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  So yeah. Out.

  Footstep crunched behind me.

  Or just stand here like a shithead, staring at a locked door, until all options are taken out of your hands and Damien finds you anyway, you dummy.

  “Oh,” Damien said as he rounded the stairwell. “I thought you would have been gone already.”

  I stared at the chipping paint on the heavy steel. “Yeah,” I said. “Me, too.”

  “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  I couldn’t avoid it any longer. I turned and gave him a pained look. “Well,” I said, “funny story. The door’s locked.”

  He laughed, again that weird little laugh. It was starting to get on my nerves, partly because it sounded so forced but also because it upset me. I’d remembered everything about him in perfect clarity—why not his laugh, as well?

  “That is a funny story,” he said. Then he sobered when I didn’t laugh along with him. “Wait, are you serious?”

  I stamped my foot impatiently. “No, I’m totally lying because this reunion turned out to be so much fun I decided we should keep it going.”

  Goddammit. Just say what you’re thinking, why don’t you? Foot in mouth. Maybe it was for the best that I’d never made it through law school. I would have been an awful elder stateswoman.

  But Damien, being himself, just held up his hands. “All right, I’m sorry. Truce?”

  I had no idea how to respond. “Why are you apologizing?”

  “Because I’ve upset you somehow,” he replied.

  I deflated. “No,” I said after a second. “No, you haven’t upset me. I’m sorry, I’ve been an ass because I have issues and it has nothing to do with you.” Except for the fact that I still want to tear your clothes off and bang you into the ground after seven years, and until tonight I didn’t even think you knew my name. “But yeah.” I scratched my ear. “This door is locked.”

  He looked at the door, then looked back at me and grinned. “Okay,” he said. “Now please don’t take this the wrong way, because I believe you are a competent and intelligent woman, and that you wouldn’t lie to me, but sometimes there are things you just have to find out for yourself, right?”

  I couldn’t help but smile ruefully at that. “Yeah, all right.” I stepped back.

  He slipped past me and I inhaled deeply, smelling him, as he tried the knob. He smelled amazing.

  “Yup,” he said, turning back to me. “It’s locked.”

  “Yup,” I agreed.

  His eyes twinkled at me as he smiled. “So...any ideas on what to do now?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “A couple. That’s what I was trying to figure out when you snuck up on me.”

  “Let’s hear them.”

  I doubted he wanted to hear all my dumb ideas, but I shrugged again. “You got a phone on you?” I said. “That’d be easiest. Call someone to come and let us in.” This was the best option, because he was an international icon. He probably had a secret spy phone on him at all times. Why would he have a super secret spy phone on him? I wouldn’t know, but that was how I imagined the lives of the rich and famous to be. Quality assurance volunteers for James Bond.

  However, to my dismay, he got a funny look on his face. “Uh,” he said. “Don’t you have a phone?”

  Shit. That’s right. He’d seen me as I’d been pretending to check my messages. I ignored my flaring cheeks. “Battery’s dead.”

  “What? Weren’t you on it in the elevator?”

  Couldn’t you try to be stupid for ten seconds? I thought. That had always been the problem with him—he was smart, just like me, just like a lot of people. Actually he’d been smarter, going for the gold instead of whatever I’d been aiming for.

  At least the blush kept me warm. “No,” I said. “I was pretending to check my texts,” I said.

  He blinked. “Why?”

  “Because I didn’t want to talk to you, remember?”

  “Yeah. Why not?” Before I could answer he held up his hand. “You know what? It doesn’t matter right now. The problem is that I don’t have a phone, either.”

  My mouth dropped. “How can you not have a phone?” I asked him. “Don’t you have to be in touch with your... you know, with your manager or whatever at all times?”

  His shoulders hunched. “No,” he said. “Not really. I left it in my room. Told you. Drama. And the best way to get away from drama is to get away from all electronic devices.”

  My eyes narrowed and he looked away. Yeah. He’d said something about drama. I’d thought he’d been...well, making conversation.

  I shook my head. He was right, it didn’t matter. “Okay, that’s out. We can go try to find the other doorway,” I said.

  He brightened at that. “There’s another door?”

  “I think so.”

  “You think?”

  I almost threw my hands up in the air, but remembered at the last second that it was fucking freezing up here and I had to conserve warmth. I settled for stomping my foot instead. Stomping a high heel on a gravel rooftop is not something I would recommend, by the way. “Well, it stands to reason, right? This is a big building, there must be another doorway to the roof, right?”

  He glanced around. “I suppose,” he said, clearly dubious.

  I didn’t want to show him how much I shared his doubts, so I pivoted and started to march away. “Well, we aren’t going to find out by sticking around here,” I said. “Let’s just go see. I figure it’s probably this way,” I added as I rounded the door again and set out among the weird and arcane structures of the roof.

  The gravel crunched under my feet as I walked, and the wind whipped across my face, pulling bits of my hair free of its simple up-do and sending them stinging across my face. I scowled and pushed my head down into the gale, forcing myself to keep going even though I was shivering almost immediately. My teeth began to chatter and my arms shook as I forged ahead. Just gotta get to the other side of the building... I thought to myself. There had to be another door over there. Had to. Right?

  “Hey!”

  I barely heard Damien shout before the wind whipped his voice away, but I didn’t turn to see him. There was no point. I just wanted to get to the other side of the building as fast as humanly possible in high heels. Then a heavy hand fell on my shoulder and I had to stop.

  “What?” I said. I was too cold to put much force into the word and only turned my head slightly, but it didn’t matter. Damien left me speechless by pulling me back and wrapping his arms around me.

  My face connected with his chest, though my own folded arms kept us decently separated. Stupid arms.

  Immediately warmth suffused my body, and I closed my eyes as my teeth stopped chattering.

  I felt Damien’s voice rumble against my nose, sending flashes of fire straight through my brain, so brilliant that they nearly blocked out his words.

  “You aren’t dressed for walking around up here,” he informed me as his hands began to caress my back—okay, fine, rub my back, he was rubbing my back to warm me up, but hell, it felt like caresses—and his body curved around mine, protecting me from the cold. “You go sit, I’ll go find the door.”

  “B—but...” The feeble protest barely made it past my lips before I felt him shaking his head.

  “No buts, that place behind the door was warm, you need to go sit there.”

  I knew he was right, but now that I was in his arms, I just wanted to stay here. “I can make it,” I mumbled. “If I run...”

  “No.” Then before I could make a further fool of myself he was walking me backwards, around the corner and into the warmth of my smoking alcove. The heat from the vent was dry and harsh, but it was enough for him to unwrap me from his arms and I tried not to shiver in disappointment. I didn’t even have time to properly enjoy being pressed up against the warmth of his body before it was taken away...

  “Don’t look so sad,” Damien said. “I’ll be back in just a minute. Before you know it.” As though setting his fate in stone, he nodde
d with resolve, gave my arms one last rub, and then turned and began to run. He disappeared within the labyrinth of ancient pipes and fixtures before I could catch my breath.

  I stared after him before a smile spread across my face. Even if I hadn’t been able to enjoy it, that was Damien, all right. Dalton. Whatever. He was exactly as had remembered: sweet, chivalrous, thoughtful, talented, sexy... the whole package. If there was any man I wanted to be trapped with on a roof, it was him. Even though it was cold as hell and we were likely to die from exposure and lose all our fingers to frostbite, at least he would make me smile about it.

  Not knowing what else to do, I leaned back against the wall and sank to the ground, wrapping my arms around my freezing knees and jiggling to keep the warmth he’d so generously donated from escaping.

  It seemed like a quarter of an hour had passed before I heard the crunch of footsteps again, but it was probably more like five minutes. I knew immediately from the expression on his face that he hadn’t found anything.

  “Welp,” was all I could say, and he nodded ruefully.

  He came and sat down next to me, and this time he was completely unshy about how close we were. His hips bumped against mine and his shoulder—broad and muscular—loomed next to my face, an inviting pillow. My skin heated beneath my clothes, and I had the most ridiculous thought that there were plenty of ways to produce heat up here on the roof...

  “Any other ideas?” he asked me.

  I swallowed and tried to think straight. “I suppose...we could always bang and yell on the door and hope someone hears us?” I hazarded.

  “Do you think that will work?”

  “No,” I admitted. “But it might. The stairwells are pretty insulated from the rest of the building, but someone might hear us.”

  “You want to give it a shot?” he asked.

  No thanks, I’d rather cuddle with you on the roof for the next ten hours.

  ...is what I would have said, if I weren’t such a coward. I would have said it sarcastically, anyway, when really I totally and completely meant it. Yes, cuddle with me on the roof. Touch me. Hold me.

  I shot to my feet. “I’ll do it this time,” I said.

  “You’re going to be cold...” Damien began.

  I cut him off with a shake of my head. “Not if I’m throwing myself against the door and banging on it with all my might.”

  He gave me a resigned, sardonic grin. “Want to get rid of me that badly?” he said.

  I gave him a glare. “No,” I said. “It’s more like I don’t want to die of hypothermia on a Manhattan rooftop. How lame would that be?”

  “Pretty bad,” he said. “I’m contractually obligated to die of overdose or car crash.”

  Jeez, his sense of humor had gotten dark. I brushed the comment away, though it troubled me. “See?” I said. “No big deal. I’ll do it. We’ll take turns trying out our stupid theories and then when we’re all out of stupid theories we can die knowing we did our best.”

  He scratched his chin. “All right,” he said. “Sounds good.”

  I turned my heel and went back around to the steel door. When I got there I tried the knob again, just for good measure. Still locked.

  “You stupid door,” I said to it. “Why did you have to do this on tonight of all nights?”

  I gave it a good hard kick.

  Holy ouch.

  It clanged, and I felt better, even though my poor toes now felt as though they were halfway to broken. Ow, ow, ow. But it didn’t matter. Just a little of my frustration had made it out, and I felt...better.

  But not better enough.

  I started kicking the door, hard and methodically, and when, after minute, no one came to answer my summons, I started kicking harder and harder. My earlier frustration resurfaced, pouring out into my feet.

  Fuck you, door, I thought. Fuck you, and fuck this hotel, and fuck my job, and fuck my student loans that I have to have this job to pay for, and fuck the scholarships for drying up, and fuck money, and fuck the school system, and fuck capitalism, and fuck fuck fuck fuck you Damien Colton, fuck you Dalton Rooker, with your stupid charmed voice and charmed face and charmed body and charmed life, how fucking dare you come into my fucked up life and remind me how fucked up I am while you float along without any idea how lucky you are? You stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid STUPID FUCK—

  “Lauren!”

  I kept kicking the door, my feet screaming for mercy in their pointy-toed shoes.

  That’s not my name anymore, I thought viciously, sadly. That’s not who I am. I’m not prim little Lauren who doesn’t do anything fun because she’s got her whole life planned out, I’m dumb little Cassie who can’t keep her shit in order, who rents a terrible little apartment in a terrible part of town, who works a terrible job and has a terrible life because plans are for fools and I had such a fucking good plan, of course it failed and now I’m embarrassed to meet the man of my dreams now, it was supposed to be different, we were supposed to be equals, fucking god damn shit ass cunt bitch—

  “Stop!”

  Hands landed on me, yanking me around, and when Damien pulled me into his arms I was hot and sweating and all I wanted to do was kick that stupid fucking door some more. Because my life was a mess, because I had finally reconnected with the man I was convinced could be The One on a rooftop in Manhattan and I wasn’t ready for him. I wasn’t ready...

  I started to cry.

  ...and now you’re crying. Good job. That’s sexy.

  But Damien didn’t seem to care. His arms around me tightened, pulling me into his embrace, warming me, calming me.

  “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s okay. We’ll get out of here, it’s okay...”

  That’s not why I’m upset, I wanted to tell him, but I couldn’t, because I barely understood why I was upset myself. I should have been grasping that stupid moment for all it was worth. A girl named Cassie would have known how to go for it. But deep down inside I was still that A-student who kept hoping that her plan to conquer the world was good enough, that her will would take her to the top, where she would finally, finally be worthy of a man as amazing as the one holding her right now...

  Damien guided me back around the door to the smoking alcove. How many cigarettes had I smoked here during my tenure at the hotel? Too many. Under the gravel were hundreds of cigarette butts, a sad, listless commentary of my despair buried in a shallow grave.

  “Sorry,” I blubbered as we hunkered down again. “This is just...kind of stressful...”

  “Believe me, I know,” I heard him mutter. I thought about asking him what he meant by that, but I didn’t want to find out. Instead I struggled through the sobs and brought them under tenuous control.

  “It’s okay,” Damien kept saying as he stroked my hair and held me tight. “It’s okay.”

  It wasn’t okay, but goddamn if I didn’t want to pretend.

  With a huge sniffle, I turned my face to his chest and closed my eyes.

  He still smelled like beer and faded cologne, but under those scents was a sweet, soft, spicy fragrance, something warm that wrapped itself around me as I breathed in and out, forcing me to calm down, soothing me gently. At last I relaxed against him.

  His fingers ran through my hair, long, soft strokes, and I realized that it had come down from its up-do in my frenzy. I should be embarrassed about that, I thought, but I wasn’t. I was too tired.

  “You did have a bad day, didn’t you?” Damien asked after a while.

  I laughed into his chest. “Yes,” I said. A bad past seven years, actually. My life had been shit since I’d left high school, and that was amazing since while in high school I hadn’t liked my life very much then, either. “It’s okay,” I said after a minute. “This situation is actually an improvement.” You’re here.

  He chuckled in return. “Well, that’s good to hear,” he said. “I thought I was making it worse.”

  I shook my head against him. “No,” I said. “Sorry. It has nothing to do with yo
u.”

  “Good,” he said. “So you’re not holding some grudge against me?”

  I shook my head again. “No,” I said. “Why would I?”

  “I don’t know. I thought maybe I’d hurt you and I hadn’t remembered. Or I’d been a jerk to you without meaning to, or...you know. There’s a lot of ways for a guy to fuck up with the girl he’s had a crush on since high school.”

  Chapter Four

  I froze under his hands.

  Haha, universe, I thought. That’s a really funny joke. Now wake me up.

  I waited.

  I didn’t wake up.

  Should I pinch myself? I wondered.

  ...Yes. Yes, I should pinch myself. Everyone said that helped with dreams. But how was I going to pinch myself without him noticing? My arms had slipped around him, and one hand was now firmly sandwiched between his broad, warm back and the brick wall behind us.

  I compromised by driving the thumbnail of my other hand into the flesh of my palm at the base of my pinky.

  Ow.

  Okay, well... fine, I was awake. I was just hallucinating. That was fine. I was certain there were plenty of pipes full of gas and carbon dioxide up here; all it would take was one little leak for us to be high. High and dead.

  Yeah. High and dead. That made way more sense than Damien admitting he’d had a crush on me since high school, because only my dumb, oxygen-deprived brain would think that was possible. In fact, this was all some sort of hallucinatory fever dream. There was a leak in the hotel, obviously. Hundreds of casualties. A tragedy on a national scale. So sad. We’d be on every major news station...

  “Lau—I mean, Cassie?”

  I blinked. “Hmm?” I asked. Dying of gas poisoning was really comfortable, just like I’d always heard. It must have been one of those odorless gasses, because he still smelled good...

  “Did you hear me?”

  “I dunno,” I said.

  “Oh,” was all he said.

  I let myself relax against him further. Maybe I could make myself die faster, if I just let sleep overtake me. I couldn’t think of a better way to go than in Damien Colton’s arms.