Something knots in my stomach at that. “And do you want him to wait for you?”

“I shouldn’t, but I do.”

“Then I guess I only have one more question. Why are you here with me?”

She flicks her gaze to mine. “Because I wanted to say yes, and you remind me why I need to say no.”

Oh, damn. Fuck, fuck, damn.

I’m not even sure what she means by that, but I do know it should have me running in the opposite direction. Instead, I find myself gathering her against me and whispering, “Come to LA with me.”

This sweet virgin from Nowhere, Indiana, gave me one night, and now she owns me.

30. Hanna

OPULENT. THAT’S the word for Nate’s house. Marble floors, crystal chandeliers, soaring ceilings, walls decorated with paintings that would probably send Maggie into fits of envy.

I love looking at it, gawking at all the glitz, yet I can’t imagine living here. It would be like living in a museum. I’d rather have my tiny little rental house in New Hope with Lizzy.

“What do you think?” he asks me as we end our tour.

“It’s gorgeous. I’ve never seen anything like it.” By New Hope standards, my family is “rich.” But there’s New Hope rich, and there’s Hollywood Hills rich.

Nate sighs. “Yeah. I guess it is.”

“You don’t like it?” A strange question to ask a man about his own house.

He shrugs. “It’s a house.” Then he pulls me against his chest and crushes his mouth to mine in a kiss that has me forgetting my name. His hands find their way to my h*ps and ass.

“Well, isn’t this a cute picture?”

When I try to back away at the sound of a woman’s voice, Nate takes my shoulders and turns me around while still keeping me close. “Janelle,” he says. “I’d like you to meet my guest. Hanna, this is my sister, Janelle Crane.”

The second he says her name, I see her face, and my jaw comes unhinged at the petite raven-haired beauty in front of me. Maybe I should have known that Nate’s sister was actress Janelle Crane. He mentioned his mom was an actress the night we met, so it’s not much of a leap to think he might have an actress sister as well. If I kept up on those weekly gossip magazines like my mom, I’m sure I would have connected the dots.

“Uh…wow…um…” I blink at her and search my brain for those things, the, um…words. Yes. I need words. Maybe a few of them. In a row.

Janelle raises a brow and shifts her gaze to her brother. “She looks smarter than your usual conquests, yet she doesn’t seem to know how to speak in complete sentences.”

“Don’t be a bitch,” Nate warns, but his tone is light.

My cheeks burn. “I’m just…a fan.” I swallow so hard you can hear it in the quiet room.

She sighs heavily. “Roommates, right?” she asks, referring to the popular sitcom my friends and I watched through college.

I nod stupidly. I mean, I’m here with Nate Freaking Crane, a celebrity in his own right, but I’m going all speechless over his sister.

“Hanna is a twin too,” Nate tells Janelle.

I snap my head in his direction. “You two are twins?” The night we met, he said that his curiosity about my twin didn’t come from a sexual fetish. Now I understand what he meant.

“I’m not trying to interrupt your romantic weekend or anything,” Janelle says. “I just couldn’t take another minute in his house.”

I bite my lip to make sure I don’t nose in where I shouldn’t. But seriously, it’s all I can do not to tell her that I was totally Team Janelle through her nasty, way-too-public divorce from actor Tom Comer. (Okay, so maybe I do sometimes check out the headlines on Mom’s gossip rags.) Whatever. He was blatantly cheating on her, and if three out of four nationally distributed publications sold at my grocery store are to be believed, the ass thought she should be okay with his infidelity.

“Why don’t you just move in here for a while?” Nate says. “You can lie low. You know I have more than enough room.”

Most of the sneer falls off her face and her eyes fill. “You mean it? I don’t want to get in the way of…” Her scrutinizing eyes try to figure me out. “Whatever this is.”

“Oh, no.” I shake my head. “This isn’t anything. I’m just a friend. I’ll be out of here in a couple of days.”

Nate tugs me closer, holding me against his chest. “Of course I mean it. Make yourself at home.”

“Nathaniel Crane, you did not invite company into this house without even giving me a word of warning!”

The three of us turn to see a large, muscular man step into the foyer, his ebony face a mask of disapproval, his hands on his hips.

“Hanna,” Nate says, “this is Jamaal. He’s my groundskeeper and head of security.”

Jamaal rolls his eyes. “Fancy title, but it really means I pick up Nathaniel’s dirty underwear and keep the screaming fangirls from breaking in to steal it.”

Nate grunts. “Will you please show Miss Thompson to my room, Jamaal? I need to talk to my sister for a minute.”

Jamaal takes my bags, and I follow him up the stairs and through the long hallway to the west wing of the house. The room is as magnificent as the rest of the house, and I can’t help but take in all the little details—the crown molding, the polished wooden floors, the marble-faced fireplace across from the giant bed.

Too late, I realize Jamaal is watching me. “Sorry,” I mutter. “I’ve just never seen a house like this.”

He only grunts in response. It doesn’t take a genius to see that he doesn’t trust me. “How long do you plan on staying?” he asks, clasping his hands in front of his body.

“Only a couple of nights.” I told my family I was going out of town to make a wedding cake for a college friend whose baker had to cancel at the last minute. They bought it, but the excuse only buys me two or three days if I don’t want anyone finding out about Nate. And I don’t. He has to be my secret if Max is going to get that grant.

My stomach twists at the thought of Max, but it’s a different kind of tummy twist since he pulled me in front of that mirror and said those things to me. Did he mean what he said or is it all part of his plan to win me back? Is he still trying to give me that confidence boost he set out to give me in the beginning? He seemed so…sincere. And hot. Since when is the idea of a guy thinking about me when he jacks off so freaking sexy?

“She can stay as long as she wants,” Nate says from the doorway. Guilt has me spinning around and turning off my thoughts of Max. Nate grins at me as he enters.

“Right,” Jamaal says. “Please let me know if you need anything.” He turns to Nate. “Could we speak in the hall?”

Nate nods, and the two file out into the hallway. I’m not trying to listen, but I’m not trying to not to either.

From Jamaal, I hear “bad idea” and “dealing with grief,” and Nate spits, “This isn’t about him.” Then there are murmurs and the door is opening again as Nate returns.

“How are you doing?” he asks, closing the door behind him.

“What was that about?”

Nate shrugs. “Jamaal doesn’t trust people. He’s worried that you’re taking advantage of me at an emotionally vulnerable time.”

“How does he know I’m emotionally vulnerable?”

“Not you. Me.” He sighs and crosses to me.

“What happened?”

He shrugs. “My father died a couple of weeks ago.”

“Oh my God.” I feel like an inconsiderate bitch. Not to mention self-centered. I mean, he’s a celebrity, so it’s probably all over the news, but I had no idea. “I’m so sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about. I’m fine.”

Before I can say more, he’s gathering me against his chest and burying his nose in my hair.

I wrap my arms around him and squeeze. Because I’ve lost a father too, and I understand that grief isn’t always simple. Then something clicks in my head and I pull back.

“But you’ve been in the Midwest the last two weeks.”

“I have. Did you get enough sleep on the plane, or do you want to take a nap?” He grins as if he didn’t just change the subject from the death of his father. “I’ll join you if you’d like some company in bed.”

I don’t push it. It’s not my business, and he clearly doesn’t want to talk about it.

Yawning, I stretch my arms above my head. “Now that you mention it, I could use a nap.”

His hands find their way under my shirt. “Fantastic. I did mention my no-clothes-in-bed rule, didn’t I?”

His hands have found the hook on my bra when we hear a knock at the door and we both freeze.

“Yes?” Nate calls.

“He asked her to marry him,” Janelle says, her voice small. “He just called me to let me know she said yes. Does he really think this is what I need right now?”

Nate squeezes his eyes shut and curses under his breath.

“It’s okay,” I promise. “Go be with your sister. She needs you. I could use a shower anyway.”

By the look on his face, I might as well have told him I was going to torture his puppy. “Fine, but tonight I’m getting you na**d and making you come so hard you can’t remember your own name.”

31. Nate

“TELL ME about this house,” she whispers as she settles against me in bed.

It took me way too long to get her here tonight. It was like Janelle was on a mission to be the world’s biggest c**k blocker. “What do you want to know?”

“It’s not you, and you don’t like most of it. You could live anywhere, buy any house you want, but you live here. Why?”

I thread my fingers through her hair, grateful for the darkness. “My father bought it for me. We weren’t very close, and the fact that he thought I’d like this place proves that you know me better after a couple of days than my father ever did.” I sigh. “But I can’t bring myself to sell it or remodel.”

“You miss him, don’t you?”

My jaw hardens. “My father was an asshole. It’s hard to miss an asshole.”

She brings her hand to my face. “Just because we have a difficult relationship with someone doesn’t mean we grieve them any less when they go.”

My chest tightens. Because that’s exactly what my stepmother didn’t understand. She told Elle and me that we weren’t welcome at the funeral. She didn’t understand that we needed closure as much as the children he’d given his time and attention to. Maybe more.

“Are you in a hurry to get home?” Maybe it’s a change of subject or maybe it’s very much on subject. Because I’ve had a shitty f**king month with Vivian’s wedding—her happy little family—and my father’s death. And Hanna’s smile, the way she needs to be desired like no woman I’ve ever known. She makes me feel needed and necessary for the first time in too damn long.

“I have absolutely no plans until I have to meet the inspector at the end of the week.” She tilts her head and studies me like we share a secret. “I’m really excited about my bakery.”

“You’re shitting me. You’re doing it? That’s amazing.”

She lifts her head and meets my eyes with a small smile. “Right. Because you don’t know anything about it.”

“Should I?”

“Hmm. Well, I have an anonymous investor, and it’s happening. They’re preparing the building now.”

I press a kiss to the top of her head and hold her against me, breathing her in. “You deserve it, angel.”

She pulls back and gives me a sad smile. “I’m nobody’s hero, baby. Try not to fall too deep,” she says, reciting my lyrics back to me. “I’m nobody’s angel, love, but you were crying in your sleep.”

“Oh, but you are.” I nuzzle her neck. “You came along right when I needed an escape. You smile and I forget the bullshit of the world. And the sounds you make when I touch you? I could drown in that alone. Lose myself in the sound of your screams when you come.” I slip a hand between her legs and roll her cl*tbetween two fingers. “Just the taste of you and I forget all the shit this life has waiting for me.”

“Did you ever think that maybe you’re an angel for me in the same way?” she asks. Her lips curve into a smile. So. Damn. Sweet.

“How do you figure?”

“Because angels don’t stay forever. They’re there when we need them, and then they let us go.” She studies me. “I need you to be temporary in my life as much as you need me to be temporary in yours.”

32. Hanna

THE LIBRARY smells like books and cinnamon cookies. I sink into a chair and tuck my legs under me.

I dreamed about Max last night. His breath hot against my ear, his dick in my hand as I stroked him between our bodies. “Fuck me, Max,” I whispered in his ear. “Show me you want me.” And he did. He pulled up my skirt and f**ked me right against the wall, whispering dirty things in my ear. When he pulled out of me, Meredith tapped him on the shoulder and asked, “Me next?”

I woke up with an angry scream in my throat and Nate sleeping next to me.

My conscience isn’t comfortable with dreaming about one man while sleeping next to another, so I slipped out of bed.

I’ve been dreaming about Max a lot since the night at the gym. Some of the dreams are good, some bad, but they’re always sexy as hell, and I wake up wanting him and…missing him.