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  She shakes her head. “No relationship. No dates. No kissing. Nothing.”

  Ten months without sex. That’s like a lifetime. Not sure I’ve gone more than ten days. Maybe fourteen tops, but that was a rough two weeks. She must be working her toys hard.

  Ah, fuck. Now, I’m picturing Charlotte in bed with a purple vibrating rabbit, legs spread, hand working the ten-speed controller, breath coming fast.

  Thanks, brain, for putting that fantastic image in my head to derail any intelligent thought.

  Some days I wonder how men get anything accomplished at all with sex on the brain constantly. In fact, I wonder how men have ever gotten a single thing done across the whole vast expanse of time. It’s a miracle we manage to tie our shoes and comb our hair.

  Then it hits me. That kiss on her couch. That kiss on the street. Those were the first kisses she’s had in nearly a year. My kisses. It makes me kind of happy that I’m the first guy she’s kissed in a long time. Even though it makes no sense that I’d be glad about that. It also doesn’t make sense that a dose of possessiveness over Charlotte courses through me, too. I don’t want anyone else to kiss her.

  I mean, not for the next week, of course.

  That’s all this possessiveness is about.

  “By the way,” she says as the car arrives at the store, “how does this end?”

  “Us?”

  She nods. “The fake engagement.”

  “I guess we have a fake breakup,” I say, even though I hadn’t thought out the end of this. Maybe because I hadn’t scripted the beginning either. It’s all been me flying by the seat of my pants.

  “At the end of the week?” she asks, as we reach the gleaming glass doors of the New York institution that’s been part of my life for as long as I can remember.

  “Yeah, a real fake breakup,” I emphasize, before I buy her the ring to seal the deal. A ring that has an expiration date, just like this fake affair that we’ve now planned the ending for.

  The real ending.

  * * *

  Things I learn about Charlotte in the next hour at Katharine’s:

  She likes holding hands.

  She likes snaking an arm around my waist.

  She likes running her fingers through my hair.

  She’s quite handsy when we’re playing pretend—it’s downright impressive, her commitment to method acting.

  She also has impeccable taste and selects a princess cut two-carat diamond set in a platinum band. “This is the ring I’ve always wanted,” she declares to Nina, my dad’s right-hand woman, and I swear Charlotte’s going to float away on a cloud of happiness. The woman absolutely sounds like a blushing bride-to-be.

  Nina smiles brightly. She’s tall and neatly dressed in a silk blouse and gray skirt, and her brown hair is swept into a bun. “Then let’s make sure the glass slipper fits you perfectly,” she says, and disappears to the back of the store to have the ring sized.

  “You’re a pro,” I say once Nina’s out of earshot. Charlotte waves a hand dismissively, and I tell her, “No, seriously. You’re going to be accepting an Oscar soon for nailing the role of ecstatic fiancée.”

  She drags her fingers along a glass case and shrugs, like her performance is no big deal. “I like diamonds. That makes it easy for me.”

  “Ah, so this is Honest Charlotte in action? And Honest Charlotte loves jewelry?”

  She nods. “Honest Charlotte adores princess-cuts and platinum. When my friend Kristen got engaged last year I was thrilled for her, and couldn’t stop staring at her princess cut diamond. It was gorgeous, but more importantly, she’s so happy, and she’s madly in love. Being elated over an engagement ring isn’t an emotion I have to fake,” she says, meeting my eyes. I can see her sincerity written in them—in this moment, those brown eyes are completely guileless.

  She loves the idea of being committed. Maybe not to me. But just in general.

  The truth of that emotion is almost too big for me. I gotta go for a joke. “What if it were a pinkie ring, though? What if I wanted to get you a gold pinkie ring with a big, fat rock? Would that fit your style?”

  She leans in closer and wiggles her eyebrows. “Thanks for the hint, snookums. Now I know just what to get you for a wedding gift.”

  Nina returns to tell us the ring should be ready in fifteen minutes. “Thank you. I can’t wait,” Charlotte says, and now I know she means it. She’s telling some sort of truth to Nina.

  But I’m lying, and that makes me feel like a bit of a schmuck. I’ve known Nina for years, and she even babysat for Harper and me when we were younger. She was my dad’s first employee when Katharine’s started as a small boutique off Park Avenue. A sales clerk, she worked her way up over the years, rising to VP as that one shop grew into an international business. My father has often said that Nina and my mother have helped him make most of his important business decisions in the last thirty years. They’re his key advisors.

  “I’m so thrilled for the two of you, and I’m so glad you’re the woman who brought him to one knee,” Nina says to Charlotte, who looks away. Nina rests a hip against a display case of diamond tennis bracelets and turns to me, gently swatting my arm. “I still can’t believe you’re getting married.”

  “I have to pinch myself too, just to remind me that it’s all real,” I say, and pinch my forearm, doing my best to ignore the nagging seeds of guilt. I can’t let the lying eat away at me. It’s all for a good cause, and no one is getting hurt. Besides, I’m not the first dude in the history of the world who needed a fiancée, stat.

  “I can remember when you were a wild five-year-old boy like it was yesterday,” Nina says, nostalgia glimmering in her eyes.

  “I can’t believe my dad actually let me visit the store as that crazy five-year-old boy,” I say, flashing back to all the hours I’ve logged in this upscale joint. I know the place inside and out. Five floors of sophistication, glitter, and glamour. Diamonds sparkle behind gleaming glass showcases and atop marble pedestals, and the burgundy carpet is so lush you want to curl up and sleep on it.

  Or run circles on it, which is what I did as a kid.

  “You were so wound up,” Nina says, shaking her finger at me. She smiles, and her gray eyes crinkle when she does.

  “How wild was he exactly?” Charlotte asks. I detect a note of mischievous curiosity in her tone. She casts a quick glance at me, and I know what she’s doing—fishing for fodder to tease me with at some unsuspecting moment.

  Nina laughs delightedly as she answers. “Little Spencer was a handful. Once, when his mother was visiting relatives out of town, Spencer’s father brought him into the store an hour before opening, and this little devil child immediately started zipping and zinging around all the cases,” she says, weaving a path in the air with her hands to demonstrate.

  I cringe, as Charlotte laughs. “I can picture that perfectly.”

  “Oh, that was only the start of the havoc he tried to wreak. He knocked over a case of rubies once during one of his marathon laps around the store. Another time, he snagged the velvet lining from a display case, and turned it into a cape,” she says, and Charlotte’s lips twitch in amusement. “But,” Nina says, narrowing her eyes and holding up a finger, “I had a solution.”

  “Benadryl?” Charlotte asks playfully, then squeezes my hand.

  I groan inside, knowing what’s coming.

  “Oh, I wish I could have gotten him to nap while his father was busy in a meeting. Instead, I went to the fancy pet accessories shop down the block, bought a leash, and attached it to the loops of his corduroy pants.”

  Charlotte’s hand flies to her mouth, and I drop my forehead to my palm. There it is. The story I will never live down now. I don’t know what’s worse—the leash or the corduroy.

  “You walked him around the store on a leash?” Charlotte asks, taking her time with each word, wonder in her voice.

  Nina nods, proud of her solution. She pats the side of her leg as if she’s giving a dog a command, th
en emits a low whistle. “C’mere boy,” she says, laughs shuddering through her. “He loved it. He took to it like a little Cocker Spaniel.”

  “Amazing. Almost like he’s got a little bit of dog in him just waiting to come out,” Charlotte says, shaking her head in amusement.

  I roll my eyes as the women continue their banter.

  “But don’t they all? Men, that is,” Nina says.

  Charlotte nods. “Good thing I like dogs.”

  “Besides, it was either leash him up, or risk this little hellion breaking all the diamond cases. He’s mellowed over the years though. In a good way,” Nina says, patting me on the cheek. “And he’s mellowing in an even better way now, isn’t he?” she says, directing the last words to Charlotte, who gulps and seems to tense. Her eyes widen, and I freeze.

  Shit.

  This is it.

  This is when Charlotte chokes.

  “Wouldn’t you say so?” Nina continues, prompting Charlotte, who’s stock still.

  Red starts to streak across her cheeks, and she’s about to word-vomit the truth. To blurt it all out in one big, fat confession tied up with a white bow of ridiculous. She might have aced the jewelry selection, but that was easy for her sparkly, jewel-loving heart. This is the hard part, and it shows. Oh crap, does it show in the terror in her eyes.

  Her lips start to move, but no sound comes. I squeeze her hand, a reminder that it’s her turn to speak. But if she can’t form words, I’m going to need to step in. Somehow, she manages a nervous smile, then she winks at Nina, and at last speech returns. “Actually, he’s still a hellion. So if you held onto that leash, I might be able to put it to good use.”

  Nina tosses her head back and cackles. She drops a hand on Charlotte’s arm and whispers, “Oh, I do so love the naughty energy of the newly engaged.”

  She excuses herself to go check on the ring, and Charlotte shoots me a look. “Thought I was going to blow our cover, didn’t you?”

  I hold up my thumb and forefinger. “You were this close to giving it up, weren’t you?”

  She arches an eyebrow. “Maybe I wanted you to squirm.”

  “You evil woman,” I say with narrowed eyes.

  She dances her fingers up my arm. “Or perhaps I was just processing the fantastic image of you being on a leash,” she says, looking like the cat who didn’t just eat the canary, but feasted on the bird’s whole damn family. “You do know that was basically the best ammunition ever that she just dropped in my hand. The Spencer on a Leash tale. But it got even better when she called you a Cocker Spaniel,” she says, the corner of her lips quirking up in a “gotcha” grin.

  “What can I say? I guess I was a dog even then.” At least I can breathe easily again.

  “Do you still like it? Being walked on a leash?” she says, egging me on.

  “Is this your way of asking me to participate in kinky, dirty things?”

  “No. It’s my way of asking how far this fantastic story extends so that if I want to mention it while we’re at the bar, or out with Nick or Kristen, or your sister, that I get it right,” she says, miming walking a dog.

  But that’s not how I see things going. Not at all. Just so she knows how I like these scenarios to play out, I lean in closer, brush her hair away from her shoulder, and whisper, “If anyone’s getting tied up, it’s you. And it won’t be with a leash. It’ll be with a scarf, or stockings, or that black hot-as-fuck thong you put on because I made you so wet you had to change. I’d wrap it around your wrists, nice and tight, then pin them behind your back until you beg me to touch you.”

  Her breath catches.

  She trembles, and a shiver runs through her body. She grips the front of my shirt, her fingertips curling around a button. And holy fuck… she likes the idea of being tied up. I can feel it in the air. In the way protons and electrons are buzzing. In the sexual energy that’s radiating off her body.

  I inhale.

  It smells like chemistry.

  And I have no clue what to make of it.

  I don’t even know why I just said that, since I’m not supposed to be thinking about screwing her, let alone tying her up.

  Good thing Nina returns moments later with the ring. “A rush sizing job for my most special customers,” she says with a smile. Charlotte holds out her hand, and I slide the diamond onto her ring finger, meeting her eyes for a second. I try to read them, to see if she thinks this is as surreal as I do—me, the New York City playboy, putting a ring on it.

  Even a temporary one.

  Maybe this is weird for her too.

  As I study her face, I can’t tell at first from her serious expression how she’s feeling to wear an engagement ring for the first time. Then I see it in her big, brown eyes, as a flicker of sadness passes over them. My heart lurches, and I figure she’s remembering that ten months ago she was about to be engaged to a man who wound up breaking her heart.

  Good thing I won’t be the one making her look that way ever. I don’t have the power to hurt her like that.

  I drop a quick kiss on her cheek, then hand over my platinum card and spend close to ten thousand dollars on a ring. When we go to work that night, she doesn’t wear it.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The next afternoon, I’m watching as a little white ball soars high in the air, then lands with a plunk on fake grass about fifteen feet away.

  “Dude, you suck,” I tell Nick.

  “Well aware of that.”

  He grabs another ball, sets it down on the tee, and swings his club. When he makes contact, the ball sails so damn high, it nearly hits the top of the black net, then smacks the long path of green that extends below like a dock over the Hudson River. Two white dinner cruise ships are moored next to the driving range, and nothing but blue skies stretch above us. We’re at Chelsea Piers, where he’s working on his golf game.

  “Hate to break it to you, but I doubt your new boss is going to be terribly impressed with your swing. Maybe you can convince him to play softball with us instead.”

  He scoffs. “Not likely. The man is obsessed with golf, and word is he plays favorites and gives better time slots to the showrunners who keep up with him on the course.”

  “That’s insane. But if that’s true, you need less shoulder. More hips,” I tell him, since I dabbled in golf in high school. I don’t talk about it much. Makes me sound too snooty. Or too old. But if it helps my buddy, I’ll call up the old golf skill book for him.

  Nick raises his face and stares at me through his black hipster glasses, his brown hair flopping down on his forehead. “Don’t you dare put your hands on my hips to show me.”

  I crack up, holding up my hands in surrender. “You can count on that never happening,” I say, as I move out of the way of his next attempt.

  He does better this time, and the ball arcs neatly over the grass.

  “There you go,” I say. “Write that into your next episode. Mr. Orgasm’s buddy saves his ass from embarrassing himself with his golf swing in front of the new boss.”

  Nick Hammer is a rock star in the TV world. Back in high school, he was the quiet geek bent over his notebook sketching dirty comic strips that he posted online. Ten years later, he turned his talent and his concept into an animated TV show—The Adventures of Mr. Orgasm, a hilarious and filthy show that airs late at night on the cable network Comedy Nation. The hero is an animated caped crusader who bestows orgasmic pleasure on womankind. Pretty sure it was wish fulfillment for Nick back in high school. Now, art imitates life and vice versa. He’s still got a quiet side, but women notice him. He’s hit the weights since our teenage days, inked up his arms with tattoos he designed himself, and found the guts to finally start talking to the opposite sex. The result? Pure magic. The man’s a total tomcat, and I suspect the glasses and unassuming I-once-was-a-geek-now-I’m-a-star persona helps his cause with the ladies.

  “And how exactly does the coming come into play in this storyline you propose?” he asks dryly.

  I shrug and
clap him on the shoulder. “Don’t know. That’s why you, my man, are the writer. It’s your job to figure out how the Os fit into the show. Speaking of storylines, I need a little help with something,” I say, getting to the heart of this quick detour I’ve made to see him this afternoon.

  He sets down his club, and crooks his finger. “It’s called the G-spot. You find it inside a woman. When you hit it at just the right angle, she comes harder than she ever has before. Need anything else?”

  I pretend to bang a drumstick as soundtrack to his punchline, then I tell him about my new temporary relationship status.

  After he laughs, guffaws, and chuckles over my predicament, he asks, “Is this your way of asking me to be your best man? Will the wedding be fake, too?”

  I laugh and shake my head. “There won’t be a wedding. Ever. But this is what I need. When we have our softball game next weekend, my dad will be there, and his buyer will be there. All I need is for you to act like you knew I was into her. If it comes up, don’t act surprised or suspicious.” My dad runs a mixed-age softball team sponsored by Katharine’s, and he recruited both Nick and me for his team this year. Nick’s softball swing is worlds better than his golf swing.

  He nods several times, like he’s taking in my directive, then he strokes his chin. “Let me get this straight. What you’re saying is, I should behave like I’m perfectly capable of backing up the latest bullshit of yours. Okay. I think I can do that.”

  I roll my eyes. “That’s why I depend on you. The bottomless well of sarcasm.”

  “It matches yours,” he says with a smirk.

  “I need to take off, since I have this dinner thing tonight. I’ll catch you later.”

  I start to head out, when he calls out to me. “Does this mean I can’t put the moves on Charlotte now?”

  My shoulders tense for a moment and that fiery burst of possessiveness returns with a vengeance, like a red-tailed hawk swooping down from the sky, big-ass claws brandished. I remind myself he’s joking. That’s what he does. And I’m not the least bit jealous or possessive. The hawk turns into a dove. “Just for the next week or so,” I say. “Then she’s all yours.”