The things Donovan had said to me in the early hours of that morning stayed with me through the next day. So much of it was meaningless banter, but some of it was so poignant, so significant, that I played those words on repeat in my head.

What you are is mine.

I pulled that phrase out like a little pet. Stroked it and fed it. Listened to it purr. Mine. Mine. Mine.

I wondered how much he’d done behind my back. The story about BellCorp was a good one. It made me feel better about knowing him. But how many other stories like that were there? Would I feel the same about all of them?

I still didn’t know if he was someone I could truly love.

But I was surer than ever that I wanted to find out.

We needed to talk. Really talk. And we would as soon as Audrey was gone. But a real relationship between the two of us wasn’t just going to depend on what he had to say about the file he had on me. I couldn’t pretend that was the only issue between us. I still didn’t know him at all.

And then there was the idea that I only wanted him for sex. If I wanted that to not be true, I needed to show it. To Donovan, but also to myself.

Friday morning, before leaving the apartment for another day in the city with my sister, I gathered the courage to call him once again.

“There’s this thing we do every year,” I said, pacing the living room with nervous energy. “This lasagna dinner tradition on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Do you already know about this?”

“I can honestly tell you that I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Oh. Okay.” It made me relax a little to realize there were still things about me that he had yet to learn. “Well, like I said, it’s this Lind family tradition. I’m going to cook lasagna and there will be garlic bread and tiramisu—”

He interrupted me. “You’re going to cook?”

This I expected him to know. Lind women were exceptional, bright, ambitious women. But neither of us could cook. We’d gone out for Thanksgiving because of our lack of skills in the kitchen. Also what was the point of making a big meal for two people?

But while our Thanksgiving was less conventional, we’d been sure to keep our lasagna dinner tradition intact. The custom had been passed down from our mother, always set for the Saturday of the last week of November. And while neither Audrey nor I were good behind a stove, this was the one dish we could both cook without burning the house down.

“It’s not a big thing,” I said defensively. “It’s really just one main dish. Don’t expect it to be amazing or anything. And we won’t be alone. Audrey will be there, of course.”

“Sabrina. Is this your version of introducing me to the parents?”

There he was again, one step ahead of me. I hadn’t thought of it like that, but now that he’d put it in those terms, yes. That’s exactly what this was.

I suddenly had to sit down.

“This is just something we do every year,” I lied, unable to admit the truth out loud. “And since you’re under the impression that I’m only interested in you for your—” I stopped.

He’d said something while I was talking, and I’d missed it.

“What was that?” I asked.

“I said I’ll be there. Just tell me the time.” He even sounded like he was looking forward to it.

“Awesome.” My stomach had flutters and I couldn’t stop grinning. Or shaking. “Seven o’clock.”

“It’s a date.”

* * *

“How did you spend your Thanksgiving, Donovan?” Audrey asked, as she filled the water goblets on the table.

I listened to the conversation from the kitchen as I pulled the food out of the oven. The evening had gone well so far, despite my anxiety about it. Donovan had shown up on time with an expensive bottle of red wine, looking more than amazing in his gray slacks and maroon sweater. I’d been an awkward hostess, too nervous to know how to handle small talk with a man who knew everything about me, who’d been inside me, who’d said I belonged to him.

So instead of trying to talk about the weather or rehash the Macy’s Day Parade, I’d hidden in the kitchen, pretending that the salad needed more tossing and the vinaigrette needed whisking. I’d only come out once to grab a glass of wine after Donovan had popped the cork. He and Audrey had moved to sit around the dining room table, and from what I could see and what I’d overheard, my sister seemed to have the conversation more than handled.

But dinner was done now. I’d have to sit at the same table with him and hope I could contain the torrent of emotions that kept me flustered and prevented me from having coherent thoughts.

“I had dinner at my parents’ apartment on the Upper East Side,” Donovan answered casually.

“Is that a good time?” A question I probably wouldn’t have been brave enough to ask.

“No. It’s not. It’s thirty or so of the richest, snobbiest, cattiest people that my mother feels socially obliged to impress, crowded into a Central Park mansion to celebrate what they own, who they own, and who they fucked over to own it. It was my first Thanksgiving in the U.S. in a long time. I’d forgotten how awful it was.”

Steam rushed up to glisten my face as I opened the foil around the garlic bread. Despite it’s delicious smell, it suddenly seemed like such a simple side. Embarrassingly simple.

How different this dinner must be to Donovan, who was used to servant-prepared meals and glamorous surroundings. And here we were in a two-bedroom in Hell’s Kitchen that he owned and rented to people in much lower tax brackets, furnished almost exclusively from a Pottery Barn catalog, serving him a dinner that was heavy and rich with refined carbs.

I didn’t even think I could pronounce the wine he’d brought.

This whole idea had been ridiculous. What had I been thinking?

If he hadn’t realized by now how totally beneath him I was, he would after tonight. I might be making good money now with an executive job in his firm, but I was still the poor girl he’d met back at Harvard on scholarship.

Hell, I hadn’t even managed to keep the scholarship in the end.

But I couldn’t hide in the kitchen all night feeling sorry for myself. I quickly downed the rest of my wine then carried my empty glass and the garlic bread to the table.

“Can you grab the salad?” I asked Audrey. “We’re ready to eat.”

“Yep!”

She ran off to attend to her assigned task as I set my glass at my place and the bread in the center of the table. I avoided looking at Donovan, but when I turned to go back to the kitchen, he grabbed my wrist. Electricity shot up my arm. My skin burned under his fingers.

I looked back at him, my pulse speeding up when my eyes met his.

“Hey,” he said.

“Yeah?” My voice cracked on the simple word.

He stroked his thumb along the inside of my wrist. “I want to be here. Okay?”

A storm of butterflies took off in my stomach. He never missed anything. Even behind a wall and a stove, he saw me.

“I mean it,” he said when I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t say anything. “Okay?”

I took a deep breath in and let it out. It didn’t completely relax me, but it helped. Expecting to be any more at ease was ridiculous with Donovan so close, touching me. Looking at me. Looking at me like he wished I were the main course instead of what I’d prepared.

“Okay,” I said softly.

He didn’t let go of me, though. He held on until my sister came bustling around the corner, her arms full with the salad bowl tucked precariously under one arm and the bowl with the vinaigrette I’d made in the other hand.

“Have you heard of making trips?” I hissed as I passed her on my way back to the kitchen.

“I think I’m doing just fine,” she called back to me. “So if you weren’t in the U.S. before, Donovan, where were you?”

“Tokyo,” he answered. “Do you want to know the best thing about Japan?”

“Sure.”

“No one gives you a hard time when you decide to work through the holiday.”

Smiling, I shook my head and stuck a serving utensil on top of the lasagna dish.

Audrey giggled. “No wonder you and my sister get along. Workaholics.”

“I heard that,” I yelled, using hot pads to pick up the lasagna and carry it around the corner to the dining room. He wants to be here, I told myself. He wants to be here.

“Did she tell you that?” he asked, meeting my eyes when I returned to the room. “That we get along?”

Oh yeah, he wanted to be here. The way he looked at me sent sparks through my body. Every cell inside me was charged. Every molecule.

Jesus, how was I going to make it through this night?

Audrey pursed her lips. “Hmm. I don’t remember.”

“We don’t,” I said, teasing. “We bicker like crazy. He’s a pompous asshole, and he never acknowledges that I’m right.” Maybe it was only half teasing.

“That’s not true. You’re just so rarely right,” he taunted right on back.

I set the dish down on the table and stared at Audrey. “See? Pompous. Asshole.”

My sister thought it was funny. Donovan only shrugged as if to say, ‘you get what you get.’

It made my chest pinch. I wanted to get him, pompous asshole parts notwithstanding. For the first time, I started to believe it might actually be possible. That we might be able to work out everything between us, and we’d just get to get each other.

But that was for tomorrow.

Tonight I had to hope that my food didn’t give anyone food poisoning.

After surveying the table for anything missing, I took my seat at the round table between Donovan and my sister. The next few minutes were spent refilling wine glasses. Audrey made a toast, and we all clinked. Then we began dishing up and digging in.

“How did the two of you spend the holiday?” Donovan asked Audrey as he passed her the salad bowl.

“Uh uh,” I said before she could answer. “He doesn’t get to know anything else about me.”

Audrey looked from Donovan to me then back to Donovan. It wasn’t that we’d done anything secretive. We’d gone to the parade and then the Holiday Shops at Bryant Park before having dinner at The Dutch. I’d tell him if he really wanted to know.

He just knew so much already. It was my turn to decide what he knew. My turn to hear about him.

So when she looked back at me, I narrowed my eyes into a warning stare.

“Sorry,” she said to him. “Sabrina makes the rules around here.”

He raised a brow. “Does she?”

“She does.” Even as I said it I recalled the kiss he’d given me in his car almost a week before, and his parting words that made me shiver from head to toe. Don’t begin to think I’ve forgotten who’s in charge.

I hadn’t forgotten where and how Donovan was in charge.

I hadn’t forgotten the ways in which he took charge.

My inner thighs tingled, my belly tightened, my body yearning for him like that now. For him to manage me. To control me. To dominate me.

“Hmm,” Donovan said, the sound vibrating through me.

I crossed my legs, hoping to dull the steady ache. “Shut up and eat your dinner.”

“Yes, boss.” He was in on the joke, the fucker. It only made my want that much stronger.

I tried not to watch him as he brought his fork up to his mouth and took his first bite, but it was impossible not to. It was extremely intimate, watching him eat the food I’d made. Watching his lips. Remembering the last time they were on me.

“This is good,” he said, and I blushed for so many of the wrong reasons. “Really good.”

I kicked him lightly under the table. “Don’t sound so surprised.”

He only smirked and took another bite.

“It’s our grandmother’s recipe,” I said, as if that explained why it was so delicious. It certainly wasn’t due to anything I did.

“On your mother’s side, I’m guessing.” He took a swallow of his wine.

I tensed slightly. “You guess correctly.” His guess was educated, probably based on the knowledge that our mother’s mother was full Italian, the first generation born in the United States.

I exchanged a look with Audrey. I’d told her that Donovan had a file on me and that he’d obviously been watching me for years, but I hadn’t given her many details about the contents. Had she realized there were places where her own life’s information intersected with mine? Like our family tree? Had it occurred to her that my past was her past, that Donovan knew that too?

If it hadn’t, she didn’t seem too bothered by learning it now.

She had her own history on her mind, history that she also shared with me. “If it weren’t for Nonna’s lasagna, Thanksgiving would be a holiday that I’d be fine skipping all together,” she said. “Our dad died over this week, so there are bad memories. But we had so many years of lasagna dinners with Mom that are tied into my memories of her—I can’t get rid of this week and the bad memories of dad without losing the good memories of her too. It makes it a complicated time.”

“I understand,” Donovan said, piquing my full attention. “I lost someone over Thanksgiving too.”

Amanda. I’d forgotten she’d been coming back to school from the Thanksgiving break when she’d died.

He looked only at Audrey as he went on. “But, a year later, I spent a really nice day in my office at Harvard with Sabrina. I can’t wish one didn’t happen without losing the other, too.”

Audrey and I had talked repeatedly about this time being difficult before—losing Dad, remembering Mom.

And I often thought about leaving Harvard now too. About Donovan. About losing my virginity to him against a bookcase. About realizing I liked sex that was filthy and dubious and involved power plays.

I hadn’t ever stopped to think about what this time might mean to him.

Yes. Complicated was right. For all of us. Then and now.

* * *

After we’d finished dinner, conversation was even easier. We didn’t leave the table, choosing to stay there to pick at tiramisu and drink coffee and whiskey. Over a glass of scotch, I discovered that Donovan Kincaid was quite an expert in art history. He and Audrey debated long and hard the merits of modern art versus the classics—Donovan particularly liked the works of Jackson Pollock and Shiryu Morita while my sister preferred the romantics and gushed profusely about Carl Blechen.

I’d learned enough over the years from Audrey to add an opinion here and there, but I was happy to sip my drink and listen to these two very different, very important people in my life. It suited Donovan to favor the bold, abstract strokes of the modern expressionists, just as it suited Audrey to love the dreamy wistfulness of the romance period.

Did it suit me that I liked the pointillism of Seurat? Was I made up of small, distinct pieces that combined to form a bigger story? Was it easier to appreciate me from a distance? Was that what made a man like Donovan choose to love me so long from afar?

He was nearer now. In my life, in my home. Would he keep loving me when he saw me this close up?

Eventually, the discussion lulled and our glasses emptied. I got up to take our dessert plates to the kitchen. When I returned, I didn’t sit, instead choosing to lean against the dining room wall.

The evening was ending, and I was unexpectedly nervous again.

Audrey stood and stretched. “It’s almost midnight? I didn’t realize it was so late. I need to get packed.”

Donovan nodded toward her. “Thank you for letting me intrude on your last night in town. I hope I wasn’t unwelcome.”

She waved her hand, dismissing the idea. “Not at all unwelcome. We invite friends…and boyfriends…to this all the time.” She glanced at me in time to see the death glare I gave her. “Besides, it gives me a chance to deliver the My-Sister-Is-My-Only-Family speech.”

His brow rose. “I don’t believe I know this speech.”

“It’s a good one,” she promised.

“Audrey!” I hid my face with my hands. I was going to kill her later. I loved her, but I’d kill her.

She pivoted toward me. “This would have been a lot worse coming from Dad. Admit it. You can bear my version.” She turned back to Donovan. “It’s short. It’s standard. But it’s serious. Try not to hurt her. That’s all.”

Donovan focused on his finger as he ran it along the bottom of his empty tumbler. “Audrey, I’m going to be honest with you.” He looked directly at my sister. “I’ve done and said a lot of the wrong things already in an attempt to not hurt her. But I came back from France to fix it.”

“Okay then,” Audrey declared. “Fix it.”

Donovan nodded.

Satisfied, Audrey took his glass from him as well as her own and carried them to the sink.

I didn’t move. Didn’t breathe. Definitely didn’t look at Donovan. I wasn’t in this moment—I was outside it, looking on. If I let myself be in it, I’d feel it, and that would be too much. I’d hold it for later instead, bring it out when I was alone and try to feel it in pieces. Not all at once where it would too easily overwhelm me.

She came back quickly, announcing, “I’m going to my bedroom to pack now.”

“I’ll go,” Donovan said with no motion to get up.

Audrey’s expression grew panicked. “No! Don’t! I’m going to my bedroom. I’ll close the door. I’ll turn on music. I’ll pack. I’m not coming out. But I’m an adult. What that means is that you definitely don’t need to go.” She looked from me to Donovan and back to me, making sure that we both understood exactly what she was saying. That she was giving us permission to be adults too.

I wanted to crawl into the wall.

But God, I also wanted Donovan.

“Goodnight, Audrey,” I said flatly.

“Goodnight.” With a waggle of her brows she slipped away. A second later, music did indeed start playing from her room.

Now it was just us. Just Donovan and me. Alone.

I pulled a lock of hair over my shoulder and tugged at the end, trying to hide my flushed cheeks. “She’s a meddler. I’m sorry. Protective but also overly sentimental. She believes that All You Need is Love and that kind of idealistic crap.”

Donovan tilted his head, his gaze scorching every inch of me. “Whatever will you do with her?”

I shrugged. “Send her back to art school, I guess.”

I dropped my hands and put them behind my back against the wall, hoping that might ground me. Because I needed to be grounded. I was floating right now, and I loved it and it scared me all at once.

Maybe I didn’t need to be grounded. Maybe what I needed was to let go.

I forced myself to look directly at Donovan. “I’m really jealous of her right now, actually.”

“How so?”

“Her head doesn’t get in the way. Maybe if I were her, I wouldn’t have all the noise in my brain that’s preventing me from crossing the room and crawling into your lap.”

I panicked the minute the words left my mouth. “I don’t even know if you’d want me there.” Then I panicked some more. “And that wasn’t a desperate way of asking you to reassure me. Not at all.”

Donovan’s eyes darkened. “All I’ve thought about the last hour is bending you over the back of that couch, tying your hands with your apron strings, and fucking you raw.”

I shivered. “Yes, please.”

I became putty when he talked like that. In that gravelly tone that rumbled through my bones. In that way that made me feel his words as if he were already doing those things to me, already bending me and tying me. Already fucking me raw.

His gaze raked over me. “You’re tempting. Very tempting.”

“But…?”

“But a wise woman once told me that sex doesn’t fix things.”

Karma. I probably deserved this.

I scoffed nonetheless. “Wise? That doesn’t sound wise. That sounds annoying.”

“In my experience, wise is often annoying.” He smiled, like that was a concession prize. His grin in place of his body. His admission that this was comically torturous for him too.

It was a terrible concession prize.

My skin was buzzing and alive. My pussy was aching and wet. But more urgent than my body’s arousal was the itch inside me that couldn’t be named or explained. The spot that burned when he talked about fixing things and wanting to be here and when he called me his.

“I don’t want you to go.” It came out almost as a whisper.

“We’re going to talk tomorrow.”

“That’s so far away.” You’re so far away. Six feet too far. Might as well be miles.

“And after we talk,” he said gently, “you might not want to fuck me anymore.”

I nodded because he was right—he had to go. “But you should know I can’t imagine that right now,” I told him.

He nodded back.

A beat passed. Then, as if we both felt the energy shift together, he stood up at the same time as I moved to the closet to get his coat.

“You still want me to come over tomorrow?” he asked as we walked to the front door.

“About that,” I’d been meaning to bring this up. “As you’ve mentioned already, the apartment is awfully…distracting. I thought we could meet instead at the office?”

He looked at me carefully for several long seconds. “You really think it matters where we are?”

No, it didn’t matter where we were. If he wanted to fuck me, he’d fuck me, and having him remind me like that made my pussy throb with need.

But I had my reasons. I needed to be at the office.

I shrugged. “Humor me.”

“The office it is.”

I opened the door and he walked past me out to the hall. When he turned back toward me, I wanted him to kiss me, but I knew he couldn’t, that if he started, neither of us would be able to stop. Instead, he reached his hand out and traced his thumb along my jaw.

“Goodnight,” he said.

“Goodnight.”

I was glad he made me shut the door and lock it before he left so I couldn’t watch him walk away. It already felt too much like when we’d said goodnight, we’d really meant goodbye.