I woke slowly, like rising out of a warm cloud. I was sprawled on the expanse of Grant’s broad chest, his arm draped over my shoulders, and I felt so safe and secure in the shelter of his embrace. How could I ever have fought this? In this man’s arms was exactly where I belonged. All was right with the world.

“Sleep well?” he murmured, a sexily low morning rumble.

“Mmm, perfectly,” I said. I looked up at him, at that adorably sleep-rumpled morning hair, the print of the pillow on his cheek. He was sexy and disheveled and all, all mine.

He brushed a lock of hair out of my eyes and made a face. “Naughty hair. Kept me from seeing your lovely face.”

I blushed. “You have a lovely face.”

“Well, that’s a new one on me,” he said, not quite smirking yet. “And I beg to differ. Yours is the lovely one. It’s got lovely dark eyes—” he bopped my eyelids lightly—“a cute little nose—” another bop—“and an absolutely sinful mouth.”

His thumb stroked the edge of my lips, and I nipped it, drawing a growl from him that made my knees turn to jelly.

“And it’s got this lovely soft skin. In fact, you have lovely soft skin absolutely everywhere.” His hands began to roam, cupping my breasts. “I particularly like how it feels here—“

And then the phone rang.

I groaned and flopped face-down on his chest. “You should get that.”

I wasn’t looking at him, but I could hear the childish face he was making in his voice. “But it’s probably boring!”

I rolled off of him and sprawled on the silk sheets out of his reach. “Well, that’s the price of fake-being-with-me, Mister. You have to do lots of boring, grown-up, responsible things. It’s very high-maintenance. Think you can handle it?”

“I’d rather handle you,” he grumbled, and leaned over to blow a raspberry in my ear. I could feel his growing smile against my skin, though. “I think I can maybe make that sacrifice. Only for you, though.”

I tilted up my head for him to press a quick kiss to my lips. He took the opportunity to try to drag it out a bit longer, but pulled away when I gave him a playful shove, and took the bedside phone off the hook. He made a face at me as though I’d put salt in his Cocoa Puffs before answering.

“Yes, this is Grant Devlin. Look, the party was dragging, I wanted to show Lacey the grounds—well, I would have answered my cell, but it’s probably halfway down the stream on its way to Mexico by now—look, what was so important that you had to work your way down the list of phone numbers till you hit this one?”

A pause while the other person spoke, and Grant’s face went blank. All animation left his expression abruptly. He began to speak in monosyllables.

"Yes. I see. I can see that. No. I’ll deal with it. Yes. Bye.”

He put the phone down and stared off into the distance as if he had forgotten what came next.

“Grant, what happened?” I asked, sitting up with the blanket clutched around me. Alarm was beginning to bubble in my chest. “Is everyone okay? Did someone get hurt? Is it something with the company?”

“Bad news.” He cleared his throat. Why couldn’t he look me in the eye? For a few seconds I thought he wasn’t going to elaborate further, and then he went on, as though each word were stuck in his throat. “A tape. There’s—a tape. A sex one. It just leaked.”

“Of us?!” How the hell could that have happened? We’ve only had sex this night, and that one time in his hallway—did he have cameras—did someone spy on us—

“No, no. No. A girl I…dated…last year.”

“Oh,” I said.

I could feel the floor beginning to fall out from under me.

“Well.” The words seemed reluctant to leave Grant’s mouth. “Well, two girls. Whom I…dated…concurrently.”

“You can say the word ‘fucked,’ Grant,” I snapped. “I’m not going to faint.”

He reeled backwards from me, a hurt look on his face, as if I’d hit him. I wasn’t being fair, oh God I knew I wasn’t being fair and I felt guilty as hell seeing that lost puppy look on his face, but I couldn’t let him see how shocked and insecure I felt. I couldn’t.

I pulled the blanket tighter around my ample form, wondering what those two girls had looked like. Probably glossy blonde, deeply tanned. Probably thinner.

Certainly thinner.

They’d probably been daring and adventurous and hadn’t constantly demanded that he put in time and work and commitment and responsibility when he didn’t even love—

No, no, no. There was no time for this self-pity. There was work to do.

“Don’t give me that puppy dog look,” I said. I stood, turned my back to him, and started hunting for my clothes. “There’s no time for that. What did they say? How many people know?”

“It’s…on YouTube,” Grant said from behind me. “Every time they take it down, it comes back up.” He added almost shyly, like a peace offering, “There’s already an auto-tune parody.”

If he thought I was going to find that funny, with everything at stake—

I found my dress and pulled it over my head. Well, there’d be no secrets about what we had done last night, but no time to worry about that now. “And Jennings? Does he know?”

I could hear Grant swallow. His foot scuffed along the floor. “He’s been calling the company every five minutes.”

I pressed my hand against my forehead. Took a deep breath. Oh God.

This could undo everything.

* * *

I couldn’t face work, not now, not with everyone knowing about that video, so Grant agreed to take us back to ‘our’ apartment and try to run damage control from there.

As soon as I’d changed into formless jeans and a billowy T-shirt—I wanted to hide my body, wanted to hide it even from myself so I wouldn’t think about what I had done with him—I started pulling up the news sites and the gossip blogs.

I could hear Grant talking on the phone while in the kitchen—ordering food? Another peace gesture. Damn the man for being sweet to me at this moment. It made it so hard to be angry at him for his poor judgment.

Not that anyone else seemed to find his judgment poor—at least, not last year’s judgment. The comments sections were full of statements like “dam lukkit the rack on that blond” and “WTF is he doing porking that butterface when he can pull tail like this LMAO.”

The whole internet seemed to be laughing at me. My mouse hovered over the video. Don’t click, I told myself. Don’t do it. You don’t care what he did with them. You don’t care what he liked about them. You don’t—

I clicked.

* * *

I heard Grant’s footsteps and quickly exited the page, dashing the tears from my eyes. I was torn between relief that the video had barely started, and anger at myself for clicking Play in the first place. What the hell had I been thinking? That it would all be some sort of hilarious mistake?

Those were the kind of girls Grant wanted. Not me.

“Are you all right?” Grant sat down on the couch next to me, put his arm around my shoulder. “Don’t let it get to you, Lacey.”

“I’m fine,” I said stiffly.

“Bollocks,” Grant said. Then, more softly, his hand stroking my arm: “I’m sorry. You’re miserable, and it’s all my fault for putting you in this position. I never wanted to hurt you.”

“I know,” I said. Funny how I kept letting him do that anyway.

“Look, as someone who’s weathered a scandal or two?” His lips brushed my cheek and I could feel the beginnings of a smile, as if he were trying to coax one out of me as well. “For this first bit, things just have to run their course. There’s nothing we can do that won’t make it worse. All we can do is take care of ourselves. So…let me take care of you.”

His voice was so soft, so soothing. I wanted to lay my head on his shoulder and fall asleep and forget I ever even knew the definition of the word ‘trouble.’ He squeezed my shoulder tight.

“Let me take you somewhere fun, where we can think about something else for awhile.”

His fingers traced a figure eight on the skin of my forearm, and in that moment, I would have gone for a picnic in hell if he’d promised to be there with sandwiches and lemonade.

* * *

Ocean Beach may not be the best place to surf or catch a tan, but I’ve always loved it. I could feel my blood pressure going down the second Grant and I stepped from the car, and my anxiety seemed to seep away as we shed our shoes and walked along the coast, sinking our toes into the silky warm sand.

It was a windy, overcast day, which seemed to have driven the rest of the beach goers indoors, but something about the tranquil blues and greys of the sky and sea calmed me. It was as if the world was telling me that life goes on, that we are so small in the grand scheme of things and beyond our pretty trials and tribulations, the ocean always endures. Or whatever.

Grant scuffed his foot along the line of kelp, and spotting a hint of white, swooped down to find an unbroken sea dollar. He handed it to me with that shy smile that made my heart feel several sizes too big for my chest.

“Feeling better?” he asked.

“Much,” I said, trying to give him a smile back. “How did you know I love this beach?”

“I do listen to you when you talk, Lacey,” Grant said. “All evidence to the contrary.”

I didn’t even remember telling him.

We came upon a beautiful spot, high in the sand dunes but sheltered from the wind, and he spread the picnic blanket and took out our food—Trouble didn’t typically offer food to go, but it’s funny how quickly one flash of that Grant Devlin smile and a fifty under the table had changed that policy.

There were coconuts with holes bored into them, just needing a slight tap for the plug to come out before sticking in a straw and sucking up their sweet juice. There was toast slathered in peanut butter and honey, and—

“Here, try this,” Grant said, guiding a bit of toast into my mouth.

Sweet cinnamon exploded across my tastebuds, and I had to squeeze my eyes shut in ecstasy as I moaned. “Damn, that is like crack.”

“If you make sounds like that every time you eat it, I’ll have to bring you there every morning,” Grant said. “Wait—you’re shivering.”

“It’s nothing,” I said, and I meant it. It wasn’t the sunniest day, but it was lovely nonetheless, and I didn’t want anything to spoil this moment or make it end.

“Nonsense,” Grant said, and pulled me towards him. “Here What body heat I have, is yours.”

“Words every girl dreams of,” I said, relaxing back into his chest as his arms settled comfortably around my stomach. This really was much better. I snuggled into his warmth and watched the seagulls circle and swirl above us.

“I thought I’d try this ‘consideration’ business,” he said dryly. “I’ve heard it’s quite popular with the young ladies these days.”

“You romantic, you,” I said, chuckling and play-swatting his thigh.

He kissed my temple, one of his hands coming up to rub my back, unkinking the tension of the past several hours with sure, practiced caresses. “I can but try.”

I reached up and squeezed his other hand. “I do appreciate it. The trying.”

He pressed his lips to my temple again, lingering for a second longer there, and continued rubbing my back. We sat in contemplation there by the sea for what could have been hours or minutes; I was unaware of the time, only the steady rise and fall of the slate-grey ocean waves, and the feel of Grant holding me tight, occasionally reaching out to feed me another piece of slowly cooling toast, or offering me a sip of coconut water.

“We can stay as long as you want,” he said. “As long as you need.”

He was making it way too easy to fall in love with him, and right now, that was the very last thing I needed.