“Where should we do it?”

“Staten Island Ferry.”

“Hmmm. Something more public.”

“Radio City Music Hall.”

“Meh. Wait. I’ve got it.”

Twenty minutes later, I was in Central Park with the least likely person in the world.

Avery strode alongside me, wearing tailored shorts and a polo and sunglasses. My flats padded lightly on the asphalt.

“She told me stories about her and my grandfather coming here. I think they used to make out in the bushes,” I said as we made our way to the section call the Ramble. “It reminds me of Sleeping Beauty. Some princess in the castle in the woods.”

Avery glanced around. “You want to do it here?”

“Yes.”

I took out the box that contained some of my grandmother’s ashes. The rest I’d saved for my family, whenever I saw them next.

This had seemed like a good idea at the time, but now, I felt a little foolish.

I cleared my throat. “Grams. You’ve been there when no one was.” I felt Avery’s gaze on me. “I’m not ready to let you go. And maybe you weren’t ready to leave. But we’re parting for now. Thank you. For being just what I needed, when I needed it.”

I dumped the ashes I’d brought.

I’m not sure what I’d expected—that they’d flutter down like fairy dust. The breeze did pick them up, sweeping some past us. Others coated the shrubs.

“Hmm. Not as elegant as I’d expected, but I think she’d appreciate the sentiment. Is this even legal?” I mused.

“Absolutely not.” Avery put an arm around my shoulders as we walked back through the park.

“This was a really good idea. Thank you.”

“You already had the trip booked.”

“I’d cancelled the hotel. And I can tell you it wasn’t the Ritz-Carlton.” He’d reserved the place without asking and had ignored my protests when I found out. For once, I was grateful for his high-handedness. “Are you sure this isn’t coming out of Kenna’s tuition?”

“We’re good. You’re not the only one with some savings in the freezer.”

When Avery had suggested last weekend on my fire escape that we keep the trip, I’d thought he was crazy. But I’d called the airline, and, given the situation, they were willing to transfer the ticket.

Avery and I’d spent the morning wandering around Manhattan looking for just the right spot. It had felt good to carry her around. Almost like she was there with us.

“You almost done in the bathroom?” he hollered through the door after we’d made our way back to the hotel.

I turned off the dryer. “Almost. You can’t rush this.”

“The show starts in an hour.”

“Have you ever known me to be late?”

“Yes.”

I opened the door to find him facing the other way. My hand still on the door, I waited for him to turn around.

It was worth it.

Avery’s handsome face froze. It looked like he’d choked on something, and I couldn’t help the smile tugging at my mouth.

“I’m going to hell,” he pronounced.

“Why?”

“Because this trip is about your grandmother, but I’m not thinking about her right now.”

The dress was the color of red apples. It had wide straps and was scooped at the neck. My nude strappy heels made my legs look longer, and my curls had been straightened and pulled back into a high ponytail.

I trailed a hand down his chest. Avery wore a crisp linen suit that made him look like a royal on vacation.

I forced my gaze to him. “Hey. I want to thank you. For this weekend.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Oh. This wasn’t the thank you. I was just introducing the topic. I’m thanking you after the show. Explicitly.” I leaned in and grazed my mouth over his ear.

“Damn it. You sure we need to see this Kinky Boots thing?”

“Yes.”

We managed to get to Times Square and into the theater. We talked the whole time, falling into the easy rhythm we’d seemed to have found lately.

At the theater he held the door for me and gave me his jacket when I was cold. By the end we trailed out, laughing.

“You seriously liked it,” I questioned. “You didn’t just want to score points so you can get in my…boots?” I teased as we set off down Forty-Second Street.

“Oh, don’t worry. I’m getting inside you later.”

“Good thing you’re cute.” I snuck a look out the corner of my eye. “Look at us. Here in the big city. We should commemorate it.”

An idea struck me.

“Wait here.”

I ran into a tourist shop and bought a red and white ball cap that said “I Love New York” on the front. I stuck it on Avery’s head.

He stared back at me. “So what was really in that G&T you ordered back at the theater?”

“Don’t move. I’ll be back in five minutes. Ten max.”

“Charlotte…”

“Trust me!”

I dashed into the hotel at the edge of the street.

With a ten-dollar bribe that turned into twenty-nine when I explained my request to the clerk, I got two minutes on a west-facing balcony in the empty penthouse.

“Where the hell were you? I was starting to think you’d abandoned me,” Avery griped when I returned a few minutes later.

“Oh, it’s worth it. Look!” I showed him the picture with the crowd. “It’s like Where’s Waldo. Only it’s you.” He studied the picture for a moment, then his attention turned to me. “Did you find you? Oh, come on. Don’t give up. You have to—”

My voice was cut off when he wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me against him.

The only thing better than kissing Avery? Kissing Avery in Times Square, surrounded by bright lights and chirping crowds and the feeling that anything is possible.

The last week had been an emotional rollercoaster, but this? Being here with him? It felt right.

“So let’s hear this thank you,” he said when we returned to our hotel half an hour later.

“Sure. It actually has two parts.” I produced a box from my luggage and unpacked it on the king-sized bed.

“What the hell is… Poker?” Avery frowned. “You got dressed like that to play poker?”

I grinned. “We’re playing strip poker.”

Avery’s gaze went hungry again, and he looked down my body. Taking in my one-piece dress and lack of shoes. A cocky grin pulled at his mouth. “Duchess, you’re going to lose.”

“We’ll see about that.”

I dealt out the cards and we played the first hand. He lost and stripped off his shirt.

The next hand, I took off my dress.

Underneath I had a slip.

Next went his pants. My second slip, which I’d put on for exactly this reason. His sock. And the other one (which I’d argued were one item).

The next hand I lost.

Avery studied me. “You can’t have fit another damn thing under that hot as fuck dress. Let’s see it, Merriweather.”

I rose from the bed and pulled the slip over my head.

His gaze devoured me as I stood in my orange lace bra and panties. I’d bought them this week thinking of him.

“This, right here.” He swallowed. “This might be worth everything you’ve ever done to me.”

He lost the next hand. He almost didn’t play it, he was so busy scanning the rise of my breasts over the bra, flicking to the silk between my thighs.

“I’m waiting, Waldo.”

Avery’s finger hitched in the top of his boxer briefs. With a disgruntled sigh, he tugged them off. “You’re a dangerous woman.”

But my attention was lost on his cock, which was already lengthening between us.

“Is this what the fancy hotel’s for?” I managed. “Do you do this for all the girls?”

“I’ve never taken a girl away.”

I pressed a hand to his chest, holding him back. “Not even for one night?”

He shook his head, casting shadows over features that were as familiar as my own. “You make me want things I never I thought I wanted.” His simple words had my chest tingling.

He dropped kisses down my body, starting with my mouth.

“Like someone to fight with.”

My collarbone.

“Someone to kiss.”

My nipples.

“Someone to laugh with.”

My stomach.

“Someone to play with.”

Between my thighs, making me arch off the bed.

“All of it. Not a day goes by that I don’t want those things with you.” His words affected me, but more than that, it was his expression.

Startlingly earnest.

I needed to be closer to him, and I reached out a hand to stroke down the side of his face. He turned his mouth into my palm, and that little move had me shaking.

“Avery…”

“I don’t want to stop.” The urgency in his voice set me back.

“What do you mean?”

“We said that when you left next week, it’d be over. I don’t want that.”

I swallowed. “Me either. But what about the fact that you don’t do relationships?”

“Maybe there’s something to what you said. Compromise. Harmony. Not tension.”

I breathy laugh escaped me. “You think we can make orange?”

“I think we’d have fun trying.”

Pleasure flooded me that had nothing to do with the way we touched.

He reached for a condom on the bedside table, and I took it out of his hand. Confusion crossed his face as I dropped it, wrapped, off the side of the bed.

“No.”

“Are you serious?” His voice was tight, like he knew what he wanted me to answer be but was afraid to count on it.

I nodded.

Avery let out a groan. His gaze roamed my body, lingering on every curve on display for him. Just for him.

“You have no idea how cool I was going to be tonight,” he murmured.

“Oh really?”

“Uh-huh. Leverage the nice hotel bit. I was going to make you scream. But the idea of being inside you, bare… I can’t make any promises anymore.”

I grinned. “I understand.”

He hitched one of my legs over his shoulder, then the other. His cock brushing my entrance had me moaning.

“Come on,” I insisted, “don’t tease me.”

When he rocked his hips against me, filling me, I sighed his name. There wasn’t room for anything else. No doubt, no questions. He took me over, without making me any less myself.

He made me want to be myself.

“Fuck, Charlotte.” Avery’s eyes fell shut, and he ran his mouth along my calf. “I think you were made for me, Duchess. I might be ruined for anyone else.” It was a joke, but the seriousness in his gaze had my heart turning over.

He stroked into me, building me higher and higher. The lights blurred together until my fingers were digging into his forearms. We panted, our hearts tripping.

When we were finished, we curled up in bed. I lay my head on his chest, the light dusting of hair tickling my face.

“I guess I’ll have to postpone my date with that lumberjack while we play this out.”

“Excuse me?”

“Mhmm. Big, giant guy.”

In a lightning-fast move, he’d sat up and flipped me over his knee. “You’re not going anywhere near that guy.”

His hand found my ass and I yelped. “I made him up!”

“Swear it,” he threatened. His palm came down again.

This time I could only giggle. “I—swear—”

“So much for inspiring fear. How will my employees ever respect me as a director?”

“I’m sorry,” I managed between convulsions, rolling off his knee and landing on my back. “But you’re not scary.”

“Everyone else thinks I am.”

“But they don’t know you like I do.”

Avery stared me down, the humor fading and replaced with an expression that had my breath catching. “No. I guess they don’t.”

The giddy feeling that took me over wouldn’t be denied. “We need to celebrate. You’ll get your promotion this week, I’ll have Trevor and my stapler gone by Friday—”

“No stapler.”

“—and Saturday we can celebrate freedom. Being normal.”

“That sounds great. But maybe not Saturday. I have to work.”

“Then Sunday,” I decided.

He paused. “How’s the job search going?”

I bit my lip. “The thing is, I was thinking about what you said, about figuring out what I want and going for it. But the last time I applied to anything, I got a bunch of doors slammed in my face when I couldn’t name the college I graduated from.”

“So don’t let them close the door.”

“Easy for you to say.”

He shifted up to look at me. “Charlotte, I went to school for a long damned time. I hardly use any of that in my day-to-day work. You know what that means?”

“You wasted more time and money than most people will ever have?”

Avery tugged me onto my side so he could slap my ass again. I yelped.

“No. It means what makes me capable of doing my job isn’t the years I spent sitting in lectures. It’s what I did with it. It’s determination and grit and getting up every time you get knocked down.”

I shifted up onto my hip, staring down at him. “So why is it so important that Kenna stays in school?”

Avery shifted to fold his hands behind his head. I tried not to be distracted by the lines of his chest, his abs, and…yeah. “Because the real reason isn’t that she wants to drop out. She wants to be a social worker, and she needs a degree for that. She thinks I do too much for her, and she wants to stop costing me money. I don’t know how to tell her it’s fine. There aren’t a lot of things I care about in this world as much as her future.”

My heart expanded in my chest. “OK. Maybe we can have a talk. Woman to woman. But no guarantees.”

“Yeah? Great.” He reached an arm around me, tugging me down onto his chest. “Wait. What’s woman to woman talk? Is that about…”

“Go on, say it.”

“Tampons?”

“Yes. That is always the first topic of conversation between twenty-first century women. Advances in menstrual protection.” I shook my head as my fingers played with his hair. “I can’t even handle you sometimes.”

“Then I’d better hurry up and fuck you again.”

“That would be wise.”

He flipped me over, and words were forgotten.

But for the first time in a long time, in a strange city, I felt like I was home.