It didn’t take long for doubt to set in.

Preston left for work, to take care of his businesses and sign contracts or whatever it was busy billionaire property moguls did in an office. And Ashley sat at home, on her own, overthinking everything.

She couldn’t love him. There was no way she could love him. She barely knew him—right? Okay, so she knew how he tasted; she knew the look of arousal in his eyes; she knew some of his family history and the hurt of his father’s addiction and the hollowed space left behind by his grandfather. She knew he looked at an old building on a mountain and saw his family’s future, that he looked at her and saw his future. That he loved her.

She didn’t know his shoe size, or his favorite meal, or even his middle name. She didn’t know what music he liked, or if he’d ever seen Mad Men.

She didn’t know enough about him at all.

But she did know this feeling inside her was something, and it was big and powerful and left her feeling lighter than air. She knew that when he was with her, when he touched her, when all he did was look at her—she felt a completeness she’d not known for years.

Was it possible to love someone before really dating them?

Was she stupid for so desperately wanting to trust him with her heart, after how much another man had damaged it?

Preston is nothing like him. On the surface, that was true, but how much could she believe that, when she didn’t know him, not inside out, like she did her ex-husband?

So many questions, so much turmoil, all while she sat alone on the couch, her groin still tingling with the memory of her morning orgasm.

She confessed it all to the girls—minus the orgasm—when they came to visit her after lunch. “We felt bad about you being stuck here on your own all day,” Cami had told her when they arrived, breezing in and getting the coffee going without Ashley having to say anything. “Figured you could use a girl chat.”

She could, and she did, and over coffee and chocolate, with Maggie beside her and Cami opposite, Ashley told them what she was feeling—her words stilted, her face burning, but the sentiment true and clear. That she thought she might love Preston Alcott, and it confused the crap out of her.

“It’s obvious,” Maggie said gently, a soft smile on her face. “We’ve known it all along. You only have to take one look at you.”

“But it doesn’t make sense. I’ve only known him for—”

“Months,” interjected Cami.

“Yes, but…properly known him.”

Cami’s eyebrows danced. “You mean in the Biblical sense.”

“No, god.” Ashley huffed out an exasperated breath. “We only started to get to know each other…romantically…a week ago.”

That wasn’t strictly true, her subconscious helpfully reminded her. There had been the kiss at Cami’s wedding, and then the intimacy after Maggie’s wedding, and he’d said it, hadn’t he—that he’d wanted her for so long. That he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about her. And she’d thought of him, many times, alone at night, with nothing but her own hands as company. It had been his image that flooded her brain in her moments of pleasure, weeks before she found herself up on that mountain.

They’d been in each other’s orbit for far longer than this past week.

“Ashley, honey,” Maggie said, scooting closer on the couch and taking Ashley’s hand between her own. “This isn’t about you worrying you don’t know him well enough to love him. It’s obvious you love him. You know it. We know it. Even Preston probably knows it.”

Oh god, she hoped not. She didn’t want him to know until she felt secure enough to tell him—if she ever did. If he knew it now, then he might already be letting his mind run away with him, plotting out their future, things she wasn’t anywhere near ready for.

“This is your fear talking,” Maggie continued, and Cami nodded.

“She’s right, Ash. That asshole ex of yours—he’s doing this to you now. You still have him up here,” Cami said, tapping her temple, “letting him control how you feel. He’s not in your life anymore, Ash,” she added softly, compassionately. “He doesn’t get to stand in the way of your happiness.”

Maggie squeezed her hand, drawing Ashley’s attention back to her. “Whether with Preston or with someone else…you’re going to have to let go of the past and give love a shot. Your heart’s too big,” she continued with a smile. “You’ve got so much love to give. You won’t be able to contain it forever.” Her eyes twinkled, smile spreading wider. “Maybe this is your happily-ever-after,” she said, singlehandedly filling Ashley’s stomach with a whole colony of butterflies.

She didn’t dare even imagine it—the possibility that she’d found the man who would cherish her heart for the rest of her life. That seemed like such an impossible concept that her butterflies started turning sour, and when Cami said with breathless excitement, “Plus, imagine how gorgeous the babies would be!” Ashley couldn’t help but feel as if the walls were starting to close in.

Because if she let a man in that far, if she opened her heart to him enough that she would start thinking about the future, about children and growing old and a lifetime of happiness, then she put herself at risk of having it torn away. And she couldn’t go through that again, not when she knew it would be so much worse this time. Not with Preston.

“Don’t say that,” she moaned, pulling her hand from Maggie’s and leaning forward to gather the cups from the table. “We’ve only just started dating.”

Cami blinked at her, and Ashley caught them exchanging a glance as she limped out of the room with the cups, needing a moment to breathe.

They meant well, she knew they did, and they were so wrapped up in their own fairytale romances that it was no wonder they wanted that for her, too. And okay, Cami knew what it was like to have a failed marriage behind her. She’d also tried it once before, only to discover later how much pain could come from it. But Maggie didn’t. Not that it made her friendship any less precious for Ashley.

“I’m sorry,” Maggie said when she returned. “We didn’t mean to make you feel pressured.”

“We’re just so happy for you, Ash,” Cami added. “Feel free to tell us to butt out when we get too excited.”

She smiled at them, her queasy feelings melting away as affection set in. They really did want the best for her, and in their eyes, they couldn’t imagine why Ashley couldn’t have the same perfect lives they did.

In the deepest, most hidden part of her mind, the part that had a direct line to her heart and made her think things that could get her in trouble—in that little compartment, she couldn’t help but entertain the idea of how it could be if her friends were right.

One by one, the butterflies started springing back to life.

Almost as if to defy her concerns and doubts, she and Preston fell into being a couple as naturally as breathing. One minute she was a single woman with little else in her life but work, and the next she was one half of Ashley and Preston, two people sharing time and space and love.

He didn’t quite move in overnight, but he did come back almost every day after that first night and sort of not leave. He settled into her messy house and her upside down routine like he thrived on it, powerhouse businessman by day, Netflix-watching, takeout enthusiast by night. They made a little dip for themselves on the couch and spent hours snuggling into it in front of the TV; they took long showers together and cooked meals, read books and newspapers in bed, took strolls down to the local market. He made love to her every night, some mornings too, gracing every surface of her house in moments of uncontrollable passion and spending hours in bed, mapping each other’s bodies.

When they weren’t chilling at home, he was showing her his world—lavish restaurants and opulent hotel rooms, luxury cars and a helicopter trip or two. He bought her elegant gowns and sparkling jewelry, comfy sweats and fuzzy slippers, and she found she didn’t mind it—that she enjoyed it, even. She liked feeling spoiled and cherished.

He picked her up from work, and they went to cafes and the movies and museums, spent a Saturday or two at the beach. She showed him her favorite dive bars and burger joints, and he got her access to an exclusive members’ club that served champagne in crystal flutes.

It was all fun, all perfect, and she allowed herself to be swept up in the bubble. But all good things had to end.

They didn’t end, but they did become less, because it became clear that Preston was sacrificing a lot of his business responsibilities to spend as much time with her as possible, and the strain of it was painfully obvious in how often his phone rang at all hours of the day and night, the stacks of paperwork piling up in her house, with her waking up in the middle of the night and finding him lit by the glow of a laptop screen, eyes red and sore as he went through spreadsheets and endless lists of emails while she slept.

He was burning the candle at both ends so he could give her all the attention he thought she needed, and she couldn’t let it happen anymore. He wasn’t a nine-to-five guy.

She watched him that evening switch his phone to silent as he sent a call through to voicemail, feeling the pang in her chest as she wondered if their relationship could survive under the strain of busy schedules. They’d had nothing but almost complete absorption in each other since that first day up on the mountain, and telling him now to stop coming to her, to split his attention, was a risk she would have to take.

“Go back to work,” she told him, watching him startle and look over at her from across the table, pen poised over whatever he was jotting into the margin of the newspaper. “I know this isn’t you—finishing work at five and spending your time with Netflix and in restaurants. You’re a busy man, Preston,” she urged. “I know right now you probably have a dozen assistants running ragged picking up your slack, while you sit here with me every night.”

A guilty look passed over his face. “Not exactly a dozen…”

She smiled. “Go and do your job,” she said. “I’ll still be here whenever you’re free next.”

Considering her for a moment, he reached across the table, palm up. She placed her hand in his, and he squeezed it. “I wanted to be the best man for you,” he confessed, and her heart clenched.

“That doesn’t mean having to give up everything else that’s important to you.”

The words rang true to him—she could see it in his eyes, the way his mouth tightened at the corners. For a brief snapshot of unguarded honesty, she caught sight of the strain in his face, the worry he’d kept hidden from her as he tried so desperately to be two men at once, thinking that was what she needed.

“Not now,” he said eventually. “I want to be here with you right now.”

She brushed her magazine to the side and got up, walking around to the other side of the table and gesturing him to his feet. She let him look at her for a moment, then stepped forward and brought her hands to his chest. Slowly, carefully, she opened a button on his shirt. His chest rose beneath her hands, a sharp drawn-in breath, then another when she took the next button, and her hands were shaking suddenly, a rush of adrenaline shooting through her system as the top of his shirt parted open and she saw his skin, hair, muscle—all of it for her tonight, for her to touch and taste. Maybe not tomorrow, but she had him tonight.

“Wait,” he said, closing his hands over hers and stopping her. “Wait, let me just—”

Ashley swallowed and looked up at him, and she could see an instant of hesitation before he took her face in his hands and gazed at her, eyes soft and warm and full of love. Then she was holding her breath and gripping handfuls of his shirt as he stepped in close and kissed her. Finally.

It was the gentlest kiss he’d ever given her, a tender cling of lips, a prolonged moment of nothing and everything. It was their first kiss in this new chapter, in accepting that they were real and they would exist beyond this bubble of private bliss, and it tasted like home.

“This is—” he said as the kiss broke and he leaned his forehead against hers, eyes closed. There was a hitch to his voice that made her stomach flip over. Because she understood—she felt it too. There was something different about this, something charged and heavy in this moment. She couldn’t put her finger on what it was, but it felt raw and exposed, like her heart laid out for him to touch.

“Yeah,” she said through a swollen throat thick with emotion. “It’ll be even better when we get our clothes off.”

His eyes shot open at that, a hint of surprise on his face, then he flashed her a grin and pulled her in for another kiss and this one was even better. She could feel his confidence now, and the promise of what was to come, and it was like a continuation of their heated, intense moments in bed at night, when she would beg him to spread her wide and fill her up, scream his name and claw at his skin. Whatever self-doubt he carried that made him put himself under so much strain for her, it was now brushed away with the sweep of his tongue against hers, and when she pulled away enough to ask him to take her to bed, there was a growl in his throat that said she better be ready.

It was rough. It was the heightened edge of desperation. He was consuming her, here on this bed, with both of them naked and sweating and panting harsh breaths through the kiss and bite of built-up desire. He was everywhere at once, clawing at her skin and stretching her open on his fingers and trailing teeth across collarbone and throat, her name on his lips and the plunge of his tongue in her mouth.

He rolled on a condom, looked almost angry with it. “We’re gonna lose these soon,” he said, hissing as he lined up and pushed in, and she dug nails into his shoulder, the hot spark of pleasure riding her spine. “We’re gonna lose the condoms.”

She agreed, silently. God, she agreed.

She was lost for a moment in the feel of it, of the size and pressure of him filling her. She’d never had sex without protection, not even with her husband (they were never at the point of considering children)—and Preston’s mind apparently zeroed in on the same thing because he buried in deep and paused and got a hand on her face to make her look at him and breathed, “Has anyone ever—“

“No,” she whispered, arching her back as she felt him throb inside her. “No, it would just be you.”

It was enough for him, and he dragged her into a fierce kiss and thrust his hips, and he fucked her, and he wasn’t gentle, but that was what she needed, and she was crying out already, so overwhelmed by sensation and love and her long-held craving for this man. He was fucking her like it was an obsession, a primal urge buried deep in his bones and making him mindless, and she took everything he gave her, spread her legs wider and thrust up to meet him and swallowed his groans when he licked into her mouth, all teeth and tongue and desperation.

“I love you,” he said after, holding her close and tight and shaken. “I love you.”

She believed him, but she didn’t say it back just yet, and when she shifted enough to kiss under his jaw, she could feel his heart pounding for her.

Hours later, long after she’d sent him away, she woke up in the night and felt him crawl into the bed, fluttered her lids open to look at him and found his eyes the softest she’d ever seen them. He was beautifully naked, glowing in the soft moonlight.

She kissed him, and he crowded on top of her, and when she put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him down, he went, willingly and without question, giving her everything she asked for.

He spent a long time on it, an endless, dreamlike span of perfection that had her writhing and gasping, clamping her thighs around his head and shaking as he brought her over the edge.

She tasted herself on his tongue when he came back up, and she lingered in the kiss as he pushed fingers inside her and up, hit that spot that made her whimper and arch into him. She was over-sensitized from his mouth but he didn’t give her any rest, and he wrung another orgasm from her before he went in with his cock, took his time, a languidly sensual rhythm as he remapped her body and tasted inches of her skin and looked into her eyes between deep, all-consuming kisses.

Only with this man had she ever felt like her bones and muscles and everything within her could melt and leave her as nothing but a puddle of heat and pure satisfaction.

She’d had sex with other men. She’d even had a husband. But this wasn’t sex. This wasn’t the pursuit of orgasm and distraction.

This was Preston, and it felt like everything.

It was both terrifying and exhilarating all at once, and she clutched him to her, burying her face in his shoulder, lest she say something she wasn’t ready for him to hear.