“Ooh, la la,” Hazel says when I return with her favorite—a chardonnay.

  We toast, and soon the conversation returns to the Book Besties and their daily lives. Jackie and her husband are raising two teens, including a high school senior with autism, Alecia’s wife just returned to work after beating breast cancer, and Maria’s going back to college at age forty-five to finish her degree.

  We drink and talk about life and all its complications until Jackie says, with a wink in her dark eyes, “So, Noah and Lacey?”

  Alecia smacks the table playfully, admonishing her friend. “You are like a dog with a bone, girl. Let it go. I want my ribeye steak reward,” she says, determined to win the bet with her friends over the love interest in our book.

  But I want something too.

  I want to work with Hazel again. Badly.

  I turn to my friend—or friend again I should say. Even though I’ve had a few glasses, I won’t give wine that much power. This is the thought I’ve been marinating all day.

  The guy I’ve been thinking of all day.

  The guy we left on the operating table more than a year ago. Lacey’s guy.

  When our gazes lock, Hazel’s wearing her familiar, public grin.

  The one that says she’ll protect me from the will you finish your book question. Like she protected me when I walked away. When I left her holding the bag on the contract. That was such a shitty thing to do. And I hope—I truly hope—she’ll take me back.

  I’m glad we learned that secret code long ago so I can use it now. I give a shrug of my right shoulder then a lopsided grin. A gesture that’s always meant I’m all in if you are.

  I hold my breath, desperate for her yes, but it comes in no time. Hazel shrieks. “You mean it?”

  “I do.”

  All day, all the good memories have knocked on the front of my mind. I’ve second guessed myself. I’ve wondered. I’ve worried. But I can’t deny this ache in my creative heart—I’ve missed working with her so much.

  “Let’s do it,” she says, bursting with excitement.

  I expect Alecia to whoop the loudest since she’ll get her steak, but they’re all wonderfully deafening. Her friends holler and cheer with her, and the other readers join in too, even Steven, and Uma the Redheaded College Girl, along with her crew.

  “Can we put this on our social?” Jackie asks.

  It seems fitting that the Book Besties should break the news after their role in bringing us back together. “Works for me if it’s good for Hazel,” I say.

  My train roommate can’t seem to contain her excitement. “It’s very good for me. You’re like fairy godmothers.”

  Jackie squeals. “Matchmakers, hon. We’re matchmakers,” Jackie says, then grabs her phone, presumably to make the news official.

  Over at her table, Amy’s cheering while Bettencourt watches her intently, a smile tilting his mouth.

  “It’s a train trip reunion,” she says, then holds up a glass of champagne. Bettencourt clinks his glass with hers, then clears his throat. “To the magic of trains bringing people together.”

  It’s heady, this midnight celebration as we cross the border into France. Heady and dizzy and scary. Maybe I’ve jumped too soon. Or maybe I didn’t jump soon enough.

  Either way, there’s no turning back, and I’m good with that.

  I’m only nervous about one thing—how Hazel will react to what I have to tell her. The role I played in the end of her and Max.

  27

  SEX MISCHIEF

  Axel

  But my thing will have to wait. At our compartment, Hazel grabs my shirt collar before the door has time to clang shut.

  She yanks me to her in the dark and covers my lips with hers.

  Hazel is a woman who knows her mind.

  That is such a turn-on.

  She’s rough and hungry. A tiger who wants her prey—me. I happily let her devour my face. Yes, my face. She’s kissing me hard, ruthlessly, and she’s not stopping at my lips. She’s kissing along my jaw, running her cheek against my scruff. “Mmm, stubble,” she murmurs, then she reaches my ear and nips on the lobe.

  “Do that again and I’ll be bending you over the bed in no time,” I say in a rough growl.

  “Is that a threat or a promise?” she taunts, then pulls back and looks at me, those green eyes twinkling with utter mischief.

  Sex mischief.

  “The bedroom is no place for threats, so it’s a promise,” I say.

  With flames in her eyes, she drags her hand down my chest. “Good, because I’ve been thinking all day about what happens to Lacey.”

  “Have you now?”

  “I think her hero fucks her against the window in the train as the French countryside speeds by.”

  My sexy romance writer has a filthy mind, and I am here for it.

  I turn the tables on her, clasping her gorgeous face and slamming my mouth to hers, tasting her, consuming her.

  She wants real, raw, unfiltered passion, and I intend to give it to her that way. As I kiss her with a little hurt in it, I undo her jeans roughly, tug at her top harshly. Soon, I’ve stripped her to nothing.

  She’s naked in front of me, the moonlight shining across her creamy skin. Her perky tits point right at me. The look in her eyes is both vulnerable and turned on.

  She glances down at her chest. “Do you want my tits pressed against the window?” She asks it like it costs her something to say that. But like it frees her too. To have book sex.

  “I fucking do,” I tell her. “Go stand there. Now.”

  She practically sprints. Fine, it’s only ten feet away, maybe less, but what a sight, that peach of an ass wiggling as she scurries.

  Then, she presses her hands on the glass, tits pressed, ass up. I stalk over to her, taking off my glasses and setting them on the table, tugging off my shirt and tossing it to the floor.

  From my wallet, I grab a condom, and once that’s safely in hand, I undo my jeans, take out my eager cock, and smack her ass with it.

  “Oh!” she yelps.

  “Like that?”

  I know she does. She’s already moaning. But I’m pretty sure she likes to talk in bed. She likes the chance to say the things she’s only ever written or read.

  “Do it again,” she urges.

  Gripping the base, I slap my dick against her sweet ass. One cheek, then another, then I rub my hard-on between her thighs, where she’s soaked. “Were you like this all day? Wet and needy for me?”

  “I was a hot mess,” she says, bowing her back, her body saying take me now.

  What a wild admission. Hazel Valentine walked around Barcelona while hot and horny for me.

  I press my palm between her shoulder blades, gently but firmly pushing her forward so those fantastic tits smush against the cold glass. “You were writing this scene all day, weren’t you?”

  “Yes. While you talked, I wrote sex in my head.” She shudders as if reveling in whatever wicked feelings are whooshing through her body right now.

  “You dirty woman.” I praise her as I push against her, my cock sliding between her folds, gliding against her wetness.

  I’m a live wire, sparking everywhere.

  But I want tonight to be even better than last night—for her. It’s a tall order, but I’m up to the task, especially when she trembles, then turns her face to me. “Need you.”

  Ah, hell. There she goes again with a direct plea that works on my heart and dick at the same damn time.

  Quickly, I suit up, then I grab her hips, and I push against her entrance.

  She gasps sharply, a high-pitched keen.

  “Tits against the glass, baby,” I tell her.

  She complies.

  “You want all of France to see the romance writer getting fucked on a train,” I command as I ease in more.

  “I do. I really do.”

  I sink in, filling her completely.

  She feels incredible.

  She’s hungry, needy, and her sex drive matches mine.

  I ease out, then back in, and soon, I’m finding just the right pace for the woman who’s been aching for me all day.

  It’s such a privilege, a filthy, beautiful privilege, to be the man she craves. I don’t take it lightly. I treat it seriously, fucking her with purpose, with intent. “Want it harder? Deeper?”

  “Yes. Please. Both,” she says.

  I’ve learned a thing or two about Hazel over the years. She’s never let a heroine come magically. No man in her stories possesses a magical cock. The hero always makes sure he’s taking care of his woman right where she needs him.

  I slide a hand to her clit, stroke her faster and faster still.

  Like that, I give her the train fuck she’s craved, harder, deeper, and designed to make her come.

  There’s nothing magical about my dick.

  My ears and eyes deserve the credit. I’ve paid attention to her, and I’ve read both the lines and between them.

  As she gasps and pants and I fuck and stroke, I take her over the cliff, with her tits pancaked against the reflection and her whole body trembling as the towns of France watch her come.

  She cries out yes, yes, oh god, yes, and I’m right there with her, her sounds pulling me over the edge. I join her in bliss, wishing I could do it again tomorrow and the next day and the next.

  But we can’t. I don’t need ground rules to know the game with Hazel has already changed. It changed in the bar car when we agreed to write together again.

  There’s even more at stake now. We can’t disappoint our readers twice.

  And if we fall into anything more than a brief train-trip fling, the two of us will blow up again. We just will.

  After we clean up, and get into bed, I draw a deep breath, and begin another confession. “You know that photo of Max and that woman at the nightclub?”

  The picture that broke them up.

  She knows the pic. Knows I was in it, toasting with my writer bud, Vince Caine.

  “Yeah?”

  “I told Vince to take it. Then I told him to post it. I wanted you to see what Max had been doing, and I couldn’t stand it anymore, the way he was cheating. I couldn’t tell you face-to-face, so I engineered that picture.”

  She props her head in her hand, looking perplexed. “You did?”

  “Yeah,” I say, wincing. It felt noble at the time. Now it just sounds manipulative. But she deserves the truth. “I probably sound like a bigger prick now.”

  Shaking her head, she smiles softly, then presses a hand to my chest. “No. You don’t. You sound like you were looking out for me. Like you were still my friend.”

  She’s right. “I cared about you. I did, and I do, Hazel.”

  No sarcasm, no teasing. Just the truth I’ve always owed her. Night by night, I peel back a little more. But I still keep my fountain wish in a cage. That won’t ever come free.

  Hazel leans in and presses the most gentle kiss to my lips. It’s too tender, it’s too sweet.

  It’s too dangerous because it nearly unlocks me.

  But I can’t serve up the rest of my heart. She’s told me time and time again that she missed me as a friend. As a writer. As a creative partner. She’s made it crystal clear she likes my dick. But she’s never once even hinted she suffers from terrible things like feelings. I’ll just keep these wretched things to myself. Don’t want to lose her again now that I’ve got her back.

  We need to be friends for a long time. The corollary is we can’t be lovers beyond this trip. It’ll fuck up everything. Most of all, me. “So this is the get-it-out-of-our-system trope? The trip-only trope, right? Those are the ground rules?” Someone has to say it.

  For a few seconds, she’s quiet. Pensive. But a touch sad too. Then her expression shifts. She’s resolute. Or, as she’d say, resolute-ish. “Yes. Don’t you think?”

  I think I want all of you. But I also know we could damage our careers now that we’ve publicly committed to finishing the final book in Ten Park Avenue. We have unfinished business at the computer, and that means we’ll have to finish our business in bed after a few more nights.

  “I do,” I answer. Then I give her space to not cuddle.

  Turns out she told another lie. Soon after she falls asleep, she wraps her lithe body around mine and stays like that, koalaing me all night long.

  I don’t care for cuddling, but I will miss this.

  I will miss her.

  I wake in the morning to a text from my agent.

  Mason: Normally, I’d give you a hard time for not telling me first, but when it’s news this good, even I can’t give hard times.

  He links to the Book Besties’ posts from last night. The comments go on forever. Wow. I park a hand behind my head as I read them. It’s humbling. I still can’t quite believe anyone wants to read my words—or in this case, our words—let alone all these people.

  But there it is. In black and white on the Internet.

  And for one of the first times in a long time, I don’t have to picture anyone naked to navigate past this putting-myself-out-there feeling.

  That’s a welcome change.

  28

  TWO TICKETS

  Hazel

  You can’t go wrong with a night in Paris.

  Words I’ve lived by ever since I fell in love with this city when I first visited it with my mom. I’ve traveled here with friends a few times over the years, falling a little harder each time. That’s why I set The I Do Redo here.

  Naturally, I was excited when Aaron and Cady sent the trip agenda a few weeks ago and Paris was the one stop where we’d disembark from the train and spend a whole day and night.

  But now that I’m here, taking a shuttle bus with the group from a late breakfast in Le Marais to our hotel in the Eighth Arrondissement, I don’t feel excited. I feel a strange sort of dread.

  As the van rumbles past the Louvre, my stomach lurches, and it’s not from the quick stop at the light as pedestrians from all over the world cross, heading toward the famous museum.

  It’s the hotel arrangements. I wish I could hack into the hotel’s computer system and rearrange the rooms.

  But there’s nothing I can do. I worry away at my cuticles as the destination looms closer. Soon, we pull over and clamber out of the shuttle bus. The maroon-uniformed man swings open the door with Hotel Particulier Eighth calligraphed across the gleaming glass. It’s a new hotel that opened after the one in the tenth was sold out every night.

  “Bonjour,” I say to him, but I’m not feeling at all like Belle.

  I’m jealous of her. I want that spring she has in her step as she carries bags of books through her quiet little town.

  The spring in my step has gone missing, and I know why.

  I just don’t know what to do about it.

  As the group fans into the lobby, that feeling of dread intensifies, climbing higher in me. With efficiency, Amy handles the reservations, telling us the hotel arranged to check us in earlier than usual. One by one, she hands out the keys, starting with Axel and me.

  “For you,” she says, setting a key card in Axel’s palm, “And one for you,” she says, placing one in mine, beaming with relief. “Finally. Sorry it took so long. We have everything sorted for the Copenhagen leg of the trip, so you’ll have separate compartments at last as we travel to Denmark. Jay extended his apologies too and he’s happy to comp you for another train tour another time, he’s said.”

  That jolts me from my momentary funk, her first-name basis relationship with the billionaire. I steal a glance at Axel next to me, wanting to nudge him with my elbow, but all I have to do is lift a brow slightly. He lifts one in return.

  “That’s so kind of Mr. Bettencourt,” I say when I snap my gaze back to Amy. I can’t bring myself to call him Jay. Then I smile, gripping the card for emphasis. “And this is great.”

  “Much appreciated, Amy,” Axel chimes in.

  I’m careful not to smile too much or look at Axel too long. No one needs to whisper or wonder what happened behind closed doors.

  But I wish I were sharing a room with him tonight. Mine already feels lonely, and I’m not even in it. I wish I could bump into him as I head to brush my teeth, then bicker over who takes up more of the bed.

  I don’t even know what our trip-only ground rules mean anymore. Did they apply to the first few nights only? Do they stop tonight? Why didn’t we think about this hotel situation earlier today? Oh, maybe because we were making out as the sun rose and we had to scramble out of bed in a rush.

  Again.

  As the door to the elevator opens, I try to sort through my thoughts about last night, this morning, and then all the days to come in New York as we share a brain and a heart over the fate of our characters.

  But I’m tongue-tied as the door closes and I hit the button for the sixth floor.

  Axel stabs the button for the fifth. The share-a-room part of the trip is over, and I already miss it so much my chest hurts.

  When Axel steps off on the fifth floor and says casually, “Have fun today,” I can’t untangle the words to say, Wait! What are you doing? Sneak off with me. Let’s play hooky in Paris before I see Rachel later.

  I only manage an awkward, “You too.”

  “Brooks will be on a boat tour,” he says confidently. He’s so sure of himself. He seems so sure of what’s going on between us—what it is and what it isn’t.

  I’m momentarily confused by his comment, till it dawns on me. He’ll be writing.

  Something I should do too.

  Maybe I can sort out my annoying emotions through words—they have always seen me through.

  But an hour later, my room is too empty. The hotel is too quiet. I can’t concentrate on the story in front of me on the screen.

  What is Axel doing in his room?

  Ugh. I can’t obsess over him like this. I should talk to friends instead. Grabbing my phone, I click to my texts. I confirm with Rachel where I’m meeting her this afternoon, then click over to my thread with TJ. He’s an early riser, so he might be up.