Yes! Twenty-four hours of paradise smack in the middle of hell. I lean in slowly and give him a small kiss on the cheek. “Thank you.”

He looks like he has never been kissed on the cheek before. I pull away in case it makes him uncomfortable. His eyes are unfathomable—light on the surface, dark within.

He starts driving again without a word. We wind higher and higher up the West Hills, curving around the Portland Rose Garden. With a vibration between my lungs, I realize Aiden lives by a rose garden like I used to—although lives may be too soft a word. Presides fits him better.

The Rose Garden is behind now, and we are still climbing. Suddenly, I know we have entered his domain the way we know spring has arrived. With a feeling in our blood, right before ice starts to melt. The pressure of the altitude muffles my ears until all I hear is my own heartbeat. There are no houses around anymore, only dense evergreens and sky. Aiden takes a sharp left and comes to a stop before a modern iron gate. He slides his palm over a pad in a stainless steel monitor. The gates open.

I expect to see a house, but no. An endless hide-and-seek driveway undulates before us, framed by tall oaks and cedars. On the right, in a green clearing, is a paved, smooth circle. It takes a few blinks to realize it’s a helipad.

At last, as though part of nature, a stately house materializes among the trees. Except, the word house is too artificial. This is almost an extension of the primordial forest. Everything about it, from the red cedar wood panels to the charcoal slate, the gray riverbed rocks and the airy spatial windows, is organic. The modern minimalist lines curve around nature rather than bending nature to their will.

Aiden chuckles next to me, and I close my gaping mouth. “It’s beautiful here,” I say.

“It’s getting better.” He smiles, and gets out of the car to open my door. The moment I’m out, he takes my hand again and presses his lips to my hair. I lean into him, sniffing his Aiden scent surreptitiously. I should figure out a way to bottle this.

At the double front doors, he slides his palm over another pad. The doors open into a cream-and-slate foyer. The moment we step inside, lights brighten almost imperceptibly. I blink once and everything is back to normal. Hmm, maybe I imagined it.

Aiden leads me by my waist to a palatial living room. As we cross the threshold, the lights brighten and dim again, blinking fast. I turn to ask him, but he shakes his head. I tuck this away as a world perched between earth and sky surrounds me.

Straight ahead, Mount Hood is almost touchable. Refracting sunrays are my only clue that a back wall separates us, made entirely of glass. I blink, recalling Denton’s lecture on glass optical qualities. This must be the highest—nearly invisible.

Everything from the open-flame riverbed rock fireplace to the barstools in a kitchen the size of Feign Art is bespoke and chic. All light gray and cream, except the chestnut wooden floor and the oversized salvaged oak coffee table. Colors of rivers and forests. Abstract, understated art, none of it my paintings. There is something peaceful about the stunning natural décor.

Yet my first thought is…not loneliness. The controlled minimalism is too intentional for that. Isolation. That’s what it is. I look for signs of the inner Aiden. There are some books stacked on the coffee table. The Brothers Karamazov—one of my favorites, Byron’s Poems, The Things They Carried. Redemption, passion, guilt, war. And poetry. Aiden Hale has soul.

My eyes drift to a shiny black piano, tucked by the glass wall. My breath catches a little at the sight. Not because it’s a rare Bösendorfer. But because on it, is the most astonishing arrangement of flowers I have ever seen. They’re not in a vase—they’re in a low crystal terrarium, like a secret garden. I walk to it in a trance, sensing Aiden’s body heat behind me.

And there, rising over green moss, is a single bloom of probably every flower genus they sell in Portland. Hyacinth, orchid, gardenia, peony, amaryllis, calla lily, rose…

“I didn’t know which one was your favorite.” Aiden’s warm breath tickles my cheek. It’s just air—his air—but my knees start wobbling. He pulls me against his front, his lips fluttering over my jawline to my ear.

“So?” he whispers.

“Hmm?”

“Favorite flower?” He kisses the soft spot behind my ear. I shiver.

“Umm…”

He chuckles and pulls away. “Maybe it’s too soon to combine thinking with kissing.”

I flush the color of the amaryllis.“Roses,” I breathe.

He raises an eyebrow. “Roses?” There is a hint of humor in his voice.

“What’s wrong with roses?”

“Nothing. It’s just such a common choice for such an uncommon woman.”

I want to kiss him—hard like he kissed me. So I start babbling. “Well, my favorite breed is Aeternum romantica. They’re very rare because they have very little pollen. They could do okay in a warm terrarium, which of course was invented by botanist Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward in 1829—” Stop! Stop right now!

Aiden’s sculpted lips are twitching with a smile.

“Thank you for the flowers,” I mumble.

“Thank you for the botany lesson.”

“So, can we talk about this painting?” I ask to upgrade myself from geek to semidesirable muse status.

He gives me a full, dimple-in-the-cheek smile. “Yes, we should. But first, we have your graduation lunch. Moot point since you didn’t go to your graduation, but it was already planned.”

I make an effort not to gape. Or drool. Oh, these twenty-four hours are getting better and better. “If I had known you’d be there, I might have gone.” But if I had gone, would his control have slipped enough for him to kiss me? Probably not. Another reason why it was a brilliant idea.

He leads me to a breakfast bar and a woman in a white apron appears to serve us. Aiden introduces her as his housekeeper, Cora Davis. She is in her late forties, with a kind, sweetheart face and short, chestnut hair. She sets out our lunch of wild salmon with fennel-and-apple salad.

“The new room is ready, sir,” she says, and after a nod from him, she leaves with a smile.

“The new room?” I ask while Aiden uncorks some wine with a name that is one paragraph long. I couldn’t repeat it if I were at gunpoint.

He smiles. “Yes. For your painting.”

“You created an entire room for my painting?”

He shrugs like this should be obvious. “Yes.”

“Why?”

“I have a specific idea in mind.”

“What’s the idea?”

“A fantasy.”

His voice is soft but something about the word—desired but never real—makes my stomach twist sharply. Just like he will always be for me. Except, without my numbered days, I’d want more than a fantasy. Would he?

“Javier will love it,” I say to move away from the dark thought. “It will be his first domain.”

I meant to lighten my mood but Aiden puts down the wine bottle and looks at me, his eyes midnight blue. The change is so sudden that it makes me gasp.

“I’ll ask you this once today despite our embargo.” His voice has lost all its seduction and is now back to cold. “What is your relationship with Mr. Solis?”

It takes me a moment to find words. I can’t look away from his dark eyes. For some reason, I have a fleeting sense of danger.

“Javier and I have been best friends for the last four years,” I manage. “But he’s more than that, he is family. The Solises saved my life after my parents’ accident.”

He nods slowly, and his eyes start tracing my jawline, my throat—almost like a search. As they do so, they lighten with that turquoise glow I’ve come to expect, even know.

“My apologies, Elisa.” His voice is now gentle. “The question is none of my business.”

Something about his words frightens me a lot more than his dark gaze. “I don’t mind,” I say, my voice cracking.