Moonlight filled the cabin as the yacht rocked gently on the waves. Music trickled down to them from the upper deck, letting Chase know the party was still in full swing. Not that he cared to rejoin them. No way in hell was he leaving Grace’s side. She lay beside him on her stomach, watching the water out the windows.

Unable to resist, he ran his fingers through her curls, loving the way one motion made her whole body shift to his touch. He knew exactly how she felt. He was drawn to her with the same intensity. When she moved, so did he, and vice versa. It might have been an act, but the way they’d been all day could’ve fooled him. Especially after he took her in bed and was overcome with an overflowing need to simply have her as his, and not just sexually. He wanted Graceland more than he wanted anything else in his life. He even thought maybe, for some insane reason, this was a woman he could trust.

But tomorrow was Sunday, the last day of their time together. His brow furrowed, wondering how he might get her to stay with him… if she would even agree to date him for real.

His eyes drifted to the tattoo on her back, and he traced the lines gently. “You going to tell me the story behind this?” he asked. The black panther stretched from the base of her spine all the way to her shoulders, its long, lithe body climbing across her skin on a bed of vines and roses.

She smirked, glancing over her shoulder. “You’ll laugh.”

“Will you tell me if you got it for a reason?”

“That I did,” she agreed and rested her chin on her folded arms. “I did one of those quizzes to find out what your spirit animal is and… well, this was mine.”

He trailed lower down her back, his need for her growing again as he reached her soft curves and went back up. “What does it mean? The panther.”

She hesitated, and he wondered if he would ever get anything truthful out of this woman turning his life upside down so easily. “It’s stupid, really.”

“Can’t be that bad,” he insisted. “Tell me, and I’ll tell you something no one knows about me.”

“What are we doing? Sharing secrets?” she asked with a wry smile.

He shrugged. “Why not? You have somewhere else you want to be besides here with me, just talking?” He hated how much it bothered him to know she might say yes, might shun him like Tiffany had, but Grace rolled to her side and faced him.

“The black panther,” she told him quietly, “is about removing the mask and having the courage to stand alone.”

The hurt in her eyes twisted his heart, and he held her cheek. “You’ve had to do that a lot?”

“Which part?” she asked on a breath.

Chase leaned down and kissed her, just a soft brush of his lips on hers, but it sent a ripple through his soul. “You won’t be alone forever,” he told her as he leaned back.

For a long moment, they stared into each other’s eyes, and Chase sunk deeper and deeper into those brown and amber depths, not sure he ever wanted to leave. He hadn’t thought he’d started a dangerous game when he found Grace to play his fiancée, but now, as the rest of the world fell away, all the careful walls he’d built around his heart cracked.

“So,” she said quietly, “what are you going to tell me in exchange for my tattoo story?”

“What do you want to know?” Usually, the last thing he would want to do was spill his entire life story to someone, but with Grace, all he wanted to do was tell her who he really was and in turn, hope she let him in, too.

She studied his face intently and reached for his hand, entwining their fingers. “What’s it like being an architect? Designing buildings. I could never do that.”

He chuckled. “Honestly? Most days, it’s boring as hell. I don’t get to design so much anymore now that I run the company, but I try. Like the theaters—they’ll be like nothing Seattle has ever seen before once the restoration is finished. Maybe the face-lift will help you.”

Her eyes darted away, and her hand stiffened. A mask slipped over her face, and Chase frowned. What had he said to bring that back out? “Yeah, maybe. Not sure what’ll happen.”

“Tell me about your parents.”

She laughed sharply. “You want to know what I told your mom or the truth?”

Chase felt he was getting dangerously close to crossing some invisible line, but couldn’t stop his curiosity from dragging him onward. “Both.”

“I told your mom they’re living happily married and retired in Florida on a beach somewhere.”

“And the truth?”

She sighed and rolled onto her back, glaring at the ceiling. “The truth is ungodly complicated.” Her arm flopped over her face, and she refused to say anything else on the matter.

“If it makes you feel better,” he told her, “my parents weren’t always this happy.”

“Really? They seem pretty damn chipper to me,” she laughed.

“Yeah, but Dad was a workaholic for a while, and Mom threatened to leave him a couple of times unless he got it together. For a few years, I didn’t really have a dad,” he said, remembering those dark periods in his parents’ marriage. He’d been a teenager, watching his family crumble until his dad had seen reason and changed his ways.

“That’s why your mom was telling me about you being a workaholic,” Grace muttered. “Think she’s worried about you—or us, I guess.”

“Like father, like son,” he confirmed.

He fell silent, content to watch her chest rise and fall with each breath she took. He pictured every night like this—comfortable, with a woman beside him who didn’t make him suspicious of her actions. With Tiffany, he had walked on eggshells, afraid to set her off on one of her tantrums, and then he found out she had cheated on him multiple times. It was a nightmare. Everything he did for her was for nothing, and until Grace, he never thought he’d get over it.

This woman, though he’d only caught glimpses of who she really was, took the darkest time of his life and without even realizing, obliterated it. And they’d only spent a few days together.

The clouds covered the moon and the room darkened. “Damn,” Grace whispered, pulling Chase from his dangerous thoughts of finding a way to make this weekend last longer.

“What’s wrong?”

“The moon, it went away,” she whispered and lifted her arm from her face. “When I was little, I used to talk to the moon. Every night, I’d wait ‘til Mom passed out and creep out onto the fire escape. For hours, I’d sit there, pretending the moon was so much more than what it was.”

He grinned, picturing a smaller version of the still small Grace, her hair a crazy mess around her head as she sat on the fire escape. “What did you talk about?”

“Escaping.” Her answer was so quiet he almost didn’t catch it. “A way out, a way to follow my dreams.”

“And you did, didn’t you? You became an actress?”

She turned away from him, hiding her face. “That’s also horribly complicated.” She sat up, her back to him, and her shoulders sagged. Chase knew she hadn’t told him everything about her life, but whatever weighed her down was serious enough to dash the good mood she’d been in. He remembered yesterday when his mom said she thought Grace had taken ill. Was this what bothered her then, too? What was she hiding? Hell, she might have worse trust issues than he did.

Chase wanted to spend the night discovering all there was to know about Grace, but something told him he’d be lucky to get past the mask she wore so easily. Earlier, he had seen the real face beneath, but now, the mask crept back in place and he was desperate to keep it away for a few hours longer.

He slid across the bed, resting his hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off and stood, taking the sheet with her.

“What are we doing, Chase?”

He frowned. “What do you mean? We’re spending a night together,” he said, hating the sudden doubt in her voice. “Grace, talk to me.”

“This was a mistake, a huge mistake! We’re just supposed to be acting, but this… You?” Exasperated she hurried away from the bed. “I can’t do this—we can’t. I’m sorry, but this wasn’t what you asked for.”

She headed to the bathroom, but Chase leapt up and caught her hand just before she could. “Wait, just wait a second.”

“No, let me go,” she whispered angrily, but it wasn’t at him. Her eyes darted away when he tried to catch her gaze, and he finally cupped her face gently in his hands so she had no choice but to face him. “Chase, please, you don’t want any part of my life.”

“Says who?” he demanded. “You? You really think you’re the only one in this room with a dark past?”

“Mine’s worse, trust me. I’m broken goods, damaged. You can’t want anything from me. This was supposed to be a business deal, and that’s how it will stay.”

But Chase didn’t let her go. He kissed her fiercely, locking her body between his arms as he backed her into the wall. She sighed against his lips, trembling at his touch. But he was already lost in her beauty and her fire. There was no turning back for him.

“You don’t get to choose just to walk away from this because your judgment’s clouded,” he argued. “We started this together, Graceland, and I’m not going to let you drop it so easily and walk out of my life.”

“Why not? We just met, and these things… They don’t happen,” she insisted, her eyes frantically searching his. “They can’t.”

“Says who?”

“Reality! That’s who,” she said shaking her head. “Two people can’t just… it doesn’t… damn it, Chase, stop looking at me like that!”

He smirked as he bent until they were eye level. “Like what?”

“Like you’re not terrified of where this is going so fast,” she whispered honestly.

He caressed her lips lightly. “Never said I wasn’t. I’m scared out of my wits by what you did to me so easily.” He took her hand and placed it over his beating heart, which pounded like a wild animal in his chest. “Feel that? That’s my fear, my anxiety, my desire, all because of you.”

She spread her fingers against his skin, her eyes widening. “And what happens tomorrow when we wake up?”

“That’s tomorrow’s problem,” he told her. “Tonight, I’m going to love you.”

The sheet fell to the floor, and Chase enveloped her in his arms, destroying her worries and doubts with fierce kisses that drove them both to heavy breathing within seconds. Her arms latched around his neck, pressing her body hard against his as hunger consumed them both. Chase didn’t know what would happen tomorrow and feared the light of day would erase everything they found in the darkness together—how they felt all day, how easy it was to kiss her, hold her hand, just be beside her… He was not willing to let go of that easily.

She might feel she was too broken to be loved, but he’d prove her wrong, one way or another. He’d thought the same about himself before she appeared in his life—on a stage, doing those damn yoga positions and driving him crazy in more ways than one.

His kisses intensified until he turned her around, dragging her back against him. As his lips trailed down her neck, his hand cupped a breast, thumbing her nipple while the other slid lower and slipped between her legs, seeking that delicious sweet spot and all its softness. He barely ran his finger between her folds before she shivered in his grasp, whispering his name in a desperate plea for more. If it took all night, he was going to pleasure her until she believed in whatever the hell was happening between them.

With each moan that escaped her lips, he grew harder against her back, and when she reached a hand down and around to hold him, his hips bucked. Jolts of fire ricocheted through his body as her hand gripped him hard and glided up and down his length.

“Keep doing that, and you’re going to drive me over the edge,” he growled in her ear.

His touch against her increased with her movements against him. She grew slick under his hand, and when his fingers thrust up into her, he relished hearing the gasp pass her lips. “Why does everything you do feel perfect?” When his fingers twisted and found her sweet spot, she cried out, her inner muscles working to hold him there, shuddering as pleasure built.

“I could ask you the same thing, lover.” He fought hard to control himself as her hand worked faster on him, biting his lip before he lost his concentration. When her whole body released in his arms, shaking from the orgasm, he turned her around, carried her to the bed, and followed her down.

As her chest heaved and her eyes hooded, he parted her knees and plunged into her, filling her in one solid movement. Grace clutched his back, her nails scratching against skin as his hands slid down her thighs. This was what making love was supposed to feel like. Utter chaos. Getting lost in the other person’s eyes as their gazes locked onto each other’s in the midst of passion.

Chase had no idea what this might turn into or what would happen when the sun came up, but in that moment, with Grace holding him as he buried himself inside her, he didn’t give a damn. This was the here and now. With Grace, the walls around his heart shattered until nothing remained but him, and even if she hid herself from him, he’d find a way to break down her walls, too.

When they cried out together, surrounded by their hunger for each other, Chase didn’t want to let her go. He rolled to his side, and she snuggled immediately into his arms, nuzzling against his neck.

“Where have you been?” she whispered a while later when her eyes closed, heavy with sleep.

Chase brushed the curls behind her ears and kissed her forehead. “Waiting for you, love, waiting for you.”

She smiled sleepily, and Chase held her through the night, forgetting entirely that this woman was only pretending to be his fiancée and not the real deal.