“Well, there you are,” Samira said that evening at Pub 221B. The restaurant, which featured tufted chairs, dark wood paneling and a long bar with polished brass, was hopping, with most of the tables full. “I thought you were going to cancel on me again.”

“No surgery for me tonight, thank God.” Melody, her best friend, gave Samira a quick hug and kiss before dropping onto the other side of the booth. “And how can you accuse me when you pushed back the time twice tonight?”

“Sorry about that. Things got a little crazy with the merger announcement today.”

“Is this stout for me?” Melody lunged for her glass. “God bless you.”

“I figured you’d need it,” Samira said, laughing. “So how was surgery last n—”

“Don’t even try it.” Melody looked incredulous. “I want to hear all about what happened with Baptiste. Am I pronouncing it right?”

“Yeah. The P is silent.” Samira kept her head ducked and her attention focused on the menu. Though she knew it would be impossible to evade Melody’s questions for long, Samira felt like she had to give it a try. The situation with Baptiste was too fresh, unsettling and personal to try to summarize right now, even with Melody. “I’m thinking about the shepherd’s pie.”

Making a derisive noise, Melody snatched the menu away and tossed it on the seat next to her, well out of Samira’s reach.

“Let’s just get it over with so we can move on with life.”

Samira sighed and glanced up again. “It’s a nonstarter. I’m not planning on seeing him again outside of work, so let’s drop it.”

Melody blinked. “Why not? He’ll be around for a little while, right? Isn’t this a chance to get to know him better?”

Samira gaped at her. “Why would I want to get attached to a guy who lives thousands of miles away from me?”

“So you don’t really like him, then?”

Samira opened her mouth, but all her denials ran and hid.

“So… you like him, but you don’t want to see him again?”

“Let’s just change the subject,” Samira said flatly.

“Not a chance.” Melody interlaced her fingers and rested her hands on the table, doing a pretty good impression of a lawyer taking a deposition and determined to get to the bottom of a witness’s convoluted story. All she needed was a legal pad, pen and stenographer. “Start at the beginning.”

“Fine.” Samira tried to look dignified even though flames of embarrassment were already licking at her cheeks. “I slept with him. Do you want to split the cheese plate for an appetizer?”

Melody gasped and rested her face on her hands, staring at Samira with unabashed nosiness. “Screw the appetizers. I want you to tell me all about it. What’s he like? What was the sex like? And what the hell’s gotten into you?”

Keeping a lid on her simpering grin turned out to be an impossibility in the same category as spinning thread into gold or getting all the kernels to pop in a bag of microwave popcorn. Samira sighed helplessly, giving up the fight.

“He’s got dark hair. Green eyes. Tall. Sexy.”

“And last night…?”

“Amazing.”

“Stop lying,” Melody said with open disbelief. “First times can be awkward.”

“Amazing.”

“You lucky bitch.” Melody grinned at her, offering up a hand. “Gimme some.”

They high-fived, giggling like preteens at a slumber party after midnight.

“What are we celebrating?” asked a wickedly amused male voice with a French accent.

Samira and Melody cringed, froze and exchanged a guilty look, after which Samira decided it was best just to play dead. Maybe if she wished for it hard enough, she’d discover that the shadow looming over the table was only a figment of her imagination.

“You’re not talking about me, are you?” Baptiste continued. He looked fantastic, having changed into skinny jeans and a leather jacket over one of his white shirts, with an artfully arranged scarf. He set a Pub 221B shopping bag evidently loaded with carryout food on the table and reached for Melody’s hand. “Jean-Baptiste Mercier. Winery owner and Samira’s frustrated lover. Pleasure.”

Samira stared up at him, entirely beyond speech.

So much for wishful thinking.

Melody, whose beet-purple face, wide, star struck eyes and gaping mouth suggested she’d swallowed her tongue, regained her composure enough to shake his hand and tilt her face for his double-cheeked kiss.

“Melody Harrison. Pediatric surgeon and Samira’s best friend. Great to meet you.”

“Pediatric surgeon? My buddy has a foundation that provides surgeries for needy children. Any interest in volunteering? I could put you in touch with him.”

“I’d love to hear more about it, sure,” Melody said, her ears perking up.

“Wonderful. It’s so kind of you ladies to ask me to join you,” Baptiste said, now unpacking his carryout and stacking clamshells on the table. “As I’m a stranger in town who knows practically no one. Americans are known for their hospitality.”

With that, he plunked himself down on Samira’s side of the booth, practically sitting in her lap and forcing her to hastily scoot over to make room for him. Then he signaled to the passing server, a pretty young thing who checked and stared at him as though he was Brad Pitt circa Thelma & Louise.

“How are you?” Baptiste said. “I think Melody needs another glass of her…it’s very dark, so that must be stout, correct?”

Melody nodded, her eyes threatening to consume the entire top half of her face.

“Yes, let’s have more of the stout for Melody, and I think Samira and I will share a bottle of the Perrier-Jouet. You liked that last night, Samira, didn’t you?”

Samira, who was feeling somewhat dazed by this point, focused all her attention on Melody, who pointed to the champagne on the menu.

That’s a three-hundred-dollar bottle, Melody mouthed.

Samira responded with a that’s Baptiste shrug and eye roll.

Baptiste, luckily, was too absorbed with the server to notice the nonverbal communications going on around him. “We’ll take the Belle Epoque Rose. Two-thousand four, if you have it. And maybe a cheese plate? I like to have an appetizer…”

Oh, my freaking God, Melody continued. He’s so hot!

I know, Samira mouthed back.

“Otherwise, I get fangry,” Baptiste concluded.

The server stopped simpering and focused. “Fangry?”

Baptiste waved an impatient hand. “You know. Famished and angry. Fangry.”

The server laughed, utterly charmed with Baptiste, as all females seemed to be. “You mean hangry. Hungry and angry.”

“Absolutely. Hangry,” Baptiste said, beaming up at her. “Thank you.”

“Thank you,” said the server, whose expression had been replaced by an emoji with red hearts for eyes. Samira sourly made up her mind on the spot not to go to the ladies’ room for the duration, lest she return and find the server draped across Baptiste’s lap, feeding him nibbles from the cheese plate by hand. Not that Samira was jealous or possessive or anything, because she definitely wasn’t. “I’ll be right back with the champagne.”

“We did not invite you to join us, Baptiste,” Samira said when the server walked off.

“Melody would have, surely,” he said.

“True.” Melody grinned. “This gives me a chance to vet you.”

“Understood,” Baptiste said, resting his elbows on the table and leaning into his conversation with Melody. “Samira sent you my picture and told you she would be with me last night.”

“Yep,” Melody said, sipping her stout.

“And, judging from the looks on your faces when I arrived, Samira also shared that we made love. All night. It was incredible. Am I right?”

Samira made an outraged noise; Melody, meanwhile, choked on her stout and spewed a mouthful across the table, narrowly missing them both.

“It’s okay.” Baptiste remained unperturbed as Melody hastily reached for a napkin and wiped her mouth and the table. “You’re friends. You talk. I don’t mind. We’re all adults.”

Samira began to recover.

“I am sitting right here, Baptiste. Kindly do not talk about me like I’m invisible.”

Baptiste shrugged with complete indifference. “I know you’re there. Kindly do not interrupt me when I’m having an important conversation with your best friend.”

Melody stifled a laugh.

“Yeah. Okay,” Samira snapped. “First of all? Melody’s loyalty is to me. Not you. If I don’t want her to discuss my personal life with you, then she won’t.”

“Melody makes her own decisions,” Melody interjected.

“Second,” Samira said, shooting Melody a withering glance across the table, “our relationship is private—”

“Not that private, evidently, because you were just discussing it with Melody.”

“—and if there’s something you want to know, why don’t you ask me?”

Derisive snort from Baptiste. “And why would I waste the time to do that when you weren’t honest with me this morning?” He frowned thoughtfully. “Although you did just admit that we have a relationship. That’s some progress.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Samira said.

Baptiste didn’t dignify that with a response. Instead, he focused on Melody with a new urgency. “Is she still in love with Terrance? She says not, but…”

“No, no,” Melody said quickly. “That’s not an issue.”

“But she’s so determined to keep me at arm’s length now. Such torture after last night,” Baptiste said.

Torture.

Good word, Samira thought with an ache of longing in her belly.

“Hmm,” Melody said, averting her eyes for a delicate sip of her stout.

Baptiste tensed. Cocked his head to study Melody more closely. “You know something.”

“Hmm?” Melody continued both to sip and to avoid eye contact. “Huh-umm.”

Samira suddenly got a bad feeling. “Are we done with this ridiculous conversation now? Can we move on to something—”

“Shhh.” Baptiste flapped a hand to shut her up. “Melody was about to tell me something important.”

“No, she wasn’t,” Samira said, giving Melody a pointed warning look.

Wrong thing to say.

Melody thunked down her drink and hitched up her chin in that habitual gesture of defiance that never boded well for Samira or any other recipient. “Maybe I was.”

“What is it, ladies?” Baptiste divided his shrewd attention between them. “Spill.”

Samira crossed her arms, starting to get seriously annoyed. “I don’t have to spill anything—”

“Fine,” Melody said brightly. “I’ll tell you, Baptiste—”

“I was adopted,” Samira blurted, aiming a kick at Melody under the table. Melody yelped. “Melody thinks it’s relevant to my dating life. I disagree. The end. Happy?”

There was a long pause.

Then Baptiste nodded thoughtfully, his expression vaguely troubled. “Thank you for sharing with me.”

“I didn’t share. I was forced.” Samira aimed another kick at Melody, who dodged it this time. “And like I said, my adoption status has nothing to do with anything.”

The server returned just then, which was a good thing because Baptiste didn’t look convinced by Samira’s denials. At all.

“Ah, the cheese and champagne,” he said, snapping himself out of his thoughts. “Thank you.”

The bedazzled server—maybe it was Samira’s imagination, but she could swear the woman had touched up her lipstick—made a whole production over arranging the cheese plate, popping the cork and pouring the champagne. Probably looking for an opening to slip her phone number to Baptiste, Samira thought, annoyed.

Samira took advantage of the distraction and sent Melody a text: Thanks a lot!

Melody: *SHRUG*

Samira: Don’t you dare fall for his routine!!!

Melody read the text, rolled her eyes and answered: I do what I want.

Samira: WTF??? with a scowling face.

Melody: Don’t make me block you with a tongue stuck out.

“Cheers, ladies,” Baptiste said, raising his glass when the server eventually departed.

“Thanks for the drink,” Melody told him, putting down her phone and clinking his glass.

“My pleasure.” Baptiste beamed at her, then turned to Samira and waited.

Glaring at him, Samira grabbed a cracker off the platter and crunched it loudly.

Baptiste sighed loudly. “Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face, Samira. If you don’t toast and make eye contact, we have seven years of bad sex. After last night, I think we can both agree that would be a tragedy.”

Melody laughed despite Samira’s withering glare.

“Fine.” Samira raised her glass and clanked it with his as artlessly as she could. “But only because I don’t want to have bad sex with anyone.”

“As you wish,” Baptiste said easily, inclining his head, but the gleam of irritated amusement in his eyes as he drank told Samira she’d just made an unforced error. She’d inadvertently issued him a challenge, and he took it as such. “Now may I resume my important conversation with your best friend?”

Samira crossed her arms and sat back to see what he would say, curiosity getting the best of her. “Be my guest.”

“Lovely.” After a pause to make sure Samira didn’t interrupt again, Baptiste focused on Melody. “The thing is, this morning I told Samira how eager I am to see her again. Yet she wants nothing further to do with me. Very hurtful. And I don’t understand why. I’m a charming and fun guy. Everyone says so.”

“Samira is very guarded,” Melody said, deftly avoiding Samira’s latest kick under the table. “She doesn’t make it easy for anyone to get close. Especially men.”

“Understood,” he said. “But did I do something wrong?”

Though she knew this was all part of his orchestrated charm offensive, Samira heard the veiled note of hurt in his voice and felt the corresponding tug on her heartstrings.

She ducked her head, hastily grabbing a bite of cheese.

Melody studied Baptiste closely. “Well, you’re sexy. Generous. Funny. But I just met you, and I haven’t had the chance to look you up online yet. So it’s tough for me to judge.”

“Merde,” he muttered, draining his glass and pouring a refill. “Don’t believe everything you read when you do look me up online.”

The women exchanged an uh-oh look.

Melody focused all her attention on him. “If there’s a story there, we might as well hear about it from you.”

“There have been…” Baptiste flapped a hand. Flapped it again. Cleared his throat. Sipped his champagne. “Women.”

“Oh,” Melody said, her expression falling.

“That reminds me,” Samira told Melody, snapping her fingers. “I forgot to mention that some woman sent him a naked pic this morning. I told him it was none of my business, but he said it was. He claims it was never anything serious with this woman. Says it’s over now.”

“Well, everyone has an ex,” Melody said fairly. “The question is whether she knows she’s an ex.”

“That’s what I said,” Samira said triumphantly.

“She knows,” Baptiste said, sipping his champagne.

“You must be giving her mixed messages,” Melody told him. “Otherwise, what’s she hanging around for?”

“Money,” Baptiste muttered.

“You’re not still giving her any…?” Melody asked.

“No. But hope springs eternal.”

Melody eyed him closely for several seconds. He met her level gaze without blinking.

This continued for several beats, until Melody nodded decisively.

“I believe him,” she told Samira.

“If only everyone did,” Baptiste said with a sidelong glare at Samira.

“Eh, she’ll come around,” Melody said.

“Let’s hope,” he said.

“So you have a lingering ex,” Melody said. “But no stalkers?”

“No,” Baptiste said.

“Arrests?”

“No.”

“Drugs? Alcohol?”

“No.”

“Baby mama drama?”

“No. But my dead parents were a nightmare. I freely admit that.”

“Define nightmare,” Melody said, taking the words right out of Samira’s mouth. “As in you can’t sit down to dinner together at the holidays? Or did your mother try to run over your father with her car?”

Baptiste tilted his head and thought that over. “More the latter. Sadly. But that has nothing to do with me as a person. Nothing to do with Samira and me getting to know each other better. I mean… Why be so serious? Why not have fun and see where the mood takes us?” His shoulders slumped as he reached for a piece of cheese. “If only she saw it that way.”

“So all you want from Samira…?” Melody asked delicately.

Another thoughtful pause from Baptiste. He looked to Samira, acknowledging her presence for the first time in a while. She’d been having a tough time sitting quietly this whole time, but she risked a peek at him, her heartbeat thumping steadily in her throat.

“Samira?” he said quietly, unsmiling. “The thing about Samira is that…I love to see her eyes sparkle. It feels important to make sure they sparkle all the time.”

A piece of Samira’s frozen heart melted.

Melody, meanwhile, emitted a tiny gasp of appreciation that didn’t help matters.

At all.

One of them needed to keep her head on straight where Baptiste was concerned, and since it evidently wasn’t going to be Samira, Melody should step up to the plate.

Samira would have immediately fired Melody from her position as best friend (what kind of best friend melted into goo after a glass of beer and a couple of pretty words from a foreigner?), except that Samira was so lost in the intensity of Baptiste’s gaze that she was in no position to make personnel decisions.

“Well.” He laughed shakily, ruffling his hair until it looked like it had this morning, when he got up from their rumpled bed. “Please excuse me. I want to give you ample opportunity to talk about me behind my back. Why don’t you both order your dinners? My treat, of course.”

With that, he strode off toward the men’s room.

Melody barely waited until he was out of hearing range before she turned on Samira like a rabid Doberman. “Have you experienced a head injury that I need to check out? Because that’s the only reason I can think of that would make you kick him out of your bed. Even if he only wanted to be there for ten minutes. What the hell is wrong with you?”

Oh, for God’s sake.

Samira scowled. “I’m being smart. I’d think you’d understand and be supportive.”

“What? What’s smart about missing out on sex with a man like Baptiste? And you need a rebound guy anyway.”

“I’ve rebounded!”

Melody smacked her forehead and groaned. “One night does not a rebound make, genius. I’m surprised you don’t know that.”

“Yeah? Well, where will my fragile self-esteem be when he skips off back to France in a couple days? Or drops off the face of the earth and never calls me again? I’ve already had one romantic kick in the teeth recently. That’s enough for the year, thanks.”

“Why are you painting doomsday scenarios? You don’t know what’s going to happen. Maybe you’ll get sick of him before he gets sick of you. Maybe you’ll get mutually sick of each other and this thing will die a natural death with no one getting hurt on either side. Ever think of that?”

Samira gestured in the departed Baptiste’s direction. “You saw him! How likely is that? And you, of all people, shouldn’t want me involved—in any way—with another unavailable man. What’s next? Fixing me up with some nice married man you know?”

Melody thought that over. Shrugged with reluctant agreement. “So you go into it with your eyes wide open. If he shows up? Fine. If not? Fine.”

“You cannot be serious.”

“It’s not like you knew Terrance was unavailable when you got together with him, honey. You’re way ahead of the game with Baptiste. At least you know what you’re getting and not getting. As long as you keep it casual, where’s the harm between consenting adults?”

Where was the harm? Rarely had Samira heard such a stupid question.

But, in fairness, Melody had no idea how Baptiste had commandeered Samira’s every waking thought today. Nor did Melody know about the aching fullness Samira still felt between her thighs, a delicious remnant from last night, or, worse, the insidious curiosity about Baptiste that held Samira in an unbreakable stranglehold.

What was his home like? His family? What did he eat for breakfast? Did he own any pets? No detail of a human being’s life was too mundane for Samira to wonder about it when it came to Baptiste.

And to think she’d thought about him this much today, when everyone at the winery had been frantically busy with merger business. How much more would she think about him on a normal day, when she had more time?

She kept telling herself that she didn’t need him and didn’t want the dating drama, but that was the thing about Baptiste. He felt like the kind of man a woman might grow to need, whether she wanted to or not.

And Einstein, here, believed that as long as Samira made up her mind to keep it casual, everything would be okay.

Please.

When it came to potential emotional damage, wasn’t Samira’s incubating obsession with Baptiste just as bad as falling in love?

“Keep it casual?” Samira echoed. “Really? That’s the best you’ve got? What do I keep you around for?”

“I don’t know.” Melody darted a quick glance over Samira’s shoulder. “But remember: I love you, and this is for your own good. So I hope you forgive me one day.”

On that cryptic note, Melody pulled out her phone, hit a button and held it to her ear.

“Yes, this is Doctor Harrison,” she said loudly.

What the—?

“What are you doing?” Samira asked, baffled.

“Uh-huh. Uh-huh.” Melody nodded and listened intently, launching into a D-list performance that had the potential to fool no one. “Yeah, okay. I’m on my way.”

“Oh, come on,” Samira muttered, starting to get the picture just as Baptiste returned to the table, one brow quirked.

Melody glanced at her watch as she grabbed her bag, scooted to the edge of her seat and stood, still talking into the phone. “I can be there in ten minutes. Has the lab come back with the blood work yet? Can you check on it? Great. Thanks. Okay, bye.”

“Is everything okay?” Baptiste asked.

“Just got called in to the hospital,” Melody said with exaggerated regret, hitting a button and holding up the phone as proof. “Accident. I’ve got surgery. Sorry.”

“There was no accident.” Rising panic made Samira shrill, but what could she do? No way was she going to participate in Melody’s little charade, especially if it threw Samira to this sexy French wolf. “You made the whole thing up so you could leave me alone with Baptiste. You’re a terrible actress.”

Melody shot her a sweetly puzzled look as she slung her bag over her shoulder, all but levitating with angelic innocence. “What do you mean?”

“No one’s falling for your sad little matchmaking routine,” Samira snapped. “You should be ashamed of yourself. Honestly, I’m embarrassed for you. Keep your day job, Viola Davis.”

That was the moment that Baptiste stepped in and became complicit with his Machiavellian coconspirator.

“If Melody says she has surgery, I’m sure she has surgery.” Mischief glimmered in his bright eyes. “Why would she make up a story? Americans are known for their honesty. Anyone will tell you.”

“Thank you, Baptiste.” Melody shot Samira a reproachful look. “I don’t know what Samira’s problem is tonight. You sure you want to get to know her better?”

“Oh, I’m sure,” Baptiste said silkily.

“Well, I’d better go,” Melody said, hastily tossing back a good four ounces of her stout and wiping her lips with a napkin. “Don’t want to be late for my procedure.”

“Does the medical board know you like to drink before your procedures?” Samira asked, watching while Melody opened up her napkin, deposited several pieces of cheese and crackers into it and tucked her ad hoc doggy bag into her purse.

“All the best surgeons do.” Melody waved an airy hand before leaning in to kiss Baptiste good-bye. “Great meeting you, Baptiste. I have a good feeling about you. As long as you don’t make me regret my decision to, ah…”

“Hand your best friend over on a silver platter?” Samira suggested caustically.

“Head into surgery without seeing Samira home first,” Melody said.

“I won’t,” Baptiste said solemnly.

“Great.” Melody nodded with crisp satisfaction. “Call me tomorrow, Sam.”

“Can’t. I’ll be too busy interviewing applicants for my new best friend,” Samira said.

Laughing, Melody strode off.

Leaving Samira breathless and unsettled as Baptiste slid into the booth across from her.