Inside the Duane Reade I stalk back and forth in front of the magazine racks, my heart beating fast. A fake address? A fake address? Who does Dayton think he is?

I take a calming breath in and let it out to a count of one-two-three-four while I stare at England’s favorite royalty in bright, glossy colors. I repeat the process. I don’t feel calm, but I have to act calm. I’m in a Duane Reade. I can’t be the woman freaking out in the Duane Reade because her client stood her up.

God, that’s why this stings, isn’t it? Because I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t think of him as just a client when he walked into the office, and I can’t do it now.

Treating him like any other client would be the right thing to do.

And yet—

I pull out my phone and the paper and tap out a furious email, then delete the whole thing and start over.

Dear Mr. Nash—

Delete.

Dear Day—

Delete.

Hi Dayton,

I’m writing to check in because I had you scheduled for a meeting at eleven this morning. I wanted to make sure you’re all right.

Summer Sullivan

I’ve sent this kind of email a thousand times before. Most people never answer. The rest tell me that they forgot, or they couldn’t get out of the house, or they swear they had the date down for next week.

I shove my phone and the paper into my pocket and leave Duane Reade. The wind is at my back on the way to the office, prodding me along, pushing, pushing. It’s annoying, how insistent it is.

I’m about to cross in front of the windows when my phone buzzes in my pocket.

Incoming emails.

It’ll be the regular work back-and-forth, of course—emails from everyone else in the office, triple confirming things we confirmed yesterday, emails from different firms around the city for different clients, emails, emails, emails.

The fifth one down is from him.

My heart skips, stops, rears to a start.

I open the email.

Hi Summer Sullivan,

I couldn’t make it. I’m stuck in an appointment at the VA. Catch you next time.

Dayton

I gasp, right there at the magazine racks at Duane Reade.

That asshole.

The VA hospital is five blocks away.

*****

“Do you have an appointment, miss?”

I don’t know whether to bristle at miss or ignore it, so I go with ignoring it. My pulse is still hammering away in my veins, my heartbeat too loud. I catch a glimpse of myself in the reflective surface behind the reception desk and whoa. I look crazy. I feel crazy. I followed Dayton to the VA hospital to give him a piece of my mind.

Get it together.

I put a professional smile on for the woman and take out the papers from my pocket. “I’m meeting Dayton Nash. He should be at an appointment right now.”

She gives a little half-frown. “What’s your connection to Mr. Nash?” A pointed glance at her computer screen nearly does me in. “For confidentiality reasons, I can’t simply—”

“Of course, of course.” What am I going to say? I’m buying time by the second, and the longer I stand here looking the way I look, the more expensive those moments are getting. “I just need to—” A flash of a white t-shirt, his coat under his arm. “There he is!”

“Miss—”

I brandish the papers like a shield and move past the desk with all the confidence of a former sorority girl turned professional badass. “I’ll deliver these and be out of your way. Thank you. Thank you so much.”

“Miss, you can’t—”

“Dayton.”

The line of his back stops and he sticks his head back around the corner and into the hallway, his dark eyes lighting up with shock.

“Sunny? What are you doing—”

The hall is a line of open doors to exam rooms, doctors in a mix of white coats and uniforms coming in and out. One of them stops dead, looking from his clipboard to Dayton to me. “Do you need something, ma’am?”

I liked miss better.

“No,” I tell him, flashing that same confident smile, and pick up the pace. I’m going full speed when I reach him and hook my arm into his. He’s heavy, muscular, but my momentum wheels us both around the corner and down the next hall.

“Do you mind telling me where we’re going?”

I don’t slow down. “I hope you’re heading for a room where we can talk in private.” There’s no special smile for him. Not now. Not when he lied from me, when he stood me up, after all this time, after that kiss—

“I’m in room twenty-eight.”

I yank him through the door and slip around behind him to slam it shut. Day gets his balance back and stands tall in the center of the room, arms crossed, eyebrows raised.

“How dare you?” I planned a more eloquent speech on the walk here, but looking into his eyes, I can’t remember a word of it. “How dare you give me a fake address? Me. Me. I’m Summer Sullivan.” I shout my own name. It’s the height of decorum.

“Exactly,” he says with a slow shake of his head. “What are you doing here?”

“What am I doing here? What are you doing calling me Sunny and asking me what I’m doing here?”

Dayton raises both his hands. “That was a mistake—”

My mother always said never to point at anyone, but I jab a finger into his chest. “You showed up for this.” I motion to the room. It doesn’t get more generic doctor’s office than this. “You showed up here but not to an appointment with me?”

Day lets out a sharp breath. “Some things are more important than others, I guess.”

“I hope you’re being sarcastic.”

“What could I possibly I have to be sarcastic about? You followed me here, into a doctor’s appointment, and—”

“Yeah. Yeah, I did.” My voice is rising and I can’t stop it. “I did follow you here. I wanted to know why you lied to me about where you were living. Unless you live at the IHOP, Day. Is that where you really live?”

“You sound crazy.”

“You sound crazy. Why would you lie to me?” The hurt wells in my chest, pressing against my rib cage with the beat of my heart. “I’m only trying to help you, and—”

He lifts his hands in a silent plea, probably hoping I’ll shut up. “Well, Summer, maybe you should focus on helping people who deserve it.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I missed the damn meeting, okay? There. That’s all the proof you need. I’m not a hero. I’m just a guy trying to get a job, and what are the odds of that?”

“They’re pretty good, if you must know—” I wave the papers in his face. “You would know if you’d shown up, but you didn’t.”

“That’s right. I never show up. All I ever do is leave you.”

“Ding ding ding!” I shout, my throat going tight. “You did leave me, after you kissed me eight years ago, and then you showed up and did it again. You kissed me and then you left me, and humiliated me, as if I wouldn’t figure out it was an address for a fucking pancake shop.”

“Summer—”

“You’re despicable.” There’s my finger again, rising, jabbing at him. “You have no idea what you’ve done, how much I’ve thought of you, how much I—”

He grabs my wrist out of the air, wrapping it in his fingers as easily as if I’m a china doll. Half a breath and I collide with him, against the clean, spicy scent of him, the wall of muscle and pain that is Dayton Nash.

He kisses me a third time.

His hand rises to meet my jawbone, tilting my head back so that he can claim my lips for himself. It’s the kiss to end every other kiss. I’ve never tried to straddle a man during a kiss before but I hike up my knee and press against him, need and want centered between my legs. It’s not a soft kiss. It’s hard and fierce and I close my teeth around his bottom lip, pulling it through, biting him like he’s mine, mine, mine.

He lets out a low growl and his grip on my jaw tightens, his other hand locked on my ass, his mouth possessive on mine. He is all man, all thunder and force, and I am a lightning rain.

Dayton shifts his weight, rotating us slowly, finding the balance he needs to hold us upright.

The door to the exam room opens.

Out of the corner of my eye I see the doctor blink twice, then turn on his heel and get the hell out.