Nobody tells you about the sick feeling you get in your stomach when you’re in a “real relationship.”

It’s like being at the top of the beginning of a rollercoaster, weightless and breathless with anticipation. You know the drop is going to scare the living shit out of you, but you can’t wait. Your heart pounds and you want to hang on so tight you’re literally white-knuckling it. And then you fall, and the wind drowns out your screams.

Being in a “real relationship” was living in a constant state of anticipation, waiting for the next dip or bump, the next loop-de-loop. Happiness equaled fear.

To that end, Zoe fucking terrified me.

She saw through the arrogant, hard-nosed bullshit to the man who didn’t know where his mother went after she left him and his father. She saw that my relationship with Benjamin Brownlow was distant and wished she could change it.

She wanted to take care of me, and not just by baking cookies or straightening the apartment. She updated my website for me with better copy. She read up on the real estate market in the city so she could talk to me about work. She cooked bacon—perfectly—on Saturday mornings.

She wanted to cuddle.

I’d never been a cuddler. I’d never had a woman in my bed, or spent the entire night in someone else’s. Just like in my business, I was invested in the transaction. Once the papers were all signed, I was out. Zoe was pretty damn close to getting possession of me, and I was getting ready to hand over the keys.

By mid-August, we were unnervingly happy. Even Marcus couldn’t stand to be around me, and I’d skipped War and Peace for the book club. Life was good… enough.

Then one Sunday morning Zoe’s phone beeped as we sat naked in my big bed, the newspaper strewn around us like we were adrift on an origami life raft.

Her phone bleeped again. When she grabbed it from the nightstand, she made an even louder noise of alarm.

“What?” I asked, reaching for the Week in Review.

“They’re here.”

“Who?” Were we expecting someone? Was she supposed to meet her friends for brunch or something?

“Mom and Benny.”

I dropped the paper. “What?”

They were supposed to be in Nepal or something, weren’t they? I didn’t know; it’s not like I got emails or post cards. And I didn’t care—normally.

I was sure Zuzu was a nice lady, and I’d be polite when I met her. I sure as fuck didn’t plan my introduction to my new “stepmother” to coincide with my come drying on her daughter’s tits.

Zoe flung off the covers, sending papers rustling into a disorganized pile. A moment later I heard the shower go on. I reached for her phone, but it had locked and I couldn’t see what the message was. I joined her in the shower, where she was already furiously shampooing her hair.

“Here. You mean here in the city?”

She nodded, her blue eyes squeezed shut against the bubbles as she rinsed her head. Her beautiful face was squished into a rictus of anxiety. The hot water heightened the color in her ass where I spanked her the night before. My dick bobbed at the memory. Not the time, my friend.

“Pierre? Plaza? I don’t know, some hotel,” she babbled. “Benny needs to meet with his lawyer about something. Trip was good; they went vegetarian while they were in India. Something about sacred cows.” She was close to hysterical.

She got all of that from a text? The only part that resonated with me was “lawyer.” I smoothed my hands over her shoulders and upper arms. “Calm down, sweetheart.” Holding her, I turned her so I could sluice off under the spray. “We’re all grown-ups.”

One of us more so than the other. When I was whooping it up with buddies on Wall Street at age twenty-four, Zoe would have been cute, blue-eyed, red-haired jailbait. I tried not to think about that too much, especially now when she was squeaky clean, her freckles standing out on her face and sporting tan lines from her tank tops. It was bad enough we were related—although by marriage, she always reminded me. Still…

She wrapped her arms around herself, lost in her own head as I scrubbed my head and face. “Oh my god, she’s going to kill me. She’s going to kill you!”

Fuck. She had a point. “They’re not coming here.” It wasn’t a question. “We’ll meet them somewhere.”

After drying off, we began dressing faster than we’d ever undressed, which was pretty damn impressive. Zoe nearly fell over trying to put her panties on—a tragedy on at least two different levels.

I frowned. “Why the fuck are we panicking?”

I shook my head, disgusted with myself. Nathan Brownlow didn’t panic. Sure, if there were millions of dollars on the table, I’d raise an eyebrow. But I was calm, cool, and the master of my fate.

Besides, what did I have to be afraid of? I was a successful man. I had bought and sold a billion dollars worth of real estate. I had dated models. I worked hard and played hard and deserved every fucking thing I had.

Except for Zoe.

The pounding of my heart trebled as I realized she could easily leave me. Now that Zuzu and Benny were in town, they could support her move to a new apartment, or encourage her to apply for other jobs outside of New York… Not that I couldn’t have done those things. In fact, why hadn’t I? I could have paid for Zoe to live at a hotel all summer.

The fact was that I didn’t want her to. After the first week, I was hooked—and not just on the cookies.

She giggled, visibly relaxing. “You’re right.” Standing in front of me, she dangled a bra from each hand. “So which one should I wear? The one that matches or the one that fits?”

My hands went to palm her breasts. I could be her bra. I’d happily hold her tits all day long. “This is a trick question, isn’t it? The answer is C—none of the above.”

She rolled her eyes and threw the one that matched behind her into the open drawer. “Do you think I have time to blow dry my hair?” she asked.

Her question made me pause. In my work, I’d found that the more frantic you felt, the more important it was to slow down. I dropped to the edge of the bed in a tee shirt and my boxer briefs, my body reacting to the way her gaze flitted down my body. Not now, I told my dick.

“This is stupid, Zoe. Of course you have time. We’re getting crazy for nothing. What did your mom say, anyhow? ‘Hi, we’re in town. Let’s get together?’”

She bit the side of her cheek. “True. She wasn’t exactly specific.” Based on her earlier quotes, Zuzu had been more specific about their vacation diet than plans to meet up. “Did Benny text you?”

My eyebrows shot up. “You’re kidding, right? I’ve made love to you more times than Benjamin Brownlow has ever texted his son.”

Her mouth fell open. “Wha—”

I put my hand up. “Don’t do the math, please.” It would be humiliating if I let myself care enough.

“Oh, Nathan.” Judging from the way her eyes were glittering, it wasn’t the math that had impressed her. She stood between my knees, still nude but for her panties. Like magnets, my hands went to her hips as she bent over and kissed me.

“What?” Was she going to cry? I really hoped not.

“You said you made love to me.”

I mentally replayed my words. Damn. So I had. I hadn’t actually told her I loved her, did I? “Make love” was just a figure of speech, mostly. Wasn’t it?

Needing to feel her connected to me, I kissed her until her mouth opened under mine. The newspapers crumpled as I hauled her onto the bed with me. We would probably have newsprint on our freshly showered bodies now, but I didn’t really care.

We lay side by side, nearly as naked as we’d been thirty minutes prior, but now we wore stupid grins. I cradled her face in my hands.

“Believe me,” I told her as I traced her eyebrows with my thumbs. “There have been quite a few times that I’ve just fucked you as well.”

She sighed. “My mom is still going to kill me.”

I wished I could make a joke about mothers loving me, but the reality was that mine didn’t, and I’d never gotten far enough in a relationship to meet any alternatives. As it was, I hoped Zuzu liked me. And I hoped, really and truly, that I liked Zuzu.

Zoe’s phone beeped again. She stiffened before rolling out of my embrace to check it. Her eyes widened. “They are on their way.”

My phone rang. It was the ring tone assigned to building security, when I had a visitor that wanted to come up.

The rest of our clothes went on fast. For the first time since I was a teenager, my voice was unsteady as I spoke to my father to invite him up. “Invite” might have been overstating it a bit. I wasn’t planning on meeting him at the elevator like I did with Zoe, after all. And I had every intention of using the fisheye to make sure it was he at the door. Every extra second counted in delaying the inevitable, in my opinion.

“How do I look?” she asked. She was wearing the white dress that had been my undoing on the Fourth of July, with a little blue cardigan over it matching her eyes. My body reacted viscerally to the memory, but there was no point—or time—to tell her to change.

Her hair was drying in waves around her head, her naked face pale and freckled. She was beautiful, and she looked like she was about sixteen years old. Fuck, I was going to jail. Zuzu was going to see the lust in my eyes and go mama bear on my ass.

“Hi!” Zoe opened the door and her heart, as usual, to our parents. Our parents. Oh god.

“Baby!” A tiny woman with unnaturally red hair latched on to Zoe like a baby orangutan. She wore a long, flowing skirt, a peasant blouse, and her ankles had bells on them. No kidding. If I thought Zuzu was a shock to the system, then my jaw just about hit the hardwood when I turned my gaze on my father.

Benjamin Brownlow, former banker and professional asshole, was sporting safari wear and a beard. And hippie sandals.

“Zoe!” My voice came out faint, just like how I felt. Her head spun around at the strangled sound of my voice, then followed my line of sight.

“Benny!” She let go of her mother to go hug my father. He hugged her back.

The buzzing in my ears was getting louder, black spots popping up in my vision. Yeah, I was being dramatic, but seriously? The last time I saw my father he was taking me to task for not maximizing my capital gains tax deductions. Five years apart, or perhaps Zuzu, had changed him.

“Nathan.” He nodded at me over Zoe’s bright hair. Apparently his smile was reserved for her. I only ever got to see his teeth when he was going in for the kill.

“You’re Nathan! I’ve heard so much about you!” Zoe’s mother flew at me.

My hand shot out to stop her with an awkward handshake before she could embrace me. “Nice to meet you, Zuzu.”

“Uh, same here.” Her smile faded, making me simultaneously relieved and feeling like shit. Zoe stepped back from my father and moved to my side, frowning at my cool politeness.

“How long are you in town?” I asked politely.

“Come in!” Zoe jabbed me in the side with her elbow, beaming at the parental units. “Would you like something to drink? I hadn’t gotten around to making coffee yet this morning…”

“Oh sweetie, we’re both off coffee now. Only herbal tea for us!”

I choked on my own saliva at Zuzu’s words as the three of them found seats on the couch. Pretty soon I was going to wake up from this bizarre dream and find Zoe’s head bobbing over my cock.

Soon… anytime now.

“Nathan?” Zoe was shooting me a strange look, and I realized I was still holding the door wide open to the hallway. It didn’t appear that anyone was doing a U-turn, either. Damn.

“Thank you for hosting Zoe,” my father said. “We were worried when we got her message about the sublet falling through, but then we were out of touch at the monastery. I know Zuzu—and I,” he added, “appreciate your hospitality.”

Zuzu stared at her husband as though he’d swallowed a concierge in front of her. Clearly she’d never seen this formal side of him, since she’d never witnessed us interacting.

“No problem.” I cleared my throat, sitting down beside my girlfriend—wait, girlfriend? “It all worked out. We even worked out a bathroom schedule.”

Zoe suddenly coughed, presumably to hide her snigger.

Adventure Dad looked at me curiously. “I hope she didn’t cramp your, uh, style.”

Oh shit. In a split second, I recalled a drunken argument over toying with BDSM. He accused me of being a possessive power freak, and I shot back that it was due to his own negligent attachment parenting. Or something like that, only less coherent since we were both knee deep in scotch at the time.

Zuzu patted Benny’s knee. “I’m sure she didn’t. Zoe has always been a real people-pleaser. I just hope she didn’t overstep—she can be kind of touchy-feely,” she informed me.

Her people-pleasing daughter went bright pink, possibly remembering recent touchy-feely times. I just smirked and said nothing, leaning back on the couch and putting my hands behind my head.

My father’s eyes narrowed at me. Adventure Dad was on the hunt for big game. He glanced over at Zoe, who was having trouble containing her blushes. Why did I have to fall in—argh, why did I have to date a woman whose complexion concealed nothing?

I leaned toward her. “Relax. You look guilty.”

“We are guilty,” she whispered.

“Guilty of what?” Zuzu inclined her head. “Two weeks in the monastery really heightened our sense of hearing,” she explained.

Zoe and I looked at each other. I raised my eyebrow, along with a corner of my mouth. Well?

She took a deep breath, grabbed my hand, and turned to our parents. “Moop.” She clapped a hand over her mouth.

My father barked out a sharp laugh. “I think what Zoe is trying to say, dear, is that Nathan is fucking her.”

“Benny!”

Now there was the Benjamin Brownlow I knew. “Thanks, Dad.” I saluted him with my middle finger.

Zoe’s fingernails dug into my hand. “Meep,” she bleated pitifully. Clearly her brain and mouth were still having trouble connecting. How much was tuition for a Communications degree, anyhow? Could she get her money back?

Zuzu looked between the three of us like we were a round robin tournament of embarrassment. She and Benny let their opinions loose at the same time.

“Are you in love?”

“Are you out of your goddamn mind?”

I hauled Zoe closer—not that she could get much closer without being on my lap—and brought my body in front of her so she was out of the line of fire. Then I took a deep breath.

“Yes.”