Owen’s afterglow kisses make me so tipsy that he has to carry me out of the pool in his arms, then bring me to a lounge chair.

As I wallow in warmth and giddiness, he leaves, then returns to me with a towel wrapped around his waist, low enough to show off his taut abs and belly, just the way I like it. Then he uses another long towel to dry me off, taking his time, then cocooning me in its fluffiness.

He easily lifts me from the lounge, sits down on it, then pulls me back against him so I’m on his lap.

That’s just the way I like it, too.

I feel so close to him, and not only because I’m snuggled in his arms with my head leaning back on his strong chest. I feel as if he’s become a part of me.

Am I a part of him?

As the water runs over the side of the pool, he traces patterns on my bare thigh where the towel rides up. I pull the fabric tighter around me because I’m starting to shiver again, in spite of the warm air.

“I hope the hotel will clean the pool for the next people who stay in this suite,” I say lightly, but I’m also testing him, seeing how he’s feeling about the mess we left.

But he seems laid-back about it. Is he getting used to the clutter I bring to his life?

“I made sure the pool was sanitized thoroughly before I got here,” he says, “and I’m sure the hotel will do the same for the next high-paying client.” He draws a line up the top of my thigh. “Talk about dirty though… I like how you got a little nastier tonight. Some of the things you said made me think the devil got into you.”

“He did.”

After a moment, we both laugh. The vibration in his chest travels through me. That, plus the trail his finger is making up my skin, gives my sex a buzz.

“Anyway,” he says, “you lost a little more of your innocence tonight.”

I almost ask him if he likes bidding on virgins because we come to him clean and he enjoys dirtying us up.

But he goes on before I have the chance—if I even had the guts to ask.

“How about dinner in bed?” he says. “Order anything from the menu. I’m sure you worked up an appetite.”

“And I’ll be working another one up soon, I’m sure.”

He tenderly strokes my leg—not in a sexual way, more as if he’s exploring me, reveling in the feel of my skin—and I reach in back of me, softly digging my fingers into his hair. Thick, lustrous, yummy.

“I like how you’re growing this out,” I say.

“I haven’t had time to get it cut.”

He enfolds me in his arms as I smile, loving this, wishing things could always be this way. But after today, will they be?

Have we crossed some kind of bridge?

After a pause he says, “When we get back to New York I’ve got business meetings. There’s important work I need to get done.”

Ah. Here it comes—the distancing. He’s about to tell me that he won’t be around much. I try not to let a piece of my heart crack off.

“You know where I’ll be if you need me,” I casually say.

“I’ll need you at dinner with a very important client.”

I hesitate, because I think I might have water in my ears.

He continues. “I’m partnering on an artificial intelligence surgical project with another doctor, Gary Earl. He’ll soon be bringing his wife Rachel to the city from Nevada so we can hammer out our ideas together.”

I still don’t know how to respond.

“I just threw you for a loop,” he says.

“A tad.” Even though I told myself I’d do anything for him, this seems like a stretch. Who’s going to believe that I, an average and unsophisticated girl, am dating someone like Owen Gregory? “It’s just that having me entertain your colleague at dinner seems risky since I’m not your significant other. You don’t want to blow my cover as your call girl.”

Or am I something else to you now?

At first I’m not sure Owen is listening. He’s getting turned on again, slipping his fingers under my towel and brushing over the strip of hair on my pussy. My blood pumps there, and I shift, much too excited.

At the same time, he deftly dodges the topic. “You’ll do fine. I’d also like you to take Dr. Earl’s wife around Manhattan with one of my drivers the day after the dinner. Amuse her, show her a good time while Gary and I are working.”

“So the part of the Girlfriend/Hostess will be played by yours truly at this performance.”

He cups me between the legs, and I haul in a breath. It feels so very possessive. So good.

“Are you angry that I’m asking you to do this?” he says in my ear.

“No. I’m…just not confident.”

My voice is throttled with a growing desire. I shift again, and he seems to sense my discomfort. He slips his hand over to my thigh, resting it there.

Is this a good time to get personal with him? Why else would he be inviting me further into his life like this if he weren’t ready?

“Of course I’ll do what you want me to,” I say. “I know what my purpose is, even though this afternoon I thought…”

“Thought what?”

“I don’t know.” Say it, Juliet. Just get it out in the open. “It’s just that you know everything about me now, and I think it brought us closer this afternoon. I even feel close to you right now, close enough so that I want to know everything about you. I want to know why you look so troubled sometimes, why you get so cold toward me, why it seems there’s something that happened to you in the past.”

What a relief to finally have it out there.

But he’s gone frosty, and I tense up in his arms. He removes his hand from my thigh, and as he rises from the lounge, he picks me up and eases me back down on it.

He stalks toward the room.

“Dammit, Owen,” I say, clutching the towel around me.

But he’s already inside.

Hurt wounds me like teeth marks in my skin. His iciness bites at me, and I don’t know how much longer I can take the swelling agony of what he does to me every single time I try to get closer to him.

I’m so tired of him running hot and cold, his hand stroking me with fevered intentions one moment, him walking away and leaving me iced over the next. I just don’t know what to do anymore.

By the time I get inside, he’s already shut the door to the main bedroom, leaving me with the other one for the night.

Abandoning me and my slowly breaking heart.

* * *

The next morning, Owen is as distant as I expected he would be as we quietly leave the hotel and fly back to New York City on his jet. He’s knee deep in business already, holed up in the back of the plane, and I don’t see him again until we take the limo back to his home.

Even then he’s withdrawn, and he has the driver drop me off at the front stoop of the brownstone, only to continue on to his office.

Oddly, when he returns that evening, we fall right back into our routine as if nothing happened. But that’s my job, isn’t it? To pretend that nothing is wrong and make him happy?

We eat dinner, have a conversation about the upcoming “date” with Dr. Earl and his wife, and then he takes me up to my room where he seduces me, making me come and scream and plead for more.

Then a funny thing happens during the next couple of days—in spite of both of our apparent fears and our discomfort with each other, we really do seem to be getting closer and closer.

I’m almost fooled into thinking that anyone could mistake us for a real couple.

My god, I’m truly falling in love with him, but his troubled past is still a closed book to me. I know something happened to him to make him so closed off, but I’m hesitant to ask him again to share it, and he never volunteers anything.

When the night of our dinner with Dr. and Mrs. Earl finally arrives, I’m a mess of nerves. As we wait at our white linen covered table in the very swanky Le Bernadin, I keep smoothing down my navy open back designer gown and toying with the subtle organza bow at my neck. I’ve worn my hair up in a bid to look sophisticated, but I’m not sure I own the part.

Hostess. Girlfriend. Significant other.

Right.

But Owen can’t take his eyes off of me. He’s got that look again—almost tender and definitely attached in some way.

I don’t get him at all.

“Don’t be nervous,” he says smoothly.

I whisper across the table. “They’re definitely going to know that I’m not actually your girlfriend.”

“Will they?”

His cryptic words give me pause, and when he stands from his chair in a formal manner, I look toward the distinguished couple coming toward us, escorted by the maître d.

“Dr. Gregory,” says the fortyish man with the big grin and prematurely silver hair.

“Dr. Earl.” After they shake hands, Owen greets Mrs. Earl, who’s already smiling at me.

She’s much younger than I expected—possibly in her mid-twenties—and she’s blond and slim in her own designer dress. Owen introduces us, and she takes my hand as if we’re already old friends.

“Please tell me you’re into the theater,” she says as she sits down next to me. “I was hoping to see at least one Broadway show while I’m in town, and that silver fox workaholic across the table couldn’t care less.”

Oh, so she has a workaholic, too. We’re going to get along just fine.

“I’m on board with that,” I say, totally relieved that she’s so open and fun.

She starts talking about the production set design program for international students she runs every summer back in Nevada. Meanwhile, Dr. Earl listens raptly to his wife, clearly adoring her.

I catch Owen’s eye. His gaze holds something even more intense than what I’ve seen in him before, and warmth spills through me, because the emotion isn’t lust. It isn’t haunted in any way.

Owen is proud of me tonight, almost as if I really am his significant other.