When Bryce came in from grabbing a snack in his apartment’s kitchen, he found Darren in the middle of the living room staring down at his phone, his brows drawn together as if he was perplexed.

“Everything all right?”

Darren didn’t speak for a second. Then he said, “Yes, I think so.” He said it so slowly that he was clearly pondering something.

“Thanks for bringing the files over on a Saturday,” Bryce said. “Do you want to go over them now?”

Darren shook his head. “No. No. Uh… no.” He reached for his discarded jacket as he oddly and vehemently refused.

But, Bryce supposed it was a Saturday. Most people tended to view this as a non-working day. Himself included, when he wasn’t trying to drown himself in work to forget a particularly unforgettable blonde.

All morning he’d stewed over the way they’d left things. In the worst possible way, really. Because of his stupid “one night” idea, he’d thoroughly backed himself into a corner. Now how was he supposed to convince her that she was the one for him?

Darren left quickly. Probably had a date, the sly devil. The guy was so private, so quiet, it was impossible to tell what was going on behind that cold, quizzical stare. Bryce wouldn’t have been overly surprised if his reserved colleague was one of those people who had the craziest kinks. What was that saying about quiet people?

That train of thought was mercifully cut off by his doorman buzzing up to let him know that he had a visitor. Miss Jones.

Miss Jones? Who the hell was… Oh shit. Oh holy fuck.

Katherine Jones.

For one instant his heart leapt into his throat. And then it fell to the pit of his stomach as he convinced himself that he must be mistaken. Maybe Miss Jones was the name of his housekeeper who his assistant had hired for him while he’d been traveling.

Even as he thought it, he held the door open to the hallway, eagerly anticipating this Miss Jones’s arrival.

When she stepped off the elevator, his heart once more took a leap, this time off a high dive. He was free falling. His gut couldn’t speak, it was too busy screaming in terror. And his heart? Forget about it. His heart was too busy racing a mile a minute to slow down and tell him what the hell was going on.

His entire body wanted to believe that she’d come to her senses, but his brain—and more importantly, her face, said otherwise.

She looked… grim. Determined.

She bit her bottom lip and took a deep breath as he held the door open for her and she walked past. Neither of them had said a word.

Only when she’d reached the center of her living room did she finally speak. She looked around, seemingly confused, and said, “Wait, you have an apartment here in New York?”

Huh. Well, that was unexpected. He looked around the cold, sterile modern apartment trying to see it through her eyes. She probably thought it looked cold and sterile, too. But that was what happened when you hired an interior decorator and let Darren-the-possible-android manage the situation.

He assumed the question was rhetorical since she was in said apartment but he responded for lack of anything more intelligent to say. “Yes,” he said needlessly. “I have an apartment.”

She looked so perplexed, it would have been funny if he wasn’t so anxious to hear what the hell she was doing here. “But you didn’t say…” She shook her head. “I mean, I’d just assumed you were staying at a hotel, and you didn’t contradict me.”

He nodded. “Yeah, well…” He scratched the back of his head as he tried to come up with a better answer than the truth. He didn’t. “You seemed to think I was just visiting New York and I didn’t want to scare you off…” He cleared his throat. “More than I already had.”

She nodded, apparently appeased by that answer. “I get it.”

She did? He didn’t. He hadn’t truly understood any of his actions since she’d walked into his life. It was like his brain, body, and gut had gotten their wires crossed that first night they’d met and now it was never quite clear who was in charge of things.

At the moment, he didn’t really care about that. All he cared about was why she was here. The anticipation was killing him, as was his not-terribly-successful attempt to keep his hopes under control.

She paced toward the window and then spun to face him. “Okay, so here’s the thing. I like plans. I like rules. I like knowing what’s coming next.”

He nodded. None of this was news. So why had she come here to tell him this? She seemed to be waiting for an answer. “Understood.”

Her nod was brief. Businesslike. “Good.”

The silence nearly killed him. “Is that what you came here to say?”

She shook her head. “No.”

Silence. Unrelenting silence. He cleared his throat. “Was there something else you wanted to say to me?”

Please, say yes. Please, for the love of God, tell me you didn’t come here to break my heart. Again.

“Yes.” She stood there. Neither of them moved. Then, abruptly and startlingly, she dropped her head into her hands. “Oh, I’m making a mess of this.”

Hope soared before he had a chance to squash it. “What exactly are you making a mess of?” When she peeked up, he added, “Sorry, I seem to be a tad confused as to what’s, er… what’s going on here.”

He bit back a groan and tried to remind himself that not so long ago he’d been considered quite the catch. He used to have charm and charisma. He used to be confident and eloquent. Until Kat came along and now he was a bumbling ball of awkward.

“My point was that I’ve always lived by my plans,” she said, her voice higher than he’d ever heard it and breathy, like she’d run up the thirty flights to his apartment and not taken the elevator. “It’s not like there’s some traumatic childhood event that made me this way. I didn’t have crazy hippie parents who never planned for my future or something like that.” She paused, looking mildly confused. “Actually, my parents were kind of hippies and I guess becoming type-A kind of was my way of rebelling…holy shit, I can’t believe I never thought of that before.”

He thought he might combust. What the fuck was happening here? He’d poured his heart out to this woman and she was here doing what exactly? But the fact that she was clearly nervous, that had to be a good sign, right? Hell, the fact that she was here at all was a win, as far as his heart was concerned. Gut, where do you stand on the subject?

We’re in complete alliance with the heart.

Right, so it was only his mind that couldn’t quite jump on board. Not just yet. Not until she told him what the hell she was doing there.

She stopped her babbling about her parents and stared at him with wide, slightly panicked eyes. “I love you.”

Halle-freakin’-lullah! Finally, he let the hope free and all parts of him—body, mind, and heart—went soaring along with it.

“At least, I think I do? This is new territory for me. I can say with certainty that I like you enough that we should definitely keep doing…this. Whatever it is we’re doing.”

She kept talking but he was only half listening. He was too elated and her voice had taken on that panicky edge again.

But it didn’t matter. Because she was here and she was giving them a chance. So he did what he did best. He acted on his gut. Closing the distance between them, he pulled her into his arms and kissed her with all the passion he had inside him.

She kissed him back with the same urgency and that right there was all he needed to know. She loved him. She might still doubt her heart but listening to instincts and ignoring her brain were new territory for her.

Luckily, she had him as her guide.

The thought made him grin and since his lips were currently pressed against hers, she noticed.

“What are you laughing about?” she asked, pushing back slightly so she was still in his arms but she could see his face.

It was true, he’d started laughing. “I’m just happy.”

Her smile made the world brighten around him. “Good. Me too.”

He leaned forward. “Say it again.”

“That I’m happy?” she teased. When he growled, she laughed. “Kidding, kidding. And I do need to say it again because I messed up the first time I tried to say it. I got all caught up in my head.”

She let out a sigh as she slipped her arms more firmly around his neck. “This whole listening to your heart thing isn’t as easy as people make it out to be.”

“People?”

“Caleb and Yvette.”

“Ah,” he drawled. “So I have them to thank for this change of heart.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I guess. Partially, at least. I’d like to think I would have gotten there on my own…”

“Uh huh,” he said, leaning forward to kiss her neck.

“But I suppose I ought to give them more credit.”

He heard her voice turn serious. “They may not know how to balance a checkbook between the two of them, but they clearly are much smarter than I am when it comes to love.”

He reared back at her use of the word again. “Say it,” he ordered.

She laughed. “I love you.” Then she grinned up at him. “No doubts and second thoughts this time. Just, I love you.”

He growled low in his throat as the words found their home in his heart. “Not ‘just’ anything.” He kissed her quickly and passionately. “Those words mean everything to me.”

When he pulled back, he looked into her eyes and saw the amusement he loved so much, the almost ever-present enthusiasm and vivacity that made her hum with energy. But he also saw the hints of confusion, the speck of doubt.

But that was all right, too.

They were both changing, growing, becoming different people based solely on having met one another. He sure as hell didn’t recognize himself in the mirror half the time since she’d come along, and he knew she must be feeling just as off-kilter.

Probably more so since she was used to following logic and plans rather than her instincts.

He tilted her chin up and pressed a soft kiss to her lips. “Scary stuff, huh?”

He didn’t have to elaborate. She nodded vehemently. “Super scary.”

She kissed him and he savored the feel of her tongue gently lapping at his lower lip. He could savor the feel of her all day and all night. He grinned as it really started to dawn on him that this was just beginning.

There was no end date, no time limit. They had all the time in the world to figure this out and to make this work.

She pulled back and returned his smile. “It’s scary,” she said, picking up their conversation where they’d left off pre-kiss. “But it’s also kind of amazing.”

He cupped her face in his palms so he could see her, see all of her. Every little bit of this precious human who had turned his life upside down and given it a whole new meaning.

“It is,” he said between kisses. “It is absolutely amazing.”