“I don’t think this week could have been more perfect.” I slipped my arms around Rob’s neck and he swung me around in the surf, making me laugh out loud.

“So, we had the perfect day in Detroit when we first met—and now the perfect reunion week.” He burrowed his face against my neck, kissing salt water from my skin. “How about we make it the perfect life?”

“Well if anyone could live a perfect life, it would be you.” I rubbed my nose against his, seeing myself reflected in the mirror of his sunglasses. I hated not being able to see his eyes, but we were in public and he always insisted on the sunglasses, as if they could magically hide his identity. “You’re charmed.”

“Not all the time.” He smiled but it wasn’t his usual full, devilish Rob smile. He saw me looking at him, considering, and his smile brightened. “But definitely today.”

He kissed me, a wonderfully delicious distraction, and I let it transport me, as it always did, to some other world where only he and I existed. I wanted to live there forever.

“You hungry?” he asked when we parted, swiping a stray strand of wet hair from my cheek with his thumb. He was trying to distract me with food now, which he already knew worked. That made me smile. Sometimes I thought we didn’t know enough about each other—and there was really no remedy for that except time—but then he said something like that, proving he knew me all too well.

“Yes,” I admitted, slipping my hand in his as we waded back out of the waves, the surf foaming around our ankles. “But if you don’t quit feeding me like this, I’m going to be a whale by the time this baby’s due.”

“But you’ll be my whale.” He grinned, reaching around and grabbing a handful of my ass through my bikini bottoms. “And you have such a cute tail.”

“Robert Alan Burns!” I protested, sticking out my tongue at him as we reached the wet sand.

“That doesn’t work with me.” He laughed.

“Are you kidding me?” I raised my eyebrows. “If my mom used my full name, I knew I was in for it!”

“Not me.” He swung my hand, the fine white sand sticking to our wet feet as we walked toward the spot where we’d set up a blanket and the picnic basket Daisy had packed for us. “Honestly, I don’t think any of my foster moms even knew my middle name.”

“Oh Rob...” I frowned, shaking my head. It was so foreign to me, the idea of not having parents who cared enough to pay attention, let alone not having the person who named you still in your life. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey, I can’t complain.” He squeezed my hand before letting go and plopping down on the blanket, patting the spot beside him. “I’ve done pretty good for a kid who grew up in foster care.”

“Pretty good.” I laughed. “That’s an understatement.”

“What’d the Ranger pack in our pick-a-nic basket, Boo-Boo?” Rob watched, amused, as I unpacked sandwiches and a thermos full of lemonade.

“Lots of noms, Yogi.” I laughed. “God, I love Daisy. Can I take her home with me?”

“She’s kind of awesome, I have to agree.” Rob picked up a sandwich, taking off the waxed paper and devouring a square.

“The best cook ever.” The sandwiches were tuna on whole-grain bread, something that should have been boring, but in Daisy’s hands, it was sublime.

“Don’t let her hear you call her a cook,” Rob said, his mouth full.

“Chef, sorry. Chef!” I corrected myself. “I’ll call her anything she wants, as long as she keeps feeding me.”

“We’ll have to arrange that.”

I knew what he was implying but I didn’t respond, watching a toddler chase the surf, squealing every time the water rushed over his fat little feet. His mother sat on the wet sand within arm’s reach, watching and smiling. I couldn’t help but imagine our child doing the same. It was moving so fast it scared me. I was on a speeding train, I couldn’t get off, and I honestly had no idea what direction we were heading. I had my ticket in hand and knew where I wanted to go—but I didn’t know if we’d get derailed or ever make it to our destination.

“Son of a bitch.” Rob swore under his breath, quickly packing food back into the basket, much to my dismay.

“What’s the matter?”

“Paparazzi.”

We’d had to deal with them only a few times since I arrived, but we’d mostly just stayed at his “house” in the hills. We had everything we could possibly want there, except maybe the ocean. I glanced around, past the mother and her toddler, down the beach where a couple walked a golden retriever along the edge of the water. There weren’t a lot of people, honestly. A few towels and blankets dotted the sand, splashes of color.

Then I glanced the other way and saw him. There were two guys, a good football field away, both carrying cameras with huge telephoto lenses, snapping away.

“Oh my God.” I reached around the basket for my cover-up. “I’m in my bathing suit!”

“And you fill it out nicely,” Rob replied with a grin as I pulled my cover-up over my head.

“They won’t print pictures of me in my bathing suit, will they?” I blinked at him, incredulous.

How many times had I sat in the chair at my hairdresser with a People magazine in my lap and gawked at candid celebrity photos? The photographers loved to catch celebrities unaware. Especially women. If they captured a picture with even a hint of cellulite, it went into a magazine somewhere. That realization made my stomach clench.

“Of course, they will.” Rob scowled, picking up the basket as he stood. “Probably with a lot of speculation about who you are and what I’m doing with you.”

“Great.” I glanced down the beach. The photographers were getting closer. Bolder, now that they understood we’d seen them, that we were packing up to leave and seek some privacy.

“Ugh, I guess we should have stayed home.” I grimaced in the photographers’ direction, hoping they weren’t taking pictures of us from behind and, if they were, that I really didn’t look like a whale. “We can swim there.”

“But you said you always wanted to swim in the ocean.” Rob took my hand, basket in the other, the blanket over his arm.

“And now I have.” I couldn’t help smiling. “It’ll be a year of firsts.”

Jesse was waiting for us, parked up the hill. I hadn’t known he was Rob’s regular driver. I’d thought he was just someone he hired to pick me up from the airport. That morning, I’d objected at breakfast about being driven to the beach, but Jesse insisted, and I understood now. The photographers were still clicking way and gaining.

“Just stay close.”

Rob didn’t have to tell me. I was glued to his side. We were walking, but it was an extremely fast walk. Still, they closed the ground between us, calling Rob’s name, which got the attention of a bunch of teens hanging out around a picnic table. Great.

“Hurry,” Rob urged, maneuvering me in front of him, putting himself between me and the photographers.

I liked to tease him about his “magic sunglasses” and had protested being driven around town, but it all made so much more sense when there were people practically chasing us down a sandy public beach path, peppering us with questions.

Jesse already had the door of the Rolls Royce open, I saw with relief as we approached.

“Rob! Who is she?” One of the photographers called. “Where’s your wife?”

His question made my stomach hurt.

“Is it true that Tyler busted up a hotel room in Tampa?”

I looked up at Rob in surprise, seeing his dark look as he nudged me toward the car.

“Get in!” Jesse hustled me into the back seat and took the basket and blanket from Rob as he slipped in beside me. Jesse blocked the view with his big body before shutting the door. I’d never been so glad for tinted windows in my life.

One of the photographers, a short, bearded fellow wearing a Hawaiian shirt, shorts and Crocs, knocked on the window, persistent.

“Come on, just tell us who she is!”

Rob slipped an arm around my shoulder, turning toward me to block my view of the guy pounding on the window as Jesse quickly got into the driver’s seat, the basket and blanket stowed in the trunk, and started the car.

“I don’t know how you get used to that.” I shivered as Jesse pulled away, leaving the photographers behind. I glanced behind us, watching them fade to little spots as we accelerated.

“You never do. You just learn to tolerate it. Like horses with flies.” Rob glared at them through the back window as if his eyes were laser beams and he could burn them both to a crisp. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine.” I snuggled closer to him in the backseat, putting my head on his shoulder. “A little tired.”

Tired, apparently, was an understatement. I’d been dragging for weeks, up at five a.m. every morning to get to work, falling asleep in front of Friends reruns at seven every night. Out here, time was different. There were no responsibilities, no obligations. Just me and Rob together, talking, playing, laughing, making love. Lots of making love.

And sleeping! I took cat-naps in the afternoon, curled up in one of the oversized chairs in the library with a copy of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice in my lap—which I later learned was a first edition—and had even fallen asleep during sex. Not once, but twice. And Rob, the sweetheart he was, hadn’t complained. He just covered me up, kissed my forehead and let me sleep.

Pregnancy sure took a lot out of you.

“You got a lot of sun today.” He frowned, studying my face.

“Am I toast?” I pulled aside the strap to my bikini, looking for lines. I was painfully, blindingly Midwest-pale.

“You better not be.” He scoffed. “I put enough sunscreen on you to cover an elephant.”

“What, exactly, are you implying?” I cried. “I’m not even showing yet!”

“You are a little.” He grinned, unbuttoning the first button on my cover-up, revealing my considerable cleavage. “Especially here.”

“Rob!”

“Jesse doesn’t mind.” Rob dipped his head to feather kisses over the tops of my breasts, glancing over the seat at his driver. “Do you, Jesse?”

“Nope.” Jesse met my eyes briefly in the rearview mirror, grinning.

“See?”

“You’re bad!” I laughed, pushing at Rob. “At least wait until we get home.”

“I like you calling it home.” He nuzzled my breasts, resting his head there with a soft sigh.

Home. I was going to have to go home soon. Tomorrow was a holiday—Easter Sunday—and we had Monday off, but then it was back to my real home. Back to work. Back to my life. How could I reconcile these two worlds? It didn’t compute.

“Stay.” He whispered the word, tracing my cleavage with his finger. “Stay with me.”

“Rob...” I sighed. “You know I can’t.”

School didn’t let out until the beginning of June. It was the entire reason—well, mostly—I’d decided not to go on tour, like Katie had. She’d followed Tyler Cook, lead guitarist of Trouble, halfway around the country. But she didn’t have a job, or even any pets. There’d been no reason for her not to go, aside from the fact that it was a little crazy. Or a lot crazy, depending on your perspective and how much you loved rock stars, especially uber rock stars like Tyler Cook and Rob Burns of Trouble, who drew hundreds of thousands of fans at a time to their concerts in every city they visited.

If you were a Trouble fan, you probably thought I was the crazy one, not Katie. Because what fan would miss an opportunity like that?

Me. I was too practical for my own good. I had a job, a house, a life. I had roots and they went deep. I wasn’t easily transplantable.

Besides, while I’d finally decided to board this train, I still wasn’t quite sure where I might end up. I was clinging desperately to both, hedging my bets. I had a job and life, and I needed to hang onto those for as long as I could. The practical part of me always won that argument. How could I raise a baby without a job? I knew what Rob would say—he kept saying it.

I’ll take care of you. Let me take care of you.

But what happened if he wasn’t around?

I didn’t to think about that, of course—and he didn’t want me to think about it either. When I implied that was the reason I needed to return to work, he got quietly angry, jaw working, eyes blazing fire, so I didn’t mention it again. There were plenty of other reasons, of course. My employer and all my students were relying on me. That was reason enough.

“I can’t do this again.” Rob sighed, resting his forehead against mine. “I can’t let you go.”

“Hey, did I hear Daisy say she was going to cook an Easter dinner?” I changed the subject, remembering a conversation I’d overheard from snuggled under the down covers that morning. “Something about a goose?”

“Yeah, she’s gone all Dickens on me.” He snorted. “I think she’s excited to be cooking instead of just juicing my meals.”

“I like goose. My mom used to make that for Easter when I was a kid.”

“I know, you told me.” He slipped his arms around me, pulling me into his lap.

“You remember everything.” My arms went around his neck, so comfortable and familiar now. Jesse rolled down the window to punch a code into the keypad at the gate.

“I like memorizing you.” Rob’s lips moved against mine, making me forget everything but his sweetness. We didn’t part until the car stopped in front of the house.

“We’re home,” I breathed, eyes fluttering open to meet his. My God, that look. I was little Red Riding Hood and he was the big bad wolf. So very hungry.

“Say it again,” he whispered.

“You’re my home.”

He captured my mouth again in reward, just briefly, before Jesse was there, opening the door. I stood for a moment, leaning against the Rolls and looking up at the house. It was more of a fortress, French style, made of dark limestone, each flat-topped section, six in all, larger than two of my own house. The infinity pool flowed all the way around the house—we’d made the swim around several times, chasing each other like dolphins—under the cobblestone bridge that spanned its length to the front door. It had been intimidating and awesome, in the true sense of the word awe, the first time I’d seen it. Now, I saw it as truly magnificent, if incredibly indulgent for one man, living alone.

But he wasn’t living alone, not always.

No, Catherine had lived here with him.

Rob said he had roommates now—Tyler had a room, and a good friend of theirs, Sarah, who I had yet to meet, was going to school at UCLA and staying with them. But Rob had originally bought the house for Catherine.

I didn’t like to think about that. I promised myself, after that first altercation with her, that I would trust Rob. He said he was handling it. It was under control. More importantly, he said he loved me, not her, wanted me, not her. And I was the one whose hand he was holding as we walked over the cobblestone bridge to the front door.

This wasn’t my home, not yet.

But I knew it could be.