His laugh was pure frustration as he tucked her head against his shoulder, rocking them side to side. “Not a good idea, either, sadly.”

Dammit. “Roommates?”

“Something like that.” He dipped his head again and kissed her, softer this time but with no less warmth or intent. With one last sweep of his lips over hers, he retreated to rest his brow against her temple. “This isn’t going to happen tonight, is it?”

“Doesn’t seem that way.” She shouldn’t feel so conflicted about that. Reason said it was better to wait, but her body said she only had so many days here. She could be laid out on a bed right now, being taken apart the way she’d always imagined the right man could.

Putting his hands on her shoulders, he took a step back, looking at her square on, and there was an intensity to his gaze. One that went straight to the very center of her. “Meet me tomorrow.”

“I—” The tick of hesitation caught her by surprise. She had so many things she wanted to see and do and experience in this city. While he was swiftly moving up that list of things, she wasn’t ready to ignore the rest of them. “When?”

“When are you free?”

If she took the morning and maybe the early afternoon for herself, she could hit a few sights. Spend some time with a pad of paper and her charcoals trying to capture the light. Think some more about what the hell she was going to do with her life.

With this man.

“Maybe four?” she suggested, then hedged. “Five o’clock?”

“Four thirty it is.” He didn’t sound disappointed about it being so late. “You know the Tuileries Garden, right? Back near the Louvre?”

“Of course.”

“Meet me there. By our statue.”

“Our statue?”

He smirked and nodded. “Our statue.”

“We’ve never been there before.”

“Nope. But we’re going tomorrow.” He leaned in and kissed her once more, lightly, on the mouth. “And you’ll know it when you see it.”

She remembered looking at the garden on her map, before it had been stolen from her. The place was huge, its sculpture legendary. She could spend half the day trying to figure out which piece he happened to be thinking of.

“And you’ll know I didn’t when I’m two hours late.”

“Not going to happen. And anyway, as we’re proving tonight”—he tweaked her chin—“I can be a very patient man.”

“Ha.”

He dropped his arm and turned, but then he paused. “You’ll meet me, then?”

She knew the answer in her toes. Her lungs fluttered as she filled them with breath.

This might be insanity. Might be folly of the highest order, and a distraction she couldn’t afford. Her smile wavered. Still, she nodded. “It’s a date.”

chapter FOUR

It didn’t seem to matter how long he’d been living like this, or how late he’d been up the night before. Barring the worst kind of jet lag, Rylan snapped awake at seven every morning, alert and blinking and ready for somebody to start barking at him.

Sighing, he forced himself to relax and sagged against the headboard, scrubbing a hand through the mess of his hair. He looked around at his surroundings, at the pale light streaming in through the curtains. The four gray walls and the bookshelves and the sheer quantity of stuff he’d managed to accumulate over the course of the past year. There were noises out on the street, but in here it was blissfully quiet. It was just him in the apartment, same as every morning.

Well, most mornings. He chuckled to himself as he slid his palm down his face. The few occasions he did bring someone back with him—the even rarer ones when they spent the night—they usually weren’t barking at him. Not his scene, thank you very much.

No, his scene was pretty art students, apparently. Pretty art students he could have had in his bed right now, if only he’d been willing to give up the pretense of what kind of life he was leading here in Paris.

Roommates. She’d wondered if he had roommates.

He groaned and shook his head at himself. He probably should have just been upfront about things with her. There hadn’t seemed to be much reason to, though. She hadn’t even told him how long she was going to be in town, but it wouldn’t be more than a week. Two at the most. Why rock the boat? She wanted her charming bohemian adventure, replete with shitty hostels and smelly, backpacking roommates? He wouldn’t spoil it for her.

He wouldn’t spoil it for himself. She hadn’t known what he had to offer, and she’d kissed him anyway. She’d chosen normal¸ ordinary him. No one else had ever done that before—he’d never given them the chance to.

Besides. He really didn’t want to see the look in her eyes once she knew. He typified everything charming bohemian types abhorred. Shallow, rich, lazy. Hollow.

To distract himself from that whole train of thought, he grabbed his phone from his bedside table. Sure enough, there were a handful of alerts. He scrolled through them with disinterest. A couple of things from his broker, and one from his father’s crony. McConnell. He deleted that one without even looking. The one from his sister he gave a cursory glance, but really, he shouldn’t have bothered. She had only one thing on her mind these days, and it was nothing he wanted any part in.

He wasn’t going home, no matter how many guilt-tripping emails and phone calls they all laid at his feet. Not now. Not after . . . everything.

Maybe never.

With a sigh, he turned off the screen and set his phone aside. He threw off the covers, rolling over to the edge of the bed and levering himself up to sit. He had until late afternoon to get his shit together, and he basically had nothing to do. Still, it wasn’t as if he was going to be able to get back to sleep. Resigned, he arched his spine and stretched his arms up overhead, then gave his bare chest a scratch. Flicked his thumb against the ring that hung from the chain around his neck. Finally, with a yawn, he rose and headed over to the wardrobe in the corner, where he plucked out a T-shirt and tugged it on. Between that and his boxers, he was decent enough.

It was somehow even quieter out in the main rooms of the apartment, and not the good kind of quiet. More the kind that had him out in cafés and museums and, well, anywhere else, most days. Ignoring it all the best he could, he made a beeline for the coffee machine and got some espresso going.

While the thing was grinding, he wandered over to the window and looked down at the world below. He liked the look of Paris in that post-dawn glow. The first commuters were already out, grabbing their croissants and heading to the Metro, but the tourists were still asleep, and the air smelled of bread instead of exhaust. It was peaceful.

This apartment was supposed to be peaceful. His mother had explicitly told the designer that. He turned around, though, and forced himself to really see it, and it made his teeth grate. It set his bones on edge.

Japanese screens and modern art and artisanal vases filled with single fake buds had nothing to do with peace. They had to do with showing off.

With creating a nice little space to drag the douchebags you were fucking back to, while your husband was home in the States robbing the company blind.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit.

Rylan stormed his way back over to the espresso machine before he could put a hole through something useless and priceless. He poured the coffee into one of the dainty little china cups the place was outfitted with and slugged it down. It was bitter and it burned in his throat and he didn’t care.

He needed to get out of there, and not just for the afternoon. For a few days, at least. Maybe for good. He set the cup in the sink for someone else to deal with later and braced both hands on the counter, breathing in deep.

When it struck him—a solution so obvious, so perfect—he couldn’t believe it hadn’t occurred to him earlier.