For some reason, he wasn’t talking. She had kept a few feet between them, and he didn’t disturb it. Iris began to relax somewhat, feeling that strange pang of intermingled relief and disappointment he so often stirred within her.

But there were a couple of topics that could always get Elijah Vance talking. Hopefully those topics were in bed asleep and not spying right now. “So, of course I’ve figured out by now that the boys are named after famous musicians named Bob.”

He grinned. “Yeah.”

“Was that your idea or Heidi’s?”

“Mine. Bob Seger is my dad’s favorite. Bob Dylan is my mom’s.”

“That’s neat. But what if one of them had been a girl?”

“She would’ve been Marley.”

“I love that.” Iris found herself thinking about how adorably protective the boys would be over a baby sister. Then she ventured, “Is it weird that I’ll miss them when I go home? Even for a few days?”

He chuckled. “No. I miss them all the time. I look at them now, and I can’t believe how big they’ve gotten.”

Her heart gave a painful throb for him, especially knowing what she knew now about their mother. “I can’t imagine dealing with Heidi makes it easy.”

Aggravation crossed his features, and he assumed a similar position to her, arms crossed over the edge. She tried not to admire the way it lengthened his muscles. “I made that excuse for a long time, you know? I need to make myself feel better. But I’ve come to realize that it’s as much my fault as it is hers. I’m their fucking dad, and what kind of dad am I if I let being pissed off at her all the time keep me away from them? It’s not their fault. From now on I’m going to fight like hell for them.”

“Still, I don’t think Heidi is a bad person. I think she’s made some bad choices.”

He looked like he had a lot to say on that subject, but all he gave her was, “We do what we do. Whatever else she is, she’s the mother of my kids.”

“I sometimes found it sad that you two couldn’t work things out.”

He shrugged that off. “I don’t make excuses for that anymore, either.” But he didn’t elaborate further. “Anyway, that’s partly what this summer is about, getting time with them without having to go through her to do it.”

His direct eyes met hers, dark and intense, reflecting the lights around the pool, and he didn’t have to make his point out loud. “I understand,” she said softly. “But she pushed me on you, so in a way you felt like she’s here anyway.”

“Yeah. Exactly.”

“I didn’t want to be here any more than you wanted me here. I hope you believe that.”

The smirk he gave her then was disarming, just like everything else about him. “This isn’t living the dream for you, huh?”

“Absolutely not. I was living my dream just fine, thanks.”

“Taking care of my kids.” That intense gaze hadn’t left her face once.

Iris shrugged, feeling a flush creep up her neck. “I’ve always been a nurturer, I guess. Until I met your family, I had no one to nurture.”

“No one?”

“No.” She looked at her hands, clasped loosely on the concrete, sadness aching in her chest, an alarming warmth gathering behind her eyes. The last thing she wanted was to cry in front of him.

“Okay. I won’t push, since you don’t want me to.”

She kind of did, though. She wanted him to understand her. A little part, at least. “I don’t speak to my family at all.”

“Jesus. At all?”

She had to chuckle at his choice of words. “They’re deeply religious people. Deeply. They have Jesus. They don’t need me.”

“Ah. They’d be picketing our live shows and harassing our fans with threats of hellfire and damnation.”

“If they even knew who you were, yeah, something like that. We’re all going to hell, you know.”

“Believe me, I know. I’ll drink to it.” He lifted his glass toward her and took a big swallow while she gave him a tight smile.

“You joke, but I lived with that fire and brimstone mentality. For years. And it . . . fucked me up.”

He almost spit his wine at her choice of words, looking at her with wide, amused eyes. “Well, now. How did that feel?”

“Pretty damn good, actually. Maybe I should do it more often.”

“I think you should. It’s a great stress reliever. Maybe you’ll be privy to the way I can make ‘fuck’ every word of a sentence someday. It’s so versatile.”

“I thought that was in your last hit song?” she teased.

“Yeah, you’re right. I’m famous for making our label execs’ heads explode.”

“I bet.”

They lapsed into silence while she contemplated how he wasn’t difficult to talk to once one got to know him, and once one got him talking. He had a hard, somewhat abrasive shell, forged no doubt by years of fending off parasites. But if one could break through it, she sensed he had a lot of love and warmth to give. Any woman who reached that core of him would be lucky indeed.

“What’s the rest of your story?” he asked after a few more silent moments ticked past. He turned around, bracing his elbows on the side of the pool now. “You have most of mine at this point. But you hardly ever talk about you. All I know is you love my kids, but you don’t have any of your own. You don’t talk to your parents, you don’t speak of any other family, but you seem like a good person, far from the black sheep sort. Hell, I still speak to my family. I get yours are uber religious, but it doesn’t make any sense. Was that your choice, or theirs? Tell me to shut up if I’m out of line.”

He’d probably watched her face go through a gamut of emotions as he made his assessments and asked his questions. “It was mutual,” she told him, trying to disconnect herself from the painful memories that floated to the surface. “They’ve made efforts to reconcile. So have I. It never works out. I’m usually the one to cut the ties again.”

“It must take so much strength to do that.”

“Strength? I always think it’s the coward’s way out. That I should be strong enough to deal with my own parents, for God’s sake.”

“No. Sometimes letting go of toxicity is the hardest thing you can do.”

There was an expression that came over his face whenever he spoke of Heidi, so Iris had begun to recognize when he was thinking of her, too. It was a mixture of pain and anger and maybe a little wistfulness. His mother’s words from earlier came back to her. “You loved her a lot, didn’t you?”

He cursed and looked away, shaking his head. “I was gone over that woman once. She was it. She was everything. I was a stupid kid with newfound fame gong to my head and she was . . . like another addiction.”

“And once you’ve had everything, what’s left to have?” she supplied.

“Nothing. Exactly. So that’s what I’ve had ever since.”

The man’s been practically celibate since Heidi sucked him dry. Somehow Iris knew then, beyond any doubt, that true to Talia’s assessment, it hadn’t been him she’d heard having sex on the bus, though at this point she hardly cared anymore.

Iris cleared her throat and prepared to delve into her own pain. He deserved that, since she’d made him reveal his. “What I was supposed to do was get married and have a houseful of kids and be a dutiful, holy wife.”

“Wait. You didn’t have to go to purity balls and shit like that, did you?”

“Yes,” she admitted, cringing at the memory.

“Goddamn. What year do people think it is?”

“It doesn’t matter to them what year it is, and never will. And that’s fine for women who want that. I want marriage and kids, sure. But I also wanted to do other things.”

“Are you happy doing what you do now?”

“I really am. My problem is going to be getting attached.”

“Yeah. I can see that.”

“Anyway, I was going to do what my parents wanted. I let them set me up with their best friends’ son, Jacob. Now that I think back, we were practically arranged, though I didn’t realize it at the time. I really liked him, and he asked me to marry him after we dated for a while. I said yes, and I was excited. Then, the week before my wedding was to take place, I caught him with someone else.”

Elijah watched her silently through the whole sorry tale, and while he gave no outward appearance of thinking it, she figured he probably found her problems petty. They sounded that way to her now, but she couldn’t put into words how it had wounded her. Especially after what she’d given up.

“So we broke up. First strike against me with my parents. They were furious. He had plans to go into the ministry and I was throwing away my chance at being a pastor’s wife. I was supposed to learn how to overlook that stuff and be a good, faithful wife no matter what. Let’s ignore the fact that he told me he wasn’t sure he wanted to get married to me anymore—it was somehow my fault for making him feel that way.

“Then I went to college,” she went on. “Strike two. They wouldn’t help me, so I had to take out loans and work my way through. I was still kind of obsessed with the idea of having kids, and I love kids, so yeah, I thought of being a teacher. But a girl in one of my classes had some connections with a nanny agency, and I got some experience there right after I graduated. Heidi and I hooked up through word of mouth. She interviewed me and somehow liked me, and here we are. I was so shocked when I got the job.”

“I remember,” he said. “Heidi had a hard time selling me on the idea. I wondered what the hell she needed a nanny for. The boys are pretty self-sufficient.”

“Hey, that makes my job easier,” she said, going for a smile.

He returned it, the lethal dimples making an appearance, but they faded as he gently asked, “Was that strike three?”

“No, but, um . . . maybe let’s save that one for later.” Or never. She couldn’t imagine the humiliation of telling him about that.

“Fair enough. How old are you, Iris?”

“Twenty-six.”

He gave a single shake of his head and reached back to pick up his wine glass. “Christ.”

“What?”

“Oh, to be twenty-six again. You’re just teeing off and I feel like I’m on the back nine sometimes.”

“You’re . . ?”

“Thirty-seven.” He drained the glass after the admission.

“Oh please. That’s only eleven years, Eli.”

“Baby, eleven years can feel like fifty. You can do fifty years’ worth of fucking up in eleven. Hell, you can do it in two.”

Did he just call me baby? The idea gave her strange shivers that she found she liked. She licked her lips and, following his lead, drained her own glass of rich, dark wine, taking a moment to truly enjoy the sultry flavor on this sultry night, closing her eyes as the warmth of it spread its tendrils through her chest. Or maybe it was him. His nearness.

“Anyway,” he went on, “I’ve met fifty-year-olds who are less mature than you are. You’re an old soul, I think.”

“My best friend tells me that too.”

“Maybe I’ll have to find ways to loosen you up a little,” he said teasingly, and she licked her lips, fully aware he watched the subtle movement of her tongue.

All of a sudden, her heart was beating too hard in her chest, and she became aware of it in other places too. Places she didn’t want to think about right now, not with him looking at her that way. Whatever way it was. The night hummed on gently, everything dark and absolute beyond their circle of light.

“What are you thinking about right now?” Elijah asked. He turned again, facing her this time, and ran a finger lightly along her upper arm, causing goose flesh to skitter across her skin.

“Um . . . nothing?”

The corner of his mouth kicked up. “Nothing?”

It wasn’t what she was thinking of so much as what she was trying not to think of. The wine was going to her head, and that was dangerous. She’d had too much tonight. The wine, the wine, it’s only the wine. “I should probably get out and go to bed.”

“We haven’t even been out here long.”

“No, but . . . I’ve been kind of tired lately.” Sara would be so disappointed if she could hear her now.

“Maybe you want to be away from me.”

“It’s not that.” She meant to add more to that statement; she wasn’t sure what, but her tongue simply stopped there, paralyzed. Panic began to bloom in her chest like some kind of poisoned rose. Where was it coming from? What was happening? The air felt thick, difficult to draw into her lungs, but she often felt that way around him. And her pulse still throbbed in her fingertips and her nipples and between her legs. Those places she wanted to ignore, that so rarely came blazing to life unless she was around him. Her body didn’t feel like her own right now, and she wasn’t sure she liked the sensation.

All the while, he watched her. She had the completely humiliating certainty that he knew. An oversexed man like him, one who seemed to breathe sensuality, was surely in tune to such things. He knew what he was making her feel, and that was the source of her panic. She had to turn away, to run from this. It couldn’t be, no matter what Sara said. It simply could not.

But his stroking finger hadn’t left her wet skin, and he was moving closer. Had she really thought he would ever do this? Even when he’d texted her, even when she’d dressed in this ridiculous bikini, had she ever really believed it? “Eli,” she whispered, closing her eyes. Because his touch felt good. So good, like something she had been missing without knowing it.

His body was almost making contact with hers now. Her breath still came raggedly. She felt thick and weak.

“I can’t feel this,” she blurted, her cheeks flaming. “It’s wrong.”

“Fuck wrong. There is no wrong. Don’t you know that by now?”

How could he say that? But she knew, really. His life of decadence and taking what he wanted with few to no consequences had shaped his perception. He has no morals, she screamed inwardly. Don’t do this, you’ll lose your soul. But he felt so right against her. He smelled so good. He made her feel small and soft and desirable, and all she wanted was to explore this new landscape. Heidi and Seger and Dylan should be her main considerations, but try as she might, she couldn’t bring their images into focus. There was only him, the way their breathing slowed and thickened until they matched each other, the way she realized her body didn’t feel like her own because it was under his spell. His control. Just . . . his.

Slowly, his hands went to her naked waist under the water, and he turned her to face him. She tried to keep her eyes closed, but the need to see him this close to her was as crucial as her next breath. She opened them to find herself consumed by green fire, and she could taste his breath, close and warm and intoxicating with the faint scent of the wine they’d drunk. Maybe it was clouding his judgment too. His fingers slid up into her damp hair and, without conscious effort, she leaned into the support of his hand.

Oh my God, what is happening—

The first touch of his lips was enough to relegate her frantic thoughts to background noise. But it was only a touch, soft, not even a taste, his lips capturing her top one as the moment seemed to stretch out into eternity. She waited for his next move, craved it, ached for it. All he did was pull back to bestow the same soft, tentative treatment on her lower lip, as if she were a skittish rabbit who might bolt at the first sign of aggression.

“Christ, you’re beautiful,” he murmured, making her heart swell and sing. He, who had been married to Heidi, who had graced TV screens and magazine covers, thought she was beautiful?

As sweet as it seemed, it was the thought that snapped cruel sense into her. She wasn’t beautiful. Not like that. She wasn’t flawless. She wasn’t a goddess who could have any man on the planet, who’d once had a world-famous rock star and now a movie star sweating after her. She was Iris, who had acne outbreaks, who never went to the gym, who ate cupcakes at three a.m. and damn the consequences. Iris who shuddered at the thought of waxing and chemical peels and injections and all the other ways women tortured themselves to look good.

The spell vanished. Suddenly, she was cold, and he was Elijah Vance, her boss’s ex-husband who had never wanted her here. She pulled back.

“I shouldn’t do this,” she said, proud of how strong and steady her voice sounded as she forced the words past the tightness in her throat.

To her utter surprise, he said, “No, you shouldn’t.” Not angry. Not demanding.

She’d been preparing for a fight. When he didn’t give her one, she felt lost, puzzled.

“You . . . I mean, it’s not that I don’t want to kiss you.”

In fact, she could look nowhere else as his sensual lips curled into an enticing smile. “Yeah?” How many women had ever looked at that smile and told it no? She was guessing zero. “Well, I wouldn’t want to do anything you don’t want to do.”

Iris laughed awkwardly, somehow comprehending he was turning her words around on her. “I mean, you just— It isn’t as if you’ve been welcoming since I’ve been on this tour.”

“You’re right. I haven’t been. I’m sorry about that.”

She hated the amusement crinkling his eyes as she attempted to stammer on. “You— You’d love nothing more than to give Heidi a reason to fire me.”

“That’s completely untrue. Now, at least.”

“Getting me to sleep with you would be a perfect reason for her to let me go.”

“If you think my dick is a free-for-all, you’re gravely mistaken. Contrary to anything my ex-wife might have told you, I don’t generally put it where I don’t want it to go.”

She flinched from the crudeness, but he still wore that casual mirth. “I only want to do my job.”

“And I don’t want to stop you. All I want right now is you. I’m not here to get you in trouble with Heidi. I know what I felt just now, and I know you felt it too. Tell me you didn’t. Say it to my face, and I’ll call you a liar, but I’ll never bring it up again.”

“Please . . .” she whispered, her body and her mind tearing her in two completely different directions. She didn’t even know what she was asking him for. Please leave me alone. Please kiss me. Please don’t touch me again. Please pick me up like you did when I was sick, take me into your bed and show me things I’ve only dreamed of until now. He could take his pick of her silent suggestions at that moment and she would be fine with any of them. One way or another.

When she couldn’t settle on her next words, he blew out a breath and backed farther away from her, toward the center of the pool. The air that filled the space between them was cool and impersonal, a mockery of the heat that had shimmered there moments ago. Iris wanted it back. She was almost ready to surge toward him and reclaim it, to say to hell with it; whatever he had to give her would be worth any consequences.

But she didn’t know that. For it all to be nothing more than a cruel joke . . . that would undo her. It would only be a repeat of her one and only relationship. Pain and shame and destruction. She couldn’t live through that again, and a man like him wasn’t the kind to help her rebuild. He would come in like a bulldozer and tear her down, and she couldn’t take that again.

“Not ten minutes ago, I told you what I went through with my ex-fiancé,” she said softly, needing to fill this dreadful, aching silence with words, though these words burned her throat like acid. “He used me, and he threw me away. I vowed I would never, ever let that happen to me again.”

“You’re so convinced that’s what I’m about?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know you except as someone who has been openly hostile toward me. Now you’re trying to kiss me. You have to understand how suspect that is.”

“I thought we were past all this. You’re dredging shit up to make excuses why this shouldn’t happen, and that’s fine if that’s how you want to play it, but this isn’t sudden for me. I thought you were beautiful the moment you fell into my arms in Heidi’s bedroom.”

She blinked at him, recalling that headspinning moment clearly. He’d thought that? Even then? “But why?”

The inquisitiveness was back in his eyes, that adorable way he had of trying to puzzle her out. She would much rather see it there than hurt, or anger. “Because you are. You honestly seem not to know it. That’s such a rare thing in my world. And Iris, there’s an unwritten rule out here. What happens on the road stays on the road. I’ve always held to that, and I always will. Anything that goes on between us is for you and me and no one else.”

“But we’re in your parents’ pool.”

He shrugged. “Still goes.”

“There’s a rock star code of ethics?”

“Absolutely,” he said, dead serious. “For me there is. I have to have one, or I’ll lose myself out here. Very easily.”

She stared at his raw, dark beauty, pondering the truth in his words. “I’m afraid I’m already losing myself.”

“You’re not,” he assured her. “I won’t let you. If I made you feel bad or guilty just then, I apologize. That wasn’t my intent. I’ll step away.”

As if to prove his point, he put even more distance between them.

Watching him do that, along with the promise of never getting to touch him again, never feeling that way again, broke her.

She surged across the water separating them, capturing his broad shoulders with her hands. He accepted her as if he’d been waiting, and maybe he had, damn him. His arms went around her waist and neck as his mouth swooped down on hers. Nothing about this was a gentle, exploratory kiss, not like the other had been. His tongue swept into her mouth, claiming, whipping all thought from her head. The taste she’d craved earlier flooded her, and it was the sin and dark damnation her parents had always warned her about. It set her body aflame, the water surrounding them doing nothing to quench it.

Pressed this close, wet skin slippery and hot, she couldn’t miss the ridge of his erection through his swim trunks, and the world tilted on its axis. Oh God, he was already this hard, this big. Even through her bikini top, her nipples tightened and peaked against the damp friction of his chest, and his hand dropped from her waist to her butt, forcing her against him.

She gasped, pulling her mouth apart from his. “Eli, I need you to go slow.”

“Okay,” he soothed, hand coming away to stroke her face. That hand shook as hard as she did. “I know. I haven’t forgotten.”

Bad experiences. “I’m sorry, but—”

“Iris, there’s nothing to apologize for. It’s all right. You can tell me, but you don’t have to. You can keep it all to yourself if you need to. Just tell me what you need and know that I would never hurt you.”

She looked at him gravely, debating with herself, wanting to utter words she hadn’t said to anyone except her best friend. “He did,” she said softly. “He hurt me.”

Every muscle in him tensed against her. He was deadly quiet for a long time, just stroking her back with a gentleness that was surprising given his obvious agitation. “Your fiancé that your parents loved so fucking much?”

She nodded against his shoulder, thankful that he didn’t do anything but soothe her. And she wept silently into his skin, hoping he would think her tears were from the pool water. “I’m sorry,” he murmured into her hair, “that you went through that. But listen to me.”

He moved slightly away and took her face between his hands, making her meet his eyes. What she saw there took her breath away, empowered her, made her feel somehow strong at what seemed like her weakest moment. “This is crazy and fucked up, I agree with you there. But whatever happens now or from here on, you have every bit of the power. Only you. I’ll leave you alone if you say the word. But if you let me, I’ll show you what it should be like. It’s up to you. But no games, Iris, I’ve had enough of those. Tell me now what you want and don’t fuck with my head. She did it for long enough.”

It was a heartfelt plea, and she’d never considered she wasn’t the only one here with fears and vulnerabilities. He had his own. He seemed so indomitable, though. She should tell him to leave her alone; it was the right thing, the only sensible thing to do. It frightened her more than anything else right now that the best option seemed the most impossible to her. “Well, I know I like kissing you,” she said, and he chuckled though the amusement didn’t quite reach his eyes. “And I like you touching me.”

“We can always start slow, like you said. Nothing wrong with that at all.”

“I didn’t figure you’d have the patience for that.”

His eyes softened. “I have the patience for you.”