Two days later Brianna found herself on the Concorde, streaking across the Atlantic. Her heart was in her throat. Had been since she’d closed her suitcase. She was going to New York. Just like that. She’d left her business in the hands of another. Capable hands, to be sure, but not her hands.

She’d agreed to go to another country, to cross an entire ocean with a man who wasn’t even kin, in a plane that was a great deal smaller than she’d imagined.

Surely she must have gone mad.

“Nervous?” He took her hand, brought it to his lips.

“Gray, I should never have done this. I don’t know what got into me.” Of course, she knew. He had. He had gotten into her in every possible way.

“Are you worried about your mother’s reaction?”

That had been hideous. The hard words, the accusations and predictions. But Brianna shook her head. She’d resigned herself to Maeve’s feelings on Gray, and their relationship.

“I just packed and left,” she murmured.

“Hardly.” He laughed at her. “You made at least a dozen lists, cooked enough meals for a month and stuck them in the freezer, cleaned the cottage from top to bottom—” He broke off because she didn’t merely look nervous. She looked terrified. “Honey, relax. there’s nothing to be scared of. New York isn’t nearly as bad as it’s made out to be.”

It wasn’t New York. Brianna turned her head, burying her face against his shoulder. It was Gray. She understood, if he didn’t, that there was no one else in the world she would have done this for, but family. She understood, if he didn’t, that he had become as intricate and vital a part of her life as her own flesh and blood.

“Tell me about Eloise again.”

He kept her hand in his, soothing. “She’s a little girl who lives at the Plaza with her Nanny, her dog Weenie, and her turtle Skipperdee.”

Brianna smiled, closed her eyes, and let him tell her the story.

There was a limo waiting for them at the airport. Thanks to Rogan and Maggie, Brianna had experienced a limo before and didn’t feel a complete dolt. In the plush backseat she found an elaborate bouquet of three dozen white roses and a chilled bottle of Dom Perignon.

“Grayson.” Overwhelmed, she buried her face in the blossoms.

“All you have to do is enjoy yourself.” He popped the cork on the champagne, let it fizz to the rim. “And I, your genial host, will show you all there is to see in the Big Apple.”

“Why do they call it that?”

“I haven’t got a clue.” He handed her a flute of wine, tapped his against it. “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever known.”

She flushed, fumbled, and pushed a hand through her travel-tousled hair. “I’m sure I’m looking my best.”

“No, you look best in your apron.” When she laughed, he leaned closer, nibbled on her ear. “In fact, I was wondering if you’d wear it for me sometime.”

“I wear it every day.”

“Uh-uh. I mean just the apron.”

Now color flooded her cheeks and she cast a distracted glance at the back of the driver’s head through the security glass. “Gray—”

“Okay, we’ll deal with my prurient fantasies later. What do you want to do first?”

“I—” She was still stuttering over the idea of standing in her kitchen in nothing but her apron.

“Shopping,” he decided. “After we check in, and I make a couple of calls, we’ll hit the streets.”

“I should buy some souvenirs. And there’s that toy store, that important one.”

“F.A.O. Schwartz.”

“Aye. They’d have something wonderful for Liam, wouldn’t they?”

“Absolutely. But I was thinking more about Fifth and Forty-Seventh.”

“What’s that?”

“I’ll take you.”

He barely gave her time to gawk, at the palace-like structure of the hotel itself, at the opulent lobby of the Plaza with its red carpeting and dazzling chandeliers, the spiffy uniforms of the staff, the magnificently ornate floral arrangements, and the glorious little display windows filled with stunning jewels.

They rode the elevator to the top, and she walked into the sumptuous suite so high up that it had a view of the lush green island of Central Park. He whirled her in, and by the time she’d freshened up from traveling, he was waiting impatiently to whirl her out again.

“Let’s walk. It’s the best way to see New York.” He took her purse, crossed the strap from her shoulder to her hip. “Carry it like this, with your hand on it. Are those shoes comfortable?”

“Yes.”

“Then you’re set.”

She was still trying to catch her breath when he pulled her out.

“It’s a great town in the spring,” he told her as they began to walk down Fifth.

“So many people.” She watched a woman dash by, legs flashing under short, shimmering silk. And another in baggy red leather with a trio of earrings dangling from her left lobe.

“You like people.”

She stared at a man marching along, barking orders into a cellular phone. “Yes.”

Gray shifted her out of the path of a zipping bike. “Me, too. Now and then.”

He pointed out things to her, promised her as much time as she wanted in the grand toy store, enjoyed watching her gawk at store windows and the wonderfully varied people who hurried along the streets.

“I went to Paris once,” she told him, smiling at a sidewalk vender who hawked hot dogs. “To see Maggie’s show there. I thought then I’d never in my life see anything as grand as that.” Laughing, she squeezed his hand hard. “But this is.”

She loved it. The constant and almost violent noise of traffic, the glittering offerings displayed in shop after shop, the people, self-absorbed and rushing away on their own business, and the towering buildings, spearing up everywhere and turning the streets into canyons.

“Here.”

Brianna stared at the building on the corner, each window dripping with jewels and gems. “Oh, what is it?”

“It’s a bazaar, darling.” Zooming on the excitement of just being there with her, he yanked open the door. “A carnival.”

The air inside was alive with voices. Shoppers bumped along the aisles, peering into display cases. She saw diamonds, ring after ring flashing through glass. Colored stones like rainbows, the seductive gleam of gold.