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“Why did you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Take such a big risk with me, like you said? Just to prove me wrong?”
“Because you’re a worthy cause. Don’t make me regret it, okay?”
His words should have annoyed the hell out of her, but instead, Jane had the odd feeling Luke had just left himself vulnerable and exposed, wide open for her. She had to be losing her mind.
“There won’t be any regrets so long as we set boundaries up front.” She was definitely losing her mind.
“What kind of boundaries?” he asked.
“We both need to remember that our sexual relationship is just that—a sex thing. Nothing more, right?”
An insane, out-of-control, completely inexcusable sex thing.
“Not yet.”
Not yet? All Jane’s beliefs about men and their ridiculous fears of commitment were contradicted in that one little sentence. He had to be putting on a show for her, trying his best to make her feel as though she didn’t know what she was talking about. Fine, if he wanted to play games, she’d play along.
“Since you’re probably much more familiar with meaningless sexual relationships than I am, why don’t you tell me what the rules are?” she asked, then savored the look of annoyance that crossed his face.
“I don’t have meaningless sex, and if you think that’s all this is, then you’re crazy.”
Jane blinked at his strong reaction. She’d expected a little more weakness in his protests.
“So you don’t have any ground rules?”
“If we’re going to be sleeping together, I expect it to be a mutually exclusive arrangement. No outside sex.”
Jane’s insides heated up at the thought of today’s encounter being a regular occurrence. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to concentrate on any task more complex than mopping the floor if she constantly had sex with Luke to look forward to.
“Of course not,” she heard herself say. Since when had she agreed to their having a regular-sex thing? How had one little slip of her self-control snowballed into…this? And why wasn’t she feeling even a tiny bit guilty about it?
“I’m finished installing the security system. I just need to do a few tests on it now,” Luke said, changing the subject as casually as if they’d just been discussing the weather.
He turned his attention to the new keypad near the front door, and a few seconds later an alarm blared loud enough for half the neighborhood to hear.
“This will be set up to automatically notify the best security service in the city if it’s set off, and armed guards will arrive within fifteen minutes of the alarm sounding.”
“I don’t think I can afford that.”
“Don’t worry, I’m giving you a steep discount. And if at some point you can’t afford the monthly security service charges, you can cancel it, but for right now, this is a good precaution. Probably within a year, you can relax your guard a bit and let the service lapse if you want.”
“Within a year?” Jane’s heart fell to her stomach. “You really think it will take that long for all this harassment to die down?”
“I hope it doesn’t, but we have to be realistic. Your book is still on the bestseller lists, and as long as it’s selling strong you’re going to keep picking up new enemies.”
She wandered into the living room in a daze and sank onto the sofa. How had she gotten herself into this mess? If she’d ever doubted the power of words, she’d never again need convincing. All she’d wanted to do was write a book that might help people have better love lives, and instead she’d managed to outrage half the men in America.
Jane gnawed at her lip, wondering what would happen when the book was printed internationally. Would she get hate mail from England and Australia, too? Would men with exotic accents leave angry messages on her answering machine?
Her editor, agent and publicist had all assured her that so much attention was a good thing, even the negative attention, but they weren’t the ones finding mangled, vandalized books in their cars.
And speaking of books… Jane had a vague recollection of a book signing she’d committed to doing some time this month, but she suddenly had the sick feeling she’d forgotten to mark it on her desk calendar. She jumped up and went to her desk. There was no such event written for any Monday in the near future. Chewing her lower lip, she stared at tomorrow’s date: May 2.
And then she remembered clearly a conversation with her publicist in which she’d agreed to do a signing at a nearby chain bookstore. On May 2.
“Luke?” she called into the hallway, and he appeared from outside a few seconds later.
