He looked at me as if he wanted to say something more, as if he wanted to taste me one last time. Instead, he pushed the strap of my dress back onto my shoulder and let his fingers linger against my skin for a few seconds before shutting the door.

“Where to, Miss?” The driver looked at me through the rearview mirror.

“Brooklyn,” I said. “16 Hampton Street.”

He gave me a slightly confused look, but he sped off toward the borough.

I turned my head toward the window, noticing Jake was no longer there.

As the car rolled over the city’s potholes, my bare ass slid across the seat—reminding me that he’d never returned my panties. Leaning back against the headrest, I shut my eyes as my nipples hardened, as I thought about the way he’d both harshly and gently bit them in turn. I knew it’d be a very long time before I met another man who could ever have such an effect on me, a long time before someone else could ever live up to that level of sex.

I caught the time on the car’s dashboard and realized I never told Meredith that I was leaving the party. I pulled out my phone and saw she’d called me four times, sent two “Where the hell are you?” texts, and left a voicemail, so I sent her a response.

Gillian: You owe me a hundred dollars.

Gillian: 7 stars.

GATE A5

JAKE

New York (JFK)—> Dubai (DXB)

“You sure you want to completely cancel your housekeeping services, Mr. Weston?” The manager sounded confused. “Even after we’ve both concluded that nothing strange has been happening?”

“Absolutely.” I hung up and poured myself a shot of bourbon, the fourth one I’d had since escorting Gillian out of the building. Tossing it back, I gritted my teeth as the liquor burned its way down my throat.

I was still trying to figure out what the hell had happened tonight—how the hell a simple one-night stand had turned into an encounter with a modern day Goldilocks. The second she left, I’d walked through every room of my apartment again, trying to see how the hell I’d missed all the signs. How the hell I’d blamed everything on a team of people instead of one.

The first time I saw my Coke tins overturned months ago, I assumed it was me who’d done it in a rare bout of fidgeting. But when I returned from an international flight a week later, I noticed that the tins had been arranged into the shapes of small pyramids, something I would never have the patience to do.

I even installed a small-interior system right after that—a series of motion sensors that were supposed to send notices to my phone if someone ever entered when I was away, but all I ever saw was a quiet, still apartment. It wasn’t until hours ago that I realized that the “intruder” had managed to rig my system to run on a loop.

Just this morning, I’d found white cotton slippers tucked under my sink, a black and lace thong entangled on the rung of my dryer, and a pink coffee mug hidden at the rear of my cabinet. The second I’d spotted that terribly hidden bottle of shampoo in my bathroom, I vowed to bring the manager up next week to see this shit for himself.

Until tonight, that is.

After seeing Gillian, fucking her and grabbing fistfuls of her hair while I held her against my bookcase, that strawberry scent that often pervaded my space made perfect sense.

It was the one and only thing that lingered, no matter how well the staff attempted to clean. Airy and intoxicating, it clung to all of my pillows and sheets, so deeply ingrained in the fabric that I smelled hints of it for weeks.

I wasn’t sure whether to be relieved that the intruder wasn’t an annoying neighbor who preferred my views of the city over her own, or pissed that it was a sexy-ass employee who thought she was doing something worthy of my gratitude.

I couldn’t help but picture her perfect, pink lips pressed into an angry line for a “Thank you,” couldn’t help but see the way her deep, green eyes gazed into mine when we damn near fucked inside the rooftop party’s elevator.

The way she screamed when I had her pinned against the floor...

Before I could call the housekeeping manager and tell him that I wanted to change my mind about canceling, my automated voicemail system made a loud beeping sound.

“Welcome home,” it said. “You have three new messages. Please say the password.”

“No.”

“Please repeat the password.”

“I said no.”

“I’m sorry. That’s not the password. Please repeat the password.”

Jesus... “One. Eight. Seven. Four.”

“Password accepted. Message one.” There was a beep and a long moment of silence.

“Good evening, Mr. Weston.” It was a female voice. “This is Alyssa Hart in Elite’s Human Resources Department. I was calling to discuss the salary form you submitted. I’m not sure if you know the actual salary maximum for a senior captain, but you’re going to have to redraft this and ask for something a lot more reasonable, if you want to continue—”

“Next,” I said, and the automated message came to an abrupt halt.

“Next message. Playing now.”

“Jake...” A deep male voice. “Jake, why do I have to hire a private investigator just to get your home number? And why do you keep changing it every month while continuing to ignore my calls to your cell phone? We’ve been trying to reach out to you for years. Years, Jake. Please let us—”

“Next.” I clenched my jaw.

“Final new message. Playing now.”

“Hello, this is Charlotte.” It was a throaty, female voice. “I’m not sure if I have the right number or not, but I’m simply calling to see if this is Blanket Manufacturing? I’d like someone to call me back so I can place an order, if so.”

I sighed and made a mental note to change my number once again at the end of the month.

“No more new messages,” the system said proudly. “Would you like to hear them again?”

“No.”

“Okay. I will play them again. Message one.”

“Good evening, Mr. Weston. This is Alyssa Hart in Elite’s Human Resources Department.”

I groaned and walked into my library, shutting the door. I picked up the books that fell while Gillian was here and stuffed her tattered lace panties into my pocket.

I pushed the desk away from the wall and unlocked a hidden panel, waiting for the walls to slide open.

As always, they took several minutes to slide apart—a safety precaution to convince a stranger that this was simply a wall and nothing more. When they finally made a beeping sound and gave way, I unlocked another panel that revealed all the things I hardly ever wanted to face.

On the top shelf stood every model plane I’d ever built as a child. From the simple five piece wooden types to the intricate, three-hundred-piece metal constructions. Dated postcards from countless countries sat untouched in a plethora of bound notebooks, and trinkets from nearly every airport gift-shop sat in the order that they’d been received.

I picked up the navy blue photo album from the bottom shelf and flipped through the first few pages. I wanted to believe that enough time had passed that I would feel nothing, but the pain and betrayal still cut deep, no matter how happy the memories. There I was at four years old, playing in an open field with a collection of paper planes. Me and my older brother at fifteen, playfully arguing about whose turn it was to drive our father’s Cadillac. My mother smiling against the sunset for no reason, and my father—