I’d had no idea anyone could be so good at sex.

Julian Bastille was… an experience. I now realized that the tales Jen had told weren’t exaggerations in the slightest—if anything, they failed to fully capture the extent of his prowess. It had little to do with the mechanics of the act itself, though he was awfully good there. It was that he invested himself in the act in a way I’d never seen before, committing so completely that it was easy for me to feel like I was the only woman in the entire world.

“Holy shit,” I breathed, a slow, lazy smile spreading across my face as he lay next to me, arm draped across my stomach. “That was incredible.”

“I aim to please,” he rumbled, and for the first time since I’d met him, I was actually starting to enjoy that accent of his. I didn’t think I’d ever been so at peace. The weight of Julian’s arm over me brought about a sense of comfort and safety I hadn’t felt in such a long time. I was prepared to drift off into sleep right then and there.

“I guess now I’ve got something to brag about,” I teased as I turned onto my side to face him. “I don’t think I’ve ever come that hard in all my life.”

Julian’s eyes glinted as he looked down at me, stroking my hair back from my face. “Well, there’s plenty more where that came from, love.” The effortless way he could produce a quip, which had annoyed me before, now just about melted my ovaries. I sighed into him as he drew me close, kissing the crown of my head and tucking me beneath his chin.

We were silent for several moments, the two of us utterly entwined and neither one willing to move. If you’d told me just twenty-four hours ago that I’d be naked in Julian Bastille’s arms, and enjoying it, I would have laughed straight in your face. And yet here I was, doing just that. And as content as the cat who ate the cream, no less.

I was starting to think maybe I’d been wrong about him. Not only was Julian amazing in the sack, but the more time I spent with him, the more I began to see a side of him that they never showed on the gossip shows and in the tabloids. The Julian Bastille I saw now was tender and sweet, someone who might actually be father-, and even husband-material if he ever got his act together. This wasn’t the smart-ass, selfish boozehound and playboy that I had come to expect. This was a man worth knowing. Worth trusting, even.

Was this really happening? Was I actually considering this man to not only be the father of the kid growing inside of me, but also my husband?

I blame the endorphins, I thought, trying to assuage myself of any lingering guilt about these conflicting thoughts. They’ve got to account for some of this insanity. Right?

But no amount of mental gymnastics were enough to wash away the warm and fuzzies. With a reluctant grumble, I kissed over Julian’s bicep and shoulder, following the path of his tattoos. When I got to his pec, he chuckled and stirred beside me.

“Are you trying to get me started on round two?” he asked. I was glad I was lying down—the gravelly purr of his voice made my knees weak.

“Maybe,” I hummed, rousing his nipple to attention with my tongue. He twitched against me, and not unpleasantly. “Actually, I was going to ask what these mean.”

“Which?” he asked, cocking his head at me. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

I took in the spread of ink that drifted down one whole side of his body. After a time, I let my fingertips settle upon the scales of the koi near his hip bone, painted in splashes of gold and atomic tangerine. “This one.”

“Ah,” Julian said, “that’s the one everyone always asks about.” He shifted slightly to give me better access to its full span. “It’s in memory of my grandmother.”

I looked up at him then. That was certainly not the answer I had expected. “Your grandmother?”

“Mmhm.” Julian trailed his fingers up and down my arm as I flared my fingers across the delicate line work of his tattoo. “It was something she used to say to me when I was younger. Something I’ve kept with me all these years. She told me koi are unique among goldfish, as they’ll grow to fit whatever size container you keep them in. Raise them in tight quarters, they’ll only get as big as a few inches. But put them in a pond and nourish them?” He chuckled. “The biggest ever caught was a hundred and ten centimeters. That’s a bit over forty-three inches to you Americans. Three and a half feet of fish.”

“And that stuck with you?” Granted, that was one enormous carp, but it hardly seemed like the kind of thing you commemorated on your skin. “Why?”

Julian smiled. It was a wistful, almost melancholy one. “Because it was a metaphor, love. She told me about the koi to encourage me not to put myself in too small a box. She believed in me when no one else did. She always wanted me to branch out, to find a bigger pond. She didn’t want me to grow up stunted. She wanted me to grow as big as I possibly could.” His smile faded. “Sometimes I think I let her down, in that regard.”

“You don’t think she’d have been proud of you—Julian Bastille, the rising star?”

With a shrug, he met my gaze again. “Maybe. But the last couple of years, I’ve settled, haven’t I? Let it all slip through my fingers. I’ve given so much of my power away to people like Tessa, and if you can believe, even worse sorts than that. Just… emptied myself out until it seemed there was nothing left for me anymore.” He drew a breath, then smiled. “You should probably know I’ve never told anyone that before.”

I leaned into his touch as he traced the swirling curvature of my ear. “About feeling like you’ve failed?”

He shook his head. “No. I’ve told a fair few people that before. They just never seemed to care. I meant the tattoo.”

Touching it again, I asked him, “I thought you said everyone asks you about it?”

A faint smirk curled the edges of his lips like parchment smoldering. “I never said I answered them.”

My breath caught in my throat as I realized Julian was entrusting me with an enormous secret. This wasn’t something I’d find on his fan page—it wasn’t even something someone like Jen would know. This was as personal as it got: an admission of regret and a memory that, until now, he’d been the only one to keep.

“But you answered me,” I said softly. “Why?”

Julian pressed his hand to the small of my back, drawing me even closer to his body. “Because if anyone on this earth ever deserved to know me, it’s you, love.”

He kissed me again, this time on the mouth, and there was nothing I could do but submit. The press of his lips was like a warm blanket around my shoulders, fending off the chill of reality and making me think of far more pleasant things—winters I’d sat in front of the fireplace with my cousins, blocking out the sounds of my parents fighting by engaging in the fairy tales they told. Those were the days when a cup of hot chocolate with marshmallows could solve everything, at least for a little while.

Julian’s kiss brought me back to a place where that was possible. God help me, I thought, allowing him to envelop me in his arms and delighting in the smell of him—sex and cologne and something else that was entirely Julian Bastille. This might not actually turn out so bad, after all.

And then he had to open his mouth and ruin it.

“Speaking of knowing one another,” he said, pulling back enough to look down at me again. “I wanted to talk to you about how we’re going to be… well, making our living arrangements.”

I frowned at him. “Do we absolutely have to talk about this now?” I’d just been getting comfortable with the idea that Julian was a real person. Discussing our little charade was going to taint that.

“Well, I… we want people to think that this is real, don’t we?” he asked, an awkward smile crossing his lips. “It’s rather important to our cause. So… I thought maybe you should come live with me in London. At least for a while—you know, for the duration of our romance.”

Just like that, all the warmth I’d felt toward him faded away, sapped straight out of my heart by the cold and callous way he jumped right back into the scenario that was most financially lucrative for him. It made me question whether I’d been wrong about Julian in a different way. Maybe these tender moments weren’t him being real. Maybe they were him being manipulative. Maybe he was showing me what he thought I wanted to see, hoping to soften me up to obeying his every whim. In fact, that sounded exactly like something Tessa would have instructed him to do.

It was all so clear now: Julian had me on a leash. Every time I strayed too far from his machinations, he put on the puppy dog eyes and reeled me back in. I felt like an idiot. How had I not seen this before now? Why did it always take jumping into bed with this man for me to realize what a bad idea it was?

“I… I don’t think that’s going to work for me, Julian,” I said, my voice so soft that even I could barely hear myself speak. “In fact, I’m not sure just how comfortable I am with this anymore.”

“Liz,” he said, trying to placate me with a gentle touch on my shoulder. I pulled back from his hand as though he’d scalded me, suddenly unable to tolerate the mere idea of physical contact with him. Turning away, I sat on the edge of the bed.

“I’m going to get dressed,” I told him. “And I’d really like to do it alone.”

I felt him sit up behind me, moving to circle my waist with his arm. “Hey, love, hey. What happened? What’d I say? Is living in London such a terrible idea?” Once upon a time, the rough scratch of his stubble on my neck and shoulder had made my body sing. Now it just made my skin crawl. “It’s really great over there. You’ll see. There’s so much I could show you, so many places I’m just dying to—”

There it was again. The moment I began to withdraw, to show any signs of thinking for myself, I was bombarded with sweet nothings and candied promises. I put my face in my hands, laughing disdainfully at myself. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice…

“Julian,” I gritted, wrenching out of his grasp. “Just go, okay?” When he didn’t move, I reiterated, louder, “Get out of here.”

“This is my room, love…”

“And I’m asking you to leave. I need a little time to think.”

“At least promise me you’ll stay here… Share the hotel room with me. You’re my wife, and this place is as much yours as it is mine.”

I kept my face covered as he slipped out of the sheets. I heard him place his feet on the floor, heard him moving toward the end of the bed where our clothes were strewn. He gathered his without saying a word, and just as silently, he padded out into the common area of our suite stark-naked. He must have been; I hadn’t heard him put his clothes on. I only lifted my head once I’d heard the door to his room open and shut again.

All this is ever going to be for him is just some publicity arrangement, I thought numbly, wrapping my arms around myself as hot, shameful tears welled in my eyes. I’d slept with that bastard again—this time of my own free will—and all I got for it was a reminder that I was nothing more than an opportunity for a headline or two. Just a cash cow… and a pregnant one, at that.

Come on, Liz, said a voice from the back of my head—one I should have listened to from the start. You knew this was too good to be true. Happiness always comes with a catch. And this time, the catch is that none of what you’re being sold is real.