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“Second thought.” He threw aside the sheet and put his feet on the floor. No way he’d let her dump his ass when they’d barely started. “I missed my run.”

He pulled a pair of joggers from his closet and stuffed his feet into the legs. “Want to come with me? It’s only ten miles,” he lied.

“Uh, no. That sounds awful.”

It really did.

He gave her the practiced smile he’d offered women in the past. It came easier to him than he liked, but he was desperate. “Hang out as long as you want. But if you have stuff to do, it’s cool if you take off before I get back.”

“Are you…upset?” she asked as he pulled a pair of socks from his top dresser drawer.

“Not at all.” No good would come of sticking around to talk things through. This sucked, more than anything in recent history, but he understood. Under the cover of night at Willow Mansion, where mysterious sounds and voices echoed through the halls, he and Lily had been different people. But here in the real world—in broad daylight—they couldn’t hide. They were coworkers who argued over who could eat the last crab Rangoon at lunch.

“You can make a coffee to go if you want.” He tied his sneakers. “Just push a button. You can borrow a tumbler from the cabinet.”

“Yeah, sure.” She sat up in bed and began searching for her clothes.

He opened another drawer and handed her a pair of his joggers that were too big for her but too small for him. It was the best he could do. “Here you go. Since yours are ruined. How’s the leg, by the way?”

“Oh, it’s fine. Thanks.” She smoothed the bandage high on one thigh.

The sight of her panties and what he knew they were hiding made him want to weep with regret. If there wasn’t so much at stake, he would have kicked off his shoes and climbed back into bed with her.

“No problem.” He slipped into the hallway as she was untangling her bra and then caught his breath. Once there, he nodded to himself, accepted the inevitable, and went for that run.

That was…strange.

And she wasn’t thinking about the part where they’d almost had sex again. Sex with Marcus actually sounded great right about now. But then memories of last night—or was it early this morning?—descended and she wasn’t sure having sex with him again was such a good idea.

She peeked out the window as she pulled on his pants. They were too big, so she folded down the waistband a few times until she was confident they’d stay on her hips. He ran down the sidewalk and then turned a corner out of sight. She’d had no idea that he was a jogger.

So…she’d make a coffee and go home. Have a typical weekend alone—just her and her fish, Bubba. Then she could do some laundry. None of which sounded preferable to spending the morning having sex with Marcus.

She straightened the sheets and pillows—a sloppy attempt at making the bed, but she didn’t think he’d mind. She was going to have to stop thinking about sleeping with him or else they’d never recover from this. Literally sleeping next to him this morning had crossed a line. Before, they’d been coworkers. After last night, they were…friends? Acquaintances didn’t sit right after what they’d done together—what they’d experienced together. All of which had been intense.

Unforgettable.

She shouldered her purse and noticed a huge poster of mountains and bright blue ocean hanging over his dresser. She felt a pinch of regret about the bet. Unlike her, he hadn’t blindly wanted to win a trip for the sake of winning. He’d been dreaming of going to Hawaii. She swiped dust from the frame with one finger. He’d been dreaming of it for a while, it seemed.

Downstairs, she waited for the coffee to brew, admiring the freshly mowed backyard. No lace curtains above the kitchen windows, but there was a small herb garden and a hummingbird feeder.

She pictured him pressing seeds into the soil, refilling the feeder with sugar water as the bejeweled birds buzzed around him. As she snapped the lid onto the tumbler, she bit her lip in contemplation.

She’d thought she had him figured out, but now she wasn’t sure she knew him at all.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Lily swiped mascara onto her lashes Monday morning and blinked at her reflection. She had promised herself that things would be back to normal today. She was supposed to have forgotten that Friday night—going into Saturday morning—had ever happened.

She’d spent Saturday and Sunday cleaning her house from top to bottom. She’d pulled the shelves out of the refrigerator and scrubbed them until they gleamed. She kept thinking about how clean his house was—save a little dust on the framed poster of the tropics. And it bothered her.

It bothered her that he lived in a house that was cozy and homey, that he kept an herb garden and sipped coffee while watching hummingbirds, and that his sense of style was masculine but inviting—slate gray curtains and sheets, and pale walls. Why this bothered her, she had no idea.

Yes, you do.

Yes. She did.

Because thinking of him planting parsley seeds or stripping thyme from the stem as a ribeye sizzled in a cast-iron skillet meant he wasn’t a Neanderthal. She’d always pictured him living one of two ways. Either he was a super neat freak with monochrome furnishings, or a frat boy with a TV balanced on stacked milk crates and dirty clothes on his bedroom floor.