“Well, when you put it that way . . .” She shot him an irritated glare.

He returned it with a cool look. “I’d prefer to pay you for your time for my own private reasons, so you don’t need to feel soiled by my offer.”

“It’s still weird. You can’t hire a temp to go as your date to your own father’s wedding.”

He raised his eyebrows at her. “I need someone to stand by my side at a social event. You have a responsibility that requires financial support. I thought it was a logical solution to both of our needs, but I’ll accept your judgment that it’s weird.”

“You will?” Chloe had expected a much longer argument.

“For now.” He pulled out several pillows from behind him. “I’m going to sleep.”

She stood transfixed by the long line of his back, by the way his muscled arm lay along the covers over his hip and thigh, by the unconscious curve of his long fingers. The intimacy of it slithered in to weaken her resolve again. She felt like she might have a won a battle, but she was in danger of losing the war.

Chloe stood at the top of the grand staircase, surveying the hall below her. So far she hadn’t ventured off the path between the elevator on the second floor of the apartment and Trainor’s bedroom. The tug of curiosity made her set her foot on the next step down as she slid her palm over the satiny surface of the gleaming wooden banister. Her heels sank into the Oriental runner pinned to the stairs by brass rods running across the back of each step.

She imagined herself in a long, full ball gown spangled with glittering crystals, her arms encased in elbow-length white gloves, as she swept down the staircase, drawing all eyes to her. About halfway down, she added a tiara to her mental image, her head held high on her swanlike neck. As she reached the bottom, she started when the sound of applause echoed through the hallway.

Looking around, she saw Ed standing in a doorway, his face creased in an appreciative smile. “That was quite an entrance,” he said, walking forward.

“How did you know I—? Never mind,” Chloe said. “Mr. Trainor is asleep.”

Ed nodded. “May I offer you an afternoon snack?”

Her stomach rumbled as she remembered she’d eaten lunch early. “I think that’s a yes,” she said. She also hoped Ed might give her some insight into Trainor’s problems with his father. She had a feeling she was going to need help navigating that particular issue.

“Come with me,” he said.

They walked through what Chloe mentally labeled the showrooms—huge spaces meticulously decorated down to the last expensive paperweight—arriving in a more inviting room with a glass wall that looked out onto a terrace like the one upstairs. A round wooden table and four high-backed upholstered chairs stood on one side of the room. The other half held a big plush sectional sofa and large cushiony chairs arranged in front of a giant flat-screen television. The colors were sophisticated taupes and mossy greens, clearly chosen by some master decorator, but still the room felt lived-in, possibly because there were shelves of books that looked like they’d been read, not bought by the foot, and an array of magazines stacked on the embossed tray topping the padded leather coffee table. A sleek desk made of pale wood trimmed with aluminum jutted out into the room from one wall so the person occupying it could look directly outside.

She could picture Trainor with his laptop open, frowning out at the Manhattan skyline. Then she’d come up behind him and slide her palms onto his shoulders and down his chest, feeling the solidity of his muscles and the heat of his body. She would lean down and whisper something in his ear that would make him smile and close the laptop with a snap.

She pulled herself up short. She needed to stop these crazy daydreams before she started to think they might come true.

“Make yourself comfortable, Ms. Russell,” Ed said. “I’ll have the chef bring out some hors d’oeuvres. Would you like wine or another beverage?”

“Please call me Chloe, and just water, thank you. If I had wine, I’d be sleeping right along with Mr. Trainor.” That hadn’t come out right. She felt a blush scorching her cheeks. “I mean, not with him, but like him.”

“I understood,” Ed said, poker-faced, as he swept his fingers across one of those pad thingies like the one in Trainor’s bedroom. He spoke a couple of orders and turned back to her. “Is there anything else you need?”

She threw caution to the winds. “Information.”

Surprise sent his eyebrows up toward his hairline. He looked at her without speaking.

She strolled over to the couch and sat down, patting the cushion beside her. “Your boss is having an issue with the wedding invitation.”

“An issue?” Ed was being cagey, but he sat down.

She decided to use her only leverage to get the butler off balance so he’d talk. “He asked me to go with him to the wedding.” That much was true. She didn’t need to add that she’d refused the invitation.

Ed gave her his polite but silent attention.

“He told me that his father has never forgiven him for not going into the military. Something about a family sword.” That was to prove that Trainor had opened up to her. “But why haven’t they seen each other for two years?”

“You’ll have to ask Nath—Mr. Trainor that.”

Chloe gave him a pleading look. “I need some guidance here. I’m going into this situation blind, and I don’t want to embarrass Mr. Trainor.”