I close my eyes for a second – head resting on Harlan’s chest – and an hour passes. I wake up to an empty bed, pitch blackness outside the windows where a mountain stood just a few hours earlier, and the sound of a crackling fire burning downstairs.

The bedroom is slightly chilly, but as a sheet tugs my skin as I sit up, I realize that Harlan must have tucked me under the covers before he left me.

I wipe my tired eyes, and spot a silk dressing gown hanging on a hook nearby. I hop out of bed, slide it over my shoulders and tie the sash around my waist. Then I go in search of Harlan.

I’ll be honest with you – it’s almost hard to walk. If there’s one thing my body isn’t used too, it’s a man the size of Harlan Wolfe having his way with me. Hell, I think I’d probably be feeling it even if a less perfectly endowed man had entered me after so long without a man at all. But it’s a good kind of sore.

The best kind of sore.

When I get to the top of the stairwell, I pause. I can hear a woman’s voice, and in my post-sex, post-sleep haze, I wonder if a cleaner has arrived.

But that doesn’t make sense. It’s late at night. No way is someone schlepping all the way up the winding mountain road that leads to Harlan’s cabin in the dark – no matter how much money he has!

I walk down a couple of the stairs, but I’m careful to walk slowly. It’s not like the metal and glass stairwell is going to groan underneath me like the wooden floorboards of some old, decrepit house, but I’m still cautious.

“– And it’s been a good trip, baby?” A voice asks, floating down the hallway.

That’s Harlan’s voice.

I hear the woman’s voice next. She sounds young, slightly higher pitched, but I can’t make out the words from this distance. Harlan’s lower voice travels better.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t call earlier, I was… busy.”

Busy, huh?

Yeah, that’s definitely Harlan’s voice.

But who is he talking to? I know it’s bad, but my mind immediately jumps to a very dark place. I feel betrayed. The way he’s talking to that girl on the other end of the line – whoever she is – it’s like they’ve known each other forever.

There’s no way that’s his secretary.

But does that make me the other woman? And does the girl on the telephone know about me?

I walk down another step, turning my ear toward the source of Harlan’s voice. It’s echoing from somewhere further down the corridor. I realize that in my whistle stop tour of this cabin when we first arrived, I never got to look around properly.

I sure as hell don’t have my bearings, let alone a floor plan. But I walk down another step, and another, letting the cool glass kiss my naked feet.

Harlan’s voice again. “I promise – we’ll do something special soon.”

A burning pang of jealousy rips through me. I know I should have expected this. There’s no way a man like Harlan – rich, powerful and good-looking – doesn’t have other women on the side. I should have known not to let myself get attached.

Yet that doesn’t stop me from feeling so betrayed it hurts – a physical pain, a knife to the heart.

I hear the woman’s voice again. Harlan must have her on loudspeaker, or else on Face Time or something.

“Okay, daddy, I’ve got to go now. We’ve got a match in twenty minutes, and I need to get on the coach.”

Daddy.

That one word cuts through my anger, sluicing it out like the waterfall Harlan kissed me underneath earlier today. It only takes a second for me to realize that my anger was unjustified. I shouldn’t have jumped to conclusions so quickly. It makes me sound crazy.

Hell, maybe I am crazy.

Maybe I was just jealous that the one man who’s ever been able to take me close to the edge was sharing me.

Even when the person he’s sharing me with is…

… His Daughter.

It all falls into place. I mean, hell, if his daughter doesn’t take priority, then Harlan Wolfe isn’t the man I thought he was.

So now I’m finding two things out – and I don’t know whether to be happy or sad – First: Harlan sounds like a hell of a father.

And second?

He lied to me.

Or at least, if Harlan didn’t lie, then he failed to tell me that in addition to being a widower, he’s also a father.

“Knock it out of the park today, kid,” Harlan says, his voice filled with fatherly affection. “You’re the best out there – and don’t you forget it.”

“I won’t, daddy,” the woman – no, the young girl – says. “Okay, I really gotta go.”

“I mean what I said, kiddo. You’ll do fine out there,” Harlan laughs down the phone. “Be safe out there.”

The kid’s voice is light and buoyant. “I wiiill. Bye daddy!”

Then there’s a ping as the connection ends. Suddenly, I’m left standing there wondering how I should react. Two parts of me are at war – on the one hand, my therapist’s side, on the other, just little old me.

Because, the truth of the matter is, I am kind of jealous and more than a little upset. I know that’s crazy. I know that Harlan is just doing what any good single dad has to do – protect his daughter at all costs.

But that’s the rational side of me.

The other side of me, the Skye Warren who just woke up, still sore from Harlan’s attentions, she’s the one who’s upset.

Because, that Skye thought that Harlan had opened up to her on that plane ride. She thought she knew the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Now, it turns out, that was a lie.

I walk down the stairs, all the way to Harlan’s study. He’s staring at a blanked out screen, still lost in thought. He doesn’t seem to notice me, not until I break the silence.

“I think we need to talk.”