I don’t know if Harrison was really even here tonight. I just caught that one glimpse of him a second before the stage lights blinded me. It was probably my imagination. But, still, when Nora steps into Ben’s office with a good-looking guy in his forties at her heels, disappointment drops like a stone in my stomach.

I really wanted it to be Harrison.

His hand is on Nora’s back, and even though she’s contained the giggle, her cheeks are flushed. She smiles up at Ben. “This one’s going to steal me away from you if you’re not careful, Ben.”

“Try it and they’ll be finding little pieces of you in Dumpsters all over the Bay Area,” Ben says, standing and shaking the guy’s hand. But even though what he said sounded like a joke, there’s no humor in his expression as he stares the guy down, and I wonder if I’m the only one who caught the edge to his voice. He glances at me. “Will you excuse us, Sam?”

I look between the guy and Ben, confused.

“Come on, girlie. The boss has business to attend to,” Nora says, scooping up my elbow as she crosses to the door to the main hall and pulls it open.

I step into the hall, still confused, and out of nowhere Jonathan nearly tackles me, hoisting me over his shoulder.

“You son of a bitch,” I screech, whaling my fists on his back. “Put me down!”

“Hey, Nora! Anyone in the VIP room?” he asks through my shrieks, hauling me that way. “Red and I need the couch and a thermometer for a science experiment. How hot is backstage sex between a rocker and an exotic dancer? Will spontaneous combustion occur? Inquiring minds want to know.”

“Put her down, you Neanderthal! She’s got work to do!” Nora yells up the hall behind us, but Jonathan has already turned the corner into the VIP room.

“Hello.”

I freeze, mid-shriek, as Harrison’s warm honey drawl trickles over me, sending a shiver up my spine.

JONATHAN UNCLAMPS A hand from my legs. “Sorry, man. Didn’t know anyone was in here.”

I break free from his loosened grip and slide off his shoulder, suddenly acutely aware that Harrison has a very unflattering view of my ass. “You moron,” I mutter, shoving Jonathan, once my boots are back on the floor.

Nora comes up behind us and grabs Jonathan by the scruff of the neck, dragging him out of the room.

“Inquiring minds want to know!” he calls, just as the door snaps shut.

“Your boyfriend?” Harrison asks with a flick of his eyes at the door.

“Hell, no!” I can’t read his expression. Does it bother him that I might have one?

He gestures at the sofa with a tip of his head. “So you were donating your body to science, so to speak.”

“He’s just a friend.” Goddamn Jonathan. I’m going to strangle him in his sleep. “A really stupid friend.”

He nods slowly, and whatever he was trying so hard to hide in his expression slips into something altogether different. Something he doesn’t hide at all as his glacial eyes rake over me. Something hot and hungry. Something possessive. The caress of his gaze raises goose bumps everywhere and tightens my nipples, and it’s everything I can do not to squirm under his scrutiny. He settles into the sofa and I just stand here for a long second while he continues his perusal of my body, then he tips his head at the sofa. “Have a seat.”

I sit and force my fingers to stop fidgeting with the clip of my garter belt.

“So, no boyfriend?” he asks, and there’s an intensity to the question that unnerves me a little.

“No boyfriend. I’ve really only ever had one.” Oh my God. Why did I just tell him that?

“Me too. That is . . . one girlfriend,” he clarifies.

“Your fiancée?”

He nods. “How long ago? Your boyfriend, I mean.”

“We broke up a year ago.”

“Were you together long?”

I shake my head. “We were dating for about eight months, but it was long distance.” I don’t tell him the whole time we were together, Trent was in love with someone else, because that just makes me sound pathetic.

“How did you meet?” he asks.

“He untangled his stepsister’s kite string from my braces,” I say, tapping my lips with my finger.

His gaze sticks for a second on my mouth before he lifts it to my eyes. “Braces . . .” he says with a tip of his head. “How old where you when you met?”

“Fourteen.”

“So, you knew him for a while before you dated.”

“You could say that.”

He looks at me curiously for a long beat. “There’s a story there.”

I blow out a sigh. “A long and extremely pathetic one.”

“I’m listening.” He settles deeper into the cushions and drapes an arm over the back of the sofa.

I just look at him for a second, trying to gauge if he’s messing with me or if he’s really interested. His liquid gaze is deep and his expression soft but intent. I tip my head back against the sofa and stare at the ceiling. “I was totally in love with him all through high school, and I held out for him for five years, even when he didn’t show any interest, because no one else measured up. So, yeah. I knew him for a while.”

“After all that time, you finally got your man. What happened?”

“He was in love with my best friend . . . who also happens to be his stepsister.”

There’s a long silence, and I lift my head, but I can’t bring myself to look at him as I tell him things I’ve never said out loud before. “He was practicing with his band in Lexie’s garage, and we were in the driveway flying her kite, but the wind gusted and it did this loop, and the string got caught in my braces. Lexie yanked, I screamed, and when the guys came out of the garage to see what was up, they all started laughing. But not Trent. He came over and got me untangled. And he told the guys to cut the shit when they started calling me Jaws and asking if I got good reception.”

I remember it so clearly.

Hold still, he’d said. He grasped my chin gently and leaned in to examine my mouth. He was a little sweaty from jamming with the guys, and I remember thinking I should think that was gross. But I didn’t. It was the opposite of gross. I’d crushed on a few guys in junior high, but I never remember my heart racing the way it did with Trent so close. He’d unhooked me from the kite, and when he let me go, he smiled this incredible sideways smile and said, Good to go, and that was it.

I sigh and sink deeper onto the cushions. “I fell in love with him right that second. But even though I was under his nose all the time, he never thought of me as anything but his stepsister’s best friend, so, for five years, I pined.”

Harrison shifts closer. “You never dated anyone else?”

I shake my head. “Not during high school. I finally gave up sophomore year in college and dated a little, but then right before my junior year, Lexie went off to Rome for a year abroad. She and Trent were really close, and I could tell he missed her. We started hanging out together, mostly talking about Lexie at first, and things sort of escalated from there.”

“Don’t tell me he dumped you when his stepsister came home?”

I shake my head. “He didn’t wait that long. He broke up with me in April.”

His eyes narrow. “So, you were just his bootie call when his stepsister was away.”

The other thing I’m not going to tell him is, we never slept together. Looking back, I can see he was never really all that into it. I mean, there was a lot of kissing and fooling around, but whenever we got close to doing it, he would find a reason not to follow through. I should have seen it coming, I guess, but when he sat in my car last April and told me there was someone else, I didn’t take it very well. When they both sat me down two months later and told me “someone else” was Lexie, it pretty much gutted me. It cut deeper than I could have imagined that my best friend and my boyfriend both chose each other over me.