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  “I never thought about the future before I had leukemia,” he’d answered, as Remi curled up on his chest. She’d gotten so used to his scar by now she rested her head over it without a second thought. “So maybe one good thing came out of being sick. Now I know what I want to do with my life.”

  “Which is?”

  “Help teenagers with life-threatening illnesses. I don’t want to be a doctor. That’s not my thing. I want to help them the way Salena helped me—by getting me out of the house. I don’t know what to do with that dream yet, but at least I have one now. You? Do you always want to work at Arden?”

  “Not anymore,” she’d confessed. “The place seems tainted now by what my parents are up to. I still want to work with horses, but I want to find a way to be around horses and do something with them other than running them into the ground. The best part of my job is the charity work we do at Arden, the people we help. I just want to find a way to do that as a full-time job.”

  “You dream good dreams,” Julien said, kissing her on the top of the head.

  “You’re my best dream.” They’d made love again after that and fell asleep tangled in each other. Five nights ago was the last time they’d been together. Five nights and an eternity.

  She wouldn’t survive another five nights and she told Merrick exactly that when he shuffled into work an hour late the next day with a big smile on his face.

  “Did you spend the night at Salena’s?” she demanded.

  “Yup.”

  “You’re fired.”

  “For getting laid?”

  “Yes.”

  “My, aren’t we sexually frustrated this morning,” Merrick said, handing over her coffee.

  “Five days,” she said. “I’m not going to make it.”

  “You’ll make it. If I can last five days you can last five days.”

  “Have you ever gone five whole days without sex?”

  “Sure. Of course. Oh, you mean five consecutive days?”

  “It’s ridiculous. This isn’t medieval England or Renaissance Italy. Families shouldn’t be feuding.”

  “Tell that to Steve Harvey.” Merrick said, sitting on her desk in front of her. “It must be awful for you. Julien’s forbidden fruit. Taboo. Off the menu. Verboten. The scandal? The lies? The sneaking around? Terrible.”

  “Awful,” Remi said.

  “Horrible.”

  “Shameful.”

  “It’s hot, isn’t it?” Merrick asked.

  “So fucking hot.” Remi dropped her head to her desk and groaned. Merrick, knowing what was good for him, didn’t laugh at her. Not too much anyway.

  Remi knew she’d tear Julien’s clothes off the second she saw him again, but when that would be she didn’t know. Salena was still working out her end of the plan. Remi didn’t want to rush things, but if she didn’t see Julien again soon, she couldn’t be held responsible for her actions. When she texted Merrick at midnight on Thursday, she knew she’d reached the end of her rope.

  You awake? she wrote him.

  No, I’m dead.

  I’m thinking about the plan, she wrote him.

  No, you aren’t. You’re thinking about fucking Julien. So just go fuck him and let me sleep, Merrick wrote. And then for some reason added emoticons of a grey alien, a skull, a bee, the flag of Japan, and seventeen eggplants. She should never have let him download the app on his work phone.

  But it wasn’t a terrible idea, sneaking over to Julien’s for an hour or so. Well, no. It was a terrible idea and she knew it.

  She wrote Merrick back.

  What if I get caught at his house?

  Merrick replied with a ghost and a Santa Claus.

  WTF?

  Be quiet as a ghost, he explained. Get in and out like Santa.

  I was supposed to get that message from two emoticons?

  Duh, he wrote back. Go get it.

  And he punctuated his text with a rather phallic-looking banana emoticon, and that was logic that neither she nor her vagina could argue with. She threw on her clothes again and got into her car.

  Capital Hills Farm constituted twelve hundred acres near Frankfort, the state capital. This late at night with no traffic to contend with, Remi made it to the farm gates in thirty minutes. She parked her car on a side road and carefully climbed over the white wooden fence.

  “I can’t believe I’m doing this,” she whispered to herself as she crossed the dark, manicured lawn. Julien had said his family only alarmed the house when no one was at home. She hoped he was right about that. “How horny am I?”

  Horny enough to risk a B&E conviction obviously.

  “Julien, Julien...” she breathed, “where the hell are you, Julien?” The windows of the three-story colonial mansion were mostly darkened, but light glowed from two second-floor windows.

  Did you get a fancy corner bedroom? she typed on her phone.

  What? Julien replied. Yes. Why?

  I’m looking at your window, she wrote back. If you love me, you won’t call the cops on me.

  She counted only two seconds before Julien’s face appeared in the window. He opened his window and stuck his head out.

  “You’re crazy,” he whispered. In the clear night air, the words carried right down to her. Her heart, already pounding from sneaking to his house, now leaped at the sight of him.

  “Crazy for you. Will your mom let you come out and play?” She smiled up at him.

  “It’s fifty degrees out. You come in and play.”

  “Where?” she asked. She’d never been to the Brite family home before. He held up his finger in the universal sign of Wait right there.

  Remi glanced around while she waited, hoping the Brites didn’t have any rabid killer attack dogs wandering near the house tonight.

  She heard a whistle and peeked around the corner of the house. Julien stood on the back covered porch and waved her in. She ran to him and he caught her in his arms. In a frenzy of silent kisses, Julien pulled Remi into the house and shut the door behind them. He kissed her mouth, her neck, her earlobes and her throat while she ran her hands all over his bare chest. He must have been getting ready for bed, because his shirt and the top button of his jeans were already unbuttoned. Good. Less work for her.

  “I missed you so much,” Julien murmured as he nuzzled her hair.

  “I shouldn’t have come, but I couldn’t wait anymore.”

  “It was killing me, too,” Julien said, his hands sliding under the back of her shirt. He unhooked her bra and pulled her even tighter to him.

  In the dark she could barely make out what room they were in, but it seemed to be a large office or a small library. Didn’t matter what it was. They were alone, and that was all she cared about.

  Julien dragged her skirt up to her stomach. Blood pounded through her. Her thighs felt tight and her stomach knotted itself up as Julien slid his hand into her underwear.

  He found her clitoris with his fingertip and rubbed the swollen knot until she had to bury her mouth against his shoulder to keep from moaning audibly. She dug her nails into his back, holding on to him with everything she had. She shuddered hard in his arms when he pushed two fingers up and into her. Wet as she was, he slid right into her.

  “I won’t make it to my room.” Julien rasped the words into her ear.

  “Then just do it here.”

  Julien was fantastically good at taking orders—one good quality among many. He wrenched her panties down her legs and turned her back to him. During their nights in his Paris apartment, she’d done everything she could to help him make up for all the time lost while he was sick as a teenage boy. She let him try any sexual position he wanted. Quickly they discovered together that Julien loved entering her from behind. She loved it, too, but at this point she wanted him so much she’d strap them both to roof of a moving car if that was the only way she could get it.

  “What if your parents walk in on us again?” she teased. She heard Julien behind her unzipping his jeans.