After the sultry warmth of the British Virgin Islands, the August heat beating down on the streets of New York City suffocates me like a hot, wet blanket draped over my shoulders. It’s one thing when it’s eighty-five degrees and you can leap into the sparkling Caribbean Sea to cool off. It’s entirely another when the walk from the subway to your office building has you ready to change outfits and camp out in the nearest refrigerator until mid-fall.

It might not have been the optimal season to go on a tropical weekend getaway—I’m imagining that watching a New York covered in snowdrifts shrink to the size of a snow globe would be even more satisfying—but going anywhere on Gideon’s plane, with him sitting beside me, is more than enough to make up for the fact that we went from hot to hotter.

From heat to an inferno, if you factor in everything that happened between us in that cottage.

Sitting at my desk Monday morning, I can feel the blush rising to my cheeks. I still can’t believe I agreed to go. I still can’t believe that over the course of one weekend, I went from having a first date with a man who was way out of my league to straddling him in a private jet on our way over the ocean.

“What are you grinning about?” Marina stands in the doorway of my office, her mouth quirked in a smile, arms crossed over her chest. 

“Oh, nothing,” I tell her with a little smile, waving my hand in the air like it was all really nothing and not the most momentous weekend of my entire life. “I had a pretty fantastic weekend, is all.”

This has her attention. Almost never does anything happen on the weekends, and Marina is the first to commiserate with me about how we had grand plans to visit museums or try some adventurous new restaurant but never got around to leaving the sofa. I’m not quite on her level—I do like to spend a few extra minutes in my building’s gym on the weekends, and in Sunnyside I’ve carved out a little neighborhood of spots to visit where the cafe owners know me on sight and there’s always a quiet table tucked away near a window where I can read.

Or in the case of two Sundays ago, daydream about Gideon Hawke.

“A fantastic weekend? Did you have a date?”

I can’t wipe the smile off my face, but I can’t give her all the details, either. There’s no way that would be a good move, given that plenty of people—especially women—in the city seem to know about him. “In a manner of speaking, yeah, I had a date.”

Marina narrows her eyes. “And it went very well.”

“I can’t argue with that.”

She opens her mouth, but the phone rings on my desk. Saved by the bell.

By the time I’ve calmed one Mrs. Josephine Harlowe, Marina has gone back to her office and it’s time for my lunch break.

I decide to go to a tiny Japanese restaurant down the block, sit at my usual table for one, and call Abby.

“I’m back in the city.”

She shrieks so loudly I pull the phone away from my ear. “Tell me everything.” 

“I don’t have time for everything,” I laugh. “I’m on lunch break. I only have an hour.”

“Are you going to see him again? Is he everything you ever hoped for in a man? Throw me a bone, Kennedy!”

I take a deep breath, another wide grin spreading across my face. “Yes, I’m going to see him again. And he was…” There aren’t sufficient words to describe Gideon Hawke and how he looked in the waves, in the sun, in bed. Not words that I want to say out loud to my sister. “He was amazing.”

“So the sex was incredible,” Abby sighs, and I wrinkle my nose.

“Let’s not go into details.”

“Let’s. Come on—how am I ever supposed to enjoy anything vicariously if you won’t tell me anything?”

Abby’s tone is light, teasing, excited, but it makes my heart twist in my chest to hear those words coming from her mouth. It’s not that Abby can’t have a physical relationship with a man. But from what I can tell, it’s not going to be anything like what Gideon and I have. The guilt sweeps over me at the same time that my sushi rolls arrive.

“Okay,” I say, biting my lip, heat flushing my cheeks for what must be the thousandth time today. “He’s—he’s a little dark and dirty.”

Abby gasps, and I laugh out loud. “Like, kinky?”

“I’m really not going to say much more about this.” I maneuver one of the rolls to the other side of the plate with my chopsticks. “But yes.”

“I’m dying. I’m dead.”

“I’m going to eat my lunch.”

“You’re not getting out of telling me every last detail and you know it. You owe me that much, Kennedy, because I’m the one who said you had to go, and by the sounds of it, you loved it—”

She’s still shouting at me when I cut her off with a “We’ll see!” and hang up, laughter bubbling in my chest. The moment my phone hits the surface of the table, it rings again.

Leah.

“Are you ready for this weekend, bachelorette best friend?”

“Are you ready for this weekend?” She says it with a laugh. 

“I’m more than ready. I have planned my role in your wedding down to every last detail, and I know it’s going to be absolutely amazing, and you’re going to be stunning, and—”

“Are you bringing your new boyfriend?” Her tone turns sly, laughter edging underneath it, and I blink at my sushi rolls.

“What?”

“Your new boyfriend,” she sings. “My maid of honor has a new boyfriend, and I want to know if he’s coming to the wedding.”

“I don’t have a boyfriend.”

“You’re telling me you didn’t go on some secret trip with one Gideon Hawke over the weekend?”

“How did you know about that?”

“I read the gossip sites, you silly girl. Those people are always watching the airports like hawks. There’s a nice photo of you de-boarding from his private plane. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me!”

I slap my hand to my forehead. “Oh, my God. Leah! I didn’t tell anyone. It was—it was a spur-of-the-moment thing that happened after our date last Friday, and—”

“Date? A date with the man who is arguably the hottest billionaire in the city and maybe on the planet?” I hold the phone away from my ear until she’s finished speaking.

“Yeah,” I say, and I’m blushing even as it hits me that I have no reason to be embarrassed about this, other than that I should have agreed to dance with him much sooner at the club. “A date, and then he took me to this resort in the Virgin Islands, and Leah, I went climbing on these rock formations there called the Baths.”

“Stop. Stop.” Leah’s voice is full of curiosity and laughter and secondhand joy. “You are going to tell me all about this, because I can’t believe you came out of your shell enough to do that. Meet me for drinks immediately after work.”

She hangs up before I can argue.