I spent the next day devoted to touring the town with my sister. I’d only lived in New York since September and hadn’t made much effort to see any sights beyond those tied to spots used in the marketing campaigns I’d put together. Before that, the only other trip I’d taken to The Big Apple had been spent in Weston’s bed. It was time that was remedied.

Together, we’d hit Macy’s and much of the fashion district over the weekend. Today we hit One World Trade Center, The Met, and Rockefeller Center. It was warm enough that Audrey managed to convince me to get on the ice skating rink. I fell several times and didn’t last long before calling it quits, but I laughed a lot more than I’d expected, despite the aches and bruises the adventure earned me.

Outside the office, it was easier to pretend that there weren’t other things weighing on my mind. That Donovan didn’t occupy my every waking thought. That every joke I made and every smile I gave wasn’t laced with him, as though he had been grafted onto my DNA and every part of me contained a fragment of him.

I thought I did a pretty good job of hiding it, anyway. If I didn’t, it wasn’t until the intermission of the Rockettes’ Christmas Spectacular that Audrey said anything about it.

“Is it a new thing? Or just all the old things?” she asked.

“Huh?” I’d been lost in my head, sure I must have missed the first part of what she’d said.

“You’ve been staring blankly at the stage for the past several minutes. And there’s nothing happening up there at the moment. I’m guessing it’s Donovan that’s on your brain. Is it a new thing he did that’s bothering you? Or all the old stuff?” Before I could answer, she clarified. “The old stuff is enough, by the way. I’m just curious.”

I groaned and threw my head back on the seat. Which hurt more than I’d expected. So I groaned again. “Am I that obvious? Have I been a terrible drag all day?”

“No,” she laughed. “You’ve been awesome. Now spill.”

I grabbed a lock of hair and twisted it around my finger. “It’s the old stuff. But there’s new stuff too.” I hadn’t told her what had happened the day before, and I didn’t plan on telling her. Not all of it, at least. “I found out that Sun—the woman from Gaston’s—was in France with him.”

“Not with him, with him, though. Right? Working together probably.” She was so certain. It was enviable how certain she could be.

I studied her, wondering if she’d developed psychic powers while away at college that I was unaware of. “How do you know that?”

“I told you how. He came after you, Bri. He ran out of that restaurant for you. He looked at you like if you didn’t hear him out he was going to be lost for a long time.”

Oh, right. My sister wasn’t a psychic. She was a romantic.

I closed my eyes so that I didn’t roll them. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe what she said. I just couldn’t base truths in our relationship on how he looked at me.

I couldn’t base them on anything physical. Which was the current problem.

I opened my eyes. “Okay, yes. He said she was there for work,” I admitted. “And then I…” I hesitated, looking for a way to convey the situation without telling her the actual situation. When he’d knelt in front of me and brought me to a mind-blowing orgasm with his tongue. “I let him…kiss…me.” Yeah. That was a good way to frame it.

She tilted her head. “You let him kiss you? Why is that a problem?”

“It was a really serious kiss.” I watched her to see if she understood. “Serious enough that he might think things are better with us then they are.”

“Ah. I see.” Her face got inexplicably red. “One of those kinds of kisses.”

I didn’t know exactly what kind of kiss she was thinking of, or what kisses she’d experienced herself to start her fidgeting the way she was, but I had a feeling she got what I was talking about.

“Well, you’re just going to have to tell him the situation then,” she said. “Set him straight.” It was something she’d never do herself if she was in my shoes, but I would, and we both knew it.

“Set him straight,” I echoed as the lights dimmed for the second act of the show. “Yep. That’s what I have to do.”

I might have already known that’s what I needed to do. But doing so would require reaching out to Donovan.

Again.

* * *

Like last time, I waited until Audrey had gone off to the guestroom for the night. With a glass of scotch in hand and wearing nothing but a T-shirt and panties, I curled up under the covers with my phone.

After the show at Radio City Music Hall, Audrey and I had gone out for drinks at a piano bar. It was late now. Past two-thirty. Before when I’d called Donovan, it had been morning his local time. It was too late to call tonight.

But I could text.

Can you call me soon? We need to talk. It was embarrassing how long it took me to come up with those nine words. I pushed SEND, dropped my cell in my lap and sat back against the headboard to take a sip of my drink. Hopefully that would get him to call. If not tomorrow, which was Thanksgiving, then the next day. I didn’t want to get my hopes up too high. The last time I’d texted him, he hadn’t responded at all.

Thinking about the possibility of him not responding this time made me need to take another sip.

And then my phone started ringing in my lap.

I answered it quickly before it woke Audrey.

“You missed me,” Donovan said, his voice as smooth as the Macallan 12 Year I was drinking.

My chest felt warm and fluttery. “What are you doing up?”

“What are you doing up?”

“Don’t you already know?” I teased.

“Touché.” There was a smile in his tone. “I’m nursing a scotch and talking to my girlfriend on the phone.”

I suddenly felt dizzy, like I’d fall off the bed. I wrapped the fingers of my free hand tightly into the comforter. “You can’t keep calling me your girlfriend.”

“Because you’re not? Or because you’d prefer a different term?”

“Because I—” I broke off. He always threw me like this. I didn’t want to answer. I didn’t know the answer. “Because I don’t think we should be talking about that right now.”

He let a full second go by. Then two.

“Fine,” he conceded. “What should we be talking about?”

I said a silent prayer of gratitude, thankful to have been given the reins. “Yesterday.” Then, because I did not want to start arguing about Sun Le Chen again, I clarified. “We need to talk about what happened in the copy room.” I took another sip of my drink. I needed it.

“Ah. The copy room.” His chair creaked like it was made of leather. A recliner? A desk chair? I didn’t know. “I assure you, Ted doesn’t know anything. He thinks he knows. He doesn’t.”

“That’s not what I’m worried about.” Though, now I kind of was.

“What are you worried about, Sabrina?” He didn’t sound curious—he sounded annoyed. As though he already knew the answer to his question, but he had to go through the procedure of asking before he could challenge the response.

I didn’t like that feeling. The feeling that he was two steps ahead of me.

But there was no turning back now.

I took a deep breath. “I’m worried that because I didn’t stop you, I let you think that you can use sex to fix this. Fix us.”

“I see.” The reply was tight.

“And you can’t. You can’t use sex to fix this.” There. I’d said it.

I swirled the liquid in my glass, waiting for him to say something. Anything.

But he sat silent, and I had to nudge him. “Are you going to say something?”

“Okay.”

“Okay?” It hadn’t sounded like he was challenging me, but it was so hard to figure out what a person truly meant from a two syllable word. “Can I have more than an okay?”

“I’m actually impressed you made it more than a day before you let this bother you.”

And I was impressed that I thought for a minute he wouldn’t be a dick about this.

“I am not predictable,” I grumbled. Though admittedly, I might have given him grief about sex at times in the past.

But that wasn’t this. This was different.

He chuckled. “I never implied that you were.”

“You’re implying that you knew I’d eventually complain about it,” I huffed.

“Are you complaining?”

The low rumble of his question made me shiver. Add to that the memory of his hands on my thighs, his eyes pinned on mine, his mouth buried in my pussy…

“No.” Except it never should have happened. “Yes. It won’t fix things.”

“But did you enjoy it?” Of course he wouldn’t let me get away without the exact truth.

I closed my eyes as if that would make it easier to give this to him. “You know I did,” I whispered.

“I just wasn’t sure you remembered.”

I bit back a groan of frustration. Donovan was not an easy person to interact with, but I wasn’t a cakewalk either. I had my own issues. I was too proud. Too serious. And I had a borderline unhealthy comfort level with the kind of sex I liked.

We were both works in progress. I needed to be better about remembering that.

I set my drink down and pulled my knees to my chest. “I do remember,” I said, softer now. “Which is why it took so long to make myself do the right thing and call. I want you, Donovan. I always want you. But we have to sort things out before anything like that can happen again. It can’t be what we use to make this better.”

“Okay.” There was that damn two-syllable response again.

“I’m serious,” I said, solemnly.

“All right. Got it.” Without missing a beat he moved on to a new subject. “Where’s your sister?”

“In bed. In the other room.” I still wasn’t sure if we were on the same page or not.

“Good. Now.” There was a rustle like he was shifting the phone to his other ear. “What was your favorite part of riding my face?”

“Oh my God.” Against my will, blood rushed to my lower regions. “Did you hear me, Donovan? We can’t do this.”

“I heard you.” Unconcerned. As though he hadn’t just been talking about eating me out.

The calmer he was, the more worked up I got. “You’re not taking me seriously!”

“What did I do?” he asked innocently. “I just want to hear you tell me what you liked most about having your cunt pressed up against my face. Then I can tell you what I liked most. Would you rather I go first?”

“So basically you want to have phone sex.” I pressed my thighs together, wishing I didn’t want that as well.

I could hear the shrug in his voice. “I might pull out my cock later. Depends on how good you make the details.”

“Donovan!” I rubbed my hand across my forehead, trying to convince myself I wasn’t tempted. But I was tempted. And was it really that big of a deal? If we just talked about how good it felt to come with his fingers inside me pressing at just the right spot?

My resistance was waning.

But this relationship—whatever this relationship was turning out to be—was important to me. So I made another attempt at keeping my ground. “This can’t be anything real if sex is the only thing you want from me,” I told him pointedly.

“Think about it and tell me if I’m the only one who seems to want just sex from this relationship,” he said just as pointedly.

I wrinkled my face, about to protest. Then I did think about it. Thought about the fact that I’d been involved with him in a pretty much sex-only relationship for less than two months. Even when I’d known him back in college, every thought I’d had about him, every instinct that had drawn me toward him had been sexual.

Donovan on the other hand, had noticed me before I’d ever really noticed him. He’d stayed involved with me for over ten years. He’d been there. Watching. Interfering. Manipulating. But he hadn’t even tried to take advantage of me when I’d been most vulnerable—when he’d rescued me from being raped by Theo Sheridan.

Donovan was right. I was the one who appeared to be only interested in him physically. It was a blow to the gut to realize that so much I’d perceived about us was a misconception.

And it made me feel terrible.

It wasn’t quite that simple, though. “To be fair,” I said, trying to make myself feel better, “since I’ve been in New York, you haven’t made anything else seem like an option.”

“That is fair,” he agreed. His breath came so clearly through the phone. I wished it were his thoughts, that I could hear what was in his head.

Then he told me. “I thought that somehow if I just fucked you it would be enough.”

“Me too.” That was exactly it. It wasn’t that sex had been all I’d wanted from Donovan—it was that I’d thought that if I at least had that, I could live without the rest. “I thought that it would be enough if I, uh, did that too.”

“Say it.”

“Say what?” But I knew what he wanted to hear.

“No games, Sabrina,” he said, impatiently.

“If I fucked you. Are you happy?”

“I’m hard.” And so fucking smug.

“God, you’re so…” I trailed off, too infuriated to find the words I wanted.

But as always, he wouldn’t let that stand. “I’m so…what? You act like you’re mad, but you also act like you like it, so tell me what it is that I am?”

“I don’t know what you are!” That was the problem. I had no fucking idea.

I took a deep breath, and then more calmly repeated, “I don’t know. Whatever it is, I can’t stop coming back to look. I can’t stop coming back, wanting you to tell me what it is that I am too.”

I didn’t know why I said it. Maybe because it was dark and we were on the phone, or because I was lonely, or because I really wanted him to know everything inside me.

Whatever the reason, I’d said it. It was out there. I couldn’t take it back.

He was quiet a minute, and I imagined him stretched out in that leather armchair, I’d decided—his legs propped up on an ottoman in an office I’d never seen. He had to have a place like that in his apartment. A place where he was completely comfortable. Just one of many Donovan rooms I’d never seen.

He let a beat pass, and it didn’t feel awkward because it was so full.

Then he asked, “Remember when you applied for that internship at BellCorp the final year of your graduate program?”

Of course I remembered, but how did he know about it?

Oh, yeah. He knew everything about me.

It was irksome, mostly because I didn’t know what he knew and what he didn’t, not because I minded that he knew things. I didn’t really have anything to hide. It was also irritating because sometimes he’d made my only options seem silly and insignificant.

“You mean the graduate program at the little school that I attended after leaving Harvard? That internship?” I asked, bluntly.

“Yes, Sabrina, I’ve been a dick. Let’s make sure we don’t forget that.”

“I won’t.” It was a small victory, but it was my turn to feel smug.

“Now can we talk about the internship?”

“I didn’t get it.” I’d been fairly disgruntled about it at the time. BellCorp was a financial industry giant and their internship always went to the top student in the master’s program, which was me. Somehow, though, I’d been overlooked, and given a position at Citi Health while BellCorp’s internship had gone to Abraham Decker, the cocky know-it-all who actually didn’t know shit, but you definitely couldn’t tell him that after he scored BellCorp. His ego had barely fit into a room before that.

The animosity hadn’t lasted too long however, because two months into the year-long position, it came out that several BellCorp executives had been involved in insider trading. Abraham Decker spent the rest of his internship trying to help the marketing team put the best spin on the situation rather than learning how to run a successful firm.

My internship, on the other hand, had gone amazingly well. The company was in a growth phase and I’d been part of several campaigns. Citi Health had even earned a statewide community award that my boss had credited in major part to me.

“Actually, you did get it,” Donovan said.

“Uh. What?” Because I heard him. Just…what?

“You did get it. But I called in a favor and asked them not to give it to you and they listened.”

“Uh, what?” I asked again. And this was a favor to him?

“I know BellCorp’s vice-president—they do a lot of business with King-Kincaid. I also knew they were about to go down for that insider trading scandal. When they did, I didn’t think it would be good for your budding career to be caught up in it. Plus, Jeremy Shotts, the guy at the Colorado office, is a major blowhard who likes to fuck the pretty interns.”

“I can take care of myself around execs with grabby hands,” I snapped defensively, though I was pretty sure my track record didn’t speak in my favor.

“Jeremy Shotts wasn’t the reason I made the call, Sabrina,” he said, annoyance underlining his tone. “Denying him was a bonus. Did you hear any of the rest of the story?”

“Yes. I heard you.” I chewed the inside of my lip, trying to decide how I felt about this new information.

No, that was a lie. I knew how I felt. I felt good. I felt really good. Protected and looked out for and…loved. Things I hadn’t felt in a long time. Sure, Audrey loved me, and she’d go to the ends of the earth for me. But not like that. Not fiercely. Not violently. Not to extremes. Not because she didn’t care enough, but because that wasn’t how she cared for people in general.

But Donovan did.

It was dazzling.

His love dazzled me.

It was rich and fierce and dazzling.

I could also name at least ten women right off the bat without thinking too hard who would tell me this was sick. That I was a victim of this or that misogynistic/patriarchal agenda. That I was weak. That I was malleable. Blah, blah, blah bad feminist.

“Stop thinking too hard, Sabrina,” he said when a whole minute had gone by in silence.

I shook my head. “I’m sorry.”

I didn’t know what else to say. There was so much I wanted to say, but like the reasons he shouldn’t call me ‘girlfriend,’ there were reasons I shouldn’t talk about being dazzled. They weren’t words for right now.

So I gave him what I could. “I guess I owe you a thank you.”

He let out a frustrated sigh. “That’s not why I told you about that.”

“Then why did you?” I asked, just as frustrated.

“You wanted to know what you are.”

“Okay.”

“What you are is mine.”

If there were such a thing as floating and sinking all at once, that was what I felt when I heard those words. Like I was one of the beloved giant cartoon characters that would be filled with helium and floated through the city in today’s Macy’s parade, and at the same time like someone who had just been thrown in a cold ocean with an anchor tied to her feet.

Mine.

His.

It was an answer to everything and nothing all at once. Something that seemed so unsure. Something that seemed so, so certain.

Could it be this easy?

I didn’t know. I just didn’t know.

“Finish your scotch and go to bed, Sabrina,” he said breaking the silence. “You’re not going to get any more of this figured out tonight. We’ll talk more later.”

“Okay,” I said, still dazed. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

I put down my phone and picked up my tumbler, and wondered for a solid five minutes if I should text him back and ask him if he’d actually known I was drinking scotch too, or if he’d just guessed.

But I didn’t because I wasn’t sure yet if I cared what the answer was.