Staying focused on her lectures seemed an impossible task with William slipping into her mind at irregular, but very intense intervals. At least the deliciously inappropriate daydreams made Rowell’s self-praise manageable—although Lily had received a few snide comments from the woman in question due to her absence the previous night.

Attendance wasn’t mandatory, but nothing slipped past the hawk’s keen eyes. Every performer liked a full room, she supposed. However bored. The lecture had been a complete and utter waste of time as Lily had learned from one of her acquaintances—but, of course, that didn’t stop Rowell.

Nothing new there.

After that attempted lobotomy was over, Lily spent her lunch at a small restaurant, clicking away on her laptop and fighting to put the Biennials article into something that at least resembled coherent sentences. Far too often, she found herself going on and on about William’s work—right up to the point where even she became annoyed with the endless praise. It was almost as if she were doing a piece on the bloody amazingness that was Mr. William Charleston. But regardless of how hard she tried, crossing things out and toning others down, Lily couldn’t ignore the truth.

Of all the photographs she’d seen, William’s not only stood out, but stayed with her.

“Kiss-ass,” she muttered to herself as she delved yet into another paragraph of how ingeniously he managed to capture Sleepy Hollow’s mystical atmosphere without venturing into anything too dramatic or far-fetched.

By the time she was done—and despite her best efforts to the contrary—the article still looked like a bloody hymn dedicated to one William Charleston.

Fucking hell, how could she possibly give this to her editor after what happened last night?

She glared at her screen, but instead of deleting the whole thing, she wrapped her fingers around her coffee cup. She was being silly. No one knew about her and the gorgeous almost silver fox, so they couldn’t possibly assume she was being biased.

Which she wasn’t.

She meant every word she’d written. It didn’t matter how bored or annoyed the other photographers had made her at the press conference—or how indecently hot William had made her. She had never let her personal feelings get in the way of looking at art with an objective eye, and she wasn’t going to start now.

Her fawning over the darkly brooding photographs wasn’t a consequence of their kiss, even if the lie had, in a way, been easier to accept than the reality of the situation.

The man was bloody brilliant.

He was talented to the point Lily was fairly certain should be illegal. That much genius simply couldn’t be contained in a single, honed and deliciously tempting body.

She winced and scraped the adjectives from that last thought.

No, she didn’t like the art because of the man. If anything, she considered herself lucky to have been able to meet the man behind the art. Well, maybe even sleep with him when the time came. But none of that changed the impression his work had left on her.

God, it sounded insane, but it had spoken to her soul, whatever that was.

She sighed. Even if William were to send her to hell, she’d still stand behind every praise she’d written.

Yeah. She was well and utterly fucked.

“You look stunning.” Audrey flopped herself onto her stomach on Lily’s bed. She placed her freshly drained martini glass on the floor, blue eyes scanning every inch of Lily’s body. “Just promise me you’ll report every detail of how your dashing gentleman won’t be able to keep his hands to himself.”

Lily grimaced at her, then snickered. “We’re not having sex on the first date.”

“Sure you’re not.” Audrey burst out laughing. “Your fuck-me meter is off the charts, darling, and I have no doubts his will be, too, once he sees you.”

Well, Audrey wasn’t wrong, exactly. She had been willing to have sex with him up against the gallery wall… She glanced at herself in the mirror. Nor was her clever friend mistaken about the outfit.

The dress fitted her like a charm—a thigh-length black Phillip Plein she’d managed to snatch at an online sale. It had a massive silver skull done in glittering stones that stretched across her breasts and reached all the way down to her navel, and the rounded neckline was just deep enough to show off the goods while not being too obvious about it. She loved the dress on its own, but somehow knowing William would see her in it made it…more. If she weren’t brimming with anticipation, she might have scolded herself for the ridiculous thought. As it was, imagining William taking it all in…

The heat in her cheeks returned with a vengeance.

Audrey was infuriatingly right as always.

She was dressing up for William’s—although, consequently, her own—benefit, but, shit, the ensemble looked stunning. The Plein coupled with heeled, ball-buster ankle boots and a classic camel coat was the perfect blend of rock and elegance.

Precisely her drug of choice.

That. And William Charleston.

“Where did you run off to, anyway?” she asked as she started to unpin the hot rollers from her hair.

Audrey had been nowhere in sight when Lily had walked back into the gallery to tour the rooms. That, in itself, wasn’t surprising as they agreed not to stick together given who Lily was meeting there. But the two texts they exchanged during the day left a lot to be desired.

“Went for a couple of drinks with Bram and his buddies.” Audrey pursed her lips, cutting off Lily’s reply. “Didn’t have time to type… Then didn’t exactly see the letters all that well any longer. The hangover today wasn’t helpful, either.”

Ah, that explained the dark circles under her eyes, then, as well as her absence at uni. But it definitely did not explain the lack of hearing all about her friend’s evening. She’d been with Auster for fuck’s sake. And given how perky the professor had been when he realized Audrey was at the gallery…

Hell, Lily expected to see her laughing manically as she recouped what went down between them.

“So what went wrong?” She pulled another hot roller out and inspected the curl, then spied Audrey’s reflection in the mirror. Definitely not chipper enough. “Shouldn’t this be like a jackpot or something? You’ve been trying to get him alone for a year now, hon.”

“That’s just it. We weren’t alone. Not even for a fucking minute.”

Lily glanced over her shoulder. “Maybe Auster didn’t want to push his luck. You are still officially his student. If he made a move and you reported him…”

“He’s shagged students before.”

“Decades ago. Rules were a bit different back then. More bendable.”

A long, suffering groan was Audrey’s answer, followed by something that sounded a lot like “I’m bendable.”

But there was a hint of a laugh lurking beneath it all, too. Audrey wasn’t about to give up on their charmer of a professor anytime soon, that much was certain.

After running her fingers through her hair to gently break up the curls, Lily took a brush to them to add a bit of that polished, glamorous effect. She bit on her lower lip once she was done, gaze pinned on Audrey’s reflection.

“Maybe I can ask William to put in a good word for you. The two of them seemed quite chummy yesterday.”

“Still fucking upset I missed that,” Audrey mumbled, bracing her chin with her palms. “Though I guess a massive amount of good looks like that confined to a single space must break some universal law designed to keep our poor ovaries from exploding.”

“You know what”—Lily chuckled—“you might be onto something there.”

The two men had looked remarkably dashing, even if her attention was drawn only to one. Pushing those ridiculous “exploding ovaries” gifs from her mind, she checked her hair one last time, then threw herself on the bed, letting Audrey see all the pent-up crazy she’d kept on a short leash until now.

“I still can’t believe you have a date with William Charleston.” Audrey shook her head, a wicked smile resting on her lips. “William fucking Charleston.”

“Yeah.” She grinned.

A part of her still couldn’t believe last night had been real. She knew she cleaned up well, but the thought of him finding her attractive… The memory of what he’d said to her…

Ignoring the onslaught of butterflies low in her body, she winked. “I just have to keep myself from drooling all over him, and I’ll be fine.”

“Please. Like he’d mind a bit of saliva,” Audrey said dryly.

Silence stretched between them for a second, almost two. Then they burst into laughter, chortling uncontrollably until Lily’s stomach started to ache. Once she finally managed to catch her breath, she picked up her martini from the nightstand and ceremoniously lifted it into the air.

“To dashing older men. May they continue to age like fine wine.”

Audrey clinked her empty glass against hers. “And get over what’s proper for long enough to fuck us silly.”