“Hey,” he said. He squeezed my hands, and I looked back at him. “I’m teasing you. You’re allowed to ask me questions.” He glanced at the clock and frowned. “I need to get going. I’ll have my driver take you to your apartment after he drops me off at the office.”

“I live in Brooklyn,” I said. “It’s kind of far.”

“Then it’s a good thing I pay him to do nothing but drive around the city at my convenience,” he said, and smiled at me. “Put your coat on.”

I did as he said. He picked up his phone and had a brief conversation with someone who I assumed was his driver. He hung up as I was wrapping my scarf around my neck, and he guided me to the elevator with one hand on my lower back, a warm pressure.

We took the elevator down and down, not speaking. It wasn’t like it had been last night, when the sexual energy crackling between us had been impossible to ignore or resist. I was sleepy, and Carter was a comforting presence beside me, companionable in a way that I wouldn’t have thought possible. It was like we had known each other for years, and had just run out of things to say.

The doors opened. We went out into a parking garage, and Carter ushered me toward the black town car that was waiting for us.

“I expected a white stretch limousine,” I said, as he opened the door for me.

He laughed. “That would be tacky,” he said. “I’ve never done anything tacky in my life.”

I slid onto the leather seat, hiding my smile. My new goal in life was to make Carter Sutton do something extraordinarily, undeniably tacky.

I caught myself then, and shook my head at my own train of thought. None of my life goals could have anything to do with Carter. I might see him again, across the room at the club, but I wasn’t going to serve for him again, and I certainly wasn’t going to spend another night in his bed. As appealing as my fantasies were, they just weren’t realistic.

Carter slid into the car behind me and thumped on the divider separating the back seat from the driver. The car started moving, and he sat back and glanced at his watch. “Half an hour. That’s plenty of time.”

“How long does it take to get to your office?” I asked.

“Ten minutes, with no traffic. And Henry knows how to avoid the traffic.” He looked at me, his eyes darkening. “Now, what do you think we can do to occupy ourselves for the next ten minutes?”

By the time the car pulled out of the garage and merged onto the West Side Highway, we were making out in the back seat, one of his hands up my skirt and rubbing circles against my thigh. His mouth claimed mine, and I clung to him and let myself be taken.

He unbuttoned my blouse, revealing the lacy cups of my bra, and kissed down my neck to the exposed hollow of my throat, lingering over the bruise he’d made the night before. “Sorry about this,” he murmured, his lips brushing against the bruise.

“I don’t care,” I said, my hands buried in his hair, and I didn’t. I liked that he’d left a mark on me, some solid proof of what had happened. This way, I wouldn’t have to wonder if I’d imagined it.

The ride passed too quickly. By the time the car slowed to a stop, my hair had fallen loose from its knot, and Carter had sucked two throbbing circles on the curve of my breast that I thought would probably bruise. I was slick between my legs, and I wanted him.

There was no time. He pulled away from me and said, “We’re here. I’m sorry I can’t linger.” He tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear. “I’ll be at the club on Sunday night,” he said. “Will you be there?”

“Yes,” I said, because I was an idiot, because I couldn’t tell him no. “I’ll be there.”

“Good,” he said, giving me the sort of look that made my insides turn to liquid gold. And then he pushed open the door and got out of the car and was gone.

I exhaled noisily in the sudden silence of the car. God, I was an idiot.

The panel dividing the car in two slid open, and I was faced with the driver, who had turned around in his seat and was watching me with a poker face. “Your address, miss?” he asked me, voice perfectly neutral. He probably saw this all the time—the mornings after of Carter’s exploits.

I gave him my address, and he slid the panel shut again without comment. The car started moving.

I leaned my head against the back of the seat and closed my eyes.

I didn’t know what to do. Why had I told Carter that I would be at the club? I had as much as agreed to waitress for him again, and I didn’t want to. That wasn’t true; I wanted to, but it was a terrible idea. I wanted to be around him all the time, but it was impossible. He was, right now, taking the elevator up to his office—I imagined that it was probably at the top of some very tall building, with floor-to-ceiling windows and a panoramic view—to have a casual, Saturday morning phone chat with the President. And I was on my way home to shower, stuff my face with some breakfast, and head to my job as an overpaid purveyor of alcoholic beverages.

I didn’t believe in fairy tales; I never had. They were nice to read, as a child—to imagine that a handsome prince would swoop in from who-knows-where and rescue you from the bitter dissolution of your parents’ marriage, your father’s alcoholism, and your disapproving relatives. But then you got older, and you learned that nothing good happened to you unless you fought for it tooth and nail. I was still fighting. Carter was no Prince Charming. I would rescue myself.

I leaned my head against the window and watched lower Manhattan pass by as we headed for the Battery Tunnel. I would have to tell Carter that we couldn’t spend any more time together. There was no point in letting myself get attached to him. Sooner or later, he would realize that I couldn’t offer him what he needed. It was better to make a clean break now, when we were still relative strangers.

I didn’t know anything about men, or about sex, and the fact that Carter was a rich, handsome, charismatic man only made things that much worse. I should have experimented with someone harmless when I had the chance—like that guy at my first job, who’d been so infatuated with me. I couldn’t even remember his name anymore. He would have been perfect: I could have gotten all of this out of the way, the nerves, the butterflies, the awkwardness. The terror.

Losing your virginity to a billionaire probably wasn’t the way to go.