“Riley!”

I can hear his voice behind me, but I don’t want to turn around. I don’t want to pretend I’m okay, because I’m not.

I’m halfway down the block already, after sprinting out of the pub. The tears are streaming down my cheeks, unrelenting evidence that my attachment to Galen has grown way too intense. I know those tears shouldn’t be there. It’s ridiculous for me to feel anything. He’s my tour guide, for crap’s sake, not my lover. He’s not mine, and that’s mostly because I said from day one that he couldn’t be. If anyone was responsible for coming up with the stupid rules, it was me.

Ten months, I keep telling myself. Ten months, then I can have whatever I want.

Fuck, why did it drive me so nuts to see another woman pushing her massive chest into his face? Why did I hate that so much, if I’m not even supposed to like Galen as anything more than a friend?

Stupid question.

I know the answer as well as I know my own name.

Because I don’t want to wait ten months. I want him now. I want to know that he’s as attracted to me as I am to him. I don’t want to have to think about other women. I don’t want to compete.

I want him to be mine.

He’s caught up to me; I can hear his footsteps behind me now.

“Riley, please stop fleeing from me like you’re Usain Bolt going for another sodding gold.”

When I don’t stop, I feel his hand grabbing my right arm. He’s not letting me go, and after a very weak attempt to free myself, I let him halt me in my tracks. I feel the heat of his body as he presses himself into my back.

“She’s my ex-girlfriend,” he laments, his breath stroking heat on my neck. “Very crucial emphasis on the ex. She’s nothing to me at this point, and never really was.”

“It’s fine, it doesn’t matter,” I tell him, refusing to turn around for fear that he’ll see the streams of mascara that are no doubt streaking my cheeks. “It’s totally fine. I just thought I should leave you two alone. It was pretty obvious that she wanted you to herself, and who am I to get between…?”

“I didn’t want to be left alone with her, or anyone,” he interrupts. “Damn it all, Riley, I don’t like you leaving me.”

“Well, that’s what I do,” I reply, allowing myself to lean back into him a little, my body surrendering. My heart’s beating hard and fast now. It feels far too good to touch him like this, to speak intimately with him, like we’re alone in the world.

But I’m not supposed to be intimate. I’m supposed to keep my distance. “The plan is I leave you, and you leave me,” I moan. “That’s our deal. So I think I should go back to my place.” His hands are on my hips now, his broad chest easing into my shoulders. There’s something else, too. Something gorgeous and incredible and very, very hard, springing to life in his jeans. I can feel a massive erection pressing against me, and it only makes me want him all the more.

Never has a woman been so full of lust and devastation at the same time.

“Go back to your place alone, you mean,” he says. He doesn’t ask. He just says it.

“Alone,” I repeat.

“Fine. But before you go, answer me one question.”

“What question?” I ask, my breath hitching in my throat.

“What were you going to ask me for back there, when I broke the rules? What is it that you wanted from me?”

If only I could give him the answer.

A kiss. That was what I wanted to say. I want another kiss. I want to taste him again, but this time I want more than that. I want him naked. I want him inside me. I want to give myself over to the feeling that the ground has dropped out from under us.

“I can’t remember,” I lie.

Galen lets go of me, slipping around me so that he can look me in the eye. “You do,” he tells me in a quiet, commanding voice. “I know you do. I can read you like my favourite book. But I don’t know how your story ends, Riley. You’re the one in control of that.”

“If you can read me so well, tell me, what did I want?” I ask him miserably.

“Hmm.” He presses the tip of his index finger to his chin as though he’s thinking hard. “I can’t say that I know. There is one thing that I am sure of, however.”

“Oh yeah?” I ask. He’s being cute, and it’s pissing me off. Stop it. Stop charming me when I’m trying to convince myself to walk away.

“You want to come to lunch with me tomorrow.”

“Lunch?” Okay, that’s not even remotely what I expected him to say. “Why lunch?”

A sly smile lifts the corners of his mouth. “It turns out that Conlon and Adriana will be in town. Conlon’s got a meeting first thing in the morning with his board, then we’re doing lunch. I want you to come out with us. I want you to meet them. I would have asked you earlier, but we were so rudely interrupted…anyhow, please say yes.”

My heart’s pounding like crazy. I’m being assaulted by nervousness, flattery, affection, terror, all rolled into one insane, nausea-inducing emotion.

He wants me to meet his genius brother.

Oh, God. I want to. I really do. But it’s a horrifying thought, too. What if Conlon doesn’t like me? What if he thinks I’m a screwed up mess of a woman?

“Wait. You’re talking about the Conlon who designed your arm? The one who will think we’re shagging?” I ask, wiping the backs of my hands over my cheeks to minimize the mascara damage. “The Conlon who will think you’ve fallen in love again and mock you endlessly?”

“The very same,” he nods. “So, what do you say?”

“You don’t care that you’ll have to explain that you’re nothing more than my glorified tour guide, who, by the way, has taken me to almost nothing but pubs this whole time?”

Galen chuckles. “So, you’re saying I’m an excellent tour guide, then. Conlon will approve whole-heartedly. As for the other bits, I don’t care what he thinks of our relationship. I just want him to meet you. You two would enjoy each other, and you’d love Adriana.”

“Fine, then,” I reply. “I’ll come to lunch.”

I must be insane. Yes. Definitely insane. But for some reason, I really want to meet Conlon. I want to meet Adriana. I want to know that relationships can be good, even between a woman who’s come over from the U.S. and found herself involved in a totally inconvenient romance with an Englishman. I want to know that some people have happy endings, even if there’s no hope for me.

“Great. I’ll text you in the morning and tell you where we’re to meet.”

“Don’t make it anywhere too posh. I don’t have super-fancy clothes with me.”

“Conlon’s picking, not me. But if he chooses somewhere too fancy, I’ll take you shopping first,” he tells me. “I just got a new contract worth a pretty penny. I can be your sugar daddy for a morning.”

“Oh, really?”

He nods. “I would love nothing more than to use it as an excuse to get you to take off your clothing repeatedly.”

“I definitely think that crosses our imaginary line, Davies.”

He pulls up close, putting his hands on my waist, and draws me to him. I swear, his hard-on is making the earth tremble under my feet. Oh, fuck, I want him so badly.

“Our imaginary line is bollocks, for the record,” he says in a low, coarse voice that sounds like sex. “I would cross it right now, if you asked me to.”

My eyes are locked on those lips of his, picturing what it would feel like to kiss them again. What they would feel like, pursed around my nipples, or working their way up my thighs…

“I want to,” I whisper.

“What was that?” he asks.

“Nothing,” I reply, pulling away in a rare moment of impressive self-discipline. I spin on my heel, holding a hand up in the air. “Good night, Mr. Davies,” I say. “Until tomorrow, then.”

“Til tomorrow,” he replies. I swear to God that I can hear his hard-on yelling, “Riley! Come back to me!”

I don’t blame it. My lady parts are currently reprimanding me for pulling myself away from the gorgeous beast who’s just told me he’d like to get naked with me.

Well, maybe not in so many words.

But he totally said it.