redemptive line of thought was nothing more than wishful thinking. Stone Logan didn’t need me to enable his shenanigans. Six weeks of encouraging good behavior was what he needed from me.

I switched over to a Mommy blog because parenting tips would probably be the most use right now. Boiled down, the advice seemed to say to use positive reinforcement and ignore bad behavior.

Unfortunately, a lot of Stone’s bad behavior was difficult to ignore. He had the ability to create a reaction in me that I found impossible to disguise.

I flicked back to a candid shot of Lily and Stone. He said he’d never been in love, but I guess those words were the armor plating protecting his heart because it must have hurt like hell when she went back to David.

Hence the fight.

My belief was that Stone had yet to move on from Lily, and I hoped that wasn’t going to be a problem for this book. But he was a writer. Fiction. He made stuff up, right? Surely, he could write that happily ever after and we could part ways in six weeks, me with a job offer from Sarah, and the publishers with a hot book in their hands.

I didn’t want to dig any deeper about Stone Logan and how I felt about him than that.