“That you hadn’t made gazillions of dollars so you still lived in a place like this?” Allie asked. “That you’d never gotten a Julian Best book published, much less sold millions of copies and made movies out of them?”

“When you put it like that—” He shook his head. “I don’t know what I wish.”

“You wish for what we all do. All the good and none of the bad.” Allie pulled her keys out and shoved one into the scratched-up lock.

Gavin pushed open the door, and the reek of someone’s dinner cooked hours earlier smacked her in the nose. “Seriously, would you really want to live here again?” she asked.

“It all depends on whom you’re living with,” he said. “It takes people to make a home.”

The loneliness in his voice made Allie’s heart twist. “People can just as easily mess up a home, too.”

“That’s my line, not yours.” He stutter-stepped and banged into the wall.

She looked up the long, uneven staircase. “Are you going to be able to get up the stairs?”

He levered himself away from the wall, but she saw the muscle in his jaw clench. “I just wasn’t paying attention.” He gave her a wicked look. “All the physical activity has burned away the effects of the alcohol.”

“I’ll walk beside you to help you balance,” she said, stepping close to him.

He waved her away with an irritated gesture. “If I fall, I don’t want to have your broken neck on my conscience. Go ahead.”

With reluctance, she started up the linoleum-covered stairs, listening for his footsteps behind her. They sounded steady and even, so she kept trudging upward. When they reached her landing, Allie opened the door and called the cat’s name. Pie strolled up, blinking her golden eyes.

Gavin closed the door behind them. “I thought only dogs came when called.”

Allie picked up the cat and rubbed her cheek against Pie’s soft fur. “She’s a very sociable little cat. That’s why I don’t like to leave her alone too long. Troy was usually at home during the day, and I was home in the evening, so Pie always had a lap to sit on.”

“Troy.” Gavin’s tone had an edge to it. “I keep forgetting about him.”

“I wish I could.” Allie went into the kitchen and pulled two bottles of water out of the refrigerator. “No, I don’t mean that. He got me here to the big city.”

Gavin had followed her and took the bottle of water she offered, twisting off the cap and taking several long gulps. She enjoyed watching the muscles in his throat move under the skin as he swallowed.

He lowered the bottle. “So, no regrets?”

She took a sip of water. “Remember when you said that you want who I am? The way I see it, I wouldn’t be this person if I hadn’t gone through all the experiences I have. They’ve worked on the raw material of me and turned it into this particular Allie Nichols.”

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?” Gavin stared over her head. “But sometimes it does kill you.”

Allie set the water on the counter and put her hands on either side of his face to tilt it down to meet her gaze. “You aren’t dead by a long shot.”

“I suppose not. The dead feel no pain.”

“What you need is to have Pie sit on your lap and purr. It always makes me feel better.”

“I was thinking more along the lines of having you sit on my lap.” He ran the back of his fingers down her cheek before lowering his mouth to hers. His lips were cold from the water, but the inside of his mouth was hot when he invited her tongue to enter. That sent a spiral of heat twisting down between her thighs.

He lifted his head to look down at her from under half-closed eyelids. “When I’m inside you, I feel unquestionably alive.”

Afterward Gavin tried to sleep, but when he closed his eyes, Hugh’s face materialized, his blazing blue gaze clouded with worry as he told Gavin the bad news. Allie was right: he had felt it as a physical blow when Hugh told him.

Now he was pissed off.

He had never missed a deadline before in his entire writing career. He’d allowed the scriptwriters to change the ending of the last movie against his better judgment. He’d donned a tuxedo in both snow and sweltering heat to support every damned movie’s premiere in whatever city they’d sent him to. He’d smiled through vapid three-minute interviews on every mindless talk show the PR team had booked him on. And after all that, they had given up on him.

Anger coursed through him, making him practically vibrate. He would blow their tiny Hollywood minds with the next Julian Best book. It would be so far beyond their expectations, they wouldn’t know how to handle it.

He decided to heighten the emotion beyond even what he and Allie had discussed. Maybe he would kill off Samantha Dubois. He could do it right at the beginning of the book to grab the readers by the throat.

He smiled an evil smile as he imagined Irene’s reaction. He felt the smile turning into a chuckle, and it hit him.

The blackness was gone. The woman curled in his arms had banished it.

He looked down at her profile, at the creamy shoulder peeking out from under the comforter, at the spill of red hair across his chest and pillow. Yes, she had given him comfort with her body, but that wasn’t what had pulled him back from the abyss.

It was the caring that sent her out into the sleety February night when he was hurting. The determination that wouldn’t let the dragons guarding the Bellwether Club stop her from reaching out to him. It was the loyalty that kept her from leaving him, no matter how many insults he flung at her.

For a long moment, he wrapped himself in the security of Allie’s presence, letting her permeate every cell of his body, every dark corner of his mind and heart. It was like floating in the sun-warmed azure water of the Caribbean Sea, the gentle waves cradling him. He basked in the sense of buoyancy, of being held safe, a hand always there when he reached out.

Allie shifted, murmuring something unintelligible in her sleep before settling back against his side.

Fear sliced through him like a razor-edged knife. No other woman had ever stayed, so why did he think she would be different? What could he hold her with? Charm was not his long suit, so that wouldn’t work.

He controlled Julian Best, her fictional hero. But without Allie, Julian was just a cardboard cutout that Gavin could no longer bring to life.