The glass of water trembled in my hand as I filled it from the tap. I could feel my mom’s eyes on me, watching my every move from where she sat at the kitchen table. She was concerned, looking for signs that I was in over my head.

I was.

And for once, I wasn’t the least bit scared.

I guzzled the water down and placed the empty glass in the sink. “Please stop watching me, Mom, you’re making me nervous,” I said, adjusting my backpack on my shoulder and leaning in to give her a kiss on the cheek. “I’m fine. Everything’s going to be fine.”

She grabbed my hand and looked me in the eye. “Promise me you’ll call if you need anything,” she began. “I know it’s two hours away, but Leslie and I will speed over there if you need us.”

I shook my head. “Mom, please, stop worrying. I’m twenty-three. It’s not like I’m thirteen and this is my first sleepover. Everything’s going to be fine. I’ll be back before you know it.” I planted another kiss on her forehead. “Love you, Mom.”

She squeezed my hand one more time before she let it go. “Love you more, baby.”

Leslie smiled as she opened the door for me. “Have fun, kiddo,” she said with a wink, then she leaned in to kiss my cheek and whisper in my ear, “I’m serious. Your mom is in good hands, so you have fun tonight.”

“I don’t know what I’d do without you, Les,” I said.

She practically pushed me out the door, and I was giddy with laughter as I set off down the stairs. When I arrived outside, I stopped dead in my tracks.

Daniel was leaning against his Range Rover with his head down. He was dressed in blue jeans and a gray T-shirt that hugged his sexy shoulders and arms. But it was the natural, haphazard appearance of his wavy brown hair that nearly stopped my heart. I wanted to leap into his arms and kiss him hard while running my fingers through those luscious locks.

Oh, shit. Maybe I was in over my head.

I smiled as I approached Daniel and he finally looked up. His whole beautiful face lit up when he smiled. If I was in over my head, I didn’t care. He was worth it.

“You certainly are smiley today,” he said, then planted a firm kiss on my forehead as he pulled me into his arms.

I buried my face in the crook of his neck and breathed in his scent. “I’ve got lots of reasons to smile.”

But when I pulled away, Daniel wasn’t smiling anymore. I was going to ask if something was wrong, when he blinked a few times and his smile returned, almost as if he were lost in thought for a moment.

“Is everything okay?” I asked, as he slid my backpack off my shoulder and placed it in the trunk.

He returned to the passenger side and opened the door for me. “Never better,” he said, wrapping his arms around my waist to pull me close again. “This is going to be the best weekend ever. I just have one request.”

I tried to remain calm, but with his lips so close to mine I found it hard to remember to breathe. “What kind of request?”

He brushed his lips over mine, then brought his mouth upward to lay a soft kiss on my cheekbone before whispering in my ear, “You have to let me make you breakfast tomorrow.”

I chuckled. “As long as you promise not to poison me, I think I can abide by your request.”

“I promise not to poison your breakfast,” he said, leaning back so I could see his face. “But I can’t promise not to poison your dirty little mind.”

He laughed as he let me go so I could get in the car, making certain to give me a light tap on the ass before I sat down. The mischief in his eyes as he closed the passenger door filled me with glee. I knew that no matter what happened at his beach house, I was going to have fun, because I would be with Daniel. And that was all I needed.

The two-hour drive to East Hampton was an opportunity for me to introduce Daniel to some music he could listen to outside an elevator. And he took the opportunity to introduce me to his favorite blues artist, Nina Simone. He started off the introduction with her most famous song, which I had heard of, but had never really listened to: “Feeling Good.” But when he played a lesser known song, “Do I Move You,” I realized Daniel’s taste in music might not be as bad as I had feared.

When we finally made it to East Hampton, I couldn’t help but ogle the enormous houses lining the residential streets. Who could possibly need that much space?

Part of me was fascinated, while my more practical side couldn’t help but think that all this space and grandeur was such a waste of resources. Still, I couldn’t look away.

Most of the houses were hardly visible from the street, as they were hidden by dense rows of trees at the end of long and winding driveways. But the ones I could see were almost all covered in beautifully weathered cedar shingles, with enormous windows and stunning-yet-quaint architectural details.

So much time and thought and care had gone into building and maintaining these behemoths. I hoped the families who went about their day, basking in the sunlight shining through those enormous windows, understood how lucky they were.

When Daniel pulled up to the gate, he punched in a code on a touchpad attached to a pedestal. As the iron gates began to open, I couldn’t help but notice a black metal sign on the front of the gate. A golden emblem on the sign read: MB.

“MB?” I asked as he began to pull forward. “Is your real name Mercedes Benz?”

He laughed out loud, perhaps a bit too loud. “No, I bought the house recently and haven’t had a chance to change the crest on the gate yet. Still a lot of renovations I need to do, actually.”

He cast a sideways glance at me and I smiled, though something about his response didn’t seem right to me.

It seemed to me that if you were to spend tens of millions of dollars on a house—yes, I had looked up the property values of this neighborhood on the internet—the first thing you would do when you moved in would be to make yourself at home by putting your stamp on it. And Daniel didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would want another person’s name on something that was his.

Maybe I was reading too much into this gate thing.

Then, we reached the end of his driveway and entered a circular drive, where we parked in front of an enormous house that looked like something out of a movie. As soon as the car stopped moving, I threw the door open and stepped out to get a better look at the house. As I admired the lush hydrangeas and the staggering beauty of the wraparound porch, the gate was the furthest thing from my mind.