I lick my lips. “Now you’re breaking the rules.”

“Oh, I don’t think so.” He lifts his hands. “No touching. No demands. You’re not mine yet.” He glances at his watch. “Not for a few more hours,” he adds, and I have to stand up. My legs are too weak, my body too tingly, to let me remain squatting in the sand.

“Totally free for now,” I agree, but I’m thinking about those hours. About what will happen when they pass.

“So I have no authority now,” he says, his eyes roaming over my body. “I can’t tell you to touch yourself. I can’t insist that you lie naked in the surf and slide your fingers over your cunt. I can’t take you back to the pool and ease you in, then suck on your nipples while the water washes the sand from your body. I can’t slide my fingers inside you and feel how slick you are, how much you want me.”

His eyes are locked on mine, and my breathing has become shallow. My skin glistens with sweat, and not from the heat of the sun. I’m standing at least three feet from him, but it’s as if he’s right there. As if we’re connected. As if his hands are moving over my body in time with his words. And, dammit, I do want to touch myself. It takes all my willpower to keep my hands at my sides. Even then, my thumb is brushing the outside of my thigh, the motion slow and sensual. It’s all I have, and I’m clinging to it even as I cling to his words.

“I can’t take you into the hot tub and turn you around so that I can fuck you from behind while the water jet strokes your clit. I can’t clutch your breasts and fuck you harder while you come for me, exploding all around me. And I can’t make love to you on a balcony under the stars.”

Make love …

My heart flutters.

“I can’t, Nikki,” he continues, “because you’re not mine yet. But I can soon,” he says. “Soon I can do whatever I want with you. I hope you’re ready.”

I swallow. I hope I am, too. Dear God, I hope I am.

When we exit the plane in Santa Monica, there are two cars waiting. Damien’s sleek red expensive car with the unpronounceable name and a Lincoln Town Car. A short man in a cap stands by the Town Car. He inclines his head when I glance at him.

Damien presses his palm to the small of my back and steers me toward the man. “This is Edward, one of my drivers. He’ll be taking you home.”

“You’re going back to your office?”

“I’m so sorry to cut our afternoon short, but it can’t be avoided.”

“No, no. Obviously you have work to do. It’s just that my car is in the parking garage. Why don’t I ride back with you?”

He presses a kiss to my forehead as Edward opens the Town Car door for me. “I would love the company, but your car is at your apartment.”

It takes me a second to process. “What? How did it get there?”

“I arranged it.”

“You arranged it,” I repeat. I’m not angry so much as baffled. No, actually, I’m angry. I feel the tension boiling up inside me. “You just did that without asking?”

He looks perplexed. “I thought you’d appreciate it.”

“That’s micromanaging my life and putting your sticky fingers all over my property.” I can hear my voice rising and force myself to tamp it down.

“I think you’re overreacting.”

Am I? I think about my mother and how much her fingers in every aspect of my life irritated me. Am I projecting my issues with my mother onto Damien? Or has he actually crossed some line? I’m not sure, and it bugs me that Elizabeth Fairchild is still haunting me from fifteen hundred miles away.

I run my fingers through my hair. “Sorry,” I finally say. I slide into the back of the Town Car and look back out at him. “You’re probably right. Just ask first next time, okay?”

“I was trying to help,” he says, another nonanswer, but he’s closing the door and that’s that.

Well, damn.

Edward climbs into the driver’s seat and takes off toward my apartment. But the truth is, I’m not ready to go home yet. “You can just drop me on the Promenade,” I say, referring to the shopping street in Santa Monica. “I’ll either catch a taxi home or have my roommate pick me up.”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Fairchild,” he says, guiding the car onto the entrance ramp to the 10. “My instructions are to take you straight home.”

Oh, for Pete’s sake!

“Instructions?” I echo. “Don’t I get a say?”

Edward looks up, and I meet his eyes in the rearview mirror. The answer is clear: No.

Dammit.

I pull out my cell phone and call Damien.

“Hey, baby.” His voice is low and sensual and now I’m even more angry—this time at myself for letting the caress of his voice shift me from my mission.

I rally and speak very firmly and clearly. “Would you please tell Edward that he doesn’t have to take me straight home? He seems to be under the impression that you were giving orders and not just telling him a destination.”

The pause before he answers is ominous. “You need to be ready at six. It’s already past two. You need to rest.”

“What the fuck?” I snap. “Are you my mother?”

“It’s been a long day, baby. You’re tired.”

“The hell I am.” Except he’s right. I am. Not that I’m about to admit it to him.

“No lying,” he says. “Remember.”

“Fine,” I say sharply. “I am tired. I’m also pissed. See you tonight, Mr. Stark.” I click off without waiting for an answer, then flop back in my seat and cross my arms over my chest. I close my eyes just for a second, but when I open them again, it’s because Edward has pulled up in front of my apartment. I must have been asleep for almost an hour.

I exhale, bemused and frustrated.

Edward opens the door for me, reminds me to be ready at six, and then gets back behind the wheel. He doesn’t drive off, though, and I realize he’s waiting for me to safely make it to my door. I stomp up the stairs, jam my key in the lock, and shove the door open—and am immediately confronted by the sight of a high-quality tote bag with Third Street Promenade silk-screened on the side, along with the logo for a local street fair. I know, of course, who sent it, but I can’t imagine how he pulled it together so fast.

“It just came for you,” a male voice says, and in the split second before I recognize that it’s Ollie, I jump. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” He gets up from the armchair tucked in the far corner of the living room and comes toward me. I notice he’s barefoot. He’s left a magazine in the chair—Elle. Apparently he’s been reduced to reading my and Jamie’s coffee table fare.

“Just came?” I say.

“About five minutes ago. I put it on the table for you. It doesn’t weigh a thing.”

I’ve crossed to the table while he was talking, and I immediately see why it’s so light. It’s filled with nothing but crumpled tissue paper. On top is an envelope. I break the seal and pull out a card with words written in ornate calligraphy: I am jealous of your time away from me. I owe you a shopping trip. D.S.