He pointed at himself when he said this, but I knew he was referring to the gravitational energy between us. We were both caught in it.

“I think, the same way we’re dealing with it right now,” I said, trying to sound dismissive. Falling short. “Nothing is going to happen between us, even if you’re not married. You’re trying to take over my friend’s company. That’s not something I’ll ever be able to overlook.”

“Yeah.”

But what if this chemistry between us was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity? What happened when the person who tore you apart was not the person you’d chosen to cherish? My concept of love was far from idealized, but this still seemed crucifying.

It’s all in your head, I told myself, but it was a lie. It was, at the very least, in both our heads. And now would have been a really good time for some elderly lady wearing an opal brooch to come out and interrupt this conversation, because Eli and I were starting to be absorbed in each other, and a reckless idea was germinating inside me, growing stronger by the second.

“Can I try something?” I asked, barely audible. He heard, though.

“Try what?”

“I’m not sure yet. Can I?”

That half smile again. “Knock yourself out.”

I took a step forward, until the toes of our shoes nearly touched. I remembered the powerful shiver that had raked through me the other night, when I’d pushed up and kissed his cheek. The memory had to be magnifying the real thing, and a do-over would prove it and break the spell.

If I lifted my hand to his face, like this.

And traced the high line of his cheekbone with my thumb.

And cupped his freshly shaven cheek in my palm.

If I touched him for seconds, or maybe minutes, and despite his heat, his darkening eyes, the wild, blistering feeling that pumped into me . . . if despite all of it we managed to still walk away from each other, then—

With a guttural sound, he pushed my back into the wall of the balcony, so fast that I found myself instantly dizzy, held upright by two things: the stone and Eli’s strong body.

He didn’t kiss me. Instead his hand wrapped around my jaw, and his thumb pressed into my lower lip, slow, inexorable. I had all the time in the world to push him away, but found myself urging him on.

Eli.

Anyone could find us.

But whatever you are about to do, do it anyway.

“Your damn mouth,” he murmured, “is the most obscenely lovely thing I’ve ever had the burden of seeing.”

The kiss that came after was open mouthed and unbound. We exhaled against each other’s lips, and when my hands closed around his nape, Eli groaned low in his throat. I moaned when he broke from me, but he simply found the hollow of my neck, the valley behind my ear. “I just want to make you come. Maybe come in the process, too. It’s all I fucking think about,” he said roughly. He nipped at my clavicle through the thin fabric of my dress. “But we’re on different sides of a fucking takeover, and apparently that’s too much to ask.”

I lost myself in the weight of his body against mine, his grip on my hips. It was a new, different kind of pleasure, at once drugging and screaming. He licked into my mouth, and I did the same to him, trying to remember if anything had ever felt like this.

“It’s disconcerting.” His breath was hot on my cheek. “But in the past seventy-two hours, I’ve found myself thinking over and over that we could fuck however you wanted. For however long you wanted. Wherever you wanted. I’d consent to any and all demands, and it’d be so good that you’d probably just ruin me for the rest of my life, and I’d just sit there, grateful.” He let out a laugh. “Rue. It’s humbling, how bad I want you.” His thumb stroked my nipple. It was instantly hard, and we both shuddered into another rich, frustrated kiss. Because this wasn’t close enough.

“If you think that this is easier for me,” I gasped. “If you think that I want it any less—”

“No.” His hand trailed up my thigh, gathering my dress in its wake. His fingers were as shaky as my knees felt. “It’s not a game. Not for you, and not for me.” He reached the elastic of my underwear, lingered, and he could do—whatever. Anything. In that moment, I’d have let him do anything, begged him for something I didn’t even know. His thumb slid to the inside of my thigh, brushed against the cotton covering my mound, discovered how wet it was. He hummed his approval in my mouth, and when he found my clit, he drew one single, slow circle over it. He’d done barely anything, but the pleasure was so close, I was hurtling toward it anyway. I wanted this done. And Eli did, too, which meant that we—

Suddenly, I was cold. Because Eli had taken a step back and was taking another.

Trembling, I watched my dress drape over my thighs once again, feeling bereft.

“Not here,” he said, shaking his head as if shrugging off a haze. My lipstick was smeared on his lips. “And not like this.”

Silence settled between us. Where, then? And how? I didn’t ask out loud, but he answered anyway.

“Tomorrow,” he rasped. He moved closer, and I could once again feel his heat. His hand rose to my cheek in an involuntary twitch, then pulled away, as if Eli was scared by what he might do. By his lack of control. “Seven. In the hotel lobby. You know which one.”

I swallowed. “I don’t—”

“Then don’t. It’s your decision.” He was close. I hoped he’d kiss me again. I needed him to kiss me again. “But, Rue, if you come, we settle this. Once and for all.”

He tore his eyes away and stalked back inside.

I was alone on the balcony, chest heaving, hands unsteady in the jasmine-scented night air.

11

WE WORK IT OUT OF OUR SYSTEM, AND NEVER THINK ABOUT IT AGAIN

ELI

He had no idea whether Rue would show up.

All signs pointed to no—chief among them, the fact that she saw him as a villain, bent on robbing her mentor for his own diabolical amusement. And yet, Eli had managed to foolishly hold out hope until ten minutes past seven. At which point, in the very hotel lobby where he’d first laid eyes on her, he had to face the truth: however out of control his attraction to Rue might be, she was coping with hers far better. And damn him if he wasn’t fucking envious.

His draft beer was still half-full, and he didn’t hurry to finish it. He had nowhere to be, and since Rue was going to be all he thought about anyway, he might as well do so in a place that reminded him of her, where he could nurse his foul mood just as thoroughly as his drink.

The obvious distraction would be to find someone else. There were apps, or the old-fashioned ways: bars, colleagues, friends of friends, who’d help him exorcize the last woman he should be taking up with. But Eli didn’t need to try it to know that no one else was going to be enough. He would rather go home on his own, catalog everything he knew about Rue Siebert, and jerk off like the pitiful loser he clearly was.

“It’s a bad idea,” Hark had told him the night before, driving home from the party. “And you know that.”

“What is?”

Hark had rolled his eyes. “Come on, Eli. You look at Rue Siebert like her pussy tastes like beer. Stop pining.”

“You’re the one who sent me to her the other day. And I don’t pine.”

“Then why are you being like this? Jesus, you’ve been in actual relationships and never lost your mind. What’s so different now?”

Did you look at her? he’d wanted to ask. Tonight? Did you hear her voice? Did you see her expression when she first noticed me? Did you see her mouth?