“Okay. Can I give you a ride home, then?” Because clearly he was in no state to talk sanely about Nancy Little, and this wasn’t the sort of situation we could resolve by screaming at each other with one of us being shitfaced.

“My driver is downstairs.” He stumbled past me and went into the living room. “God, this place makes me sick.” He plopped down on the floral sofa.

“Thank you. I’ll be sure not to have you over uninvited again.” I sat in the green armchair, leaning forward. His troubled stare really made me nervous. Simply put, he wasn’t the sort of person to unhinge or let things get to him. “Let me get you back into your car, Mr. Cole.”

“You’re going to stab me in the back, aren’t you, Lily? You’re going to turn into one of those backstabbing bitches.”

I blinked at him.

He continued, “She thinks I killed her sister, but I tried to help her. She was more fucked up than me—if you can believe that shit.”

“So you know about Nancy Little’s book?”

He shook his finger at me. “I never promised those women anything, Lily. But I treated them with respect. I was nothing but a gentleman, and when things weren’t working, I stopped.” He ran his hands through his hair. “I just don’t understand why they turned on me. Maybe they wanted more. Maybe they wanted what they couldn’t have or they felt used—I don’t know, but they never said a word. Then they stabbed me in the back—people I trusted.” I tried to pick through his rant and piece together the entire story, but there were too many holes.

“I’m not going to stab you in the back, Mr. Cole. I promise. But I need you sober for this. We can talk in the morning.” Not like this crap is going to crawl into the toilet and flush itself away in one night. No. This was not that sort of problem. And I was absolutely terrified.

“Where’s the bathroom? I’m going to throw up,” he said.

Speaking of toilets… “It’s right there.” I pointed to the door between my bedroom and Danny’s. “Second on the right.”

He staggered to his feet, and when I rose to help him, he pushed my hands away. “I got it,” he said belligerently.

“Fine.” I held up my hands. “Call me if you need any help.”

I waited for a few minutes, and when I didn’t hear anything, I knocked on the door. “Mr. Cole? Are you okay?”

Nada.

I opened the door and found him sleeping with his head on the toilet seat. Yes, I desperately had the urge to take a photo, but lucky for him, I wasn’t a complete bitch.

I gave him a quick shake, but he was out cold. Fabulous. What was I going to do with him? He was twice my size or damned near close to it.

I went over to our living room window and looked out at the street. There was no limo parked there. Had his driver dumped him here?

Okay. What am I going to do with you? Danny was with her boyfriend tonight, so I couldn’t ask her for help—probably a good thing because she’d be molesting Mr. Cole or posing him in compromising positions with herself and posting pics all over the place.

I decided I’d lay down some towels and slide him off the toilet so he wouldn’t crack his head on anything. As gently as I could, I got him onto his side and covered him up. Lying there, passed out on my bathroom floor, I couldn’t help but stare at the man and wonder what was truly going on with him. Had he really been using these women, or had it been the other way around?

I guess it’s going to have to wait until morning.

I left the night light on, in case he woke up later wondering where the hell he was, and got back into bed.

Saturday morning, Danny’s voice whispering in my ear woke me from a vividly sexual dream involving Maxwell Cole’s hard body grinding against my ass while he fondled my breasts and groaned my name in sweet sexual agony as I denied him.

“Lily? Lily?”

I slowly opened my eyes to a grinning, giddy Danny.

“Ohmygod. Ohmygod. Is that Maxwell Cole?”

Huh? I looked over my shoulder to the man spooning my body, his strong arm wrapped around my midriff.

Crap. He must’ve gotten up at one point and found me, which meant that hard thing sticking into my tailbone wasn’t a dream.

“Get out,” I grumbled.

“Just one picture? Please, I’m begging you.”

“No,” I hissed, “now get out.”

She obeyed, mock-pouting the entire way.

I looked at my phone. It was seven in the morning—Danny usually went to the gym at this time and her boyfriend did some sort of bike riding—which was why she was up. Mr. Cole, on the other hand, needed to get the hell out of my apartment. What if that Nancy lady was watching me? It would not help me avoid getting dragged into whatever the hell she was doing if my boss was seen doing a walk of shame from my apartment after a night of drinking.

I shoved him off me, sat up, and gave the lump of dead-to-the-world manliness at my side a little shake. “Max, wake up.”

He didn’t move.

“Max? Mr. Cole? Maxwell? You have to go.”

He rolled over, giving me his back.

“Uh-uh. You can’t stay here. You have to go now,” I said sternly.

“You go. My fucking head hurts.”

“Yes. I know, but it will hurt much nicer in the comfort of your own bed.”

“Fuck off,” he mumbled.

Ugh. Fine. I reached down and pinched his ass. “Wake the hell up, Mr. Cole.”

He sat up, his eyes moving around my room and then glancing at my face. “What the fuck am I doing here?”

“Good question. One we can answer later by phone when we talk about Nancy Little’s book and the fact that you’ve fucked me over in a way I never dreamed possible. Time for you to go—I don’t want anyone seeing you leave my apartment.”

“The book.” He stared at the wall for a moment, obviously trying to sort a few things out.

“Mr. Cole, I’m trying very hard not to blow a fucking fuse here, so please just go.”

Instead, he kept on staring at the wall, his jaw pulsing. “You’re moving in with me.”

“Huh?” Was he still drunk?

He looked over at me. Well, at my neck. “You’re moving in with me.”

I didn’t respond with words, but the “are you nuts?” look on my face was sufficient.

He stood from the bed, rubbing his face and making a little groan as his biceps flexed into half-hard mounds. “I knew about Nancy Little. It was the reason I took a risk on you.”

“So this entire time, you were aware that this journalist was writing a book about you, using testimony from two other women to call you out as a fraud.”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” I fumed.

“I didn’t want to discourage you from accepting my offer.”

“So you withheld information that could potentially damage my life and drag me through the mud?” How could he fucking do that? “You’re such a selfish prick.”

“I thought we’d established that already.”

Flippant bastard. “No. That’s my answer: No. I don’t want anything to do with your little scandal, and when I clear my head, I’m going to try my absolute best not to fall apart because you’ve hurt me worse than every cruel motherfucker I’ve ever known rolled into one.”

He tilted his head, looking offended. “It was never my intention to get you dragged into this, but you’re part of it now whether you like it or not. That’s Nancy’s doing, not mine.”

Dammit. I didn’t want to argue about this; I wanted it to not happen.

“Can you sue her, or get a judge to stop her?” Defamation of character wasn’t legal, was it?

“My lawyers hit a wall despite my hopes I could make it all go away, so that book is being published in four weeks.”