LYDIA

Rhys disappears into his home office almost as soon as we return to the hotel. Besides his bedroom and the room he's using as an office there's a spare bedroom, but Rhys places my suitcase in his room and tells me to unpack. So I do. I line up my shampoo and conditioner next to his in the shower. I hang my clothes next to his in the closet and I pretend this is all normal and that he likes me. Likes me a girlfriend amount, not a hooker amount, which is ridiculous because no one moves their girlfriend in after one date.

I check the fridge and find it empty save for bottled water, craft private-label beer from Hennigan's, orange juice, a carton of eggs and a bottle of mustard. There's a basket of fresh fruit on the counter so I help myself to a pear and then stare at the view of the Vegas Strip while I eat it.

After that I've officially run out of things to do and I think it's been all of half an hour since I got here so I doubt Rhys is emerging from his office anytime soon. So I resort to my normal Sunday afternoon activity: pajamas and home renovation shows on cable. I'm in my favorite pair of sheet pajama pants and a tank top, sprawled out on Rhys's couch waiting to find out which house a couple from Downers Grove, Illinois chooses on their house hunt, when the front door opens and Canon walks in.

"Oh, hey, I didn't realize you were here," he says, spotting me halfway to the bedroom Rhys has his office set up in. I'm slumped on the couch with my feet on the coffee table and my phone in my hand playing a word game while I wait to find out if location trumps yard space for the Illinois couple. "Have you moved in?" Canon asks with a wide grin, eyeing the way I'm sprawled on the sofa in pajamas.

"Basically," I say, shrugging my shoulder as if I've got no idea how this happened either. Mostly I avert my gaze because he just saw me yesterday wearing a sheer nightie auctioning my virginity and that is super-embarrassing.

"Wow. This is so much better than I anticipated," he says, laughing to himself as he continues down the hall to find Rhys.

The Illinois couple picks the house with the good yard and the outdated kitchen. I score thirty-four points spelling the word ‘jeed.’ I don't even know what that word means. I mostly just move the letters around until I get a word worth a decent number of points and then I hit play.

Rhys and Canon emerge from the office, Canon telling us to have a good night, and then he's gone. Rhys flips the safety deadbolt as the door closes, walks over to where I'm sitting and stops.

"Dinner?"

Oh.

"You want me to get dressed?" I toss the blanket off of myself and place my feet on the floor and stand. Getting redressed on a Sunday is so not my idea of a good time.

"No, we'll eat here."

"Eat what? You don't have any food." I drop back onto the sofa with my blanket, relieved I don't have to get dressed.

"We'll order from the kitchen. What do you want?"

"Do you order all your meals from the kitchen?"

"Pretty much," he says like this isn't a weird thing. I wonder how I'm going to make it without Del Taco. I bet I can get Payton to bring me an iced java coffee on her way to work. "What do you want?" He's walked over to the kitchen and picked up some kind of smart screen device that I saw earlier on a charging dock next to the stove. The stove that still had the instruction manual inside of it.

"I don't know. What do they have? Do you have a menu?"

"They have whatever you want."

"Whatever I want?"

"Yes."

"So I could order…" I search my brain for something really outlandish and come up totally blank. Surely they can make a cheeseburger or a pepperoni pizza or a chicken salad or a turkey sandwich. "I could order lemon pie for dinner and they'd bring it?"

"I have no idea how long it would take but yes, they'd bring it. Did you want lemon pie?" He's tapping on the screen and I hope he's not just ordered me a lemon pie because I don't actually like lemon pie. It was just the wildest thing I could come up with on short notice, which is really really lame.

"What are you having?"

"Grilled chicken, a baked potato and broccoli."

"Oh! I know what I want." I'm sort of excited now because this is my favorite thing ever, but making it myself requires buying so many ingredients that it's really not cost-effective. He raises his brow in question so I continue. "I'd like a salad with shredded chicken, corn, black beans, avocado, tomatoes, cheese and cilantro lime dressing on the side."

Rhys taps in my order. "No pie?"

"Err, no. I was joking about the pie." I say it super-casually, like a girl who would never order pie. But the idea of a magical kitchen where I can order anything is too much temptation. "Do they have birthday-cake-flavored ice cream?"

"Isn't that just vanilla?"

"No! No, it's not just vanilla." I huff and shake my head. "You're really sheltered, Rhys. You've been alive twelve whole years longer than I have yet there's so much you still don't know."

Rhys stares at me over the tablet without speaking then shakes his head as if he's snapping himself out of his thoughts.

"If they don't someone will run out and get it," he says as he finishes tapping our order in before tossing the device onto the sofa.

"This is some life you've got here," I tell him. "Housekeeping. Room service. Killer views."

"It's something," he says, dropping onto the sofa beside me and pulling my legs into his lap. I freeze for a moment because it's such a weird couplish thing to do, but Rhys doesn't seem to notice, his attention on the television. "What are we watching?"

We.

I've never been a we. I've always wanted to be one, even in high school when I was too busy and too shy to do much of anything about it. I remember during my junior year, the Monday after a dance I hadn't attended, another girl looked at me in the hallway and said, “Oh, look, there's that girl who couldn't get a date to the dance.”

She was a sophomore, someone I only knew in passing, but her words devastated me for—well, for a long time. But here I am, with the most attractive man I've ever laid eyes on, lying on his couch with my legs in his lap while we wait for room service.

So what if it's fake? It could be real. It feels sorta real. Rhys starts massaging the arches of my feet and that feels pretty real. Unless he's got a foot fetish and I've finally cracked his code.

"House Hunters," I finally answer.

"What is House Hunters?"

I stare at him, unsure if he's joking or not. He's not. "You don't know what House Hunters is?”

"Nope."

"It's been on for like a hundred seasons."

"A hundred?"

"At least. You are the only person in the universe who hasn't seen House Hunters. You really need to live a little, Rhys."

"So what is it I'm missing?"

"Okay, so every episode features a couple buying a house. In a different city in the United States. Unless you're watching House Hunters International and then they could be buying a house anywhere! Like Paris or Prague or Edinburgh or Heidelberg."

"Heidelberg?"

"It's in Germany. You'd know that if you watched House Hunters International." I'm more than a little smug about my knowledge of a random city in Europe.

"I know where Heidelberg is."

Oh.

"Why is watching someone look for a house interesting?"

"How is it not?" Rhys laughs at the expression on my face but I really don't get how he's not getting this. "Every couple has a different budget, different priorities, in a different city. And you get to see what kind of house they can buy for that budget in that city. They view three homes and then they pick one. But before they pick they recap all three and you guess which one they're going to pick."

"Uh-huh."

"It's very interesting. You'll see."

"Couldn't you just look up some houses on Zillow and save yourself twenty-five minutes?"

"Pffft. That's not the same."

"Okay." Rhys nods. "So what city are we watching now?" His thumbs continue to knead the bottom of my foot and this might be the most blissful moment of my life. Well, second. Those orgasms he gave me last night definitely rank first.

"You, my friend, are in for a special treat."

"Am I?" His lips quirk in amusement. He can be as amused as he likes because he has no idea how lucky he's about to be. "These are nice, by the way," he says, fingering the material of my pajama pants. I'm still not sure if he's serious about this ‘wear what I'd normally wear’ nonsense so I keep the fact that I made these pants out of an old sheet to myself.

"You are. Up next is an episode of House Hunters Renovation. Which means we get to see them pick their house and renovate it. Whew!" I fan myself with my hand like I need to cool down. I'm joking. A little bit. It is my favorite of the House Hunters.

We're halfway through the episode—a couple in Austin, Texas have selected their house and renovations are just beginning—when our food arrives. Rhys gets up to get the door and a guy from food and beverage wheels in a cart exactly like they do in the movies. It's probably exactly like they do it in real life too but I've never had room service before. I've been on plenty of family vacations with my dads, but room service was never a thing we did.

The guy from food and beverage is an older gentleman named Mitchell. He was in one of my orientation groups a couple of weeks back and I know he recognizes me as he's moving the trays to the island countertop in the kitchen per Rhys' direction because he says, "Good evening, Miss Clark."

"Hi, Mitch." I wave from the couch. "How has your day been so far?"

"No complaints. We're not too busy what with the hotel not being officially open yet. Suspect that's about to change real quick."

"It better," Rhys agrees. He escorts Mitchell to the door and then tells me he's putting my ice cream in the freezer.

"Okay. I hope there's room in there," I tease.

"Oh, you think you're funny, don't you?"

"You have a full-size top-of-the-line refrigerator filled with water and ketchup, so yes."

He places our food on the coffee table and sits back down beside me and, not for nothing, I see him eyeing the television. He'd never admit it, but I bet he's just as curious as I am if that kitchen wall can come down easily or if the couple from Austin is going to have to spring for an expensive beam.

"So, um, how are we doing this with work?" I ask him during the next commercial break.

"What do you mean?" He forks a piece of chicken into his mouth. I know this is a little crazy but he's a very sexy chewer.

"I'm sorta living here."

"For a month."

"Or until you get bored with me."

He turns his head and glances at me when I say that, a flicker of something crossing his expression before he turns back to the television.

"I know that Sutton Travel has a fairly liberal fraternization policy," I say, referring to the parent company that owns the Windsor, and trying to guide the conversation back to the issue at hand, "but people are going to see me here, like Mitchell just did. Or see me coming and going or using the executive elevator to get to work in the morning. They're going to assume that I'm your girlfriend, unless you want me to sneak in and out? I could take the elevator down to the parking garage and then walk over to the employee entrance and take that elevator to the fourth floor. That would work." I hold my breath and wonder if this is the moment he realizes he only liked me in a one-night way, not in a month-long way, and tells me to go.

I really like him in a month-long way.

At least.

Maybe even in a several-months way.

I know my liking seems a little presumptuous, a little naive, but you know how some men have that thing? A presence? That thing that sucks the air out of the room when they walk in, when your eyes gravitate towards them even before you should know they're there? That pull isn't normal—it cannot be, because I've met lots and lots of men during my lifetime and I've only ever felt it with Rhys.

I don't know how long that thing lasts. Obviously this is my first time experiencing that thing, but it can't possibly just flip off or extinguish in a month. It's already been a month since the first time I felt it, that first night in the bar when he was with his drunk British friend (who I've since pieced together is the CEO of Sutton Travel and Rhys' cousin, so I should probably stop referring to him as the drunk British friend in case I ever meet him) and the thing is not diminishing. The thing has only gotten stronger. And now I have feelings for him as a person in addition to the thing, which is clearly some kind of voodoo sexual pull.

But maybe this is the moment that Rhys realizes he's not feeling the thing. Maybe at all, or maybe not enough to want me here. Maybe he had his fill of me and that's that. There must be a reason he doesn't have a girlfriend, right? A reason he prefers dancers, strippers, whatever his normal preference is. Maybe he likes the variety.

"No, I don't want you to sneak anywhere. Come and go as you please. I'll take care of the office in the morning."

I poke at a piece of shredded chicken in my salad, which is delicious, way better than when I have to make it myself, and contemplate what ‘taking care of it’ means. I want to ask questions about that, but he's turned his attention back to the television and his expression didn't really bode well for questioning. Plus I trust him when he says he'll take care of it. The questions are really just for my own nosy interest so I decide to let it drop until tomorrow.

We watch the rest of the episode in silence. The kitchen wall comes down, but it does require a thirty-five-hundred-dollar support beam to make their dream kitchen a reality. Then they get hit with an unexpected roof leak and the contingency budget is blown. It all ends well though, when they find tile for the renovated master bath on clearance and call in a friend to help them lay it themselves in order to stay on budget. The renovation finishes on time and seven thousand dollars over their original eighty-thousand-dollar budget.

"What did you think?" I ask him when the episode ends.

"Hmm," he replies, as if he needs to mull it over. We've finished our dinners and somehow—I really could not explain how it happened—sometime in the last ten minutes of the episode I ended up with my head on Rhys' chest, both of us reclined on the sofa. "What is it about it that appeals to you?" He's running his fingers through the strand of my ponytail and it feels just as good as the mini-foot massage I got earlier. I decide Rhys is good at the touching too. It's very comforting, reassuring in a wordless way. Also, there might be a thirty percent chance I'm falling for him.

"I love seeing what's possible. At first glance that house was so dated and dark. But it was a hidden gem, you know? It just needed the right person to come along and uncover its potential. With just a little bit of effort, relocating the laundry room and renovating the kitchen meant suddenly the house was a bright spacious home the way it was always meant to be."

"A lot of effort is more like it."

"Sometimes the effort is worth it." I say it softly, a bit more to myself than to him. I'm playing with the loop on the waistband of his jeans, running the material between my finger and thumb, my eyes on the television.

"They could have just bought a move-in-ready house and skipped the hassle."

"Maybe. But maybe they really wanted that particular home and none of the move-in-ready homes turned them on." He stills beneath me, his hand pausing in my hair. "Maybe they had a real-estate fetish for that lot or something. Never mind," I finish in a rush. I think my real-estate analogies might be too revealing, yet I can't stop. "Plus every episode has a happily-ever-after."

"A house-hunting happily-ever-after?"

"Yes. It's a very rewarding viewing experience. You know they're going to pick one of the three houses because they always pick one of the three houses. You are virtually guaranteed at the end of each episode one house will be living its best life with a new family."

"What about the two houses that didn't get picked?"

"I don't like to think about them."

"Of course not."

"I'm sure they got picked," I add, after a minute, because it is a bothersome detail. "Off screen. Just because it didn't happen during the episode doesn't mean it never happened for those homes."

"Maybe the other homes were too damaged to deserve a family. Maybe they were filled with mold and needed to be leveled." He's playing with my hair again as he talks.

"Nope. Mold can be remediated. They just needed the right buyer to see their potential."

A new episode starts and Rhys doesn't make any move to get up from the couch. This time it's an episode of Beach Hunters, in which prospective homeowners are searching for their dream homes with beach access.

I've never been much of a beach girl.

"Do you have more work left to do tonight?" I ask, glancing up at him under my lashes. I'm not sure how much time I have with him or how to go about asking for what I want.

"Did you want me to get back to work?"

"No." I shake my head against his chest, the fabric from his t-shirt soft against my chin.

"I'm done working for the night."

"That's great."

"Why is that?"

I smooth my open palm against his chest and wonder how I make the sex happen again. "Maybe we can work on our AST," I offer.

"AST?"

"Average sex time. Remember we need to work on our efficiencies because you're so busy."

His eyes close for a moment and a small groan emits from his lips. I can't decipher the groan though. Is it interest? Exasperation? Arousal? I'm not at all sure. I eye the clock, wondering what time he's planning on starting work in the morning. Maybe it's time for him to go to bed, I have no idea.

"We could be quick, to bring the average down," I add in case he's considering skipping half an hour of sleep to have sex. "Or I could give you a blow job. I don't think that would count towards the AST average though. But I think I read something about blow jobs helping with sleep so it would still be a very efficient use of your time, don't you think?"

He expels a breath and his eyes open, looking at me with a sense of bewilderment.

"Have you ever given a blow job, Lydia?"

"No." I shake my head. "I gave an ex-boyfriend a few hand jobs but he came pretty fast without me really doing much. That's why I thought that seven to thirteen minutes was a reasonable goal because it only took that guy like two minutes to come."

Rhys stops playing with my hair and uses that hand to rub at the lines on his forehead so I fear I might be losing his interest.

"I know how to though," I add quickly. "I watched a few videos to get the gist and I'm a quick learner." I've always been proud of my ability to catch on quickly. "I haven't forgotten that you want me to choke on your dick, but you'll have to teach me that part because none of the videos I saw explained if the women were simply born without a gag reflex, or if not, how they were able to overcome it. Also some of them just swallowed the penis without a sound and some of them were very noisy about it and I wasn't sure which you were looking for."

"Lydia." He grits the response between his teeth.

"Yes?"

"Please stop talking."

Oh, snap.

I bite my lip to hide my disappointment. Both over missing out on the sex tonight and wondering where I lost his interest. I run the conversation back through my mind trying to pinpoint exactly where I lost him so I can remove it from my wheelhouse of seduction techniques.

But wait.

He is interested. I know he's interested because I can feel his interest growing against my stomach and it's new interest, it wasn't there during the last ten minutes of the home renovation when I was lying on top of him and the quartz countertops were being revealed. So maybe ‘please stop talking’ meant ‘get to work?’ I am here on a job after all. When I was a Girl Trooper our leader Mrs. Barnes used to tell us 'less talking, more working' when we were sorting our cookie orders but I guess that's not really the same thing at all.

Still.

It could be a similar thing.

I move my eyes to his and slide my hand from his chest to his growing interest and apply a bit of pressure. When he doesn't stop me I slide off the couch and settle on my knees between his spread ones and move to unzip him, but he stops me again.

"Lydia, stop. Stand up."