Annalise avoided me most of the following day. The quiet family dinner celebrating Vance's birthday had turned in to a party for two when they’d learned Annalise would be back, and from there into an engagement party. Nothing big, but more than just a family dinner.

After warning Annalise not to leave the house without me, I'd made use of the desk in her sitting room to get some work done. She ignored my orders and roped her younger cousin Charlie, and Charlie's husband Lucas, into going shopping for the party.

I was not invited.

Under any other circumstances that would've been a no-go, but Lucas Jackson was former special forces, former president of a biker gang, and currently the head of Sinclair Securities cyber division. He was a hacker with a talent for combat, and I had no question he could keep Annalise safe.

I also knew he had better things to do than take his wife and her cousin shopping, but I didn't push. Lise would have to get used to having me around, and she would, but if I pushed too hard, she'd bolt.

She came home late in the afternoon and disappeared into the bathroom of the suite, stopping only to say, “Do you need to get in here?”

I'd barely said ‘No’ before the door shut with a click. I didn't see her again until just before the first guest was scheduled to arrive. I was already in my suit and was fastening my cufflinks when the door to her bedroom swung open.

My breath caught in my lungs at the sight of her. It had always been like that with Annalise. She’d walk into a room, and I’d lose my breath at how beautiful she was. She was older but no less perfect than she’d been at twenty.

She should have been. Objectively, I knew she was too thin and had circles under her eyes, fine lines around her mouth. Dealing with this stalker might take care of the signs of stress, but she wasn’t twenty anymore. It didn’t matter. Annalise was breathtaking.

She wore a deep navy wrap dress with a slit up the side and a deep V neckline. It covered everything it was supposed to, and then some, but when she turned to close her bedroom door I saw that it flirted and teased when she moved, the skirt floating up to show a hint of the top of her thigh before settling back into place. Her feet were encased in matching navy spike heels with hot pink soles that looked dangerously uncomfortable.

She crossed the room on steady feet, her eyes taking in my navy suit. We'd look like we’d dressed to match, though I hadn't asked her what she’d be wearing, mostly because she didn't know until she bought it that afternoon. I supposed she could've seen my suit hanging in the other side of her closet. I wasn't going to ask.

Instead, I reached for the black velvet box on the desk and said, “Wait a second, you're missing something."

"What?" She scanned herself, saw nothing amiss, and met my eyes, her brows pulled together in confusion. She’d left her hair down and done something to it, so it curled in loose waves, past her shoulder blades. Pieces were pulled back and secured with sparkling pins, the only jewelry she wore aside from a pair of sapphire and diamond studs.

I took her left hand in mine and held up the box. "You can't go to your engagement party without a ring."

"Oh," she said, the sound a sigh. "I didn't think of that."

"It's my job," I said, gruffly, opening the box and taking out the ring. It caught the light, and I thought I heard her breath hitch at the sparkle of the stones.

I slid the ring on her finger and stopped for just a second, admiring how perfect it looked there. She made a fist and pulled her hand back, dropping it to her side.

“Thank you,” she said, quietly.

Half of the guests were there when we made it down the stairs, mostly because they were family or Sinclairs. Aiden was at the door, playing the official host. Lise took me around and introduced me to the family members I didn't know well, mainly her younger brother Tate, his new wife Emily, her cousin Holden, and his fiancée Josephine.

I didn't know the older Winters that well, but because of their friendship with the Sinclairs, and with Lucas Jackson working with us, we'd run into each other often enough that introductions weren't necessary.

The beginning of the party was easy enough. Everyone there knew what was going on. It wasn't until the other guests arrived that Lise stiffened up on me. The first through the door were the Stevens, Sloane, and Rupert. Sloane was Vance's gallery manager, a beautiful woman in her early 40s married to a man old enough to be her father, who indulged her rampant cheating and social climbing in exchange for having her on his arm.

Vance and his wife Maggie both despised her, but Vance insisted he put up with her because she was too good at her job to fire. Normally, they wouldn't rate an invite to a family dinner, but Sloane was one of the biggest gossips in town, and since Vance had a show coming up it wasn't completely odd to invite her to the party.

She fawned over Annalise, saying, "Darling, you're such a surprise. Gone all these years and then, poof! Back and reunited with your first love. Such a sweet story. You must come into the gallery. Vance was showing me some of your work. I’d love to talk to you about it. Love it."

She air-kissed Annalise on both cheeks, scanned me with hot eyes I imagined could somehow see straight through my suit, and swanned off leaving a cloud of heavy perfume in her wake. Like a shark scenting blood, she headed straight for Aiden. Annalise shook her head in wry amusement.

"And there she goes, straight for the only unattached Winters male. Aiden can't stand her. She's exactly like his first wife. And she has no shame. Her husband is right over there."

I slid my arm around her waist, and she stiffened. I dropped my head and said in a low voice, “Relax, Lise."

She started to pull free, and I tightened my fingers on her hip. My lips at her ear, I whispered, "Lise, this isn't going to work if you keep pulling away from me."

Annalise drew in a deep breath, and let it out slowly, her muscles unwinding, her hip brushing mine as she eased closer.

"Good girl," I whispered, trying to ignore the scent of her skin. We were sharing a bathroom, so I already knew she still didn't wear perfume. This wasn't the same lotion she'd worn in college, it'd been so long that one probably wasn't even made anymore, but she'd always favored the same scents.

Light, fresh, with just a hint of sweetness. This one smelled like the beach and summer fruit. It took an effort of will to suppress the urge to take a bite out of the side of her neck.

We needed to sell our engagement, but that didn't include groping her in the middle of the party. Even if I wanted to.

Fuck.

I needed a second of air. A minute away from the summer scent of Annalise, from the memory of how soft her skin was.

"Do you want a glass of wine?" I asked.

"Please," she said. "White."

I couldn't resist dropping a kiss on her cheek before I crossed the room to the linen-draped table where Mrs. W had set up the drinks. Standing at the makeshift bar, I said to the bartender, “Club soda with a lime and a glass of white wine."

Griffin Sawyer, one of our best operatives, nodded and turned to make the drinks. Wearing glasses, his hair darkened a few shades; he blended into the background. All of the support staff came from Sinclair.

Normally, Mrs. W would have called in temporary help to serve and assist in the kitchen, but we didn't want any strangers in the house, and it never hurt to have extra eyes on the guests.

I glanced across the room to see Annalise standing stiffly, talking to an older man who appeared to be lecturing her. He wasn’t much taller than her, with an average build, medium brown hair, and nondescript brown eyes. Overall, an unremarkable man, especially next to the brightly dressed woman hanging on his arm, her diamonds flashing, eyes narrowed as they flicked from Annalise to her companion.

William Davis and Melanie Monroe. Davis was a very old family friend. He'd been tight with the older generation of Winters and until recently had acted as a sort of stand-in father.

I knew from the Sinclairs that he'd been less welcome since he'd tried to stop Jacob from falling for his fiancée, Abigail. It hadn't helped that Davis had tried the same thing with Charlie and Lucas. Apparently, he had very old-school ideas about who made an appropriate spouse for the Winters children.

If Abigail Jordan and Lucas Jackson hadn't passed muster, it was a pretty good bet that I wouldn't either. I didn't have to guess what he was saying to Annalise. Little did he know, if he'd just shut up for a few weeks, I'd be out of the picture and Annalise would be free to find a more suitable mate.

I crossed the room, startled to see Annalise shoot me a desperate glance. Hoping I was reading her right, I stepped into their circle of conversation, handed her the glass of wine and wrapped my arm around her shoulders, pulling her to my side.

She leaned into me and said quietly, "Thank you."

I didn’t know if she was thanking me for the wine, or for interrupting Davis's lecture. I'd heard the tail end, something about making sure she stayed home and found someone who could take care of her properly.

Annalise narrowed her eyes at Davis and said, “Uncle William, I haven't seen you in so long. I'd appreciate it if you could just be happy for me. That's all I'm asking. You know, my mother wasn't quite appropriate for a Winters. She came from a small town in South Georgia. She wasn't even planning to get married. She just wanted to go to medical school and be a doctor."

"And then she met your father, and everything changed." His voice was heavy with emotion, and I remembered that we were talking about two of his oldest friends, dead now for over twenty years.

His eyes touched on me briefly, coldly dismissing me, before he gave Annalise a gentle, affectionate look and said, “Your mother was an exception. Exceptional. James was lucky to have her." The softness left his voice, and he went on, "That doesn't change the fact that none of you children seem to understand your position and your obligations."

I expected Annalise to get angry, but instead, she laughed and patted Davis on the arm. "Uncle William, I know Charlie tells you all the time, but you’re a dinosaur. The world doesn't work that way anymore. And the only thing I owe the Winters name is my happiness. That's what my parents would've wanted."

Davis shook his head sadly and reached out to squeeze her shoulder with a quick touch. “Our world will always work that way, Annalise. Don’t make a mistake you’ll regret once you figure that out.”

Annalise shrugged off his hand and leaned up to give him a quick kiss on the cheek. "Uncle William, I love you, but you’re wrong. And if Aiden hears you saying stuff like this, he's going to get upset."

Davis made a sound in his throat and said, "I can handle Aiden."

An amused voice cut in as Vance said, "I'd love to see that, Uncle William. None of us can handle Aiden. We just let him steamroll through life and try to stay out of the way."

Smoothly, he slid in next to his twin sister and tugged her from my side. I was oddly reluctant to let her go, though I knew she was safe enough with Vance.

"Will you excuse us for a few minutes Uncle William?" Vance asked. "I need to talk a little business with my baby sister."

Davis made that sound in his throat again, nodded to Annalise, and walked away, towing his date behind him. I'd noticed that Melanie Monroe hadn't spoken a word, but she'd taken in every nuance of the conversation.

Another of the biggest gossips in town, every detail would be relayed to her cronies at lunch the next day, if not over morning coffee. That was the plan; it was exactly what we wanted, so why did it bother me?

I looked at Vance and said, "I'm sticking with Annalise."