Guarding Her: A Secret Baby Romance by Lexi Whitlow (36)

I nod. “I want you inside of me.” My words come out in what sounds like a pathetic squeak, but he gives a small groan, leaning in closer and kissing my neck. His hand rises greedily to my breast and pinches a nipple, sending another rush of blood to the dark, waiting place between my thighs. “I want you—I want you to fuck me. I want you to come inside me.” I balk at my own words. They tumble out of my mouth before I can consider what I’m saying.

I want all of this and more. I want him all at once, everywhere. Maybe this is Kim meant by playing it casual—maybe this is what you get.

“My pleasure,” he says, gripping me by the waist and hoisting me up so that my legs are wrapped around him. He kisses me then, mouth hot and hungry, the outline of his muscular torso long and lithe against my far softer flesh. The length of his cock is pressed to my sex, my clit rubbing against the hot, smooth skin. The nearly agonizing need builds inside of me again, and the heat spreads through my thighs and lower back. I want to come again—and I feel like I could. I try pressing my body closer to his as he carries me back to his bedroom, but he holds me still, laughing and nipping at my neck.

“Eager little thing, aren’t you? Not yet, not yet.” He throws me down on the bed like he’s a caveman home from the hunt. Surprising myself again, I raise up on both elbows to watch him rip a foil packet open and slide a condom onto his waiting cock. My entire body pulses in anticipation.

When he comes to me, I tremble, legs shaking. He moves a lock of hair away from my eye and kisses me again. He brings my body to the edge of the bed, positioning himself so the head of his cock meets my entrance. His expert thumb goes to my clit and works it in small circles again, and I feel the rush of wetness I know he’s looking for. He works the head against my opening, stretching me open as I lie there before him.

I yelp—it feels like it’s been a century since I’ve done this. “It hurts,” I pant.

“Do you want me to stop?” he mutters, thumb still pressed against my clit. “You feel so good. I want to finish inside you, sweet girl. And I want to make you come again.”

I sigh, my body egging me on. The ache inside me intensifies, and I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that I need him completely, his entire length. When his tongue met my flesh, he must have known I couldn’t let a night go by without him.

“No, don’t stop.” I hook my legs around his waist, drawing him in closer, listening to his groans and sighs.

His hands reach for my hips, and he steadies himself, pushing further in and then retreating slightly before thrusting deeper. “You’re so tight. God, you’re tight. Jesus, that’s good. I’m going to take you all the way now.”

I nod, biting down on my lip. I feel myself stretching to accommodate his size. There’s pain, yes, but there’s a deeper feeling of fulfillment too. He pulls back and pushes inside of me again, filling me deeper this time. With one final movement, he fills me to the hilt, the base of his cock making contact with my clit.

He holds himself there for a while, fingers buried in my flesh, groaning with his own private need. I’m at a limit I’ve never known, my clit pulsing.

“Please,” I sigh. Matthias lets out a great groan and begins fucking me in earnest, his thighs pressed hard between mine. I cry out with each thrusting movement, close to the edge of orgasm. I feel my muscles spasm, clenching involuntarily, a long throaty moan coming forth from somewhere deep and hidden in my body.

“Matthias,” I cry out, moaning his name. He falls into a faster rhythm, pumping deep inside with controlled thrusts. With that utterance, I feel myself starting to come again, the rising tide of my pleasure longer and sweeter than the last orgasm. My thighs shake beneath his, my muscles clenching and pumping thick waves of pleasure through my sex and into the outer reaches of my body. I moan, long and loud, wrapping my hands around his back, my nails raking against his skin. The tide of my orgasm washes over my body, finally settling into the golden peace of an afterglow.

Just as I finish, Matthias grabs my hips and flips me over so that I’m on my hands and knees. He grips my waist hard again, and begins to fuck me with wild abandon, his breath coming in shorter and shorter gasps. The sounds he makes send a ripple of pleasure through my body. As he gets closer to his own pleasure, his body slows as if he’s savoring the last seconds of our closeness.

“So sweet. So good.” He fills me with one final thrust. “Oh Mallory,” he sighs, hands traveling to my breasts as his body collides with mine in the final throes of his ecstasy. I feel his muscles tense and release against mine, and he groans, coming hard.

I have the vague thought, as he collapses against me and pulls me into an embrace, that I want this again. As soon as possible, and then again. Until I leave him behind as a distant memory. This—this is what Kim told me about—and it was nothing like the clumsy experiences I shared with my brief relationships back in college. This was something entirely different, something life-changing, world-shattering.

I keep these thoughts to myself. A man like Matthias does this every Saturday night, and sometimes twice. He doesn’t need to hear it from his most recent conquest.

Instead, I let him pull me into his shower, lined with green glass tile. He bathes me in a soap that smells like lavender and carries me to bed, where we both fall into a deep sleep until morning.

Chapter Seven

Matthias

You’ll have hell to pay for shirking your responsibilities. You’re supposed to be on a ferry to the North Islands right now. But I’m going to guess you’re at the house in Amsterdam with some girl.

The messages pour in from my mother in the morning. I look over to see Mallory, still asleep. I’d wager she hasn’t had a good night’s sleep since long before she left home. And I know her time in Europe has been lonely. There’s nothing wrong with being alone, but I know loneliness, and that’s an altogether different thing. I take one of her curls and twist it around my finger. She doesn’t wake.

We’ll be sending someone for you.

I growl and put my phone on the bedside table. I’ve been dealing with my mother and father for twenty-seven years, and I’ve never gotten over the constant watching and waiting. I’ve made it clear I don’t want the kingdom, I don’t believe in its ideals, and I disagree with their antiquated thoughts on marriage and producing heirs.

If they send someone here before Mallory leaves, she’ll know all of this. With an ordinary girl in my bed, I wouldn’t necessarily care what she thought of me or my lineage. For some reason, this one is different. There’s something I can’t put my finger on. I don’t take too long to ponder it all—the night we shared, the fact that I wanted her here when I woke in the morning, the reality of my mother’s words weighing down on me. I’m a man of action, my brother Kian told me one time. And what’s better than a good chase?

I trace my fingers over the tattoos on Mallory’s shoulder. White and pink blossoms, two of them. I haven’t asked, but it strikes me that one of them represents her sister and one Mallory herself. She hasn’t said much about her sister, but it’s clear that the loss struck her down and stayed with her. I wonder if these losses ever leave us, or if they simply dull over time.

“Mal,” I say, placing a hand on her back. Her dark lashes stir, and her blue-gray eyes flutter open.

“You can’t call me Mal. You barely know me.” She grins a little, less distant than she was the first day I met her.

“I’d say I know you pretty well after last night.” And I’d like to continue to know you just like that all day today, but there are at least two North Islander goons headed this way to force me onto a ferry and get me the hell out of Amsterdam. There are ways to avoid that reality. I put on my best smile, the one that always gets tourist girls at the end of the night.

“What are you smiling about? I have to go back to the rental today and get my shit together. I have plans to go to the Van Gogh museum.” Her voice is still sleepy, and she yawns. The sight of her pink lips parting stirs something inside me, but I have a mission right now. And it involves a train headed for Brussels.

“You should really do the museums on the last day you’re here. Have you been to Brussels yet?”

She shakes her head, and thankfully, there’s something of a spark in her eyes. “It wasn’t on my itinerary. I passed through on the way to Amsterdam.”

“What’s after Amsterdam? School? Do you know where?”

“Rome. Maybe. I haven’t heard from them yet. I was accepted in Paris, but I don’t know.”

“Then you definitely need to see Brussels if you haven’t been. You won’t have a chance when you’re back in school. The cathedrals, the nightlife, hikes through the woods. It’s nice this time of year.” My phone buzzes again, and I don’t pick it up. I know the nature of what’s being said on the other end.

“No. I came to see Amsterdam. I came to the Netherlands as my last stop.” She pauses. “Besides, how would we get there? Don’t you need to reserve the train ahead of time? Where would we stay—”

“Taken care of. I don’t have an apartment there, but my friend owns a hotel in the center of the city. It’s got a suite. Room service, old world charm. I can buy you a skirt to replace the one I ripped last night.”

She lifts herself to one elbow, creamy breasts and pink nipples exposed. God, I want to take this woman and throw her over my shoulder, make her do as I please. And right now, what the fuck I please is getting the hell out of this city. She bites her lip and looks at me questioningly. I’d like to roll her over and enter her again, make all the questions disappear.

“Matthias. Who are you? Why can you even propose things like this? I don’t quite feel comfortable accepting all this—I mean—what do you want in return?”

I chew on my lip and think a second before answering. After a day and night—and a proposed romantic getaway—she’s right to make a few inquiries. “My parents own a few large corporations, and I’ve been smart with my investments. And I want your company until you go to graduate school. We’ll go our separate ways after that.” I shrug, like it’s all simple, like I haven’t left anything out. Like I do this kind of thing all the time, when in fact I can’t remember the last time I wanted to spend more than one day with any woman. “And you shouldn’t miss the Musees des Beaux-Arts in the city center. I might be in the minority suggesting it too, but the food there is better. Italian. French. And my favorite ethnic cuisine—chocolate.”

She scrunches up her nose, hopefully because she’s thinking about changing her itinerary. “I’d have to cancel with Albrecht—”

“The room you rented? With whatever company that is? I’ll pay the rest. Or threaten him.”

She smiles, but there’s worry in her eyes. I’d like to break down and tell her everything right now. But my background isn’t one I want her to know. I’d rather leave here and have a few days where I’m nothing and no one. No responsibilities. I reach over to her and cup one of her lovely breasts, fingers brushing over her nipple. She gasps, and instinctively, she turns her body toward mine. Mallory wants more of this. And I want the same.

She presses against my body, sighing gently, her flesh warm in my hand. “If you want me, can’t I just go to the museum on my own and come back here for more of—this?” She moves my hand to her other breast, the sheet falling away from her body, exposing its planes and curves. My cock stiffens, and the feeling I had last night starts to come back. I shake it off, though my cock remains hard beneath my boxer briefs.

“Let me take you to Brussels. I’ll take you to dinner and dessert and the art museum. The cathedral. I want to photograph you through the city, fuck you every evening, and in the morning again.” I shrug. “I thought you were the adventurous type… but if you need to stick to that printed itinerary.”

“It’s not printed—”

“It fell out of your backpack,” I say with a grin, hoping my voice isn’t too desperate.

She rolls her eyes. “Fine. We’ll go. But I need to be back here to catch my flight by Friday.”

“Good girl.”

She sits up with a wicked grin, sheets fully falling away. “That’s patronizing, Matthias.”

“But you like it.” I can see her full body now, backlit with the morning sun coming in through the window. Her breasts are near perfection, round and smooth and full, the slight curve of her belly, the dark thatch that leads to her sex.

“I do,” she says, unashamed. “Just promise me—this is all fun. It keeps being fun until I leave.”

“That’s all I do in life, Princess. Good fun. I prefer the dirty kind, not the clean.”

“Good,” she says, kneeling back down and pulling the sheets away from my legs, exposing my hardness that hasn’t quite gone back down. Without a word, she pulls my boxers down and bends over my cock—probably an action she wouldn’t have considered herself before last night. Straddling me, naked, she presses her lips to my tip and takes my head into her mouth before I can protest.

“I need to book the tickets and the hotel. Not exactly saying no but—”

Her tongue swirls over the head before she stops for a moment and lifts her head. “Book it on your phone.”

“And you’ll what—keep going?” I grin. This woman.

“Yeah,” she says, gripping my cock and stroking it with one hand. Her movements are inexpert, but I’m as hard as I’ve ever been, my length straining against her touch.

“Jesus, Mal.” Before I can say more, her mouth is on me again, sweet warmth enveloping my cock. I think of what I did with Mallory last night as she takes me into her mouth, the feeling of entering her all at once, her body growing tighter around me as I pushed deeper inside of her, the soft, sweet quality of her voice as she moaned. She stops and looks up at me as if she’s waiting for me to pick up the phone and book our tickets. I grin sheepishly and put one hand to her hair, tangling my fingers in it, and reaching my other hand out to grab my phone. As she takes me into her mouth, my cock closer to the back of her throat with each movement, I search for tickets and clumsily book them. I hate to admit it—but my mind is far more intent on Mallory than it is on our escape now. With each concentrated lick, her tongue seeming to twist around the head of my cock as she lifts it away, I’m closer to coming. My eyes raise and linger over the top of her phone, watching her round, perfect tits bounce against the tops of my thighs, jolts of white hot sensation flickering through the tops of my thighs and the base of my cock. Her hand touches me there again, encasing me fully. I shoot off a text to my friend in Brussels and throw my phone aside. Pulling Mallory’s hair like I did last night, I guide her how I want. Wide, blue-gray eyes look up at me, locking with mine. I groan loudly, and guide her mouth, slowly, very slowly, so that she takes me to the back of her throat. Without thinking, I buck my hips hard, watching her as she submits to me and takes my cock fully.

I have the fleeting thought that I don’t want this to end. I want to see Mallory working my cock for hours, to hold her hair as she pleases me like this. I’ve had blowjobs before—I love them. The wild abandon, the woman on her knees, eyes on mine. But this one feels different, like it’s the first one I ever had, the melting, soul-extending feeling somehow more real and more present than anything I’ve experienced in years. Mal takes me to the back of her throat again and, in that instant, my muscles tense and tighten.

“Mal—I—” Before I have time to think about finishing, I come hard in her mouth and watch her as she swallows. Her tongue travels my length again and glides over the head. Shivers run up my spine and back down, and I feel like closing my eyes, though I want to keep them open to see Mallory’s face and her pink tongue traveling along her lower lip as she lifts her head and sits back again. Same view as before—but somehow, I see her differently now.

Mine, she’s mine. The thought echoes in my head, like a mantra. How could my mind come up with that? I’ve only known this girl for two days. Not even that. I shake off the thought. It’s a dangerous one, for a man like me. We’re only going to Brussels for a few days, and then she’s gone from my life for good. That’s the situation that’ll work best for me—and for her, come to think of it.

“I didn’t mean—I didn’t mean to—”

What do you say to a girl when she brings a red-tipped fingernail to the corner of her deliciously wet mouth, staring at you like she’s ready to go again? I didn’t mean to come in your mouth, not if you didn’t want me to. None of that sounds like something I would say, not before this morning.

“Did I do something wrong? I’ve only done it once before. I’m not really sure what I’m doing—not tonight, not right now—” She stops and blushes hard, her pink cheeks now colored to match her astoundingly talented lips.

“No, you didn’t do anything wrong.” I bite my lip. What do you tell a girl like this? Certainly I won’t divulge any of the myriad thoughts in my head—that she’s the best I’ve had in years, maybe in all my time as a grown man. Instead, I decide on a partial truth, one that closes this conversation and leads to the rest of the day. “You were perfect.”

The right side of her mouth rises into a soft smile, and I lean forward to catch her in my arms, kissing her neck, breathing in her scent. On the bed, I can feel my phone buzzing again. I take a deep breath, taking a picture of her in this moment and locking it in my mind. These memories, these images, they’re good for safe keeping. When she’s no longer here and—hell, I might be in the North Islands—I’ll have this collection of moments, like still photographs, to look upon. I don’t dwell on the fact that this is not the kind of thing I store in my memory, nor are girls like Mallory the ones who draw my attention for photographs.

“Okay,” she whispers, pulling away from me and starting to throw her clothes in a bag. She pulls on a pair of jeans, worn on both knees, and a long purple shirt that has cut-outs on both shoulders. One of the strategically placed holes shows the tattoo. It’s simple, the look she wears, but something about it shows the intensity that lies beneath her surface. “Let’s go on an adventure. You’re right. I can’t stick to my itinerary if I want to make the most of Europe. I’ll let you wine and dine me and put me up in some hotel. I don’t have anyone worrying about me at home, so I’m still banking on the fact that you’re not a serial killer.”

I give her a wry grin and slip on my boxers and a dark gray shirt, opting for worn jeans like Mal is wearing. Might as well blend in if we’re leaving the city. I can only hope that my mother hasn’t gone the route of alerting everyone in my old haunts. If she has, I sincerely hope she didn’t think of Brussels. It’s been years since I’ve been there, and the hotel isn’t one of our properties. I hope that’s enough to keep me—and Mallory—out of the drama my parents so desperately want to create.

A man can hope.

“I said I hope you’re not a serial killer,” Mal says, putting her backpack on so it sits lopsidedly over one shoulder. I make a mental note to buy her a messenger bag to make her look less conspicuously American when she leaves for graduate school. “And then you didn’t respond. That doesn’t exactly inspire confidence.”

“No. I’m just a serial hedonist, and I’m hoping to take you on a trip you won’t soon forget.”

“That’s the only reason I agreed. That—and the sex. I’ll admit it.” She smiles and sheepishly puts her hands in her pockets. Something about her seems lighter this morning.

“Good. There’s plenty more to come.” I raise an eyebrow and focus on the vision of her in the dresses I pick out, her skin clad in Belgian lingerie.

I pack a bag, not lingering over the details of what I’m taking with me, hoping Mallory doesn’t see me checking the time on my phone every other minute. The adventure can’t begin soon enough.

My phone buzzes again as we walk out of the house in Amsterdam.

Hopefully, there aren’t any traces of us here.

A prodigal son is bad enough, in my parents’ opinion. A prodigal prince with an American girl—that’s something entirely different.

Chapter Eight

Mallory

“Who’s blowing up your phone?” I lean my head onto Matthias’s firm shoulder, making sure to keep my eyes away from the screen. I’ve heard that people who sleep together shouldn’t look at each other’s phones, so I don’t. It’s been so long that I’ve slept with anyone that I don’t know the protocol associated with these things. But Matthias’s phone has been buzzing nonstop since we got on this train, and half the time, he’s not even picking it up to look at it. After an hour of sitting next to him, I can’t help but ask. His mind is somewhere else, and it drives home the point that I don’t know a damn thing about him.

“No one is ‘blowing up’ my phone. See?” He leans back toward me and shows me the phone. “It’s not blown up. It’s completely intact.”

I giggle for a second and then look at his face. He gives me a wide smile and clicks his phone off. “I meant, ‘Who’s texting you?’”

“I know. Let me assure you it’s nothing exciting or important. In fact, you’d be desperately bored if I told you.”

He’s keeping something hidden, and I’m pretty sure it has to do with the reason we left Amsterdam. And if I’m not wrong, it might have something to do with the lifestyle he leads. What’s he involved in? A drug ring? The mafia? Is the mafia even in this part of Europe? I guess they’re probably everywhere, but I have no clue what he’d be doing with them. I glance up at him again, examining the distant look on his face. He’s entitled to each and every one of his secrets. This isn’t serious. There aren’t any strings attached.

I close my eyes and focus on the memories of this morning and the night before. The taste of his skin, the feeling of his body pushing against mine. The things he’ll do to me when he gets me alone. That’s the point of this trip, the point of this whole week before I go back to real life. An escape. Fun. Lightness. None of the awful things that have plagued me for so long. It’s what I didn’t know I wanted, what Kim kept telling me I needed.

I’ll keep that in mind when the next sketchy thing comes up. I won’t know him long enough for the drama to get to either of us. When whatever is chasing him catches up and finds him, I’ll be long gone, and he’ll be the one dealing with it. I press my body closer to him, wishing desperately that I could will away all the people in their adjoining private cubbies. It feels like too long since he’s touched me, even though it was just this morning that I watched his face as he came. For a moment, I doze, lulled by the continuous rhythm of the train, sailing over the tracks and taking us into a different country. I imagine that Matthias’s hands are roaming over my body, his fingertips traveling over the skin of my neck and down to the flesh of my breasts. In my state of half-sleep, I think about the many hours I spent worrying about the shape and size of my body, particularly my breasts. And when I fell into this man’s bed, it seemed that my body actually pleased him, that the shape of it, its curves and planes, turned him on to no end. The vision of him entering me for the first time flashes through my mind as I fall into a deeper sleep, and all at once, my body starts to soar with arousal, like there are actual hands and fingers searching over my body.

I wake with a start, but my eyes stay closed. There is, in fact, a hand under my shirt and moving slowly up my back. Fingers find the clasp of my bra and unhook it, and I sigh softly before coming to the full realization that anyone could come into our semi-private cube at any moment.

“Matthias—” I hiss. “What the hell are you doing?”

His hand, still under my shirt, pulls me closer. He laughs. “You look really nice in that shirt. But I feel like your bra is a hindrance. I want it off.”

I feel my face growing hot. “But we’re on the train—there are people—” His other hand sneaks around to my front and tugs up on my underwire. In a quick—and perhaps too expertly executed—move, he moves the straps beneath my sleeves and helps me out of the bra. I’m too stunned to resist. He holds the lacy bit of lingerie in his hand, and when I reach for it, he pulls it away and stuffs it in his backpack. Against the silky fabric of my shirt, my nipples grow stiff and obvious, and I blush even harder.

“That’s so much nicer. I’d get your panties off too if you weren’t wearing jeans, Mal. I should have told you that’s what I wanted before we left the house, but it was so much more fun on the train.” He leans in and whispers in my ear, his breath hot against my neck. Shivers run through my body, and my nipples grow even stiffer, if that’s possible. “Maybe I’ll get you to go take your panties off in the bathroom. I’ll get you a new skirt in Brussels so I have easy access whenever I want you.” He nips at my earlobe, and he groans slightly, bringing his hand to my right breast and cupping it through my shirt.

“What if someone sees?” He moves his hand to the other breast and then back again, focusing on one nipple and then the other. The feeling is heady, hallucinogenic, dizzying. Instinctively, I spread my legs. And hell, now I wish I were wearing a skirt too.

Just as I imagine his fingers moving lower, I feel a hand at the button of my jeans and then at the zipper. They fall free, and fingers slide into my panties, using the long hemline of my skirt to very barely cover what we’re doing. He makes contact with my clit, and I whimper, my voice coming out louder than it should.

“Then they’re in for quite a show, because I’m going to make you come. If we take a night train back—” He leans in again and kisses my neck, his voice rumbling in my ear. “I might have you sit on my lap, straddle me…”

I want to manage a protest; to tell him he’s being ridiculous. We couldn’t—but the image is stuck in my head now. His fingers circle my clit and slip lower, pushing my jeans down more, making the heat pool between my thighs. “And?” My voice comes out, silky and strange to me, communicating in a tone I’ve never before heard. “Then what?”

He laughs and turns my face to his, kissing me deeply, tongue exploring my mouth as he slips one finger inside my sex, accessing my wetness. I’d be ashamed on any other day, ashamed that I let someone do this, that I gave in so easily, that I was so wanton in my desire. But I’m not. Instead, I’m hungry, needy. I want to come for him, show him what a good girl I am.

He pulls away from my mouth and continues fingering me, watching my face. “Then, I’d pull my cock out and have you stroke it until I’m very, very hard. Since you’ll be wearing that skirt, I’ll have you slip forward and lower yourself down, inch by inch.”

He slips a second finger inside of me. “Oh God.” A person passes in the train hallway outside, perhaps on their way to the dining car. I cut my eyes over to the glass, and Matthias’s fingers pump inside of me, curving and catching my g-spot inside. “Oh God—” I moan. “Someone’s going to see us. They’re going to kick us off the—oh Christ—”

The base of his palm rocks against my clit, fingers deep inside me now. “Then I’ll watch you, your beautiful body giving me pleasure. Until I can’t bear it anymore and I—” His fingers hit my g-spot, tapping it in quick rhythmic bursts. “Come. Hard. Deep.”

“Faster,” I moan. “Faster—I’m—”

His fingers obey my demand. “Inside of you. Filling you.”

Another person walks by, eyes ahead, not seeing us through the thin layer of glass that separates us from the outside world. The orgasm soars through my body, sparks flying, eyes growing dim as I watch the other passenger head through the door to the next train. It closes behind him, and I’m still bucking against Matthias’s hand, whimpering, tears trailing over my cheeks. “Holy hell. Matthias.”

He pulls his hand away and helps me back into my jeans. “What? Isn’t this what everyone does on trains? Or are Americans puritanical about public transportation too?” He grins and kisses me again, lips warm and strong. “I think that last guy was purposefully looking away, Princess. But he should have watched. My God, you’re beautiful when you come.”

I feel color rising in my cheeks, but it’s not the same as it was when I first slept with him. My blood isn’t rushing as hard, the embarrassment and shame far less thick than it was. Instead, I’m almost pleased with myself.

Why?

The train pulls into the station at Brussels before I have a chance to contemplate the reason I let a strange man bring me to orgasm in a nearly public place, so the thought rolls away, like all the protests and concerns I had when I first met him.

Yes, some things about him are strange. There are parts of him he’s carefully hidden, but that doesn’t matter.

There’s nothing to tie us together after these next few days, and I’ll be making a decision soon about where I’m going to graduate school. I won’t see him again after that because there will be no reason.

Isn’t this what Kim meant when she told me to have a fling with someone I met in Europe? She’d be proud.

Hell, I’m proud.

As we get off the train, Matthias swings my pack over his shoulder and takes my hand in his. It feels warm and right to touch him like this, to let him guide me.

For a brief moment, I wonder how it would be if we were real—if these encounters didn’t add up to a simple fairy tale. Would I fall in love with him? His body, his sharp, observant mind, the simple, unabashed arrogance he uses to address the world?

The thought isn’t a good one, and I throw it away.

Instead, I take the city in, smiling, warm September sun hitting my face as we walk toward the city center.

“Brussels isn’t quite like Amsterdam, princess. But it’s a good place to be right now, trust me. Good food, nice shopping. I’ll turn you from an innocent girl to someone who fits right in wherever we are.”

“I wouldn’t call anything we’ve done very innocent,” I whisper.

He laughs and leads me on to the hotel we’ll call home until I depart for yet another country, the one I’ll make my permanent home for the next few years. It’s all so simple, so decadent, something I thought was so deeply forbidden. But a brief affair—it can be all of those things, can’t it?

There doesn’t have to be a single complication.

Matthias checks his phone several times as we cross the courtyard in front of the hotel he’s chosen. A nagging feeling comes over me as I watch him click it off again.

But it isn’t any of my business or any of my concern. Whatever he has going on doesn’t affect me at all.

Chapter Nine

Matthias

I shouldn’t want this. I’ve never taken a girl with me on a trip like this.

I watch Mallory as she wanders around the hotel lobby, investigating the fountain and the plants that make the place look more like a tropical villa in Brazil than a grand old hotel in Brussels. She purses her pink lips, furrows her dark brows, and I wonder what she’s thinking. These aren’t things I notice, and I rarely have time to contemplate a woman’s thoughts. The quick affairs I have aren’t conducive to such romantic thinking.

Perhaps it’s no surprise that I’m this way—my parents have been pushing me toward romance since I was eighteen years old. Not a normal version of romance—a royal version. This version includes arranged dates, slight girls of sixteen cooing at me and listening to every word I say with wide eyes, marriages that occur promptly at nineteen, and supervised doctors’ visits that assess the girl’s egg quantity and quality, and worse yet, her virginity. Last time I went home—two years ago now—my mother even mentioned that I could select the sex of my first-born child. That way, she said, we could assure that a boy would be in line for the crown, and then I could go on my merry way back to Amsterdam and leave the poor girl—my potential wife—while I occupied myself with tourists and whores.

This was my mother’s solution to the marriage problem. Marry a woman in name, have doctors impregnate her with a healthy boy, and send me on my way to the life I “preferred to lead.”

The thought makes me even angrier than it normally does, though I can’t quite place why. It was the last time I went back to the North Islands. Since then, I’ve been lobbying for them to ex-communicate me permanently. Take my money, take my name, put my sister on the throne. She’s about to turn nineteen—she can legally marry, and they could appoint her husband as the prince. Or if they were feeling generous, hell, they could actually make it legal for her to be queen.

That’s not the kind of thing my parents do, though.

They want me on the throne. And because of the old laws in the North Islands, they want me married before I take my father’s place.

Mother and Father haven’t agreed to any of my solutions. Father is getting old, and there are rumors that he’s sick, and they want me as their pawn. As for my sister, Celeste, they likely want to keep her to sell off to some other royal bloodline so they can keep the North Islands “pure,” as they say. Every text, every email, every phone call—it escalates in intensity. The ten messages on my phone are each worse than the last.

I knew this day would come, and somehow, it coincides with meeting Mallory. Lovely, pure, unabashed passion surrounding her like light surrounds saints in ancient engravings. None of this will touch her. I’ll send her off in four days, and she’ll be gone.

I turn off my phone again, and Mallory walks over to me, putting one arm around my waist. There’s a slight shock when she touches me, like it’s something forbidden I shouldn’t be doing out in public. I’m Matthias Albring, after all, and I don’t do this sort of thing out in public with women. Then a second sensation settles in—one more closely akin to pleasure, but it’s more than that too. Comfort, contentment, pride at being close to a beautiful woman in the heart of one of my favorite places on the continent.

“You have your camera?” She walks with me to the front desk, and I drape my arm casually over her shoulders.

“Yes. For photographing you at the fountains, like you said. And at the Musée. The cathedral.”

She nods. On the surface, my itinerary seems boring and acceptable, but I don’t reveal the other things I have planned. If I told her what I normally do in the city, she never would have hopped on that train. I’d never have the memory of today. When we approach the counter, the concierge looks at us blankly. My friend might own the hotel, but again, no one knows who I am in this city. And all the better. My French, rusty since living in Amsterdam, pours out haltingly at first. But the switch in my brain occurs, and my words become more fluid, easier and more comfortable in my mouth. He hands us the key, and we walk to the elevators, a bell boy following us close behind.

“How many languages do you speak?” she asks.

“Four, maybe five if you count Italian. I usually don’t because I don’t know it as well as the rest. English, French, Dutch, German—those I can handle on any day. Not so much Italian.”

“That’s a shame,” she says as we get on the elevator. “I’d love to meet you in Italy sometime. I might be there for school, so I’ll have to learn Italian.”

I shift uncomfortably in the elevator. By the time she’s in school for a year or so, my mother and father will have succeeded in marrying me off, or I’ll be wandering through Asia or South America, staying as far away as possible from Europe. “I’m sure you’ll be great at it. You know French, n’est-ce pas?”

“Oui, un petit peu.” Her eyes wander around the glass elevator, and she pulls away slightly. “I’m not supposed to talk about seeing you again. I forgot. Don’t worry. You’re a little too shady for a regular sort of relationship. Very fun for a one-night stand.”

Her words sting more than they should. “We’re officially headed into two nights, and more. I’d call it more of a brief affair.”

“Never had one of those. Just boyfriends who weren’t any good in bed.” She smiles, but her eyes are distant. “I like the sound of that. I won’t mention seeing you again. It’s just an Amsterdam and Brussels thing. Not an Italy thing.”

I catch her hand. “I would. It’s just that—” I pause. Would I see her again? “Things are complicated.”

“Your phone.” She taps her forehead like she’s working something out. As long as it isn’t the full truth, she’s welcome to think I’m as shady as she likes.

“Yes, there are complicated things on the other end of the line. Let’s just say that. Things that will keep me occupied until I figure them out.” I tap my phone, willing my mother and father to forget about me when their men don’t find me at my place in Amsterdam. If they’d wanted to find me, they never should have told me they were coming. I smile at the thought and then look to Mallory. “For now, we can pretend there’s nothing complicated at all, for either of us. I can take you to our room on the top floor and…”

“And what?”

“We’re here,” I say as the elevator draws to a halt. “I’ll show you when we step inside.” I pull her through the door, and another bell boy on the top floor brings the cart with our suitcases inside the suite. It’s what Americans would call a honeymoon suite, but for us, there’s no wedding. There’s plenty of sweetness, but no years to look forward to. I have the passing thought that perhaps I could marry Mallory right here in Brussels and get my mother off my back that way, and then this would be a true honeymoon, however brief my American marriage might be. I wouldn’t—couldn’t—do that to her.

My thoughts are interrupted as Mallory takes a deep sigh and sinks into the king size bed. Maybe it’s my imagination, but there’s no trace of embarrassment on her face when she lies back, bra still off, looking as beautiful as any fine work of art. “It’s amazing.”

She lifts up onto her elbows and looks around, her face young and fresh and excited. The bed itself is expansive and covered in a white cloud-like coverlet. The gleaming hardwood floors suggest that tropical feel, made of materials that I might guess were harvested from Africa a hundred years ago, before people started to understand that owning other countries wasn’t the best thing for the health of the world. There’s a sitting area with two sofas covered in crushed velvet. Beyond that, there’s a huge, claw-foot tub that easily seats two people. The ceramic tile is gleaming white, just like the bed and the furniture. It’s all so well cared for that one couldn’t possibly tell if it was all built this century or sometime in the distant past.

“There’s something I need to tend to here, Mal. And then we must get going. There are appointments we need to get to.”

“Let me guess,” she says sleepily, falling back onto the bed. “You’ve got something to do with your person on the other line. And then—appointments? What are you on about?”

“You’re wrong this time. What I have to do—” I say the words slowly, enunciating each syllable. “Has everything to do with you and absolutely nothing to do with the person on the other end of the line.” While she’s still lying on the bed, I take out my camera.

“What are you doing? God if I had a nickel for every time I’ve said that to you in the past two days…” Her voice trails off and she laughs. “I can’t possibly be that good a model for your camera.”

“You’re a good model for me. I told you that when I first photographed you. You have that thing.” I snap a picture of her lying on the bed, short hair splayed like a halo around her head. Her breasts are free under her shirt, and I catch the light and shadow on the fabric, outlining them. My cock twitches in my jeans. It likes what it sees, and it didn’t get the relief it needed when we were on the train. I draw closer to her, snapping just a few photos of her face while she closes her eyes.

I want her again. Now.

I put my camera down and through my jeans, I begin rubbing my cock. It’s already hard for her, and even harder when I remember the bag in my suitcase.

“Close your eyes, Mal.”

“Why—”

“We’re out of the country, aren’t we?”

She laughs, silky and throaty. It’s utterly unlike anything I’d heard from her before we slept together. She closes her eyes, and to my surprise, she spreads her legs ever so slightly. “We are.”

I open my suitcase and watch her as she listens, ears alert. “You thought you might not use any of this stuff with me, but I was planning on it before I walked you into that shop.”

“I know,” she says. “I want you to, now.”

“My pleasure.” I reach into the bag from Estelle’s store and pull out the small purple vibrator. I press the button until it turns on, vibrating in my hand. Mallory lets out a small moan, like she’s anticipating what’s about to happen next. With one hand, I undo the button of her jeans and pull them down with her panties. “This is the last time you’ll wear panties while we’re in Brussels. Is that clear?”

She nods, and I can see her swallowing, like she’s staving off some hidden anxiety. She’s evolving, but there are bits and pieces I still want to break down.

“Good girl,” I say. My motions soft and deliberate, I press the head of the vibrator to her pussy, barely touching her clit and then moving down over her folds. Her body jumps, and then she sighs, opening her legs wider like she’s asking for more. Inside my jeans, my cock is raging hard, and I undo the button, letting my length fall free. As I stroke myself, I press the vibrator to Mallory’s sex again, this time pressing harder and then switching the speed of vibration.

“Fuck,” she moans, writhing against the toy. “Oh my God—don’t stop—keep pressing—”

I would tease her, keep taking it away and returning it, but I’m as hard as granite now and there’s a bead forming at the tip of my cock. I need to be inside of her. She bucks her hips once and then again, her purple shirt lifting up over her belly. “You want to come for me, Mal. Come on, so quick this time. So good.”

She lets go then, hands reaching for mine, gripping my wrist as she cries out and presses the vibrator closer to her. As she finishes, I turn the thing off and throw it aside, reaching into my suitcase for a condom. I rip the foil packet with my teeth and slip it onto my length. I’d give anything to forgo the damn thing and feel her skin touching mine, nothing between us. For a moment, as I roll the end of the condom to my base, I wonder what it might be like to fill a woman with my seed, hoping to get her pregnant with my child. With my parents’ history of ordering me to make an heir, the thought never seemed to appeal to me. But as I flip Mallory onto her side and pull up her shirt so I can see her round, perfect tits, I imagine it for the first time, entering the fantasy as I enter her.

That would be my ultimate act of possessing a woman—not just any woman—this one. I groan, gripping her tight by her hip and pushing inside of her wetness. Even through the condom, her slickness is apparent. Her walls tighten against me, sex clenching as I increase my rhythm, her little sighs and whimpers telling me that what I’m doing is exactly what she wants. I flip her to all fours and ride her as her belly tightens and she comes again, moaning loud. I watch my cock crash into her gorgeous, tight pussy, watch her legs shaking. She’s tight—so tight—around my length. I push into her one last time and come hard and quick, a monumental rush pouring through me.

“Matthias,” she whispers, looking back at me. My hands grip her waist, and I think that I want to be inside of her forever. And perhaps—what would it be like to have her wake up next to me each morning? I could take her when I wanted, use her body as I pleased, bring her further and further into my world. Her eyes locked on mine, my cock still buried inside of her, I realize that I would do all of these things. I’d take her home, never let her go. It’s a passing thought that I don’t share—there’s no use. Every relationship of mine ends, as it should. I won’t be able to escape my name and the weight it brings for much longer, maybe not longer than the week. And if my mother or father ever got wind that I truly cared for a woman, they would find a way to turn her against me, to ruin her name. In Mallory’s case, they might even be able to take away her schooling, and perhaps, the career she wants. For now, I let myself imagine it, and I fall onto the bed and wrap her in my arms, lifting her shirt and kissing the space between her breasts, trailing my tongue over her belly and then between her thighs.

I feast on her again, my phone off and my worries far away, until she can no longer move. We fall asleep until the sun is setting. When we wake, I imagine she’s mine, and I order her to get dressed for dinner—no bra, no panties.

She does exactly as I say. A wave of unexpected sadness hits me as we walk to the elevator, her perfect ass swaying in a knee-length pink dress. It’s nostalgia, perhaps, for this night as it spreads before us. I can remember her when she goes, and I’ll remember her just like this.

On the elevator, I kiss her deeply.

“What was that for?” she asks when I pull away. My eyes must reveal something since I’ve kissed her a dozen times before this.

“Because you’re lovely.”

We walk out into the breezy night.

Chapter Ten

Mallory

We walk toward the city center, his arm around my waist. I’m still buzzing from his touch, still smell like his body. I showered yesterday before we left, but now I want to walk with his scent, the warmth of him encasing me. It’s a feeling unlike any I’ve had before, something that I might want to recreate. A sinking feeling hits me—after this week, I won’t be able to recreate it. Matthias has made that clear. His terms were spelled out from the beginning—we spend this time together before I leave for school, and we don’t see each other again.

There are two letters in my email, one from Studio Bercot in Paris, one from Istituto Europe di Design in Rome. I haven’t opened them yet, though the first has “Bienvenue” in the heading, the second sporting the official emblem of the Istituto. Welcome, congratulations. You’ve been accepted to your two dream schools.

I’d tell Matthias, but he might not even care. He doesn’t even know my last name—it doesn’t matter where I go to school. There’s no repeat of this week. It tugs at me, the sadness. The first person I start to care about—and how foolish it is to care for a rich, handsome Dutchman I find wandering the streets at three in the morning—he’s being ripped away from me, just like Kim.

Nothing’s permanent, Kim had said at the end. I told her I thought love was, and she’d nodded slightly and said, “Maybe.”

So, enjoy it, her voice echoes in my head. You’re walking through a beautiful place you’ve never been, with a gorgeous man, in a dress you designed and sewed yourself. Enjoy it now, because nothing is permanent, like I said.

“What are you thinking about?” Matthias leans in and kisses my earlobe, his hand roaming to my ass, squeezing it through the silk I used for the dress. “I can tell you what I’m thinking about, Mal. Your ass. That dress. You designed this one, no?”

“How’d you know?” I look up at him, and he kisses me, body pressed to mine. We’re right in front of the restaurant he’s selected, and people are walking all around us. No one particularly seems to notice, not like they would back in Florida. There are other girls being kissed, too. And I’d wager, just from the feel of this place, some of them might not be wearing bras either.

“It looks like you. It fits your body perfectly, hugs your breasts and your hips. Maybe I was wrong about you not putting sex in your work. Maybe you have been all along.”

“Maybe,” I say. I pull back and then kiss him chastely on the lips. I need at least one drink to forget my train of thought from earlier. He may notice that I’m distant, but he doesn’t say anything. Instead, he pulls me into the restaurant and the host promptly seats us, nodding at Matthias like he’s an old friend.

“This is Belgian cuisine. The city is full of all kinds of food, like I said. Japanese, Italian, Nepalese…” He goes on, talking about the restaurants he’s been to, the bars where he knows the owners, the hidden cafes and diners. He comes back to talking about Restaurant Alexandre in his best tour guide voice just as a tall, elegant woman comes to our table, putting a hand on Matthias’s shoulder. Like Estelle had back in Amsterdam.

Friends everywhere, but such an impermanent life.

“Matthias. I saw your cousin Cheon just the other day. You aren’t here with him, I don’t suppose? I thought you were done with all that.” A shadow passes across Matthias’s face, but it’s gone as quickly as it comes.

“No, Anna, I’m taking my friend, Mallory around the city. She’s going to school in Paris at the end of the month—”

“Or Rome. Or Florence, come to think of it,” I say. “I haven’t decided.”

Matthias raises an eyebrow but doesn’t ask anything. “Anna is one of the owners. She’s the sommelier. And I trust her impeccable judgment. And the chef’s. Bring us your finest.”

Anna smiles and squeezes his shoulder, taking the wine list with her. My heartbeat quickens. Even though I have money now, there’s something strange about the way Matthias treats it. Maybe it’s because I’m not used to it, or because I don’t know how to treat it yet. But it seems like it’s been a constant in his life—something I can’t comprehend.

Before I have time to contemplate it further, Anna brings us a bottle of rich, red wine, setting it before us and letting us each taste a sip. She speaks in French with Matthias and then switches to Dutch halfway through their conversation. I follow the French reasonably well, and drift off, my stomach rumbling. Matthias glances at me wolfishly as Anna walks away, his eyes lingering on my breasts. I smile and take a sip of wine.

“You’re well suited to Belgium, Mal. You just need to practice your French and you’ll be mistaken for a native.”

“What makes you say that?” The food begins to arrive—beef tartare, a salad made up of delicate flowers, a cold soup swirled with autumnal colors. Each bite is more exquisite than the last.

“Once you sit back and enjoy life, you look more European. Less American.”

“Is being American a bad thing?”

“No, it’s a thing I like very much about you. You’re ambitious and determined. You have plans laid out and organized. But everyone needs to be a combination of things. After seeing you in bed,” he says, leaning in closer and taking my hand. “I know you are much more than that innocent girl in the white skirt.”

I take another long sip of the wine, appreciating its richness. The food pairs with it perfectly, melting in my mouth. Complex and rich, with hidden secrets, like Matthias himself. “I’m that too.”

“I’m glad you are. I like that you’re not for me.”

It seems romantic, our conversation. But I count the days in my head as our entree arrives, and then again when we eat dessert and finish the bottle of red wine. Three days before I’m supposed to leave Amsterdam. The ticket is booked for Paris, but I don’t even know if that’s where I’m going to be.

The thought sits with me even as we get up to leave the restaurant. The bill must have been a few hundred euros, but Matthias doesn’t bat an eye as he pulls out another stack of cash, handing it directly to Anna. When we walk out into the crisp evening, he twirls me in his arms, and pulls me into another kiss.

“I’d like to taste you again after this, explore every part of your body with my tongue.”

I can’t help but laugh and kiss him back, wine thrumming through me, my nearly bare breasts pressed against his shirt, heat pouring to the dark space between my thighs. We walk on into the night, exploring one bar and then another. We have one signature drink at one place, one at another, maintaining a fine line between tipsy and drunk. At one place, he pushes me against a wall in an almost empty hallway, letting his hands roam up the hem of my dress, brushing the tops of my thighs. For a moment, I think he might want me then and there, but his phone starts to buzz again, and he only kisses me, growing more distant as we walk back to the hotel, his arm around my shoulders. Even close to me like this, he feels, suddenly, a thousand miles away.

“There is a lingerie shop,” he says, his voice startling me. His deep stormy eyes meet mine, and it feels like he’s back for a second. I suppress a shudder, wondering where his mind had gone for the past half an hour. “I think it stays open until midnight. I do think we need that skirt for you—and perhaps something in lace that you can take off for—”

His eyes catch something close to the hotel, and we stop abruptly.

“Matthias, what is it?”

His eyes search the street in front of the hotel, and he purses his lips. “We can go to the lingerie shop this way. Then back to the hotel. From the back.”

“Matthias, what’s going on? You’re scaring me a little.” His arm grips my waist tight, and he’s already guiding me away from the hotel. I scan the street but can’t see anything. There are a few people walking along the brick pathways and heading to one of the fountains in the courtyard, but none of them look in our direction.

‘A little’ is an understatement. Without the wine and drinks in my system, lulling me into relaxation, my body would be on high alert. As it is, I can hear the blood rushing in my ears.

There’s so much I don’t know about him. So much he hasn’t told me. In a few sentences, I gave him my life history. But his, I have a feeling, is far more complicated.

“No reason to be scared,” he says, walking me toward the shop that apparently stays open so late. “Remember when Anna mentioned seeing my cousin, Cheon? The two of us used to get up to quite a bit of trouble when we were younger. He still does a lot of the things he shouldn’t.”

Matthias puts on a smile and lowers his arm to hold my hand. The weight of his fingers is only slightly reassuring, but my heart rate starts to slow. “It’s just a coincidence that he’s here, isn’t it? He’s not looking for you.”

We stop before a streetlight and weight for a line of yellow taxis and dark-windowed cars to pass. In the daytime, Brussels seems simply a beautiful place to be. In the night like this, thinking about shadowy figures and possible criminals, it seems far more forbidding.

“No one knows where I am. I’m sure of that, Mal.”

“And why would anyone want to know who you are? I got the impression that you were a lone wolf, no attachments.”

The streetlight changes color, and we see the walk signal. I pull Matthias back before he starts to walk. He sighs, and I catch his other hand in mine. “Everyone has some attachments. Some things we can’t quite get rid of, no matter how we might try.”

I try to manage a smile, but I’m fairly certain it’s coming up false. This affair with Matthias might have relaxed some of my sensibilities, but I was raised by a religious nut and a dying sister, so my sense of danger is fairly well developed. “And what are those?”

He doesn’t respond, pausing for one beat too long.

“Matthias,” I say, trying to get him to look at me again. “This is fun, you and me. It’s better than any week I’ve spent in Europe so far. I realize—and I mean, I know for certain—that in a few days, we’ll split—”

“Mal, I don’t—”

“No, I get it. It’s all good. But there are things going on in your life. That’s right, isn’t it?”

He nods slightly. “That’s true.”

“I just want to know if we’re safe.”

“We’re safe,” he says. He squeezes my hands.

“And then, when I leave, tell me you’ll be safe. You’re not the leader of an underground crime organization or anything? I don’t have to worry about you when I leave, right?”

“No, you won’t have to worry, schatje.”

I think that means darling or sweetheart, or something equally saccharine, but it rolls off his tongue. It stings when he says it because I realize I won’t be hearing it again—and he’ll be countries away, with this same dark look on his face, as he faces whatever lies at the other end of the line.

I nod curtly and don’t say anything else. We wait for the walk sign to light up again, and we cross the street to the other side. The store is still open, like Matthias said it would be. He walks me in, and just like in Amsterdam, there are walls and rows of brightly colored, beautiful things. The shop owner knows him here too, and we talk and laugh as I run my fingers over the lace. For me, he picks out a short flowing skirt and a set of purple lingerie that looks totally impractical. When he steps away to talk to the owner, I sit down in one of the overstuffed chairs in the shop, next to his phone and wallet, which he left on one of the arms of the chair.

I purposefully look away, my eyes lingering on the blush pinks and light shades of lavender. This is fun, the very definition of it—all this beauty, all this decadence. I’ve been missing it the whole time I was in Europe, opting instead for museums and aging cathedrals. I want those in my memory too—but it’s only one kind of beauty this place has to offer. Matthias represents another, even if tonight, some of the beauty was broken.

Next to me, I feel the phone buzz. Out of the corner of my eye, the screen lights up. I swallow, refusing to look at it. He turned it on again before our night out, another riddle I don’t know the answer to. But I’m not the girl who pries. Kim would tell me not to. It’s only a brief affair, and I think the going rules involve no questions asked and no strings attached.

The phone buzzes again, and I turn my head to watch Matthias talking to the store owner. When I look back to the lingerie, my eyes flicker down to the phone.

We know you’re in Bruxelles, Matthias. We have a woman here waiting for you, and we’re tired of chasing you all over Europe. Stop whatever it is you’re doing and come home, or there will be consequences.

After that, the phone keeps buzzing, messages scrolling up the screen, all from the same unidentified number. My heart pounds, and I try to look away. The messages start coming through in Dutch, and I only catch a word here and there.

Baby.

Marriage.

Wedding.

Inheritance.

Responsibility.

By the time Matthias is done talking to the owner, my body has grown cold. What the hell is happening? What has he done or said—or gotten himself into?

He takes my hand again, but this time, it feels like led in mine. There’s no thrill when he puts the bag of lingerie in my hand

He walks me out into the night, and I can feel that the temperature has dropped. Stars are coming up on the horizon, and the moon casts an eerie glow over everything.

“Matthias, we need to talk.”

He looks at me and nods, and we walk back to the hotel.

Chapter Eleven

Matthias

“I shouldn’t have left my phone there. I don’t want you to be concerned with any of this, Mallory.” Her eyes are wide. It’s not concern I see when I look into them. It’s fear—and I think that fear revolves around me. With another girl, it might not matter that much. I’d send her on her way and tell her we had a fine time, but I need to deal with my family now. Goodbye. As simple as that.

“I didn’t mean—I didn’t want to look at it. The message that came through—”

I scrolled back through the messages to see what my mother sent, and this time, my father too. One message after the next, outlining the plan they have in place. They’ll relieve me of my marital duties if I only come home, marry this girl, and consent to get her pregnant as soon as possible. Then I can be an absentee prince until my father draws his last breath. It would be acceptable if it weren’t for the last part—ruling the kingdom isn’t in my plans, and it never will be. The marriage part would perhaps be acceptable, yes. Disgusting—certainly. Morally reprehensible—perhaps. After all, there’s another person involved—whatever girl with royal blood they forced this same idea on. She’s there too. She’s, in fact, an essential part of the plan.

I shake my head. “It’s not what it seems.”

“Do you have some pregnant wife in another country?” Her eyes grow even wider when she says this.

I laugh, but the sound is dark when it comes out of my mouth. That’s what my mother is planning for me, yes. A princess, locked in a tower. Almost too cliché for words. “No, I don’t. I’m not married.” I stop for a second and think of what to tell her. I settle on a half-truth, one that keeps her next to me until she leaves. “My parents come from a powerful family. They’re a little—old school. Is that what the American expression is?”

She gives me a half smile and nods. “I guess so.”

“They want me to come home and enter an arranged marriage. Some girl they picked who agreed to it because of the money our family has. The buildings and corporations they own, that sort of thing. It’s not hard to find someone like that. This is just the most recent one they’ve found. The most recent time they’ve done this—exactly this.”

“And that’s not something you want?”

“No. It’s not.”

Her face is pale and thoughtful. “You don’t want to be married. That’s not you.”

It hasn’t been. Not the way they want me to do it, if at all. “No, not really.”

“It’s trips and dinners and buying expensive things—that’s you?” She cocks her head to the side. It’s an odd question, really. With an odd answer.

“No, that’s not me either. I’m usually alone. And I don’t often see the same women. I keep my body clean, my life clean, my travels clean. And I’m not often with any one person.”

The look in her eyes tells me exactly what she thinks of what I’ve just said. I should have learned by now that any woman—no matter how short a time she’s in a man’s life—wants to hear that she doesn’t fit the mold. That she’s not the same. That if circumstances were different, I’d never leave her.

That she’s special.

And isn’t she? Mallory is. I sit there in our quiet hotel room, as sure of this as I ever have been of anything. I’d be deluding myself to say that she’s not in the least bit different from all the other women I’ve met and kissed and taken to my bed over the years I’ve lived out of my parents’ palace.

I took her here, didn’t I? I unwittingly involved her in a part of my life that’s turning out to be something of a mess. For a moment, I feel disgusted. I know how my mother and father are—and if they knew that the distraction that brought me to Brussels was a woman, they’d do anything to take her away from me. To punish me, to make a point.

Have her arrested, taken, or worse.

“I know that,” she says after a long pause. “And it seems like I’ve stepped into the middle of something you need to deal with alone.”

“These things can wait, at least for a few days.”

“We’re safe?”

“Safe and sound. I might move us to a different part of the city so I don’t have to talk to my family. But trust me, this can be dealt with when I get home.”

She nods. “To Amsterdam. That’s your home, isn’t it?”

“Such as it is. I grew up somewhere else.” I stop myself before telling her exactly where. Matthias is a common enough name in this part of Western Europe, but there are rumors and stories about the prince who left the North Islands nine years ago and hasn’t been home but once. His name is Matthias, too. And I don’t want her making those connections. Somehow, it doesn’t feel right for her to know. Not right now. Not ever, since she’s leaving so soon.

“And we’ll stay here for three more days, and I’ll leave from Amsterdam. Just like we planned.” Her voice is soft and small, and I want to do something to assure her that doesn’t have to be the plan. She could come with me to Asia, or we could go back to America and travel, keeping on like this for as long as we wanted. The thought is more than appealing—it sparks something inside of me that I’ve never felt. An opening in my chest, a piece of me lighting up that didn’t exist before.

But I’m a reasonable man, and a practical one. I need to face my family, get out of the marriage, and leave Mallory to her studies. That’s her dream, and running from a man’s insane family isn’t part of what she wants.

“Yes. To remain on the safe side, we might leave from here. I can take you as far as Paris, and you can go where you choose from there. Paris—or is it Rome?”

She takes out her phone and checks her email, looking through what might be letters from different places. I don’t lean over to check what she’s looking at. It’s not my style, even though there’s a piece—a large piece if I’m being honest—that wants to know.

“I haven’t decided,” she says, clicking off her phone and tossing it on the bed. “I’m leaning towards Rome. And there’s one place in Florence too. Another in Gibraltar.”

“You must be very talented. So many choices. I have to say I’m jealous.”

“Why would you be?” She kicks back on the bed, and I watch her take a deep breath. She’s trying to relax her body. And I sit back, attempting to do the same. “You drop handfuls of money everywhere we go, like it’s nothing. Women come out of the woodwork at every restaurant and pub, at every store. Have you slept with them all?” I open my mouth, but she puts up her hand. “I wouldn’t blame you. You should. That’s your style. I’m better off in one place, doing one thing. For what it’s worth, I don’t think I’ll get married either. I hope you sort it all out, the thing with your family.”

She doesn’t comment on how it’s strange, a man tangled up with arranged weddings and the promise to make an heir in 2016. She just lies back, hands behind her head, and she closes her eyes. I go to her, lying next to her in bed for a while and kicking off my shoes. I have half a mind to rip her pink dress away and lose myself in her body, but exhaustion sweeps over me. There’s plenty of time left for that sort of thing, and for now, I just lie next to her, my hand on top of hers until we’re both sleeping.

When we wake in the morning, she’s still wearing the dress. She climbs on top of me and pulls it off, shushing me when I begin to speak. Instead of talking, she unbuckles me and slips my length inside of her as she undoes the buttons of my shirt and places her hands against my chest. She looks down at me, eyes rolling back in her head as she comes, shaking against my cock. When she tightens against me, I come inside of her, fingers gripping hard against her waist until they leave bruises.

The marks are temporary, but for now, the bruises make her mine. That type of tattoo will fade with time, and she’ll forget who I am.

I enjoy it now, because it’s what we have.

Chapter Twelve

Matthias

Things don’t change after that—not as much as they should. Our time in Brussels is filled with walking through galleries and museums, going to restaurants at night, and Matthias, pushing me further than I’ve ever been before, physically and emotionally. I keep my mouth shut when I think about my desire for him—a want that might extend past this trip. This isn’t how I had thought my trip in Europe would end.

Feelings fade with time, I tell myself. I can remember this, but that doesn’t mean I take Matthias with me. Only in memory.

On the last day in Brussels, I wake before Matthias in the apartment he rented. It’s in a different section of the city than the hotel, and that alone reminds me that I’m with a man who has his own demons to face. I’m a distraction. He might never use that word, but I have no illusions—he’ll forget me when I’m gone.

I watch him as he sleeps, naked, next to me. My body tightens with the now ever-present need I feel when I’m near him.

Down girl. You’ll need to retrain yourself. Matthias isn’t coming with you, and no matter what he says, he won’t be visiting you again.

Instead of looking at him longer, I break myself away and pick up my phone, scrolling through the letters I’ve received from fashion design schools all over Europe. There’s one email from an old acquaintance of mine, Emilie. I click it open, and she asks if I’ll be at Studio Berçot in the fall. If so, she’d like to rent an apartment together. She has a place she knows in Paris, and that’s somewhere I go.

Will I be? It’s one of the things I’ve been stalling on all summer. It was a decision I’d been looking forward to for the past four years, and now none of it seems to matter.

Paris. It’s beautiful this time of year. It’s beautiful all year—and Studio Berçot has a reputation that equals or surpasses any of the other schools. I’d planned to spend this week researching and writing to professors, making a final decision with care. Lying next to Matthias, it seems that Studio Berçot is as good a place as any.

I get up and send an email from my laptop to the Studio, notifying them that I accept. It’s up to the wire for every school I’ve been accepted to—and this is the last day for the Studio. After that, I email Emilie. It’s better to have a place to live than not—and it saves me the trouble when I know I’ll be focusing on getting Matthias out of my mind.

I make a note on my calendar to renew my birth control when I get to my new home. There’s enough that’s complicated right now—I don’t need another thing I never planned.

The thought wrenches my gut for some reason. I look back to Matthias, and he stirs in his sleep, turning to me and opening his eyes. “You’re naked and typing away at your computer. It’s a vision I like to wake up to.” He makes his fingers into a square and pretends to take a picture of me.

I smile and close my laptop. Everything is sent. My tickets to Paris are bought and finalized, and I won’t need to make any plans from there. Things are settled, save for the man looking at me. “Unfortunately, this is the last day.”

“It doesn’t have to be. You gave me your number, remember? After I deal with my family and tell them to fuck off once and for all, I can come to you. You said yesterday you were thinking of Rome?”

I nod, biting the inside of my cheek. My heart drops. I’ve imagined it, of course. He could come to me, and we’d repeat these days again. But even as he says it, I know it’s not a reality—or even a promise.

“Still not quite decided,” I say. “But maybe somewhere around there. I’m making sure to get to Paris first. There are schools there, and I need to—I need to look at them.”

I stumble over my words, but Matthias doesn’t seem to notice. He reaches his hand toward me, beckoning me back to the bed. I fall in with him, and his hands travel over me, his lips meeting one breast and then the other, until the soaring exhilaration of being in his arms takes over, and I no longer feel the heavy guilt of lying to him. I kept my truth for myself, and it makes no difference. There won’t be a call. Maybe a few text messages, a sentence or two to tease me and distract me from my studies.

“Mal,” he moans as his lips travel the length of my body and down my thigh. “You smell so sweet. Not as sweet as you taste.” Before his lips journey to my sex, he looks up at me, his brows slightly furrowed. He spreads my legs apart with exquisite, purposeful slowness. “I’ll just look forward to having this again.”

I don’t respond, but I watch him as he lowers his mouth between my legs. I should tell him. That I want this, too. It would be normal—to share with him that his lips meeting my flesh is everything I never knew I wanted. He’s taken me, made me into a different person.

I’m grateful for it, I think, as he pulls my clit into his mouth and sucks it gently, tongue swirling over its tip. Arching my hips to meet him, bringing my hands to my breasts, I whimper and sigh, letting the growing wave wash over me. Just as I’m about to come, he moves lower, pressing his tongue inside of me before moving to my clit again. The tide sinks and rises to a higher crest, my core growing tight as he brings me to the edge and backs away again. When I come, his tongue is flicking over me with attention to my every movement, my every desire. My hips move against his face, and I cry out his name. In that moment, I almost tell him I love him, but I feel like I hallucinated the words, like they couldn’t possibly be real.

I was just testing them out, deep in my head.

For a moment, when he pulls away, I wonder if I accidentally said them, or if he could somehow hear what I was thinking. Instead, he smiles and kisses me, and I taste myself on his lips. He cups one breast and then the other as his tongue meets mine, and I want him inside of me again. I find myself throwing one leg over his torso, begging in his ear for him to take me again, to fill me.

But he shakes his head. “On the train. Like you promised. I’ll have you once and then again. And I don’t care who sees us.”

The thought, heady and hot, stays with me as I allow Matthias to dress me. He selects the short skirt he bought for me, and he refuses to let me put on panties or even the bra we bought at the shop in Brussels. I’m bare beneath the silky blue shirt he selects, my nipples growing stiff as we walk out into the cool morning air with our bags.

He gives me a look and brings one hand to my neck, letting his fingers roam over my skin. “I could fuck you right here if I wanted to,” he whispers. “And you’d let me. That’s how much you’ve changed, my innocent little American girl. So far from home.”

His hand falls to my waist and then wanders over my hip, stopping at the short hem of my skirt. I grow wet again under his touch, but I don’t feel shame. Instead, I lean forward and kiss him again, pressing into him and taking pleasure at the feeling of his cock growing hard against my thigh. “Take me to the train. You can have me there.” I look up into his eyes. “Promise me you will.”

“My pleasure, princess. I’ll fuck you senseless.”

He takes my hand and leads me to the station. A few eyes linger on my breasts, and Matthias puts his arm around my waist possessively.

We walk onto the train and into our semi-private car, hoping that no one else comes by.

Chapter Thirteen

Matthias

She sits down next to me, the beautiful girl I met in Amsterdam. Instead of days, it feels like weeks ago now. Maybe months. I’ve never been with a woman more compatible with me, her body responsive to every touch, her round, pink cheeks and distant, deep-set eyes betraying every emotion. There’s more to us than just this week. It’s become clear to me, as it is to her. She won’t say it, but I can read what she’s feeling when she looks at me.

I’ll come and find her when she’s in school, convince her that I mean what I say. She doubts me now, but I’m a man who’s true to my promises. I’ve just never made a promise to a woman before—and that’s because I’ve never met a woman quite like her before.

“My trip is almost over. Or I guess it is, for real now. I’ll be in school this time next week.” She doesn’t say that she won’t see me again. She’s made it clear enough that she thinks I won’t deliver, that I’ll forget everything about her.

‘There’s another one around the corner.”

“Another one—another one of what?”

“Another time to see you, lieverd. You’ll tell me when you decide, send me an address when you find one. I’ll step down from my family—”

“What do you mean, ‘step down’?” She looks at me skeptically, as she should. Yet another slip-up. I’m running out of reasons to keep the truth from her, but it seems now that she might not want me the same way if she knew. My medieval family, trying to force me to do something that will take me away from my life forever.

And now, perhaps, I want Mallory to be part of that life.

If she ever knew. If they ever knew. She could well be in danger.

The train begins to reach full speed, and I put my arm tighter around her. I’d die if they did something to her. When I return, I think, I’ll find a way to tell her. And I’ll find a way to keep her safe, her identity hidden. Maybe if I abdicate once and for all—if they let me—they won’t even care.

“It’s just an expression. What I mean is I can’t do what they want, and I won’t.”

“Get married? Have a family?” She looks to the window as she speaks, her voice fading as the rush of the train surrounds us.

“I’d do that with the right person. Somewhere down the line.”

She doesn’t respond, leaning her head against my shoulder as we pass through green hillsides. “You owe me for my train ticket from Amsterdam. This wasn’t the plan.” She turns to me and gives me a half-smile.

“I’ll pay you back when I see you again.”

“Don’t say that if you don’t mean it.”

“What? That I’ll pay you back? I will.”

She moves so that she’s on my lap, her legs spread across mine. I groan slightly. The edge of her thigh presses against my cock, and it’s all I can do to think or say any words. I’m growing hard.

She kisses me lightly on the lips. “That you’ll see me again. It’s okay if you don’t. That’s never what this was about.”

“Mal—” I think of telling her that she means something to me, something real. That I mean what I say. But she doesn’t give me a chance.

Instead, I feel her fingers fumbling with my jeans, the zipper sliding down. She takes out my cock, and all my blood rushes to the points where her fingers touch. I groan.

She lifts her skirt and moves until she’s on top of me. She hikes up her skirt, and I see that she’s trimmed and shaved her pussy. I realize it’s for me, for this day, for this moment. Someone walks by the outside of our door, and I swallow hard, blood rushing to my cock. My center grows tight, and the only thing I want now is this woman, on top of me.

“Just fuck me now, Matthias.” She looks into my eyes when she says my name and lowers herself so that her wetness begins to encase my cock. The head slips inside, and she angles herself so that she can take me in. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep. I understand. People leave. It’s okay that they do.”

I don’t say anything, because she’s lowered herself to the base of my cock, and she’s moving against me in a slow, gentle rhythm, sighing as she grinds her clit against me.

“Fuck,” I groan. I’m bare inside of her again, fully aware of every centimeter of her skin.

She increases her speed, whimpering each time she raises up and lowers her supple body down onto my cock.

“Matthias,” she sighs, one hand going to my shoulder so she can ride me faster. “It’s so good—oh God—” She moans, unable to finish her thought. A couple walks by, and I see the woman looking inside our car. She quickly looks away, and a surge of excitement rolls through me as I grip Mallory’s waist.

“It is good. You wore your skirt for me, got wet for me. Wanted me.” I clear my mind and watch her as she moans, moving her hips over me. She’s reckless, uncaring. I’m close to coming inside of her, and I bite down on my lip to stop. I want to watch her as she comes. The flush starts to rise over her body, and I see her growing pink. Her stomach tightens, and she cries out, wild, as she thrusts herself down. I can feel her swell and clench against me, and it sends me over the edge.

“Fuck, Mallory,” I mutter. She comes hard against my body. She shudders endlessly, and I’m not sure if she’s coming again, but she keeps on, drawing me closer to the end. Before I come, I flip her over and push her against the seat of the train car, spreading her legs wide and thrusting hard. I push her against the seat right next to the door.

“Someone’s going to see,” she says. Even as the words escape her lips, she tilts her head back, closing her eyes.

Her breath comes in shorter and shorter gasps, and I grind my hips into hers. “Don’t care.” I flip her shirt up over her breasts, sweeping the backs of my knuckles over them. She wraps her legs around me, and whispers in my ear. I can’t tell exactly what she’s saying, but the sweetness of her voice propels me forward, and I fuck her harder.

She comes again, legs shaking. “Come inside of me. Please come inside of me,” she mumbles, mouth open.

I push into her one final time, letting the surge take me over. “Greedy girl. I’ll give you what you want.” I unleash inside of her, filling her with my essence. I’ve never recklessly taken a girl bare before, but from the time Mallory climbed on top of me in the apartment I rented to escape my family, I couldn’t refuse her. I don’t want her any other way. No barriers, nothing preventing me from feeling her tight, wetness around me. She’s so warm, so deeply soft.

I wasn’t even sure I cared when she assured me it was safe. The idea of filling her drove me to some biological need, and I couldn’t help but do exactly as she wanted.

I trained her to be mine—and now she’s taken me as hers. Left her mark the same as I’ve left mine.

I groan deeply and thrust into her a final time.

The train compartment is filled with her delicate scent, and I pull her back onto my lap, holding her there and kissing her for a long time after. I stay inside of her for a while.

When she lets go of me finally, she pulls on a pair of panties from her bag and shrugs when I frown. “We’ve entered France. The trip is over.”

“For now,” I say. “Where will you be?”

“Matthias, let’s not prolong this. You’ve got things going on with your family. And I know you won’t give a thought to me once you’re gone—”

“I will. But I understand if you don’t believe me. I’ll prove it to you.”

She’s standing now, watching the world pass by from the train. “You don’t have to. You told me what this was—”

“It’s not what it was before, Mal. It isn’t. It’s something new, something different.” I stand with her and catch her hand. I can see Paris rising in the distance, and it feels like an ending, something depressingly final. I have her number, but she’s cagey about telling me where she’ll be. I understand that too. I didn’t exactly tell her we’d be in a relationship forever. Standing with her here, I can feel my mistake sitting between us. Still, I can’t muster the words to tell her that I was wrong.

“Thank you. I think. That’s a compliment coming from you, isn’t it?” She turns to me and lets me hold her for a moment.

“It is, I guess. But I mean it.” My phone has been off this entire time, and I can only hope that my parents and their men didn’t catch sight of us across Brussels. I don’t know how I’m going to work this out, but I will, even if it means giving my parents a male heir through this girl they’ve picked for me. Maybe they’ll leave me alone after that.

I’m still holding Mallory close when the train pulls into Paris. I only leave her to get the rest of our luggage for a moment. When I come back, she looks slightly guilty. She bites her lip and looks out the window.

I help her off of the train, pointing out the stations of the metro that will take her where she needs to go. She has another godforsaken Air BnB rental, but I keep my mouth shut. She doesn’t need me to flash anymore euros in front of her. For now, she just needs to be on her way to wherever she’s going.

I watch her as she goes, my heart heavy.

She’s a girl I’ll come back for, the only one I’ve ever been able to say that about.

Chapter Fourteen

Mallory

Emilie walks around the apartment, back to her favorite topic. It’s been two—no three—weeks since I moved in with her, and she grills me about Matthias every chance she gets. She’s doing far better than I am in graduate school, so she has the luxury of speculating about my romantic life. I don’t. I made sure of it before I left the train—I deleted my number, and Matthias never even asked my last name.

I’m fairly certain he’s never asked that question of a woman before. Why would he need to?

I think of him, boarding a plane for wherever his family is, and “stepping down” from their wishes, whatever that means. His words were so different that last day, so sincere. But men like that—Kim always told me—they don’t come back for you.

In the past few weeks, I wonder if that’s because Kim’s boyfriend left when he found out she had multiple sclerosis. Maybe she just thought men like that leave. Maybe not all of them do.

Like I said, I don’t have the luxury of pondering it.

Matthias doesn’t have a way to find me. And I need to forget him. What good does it do to focus on someone who might come back—but who would definitely break my heart?

He’s the type of man for a fling. Have a fling. Do the things I don’t get to do anymore, Mal. And don’t let your heart get broken—it’s all you have. Get married, sure. But wait until you’re thirty. In the meantime, do every dirty thing you ever dreamed of.

Except, Kim, I never dreamed anything dirty until I met Matthias.

Kim’s voice rings in my head, and Emilie’s kitten heels click against the floor. She pours two glasses of wine, sitting one down on her side table and one on mine. “So this guy, he said he doesn’t want anything to do with his family. But he sent you away so he could deal with them?” Emilie says it contemplatively, taking a sip of her red wine. I can’t believe she’s still asking me about him.

I sigh and put down my sketchpad. There’s a half-drawn design on my iPad and a second unfinished sketch on paper. I’m surrounded by discarded ideas, on our crushed velvet couch, decadent purple in color. When I’m frustrated like this, I try to remind myself that I was lucky I knew one person at Studio Berçot, and now that acquaintance has turned into a friendship. It’s comforting. The couch, the tiny apartment, the wine Emilie brings us from her parents’ vineyard in Montpelier. She’s always been an only child—I guess I am now, too.

I like it here. I do.

But there’s something missing. Sometimes I think it’s my sister. Other times, I’m not entirely sure. That feeling that came over me the last day on the train—the one that made me delete my phone number from Matthias’s iPhone—sometimes I think that’s it. The feeling where I thought I might be in love.

“Yeah, I don’t know Em. We’ve been over this.” I look at Emilie. French, raised in Montreal, far worldlier than I’ve ever been. Still, she’s attached to this idea that Matthias’s journey with me was somehow romantic. “He said they wanted him in an arranged marriage. They want an heir. I can’t begin to explain strange European people or their traditions.”

“I’m not strange.” She says it haughtily and sits down.

“You’re Canadian, mostly,” I say with a smile. “That’s a whole different ball game. And you went to college with me at Parsons. You’re—North American. It’s your family that’s strange and European.”

She rolls her eyes. “Okay, granted, they are strange. Always traveling and doing weird things with their money. Like sending us wine. I can’t argue with their strangeness.”

“Whatever the case, there’s a whole world of difference between you and Matthias. His family is like, weirdly rich. I think they’re in a whole different category. And for some reason, I have a feeling that money is older than Amsterdam itself.”

“What gives you that feeling?”

“The weird shit about an heir. The fact that Matthias was so dead set against marriage. It’s like it was conditioned into him his whole life. And families don’t just do that, not unless there’s something to lose.” I think of him, green eyes on mine, closing them as I take him with my body.

“Matthias,” she purrs. “Even his name is sexy.” She perches up on top of the other faded pink couch we got from the previous owner. It sits across from the velvety purple couch. Garish, ghastly, totally perfect for a little apartment in Paris. I keep waiting for bed bugs to crawl out of it, but there haven’t been any.

Lucky. Comforting. This is what you wanted, Mal. Freedom from your grief, a friend, a life, a home.

But no Matthias.

Emilie slides down onto one of the fat cushions and takes up her tablet, fooling around with patterns and colors. The rest of the apartment is taken up by the sergers and overlock machines Em has collected, and the wide design and cutting tables I bought secondhand as a contribution. The kitchen cabinets are all filled with fabric Emilie scored in Los Angeles this summer.

My friend escaped to Cali this summer, and I went to Europe.

At least she got fabric. I got Matthias. And now he doesn’t even have my number anymore.

“He was, in fact, sexy.” I sit with my sketchpad on my knees, staring out into space as the afternoon light filters through the tall Parisian windows. It’s truly autumn now. The light is golden in the afternoons, and wind whips through the streets so that we have to close our windows at night. “The sexiest. And I won’t be seeing him again.”

Emilie doesn’t look up. She downs another gulp of wine and keeps staring at her tablet. She picks up a piece of fabric with gray and blue swirls from the coffee table that sits between us and feels it in her hands, draping it over one arm and swinging it back and forth. “That’s up to you, ma chère. You’re the one who erased your number from his phone. That’s a thing I’ll never live to understand. Don’t come crying to me in January when you’re lonely and need sex.”

She finishes the wine and piles the fabric in a heap beside her. My wine sits untouched on the side table next to me. It’s been sour on my stomach in the past week or so, no longer tempting me. But Emilie keeps pouring it, and when I leave it, she drinks it herself. Neither the alcohol nor the calories count when it’s my wine, apparently.

“I won’t. And I won’t be. I’ll be immersed in making a collection for the spring. Trying to catch the eye of the great Parisian designers, and all that.” I say this all grandly, with a big sweep of my hand, but Em doesn’t notice. She’s immersed in her design app again, occasionally stopping to drape fabric over her arm and her ample bust.