“I said, come kiss me. I’m the one who should be nibbling on that lip.”

I take one step forward, Matt’s eyes darkening as he watches me.

There’s a knock on the door. Followed by the sound of a room key. I quickly take back the one step forward I took.

Carlisle and Hessler join us.

Carlisle dives straight into business after a brief, “How’s our American prince today?” and a wink in my direction. Matt heads into the bedroom, to change I suppose.

“I should go.”

Matt steps out in slacks, buttoning up a blue shirt. “No. I’ll take you home.”

“No, it’s okay. I’m meeting a friend actually for a croissant and a catch-up—it’s three blocks away. And her birthday is coming up; I promised to make it. I’ll be home later. Call if you need me.”

I hurry outside, then check the time and head to my favorite coffee bar near Women of the World. I wait there for my friend Larissa. She arrives ten minutes late, and all that time, I’m sort of mad at myself for physically responding to Matt as hard as I do.

I’ve tried so hard to be focused on work and my career. Why do I need to be falling for the man I work for?

I exhale when I spot Larissa hurrying across the restaurant, trying to push America’s Prince off my mind.

We end up doing coffee, then shopping, and then drinks.

“So what’s it like working for that god?” she asks me, lowering her voice as we sit at the bar of one of our favorite cafés. “No. Really. Tell me—I’m dying to know.”

“It’s exhausting,” I say.

Please, god, don’t let my expression give anything away.

That I want him.

That, miraculously, he wants me.

That we’ve slept together.

That I still don’t want it to end and I’m pretty sure because of the proprietary way he looked at me at his hotel room, neither does he.

As I sit there lying through my damn teeth, I realize that for the first time in my life, I’m doing something that I shouldn’t.

I realize how uncomfortable it is to have a secret. To want to scream something to the world but at the same time, want nothing more than to protect it. Have the world never, ever touch any part of this precious secret of yours.

For nobody to ever know your weakness has a name, and a heartbeat, and a very famous face.

“I would kill for just one day in that campaign, Charlotte. I mean, Matt Hammy! Is he as gorgeous in person as they say he is?”

“More so,” I groan, rolling my eyes.

I divert the attention to her new boyfriend, and thankfully, that’s the end of my Matt Hamilton conversation.

If only it were that easy to steer him out of my every thought.

By the time I reach my apartment that night, I’ve had too many coffees mixed with alcohol. The exhaustion is weighing on me and there’s a pain in my temples when I step off the elevator to my floor. A figure sits by my door, a large figure. In a blue cap.

Matt.

Scrumptious.

Hamilton.

“I needed to get away. Mind if I crash here for the night?” A devilish light glimmers in his eyes, and his lips tug at the corners when he notices the shock on my face.

Inside, I’m babbling and stumbling.

How did he shake off the press?

I’m pretty sure Wilson must have kept the coast clear for him to escape unnoted, but . . . oh my god, Matt is at my apartment door.

My mother would die that he’s at my “shitty” little apartment.

I open my door with shaking hands, letting him inside, worrying she might be right. He’s looking around with a frown, and suddenly my worries multiply, and I grab his hand and try to distract him.

“I have a big bed. Come on,” I whisper.

“You really shouldn’t live here all alone,” he says, frowning deeply at me.

I smile and tug him toward my room—swaying my hips until that catches his attention.

He follows quietly, his eyes taking me in now, instead of my apartment.

I kick off my shoes and lie down on my bed, wondering why he’s not at The Jefferson Hotel with a do not disturb sign on the door. Why he’s here. I catch him glance around my bedroom and at my window, a look of protectiveness in his eyes, but when his eyes return to me and he sees me here—lying in my bed, sort of panting, waiting—his gaze shifts. It becomes partly tender, partly hot, and that alone gives me a hint of why he’s here.

Plus knowing his staff never really lets him rest, I suspect the moments with me are his only rest times—the only times he truly disconnects.

“Was your place really swarmed tonight again?” I ask.

“Yeah, but it always is.”

He speaks casually.

He kicks off his shoes, tosses his cap aside, and stretches out on the bed next to me, both of us on our sides, up on one elbow, facing each other. He smiles and reaches out to run his index finger down my cheek. “Couldn’t stay away. Wanted to see if you got safely home.”

“Or just wanted to see me,” I whisper.

“Yes.”

Suddenly, he shifts over me, and I’m on my back, with Matt’s big body on top of mine.

He’s stroking his hand up my arm, his thumb caressing my skin, his weight the best feeling in the world next to . . . sex with him.

“Do you really want to spend the night here?” I ask, breathless, rubbing my toes along the sides of his bare feet. “I’m sure your bed is so much more comfortable. Or the one at the hotel. I’m babbling, aren’t I? I just . . .”

He’s nodding slowly, looking at me.

“It’s surprising to see you here,” I finally admit.

“A good surprise?”

It takes me a while to admit it, but I do. Nodding. “A good surprise.”

“Are you done?” he asks, curling his hand beneath my hair to lift my head up a few inches. His eyes are impossibly dark as I continue to nod.

I swallow, then smile and raise my head a little higher. I don’t have to lift it too far. Matt closes the distance between his lips and mine, and I’m being kissed for the first time on my own bed. Little as it is.

“We should get you a safer neighborhood, and a better apartment,” he says, nibbling my jaw.

“No,” I say, canting my head back to give him access.

“Why?” He eases back.

“Because there’s no we here. I’m not your kept woman.”