He’ll help her get lucky...

And promises to deliver a whole lot more!

With her fertility issues, it’s now or never for Romy Allen. Thankfully, her friend Matt Carter will help her research her options. But then the deliciously sexy entrepreneur tears up her IVF paperwork and presents a counteroffer—the old-fashioned way or nothing! How can she refuse? Especially when multiple orgasms are offered as a tempting bonus!

“DARE is Harlequin’s hottest line yet. Every book should come with a free fan. I dare you to try them!”

—Tiffany Reisz, international bestselling author

AVRIL TREMAYNE is an award-winning author of sexy, modern, urban romances, featuring heroes strong enough to make any woman swoon and stronger heroines who nevertheless refuse to do so. She took a circuitous route to becoming a writer, via careers in nursing, teaching, public relations and corporate affairs—most recently in global aviation, which gave her a voracious appetite for travel. She currently lives in Sydney, Australia, but is feverishly plotting to move her family to Italy for half of every year. When she’s not reading or writing Avril can be found dining to excess, drinking lots of wine and obsessing over shoes. Find her at avriltremayne.com, on Facebook at avril.tremayne, on Twitter, @AvrilTremayne, or on Instagram, @avril_tremayne.

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Discover more at millsandboon.co.uk

Getting Lucky

Avril Tremayne

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978-1-474-07134-5

GETTING LUCKY

© 2018 Belinda de Rome

Published in Great Britain 2018

by Mills & Boon, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street, London, SE1 9GF

All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Books S.A.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, locations and incidents are purely fictional and bear no relationship to any real life individuals, living or dead, or to any actual places, business establishments, locations, events or incidents. Any resemblance is entirely coincidental.

By payment of the required fees, you are granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right and licence to download and install this e-book on your personal computer, tablet computer, smart phone or other electronic reading device only (each a “Licensed Device”) and to access, display and read the text of this e-book on-screen on your Licensed Device. Except to the extent any of these acts shall be permitted pursuant to any mandatory provision of applicable law but no further, no part of this e-book or its text or images may be reproduced, transmitted, distributed, translated, converted or adapted for use on another file format, communicated to the public, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

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www.millsandboon.co.uk

Version: 2020-03-02

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For my wonderful, supportive, honourable husband,

without whom there would be no books.

Contents

Cover

Back Cover Text

About the Author

Booklist

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Extract

About the Publisher

CHAPTER ONE

ROMY RANG THE DOORBELL, and a few seconds later, heard a “Coooomiiiing,” from somewhere inside.

It was hard to believe that this house—or was mansion the correct word for Russian Hill?—was Matt’s. To say it was a departure from his usual student-like accommodation was a whopping understatement.

An inside door slammed. A closer “Gotta find the keys” was called out, followed by an even closer, much louder “Fuck!”

Okay, it was definitely Matt’s place.

She ran a neatening hand over her hair while she waited for him. Unbuttoned her overcoat. Brushed at the flared skirt of her new red dress.

Stupid, really. Matt never noticed what her hair looked like or what she was wearing. He saved such observations for women he wanted to have sex with—and Romy had come to terms with not being one of those women ten years ago.

Still, her natural inclination was to look immaculate-but-fashionable for business discussions, and the deal she’d made with Matt on the phone two weeks ago was definitely in that category, despite the chaos of that crazy call. Serious enough to warrant a flight from London to San Francisco to dot every i and cross every t.

Footsteps on floorboards. A fumble at the lock. Another “Fuck” that had her battling a giggle, because it was so typical of Matt to be impatient with a door that didn’t open fast enough. A click, a swoosh...and there he was.

Six feet three of lean, hard muscle looking rebelliously casual in just-snug-enough jeans and a just-tight-enough T-shirt; hold the footwear because he never wore shoes unless he had to. Good-looking in a boy-next-door-meets-fallen-angel way. Thick waves of red-blond hair, sharply alert green eyes, incongruously olive skin. Tick, tick, tick, tick and tick—Matthew Carter was a prime genetic specimen.

“Good evening, Mr. Carter,” Romy said, tamping down another giggle at the absurdity of assessing Matt’s attributes like he was breeding stock. “I’m here to discuss your sperm.”

Matt gave her a censorious tsk-tsk at odds with the twinkle in his eyes. “I hope you don’t say that to all the boys, Ms. Allen!”

“Only the ones with a really big—Matt!”—as he yanked her over the threshold and into a fierce hug.

“A really big what?” he asked, digging his chin into the top of her head. “Go on, I dare you to say it.”

“Cup, you pervert,” she said, dissolving into laughter even though her bottom lip was suddenly trembling from the emotional toll of being on the cusp of something momentous with him. “A really big cup!”

“Cup?” he scoffed. “More like a bucket! We’re talking serious size and don’t you forget it!” He released her, looking down at her with a grin that promptly faded. “Uh-oh, do not cry! You know you look like a troll when you cry!”

“Trying not to,” she said shakily. “It’s just...you’re just...you’re going to hate me for saying it again, but you really are my—Hey!” as he dragged her in for another hug.

“If you call me your fucking hero one more fucking time I’ll squeeze you hard enough to crack a fucking rib!”

“Okay, okay!” Watery chuckle. “Enough fucking!”

“There’s never enough fucking to suit me, you know that.” And as she chuckled again, “But I mean it, Romy. It’s one hybrid kid. Not like we’re spawning a dynasty of Targaryens to rule the Seven Kingdoms.”

“Except I feel like I’m carrying the iron throne in my briefcase,” she said, wrapping her arms around his waist. “Weighs a ton.”

“Briefcase?” He half and half laugh/groaned. “Tonight is going to suck sooo badly.”

“A briefcase which you made me drop. Serve you right if it gouged a hole in your floorboards. And you’re squeezing me hard enough to crack two fucking ribs, by the way.”

He dug his chin into the crown of her head again. “Keep complaining and I’ll bench-press you!”

“You’ll give yourself a hernia.”

“I’ve been working out—I can take you.”

“You haven’t seen my backside lately! It’s expanded. Way bigger than anything you’re used to.”

“I’ll look at it if you want me to, but as an expert in all things posterior I usually start by copping a feel,” he said.

“Hmm, well, I’ve eaten enough to feed an army in the past two days and I’m fit to burst out of my clothes, so maybe just take my word for it. I wouldn’t want to shock you.”

“You always eat enough for an army, so don’t try using that as an excuse for your butt—or for not cooking the paella you promised me, if that’s where you’re heading.”

She choked up again, because paella was a pathetically inadequate thank-you for what he was doing. She searched for words to express her gratitude more eloquently, but she knew he wouldn’t let her say them—he never let his friends thank him, always brushed them off, said it was easy, he was doing it for himself, no big deal, anything to shut them up—so she simply rested her cheek against his chest and...ahhh...breathed. In, then out, in, out.

“It’ll be all right, Romy, I promise,” he murmured into her hair.

“You always say that,” she said huskily.

“Because it’s true.”

Romy smiled against his chest. Matt’s It’ll be all right, I promise had become a group slogan in their Capitol University days. He’d said those words to her, Rafael, Veronica, Artie when he couldn’t run away fast enough, and even the older and more rational Teague, whenever he was trying to convince them to do something off-the-wall. Skydiving, bungee jumping, that outrageous sex-in-a-public-place challenge, the horrendous pub crawl during a near blizzard, flying all the way to Sydney, Australia, for a weekend to support Frankie the Aussie barmaid when her bastard ex got married, skateboarding down Lombard Street the time they’d all come to San Francisco to hear Matt speak at that tech conference and he needed to release some energy. An endless stream of dares that had them following Matt like lemmings off a cliff because whenever he said It’ll be all right, I promise, they believed him. And even though such adventures mostly didn’t end up all right in the end, they’d lemminged after him the next time anyway, because Matt was invincible.

But this time, this dare, the consequences were forever. And while Romy wasn’t so much willing to embrace those consequences as desperate to do so now the carrot had been dangled in front of her, she couldn’t bear the thought that this might be the one time Matt wound up regretting something.

Already, though, she was ready to believe things would be as all right as Matt promised. That was the effect he had on her, probably because he was always picking up her pieces, whether they were fully broken, slightly chipped or just a little bit scratched.

She closed her eyes, blocking out everything except the smell of the arctic pine soap he always used, the feel of his chest rising and falling with his breaths, the well-washed texture of his T-shirt beneath her cheek, his hand pressing between her shoulder blades, bringing her closer. So close her heart felt bruised against his hardness. No...not bruised, squeezed. Squeezed until it was pounding. Pounding until she was dizzy.

And then she realized Matt’s heart was pounding, too, and the world tilted. A rush, a swirl, a blaze of heat, and she was in territory that was both familiar and unfamiliar—like she’d been pitched into a color-saturated virtual reality. A picture darted into her head. The two of them chest to chest and hip to hip against the wall, Matt’s mouth on hers, his hand fumbling her skirt up out of the way, his fingers tugging at her underwear, and then... Oh God, God, he was big and hard and sliding into her until she was full of him, stretched and throbbing and wildly wanting. You want my sperm, then take it, Romy, as much as you need, take it all, but take it like this. Her legs wrapping around him, jerking in time with his thrusts. Yes, please, Matt, please.

“Matt, please!” she whispered, tilting her hips into his as though what she saw in her head was hers for the asking, for the taking.

Matt went perfectly still, and so did she as reality clubbed her back to her senses.

Long moment of nothing but hectic heartbeats and held breaths. And then he let her go so suddenly she stumbled back and almost fell over her briefcase. He grabbed her arm, righted her, released her abruptly again.

Romy, frantically replaying that fantasy in her head, knew how that breathy Matt, please must have sounded—like a woman on heat. Nothing new for Matt, who’d been beating women off with the proverbial stick ever since she’d known him, but definitely new between the two of them. And Matt’s holy-fuck-help-me expression was telling her their status quo wasn’t about to change.

“Sorry, jet lag,” she said—the first excuse she could think of. “It kicked in last night, and I barely slept so I’ve been feeling light-headed all day. I guess when you squeezed me like that, it made me a little...a little woozy. A little...breathless...?”

Okaaay, best case scenario would be for Matt to grab her in a headlock, rub his knuckles against her scalp and tell her to stop bullshitting him, because she’d been flying between the UK and the USA for ten years without suffering from jet lag, so she should just confess—ha-ha-ha—that she’d thrust her hips at him like a nymphomaniac because she wanted his body. To which she’d respond—ha-ha-ha—that being part of a harem wasn’t her style and he should stop wanking over himself. The same comedy routine they’d been doing since the night they’d met to ward off any vaguely sexual frisson that might oscillate between them.

Worst case scenario would be... Hmm, well, that would be what he was doing now. Closing his eyes, then bolt-opening them as though he’d seen something horrific behind his eyelids. Smiling like he was trying not to throw up. Agreeing with her, “Yeah, jet lag’s a bitch.” And then reaching past her to close the door with the air of a guy who’d dislocate his own arm if necessary to avoid contact with her.

About the only good thing to be said for such a response was that he was obviously intent on ignoring her momentary lapse into oversexed insanity—praise the Lord!

She bent to fiddle with the clasp on her briefcase, buying herself a minute to recover, reassuring herself that all she really had to do to get past this episode of utter mortification was not thrust her hips at him like a nymphomaniac again. Should be easy enough: she’d had ten years’ practice pretending not to lust after him.

Fixing a smile on her face, she took her briefcase by the handle and straightened—and if she was daunted to find that Matt had taken himself out of touching range, presumably for his own safety, at least she had enough self-control to keep smiling.

“We’ll talk in the library,” Matt said, looking at her right eyebrow. “Through here.” And he opened a door to the left of the entrance hall and fled.

Romy dropped her briefcase again—and her smile with it—covering her face with her hands to trap the groan she just couldn’t keep inside. She wasn’t sure she’d cope if he started addressing all his remarks to her eyebrows. Deep breaths. More deep breaths. Phew. She slowly lowered her hands—and then drew in a few more deep breaths as she finally noticed the grandeur of her surroundings, which were definitely in the mansion-not-a-house category.

The floors were a chocolatey-dark wood, the walls painted low-sheen gold. Two impressive staircases curved their way to an upper floor. Behind and between the staircases were two massively proportioned doors, closing off what she presumed was the living area. To the right was a door matching the one Matt had gone through to get to the library.

She tilted back her head, expecting to find a chandelier hanging from the ceiling, and even when that was exactly what she found, she couldn’t quite believe it. All that was missing was a gigantic vase of exotic flowers on a marble table and Matt’s entrance hall would rival the lobby of the five-star hotel she was staying in. Her entire flat, with its jammed-together living, dining and kitchen areas, would fit into this one space.

She tried to imagine the library, using this as an example, and decided she couldn’t actually get past the fact that Matt had a library. He only read ebooks! How did an e-reader require an entire room?

Of course, Matt had only moved in a week ago; the first she’d heard he was even looking for a place was when he’d emailed her three days after her fateful phone call, asking what he’d need to set up his new kitchen. So the library was probably just an empty room waiting to be repurposed. Or maybe it was nothing but a grandly named study housing a desk, a couple of chairs and his computer paraphernalia. Because libraries weren’t Matt’s style. Libraries were what the Teague Hamiltons and Veronica Johnsons of the world had in their homes. And not because Teague and Veronica were any more loaded than Matt—by his twenty-seventh birthday last year Matt had made a fortune selling the online payment software he and Artie (his partner in all things geek) had built while still at college. It was more that where Teague and Veronica carried the suggestion of the bred-in-the-bone wealth that went with stately homes, self-made Matt was just Matt. He still drove a beaten-up Toyota, still wore Levi’s, T-shirts and Vans when barefoot wasn’t an option, still drank Sam Adams.

A curse floated out to her through the doorway on the left, followed by a thud.

Ha! And he still swore like a sailor and had the patience of a gnat.

She reached up a hand to pat at her hair. Took off her overcoat and gave her dress a more thorough brush down. Adjusted the silicon-lined band at the top of one of her thick black thigh-high socks, which had slid down half an inch. Re-pasted her smile. Picked up her briefcase.

Showtime.

CHAPTER TWO

FUCK, FUCK, FUCK.

It had seemed so easy two weeks ago. A favor to a friend. On par with what he’d done for Romy back in their Capitol U days, when they’d all lived on top of each other in Veronica’s town house and there’d been no hiding the fact that menstruation was more a feat of endurance for Romy than a normal bodily function.

He, Veronica and Rafael had taken turns refilling her hot water bottle, making her cup after cup of Lapsang Souchong, breaking the megawatt-but-useless painkillers out of their blister packs, restocking her why-are-they-disappearing-so-fast sanitary items. Even Teague had taken a few turns, despite not living with them—during and after his brief stint as Romy’s boyfriend.

So when Romy had called two weeks ago to update him on where she was at with getting her whack job of a uterus fixed, it was pretty much a case of business as usual.

Or it would have been, if Camilla hadn’t answered his phone.

Women he was fucking always seemed to need to do that when Romy’s name flashed up, so it wasn’t the act of answering the phone that bothered him so much as the way she’d said, Oh, it’s your Romy, before swiping to accept the call.

His Romy? Fuck that! Romy was just Romy.

And then Camilla had told Romy that Matt would call her back, and that was a step too far in the proprietary stakes so he’d pulled the phone out of her hand fast enough to give her whiplash of the wrist and taken it into another room.

Camilla had looked mightily displeased, but it was poor form for a guy to ask a girl about her menstrual cycle in front of someone she’d never met, so he’d left Camilla to it and launched straight into it with Romy via a short, sharp opener: Enough of this bullshit, how do we fix it?

We can have an ablation, she’d said.

Then have one, was his response.

She couldn’t if she wanted a kid one day—which she definitely did, she’d explained—because there’d be no having one afterward.

So have a baby now, he’d said, what was stopping her?

Little problem of no man in her LIFE! And yes, she’d screamed the last word, because a cramp had ripped her in half at that exact moment.

He’d paced the floor while she’d breathed through the pain, and then said, fuck it, he’d give her a baby—why not?

And she’d said, Why not? Because it was a big deal requiring more than the one minute’s reflection he usually afforded life-and-death decisions.

And he’d told her it sure as hell didn’t require her usual one thousand years’ reflection, and that it would make the top ten list of easiest things he’d ever fucking contemplated: a quick ejaculation on his side of the Atlantic, a turkey baster on hers, a courier in between, a baby at the end and Yippie-Kai-Yay motherfucker to the problem.

She’d laughed so hard at the Yippie-Kai-Yay motherfucker she’d snorted, but she was crying at the same time, and then she’d said he was the next best thing to Captain America to offer, even if she couldn’t accept.

And he’d snort-laughed then, insisting that Captain America was a virgin as well as not being the masturbatory type, whereas Matt had shot out so many gallons of semen over the years—with and without the assistance of a second party—he could have his own page in Guinness World Records so where was the comparison?

And somehow during the ensuing argument over Captain America’s sexual expertise—or lack thereof—which they’d been having forever—Matt’s sperm offer had been accepted and general terms for proceeding agreed to, and he’d felt pretty damn happy with himself because hey, he was going to be a father, which he’d never thought he’d be.

Correction: godfather.

Because obviously he couldn’t be a real father.

By that stage Camilla had left, presumably in a huff since he hadn’t heard from her since, and Matt had figured that was just as well since she probably wouldn’t appreciate his commitment to impregnating another woman even if he wasn’t actually coming within spurting distance of Romy’s fallopian tubes.

And now here they were, and he felt pretty sure Camilla had jinxed him with the his Romy bullshit because his Romy wasn’t the Romy he’d opened the door to.

His Romy had obviously been kidnapped by aliens and replaced with a metamorphosed porn star version who looked exactly like his Romy—neat and chic, clean and bright—but was on a mission to drive him out of his fucking mind with the need to get his hands on her. Which he could not do, because his Romy, his real Romy, was off-limits.

He wasn’t allowed to imagine taking his Romy against the wall energetically enough to shake the crystals off that god-awful chandelier. He would never have flung his Romy halfway across the hall for fear of what he might otherwise do to her! Because he would never have mistaken his Romy’s breathless Matt, please as an invitation to enact that shameful scene in his head when it was really nothing more than a plea to stop his rampaging dick from stabbing her in the stomach—and thank God she hadn’t called him on that but had taken pity on him by blaming a mythical case of jet lag for the whole damn disaster.

And okay, taking the blame for him was something his Romy would do, which meant she really was his Romy and his alien abduction theory therefore was a bust.

The only other explanation for this whole phenomenon was that it was an aberration brought on by his two-week sexual hiatus—and the fact he’d lasted two weeks without sex, ever since Romy’s phone call, was the equivalent of him being abducted by aliens and replaced with a choirboy version of himself!

Matthew Carter a choirboy? Now, that was an aberration.

As he’d hurried into the library and manhandled his chair into the best position for hiding the beast in his jeans under the desk—not without a certain amount of cursing and desk-related violence—he’d decided it probably wasn’t unusual for sex addicts to crave the first available person they saw during periods of deprivation. Didn’t mean he was going to act on it, though. He’d been keeping Romy safe from his perversions for ten whole fucking years and that’s how things were going to stay if he had to lock a chastity belt onto her himself!

What the hell was keeping her, anyway? They should be halfway through her first document by now. The tedium of paperwork would put a stop to any weird-ass sexual cravings, so he wanted those damn documents stat! Bring them all on, the whole fucking briefcase full!

He checked the time on his cell phone. She couldn’t be lost between the entrance hall and the library—only one door in the corridor was open and she’d have to see not only the glow of the lights but feel the heat from the monstrous fucking fireplace that was slowly stewing him in his own juice.

Maybe he should go and find her.

Take her by the hand...lead her upstairs...into his bedroom...strip her...lie her across the bed. Ash-brown hair tangled on his pillow...eyes a glitter of hazel from beneath those heavy, tilted lids that made her look perpetually, deceptively sleepy...mouth slightly open as she panted for him...tongue darting to lick her top lip...breasts round and heavy...beige nipples jutting proudly...thighs opening to reveal her pink, juicy core...waiting for his fingers...his tongue...his cock. A whimper, a moan, as he slid inside her...clenching around him...hips rising to meet his thrusts...

Oh God, he wanted to come...needed to come.

His heart was thudding the way it had in the entrance hall when he’d had his arms around her, his shoulders tightening, thighs clamping, his dick straining for release. And then the hairs on the back of his neck vibrated themselves upright as though a lover’s finger were trailing down his spine, and he realized he was no longer on his own in the room.

He focused his eyes on his cell phone, counting out the seconds, willing himself to get it together before turning to confirm Romy’s presence behind him... aaand go...

He swiveled his chair, and lust rushed at him like a bullet. He wanted to suck the breath out of her, rip the clothes off her, lick the scent from her skin.

What the fuck was happening to him?

“Sorry to make you wait,” she said, her trying-but-not-quite-making-it smile telling him she felt his tension. “I had to call Lennie to report on last night’s restaurant.”

She’d taken off her overcoat, and when she paused on her way to the desk to drape it over a chair he saw what she meant about bursting out of her clothes—her bodice was skintight, and she looked ripe as a ready-to-eat-immediately peach. He really didn’t think he was going to survive tonight.

“It’s two in the morning in London,” he said, the snap in his voice a symptom of his overwrought edginess.

“So?”

“So don’t try telling me you called Lennie.” Not that it was anything to him if she called Lennie at two in the fucking morning.

“I...I did,” she said, and blushed, defensive. “Chef’s hours. I couldn’t have called him any earlier.”

“Yeah, well, Lennie’s an asshole, expecting you to report in after every meal,” he grumbled, and swiveled his chair back to the desk, because the blush pissed him off and he didn’t want to see it. Not that it was anything to him who she blushed over, but she shouldn’t be blushing over Lennie of all people. “You’re a restaurant consultant not a slave.”

She’d reached the desk and took her seat, holding her briefcase on her lap as though it were that chastity belt he’d told himself she needed. “You know I have to jump when he says jump.”

“I know you can’t trust a guy who fricassees garden snails,” Matt said, because he didn’t trust Lennie. Lennie thought he owned her.

She gave an agitated little huff that told him he was being a dick. “And here I was thinking you might have given up burgers for escargot.”

“Why would I do that?”

“The house...this room.” She looked around. “Your tastes have changed.”

“It’s just a library.”

“Yes, and it’s very library-like,” she said, looking around again. “Hmm. It reminds me of the library in Teague’s family’s place in the Hamptons. All those shelves full of...of books.”

“Hel-lo! Library!”

“Yes but the chairs, tables, Persian rugs, velvet curtains. That fireplace! Big enough to incinerate an elephant!” She laughed, but it sounded forced. “Remember that time we were all invited to the Hamptons for the Hamiltons’ Fourth of July ball? Even Veronica was wowed by the library!”

“You went into raptures over it, too, so what’s the problem here?”

She grimaced—grimaced! What the fuck!

“I just...wondered if you’d bought the place already furnished, that’s all,” she said.

“Why? Because I don’t have Teague’s good taste?”

“Well, you don’t, actually. Nobody does! But what I meant was that not even you could get all this done in a week.”

“Oh.” He shrugged, suddenly self-conscious that it hadn’t been furnished, that he’d hired people to do it, that he’d told them to copy Teague’s style and to get it ready in a week in time for Romy’s visit. The library, the kitchen, two bedrooms—his and a spare in case she decided to stay—and an outdoor table, two chairs and a patio heater so they could eat breakfast on the deck tomorrow, because the deck wasn’t as oppressive as the rest of this fucking ginormous house. And now it felt all wrong. “Look, are we going to spend the night talking about decor or can we get on with the business at hand?”

“Okay!” She huffed a breath in and out as she pulled a sheaf of pages out of her briefcase and put the briefcase on the floor beside her chair. And then she frowned at him. “You know all this paperwork is only to help you make an informed decision, right? I’m not here to torment you with red tape.”

“I’m not tormented.”

“You sound tormented. You look tormented. You—”

“I’m not tormented!”

Pause. “Let me put it a different way.”

“Fuck!”

“If you’re having second thoughts about giving me your sperm, I’ll let you off the hook, no questions asked.”

He almost laughed at that! “Romy, I’m having so many thoughts about giving you my sperm I can barely keep up with them—but not one of them involves being let off the hook.”

“I just want us to be...you know...normal.”

“So we make that a nonnegotiable condition, okay? We stay normal or it’s off.”

“Yes, but—”

“Jesus, Romy, move things the fuck along or I’ll think you’re having second thoughts!”

She opened her mouth, closed it, opened it, closed it, opened it, and all that drawing attention to her mouth was not helping because it made him want to kiss her! And then, “Fine!” she said. “Fine. If you’re sure.” She sorted agitatedly through her paperwork. “Here,” selecting a page and holding it out to him as she placed the rest on the desk in front of her.

He took the page. “What is it?”

“A waiver my lawyer drew up for your protection.”

“Protection from what?”

“From me. Think of it as the prenup you have when you’re not getting married.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me!”

“I’m not going to have people say I baby-trapped America’s favorite dot-com billionaire.”

He stared at her for one long, fraught moment. And then, “Okay,” he said, and read the document. “Right.” Looking up. “Got it.”

“Read it again.”

“I don’t need to read it again, Romy.”

“Yes, Matt, you do. You make decisions too quickly. And this is important. Important enough that you might want to have your lawyer read it. In fact, you should get your lawyer to read it.”

“I don’t need my lawyer to read it, because I’m not signing it.”

“Well, of course I’m not expecting you to sign it right this minute.”

“I’m not signing it, period.”

“What?”

“Will this make it easier to understand?” he asked—and ripped the page in half, dropping the two pieces back onto the desk.

“Why did you do that?”

“Because if you think I’m going to sit here on a fortune while my kid lives on a budget on the other side of the world, you’ve got rocks in your head. I may know fuck-all about being a father, and we both know I’d be a shitty role model for a kid—”

“You would not!”

“—but one thing I can do, and do easily, is money.”

“I don’t want your money, Matt.”

“The money’s not for you, so get over it. You’re getting just about everything you want out of this deal, Romy, and that’s fine. That’s great. I’m cool with it. But for the love of God, stop rubbing in the whole I-don’t-need-you-Matt thing.”

“Rubbing—? Need—? I don’t—!” She peered at him as though trying to dive into his brain. “I don’t understand. All I’m trying to do is protect you!”

“I don’t want to be protected. I just...” He stopped, dragged in a slow breath. “I just...want to do this.”

“You are doing this. You’re providing half the chromosomes.”

“Yeah, anyone with a dick can do that.”

“But I want your dick,” she said.

They looked at each other in shock—and then they both burst out laughing. And God it felt good. Back to normal. Almost.

“Is that a Freudian slip?” he asked. “Because hey, come on over to my side of the desk.”

“Oh, shut up.”

“Look,” he said, “seriously, what difference is it going to make if I fling you a few dollars? I could support a hundred kids and not notice the outlay.”

“It’s not supposed to be about buying a baby.”

“I’m not selling one.”

“It’s not fair to you. Not when you’ll have a real family one day.”

“You are my real family. You, Rafael, Veronica, Teague, crazy Artie.”

“You know what I mean. What happens when you get married?”

“I’m not getting married. No other kids. This is it for me. My one chance. So don’t take it away from me over something stupid like money.”

“Are you blackmailing me?”

“I’m appealing to your kind heart.”

“You are so full of it!”

“Okay, I’ll switch to blackmail if you’re going to be mean about it. I’m making it a nonnegotiable condition of my participation. No money, no kid.” He picked up the pieces of paper. “Now, are we starting negotiations on the same torn page, or not?”

“Blackmail isn’t a negotiation.”

“Ticktock, time’s a-marchin’.”

“Yes, but it’s my clock that’s ticking, not yours. You have all the time in the world to have other kids.”

“Don’t want others. I’m good with clocks. Might as well synchronize my alarm with yours. Are we on? Decide.”

“I don’t—I can’t—I’m not...not like that. I don’t make decisions on the fly.”

“But I do, Romy. And things work out just fine for me. So decide. Now.”

Long, long moment. And then, “Okay,” she said, the word sounding as though it had been dragged out against its will. “I’ll take the money, but I want it tied up in a trust. I mean it, Matt. No sneaky stuff. No saving me from imaginary destitution on the sly. I’m getting my lawyer involved—I’m warning you.”

He dropped the paper pieces. “Just so you know, I’ve already got my lawyer on the case, and I’ll bet she’s scarier than yours. If I want to sneak money to you on the sly, it’ll be done before you know it’s happening and there’ll be nothing you can do about it.”

“Now you see, that’s your inner superhero waving his flag. You think you’re saving a damsel in distress, but I promise you, I’m not in distress.”

“Have you thought that maybe this isn’t about you, it’s about me? How do you know I’m not the one buying a baby?”

“What? No!”

“And if I told you straight out that I am?”

“I guess I’d ask why you chose me.”

Their eyes met. Held. Something flashed inside him. Hot. Vivid. “And I’d answer...because it’s you,” he said. And the instant the words were out, he knew they were true. He was doing this not only for her, but because it was her. Because she was the one pure thing in his life and he needed her and if they shared a child he’d always have her. And his child...? Well, of course he had more to offer his child than money: he had her. Her light, to cancel out his darkness.

“Oh!” she said, blinking furiously.

Shit! “Don’t go troll on me,” he warned.

“I won’t. I promise. It’s just...nice. To hear that.”

“Yeah, well, don’t get sentimental about it. It’s to my benefit to give my kid a good mother. Less chance it’ll want to come and live with me one day.”

“Oh!” she said again, and gave a tiny sniff that freaked him out.

“Jesus, Romy! Get a grip. Are you on hormones or something?”

“No. No, no, that’s just nice to hear, too. In a...a twisted kind of way.”

“That’s me—twisted.”

She gave him that peer-into-your-brain look again. “Why do you always do that, Matt?”

“What?”

“Make yourself something...less.”

He hunched a shoulder. “I’m not doing anything except reminding you there’s something in this for both of us. Right, we still have a hundred documents to get through and I’ll be ripping up any that have a tear splotch on them, so get it together.”

She wiped a finger under each eye. “It’s not a hundred, it’s fifteen.”

“That’s my girl! Precision document preparer.” He laughed. “We’ll get through a paltry fifteen like a hot knife through butter.”

He hoped she’d laugh, too, but she didn’t. She was watching him, her forehead creased as though she wasn’t sure whether or not she should be frowning, and Matt felt panic edge its way up his spine because maybe she was about to call things off—and suddenly, unexpectedly, he knew he’d move heaven and hell to keep the deal alive. “Are we good, Romy?” he asked.

She bit her lip, and he did his best to make himself look nonthreatening. If he could have willed the right response out of her, he would have—he certainly directed every synapse in his brain at her as he silently urged: Say yes...say yes...say yes, damn you.

“Yes,” she said, and his limbs went weak with relief. “Yes, we’re good.”

“So,” he said, as nonchalantly as he could manage. “What’s next?”

She flipped a page, another, another, muttering something under her breath. He knew what she was doing. Sorting the documents, easiest to hardest, building her case. The muttering thing usually made him want to get her in a headlock, rub his knuckles against her scalp and warn her she was talking out loud, not in her head. But not tonight. Tonight, for reasons he did not want to face, it made him want to take her on his lap like he used to do at college when something was worrying her. But this was different from college. Because he didn’t just want to reassure her, he wanted to kiss her.

He forced his eyes away from her mouth to her hands, and the platinum signet ring on her right pinky finger caught his eye. She’d worn it every day since Teague had given it to her for her twenty-first birthday seven years ago, and he barely noticed it anymore. But now he wanted to rip it off her finger and throw it into the fire. What a fucking crazy upended night this was turning out to be.

“This one,” she said, and picked out a page.

The ring caught the overhead light, distracting him. “Huh?”

She held the page out to him. “Timing.”

He ignored the page. He wanted this done. Wrapped up. Settled, before she could change her mind. “Choose any time you want—I’ll fit in with you. Next.”

Flip. Shuffle. She held out another page. “Clinic options in San Francisco.”

He ignored that document, too. “Mark your preferred one and I’ll make an appointment. Next.”

New page—held out. “The process.”

“Fuck, Romy. I grab a girlie magazine and jack off. Do you really think I need instructions? Next.”

She chose a new page, held it out to him, then pulled it back and put it on top of the pile. “You know what?” she said, neatening the edges of her documents as that fucking ring flash-flash-flashed at him. “Let’s stop pretending you’re interested in the paperwork. Just point me in the direction of the kitchen so I can make your fucking paella! And then, since your mind is clearly on what time Camilla’s arriving and not on me, set the table for the two of you, not all three of us, and I’ll go back to my hotel, and that way—”

She broke off as his hand shot across the desk and latched itself around her right wrist, shocking the bejesus out of both of them. He watched her fingers curl, then flex, then curl again—but she didn’t break his hold the way she should have if she had any sense. He imagined her feeling the tremor that was shimmering through him and working out what it meant, then blushing for him the way she had for Lennie. Her slumberous eyes half closing as she offered herself to him. He could see her on the desktop, raising the skirt of her cherry-red dress...see himself taking off her black stockings, sliding her panties down her legs. One lick, to taste her. Do that again, Matt...lick me... I want you to do everything to me...anything you want...

“Matt,” she said, in that same breathy whisper she’d used when he’d hugged her too hard in the entrance hall, and he released her just as suddenly as he had then. He had to get his shit together. Stop the Jekyll and Hyde fuckery.

He put his hands palm down on the desk, ordered them to stay there. Splayed his fingers, then brought them in again, splayed...and back. Breathing, breathing, breathing through the moment of holy-hell panic and trying to remember the last thing she’d said and how he was supposed to respond. Something about the documents...kitchen...paella...Camilla...

“Why would you think Camilla was coming for dinner?”

“Because your girlfriends always do.”

“Point of clarification, Romy—I haven’t had a ‘girlfriend’ since I was seventeen.”

“Well, whatever you call them, they’re always joining us for dinner or lunch or drinks or something.”

“I call them by their name.”

“You know what I mean.”

“Hookups, then. I call them hookups.”

“I’m talking about women who are more than casual hookups.”

“They’re all casual hookups.”

“Um...no! You met Camilla a week before Thanksgiving, and I called you two weeks ago—five weeks after Thanksgiving—and you were still with her. That length of time with someone does not equal a casual hookup.”

“What would you call it?”

“An affair, maybe?”

“Affair? Fuck!”

“What’s wrong with affair?”

“Affair is so bourgeois,” he said, and immediately recognized bourgeois as one of his father’s words. Why be bourgeois, Matthew, when you can be bohemian? How many times had he heard variations on that theme? And now he was parroting his father to Romy! What the hell was wrong with him tonight?

“Well, how ‘bourgeois’ is it to answer a guy’s phone for him?” Romy asked. “Casual hookups don’t answer your phone.”

“Yeah, well, she was on top, it was easier for her to reach it,” he said, goaded by who-knew-what into yet more assholery.

Her eyes went wide. “You spoke to me in the middle of having sex with her? You—you—”

“Bastard? Is that the word you’re looking for? Because that’s bourgeois.” Her eyes were still wide, and her naïveté provoked him into wanting to shock her further. Shock her...show her who she was dealing with here. “It’s just sex, Romy, and nonexclusive at that. Hookup fits better than affair, trust me on this. And since Camilla hasn’t called me since that night, whatever she was, she’s not it anymore.”

“Not exclusive?” Pause. “You mean exclusive as in—”

“Monogamous.”

“You were hooking up with other women simultaneously?”

“Not at exactly the same time, if you know what I mean.”

“Well, that’s...something. I guess.”

“Although I have in the past. There’s nothing quite like a threesome.”

“Oh,” she said faintly, “I see. But...but not with Camilla. But doesn’t that mean—?”

“Camilla, of course, was hooking up with other men—she’s not at all bourgeois.”

“I see.”

“Good,” he said. “Now you know.”

“I just thought...”

“What? That I was an innocent, clean-cut boy?”

“I thought...at least you used to be... I was sure you were...monogamous.”

“Still am, on request. You want monogamy, you got it. That tends to get the cardinal rule broken a little faster, though, and that’s always the end,” he said, threading his voice with amusement.

“Cardinal rule? How do I not know about a cardinal rule after ten years?”

“You don’t know because you don’t break it, Romy. You don’t say it.”

“Say what, Matthew?”

“That you love me.”

Romy had this thing she did when she was trying to make sense of something that did not compute: a raised-eyebrow blink in slow motion, which he called her blink of insanity. She did it now. “A woman tells you she loves you, your instant reaction is to dump her?”

“I don’t like the word dump. It’s more what I’d call a withdrawal of interest.”

“Now, you see, I think a woman might still regard that as being dumped.”

“Then she’d be wrong, because dumping implies there was a relationship. And, like I said, I haven’t had one of those since I was—”

“Seventeen? She must have been some girl, the one you were with at seventeen, to be so hard to replace.”

“Oh, yes, Gail was some girl, all right,” Matt said, and although his voice was steady, the old sick rage he thought he was done with welled up in him.

Romy saw it, too. Or sensed it. He could tell. Ah shit. He braced for follow-on questions, holding his breath as she did the open-shut mouth routine...

But she must have decided that was one story too many, because with a slight shake of her head, she changed tack. “So when you are monogamous,” she said, “they fall in love...when? Are we talking days? Weeks? Months?”

He managed an almost-natural laugh. “You think I keep track?”

“Too many to keep track of? Maybe you and Artie could invent a track-keeping app.”

“Smart-ass.”

Pause. “So...how long does it take you to fall in love, Matt?”

“What is this? The Spanish Inquisition?” He tried out another laugh, but this one missed natural by a mile.

“Just a simple question.”

“Then here’s a simple answer—I don’t.”

“Not since you were seventeen, I suppose.”

Back to that. He pushed his chair back from the desk, then pulled it straight back in. Restless. Agitated. “It’s like this: both people in a...a...”

“Relationship?”

“...situation need to want the same thing or someone’s going to get hurt.”

“Are you saying you never want the same thing they do?”

“No, sometimes we want exactly the same thing, and that’s great.”

“But it’s never love?”

“Search your memory for a contradictory example, Romy. You won’t find one.”

“Well, that’s a shame, because you’ve gone out with a lot of wonderful women.” She sighed. “I hope you at least warn them up front what to expect.”

“Oh, I make it clear, what’s in it for both of us.”

“Sex.”

“Good sex. And fun. And respect. I’m not jealous or possessive, which means they can leave whenever they like, no questions asked. No stalking or bad-mouthing or revenge porn when it’s over. Friendship if they’re up for that at the end, although very few are and that’s okay, too. I just...don’t want them to love me.”

“And yet they do love you, Matt. I’ve talked enough of them off the ledge at the end to know it.”

He shook his head, dismissive. “They don’t stay on the ledge for long. And that’s because although they say they love me, they really don’t.”

“You can’t know that.”

“I know they almost invariably speak those magic words at the peak of an orgasm, which tells me it’s about sex. And if they think sex is the way to my heart, they sure as fuck don’t know me well enough to love me. In fact, I’ll let you in on a deep dark secret about the way to my heart, Romy.” He leaned across the desk, confidante-style, and lowered his voice. “There is no way, because I don’t have a heart.”

“If that were true I wouldn’t have trusted you all these years and I wouldn’t be here now. I trust you, Matt. I trust you absolutely.”

“Trust in anything you like except my heart. Or my soul, come to think of it. I definitely don’t have one of those. It’s the Carter curse, inherited along with the hair. So don’t look into my eyes for too long or I’ll steal yours.” He leaned back in his chair and smiled mockingly. “Have you thought what’ll happen if you have a red-haired, soul-stealing kid? Will you reject the baby?”

She looked directly into his eyes. “I like your red hair. I want the baby to have it.”

That look, so serious and compelling, was like a blow to the chest, and it took Matt a moment to absorb the impact. Trust, she’d said she trusted him. And it was in her eyes. Even after everything he’d just told her. She was a babe in the woods, wandering through the forest in her red dress with no idea wolves were lurking behind the trees. She needed to be protected from the likes of him.

“Yeah well, I suggest you look past the red hair,” he said, “and understand that the only thing I have to offer is a very big cock.”

She surprised him by not flinching, by looking at him just as steadily, as seriously, as trustingly. “And if I were to say that I love your red hair? That I love everything about you? What would you do, Matthew? Would you dump me? And...and Veronica and Rafael and Artie and Teague? Would you dump them, too? Because I—they—we—all love you! How could we not, when you push and pull us to do things we never would otherwise? The baby you’re giving me, for starters.”

“I told you—that’s for me.”

“Then what about the time I couldn’t afford the airfare to Sydney for Frankie’s wedding, and lo and behold, a ticket materialized.”

“Air miles—it cost me nothing!”

“And Artie—the software that would have stayed in your heads if not for you. You made him rich.”

“Made me rich, too, and it wouldn’t have happened without his brain.”

“Then what about the Silicon Valley tech hub you set up and dragged him into.”

“That’s a partnership, benefiting me, too.”

“You pushed Rafael into entering that international writing competition, which he won.”

“He didn’t take much pushing.”

“You got Veronica the gig with the university’s Student Healthcare Outreach program because she needed a good deed on her CV.”

“Stop!”

“And Teague only snagged a spot crewing in the Sydney Hobart Yacht Race because of you.”

“Teague almost drowned!”

“He loved every minute of it! And he loves you. Like a brother. He’s told me so.”

“Goddammit, Romy.” He looked away from her, because that shook him. Teague. Teague, who’d seen more than the others, who’d guessed it all, who fucking knew. Teague might be the closest anyone had come to sainthood, but he wasn’t stupid enough to want a brother like Matt. Romy was deluding herself. He brought his eyes back to her. “You’re wrong. All those things...they’re nothing. I’ve done other stuff you wouldn’t congratulate me for, believe me.”

“What stuff?”

He had to force himself not to look away again; to do so once was barely acceptable; twice would give too much away. “Stuff you don’t need to know.”

“Why can’t I know?”

“Because you’d back out of this deal if you did.”

For a long moment she just looked at him. And then she sighed. “How am I supposed to understand why it’s so hard to accept that people love you if you won’t tell me?”

“You don’t have to understand, you only have to accept that to me, love is nothing but an overused word,” he said. “I love ice cream, oysters, pizza. I love cooking, sailing, camping. How’s anyone supposed to take that word seriously when it’s thrown out about anything and everything? So I’m asking you not to say it, the way you haven’t said it for ten years.”

“I must have said it before.”

“Not to me. And I figure if you were ever going to say it, you’d have said it by now. I don’t want to hear it, Romy, so don’t say it now.” He stopped to take a calming breath. “There are other words for what we have. More meaningful words. Words that can’t be desecrated. Words like friendship, camaraderie, affection. Be as creative as you want. Just don’t call it love.”

“Okay.” She held up her hands, palms out, surrender. “This is me not calling it love.”

“Good.”

“I hereby promise not to love you.”

“Great.”

“I refuse to love you.”

“Okay, I get it, Romy, give it a rest.”

“It’s not like I was going to propose marriage.”

“Fucking fantastic. Go you. Now, moving on!”

She snatched up the page on top of her pile. “Visitation,” she announced. “My lawyer thinks—”

“Not interested in anything your lawyer says,” Matt interrupted irritably. “I’ll just tell you what I want—access without restrictions when I’m in London.”

“I’m sure we can come up with a form of words to that effect,” she said, all business now. “You’re only in London for one week a year, so give me advance notice and I’ll make sure I’m not out of town.”

“It’ll be more than once a year. I’ll be over in four months’ time to look at premises, and then again two months after that to sort out tenancy agreements.”

“Premises? What have I missed?”

“Artie and I are opening a tech start-up hub in London similar to the Silicon Valley one. He’s taking the lead so he’s already over there, but once it’s up and running, I’ll be there on and off for the first year at least.”

“Okay. No problem. Like I said, advance notice, and I’ll make it easy for you to see the baby.” She shot him a curious look. “If that’s really what you want.”

“Why wouldn’t I want it?”

“You indicated on the phone you were looking for a no-strings godfather role. It’s a little...confusing, I guess, to hear you talk about unrestricted access. And I...I just think it’s a good idea to start as you mean to go on.”

“What does that mean?”

“That you don’t keep changing your mind—like, one year you decide to come every month, the next year you come once in the whole year. Children need certainty.”

“Okay then, how about we leave it at once a year, scheduled, and you decide whether or not to allow other visits on a rolling basis.”

“Fine. Then let’s move on to—”

“I’m not finished.”

She waited, watching him warily.

“The kid’s going to be half-American,” he went on, “so if I’m only going to be guaranteed one visit a year, you need to bring it out here once a year. For...I don’t know...heritage purposes.”

“Easy! I’m already here once a year—and I’ll be over more often if I land Suzanne Plieu as a client. She’s keen to open a fine dining restaurant in New York and we’ve had a preliminary chat about what I can do to help her find a partner.”

“New York is Teague’s territory, not mine.”

“Well, yeees.” That same curious look, as though she were trying to work him out. “And if Suzanne needs a lawyer, he’d be—”

“I’m not talking about Suzanne’s restaurants or legal needs. I’m talking about you being needed in San Francisco with me, the kid’s father, not in New York with Teague.”

“It’s going to depend on whether I can afford it.”

“I can afford it.”

“My clients pay for my travel here and you’re not my client.”

“Then start working on your aversion to staying with me. No accommodation costs, and I won’t feel like your client when you sashay in with your briefcase.”

“I can’t stay with you, Matt.”

“Why not? You stay with Teague when you’re in New York.”

“Only when my work is finished.”

“Should I point out that you’re not working tonight?”

Pause. He knew that slight twist to her mouth. She was working out what to say. “Teague’s apartment is...spacious. It’s easier there.”

“And I now have a large house. So when you come with the kid, you stay. As long as your ‘form of words’ contains that, we’re good.”

“We’re not good in that case.”

“Why not?”

And she was up, out of her chair, walking over to the fireplace, dragging her hands through her hair—which she never, ever did.

“Why not?” he asked again, when she just stood there looking into the flames.

“It won’t work.”

“Asking again—why not?”

Shake of her head.

“Romy, what’s going on? Why did I buy a house with a million rooms if you and the kid are going to stay in a hotel?”

She turned to face him then. “But th-that’s not why you bought the house!”

“Isn’t it?”

He saw the breath she took, and prepared himself for an argument.

“Okay then, Matthew,” she said, “in the spirit of negotiation—”

“It’s not negotiable.”

“—I’ll agree to stay here, on the condition that I know in advance who else will be here and I can opt out if I’m uncomfortable.”

“Uncomfortable?”

“I don’t want to impinge on your lifestyle.”

“My ‘lifestyle’?”

“There’ll be times it won’t be appropriate for me to stay, depending on...on who...”

He shot to his feet. “Who I’m fucking? Is that what you mean?” He realized he’d yelled that, but couldn’t get the anger under control enough to care.

“If you’d let me expl—”

“You think I’m going to have someone stashed in my bedroom for after I’ve finished reading my kid a bedtime story?” Yelled again.

“I wouldn’t put it quite like—”

“Will I have to fill out a form? Name, age, occupation, social security number? Nominate what nights of the week I intend to fuck them?”

“Oh, for God’s sake!” she said, firing up at last and yelling back at him. “I already know what nights of the week! Every damn night of every damn week! That’s the problem!”

“I’m glad you appreciate my stamina!”

“That place we shared back in the day had paper-thin walls! We all appreciated your stamina! Veronica and I used to joke about buying shares in Durex, you went through so many jumbo boxes of condoms!”

“So you counted my condoms and listened in? Interesting.”

“Sadly, the pillow I jammed over my head to filter out the moans, grunts and squeals didn’t quite block everything.”

“What can I say? I do a good job. A better job than Teague, now I think of it, since he didn’t ever stay with you overnight.”

“This isn’t about Teague.”

“No, it isn’t, is it, or maybe I would have heard something.”

“Not over the racket going on in your room!”

“Jealous?”

She raised her chin. “Just over it! Okay? I’m over it! I don’t want to hear you anymore! I’ve had enough of hearing you!” And she was on the move again, storming over to the drapes, trying to drag them open as though their very existence was cutting off her oxygen supply.

He stalked across the room, reached her, spun her. “Then how about you stay tonight and test the soundproofing? In the absence of my usual fuck noises you can listen for the loud howl of sexual frustration that’ll be coming out of my room because I haven’t had sex for two fucking weeks! Does that scare you, Romy?”

“Why should it scare me?”

“Because you’re here alone with me and I...I... Arrrggh! It’s dangerous, can’t you see that?”

“Dangerous how?”

“Jesus, Romy, how naive are you?” Matt said. The room was hot, stifling, claustrophobic. He needed air, needed...something! “Fuck this!” He reached past her, grabbed a handful of velvet, yanked on it, heard a satisfying rip, and then the drapes dropped to the floor. He kicked them for good measure. “When are you going to accept that I’m not your damn hero, Romy? I’m not like Teague. I don’t do chastity, and yet I’ve just told you I have done it, for two weeks.”

“So what?”

“So I’m a sex addict. And you’re here.”

“A sex addict would have made a move on me the night we met! God knows I gave you the chance! So don’t talk to me about not ‘doing’ chastity when you’ve been nothing but chaste with me for ten years!”

“You’re not like the others!”

“Well, that just goes to show that you’re an idiot! Because I am like the others. I’m exactly like the others. I want what they want, damn you!”

Sudden, charged silence.

Matt’s skin prickled, his senses going on high alert. “Tell me what you mean,” he said, breathing the words. “What you want.”

She closed her eyes. Heartbeat. Opened them. “You know what I mean. You of all men know what women mean!” And it was as though the angry energy drained out of her, even though her hands had clenched into fists by her sides. “What I want is you. I want...you.”

CHAPTER THREE

TEN YEARS OF not saying the words, and now they were out, hanging between them.

Romy’s heart was beating hard enough to leap out of her body. And Matt looked rigid enough to bounce the poor thing off his chest. Like a stone column. Or...or petrified wood.

Petrified being the operative word.

She choked down a rising bubble of hysterical laughter at the notion that big, bad Matt could be scared of her. She was the one who should be scared. Scared he’d tell her no and leave her with nothing: friendship in tatters, no baby and still no clue about what it was like to...to be with him like all those other women.

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Matt said.

And on the spot, she consigned any last vestige of caution to hell. For ten long years she’d been subjugating her lust for him. That was long enough! “Yes, Matt, I do,” she said. “Exactly what I did say. I want you. But you can call it Plan B if that’s easier for you to deal with.”

“Plan B?”

“I need to get pregnant. You offered to provide the sperm. We’ve discussed the turkey baster method—Plan A—but there’s no reason it can’t be done the old-fashioned way—Plan B.”

“Old-fashioned way.”

“We have a window of opportunity here. It’s almost like fate stepped in.”

“Window of opportunity,” he said, like he was having trouble keeping up.

“Neither of us has someone in our lives—a minor miracle in your case. You said you were sexually frustrated, so you need a release valve, and here I am offering to be it.”

“Release valve.”

“From my perspective, it’s cheaper than IVF. It’s certainly more efficient. Like a direct deposit, cutting out the middleman.”

“Direct deposit.”

“Oh, for God’s sake, stop repeating everything I say,” she semiexploded as her resolve frayed around the edges. “It’s easy to understand, isn’t it? It’s just a one-night stand! We’ve already been through your ground rules about not mistaking sex for anything more, so don’t worry that I’ll be expecting a bourgeois romance. And you’re not the only one who knows what it is to be sexually frustrated, because it’s been a while for me, let me tell you, and I daresay it’ll be a much longer while once I’m pregnant.”

“One-night stand.”

“Yes, one night. No encore required. If it doesn’t work, we simply revert to the turkey baster/courier option and...and...and aren’t you going to say something?”

“No encore.”

“Something that’s not a stupid repeat of what I’ve already said.”

She waited; he stared.

Romy couldn’t recall an instance in which Matt had taken this long to make a decision. She wondered if she should shorthand the argument by taking off her dress.

“Matt...” she said, reaching for the zipper at her left side—but before she could touch it, a log fell in the fireplace, jolting the momentum out of her so that she lost her nerve. “Forget it. It was just a suggestion. If you can’t bring yourself to do it, there’s nothing more to be said. Plan A it is.”

“I’m pretty sure I can bring myself to do it,” he said, and then he started laughing as though she’d told the funniest joke on the world.

She drew herself up, glaring at him. “I’m glad I’ve managed to amuse you.”

She tried to push past him, but he blocked her. “Wait!” he said.

“We’ve wasted enough time. We need to go back to the paperwork.”

Again he blocked her. “I said wait. Let’s at least talk about Plan B.”

“I’m no longer interested in Plan B.”

“Why not?”

“Because you’ve just reminded me how it ends.”

“How can that be when it hasn’t happened yet?”

“It’ll be a carbon copy of the time I told you Jeff Blewett kissed like his mouth was an octopus suction cup and you dared me to let you demonstrate the way you imagined that to be. I was stupid enough to say yes because I thought...I thought...never mind what I thought, it doesn’t matter what I thought, because at the last minute you changed direction and gave me a hickey right here...” jabbing at the center of her forehead “...and no amount of makeup would cover it up so I went around for two days looking like I’d been hit by a cricket ball and you thought it was all hilarious.”

“So how about I try it now?”

“I don’t need another forehead hickey, thank you.”

“I mean I could kiss you for real. And then...well, then you could decide if we go ahead with Plan B.”

“It’d serve you right if I said yes.”

“So say it.”

Romy licked her lips nervously. “Be careful, Matt, or I really will call your bluff.”

“Call it. I dare you to.”

“After the forehead hickey, you’re going to have to convince me you’ll be able to get it up at the crucial moment before I go any further,” she said.

He took a step back from her, which she didn’t consider promising. “One look at me will tell you that’s not going to be a problem. So go on and look.”

She examined his face, trying to gauge his seriousness. She was so keyed up, she’d rip his throat out if she saw so much as a glint of humor in his eye.

“Lower,” he instructed.

Her eyes dropped to his chest.

“Jesus, Romy, are you doing this on purpose? Lower!”

To his jeans. “Oh.”

“Bingo,” he said.

She raised her eyes to his face again. “I’ve heard that’s always there.”

“Are you fucking nuts? I’d never function as a human being if that were the case.” He reached for her then. “But it’s been there since you walked in tonight.” Folded her into his arms. “So if you’re telling me you didn’t feel it in the entrance hall, I’m going to think I’ve shrunk. And I know I’m ten years past my sexual peak, but it seemed to work very...sizably, shall we say, two weeks ago.”

She choked on a laugh. “Your ego is gargantuan.”

“My ego isn’t the thing that’s gargantuan. Although if you really didn’t notice the size of my cock when you first arrived, it’s going to need some stroking.”

“I hope you mean your ego.”

“Actually, I really do mean my cock. So stay riiight...theeere, ahhhhh, that feels good.” Nudging his cock against her. “Think about what it means vis-à-vis your question about whether or not I can bring myself to do it.”

“What it means...” she breathed out, fairly sure she could orgasm just from what he was doing here and now.

“It means yes I can, and when I do it’s going to be amazing. I’ll make it amazing for you, Romy. The moment you say yes.”

Same man she’d been friends with for ten years, same man who’d hugged her, tousled her hair, dragged her onto his lap, forced her earrings through her ill-pierced left earlobe. But this was different. He was different. And she had a premonition that he would always be different, from this moment.

The fear of losing him if she said the “yes” he was asking for was real, because women in whom Matt had a sexual interest were never around for long. The only women who lasted in his life were those who dated his friends—like Veronica, whom he treated like a sister even after her split from Rafael. And wasn’t that at least one reason Romy had transferred her starry eyes from Matt to Teague in their freshman year? Not only because Teague really was perfect but because Matt had brought him to her, thereby marking her place in Matt’s life while she got her head around consigning Matt to the friend zone?

How long would she last if she stepped out of that zone? Matt had said friendship at the end was possible with women he’d had sex with but that most didn’t want it. Why would she be any different from all those other women?

The baby, of course. The baby made her different. But the baby made her vulnerable, too, because it was precious not only for its own sake but because it would be a part of Matt that would always belong to her, a part she was allowed to love. She so wanted to believe Matt would come to love the baby, which would be like loving a part of her, even if he didn’t call it love.

Impossible to risk all that for one night...and yet just as impossible not to after wanting him for so long. Oh, how she wished she could blur the line between sex and friendship instead of stepping over it, keeping everything in its proper place.

If the sex was awful, she probably could. They’d laughingly accept that they’d given it the old college try and there was no harm done whether she was pregnant—experiment concluded successfully—or not—back to Plan A.

If it was awful...

But Romy knew it wouldn’t be awful.

The tightness of her skin told her that. Her racing heart, too. The way the smell of his pine-tree-scented soap made her want to lick him.

Those were the feelings lovers had, not friends.

Lovers.

Love.

Don’t call it love. Call it anything except love. Friendship, camaraderie, affection. A window of opportunity. A cheaper, faster, more efficient method of sperm insertion. Release valve. Direct deposit. Plan B. Sex, just sex.

If she kept all those descriptions in mind, surely she could do this. She could blur the line, she would blur the line, and she’d survive the end.

“All right, yes,” she breathed, both brave and terrified.

He pulled her in even more tightly. “Then I suggest we go upstairs immediately because it’s not your forehead I want to suck right now, and if we don’t move, I’m afraid I’ll drag you down to the floor and have my evil way with you right here.”

She huffed out a desperate laugh. “Evil is fine by me.”

He rubbed his cheek across the top of her head, and she felt him sigh even though she didn’t hear it. “Careful what you say, Romy.”

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