I’m in Carrie Bradshaw’s New York and dressed in something she would wear, right down to a pair of blue and white striped Manolo Blahnik shoes. As the limo crawls through the streets, I crane my neck to look at the cityscape and the crowds of people, much better dressed than in Chicago, hurry along the streets.

Despite myself, I get caught up in the ceaseless energy and excitement that is New York. It’s crazy, but the graffiti, trash, and dirt contribute to the distinct character of the city. It is almost cinematic. One day, I promise myself, when my Dad is no longer here, I’ll come back here to visit, shop, and take in a show on Broadway.

The building is a glass and chrome high-rise in lower Manhattan. As soon as we arrive, an Asian woman with very shiny, shoulder-length black hair comes out and opens the door.

“Hello, Miss Honeywell. I’m Simran,” she says. “It’s so great that you could make it. Did you have a good flight?”

“Yeah, it was great, thanks,” I say, stepping onto the sidewalk. Even the air smells different.

She looks at my dress wistfully. “Love your dress. It’s gorgeous.”

“Oh, thank you.”

“Well, my job is to take you somewhere you can freshen up. Somebody there will also give you a rundown of your itinerary.”

“Sure,” I say and follow her into the building.

She ushers me quickly past the security guards and into one of the gleaming elevators. I stand in the elevator alongside her as she inserts a key. I’m amazed as we continue gaining floors all the way up to the penthouse. As soon as the elevator doors open, she turns to me. “This is you. Susan will take care of you from now on.”

“Thank you,” I say politely. I’m not doing that rude thing to random strangers anymore. I’m done with all that. If Tamara doesn’t like it, she can kiss my fat ass.

“Goodbye,” she says and I enter a reception area with black marble floors. It has a nest of pristine cream leather couches and a desk, behind which, a woman is sitting. She stands and comes forward. She is immaculately coiffured and dressed in a formal gray pant suit.

“Welcome to New York, Miss. Honeywell. I’m Susan Baxter. I’ll show you into Mr. Redmond’s office. He wants a quick word first.”

“Er…who is Mr. Redmond?”

She looks at me strangely. “The owner of Trans Corp”

I have no idea what Trans Corp is. Thanks, Ms. Moore, for dropping me into another weird situation. Well, I’ll just wing it as I go along. “Thank you,” I say, wiping my sweaty palms down my dress. For some weird reason, I’ve started to feel a bit nervous.

She leads me to a set of tall mahogany doors. With a smile, she opens one of the doors and holds it open for me. I walk through and hear her close it behind me. I am standing in a massive room with a lofty ceiling and floor-to-ceiling glass windows. From every angle, all you see is the blue sky, the tops of all the skyscrapers, and the glittering city below.

From where I am standing, the view is mesmerizing, but my attention is riveted to the big black desk across the room and the black, leather swivel chair behind it. The chair is turned away from the door and all I can see is the top of a man’s head.

I bite my bottom lip and clear my throat.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” a man’s voice says.

My heart stops in my chest before restarting and beating at triple the speed it had been going at before he speaks. My metaphorical gunshot wound tears wide open and my knees turn to JELL-O. I stumble forward and sink into one of the two chairs in front of the desk.

The black leather chair turns around slowly and I blink and stare at him stupidly. He’s not wearing a cowboy hat. And he’s dressed in a suit. One that looks incredibly expensive. And he looks amazing. “You?” I gasp.

He smiles long and slow. “Hello, beautiful.”

“What’s going on, Lars? What are you doing here?” I whisper.

“You left something behind, Cass,” he says and pushes a box toward me.

My hands shake as I lift the lid of the box. It’s the shoe I lost outside the Town Hall. Dazed and blind-sided, I look up at him without any real comprehension. My brain feels like mush. He stands from his chair and reaches my sitting figure in a few confident strides. I shake my head in disbelief. He looks so different. So polished and unreachable.

He crouches beside me. “That’s not all you left behind.”

I frown, too confused to make heads or tails of what is going on. “No?”

“You left a broken heart behind, Cass. Mine.”

My eyes open wide. “I broke your heart?”

“Into a million fucking pieces.”

My eyes fill with tears and roll down my cheeks.

“Goddammit,” he exclaims and pulls me toward his chest.

“I’ll ruin your beautiful suit.” I bawl like a two-year-old kid.

“Fuck the suit, Cass. I don’t give a damn about anything but you. From the day I laid eyes on you, I didn’t know what hit me. You led me a merry dance, young lady, and made me fall so crazy in love with you, I swear I don’t know whether I’m coming or going.”

“I love you too,” I admit with a great sob.

“Well, that’s nothing to cry about.”

“I’m just sorry I lied. I had no choice.”

“Listen to me, baby. I don’t care that you lied about who you were. I lied about who I was too. I’m not a ranch hand. I own that ranch. I own all this too.”

I look at him through a haze of tears. “You mean, you’re rich?”

“Yup.”

“Why would you hide something like that?”

He shrugs. “It suited me to let Tamara think I was a ranch hand. I wanted to know how she would treat my other workers. Besides, when I made that decision, I hadn’t met you yet, and I thought I didn’t want to deal with the likes of her coming onto me just because of my family name.”

It hits me like a flash. My eyes widen. Redmond. Like Tamara’s family, the Redmonds are another old-money family. “Your family is the Redmonds?”

“Guilty as charged.”

I shake my head in disbelief. “So, there is no ribbon for me to cut?”

“Nope.”

“Was Ms. Moore in on this too?”

“Of course.”

“But how and when did you find out that I was not Tamara?”

“I threatened to expose Tamara to her father if she didn’t tell me. She sang like a canary.”

I swallow hard. “Did you do…anything with her that night at the ball?”

“Anything?”

I take a deep breath. “She was planning to trick you into bed with her.”

He laughs harshly. “Are you kidding me? I wouldn’t touch that mean bitch with a fucking bargepole.”

A big smile of sheer relief spreads over my face. It grows wider and wider. I can’t stop beaming at him.

“Actually, I still can’t get over the fact that you would think I could be fooled even for a minute. Hell, I’d been eating, sleeping, and breathing you for weeks. I know every inch of your body, Cass. Of course, I’d know it wasn’t you.”

“I thought if you were drunk enough.”

“Drunk? I’d have to be blind, deaf, and dumb to think she was you. She’s nothing but an empty, selfish, soulless, tired, nasty, plastic doll. And she’s stupid and rude to boot. You, on the other hand, are as fresh-faced as a rain-washed apple, intelligent, kind, warm, sweet, sexy, complicated, fun, deep, caring- Hey, are you crying?” he asks, frowning.

“Yeah, tears of happiness, you dork.”

“Dork, am I?”

I nod vigorously.

“Tell me more about that girl I fell in love with under the big sky?”

“Cass Harper lived in a drab little room in a horrible area of Chicago. She worked hard to earn money, but it all went to pay for her sick father’s hospital bills. When that was not enough, she took a loan from some loan sharks and they kept on adding more and more interest to it. It got so that she didn’t even have enough to pay her rent. That was when she took a job to impersonate Tamara Honeywell on a ranch in Montana.”

“I’m so sorry, Cass. I’m here now. From now on, you’ll never need to work a day in your life if you don’t want to.” Standing on one knee, he takes my hand between his. “I love you, Cass. For better or worse, I’m here.”

“Well, I’ve loved you since the day I stopped hating your arrogant ass,” I say with a chuckle.

He laughs and pulls something from his pocket. “Now, don’t think I’m proposing just yet. I’m gonna do it, just not now.” He shows me a velvet box. “I don’t know you, and you don’t know me, but I want to know you, and a year from now, I’ll bring you back here and give you this ring and ask you to be my wife.”

He opens the box. I look down at the ring and gasp. It is a beautiful pink stone set in white gold. “Oh, Lars. It’s beautiful.”

I look into his molten gray eyes, soft with love and tenderness. I push him back a few inches and reach for my blue contacts. I take them out and hold them in my hands. “I have green eyes.”

He looks at me for a moment before smiling. “I like green even more,” he says, kissing my knuckles.

A smile tugs at my face. I push the chair backward and kneel on the floor with him. “Do you know what I’m desperate for right now?”

He pulls back and slides his calloused fingers beneath my eyes, wiping away the remnants of tears. “I really hope it’s a hard fuck, because my cock’s fucking starving for you, Cass. He’s going to rip right through my pants if I don’t get inside you soon.”

I giggle. “Well, what are you waiting for, big boy?”