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I’d seen it happen over and over again—to Dev with his family, to Silas with Justin… hell, even to me, every time my parents reminded me what I owed to the Dayne name. With connection came the poisonous creep of expectations. The deeper the connection, the deeper that poison would spread… and the more pain it would cause when things inevitably went bad.
I liked Rowe a lot—a remarkable amount, really, for a man I’d known twenty-four hours, who’d lied to me nearly the entire time—and I admired his strength and resilience, too. It was no wonder I wanted to be close to him. But I couldn’t afford to have any illusions that the outcome with him would be different. In fact, knowing his story with his sister, knowing how desperate he was to get his project made, it seemed even more inevitable.
The smart thing to do would be to hold him at arm’s length.
But when Rowe leaped out of bed and headed to the second bedroom to take his shower—after tangling his foot in the bedsheets and doing a hop-slide-shimmy that had no right to be as sexy as it was—I couldn’t help watching him walk away… and wanting to snatch him back.
If he thinks he’s spending the remainder of the night in the other room, he’s mistaken, I thought to myself. I wanted him at arm’s length, figuratively but not literally.
I cleaned up as quickly as I could before putting on a pair of joggers and a comfortable T-shirt. When I made my way to the main room to wait for the food, Rowe was already walking out of the other bedroom wearing similar comfortable clothes, running his fingers through his wet hair until the strands fell back into their tumble of curls.
“You’ll never believe it,” he announced, “but I found Sterling Chase’s suitcase on the bed in the other room, and his clothes fit me perfectly.”
I laughed. The shy smile on Rowe’s face was worth the huffy, disapproving texts I’d gotten from Kenji when I’d asked him to coordinate the clothing. “Seriously? We’re buying him a wardrobe now? You don’t even know his size, Bash!”But it turned out, as with so many things regarding Rowe Prince, Ihadknown, though I couldn’t say exactly how.
“I’m glad,” I said gruffly, trying to ignore the strange, proprietary feeling that swamped me when I saw him wearing those clothes. “You want a drink?”
“Sure.” He shifted his weight nervously from foot to foot. “Uh. I don’t know what happens now? I mean, not just because I’ve never, you know,done thatwith a guy, but also, like, what is the protocol for when you’ve lied to a guy about who you are, and he lied about being your personal assistant, and then he takes you to the most beautiful hotel, and then you tell him all your secrets and way too much about your family?”
Damn it. How was I to keep him at arm’s length when every nervous word he babbled was a lasso pulling me to him more tightly?
“Definitely starting with a drink is the right thing.” I feigned an easy grin and squatted in front of the minibar to grab a beer for each of us, trying to think of a topic that was light and casual. Something bland that wouldn’t lead to any more interesting revelations. “So, Rowe, do your, uh… do your parents have curly hair?”
If Rowe thought that was a fucking ridiculous question, he was far too nice to say so.
He touched a hand to his curls and gave me a grateful smile as I handed him one of the beers. “Yeah. At least, my mom does. Daisy did, too, but she hated it. And I… well.” He cleared his throat and blushed rosily. “I have a love-hate relationship with my hair, thanks to the picture incident.”
Picture incident?“What’s that mean?” I demanded, intrigued against my will.
Rowe shook his head again insistently. “Nope. Can’t tell you. See, I was kinda hoping to have sex with you again before the night is over, and if I tell you, that dream will die.”
“Rowe?” I whispered. “There is not a single question about whether we will have sex again tonight. I promise.”
He swallowed hard. “Do youpinkypromise?”
I laughed out loud. Jesus,this guy. This stupid attraction was welcome to fade any minute now.Any minute.“Yes. Pinky promise.”
He sighed, certain I’d doomed us both. “When I was a toddler, I was kinda blond, and my hair wassocurly. Like, little corkscrew ringlets? And I was a bit… chubby. You know, before I grew into my full height?” He straightened his five-and-a-half-foot frame and tried to look imposing.
“Right,” I agreed gravely. I could envision this perfectly.
“And my mom… I cannot believe I’m telling you this… she took me to get my picture done at the mall, and the photographer dressed me up in, like, wings and a diaper thing? And my mom insisted on hanging the photo in the living room, and she…callsmeherlilbabycupid.” He downed half the beer in one gulp. “So! Let’s talk about other things.Sexythings. O-or polo, my new favorite sport. Aren’t horses wonderful?”
“Wait,” I said, unable to help the delighted smile breaking over my face. “Wait, wait, wait. Your mother dressed you in wings? She calls you her little baby cupid? Present tense?”
“Shush.” He clapped a hand over my mouth. “Not important. I blame the picture lady at the mall. And Daisy, who encouraged my mom to keep the picture up—”
I dragged his hand away. “Is the picture still there?”
“No. Maybe.” He swallowed. “Yes. Why?”
“Just curious.” I took a casual sip of beer. “And also filled with the sudden need to go to Indiana and begin a collection of Cupid-inspired artwork.”
To my surprise, he laughed out loud. “Yeah, right. Like you’d ever go to Linden. You wouldn’t last a day.”
“Excuse you?” I moved closer until I was standing right in front of him. “I have traveled around the world. I think I could survive rural Indiana.”
The research Kenji had done on Rowe suggested that his father worked at a chemical plant and his mother was a receptionist for an excavation contractor. The difference in our upbringings was night and day, but I was confident I could charm his parents.
