A knock at the door a half hour later jolted them from their conversation. Skye and Finn had been sitting opposite one another in the jacuzzi, sans water, and chatting—which, to be fair, was the last thing Skye had thought a man like Finn would want to do post-sex. She’d figured he’d be out of there like a shot, and she wouldn’t have faulted him for that. Amazing fucking—or, whatever, lovemaking—at a sex party didn’t exactly lend itself to cuddling afterward. Skye assumed it would be onto the next conquest, but there they were, talking about chocolate empires and shitty job interviews like they’d been friends for years.

“Just a moment,” Finn muttered, hopping out of the tub and crossing the bathroom with a few quick strides of those long legs. He’d slipped his black briefs on a while ago after complaining the tub was too cold to sit in totally nude, but Skye found it just the right antidote to her sore nether regions. Four years of nothing and then, out of nowhere, ravenous lovemafucking? Yeah. She’d definitely be feeling it tomorrow.

He returned a few moments later with her dress hanging over his arm—clean. Her eyebrows shot up, and she set aside the glass of water she’d been nursing.

“Is that…?”

“As promised,” he announced, unfurling it and shaking it out. “Not perfect, but better than if I’d left you to your own devices.”

Sure enough, most of the red wine stain had totally vanished. She only noticed a faint pink outline if she squinted hard enough. Impressive.

“Hey, I could have…” She laughed when he cocked his head to the side, waiting. “Okay, no, I would have totally ruined the dress. Thank you.”

“Of course.” Finn handed it back to her, and she resisted the urge to rub the just-out-of-the-dryer warmth against her cheek. “Listen, I don’t know how long you intended to be here tonight—”

“An hour, tops,” she said, Cole’s words a distant memory. Thinking about him plucked at the guilt strings within her, unseen fingers twanging each one and watching them vibrate. Cole. Where the hell was Cole?

“Well, if you’re leaving, then perhaps—”

“But I’ve been here more than an hour already,” Skye told him. “So, what’s up?”

His expression shifted from its cautious optimism to something a little giddier, which she appreciated. All these moguls, Cole included, were so tight-lipped about their emotions. Finn was a breath of fresh air in more ways than one.

“I need to fetch a few things, but why don’t you get dressed?” He grabbed his shirt off the ground, but didn’t button it up, then slipped into his trousers. “I’ll take you on a tour of the back gardens, maybe we can go down to the beach?”

Her eyes flickered to her purse, long abandoned on the bathroom counter. She hadn’t heard her phone go off once since she’d arrived. Cole hadn’t asked after her. Was he still playing poker, or had he found a girl he actually wanted to take to bed? Skye swallowed hard.

“Sure. Why not? I bet the view’s beautiful this time of night.”

“Clear skies,” Finn noted. “We can probably see Jupiter from here.”

He winked, then darted out of the room, leaving her grinning like an idiot—a grin that faded in his absence, those invisible fingers plucking at the guilt strings even harder.

No. Stop that. She didn’t deserve to feel guilty. Cole had made it perfectly clear that he wanted to maintain their friendship, the kind of bond she had with no one else in her life, so why force something that might ruin it? The contract had only said she couldn’t have any public relationships. Sex was mentioned in reference to Skye and Cole, not Skye and gorgeous strangers at swanky parties.

It wasn’t like she’d cheated. She and Cole weren’t in a personal, intimate relationship. Well, not a romantic one, anyway. In public, sure. Skye dragged the dress Cole had purchased over her head, catching her furrowed brow in the mirror. She and Cole were friends. Maybe more. But maybe not. Not officially. He hadn’t insisted she be celibate for the last four years—it was a decision she had made all on her own.

She squared her shoulders, then climbed out of the tub and stood in front of the mirror.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” she said firmly, then ruffled her hair. No matter how many times she repeated those words, the guilt didn’t go away.

And that wasn’t fair. Not to her, not to Finn, and probably not to Cole.

Cole didn’t want her.

“Shake it off, girl.” She leaned in and did what she could to fix her smudged makeup. “It’s just for tonight.”

Swallowing whatever weird mishmash of emotion that stilted her movements and muddied her thoughts, Skye primped, checked out the quality of her laundered dress, and sat around twiddling her thumbs. Eventually, she moved on to playing with her phone, something she did so rarely that she had no idea what to even do on there. After a quick email check—no job offers—she added her underwear to her intricate lingerie get-up, one that she couldn’t wait to take off now, and left the bathroom for the first time in what felt like hours.

No Finn.

Frowning, she retraced her steps back to where this had all begun: that fateful corner where two drunk girls had made her spill red wine all over herself. Still no Finn. The enormous house had quieted down in her absence, but a glance out the windows overlooking the back gardens and beach suggested most of the party had just moved outside, with and without their clothes.

Skye drummed her fingers on the ledge, breathing in the warm night air as an ocean-side breeze billowed across the property. Had Finn bailed on her? Had she misread him completely?

“Skye?”

She whirled around, heart leaping into her throat, as Cole’s voice echoed down the sparsely furnished corridor. He strode toward her with a familiar smile on his face, the kind that always affected her from head to toe. It still did, but in that moment, prickly guilt struck her, not flirtatious affection.

“Hey,” she managed when he kissed her cheek. “Where’ve you been?”

“The game went on much longer than I’d anticipated,” he said with a huff. “And by game, I don’t mean poker.”

She forced a laugh. “I figured as much.”

“I hope you weren’t too bored.” He dug out his phone when it chirped in his pocket, brow puckering slightly as he tapped around on the screen. “Are you ready to go? It’s a fucking madhouse in here.”

“Yeah… All those…sexual deviants.” Why did she feel like this? Cole didn’t want her like she wanted him. He’d made it perfectly clear over the last four years. She shouldn’t feel guilty. Being with Finn had been like coming up for air after living on the edge of drowning. Not that Cole had ever dragged her below the water’s surface, but maybe it was just the situation.

Cole slipped his phone away before appraising her. “You all right? You look a little…” Those bright eyes swept over her, assessing her with the attention to detail he was known for. “Flushed.”

“I’ve had a few to drink,” she told him, which wasn’t a lie. She was just more drunk on Finn Rai than she was on alcohol. “We can go if you’re finished.”

His head bobbed in agreement, though Skye didn’t miss the slight clench of his jaw. A flicker. A twitch of the muscle. It was a tic he’d never been able to hide whenever something bothered him.

“Yes, let’s get out of this den of lust,” he said, his chuckle sounding just as forced as hers had, “before we see something that neither of us will be able to forget.”

Skye folded her arms over her chest. “Agreed.”

They set out together, Cole seeming to know his way around the mansion better than her, but not ten steps down the hall did Skye hear her name bouncing off the walls again. Finn. She tensed at the sound of thundering footsteps, as though he were running. When he flew around the corner, he came to a sudden stop, eyes darting swiftly between her and Cole—a bottle of champagne in hand.

“Finn!” Cole greeted, his tone suggesting a connection between them that Skye had never heard of before. “How’re you, man? I’d hoped I’d see the host before we left. It’s been, what, five years since you were actually living in this country? I’d thought you had just rented the place out, not that you were throwing this soiree yourself…”

The two moved toward each other, hands extended and grasped. All the while Finn appeared to be trying very hard not to look at her.

“I thought you didn’t show,” Finn told him. “Did you get everything you needed? Bernard give you any trouble? I swear to God, that fucking greasy little prick—”

“No, I got him. It’s all settled.”

Skye fiddled with her dress, unsure where she fit in this unexpected turn of events. Of course, she assumed those who ran in Cole and Finn’s elite circles knew each other, but the way the pair spoke to one another, the way their body language read, suggested this was more than a casual acquaintanceship. This was friendship. She tried and failed to swallow the lump growing in her throat.

“Listen, are you two, er, heading out?” Finn rustled the bottle of Pinot Noir suggestively while Cole shook his head.

“No, no, I dragged this one out here with the promise that we’d be gone in an hour,” he insisted, holding a hand out to Skye with a breezy smile. “I think we’d best be off.”

Stiff legs carried her to him, and she slid her hand into his, noting the way Finn’s gaze followed the movement.

“Do you two know each other?” Cole asked, motioning between them. Skye almost lied and said no, but then she remembered Finn had been shouting her name as he hunted her down, face full of giddy mischief.

“We just met tonight,” Skye told him. “Finn was going to give me a tour of the beach.”

There it was again: the jaw flicker. A brief clench. The gesture noted by both she and Finn, who had tucked the champagne behind his back. His eyes narrowed slightly as he looked between her and Cole, and moments later, a frightening look of awareness, like he knew her most intimate secret, surfaced.

“Wait, Cole, is Skye your—”

“Listen, thanks for hosting,” Cole said curtly, “and, you know, for telling me Bernard would be here. He’s been annoyingly difficult to track down, even for me.”

“Yeah…” Finn sounded distracted, still studying her and Cole with a startling sharpness that made the man holding her hand fidget. “Sure. Of course.” Finn cleared his throat, suddenly more present. “I know how long you’ve been gunning for him. I figured it was time to end your silly cat-and-mouse charade before it got boring, right?”

“I appreciate it.” Cole let go of her hand in order to shake Finn’s, this time with a noticeable sense of finality. “Again, thank you. I’m sure it was a lovely party, but we’ve got to be going.”

“Of course. Get your assistant to pencil something in with mine before you jet off again.”

“Sure. We’ll do lunch. I’ve got this fantastic new personal chef at the house… The things he can do with raw fish will astound you.”

Skye just stood there, waiting for it all to end. The way something had seemed to click in Finn’s eyes when he looked between them—did he know the true nature of her and Cole’s relationship? Were they close enough that Cole would actually share that with him? Perhaps not her name, but maybe…

“It was a pleasure to meet you, Skye.”

She snapped out of her thoughts, smiling brightly as she always did at these sorts of things when someone actually paid attention to her. “Yes. It was really nice to meet you, Mr. Rai.”

Fuck. He seemed almost disappointed with her, but the look was gone before she could confirm it. Cole snagged her hand again, and, after a few more pleasantries, they were off. Neither said a word, not even as they descended that enormous stairwell down the hilly front lawn of the house.

Finn’s house.

Cole had said he was the host.

Over the pounding of her heart, she was finally able to dissect that conversation, her face in a permanent state of blush. Cole had made two references that Finn either owned the house, or, at the very least, was responsible for the orgy happening in its living room. Why hadn’t Finn said anything?

“Skye!”

Both she and Cole paused a few feet from their awaiting car, only to find Finn jogging down the stairs after them, her purse in hand.

“You left this in the…” He caught himself as Skye took the clutch back, Cole’s eyes burning holes into the side of her head. “Veranda. On the veranda. I didn’t want you to forget it.”

“Thank you,” she murmured, then turned away as quickly as she could. Cole already had the car door open for her, and she heard them exchanging stiff, albeit friendly, banter before Cole climbed in after her. Skye didn’t glance back as the car pulled away, but she knew by the way the hairs on her neck stood that Finn was at the curb, watching them go.

“Shall I take you home?” Cole asked.

“Please.”

“No pizza pick-up on the way?”

“I’m just tired,” she told him. Physically. Emotionally. She needed to crash and process her thoughts—and maybe her feelings too. Still, she managed a smile. “Thank you.”

He nodded. “Of course.”

About halfway home, she found the courage to ask the question she needed an answer to before they parted ways.

“How do you know Finn?”

“We’ve known each other for about ten years,” Cole admitted as he tapped around on his phone, not looking up at her. “We met just at the start of my first company taking off. A lot of people wanted things from me, but Finn just wanted…me, I guess. My friendship. He’s been making sure I don’t make a total fuck-up of myself ever since. It’s been a long time since we’ve even been in the same country. Seeing him was a pleasant surprise.”

“Oh.” She stared back out the window, watching the brief stretch of coastal highway turn back into the outer suburbs of Coral Bay. “That’s nice.”

“He’s a good man.”

“So are you,” she said without thinking. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Cole look up sharply—but when he spoke next, it was like she hadn’t said it at all.

“I’ve got something for you.”

When she tore her gaze from the window, she found him holding out a black envelope to her, which she accepted with a slight frown.

“What is it?”

“My poker winnings,” he said with a shrug, a hint of his easy smile returning. Her stomach did its usual somersault in response, the butterflies fluttering back to life. However, that all came crashing to a halt when she saw the amount inside the envelope. At first she thought it was a huge envelope of one-dollar bills—but billionaires don’t play poker with one-dollar bills.

“Cole, I can’t.” She tried to shove the envelope into his hands, but he pulled away, chuckling.

“Take it. I won it for you.”

“How much is this?” Skye demanded, a strange, unwelcome sense of panic making her chest tight.

“About ten thousand—”

“Cole!” They seldom discussed money, but she always refused to take anything that wasn’t related to rent, groceries, or tuition. That was probably why he showered her in expensive gifts whenever he breezed into town; she wouldn’t take cash. Skye didn’t want cash. Especially not when it felt like he was paying her for attending an orgy tonight—where she’d subsequently had sex with the host. “Take it back.”

“No, I don’t want it.”

“Cole.”

His expression fell slightly when her eyes watered, and he stopped fighting her when she all but threw the envelope at him. Flustered, Skye sat back in her seat and brushed her hair out of her face. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate the gesture. I just don’t want it. Donate it somewhere instead.”

Cautiously, Cole slid the envelope back into his jacket pocket. “Skye… I didn’t mean to… I hope I didn’t insult you. That wasn’t my intention.”

“You didn’t.”

“It sort of seems like I did.”

“I just…” She knew she ought to tell him what had happened, but not here. Not where someone could overhear—no matter how hard the driver pretended to be focused on the road. “It’s been a weird night. I’m sorry.”

He appraised her for a moment. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Skye said quickly.

“You sure?”

“I’m totally fine…” She flashed a smile. “I promise.”

He looked like he believed her.

Skye almost did too.