In the morning he woke me up to say goodbye. Freshly showered, he pressed a ghost kiss to the fringes of my mouth. My guy. My bachelor. Going off with his buddies to work and play.

“Have fun,” I whispered, giving him a ghost kiss back.

“I will.” He looked down at me for a long moment, his eyes going hot after my ghost kiss.

“I’ll miss you.”

“Take care of my girl for me.”

“Take care of my guy.”

And he left. He texted me before taking off:

Next time it’s you, and me, and whipped cream.

And I died.

Now it’s night in Dubai, and day in Chicago. A dreary Malcolmless Saturday in Chicago. Saint’s bachelor party is well under way while I am in my apartment with Wynn and Gina, drinking wine and stalking social media for a whiff of what his friends had planned for him.

@malcolmsaint CONGRATULATIONS!

I hope @malcolmsaint keeps my number for when they’re done

@RachelDibs YOU ARE SUCH A BITCH I HOPE HE DUMPS YOU

I think men with wedding bands are HOT call me anytime @malcolmsaint

Now that @malcolmsaint is off the market maybe I stand a chance in hell with the club chicks

I go back to read his last message for the thousandth time.

“You are obsessed,” Gina leans over and says smartly. “No more words are magically appearing, you know.”

Next time it’s you, and me, and whipped cream.

“I know,” I admit.

“Well, stop staring at it!” She laughs.

I smile. “It’s a joke.” Message reread, I close my eyes.

“Saint is Rachel’s reward for torturous years of being single,” Wynn says happily.

“There’s nothing from Dubai,” Gina states. “But people are hanging on to news of the wedding.”

Wynn and Gina watch me closely.

“You’re jealous that he’s in Dubai?” Wynn asks.

I laugh and dismiss the observation and I pour from one of the wine bottles that Saint gave me once—my favorite. I sip and look at the fourth finger of my left hand. My newly resized ring.

“I think it’s healthy for a relationship if everyone gets time to hang out with their friends.”

I pour a little more wine.

“And every man has a bachelor party. I’m happy he’s saying goodbye to his old ways.”

My bachelorette party consists of Valentine, Sandy, Wynn, and Gina, and the wine box Saint had sent after our first wine tasting. I’m drunk by the time it starts and I doze throughout most of it.

I have a nightmare . . .

“Saint!” the girls squeal as he watches two groupies and me swim in the water from the deck of The Toy . “Saint, Saint, please, Malcolm Saint!”

I hold my breath when his hands go to flick open his shirt buttons. “All right, girls.”

My eyes widen as he shrugs off his shirt. The blood courses through my veins, suddenly swollen by the fast pounding of my heartbeat. Large, long-fingered, tanned hands tug on the drawstrings of his swim trunks, and my eyes blur when he actually strips them off and for the three seconds he stands on the edge, I see him all. I see everything. I see that he is hard. That he is perfection—ripped, cut, narrow-hipped, broad-chested; long and muscular legs, thick and lean arms. I’m boiling in the water and I can’t take it. I dip my head under, squeezing my eyes shut until I hear the water crashing as he dives in.

When I come up, he surfaces with a laugh and smooths his hair back.

“Oh god!” The girls start swimming over, and I can hear the harsh, uneven sounds of their breathing as they try reaching out to him in soft, husky pleas. “Saint, you’re so hot,” one whispers. “Can we stay over? Sleep over tonight, Saint?”

“Not tonight,” he says, ducking into the water before they reach him. He leaves them both pouting behind him and pops up behind me and pokes my back. “Hey,” he says.

I notice the girls hop onto the yacht and each of them slips into one of his white shirts.

A pulsing knot forms in my stomach as I turn and stare into his green eyes and we just float there, staring, and there seems nothing else but dark water, the sky above, and him, the darkest thing that’s ever had such a pull to me. “Hey,” I say.

“Come here,” he whispers.

I start awake.

It’s 5 a.m. in Chicago—which would make it 3 p.m. in Dubai—and the girls are still partying and wake me.

“Rachel, pick up your phone,” Gina says.

She’s got her iPhone pressed to her ear as I stir and groggily search for mine. She lowers hers for a moment and tells me, “They’re flying. Your man’s as good as married. He seemed to leave his dick home. Hang on.” She places it on speaker and I hear Tahoe’s Texan drawl.

“Congrats, Rachel. You’re still his number-one girl. There were redheads, brunettes, double Ds. Carmichael and I got them all.”

Gina takes him off speaker, and I grin like a dope because I’m still the apple of my Sin’s eye.

“He wants to talk to you.”

“Tahoe?”

“Saint!”

Leaping forward, I take the phone, my voice groggy and slurring with sleep. “Hello, bachelor .”

His voice is husky with drink and no sleep. “Hello, bride.”

The words feather all over my body. There’s something so warm and enchanting in the way he says “bride.”

Hmm, just a tad possessive too?

“I’m flying this bird straight home. Nonstop. Full speed,” he says quietly.

I clench the phone tighter as my body grips in complete anticipation. “Okay. Did you have fun?”

“Lots,” he says. But he sounds weary. Weary of traveling maybe?

“Did you miss me?”

“Lots more. I called you, but no answer.”

Belatedly, I realize that Wynn, Gina, Valentine, and Sandy are watching me with curious looks, so I move to the window and lower my voice. “I slept through my party.”

“No whipped cream, baby?” His voice drops an octave, and I think I detect a silken thread of warning in his voice.

“No.”

“Good.” His voice, though quiet, has an ominous quality. “I’ll keep my record clean of murder for now.”

I make my tone match his. “I guess I’ll let the brunettes, redheads, and double Ds live for now.”

He chuckles, a laugh that’s long and soft, so close that I remember how warm his breath feels when he laughs in my ear. “Mrs. Saint,” he begins, unapologetically delighted, “you’re an angel.”

“And you, Mr. Saint, are a devil.”

“In fifteen hours your devil’s home.”

When I hang up, everything in me has gone butter . My thighs butter, my heart butter, with the added bonus of butter flies in my tummy too.

HOME

Since it’s a fifteen-hour flight, I get to hang around with the girls, a little hungover for the day, then by early afternoon I head to the penthouse to shower and change.

By 7 p.m. I am waiting for him in his apartment, wandering around a little bit and fixing my things. I don’t want my Rachel Invasion to wear on him too soon, and I was a little less careful when I had a bedroom all to myself.

Exhaustion wears me down. But if my head touches our bed, I’ll be asleep. I curl in the seating area in the living room, with a perfect view of the elevators to one side and Chicago to the other, and stare out the window, watching the flickering city lights as I doze off.