“I love the city—it’s the center of my heart—but I didn’t want to return the way I did. Finn loves his hometown; he never wants to leave. Oliver is opening a store in San Diego. I envy how happy they are being exactly where they want to be.”

Too many questions perch on my tongue, fighting to come out. Finally, I ask the same one I asked last night: “Then why did you come back here?”

He watches me, eyes assessing. Finally he says only, “I suppose I felt obligated.”

I assume he’s talking about the obligation of the job he would have been insane to turn down. I can tell even if he hates it that it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. “Where would you rather be?”

His tongue slips out, wets his lips. “I would at least like to have the option to follow my wife when she leaves.”

My heart stutters. I decide to skip over sloth and wrath, far more interested in pursuing this subject. “You’re married?”

He nods, but his expression isn’t playful. Not even a little. “Yes, I’m married.”

“And where is your wife right now while I’m sitting on your naked lap, wearing this tiny scrap of lingerie?”

“She’s not here,” he whispers conspiratorially.

“Do you make a habit of this?” I ask, wearing a teasing smile. I want to lift the serious cloud that’s descending. “Letting in women while your wife is gone? It’s good you brought her up, since infidelity is next on my list.”

His face drops and oh shit. I’ve hit a nerve. I close my eyes, remembering what he told me about his father, how he was never faithful to Ansel’s mother, how the parade of women through the house was finally enough to drive his mother to the States when Ansel was only a teenager.

I start to apologize but his words come out faster than mine. “I have been unfaithful.”

An enormous black hole opens up inside me, swallowing my organs in the most painful order: lungs, then heart, and then, when I’m sure I’m suffocating, my stomach drops out.

“Never to my wife,” he says slowly and after a long pause, apparently oblivious to my panic. I close my eyes, dizzy with relief. Still, my heart feels like it returns to my body slightly withered, beating weakly at the realization that he’s more like his father than his mother when it comes to cheating. “I’m trying to do better this time.”

It’s several long seconds before I can speak, but when I do, my words come out reedy, a little breathless. “Well, this certainly tilts the negotiation in my favor.”

“I’m sure it does,” he whispers.

My voice wobbles a little. “I’ll need the details, of course.”

Finally, a tiny, unsure smile pulls at one corner of his mouth. “Of course.” He leans his head back against the couch, watching me with wary eyes. “I met a woman from here,” he says, adding, “or, rather, near here. From Orleans.” He takes a small break, closing his eyes. I can see the way his pulse is fluttering in his throat. Even though his explanation is so factual, so detached, he seems amped up.

Is it just that I’m wearing lingerie and he’s completely naked? Or is he worried about my reaction?

I press a hand to his chest. “Tell me,” I whisper, anxiety sending a tight thrill through my veins. “I want to know

everything.” I do, and I don’t.

Beneath my palm, he relaxes. “I was in law school, and we stayed together even at a distance; she studied fashion here.” He pulls back and watches me before saying, “I can be impulsive with my emotions, I know. After the first couple of months . . . I knew we were more friends than lovers. But I was convinced it would be passionate again when I moved back here. I assumed it was the distance that made it not so exciting for me.” Each sentence is carefully composed. “I was lonely and . . . two times I shared my bed. Minuit still does not know.”

Minuit . . . I search my limited vocabulary, remembering after a beat that it means “midnight.” I imagine a raved-haired beauty, her hands sliding over his chest the way mine do now, her ass pressed to his thighs the way mine is now. I imagine his cock, hard for her the way it is for me now.

I wonder whether I only temporarily have the luxury of his passion before it cools. I want to stab my jealousy with a sharp tool.

“I felt obligated,” he repeats, and finally he looks at me again. “She waited for me, so I returned. I took this job I hate, but I was wrong. We weren’t happy, even when I was back here.”

“How long were you with her?”

He sighs. “Too long.”

He’s been back here nearly a year, and finished law school just before he came back. Too long doesn’t tell me very much.

But it’s time to return to something better than this. The subject is heavy, a weighted lure in my mind, pulling my thoughts under the clear surface of our game to something dreary and somber. It’s not who we are.

We’re married for the summer. Summer marriages don’t get dragged down in heavy stuff. Besides, I’m wearing a devil costume and he’s naked, for crying out loud. How seriously can we really take ourselves right now?

I pretend to make a note of something on the clipboard and then look back up at him. “I think I have all the information I need.”

He relaxes in pieces: his legs beneath me first, then abdomen, shoulders, and finally his expression. I feel something unknot in me when he grins. “So it’s all taken care of, then?”

I snap my fingers, and nod. “I can’t make you come out of it with a promotion, but I don’t think you wanted that anyway.”

“Not if it means I have to stay on much longer,” he agrees with a laugh.

“Tomorrow Capitaux will drop the case and everyone will know it’s because you found the document that clears Regal Biologiques of all wrongdoing.”

He exhales dramatically, wiping his brow. “You’ve saved me.”

“So it’s my turn, then,” I remind him. “And time to claim my payment.” I lean in to suck on his neck. “Hmm, would you like to feel my hand or—”

“Your mouth,” he interrupts.

With an evil smile, I move back, shaking my head. “That wasn’t going to be one of the options.”

He huffs out an impatient breath. Every muscle grows tight and urgent beneath my roaming hands once more and I tease him more by scratching my short nails down his chest.

“Then tell me what my choices are,” he growls.

“My hand, or your hand,” I say and press my fingers to his lips to keep him from answering too quickly again. “If you choose my hand, that’s all you’ll get, and you’ll remain tied up. If you choose your hand, of course I’ll untie you . . . but you can also watch me use my hand on myself.”

His eyes widen as if he’s not entirely sure who I am all of a sudden. And, to be honest, I’m not sure, either. I’ve never done this in front of someone before, but the words just bubbled up and out of me.

And I’m positive I know what he’s going to choose.

He leans forward, kisses me once sweetly before answering. “I use my hand, you use yours.”

I’m not sure whether I’m relieved or nervous as I reach behind him and pull his hands free of the tie around his wrists. Faster than I expected, he grabs me by the hips and jerks me forward, sliding the wet fabric of my underwear over his cock, grinding up into me with a low groan. Without thinking, I move with him, rocking on top and feeling the delicious press of the hard line of him to my clit. I hadn’t realized how turned on I’d been being so close to him for so long, just listening to him, playing with him, but I can tell I’m soaked.

And I want him. I want the thick slide of him into me, the way my body is so full of his it’s the only thing I can imagine ever feeling again. I want to hear his voice, encouraging and urgent in my ear, falling away into a broken mix of English and French, and—finally—the hoarse, unintelligible sounds of his pleasure.