“You fucked me. If your relationship with her is real, if you are really marrying her, she deserves to know the truth about what happened at the Conrad.” I watch his face, but there’s no sign there as to what he thinks of my threat.

“Come here.”

“What?”

“Just—” He shakes his head and crosses back to me in three long strides. One hand comes into my hair and the other slides around my waist. His palm slips under my tank, hot on the small of my back. He lowers his face until it’s two inches from mine. Our breath mingles. “I can’t decide if I want to kiss you stupid or throw you out of my house,” he murmurs against my mouth.

He smells like soap, his skin hot and still damp from the shower, his hair wet. The hard lines of his chest are still damp, and if he wrapped his arms around me now, I wouldn’t be able to smell anything but him. I wait for the kiss that I’m sure is coming. Because I am weak.

“I don’t want you thinking that I’m just like my father. I can’t . . .” He closes his eyes and rubs the tip of his nose against mine in a gesture that is so innocuously intimate it breaks my heart.

He steps back without kissing me, eyes raking over me as if he’s trying to figure me out. “You can tell Sabrina whatever you want. She already knows. She knew that night when she smelled your perfume.”

* * *

Sam

I can’t have her here. There’s no part of Liz being in my house in the middle of the night that says “good idea.” But in the battle between my brain and every other piece of me, my brain isn’t even putting up a fight.

She licks her lips. “I want you to tell me the truth. About the video. About Christine Guy.”

I wait for the panic to hit, but it doesn’t. I’ve wanted to tell her the truth from the beginning, and sending her away on Saturday night without explaining was worse than any consequence that could come from her knowing.

Foolish or not, I trust Liz with this, and instead of panic, her suggestion that she knows the truth fills me with relief. I don’t want to lie to her, and I couldn’t live with the idea of her feeling like I’d made her the other woman. I couldn’t live with her believing I’m no better than my father. “You watched the video.”

“The whole world watched it,” she says.

“And?”

“It’s old. You’re younger, not as muscular. Maybe she’s your fiancée, maybe not, but either way, Sabrina is not the woman in that video.”

“Is that what you think?”

She nods. “Yes. I think the video is of you and someone with whom such a video would prove much more scandalous.”

Yeah. She knows. “Are you planning on sharing these suspicions with anyone?”

“Of course not!” Her eyes go wide and her lips part. “I told you, I’m here for Sabrina as much as I am for me.”

“You keep using her as an excuse to come to me in the middle of the night.”

She frowns. “It’s not an excuse. I thought I slept with an engaged man. I deserve to know.”

“Yeah? And how long did you lie in bed thinking about me before you let yourself come here? How long did you think about this?” I lower my mouth to hers and kiss her.

When my lips sweep over hers, it’s as if life is my malady and Liz is the only cure. Tension unwinds from my shoulders and my gut releases its constant clench. For the moments my mouth is on hers, all is right with the world.

Until she presses both hands against my bare chest and shoves me away.

“Don’t!”

I take a step back to catch my balance.

“Don’t touch me. Regardless of what you think of me, I’m not the horrible woman who would sleep with another woman’s fiancé. Stop putting me in this position.” Her face crumbles, and I flinch. I’ve been such an ass.

“Liz.” I gather her into my arms, and she starts to push me away again. “Rowdy, listen. There’s nothing between me and Sabrina but a fabricated engagement to appease the millions of people who watched a very old, very private video.”

When she looks up at me, tears have gathered in her lashes. “I’m right? The engagement’s not real?”

I wipe a tear from each rosy cheek. Christ, this woman owns my soul. “We’re just trying to make the best of a shitty situation. I’m sorry you got caught in the middle.”

She rests her head on my chest and groans. “You made me feel like shit.”

“I know.” I smooth her hair down and kiss the top of her head. “I’m sorry. My mom showed up with Sabrina, and I panicked. My family doesn’t even know the truth, but I wanted to tell you.”

“Why are you doing it? I mean, I understand why you’re telling everyone it’s Sabrina, but why the fake engagement?”

“Sabrina was screwed over by her own mother’s political pursuits. She had nothing to do with that video, but she has to let the world think it’s her because her mom wants to be president. I understand what that’s like.”

She nods. “So either she gets to be the punch line of late-night comedians’ dirty sex-tape jokes, or you play along to a further degree and she’s just a woman who had kinky sex with her fiancé.”

“The difference may not seem like much, but it’s huge.”

She wraps both of her arms around my waist. Damn, that feels good. “I get it,” she whispers.