Which meant that, as much as he had enjoyed it, he couldn’t allow himself to get close to Halle again. It was too easy to be pulled in by her. It was too easy to let his guard down.

  He couldn’t go back to bed. If he tried to lie down with Halle again, he would find himself getting sucked back into his feelings. Worse yet, if she woke up, he might be tempted to kiss her again, and succumb to the desires that would inevitably follow. And that could only make matters worse.

  Tired though he was, he knew that he would have to stay up all night now.

  He pulled out some coffee grounds from the refrigerator and put a pot of water on the stove to boil. A few cups of coffee would help him get through the night. It wasn’t exactly the first time he’d been forced by circumstances into keeping odd hours. His work had often required that he stay up all night or adjust to another country’s time zone on the fly.

  But what made this different was that he had no idea how to prepare for what he would be facing in the morning.

  He couldn’t simply review the presentation he needed to make. He couldn’t go over statistics and details that would back up his points. He knew he needed to have a conversation about what had happened here with Halle, but he also knew that it would be difficult and likely painful, and if he messed it up he would probably lose the best flight attendant he could have hoped for.

  Not to mention the only friend I’ve got—if I haven’t already lost her, that is.

  That was the real tragedy in all of this. Halle had legitimately been someone that he’d felt able to confide in. Maybe not about everything—he had tried to limit himself when it came to how much he opened up to her, as he did with everyone. But there had been good chemistry between them, and he’d felt that she really understood him.

  Was he going to lose that altogether now? How could they possibly have a conversation now?

  How were they ever going to talk about their romantic misadventures again? It would be impossible. Even if she received the things he had to say to her well, even if she agreed with everything he planned on saying tomorrow, things would still be awkward. It would be impossible to get back to where they had once been with one another. It wouldn’t be possible to recapture their easy friendship.

  The most he could hope for was to resume their professional relationship without too much damage.

  And he thought that would probably be possible. After all, she needed this job badly—she wouldn’t quit. She would stick it out if she felt remotely capable of doing so. And she would feel capable. She was tough, and she had always been completely professional with him.

  Even so, everything is going to change now. We’re not going to be able to be as close as we were.

  She’d known, he realized glumly. That was why she had put so much distance between the two of them over the past few weeks. She’d said so herself at dinner last night; she had been afraid of what was developing between them, and she’d known it wasn’t a good idea to allow it to continue to grow.

  She had known, and he hadn’t listened. He had persuaded her to come back here tonight. And even though he knew perfectly well that she had wanted it as much as he had, he had been the one to kiss her first. He had taken them across that line.

  The water was boiling now. He turned off the stove and poured it carefully into his pour-over coffee maker, watching as it trickled through the grounds and the filter and out into the basin at the bottom. It was relaxing, and for a moment, he could almost allow himself to forget how anxious he was feeling about what was to come.

  Maybe it doesn’t have to go down like this.

  He grabbed a coffee cup from the rack, pondering as he poured some out for himself. Maybe he hadn’t thought this all the way through. Maybe there was a way he could avoid having an uncomfortable conversation with Halle.

  There’s always a chance she didn’t feel what I did tonight. And if that’s the case, there’s really no need to talk about it all, right? We said going in that this would just be a one-night thing. Nothing’s really changed.

  He wished he could believe that.

  The truth was, though, that he would be shocked if Halle hadn’t felt something like what he had. It seemed impossible that he could experience something as earth-shattering as he had and she could experience nothing at all.

  She felt it. She must have.

  The only real question that remained was whether she would wake up feeling, as he did, that they had made a terrible mistake, or if she would be feeling that they should renegotiate the terms of their relationship.

  If she’s decided she wants something more…I don’t know what I’ll be able to do.

  The only choice would be to push her away.

  Grayson took his coffee out of the kitchen and back to his home theater. He glanced at the loveseat where he and Halle had sat just a few hours ago and found that he didn’t want to return to it.

  It would be too easy to think of the last time he’d sat there. Too easy to think of the floral smell of her, the feel of her body leaning into his, warming him.

  God, am I ever going to be able to sit there again? How much of my life have I left scarred tonight?

  He grabbed the remote and went to a seat at the very back of the theater. Then he turned on the movie they’d been watching before they had gotten distracted.

  It had been at the best part, the culmination of all the suspense and drama.

  It was frankly astonishing that he had managed to turn this off. He wouldn’t have done it for any other woman, that was for sure.

  That was a scary thought. Had he found a woman who so entranced him that he would be persuaded to do things he wouldn’t ordinarily have done? Turning off a movie was no big deal—but what else would he talk himself into doing because of her?

  If this keeps up, I’m going to turn into someone I don’t recognize.

  No, he couldn’t take that risk. No matter how awkward it might be, he was going to have to have the conversation he was so dreading with her in the morning. He was going to have to tell her that this had all been a mistake and that it couldn’t be allowed to happen again.

  He just hoped she wouldn’t take it too badly.

  Chapter 14

  Halle

  Halle woke up feeling as if she was floating on a cloud. The sun was peeking in through the thick white curtains that lined Grayson’s bedroom windows, and she was nestled under the fluffiest comforter she had ever felt in her life. It really was like being cradled by a cloud. She rolled over to find Grayson—

  He was gone.

  The bed was empty.

  She frowned, sitting up, pausing as she did so to relish the pleasant aches in her body. It had been way too long since she’d awoken feeling like this.

  But where had Grayson gone?

  Maybe he was getting breakfast for them?

  She felt a smile play at the corners of her mouth. That was exactly the kind of thing he would do. He always seemed to feel like he needed to impress her. She wished she could tell him how unnecessary that was. It was obvious that he was used to trying to impress the people in his life, but Halle didn’t care about his money or his jet or his ability to expose her to fine food. She liked him because he was a nice person.

  Ironically, it was the one thing he didn’t seem to know about himself.

  She got out of bed, walked to the curtains, and pulled them back. She hadn’t had the chance to see the view from this window last night—it had been too dark by the time they’d gotten to his house, and when they’d gone up to the bedroom, she had had other things firmly on her mind. But now she took the opportunity to look out over the wealthiest part of La Vega.

  The houses here were vast and sprawling and utterly gorgeous. She hadn’t gotten a good look at Grayson’s house from the outside, but she was stunned to realize that the home she was in was just as nice as the ones she was looking at now, if not more so. Somehow, this was even more impressive than seeing his plane. She didn’t like to admit to being impressed by shallow things, but she had to confess that this place was knocking her socks off.

  And speaking of her socks…

  She hunted around the room and found the dress she’d been wearing last night, along with her undergarments. They’d been thrown all over the place in the heat of the moment. She pulled the dress back on and slipped everything else into her purse. Feeling a little risqué, she headed out of the bedroom to look for Grayson.

  She found the kitchen easily enough, but he wasn’t there. There were, however, signs that he had been there recently. There was a pour-over carafe of coffee that was still half full, and a pot with a little bit of water sitting on the stove. She went to the pot and held her hand about an inch away. It was warm, but not hot.

  So he made coffee…but he didn’t want to wait for me to come have it with him?

  Maybe he had assumed that she would know to take some and come find him. He did things like that—assumed that everyone would know what he was thinking. She liked him, but he was used to being the center of the universe. It wasn’t such a flaw as she had originally believed it to be. It was just what he had always known.

  Well, he wasn’t in the kitchen, and he wasn’t in the bedroom—so where was he?

  She made her way back down to the home theater. Maybe he had gotten it in his mind that they ought to finish the movie they’d started last night. Maybe he would be down there, waiting for her to join him?

  But the theater was also empty.

  She was about to turn and leave when she noticed that the TV remote had been moved to a seat in the very back of the room. Frowning, she picked it up and hit the power button.

  The movie’s end credits were scrolling across the screen.

  He’d finished it without her.

  Had he gotten up in the middle of the night to watch it? That was a surprise. She had slept so well. She’d assumed that he would too, after everything. At the very least, if he had been having trouble sleeping, he ought to have felt free to wake her up.

  Apparently, he hadn’t felt like he could do that.

  Maybe he thought I wouldn’t care about seeing the movie. I did tell him that I would rent it.

  The truth was that she wished he had woken her up for it. As much as she had enjoyed the lovemaking, she had enjoyed what came before too. It had been ages since she’d been able to curl up and watch a movie with somebody.

  And maybe he was right. Maybe she had been too fixated on the fact that he was her boss. It wasn’t like they had a conventional working relationship, after all. Maybe it was okay for the two of them to define what was going on between them in whatever way they liked.

  She walked out of the home theater and closed her eyes. If she were Grayson, where would she be?

  Her eyes opened.

  Of course.

  Where was he always? What was the only place he ever seemed to go when he was awake in the middle of the night?

  If he has a home office—and I’m sure he does—that’s where he’ll be.

  She set about exploring the house. The first floor was entirely quiet, with no lights on. She understood what he meant about having more space here than he needed. How could one man possibly fill a house like this? He must feel like he was rattling off the walls all the time.

  I should spend more time with him here, she thought, smiling slightly at the idea of it. Maybe next time she would cook breakfast. She would show him that he didn’t always have to be the one to bring everything to the table. She could provide for him, too.

  On the second floor of the house, she came across a closed door with a light shining through the crack beneath it.

  This must be it. This is where he is.

  She knocked on the door.

  There was a long pause—long enough to make her doubt herself.

  And then he called out, “Come in.”

  There was something strange in his voice. Something she didn’t quite recognize.

  She felt a sudden swell of anxiety. Was something wrong?

  She opened the door.

  Grayson was sitting at his desk, staring at his computer screen and typing furiously. He held up a finger and kept typing.

  Halle waited, not wanting to interrupt him in the middle of whatever he was doing. He would turn his attention to her soon enough.

  But he didn’t break focus. He continued on typing for several minutes longer, until Halle eventually began to wonder whether he had forgotten she was here.

  Finally, she had to speak. “Grayson?”

  “Hold on,” he said.

  She nodded.

  Finally, after several more minutes had elapsed, he folded down the top of his laptop and faced her.

  “What’s up?” he asked.

  She frowned. He was being weird. “I couldn’t find you,” she said. “I didn’t know where you’d gone.”

  “Yeah. I came in here to get started on some work,” he said. “Actually, I have a lot to do today, so I’m going to have a car service take you back home, if that’s okay.”

  He sounded like he was already ready for her to leave. “Is everything okay?” she asked. “I mean…should we talk about last night?”

  “Do we need to?” he asked.

  Halle didn’t know what to make of that. Was he saying he didn’t want to talk about it? She definitely didn’t want to be needy, or to come across as a pest.

  “I guess we don’t,” she said uncertainly.

  “I mean, we talked plenty last night, didn’t we?” Grayson said. “We agreed that it would just be a one-night thing.”

  Was that what they had said?

  It was funny, now that she came to think of it, but Halle didn’t think they had actually said anything about what their having sex would mean going forward.

  We didn’t come back here expecting that to happen. It was a surprise to both of us. Surely we should talk about what it means?

  She wished she felt bold enough to say so—but she didn’t.

  “Last night was about relaxing and having a good time, right?” Grayson said.

  “Well, yeah. Of course.”

  “Did you have a good time?”

  “I did,” she said. Maybe this was the opening into the conversation she wanted to have. “Did you?”

  “Oh, yeah. Definitely. It was a lot of fun. But we did say that we were taking one night off from our working relationship. That we wouldn’t be boss and employee for one night. That night’s over now.”

  “Right, but…” Halle swallowed. “I just wondered whether last night had changed anything for you.”

  “Oh, no,” he said. “Don’t worry about that.”

  She was stung by how quickly he was able to answer. It was as if he hadn’t even had to think about it.

  She had thought last night was special. But it was clear from the way he was acting that it hadn’t meant anything much to him.

  “I guess I’ll go, then,” she said, suddenly anxious to get out of there. She didn’t want to spend another moment around him. Not now that she knew he wasn’t feeling even a scrap of what she was.

  She turned toward the door.

  “Halle, wait,” he called.

  She turned back. Had he changed his mind?

  He held out his coffee cup. “Would you mind topping me off before you go?” he asked.

  The way he said it, it didn’t even sound like he meant it as a question. It was the way he spoke to her on the plane, when she was on duty.

  No. It’s not even that. It’s the way he used to speak to me on the plane, before we became friends.

  If they even were friends.

  Right now, it was hard to believe that her friendship meant anything to him.

  She recalled, suddenly, the stories he had told her about his checkered romantic past. All his one-night stands. She’d thought he was confessing that that life didn’t make him happy. When he had gone for her, she had assumed that he was seeing something more.

  I shouldn’t have assumed anything at all. He’s been clear from the beginning about what kind of man he is. Totally unsentimental.

  “All right,” she said, snatching the coffee cup from his hand a little bit harder than she meant to. “I’ll get your coffee.”

  “Thanks,” he said, raising his eyebrows.

  “Anything else?”

  “I’m good, I think.”

  She went to the kitchen, grabbed the carafe, and filled up the coffee cup. She could tell that it was lukewarm, but she didn’t bother to stick it in the microwave for him. Let him go heat up his own coffee.

  She took it back to him and placed it on his desk, then whirled and left the room before he had a chance to say anything else.

  I’m not going to use his car service either, she decided, striding past the big black car that waited in the front driveway. She heard a man get out and call her name, but she ignored him. She could walk for a mile and then call a taxi.

  She wouldn’t take any more favors from Grayson Bloom. No more fancy foreign dinners. No more glasses of scotch mid-flight.

  She had let him make her feel as if she mattered. As if she was important to him.

  She should have known that she never had been. She knew now that she never would be.

  Chapter 15

  Halle

  “I swear, honey, I’ve never seen you look so sad,” her father said. “You’re usually all smiles when you come over here. What’s wrong? You aren’t enjoying the lutefisk?”

  “I can’t believe you still have the lutefisk,” Halle said. “I thought you’d take one bite and then throw it out.”

  “It’s delicious,” her father protested. “Nice and salty. It’s my favorite thing you’ve brought back for me. I might have to send away to Norway for more of it.”

  Halle laughed. “You always know how to put a smile on my face,” she said.

  “Well, I am your father,” he said. “But tell me why there’s not already a smile there.”

  “I guess I’ve just got a lot on my mind,” Halle said.