“Do you actually have to live with him?” Carrie, my roommate, asked.

Sarah had given me permission to say that I was working as Stone Logan’s PA for the next six weeks while he wrapped up his book, but that was all the information I was allowed to divulge.

“No, hell, perish that thought. They’ve got separate accommodations up there for me to live in, and I go to his house each day. Really, it’s no different from an office job.”

“Except, you know, hot Stone and you alone in his lair.” Carrie clutched her hands to her chest.

In an attempt to see how difficult it was going to be to keep this assignment a secret, I’d done my best to not say a word to Carrie when I arrived home. That lasted all of about five minutes. Carrie could immediately tell I was excited about something.

“I have to be professional and on my game,” I said, snagging a piece of broccoli Carrie was stir-frying in the pan.

Carrie tried to whack my fingers with the spatula. “That wasn’t professional.”

“I need practice,” I said between chews. “Damn, this is good. How can you make such a dull vegetable taste so exotic?”

Carrie worked in one of those trendy cafes where they serve hipster food, stuff that’s organic, vegan, gluten-free, grown with the phases of the moon, and every dish fringed with micro-greens. We’d been friends for years, and Carrie was generous when money was tight and I struggled to make rent.

“I treat it with respect,” she said with a grin. “Grab the plates and open that bottle of Chardonnay in the fridge. Let’s sit and eat. You can tell me everything about Stone.”

We sat at the kitchen counter. Our apartment didn’t have room for a dining table, but the kitchen had a small island and a couple of stools.

Carrie raised her glass. “Here’s to your future as nanny to the literary world.”

We clinked and I took a sip.

“Have you told your mom yet?”

Mom would probably have kittens. Stone Logan would be everything she despised and everything she’d like to brag about. She’d immediately reel off five reasons why I would fail at this and take much pleasure in comparing this to other instances when she’d successfully predicted my downfall.

“I haven’t said anything yet. I’m trying to imagine her reaction so that I can put out the fires before they take hold. I think I’ll say it’s some random author and not actually name him. If she pushes for a name, I’ll say I can’t tell her because of the NDA I signed.”

“I thought you were going to stop doing that, Kat. You cannot micromanage your mother’s emotions. Just tell her the truth, and if she starts ranting, move on to a new subject.”

I chased half an almond around my plate with way more dedication to the pursuit than was required. Even friends like Carrie, who had known Mom for years, had no real idea of the way her behavior affected me. I’d learned how to shrug off the advice thinly disguised in her put-downs in a way that appeared that I was grateful to hear it. Unfortunately, years of my mother’s manipulation are layered inside me. I took the apartment with Carrie when I really couldn’t afford it just to get away from her control.

Of course, she loves me, and people love her. They think she’s wonderful with all the good work she does for charity and the church. What they don’t realize is that the opinion they hold is the one she forced upon them. Mother is a passive bully, and everyone gives in to her. I’ve tried to make her proud of me, I’ve danced to her tune, and I’ve stood up for myself, but nothing works. I’ve come to understand that I’ll never be good enough in her eyes, and I’ve developed armor plating with the help of Carrie, which helps Mom’s little digs slide.

“I want to do this without her influence or opinion.”

Carrie grabbed my hand. “I know you do, and you’ll be fantastic. Now, tell me more about Stone.”

I wasn’t sure how much of the information I was keeping from Carrie was already in the public domain. “Tell you what, let’s hunt him down on the internet after dinner.” That way, I couldn’t be guilty of breaking my contract. “I probably should find out where he hangs out online, anyway, because I have to run his social media, and my Kindle is loaded with the first six books in the series he’s supposed to be finishing, so it will probably burst into flames next time I open it.”

Carrie laughed. “Don’t get Stone’s social media persona mixed up with the stuff you do for the FaithLits.”

The FaithLits is a group of authors from Mother’s church, attempting to save the youth of today from all the torrid young adult books filled with violence, drugs and sex. Well, that’s what they believe the books are filled with, no matter how much I try to tell them there are excellent stories without that sort of content. They take what they believe to be the standard tropes—once again, sex, violence, drugs—and use them to write stories with faith-based resolutions. Their stuff has an audience, so who am I to judge?

I do their social media because Mom offered up my services for free. Although that annoyed me, I could see the benefits I would gain from the experience of working with authors and readers. Now, of course, I’m reminded to thank Mom for her wonderful idea because without her, I’d blah blah blah. She exhausts me.

We got dinner cleared away, and I pushed all thoughts of contacting Mom from my head. Carrie refreshed our wine glasses while I fired up my laptop and typed Stone’s name into the search box.

Carrie’s finger jumped to the trackpad. “Images first,” she said. “I want a good picture of him in my mind once we get to the sleazy stuff.”

In seconds, the screen filled with pictures of Stone. Across the top was a ribbon offering us various options of more focused collections: his modeling shots, girlfriends, and Steele Heart, the infamous romance series.

Carrie turned to me. “He was a model?”

We both stared at the screen. “Um, underwear, by the look of things.”

We were both silent as we scrolled through the images. Stone got out of modeling a few years ago, but the photos stood the test of time.

Carrie clicked on an image of Stone reclining on a lounger wearing briefs that left nothing to the imagination, one finger crooked in a sexy ‘come here’ gesture. The caption beneath read 50 Shades of Totally Fuckable.

“Shit, Katrina, you’re spending the next six weeks alone in a house with that?”

“Don’t say any more—you’ll freak me out.”

What the heck had I got myself into? His was a world so foreign that I doubted we spoke the same language. I imagined him sneering at my work ethic and demanding exotic cocktails at breakfast.

“Look at him.” Carrie started clicking on pictures, enlarging them, each one portraying Stone in a provocative pose, his goods on display so that there was no mistaking what he was packing.

“Do you think it’s enhanced, like maybe a sock or something stuffed down there?” I asked.

“Nope.”

“How am I going to look him in the eye now, having seen this?” I waved my hand at the screen. “Shut it down. I can’t take any more.”

“You’ve turned pink,” Carrie teased.

“I bet he’s a real jerk,” I said dismissively. “Anyway, I won’t really spend much time with him, because, you know, he’ll be writing and I’ll probably be doing hideous stuff like his laundry, mopping his floors, and calling in the cleanup crew to scrape the groupies off his doorstep—”

“Making him a sandwich,” Carrie added. “I can just see it: Can I get you anything Mr. Logan? Yeah, bitch, make me a sandwich.”

While Carrie was performing her impersonation of Stone and me, I slapped the laptop closed. “I have work to do,” I said, holding my Kindle aloft. “In here are his books, which I’m expected to read to get an idea of what I’m dealing with.”

“Don’t sneak off to your bedroom. Read one to me.”

“You just want to watch me blush through the sex scenes.”

“Darn right I do.”

Carrie was far more adventurous than me. She was totally at peace with her sexuality, whereas I was totally confused. I’d fooled around, had the customary ‘kind-of’ boyfriends, but I hadn’t really done it. That was a great source of amusement to Carrie, but unfortunately, I had yet to meet the guy who could obliterate my mother’s voice in the bedroom. Every time I got close to losing it, Mom encroached with her lectures about respect and virtue and saving myself for my wedding night.

Having Mom in my head when I’m making out was the unsexiest thing in the world.

* * *

I spent the weekend reading Stone’s novels and preparing myself for the move upstate to Springston. His books were certainly a quick read, but I could see their appeal. Funny, outrageous and frighteningly explicit. How on earth could I face the guy on Monday, certain he’d know I’d devoured his books over two days and that I’d read those scenes. It was impossible not to put him in them, imagining Stone doing the dirty talk...the dirty stuff. The nonstop sex. The books had an unnerving effect on me, mostly between my legs, and I wondered if anyone noticed I was in a constant state of arousal.

How could a mere story pull that sort of response from me when the guys that I’d messed about with had barely managed to start my engine? That just didn’t even make sense.

Carrie supervised my packing of a week’s worth of clothes. I hoped I’d be home for the weekends, but from what I could tell, if Stone was producing words, CJM preferred I was on hand to assist. I wasn’t entirely sure if career writers took weekends off. Presumably, he took some time off because there seemed to be a lot of research behind the antics in those books, if the gossip was anything to go by.

“Show me your underwear.”

“Carrie—”

She nudged me out of the way and peered into the bag I was packing. “These will never work,” she said, grabbing a fistful of sensible panties and bras and waving them in front of my face. “You need lingerie, not granny pants, if you’re going to seduce that man.”

“What? Since when was I setting out to seduce Stone?”

“Probably from the moment you got to the sexy parts in Book One. I’ve never known you to read so much, and you’re in this permanent state of heat.”

I snatched the underwear back and stuffed it into my bag. “My seduction skills, which happen to be zero, would have to be supreme if I could make Stone Logan even look at me. I mean, look at me. I’m nothing like the women he writes about. I’m…”

“A librarian?”

“That’s a bit harsh on the librarians, don’t you think?”

“You’re being harsh on yourself. You need some confidence, and maybe contact lenses. I’m not crazy about your glasses.”

“I only use them for reading.”

“That’s no excuse for ugly frames.”

I glanced at the mirror. “They’re not that bad.”

“Leave them off as much as you can. Just saying.”

My frames were within my budget, and they’d been on sale, so they were much nicer than I would normally have been able to afford. I liked them.

I caught Carrie eyeing my underwear again.

“Let’s go shopping,” she said. “Stone was an underwear model, Kat. He’s going to expect a certain standard.”

I held up my hand. “Stop with the craziness and listen to me. I’m not going to have sex with Stone Logan. Ever. Got it?”

Carrie smirked. “But you want to.”

My body immediately set to early-stage arousal at the idea. Of course I wanted to...in a fantasy. Most women would. But part of me also fantasized about Channing Tatum, and hot air ballooning, white water rafting, swimming with dolphins, and my own house with a yard and a dog, all things I would never do and never have. All harmless in the fantasy realm, which was exactly where those thoughts would stay.

Except I didn’t even want to be fantasizing about Stone, so I’d inserted The Chan Man into Stone’s stories when they reached the sexy bits, and that had worked just fine for me.

Really fine. Like doubling my lifelong orgasm count in one weekend fine.

“If you wore sexy lingerie, it would make you feel sexier, and Stone would notice that. He’d sniff it out.”

“Please, you’re making the man sound like a dog now.”

“A dirty dog,” Carrie added. “That’s what the man is. You know what those guys are like. He’ll see your dilated pupils, pick up the scent of your pheromones, and know you’re ready to mate.”

“I’m not ready to mate.”

“You will be once the panty-melter gets you in his sights. Imagine having sex with someone like him. Proper sex. Hard, fast, long and dirty sex. Wow. It’ll be way better than ol’ fumbling, fast-shooting Jack.”

“Do you have to bring that up all the time? I wish I’d never told you.”

Jack was my one attempt at having an exclusive, going-all-the-way boyfriend. I guess he was overcome by the moment whenever we attempted to have sex, because he came over me, rather than in me. The first act was the finale. Seconds later, he’d manage a brief apology, then reach for the television remote, and while I was still cleaning myself up, he tuned into a rerun of something like Animal House.

Jack could best be summed up as ‘economic’ in most aspects of our relationship. Dates were cheap—never a bottle of wine, just a glass. We sat in the cheap seats at the movies, and we split all costs. He seemed satisfied with some hasty fumbling and fooling around at the end of the night, and when I suggested we could take a bit more time to get warmed up, he blamed me for ‘doing it wrong’.

Technically, I was possibly still a virgin.

“I think I’ll send Stone an email and warn him there’s a virgin in his midst,” Carrie teased.

I zippered up my bag before she could find anything else in there that didn’t match her idea of seductress. “How is it possible for you to make my presumed virginity sound like a malevolent spirit that needs exorcising?”

Carrie grinned. “Easy. One, because it’s about as rare as a malevolent spirit, and two, because that damned thing does need exorcising, or exercising, or to become extinct. Your virginity is your unicorn...by which I mean, unbelievable.”

“I’m not even a virgin,” I protested. “I think, when this job is over, I’ll look for a new apartment.”

“Damn, I love you. This is going to be freaking amazing. I don’t care about Sarah’s stupid NDA. I expect you to share the gossip in full detail every weekend.”

* * *

Monday morning, the half-hour trip on the Hudson Line passed way too quickly. I felt unprepared for meeting Stone again and made up my mind that I would keep things professional. I would address him as Mr. Logan, and respect him for his talent as a writer, not his prowess for seduction and, let’s face it, having a lot of sex.

I’d made my way through three of his novels and the paperwork CJM had provided for me, and from the details, I made a short list of what I felt the main parts of this assignment would entail.

Obviously, I had to get Stone to finish his book by the deadline. Then there was the issue of the scandal that erupted when he either deliberately or drunkenly started leaking excerpts online of the final book in his series. Everyone guessed that the female character, Tatiana, was based on Lily Clarke, Stone’s movie star, famous ex-girlfriend. That had to carry some truth, seeing as the publisher’s legal department had demanded a rewrite of the story.

What Sarah had neglected to tell me was that I’d also have to make him obey Lily Clarke’s restraining order. Perhaps Stone was right—hiring a thug might have been the best proposition. Was I expected to manhandle him? What if he got drunk and went crazy? Why hadn’t I thought of these things instead of being blinded by his smile and ridiculously flattered at being offered a job like this?

Another thing was that I never got around to telling Mom about this job. I just couldn’t work out how to do that without her spoiling this opportunity. She’d either put a bad slant on it or manage to take credit for this break, and I was doing a good enough job at putting a bad slant on this without any of her help.

Getting off at the next stop and returning to the apartment felt like an excellent plan, but the next stop announced was Springston.

As the train slowed, my heart sped up. Through the window, I could see someone waiting for me on the platform.