“Write it down,” Alex ordered, giving her a cell phone number, then a code you needed to dial to put you through the line. Alex never gave his number out, and, normally, he didn’t need to. Blake and the others were always around. It was weird to think it was just Alex and me now, and even weirder to imagine he’d be actively working for something. Something to do with me.

“Text me when he finds him,” Alex added, pressing my phone between his shoulder and ear and lighting up a cigarette. He was commanding and forbidding, his expression so distant, you wouldn’t think he was dealing with feelings. And this, perhaps, was the part of him that would be my ruin. He was kind without being kind to me. I parked my waist against the nearby closet facing the bathroom and watched him as he killed the line and tossed my phone across the room and onto the mattress. He swiveled, pointing his cancer stick at me.

“Get dressed.”

I shook my head, watching him from under my lashes. “You can’t go out. You’re a superstar, remember?”

“I’m also a goddamn person. Two bodyguards are on their way here.”

“Bodyguards?” My spine straightened on cue. “You hate bodyguards.” I didn’t even have to ask him to know that it was true. I saw the way he’d reacted every time one or two had had to tag along throughout the tour. Apparently, Alex Winslow was one of the rare celebrities who didn’t have full-time bodyguards on their payroll. He just hated being babied. And I was his babysitter . The fact he was nice to me at all was a blessing. He sauntered past me, grabbed his skinny jeans, and black muscle T-shirt, throwing his leather jacket on top, already lacing his army boots.

“Hey, ho. Let’s go.”

“I didn’t peg you for a Ramones fan,” I said.

Alex was the greatest music snob of all time. Especially considering he’d sinned by making sweet, Ed-Sheeran, let-me-hold-you-in-my-arms music at some point in his career. The glint in his eyes told me I was right.

“I’m not. I’m a let’s-go-fucking-eat fan.”

One could argue Alex Winslow was one annoying, eccentric, arrogant man. But there was no disputing this weird mixture was enchanting.

Slowly—so very slowly—I made my way to the shower, the hot steam still clinging to the glass. He was really going to do it—get out of the hotel, knowing he was going to get noticed. Alex hated crowds. And people. And the paparazzi. The only humans he was okay with tolerating were his fans. I was worried this might prompt a breakdown, which would later lead to drug use.

I hesitated over the threshold, throwing him another look. “The paparazzi will probably see us.”

“I know.”

“And you don’t care?”

“Giving fucks is not exactly my forte.” He quirked a thick eyebrow, turning on the TV and making himself comfortable on the bed. “Chop, chop, now, Stardust. I turn into a pumpkin at midnight.”

“It’s noon, and you turn into an artist at midnight,” I corrected, stepping out of my dress in front of him. Bare for him, I watched him as he watched me. Like he understood me. Like our intimacy was a living entity, sitting between us, its warm, ultraviolet rays caressing me softly.

“I’m always an artist. Sometimes, I’m an artist who gets screwed over by Suits,” he amended, blowing smoke through his nostrils like a vicious dragon and smirking to the ceiling. “Now, go.”

I had a quick shower, then proceeded to try on a dozen dresses. I knew we were not a couple. Of course I knew that. But I also knew the tabloids would be speculating, and I didn’t want to be the mediocre-looking girl with the funky hair and cheap dress. I tied my locks into a loose chignon, tresses of arctic-blue waves slipping down my nape, and wore my classic, maroon velvet dress. Lipstick. Mascara. Mental pep talk. I was ready as one could be.

I stepped out of the bathroom.

Alex didn’t react to me. Not at first. He was engrossed with something on his phone, and when he looked up, something on TV caught his attention. I stood there for a few long seconds, my heart vaulting behind my ribcage. For once, I wasn’t the one talking to my heart, but it was the one talking to Alex.

See us.

Feel us.

Love us.

I was no longer able to quiet it down. My heart wanted Alex to love it. The rest of me did, too. And when his head whirled, almost in slow-motion, his mouth fell open, just an inch, his golden eyes twinkling with something I’d never seen there before. Or maybe I just wanted to see it, and it wasn’t there after all.

“Midnight Blue,” he whispered. “Illicit and elegant at the very same time.”

I tucked a curl that had escaped from my chignon behind my ear and cleared my throat. “Let’s go eat.”

When we were walking down the hallway and toward the elevators, a thought occurred to me. It was so obvious, it made me want to laugh and cry all at once. Alex didn’t want to go out. He didn’t want to move around with bodyguards on his tail. And he definitely didn’t want to board the rumor train and have people talking about us, especially after that picture in Greece, which Blake, of course, maintained was photoshopped every time he’d been asked about it.

“Thank you,” I said while we were waiting for one of the elevators to ping.

He grunted, knowing exactly what I was talking about.

He was distracting me from thinking about Craig.

He was saving me from drowning in dark thoughts about my family.

He was no knight in shining armor, a far cry from a savior. He was just a broken, sad boy who was given a great gift that put him on display for the world to see and to judge.

And that boy saved me that day.

Again.

The good thing about walking with a Londoner in London was that you saw it through their eyes. Alex knew London like an old lover. Every curve and line and beauty spot. He was originally from a town on the outskirts of the English capital, but this was where he hung out. This was his domain. And he ruled it the way he did all things: mercilessly and methodically, like every inch of it was his.

First, we hopped into the underground train, to which he referred to as “the tube.” The bodyguards, Harry and Hamish, were sitting a few seats away, pretending to read a local newspaper. Alex and I sat together, and maybe it was his beanie and shades, or maybe it was just how casually he’d acted, but no one took notice of us. Once we poured out of the train at Camden Town station and took the escalators up, we visited a little market where we inhaled two portions of vegan tacos, each. They were delicious and spicy, and we washed them down with chocolate milk we’d bought at a nearby convenient store. Then Alex showed me around. He said the market was going to turn into a massive mall soon, and that he was happy he wouldn’t be there to see it happening, because it was the equivalent of tearing a piece of his heart and using it as an ass transplant for a Hollywood starlet. I laughed and asked him how his soul was these days.