But he shocked me even further when he turned on Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’.” With the top down and the wind whipping my hair in my face, we sang at the top of our lungs and enjoyed every minute of it.
The drive seemed to take half as long as it had when I first came out to the cottage. Either it was because I had an idea of where I was going or if it was just Penn.
Between the three weeks we’d spent alone in that house.and the careful truce we’d drawn that night out on the deck, things had changed with us. Penn hadn’t come on to me since he had that look in his eye. But I couldn’t deny that I found him attractive, and he was easy to talk to. He was too good to be true, which probably meant he was.
And I needed to stop fooling myself.
There was a reason I had been angry with him.
For everything he’d done to me that night in Paris. For the person I’d become due to those actions. How cheap and used I’d felt.
I never wanted to feel like that again.
But sometimes, when we were alone like that, it would all disappear. And I’d forget entirely why I was mad at him in the first place.
It was dangerous. He was dangerous.
I needed to be very careful.
“All right. Here we are,” Penn said as he finished navigating the New York traffic like a pro.
My eyes traveled up, up, up the building off of Central Park. Somewhere up there, Katherine was waiting for me. Nerves bit at me. I liked Katherine. She seemed nice enough, but I couldn’t figure out why she wanted to do this for me. I didn’t know enough about her to make a judgment about who she really was. And until then, I knew I needed to keep my guard up.
“What are you going to be doing?” I asked.
“I’ll be at my apartment with Totle. I brought some work with me,” he said, gesturing to the leather messenger bag in the backseat. “I’ll take your stuff up to my place with me.”
“Okay. Maybe I should just…hang with you and Totle. I have work, too.”
“Go on. Get out. Have a good time.”
I sighed heavily and slung my purse over my shoulder. “Fine. I’ll see you tonight.”
“Looking forward to it,” he said with a brilliant smile.
Then, I was on the sidewalk, alone, in New York City, and he was taking that beautiful smile and his even more adorable puppy far away. I double-checked my phone for instructions to get to Katherine’s apartment and took the elevator upstairs.
I stepped hesitantly inside. I’d never seen an elevator that took you into a person’s actual house. That was a bit disorienting.
“Hello?” I called out as I turned the corner.
“Natalie!” Katherine squealed and rushed toward me. She hugged me tight. “I’m so glad that you made it. Come inside. Mimosa?”
“Uh…sure,” I said, taking the champagne flute out of her hand.
“How was the drive?”
“Easy.”
Since Penn’s friends didn’t know that he was staying in the Hamptons, we decided not to enlighten them. I didn’t mind them coming out to visit, but it would disturb the peace we had out there. And all the time I’d spent writing on my new project, which I still hadn’t figured out a title for. My agent had been asking about it because I’d finally confessed to putting the other book aside. But I just wasn’t ready.
“Good. I’m glad. Okay, let’s get started.”
“Started?” I choked out.
She’d told me that we were going to have a full day of pampering, but I hadn’t thought she actually meant a full day. What could possibly take all day?
“Yes! We have a full day ahead of us—massage, facial, waxing, tanning, hair, and makeup.”
My jaw dropped. I’d had massages, sure. When I’d swam in college, the trainers and physical therapists would sometimes massage out knots from the pool. They were usually intense and made you cry. For some reason, I didn’t think that was the kind of massage she meant. The rest I’d never had the money to splurge on.
“It’s going to be great!” Katherine said, tugging me into a bedroom that had been transformed into a day spa.
Then I was quickly whisked away by Emmanuel, who was gorgeous enough to be a male model. He spoke the entire time about his boyfriend, who actually was a male model. Besides that, he had a constant stream about how much I clearly needed these treatments. About how