“So, who is this for?” I ask.

Lucas cocks his head in response.

“Tonight’s activities.” I wrap my hands around the pole that threads through the carousel horse’s torso and stretch forward. “Metallica was for you. And naked…” My cheeks go hot. “…book reading was for me.”

Lucas leans up against the black and white spotted horse across the platform. “That might have been for both of us.”

The blush spreads from my face to my neck, thinking about how our evening ended. As predicted it began with very little reading, and culminated with a whole lotta sex. So far, I’m matching his insatiable sexual appetite like a pro, but it’s only the third date of a seven-day commitment, and my body has begun to ache.

I swallow the bitter taste of sadness that always comes when I think about the countdown that in the end will define our relationship, one way or the other. Either we’ll stay together, or call it quits. Tough to read which way Lucas leans, but my heart is pretty much an open novel.

Lucas hands me what’s left of our shared Unicorn Frappuccino—fitting given our location—and licks his lips. I can almost guarantee they’d taste like cotton candy, but I stop just shy of asking for confirmation.

“Tonight is probably for both of us too,” he concedes.

I’ve never been to Jane’s Carousel, but the popular tourist locale caters not only to my love of horses and romance, but also to Lucas’s longing to hang on to his youth. Take away his obscene wealth, and Lucas and I share much more in common than I could have imagined. I think he’s starting to realize that too.

An unexpected smile radiates from my soul.

“You’re beautiful,” Lucas says, for what must be the hundredth time this week. It’s adorable that he zeroes in on me, but my vision is far broader. From my position on this bucking white stallion, the Manhattan skyscrapers in the distance twinkle under a black sky dotted with tiny diamond-shaped stars. A full moon hangs in the background, postcard perfect. The kind of view photographers around the world would pay a million bucks to capture.

“It must have cost a fortune for you to rent this place out,” I say, almost wistfully. My voice echoes in the building, empty save for us and the two dozen or so carousel horses that spin round and round in lazy circles.

Lucas chuckles. “Tickets are two dollars each, darlin’.”

During normal operating hours, yes. But it’s almost ten o’clock, four hours past shutdown. Minutes before we arrived, Lucas made a personal call to the event operator, offering him an undisclosed amount of money to let us in. I squint into the twinkling lights in search of him now, but Lucas must have also paid him to disappear for a few hours.

For a guy that seems to shy about commitment, Lucas doesn’t appear to struggle with romance. Yet another way he’s different from any guy I’ve ever known.

I study his silhouette as he winds his way through the carousel, brushing his hands against the brightly-colored bridles, or grabbing on to the poles that root the horses in place. His hands curve over their manes and cup their fake chins. It’s clear he’s as mesmerized by them now as he was a child.

The soft carnival music drifting from the overhead speakers takes me back to my youth as well, where my cousin and I would head down to the local fair to ride the Zipper, flirt with the carnies, and stuff our faces with cotton candy.

I slurp the rest of the Unicorn drink, marveling at how closely Lucas has recreated one of my fondest memories with this evening’s adventures. The fluttering in my stomach once again begins to churn.

“This is the most romantic thing anyone has ever done for me,” I say, when Lucas finally makes his way back to me and my stallion.

He straddles an adjacent horse backwards. “That’s what you said last night.”

I smile. “No pressure for tomorrow then.”

He shifts his hips forward, presumably to get more comfortable, but my eyes drift to his groin. The twittering in my chest moves down toward my pelvis, as I feel myself getting aroused. It’s like that all the time with Lucas—sometimes when he’s not even in the room. I’ll catch myself fantasizing about him in the shower, at my desk, standing in line at the check-out, talking to sources on the phone. He is all consuming.

I sink my teeth into my bottom lip, making sure he notices. It’s overtly sexual, and to my pleasure, he catches on quick.

His expression turns mischievous. “You are not insinuating what I think.”

I wink and he gasps.

“Think of the children!”

I throw my head back and laugh, fully enjoying yet another unexpected evening of laughter and fun. I’m surprised at how easy it is when we’re together, how everything ebbs and flows with the normal tides of a fresh relationship. Almost normal.

Except that nothing about us is normal or easy.

In four days, this charade ends. It’s silly how fixated I am on the end, counting the days and hours, even minutes, with ridiculous obsession.

I blink back a tear and avert my gaze, pretending to be mesmerized by the sprawling skyline of tall buildings and bright lights. The Big Apple is captivating, but that’s not what has my emotions twisted into knots. I like Lucas, probably more than I should. And I think—maybe—that he likes me just as much.

Any joy that brings me is tempered by the fact that there is no possible way for us to be together. I’ve considered every angle, every possible solution, and if he isn’t willing to intercede on his company’s part in the lawsuit, there’s really no point in us moving forward. Being with him would be a betrayal to my friends, my company, to myself.

Lucas reaches across the space between us to take my hand. “Penny for your thoughts?”

I cough out a forced laugh. “That’s all you’ve got, big spender?”

“I’ll go as high as a million bucks, but after that, I’ll need to see some flesh.”

Lucas is always teasing like that, mocking the amount of money he has without shoving it in my face. I keep expecting him to try and woo me with diamonds, but he instead uses his wealth in a way that is unexpected and sweet.

It’s nights like this—when a couple thousand bucks guarantees a romantic gesture that feels priceless—that I can’t quite forget he’s a freaking billionaire. Or when I’m sprawled out on his Egyptian cotton sheets, before realizing they probably cost more than I make in a year. Sometimes, it’s all too easy to pretend that he’s just a normal, incredibly hot guy I met at a bar one night—until I’m reminded that he isn’t.

I guess we’re both getting pretty good at make believe.

“You’re having a nice time, right?” he says. It’s cute that he cares enough to ask.

My throat clogs up a little. “This is perfect.”

You’re perfect.

Lucas lets go of my hand and turns around, standing with one hand on the pole and the other stretched out toward me. I follow his lead, tucking my feet into the pegs on either side of the stallion and lean left until our fingers thread together. I extend my other hand outward, and act like we’re flying. My heart soars and takes flight.

“I’m alive,” Lucas shouts.

I shout it back with just as much enthusiasm.

And then we both laugh.

There’s something so thrilling, so powerful, about screaming inside a glass building, while the carousel moves slowly in a circle and New York City revolves around us, like we’re the center of it all.

“God, I used to love these things when I was a kid,” Lucas says. He sits down and dangles his legs on either side of the pony. Her saddle is pink and yellow, with feminine swirls of lace at the ends. She and Lucas are like yin and yang—one a delicate flower, the other a devilishly handsome beast. Where do I fit in?

My mind drifts to his very public childhood, the fatal school shooting that took the lives of his classmates and a beloved teacher, and my heart clenches with unexpected sympathy. How do you crawl back from that kind of tragedy?

“My first story was about a carnival,” I say, shyly. A silly romance, written at the tender age of fourteen after meeting a carnie at the local fair. He actually worked the Gravitron, and although it spun, that ride wasn’t nearly as romantic as this carousel. The worker didn’t look anything like Lucas either.

Lucas quirks an eyebrow. “I’m intrigued.”

I drop my gaze, embarrassed. I’ve never told anyone about that secret manuscript, not even Marnie and Liz. They’ve sifted through the mountain of my unfinished work, but that book—my first—remains locked in a file cabinet, the key carefully hidden. Maybe someday if I get published, I’ll dig it out of the archives.

Not here, though. Not now.

“You’re adorable when you blush,” Lucas says.

My face lights up in a grin.

He slides off the horse and circles around to my stallion, effortlessly shifting me backward and climbing on board so that we’re facing each other, knees, shins, feet connected. He grabs my hips and pulls me even closer.

“Did you write a kissing scene?”

My cheeks burn hot. “Of course.”

“Tell me about it,” he says. His voice is low, throaty. My stomach does a backwards flip. He moves his lips closer to mine, so close I can almost feel the vibration when he add in a whisper, “In detail.”

I blow out a soft breath, expelling my nerves. It’s one thing to read someone else’s words aloud, but to share my own writing feels impossible, too personal and private. My pulse thrums.

“So, there’s this guy, Mark…”

Lucas smiles. “Let’s call him Lucas.”

I swallow hard. “Right, Lucas. Well he um…” I bite my lip. “You see, he’s…”

“Yes?’

My voice catches. “Maybe the scene could still use a little work.”

Lucas’s gaze drops to my lips. His breath is warm, sweet, and I ache for him to kiss me. “Why don’t we write it together?”

Before I can respond, his mouth closes over mine. The contact is soft and tender at first. My body goes pliant in response. I part my lips allowing his tongue access, and his hand threads through the hair at the base of my neck and pulls me to him.

I melt into his soul, my blood humming with happiness, as the carnival music plays on and we spin in slow circles, the world all around us, fading to gray.