The day went sideways after the flower delivery. The sight of those flowers, my mother's flowers, used by this asshole to hurt me—it poked at a place inside of me I thought had healed over. Something raw and open, a part of me that was still a child. Still hoped my parents would one day come home.

After I wept all over Riley, I pretended to pull myself together, but my heart throbbed in my chest like a rotten tooth. I’d forgotten it was Mother's Day until I saw those lilies. I wanted my mother. I wanted to go to her grave or walk through the woods to the house where we’d lived, but both were off-limits for the time being.

Riley canceled our outing to the Botanical Gardens, saying he wanted me to stick close until the Sinclairs had a chance to take a look at the flowers. The kid who dropped them off hadn't known anything, and though the flowers in the arrangement had been unusual—at least the Myrtle and Tansy—so far they hadn't figured out where they'd come from.

There hadn’t been a note with the arrangement this time. Riley and the Sinclairs didn't know what to make of that, but I had a sinking feeling there was no note because my stalker had been too angry to write one. The few times I'd had a boyfriend, he hadn't responded well. A fiancé was guaranteed to enrage him.

I reminded myself that enraging the stalker, throwing him off balance, was the whole point of this charade with Riley. That didn't mean I liked it. I hated pretending Riley and I were engaged at least as much as I hated painting a target on his back.

It didn't matter that this was Riley's job. I didn't care that he could defend himself, that he’d done things like this before. I'd left him once to keep him safe, shattering my own heart in the process, and now I’d thrown him right in the line of fire.

For what?

To save myself? What kind of selfish bitch was I?

Every time Riley faked being my fiancé, every time he took my hand or kissed my cheek, little pieces of my heart were torn away. Once, I’d wanted this more than anything. Pretending it was real was torture.

So was sleeping beside him in my big, brass bed. There was plenty of room. The bed had belonged to my parents, a gift from my father to my mother, who’d loved the look of antique brass beds, and often lamented that they didn't come in a modern king-size.

Aunt Olivia and Uncle Hugh had moved the bed to my room in Winters House after they died, hoping it would bring me comfort. It had, and all the years I'd been away, I'd missed it.

Sharing it with Riley felt disturbingly normal. When he'd climbed in bed with me, that second night in Winters House, I thought it would be impossible to sleep with him only a foot away. I'd been right and wrong. I was aware of him beside me, more aware than I wanted to be.

For the first time in years, I felt safe. Whole. Like I could relax because everything was finally going to be okay.

It was stupid. My lizard brain responded to Riley's presence like he was the answer to all my problems, but the rational part of my mind knew that was the furthest thing from the truth. I had enough to worry about with this plan to draw out and catch my stalker. I didn't need to get any ridiculous ideas about Riley.

He'd made it clear that the past was the past and after this job, there was no future. Not for us.

He kept us cooped up in Winters House for two days. The day the flowers were delivered, even the day after, I could understand. The delivery was on a Sunday, and no one was working. Not in the lab or in research. And I could see not getting all the information they needed in one business day, but by Tuesday I'd expected Riley to relax. He hadn't.

I was getting tired of staying in the house. The whole point of Riley as my fiancé was to provoke my stalker, not hide from him. I hated hiding. I hated waiting. Hated being passive.

All those years ago I’d known I had two choices - let Aiden lock me behind the walls of Winters House or run. Neither was much of a life, but I’d chosen to run. At least I was in control. Now I was little more than a child, sitting around waiting to be told when I could leave the house.

I resisted the urge to throw a tantrum when Aunt Amelia and Sophie went out to Annabelle's coffee shop to try her new sugar-free hot cocoa. Their promise to bring some back didn’t make me feel better. I ground my teeth and paced down the hall to my rooms where Riley was working at the sitting room desk.

Planting my hands on my hips, I felt like a shrew when I demanded, "This is the last day we’re stuck in the house. I don't care what kind of evidence they’re waiting for. This is driving me nuts."

Riley leveled a calm look at me and said, "Agreed. So far, they're not finding anything new. This guy never leaves any trace, and he covers his tracks. Always." He ran his fingers through his short hair, ruffling it, and said, "Most criminals are stupid. The smart ones are a total pain in the ass."

"So tomorrow we can go out?" I pressed. I already knew my stalker was smart. If he hadn't been, we would've caught him years ago.

"Tomorrow. For now, I'm about done with this," he said, gesturing to his laptop. "How about we hit the pool table or watch a movie?"

I nodded and said, "I'll meet you down there."

I didn't really want to play pool or watch a movie, not after we’d done the same the day before, but it was better than nothing. I had the balls racked by the time Riley made it to the lower level. We played pool until he got bored, then settled into the plush, reclining, theater seats and put on a movie.

Sitting in the dark beside Riley was harder than sleeping next to him. He was awake, for one thing. So was I. Very awake. And very aware of his arm resting only inches away from mine.

The temptation to slide my hand just a few inches to the left, to reach out my pinky and touch his, was almost too much. Eventually, I reclined my chair all the way and rolled on my side, turning my back to Riley and propping a throw pillow under my head. A few minutes later, I was asleep.

Riley didn't wake me until dinner time, and I sat up in the oversize chair slowly, struggling to lower the footrest. Napping during the day always leaves me feeling off, as if I can't quite get my brain back in gear.

Dinner passed in a dream. I ate mechanically, only half following the conversation and not protesting when Riley refilled my wine glass. After dessert, everyone piled into the couches in the family room to watch a Braves game. I snagged my tablet from my room, using my late arrival as an excuse to choose a seat away from Riley.

We ended up sitting in armchairs, side-by-side, anyway. Closer than I would've liked, but at least we weren't scrunched on the love seat. I'd had too much wine at dinner, and combined with my afternoon nap and the mocha Sophie brought me from Annabelle's, I was wired and nowhere near sleep by the time the game was over.

Riley was in bed when I came out of the closet in my pajamas. My cotton tank top and matching pajama bottoms were not sexy in the slightest, but the thin fabric was too flimsy against my skin. I needed more of a barrier against Riley.

A robe or a sweatshirt. A suit of armor would've been good. Riley wore a T-shirt and loose pajama bottoms. Looking at him, my mouth went dry.

It wasn't just the way the T-shirt stretched across his muscled chest, or the sight of his bare toes against my pink and white comforter, so familiar and yet completely out of place.

No, the thing that got me was the glasses. My Riley, college Riley, did not wear glasses. But this Riley, eleven years older, was mildly farsighted and needed glasses to read.

Not just glasses.

Sexy glasses.

Dark brown horn rims that perfectly complemented his light hazel eyes and dark hair.

Glasses that made him look like a naughty professor and—No. No thinking about naughty professors and bad girl students. This was Riley, and he was off-limits.

But those glasses were killing me.

I'd always loved his eyes—the light hazel flecked with gold and green surrounded by thick, dark lashes—they were enough to make any woman melt. When you added in the dark brown horn rims…

I sighed.

Riley’s eyes met mine as he said, “You okay?"

How to answer that question?

Not with the truth.

I imagined myself saying, I'm fine, you just look unbelievably fucking hot in those glasses, and I'm thinking about stripping off my pajamas and jumping you.

Not going to happen.

If I said it he'd either reject me—which might kill me with humiliation—or he'd take me up on it, and we'd be in even more of a mess than we already were.

"I'm fine," I said. "Just restless. That nap, and too much coffee."

I wandered into the sitting room and came back with my camera. Perching on the end of the bed, catty-corner from Riley, I took off the lens and focused on my comforter, drawing the light pink blossoms into high detail and snapping a picture. I wouldn't do anything with it, but I missed the feel of the camera in my hands, the sound of the shutter clicking, the way everything looked right with my eye to the viewfinder.

I hadn't thought much about Sloane’s offer for getting my work into her gallery. I’d deal with that later. But photography had never been a career thing for me. It was my heart. My release. My freedom.

Rising and crossing the room, I lifted the camera and aimed it through the window, into the courtyard where the fountain still ran, lit by spotlights hidden underwater. I lost myself in adjusting the focus, the light meter, getting exactly the look I wanted in the contrast between the glowing water and the shadows around the fountain.

I pressed the shutter button again and again, falling into a familiar rhythm of taking pictures, adjusting settings, and shooting again. Lowering the camera, I flipped open the screen to review my shots.

"Let me see,” Riley interrupted, leaning forward and reaching out a hand for my camera.

I stepped back, holding it out of reach, and flipped the screen shut, raising it to my eye and clicking the shutter button rapidly. Riley fell back against his pillows and shook his head at me.

"No pictures of me," he said, halfheartedly.

I didn't need any more pictures of Riley, that was certain. In the few months we’d been together, I must have taken a million. Just like this, goofing around before bed, I’d lift my camera and click the shutter button, and once I started, I'd keep going.

The camera loved Riley. The planes of his cheekbones, that shiny, thick hair. Taking a quick check of the last few shots, I groaned. And the glasses. The camera fucking loved the glasses.

If I were smart, I'd go put the camera away, climb into bed and pretend to sleep. That's what I’d do if I were smart. If I were stupid, I’d lift it to my eye and take another picture. And another, capturing the quirk of his grin, the way his glasses almost exactly matched the warm brown of his hair. The smooth satin of his skin where it met the faded green cotton of the T-shirt he wore to bed.

Riley was just as stupid as I was. He pretended to ignore me, but he was paying attention. I knew by the way he lifted his chin and turned his face in my direction. He might not even have realized he was doing it. If I was flooded with memories of all the times we’d done this in the past, he must have been too.

I stood and moved to the end of the bed, going for a different angle, catching the way the light fell across his forearm. It was a nice forearm, lean but corded with muscle, his tattoos inky black against his tanned skin. College Riley had a few tattoos, but not this many.

I liked them. I liked everything about him, but then, I always had.

Some things didn't change.

"You done taking pictures yet?" Riley asked, his voice low and rough.

I shook my head and lifted the camera to my face, hiding behind it as I opened my mouth and heard myself say, “Take off your shirt."

Lust and embarrassment hit me in equal measures, sending a hot flush into my cheeks, leaving me almost dizzy. It got worse when, after sending me a long, level look, Riley put down his tablet, sat up, and peeled off his T-shirt.

It took everything I had to pretend to be unaffected. He settled back against the pillows, his eyes on mine. I didn't move except to press my finger to the shutter release button again and again.

Riley with a shirt on was temptation enough. Bare-chested Riley, still in those fucking glasses, had me drooling. Not literally, but I could feel the hot flush burning my cheeks, my heart pounding, my nipples beading tight beneath my thin tank top. Heat gathered between my legs, and I resisted the urge to rub my thighs together.

There was a dare in his hazel eyes as he watched me. His tattoos spread across his chest, a stylized, almost abstract Eagle, wings and a medallion. I let the camera trail down his muscled chest, documenting the ridges of his abdomen, the tight skin by his hipbone leading to the V of muscle that pointed straight to his cock.

The thin cotton of his pajama bottoms did nothing to hide the long bar of his erection. My pussy pulsed in sympathy.

I had the crazy thought that our bodies were having a silent conversation, both wondering what the hell was wrong with our brains.

Why were we across the room from one another when we could be fucking right now?

Because doing anything with my slick pussy and his hard cock would be pretty much the dumbest move either of us could make.

My body didn't think much of that argument.

I wasn't sure my brain did either, but I was frozen.

Frozen with lust, half terrified by the strange familiarity of being like this—Riley half naked and aroused, me with the camera in my hands. We’d done this before, at his apartment, in my dorm room. Almost every time we'd ended up stripping off our clothes and jumping each other.

Not this time.

My breath strangled in my chest as I took a step back and pressed the shutter release button. Once, then twice. Over and over, still hiding behind the pretense that this was about taking pictures, that I wasn't drowning in desire.

Two flags of color bloomed in Riley's cheekbones. His eyes were molten gold and fixed to my hard nipples poking through the ribbed cotton of my tank top.

Abruptly, he rolled to his feet. I almost dropped my camera. He strode to the end of the bed and stopped in front of me, looking down into my eyes. Carefully, he pulled the camera from my hands and set it on the end of the bed.

His fingers held my jaw on both sides, tilting my face to his. When his lips touched me, I went still. A heartbeat later his mouth opened over mine, his tongue driving deep, the kiss liquid and hot.

His lips were hard. Demanding. His kiss a claiming I did nothing to stop. I swayed into him, my bones turning to jelly, my mouth hungry for his. I was reaching for him when he tore his mouth from mine and stepped back.

I was still rocking on my heels, trying to get my balance, as he moved around me and disappeared into the bathroom.

Knees shaking a little, I sank to the edge of the bed, picking up my camera out of reflex and pressing the power button to turn it off. The last thing I needed was more pictures of Riley.

The shower turned on, and I closed my eyes, squeezing them shut, trying not to think about exactly what Riley was doing in that shower. I would not imagine him fisting his hard cock while thinking of me.

I wouldn't.

For a fleeting moment, I considered sliding my hand between my legs and relieving some of the tension, but the thought of Riley walking out of the bathroom to see me touching myself was both deeply arousing and more embarrassing than I could stand.

Instead, I put my camera away and crawled into bed, turning off the lights as I did. I curled up on my side and stared at the wall and the bathroom door. The shower cut off, and I closed my eyes, trying to breathe evenly as if I were asleep.

Light flashed and cut off as Riley opened the door to the bathroom. He climbed into bed, hugging his side as I hugged mine, leaving as much space as possible between us.

Both of us pretended to sleep.

I have a feeling I wasn't the only one who stared into the darkness well past midnight.