“What’s his last name, this young man of yours?”

“Why? You gonna make a file on him?” She knew all about Kingsley’s files he kept on anyone who interested him.

“Peut-être,” he admitted without shame. Maybe.

“It’s Sutherlin. Wyatt James Sutherlin. Want his birth date and blood type, too?”

Kingsley chuckled. “I can find that out myself. Wyatt Sutherlin … Eleanor Sutherlin … It has a nice ring to it, no?”

She sighed heavily. Absurd to think of someone like her getting married, having kids, doing the wife-and-mother thing. She sat in the music room of the most notorious house in the city talking to the most notorious kinkster in the city about the priest she loved.

“My high school best friend, well, my only friend, Jordan, is getting married next summer. She’s a sophomore at Anna Maria and she’s already engaged. She can’t wait to have babies. She called me last week. I couldn’t even talk to her. How do I talk to someone like that? I thought …” She stopped and laughed sheepishly. “I thought about asking you to pay her a visit. Seduce her, I mean. She saw you once and it was the only time she ever made a sex joke. She’s going down the marriage-and-kids path at eighteen, and I want to stop her.”

“I could stop her,” he said without any arrogance in his tone. He simply stated a fact. “Would you like me to?”

She shook her head.

“Husband, kids—that’s what Jordan wants.”

“And you?”

“I want more than that.”

“Then you have your answer, Eleanor Sutherlin.”

“You call me that again and I’ll slap you into the next century.”

“Now, ma belle Elle, you are speaking my language.”

Eleanor kissed Kingsley good-night on both cheeks and threw on her coat.

The temperature had dropped, so she decided to spring for a cab. While scanning the street in search of a yellow, she heard someone calling her name.

“Wyatt?” She turned around and faced Wyatt with shock. “What the hell are you doing here?”

He clutched a bouquet of flowers in his hand, half-dead from the cold.

“You said you had to work tonight,” he said without a smile on his face. She couldn’t remember seeing him without a smile on his face. “I wanted to surprise you at work with flowers. I didn’t know which bookstore you worked at so I followed you. I know that’s creepy, but I thought you’d forgive me since all I wanted to do was bring you flowers.”

“You’ve been waiting out here for two hours?”

“The things we do for love, right?” He raised his hands and laughed at himself. “I kind of liked the mystery-girl vibe you have. You don’t talk about your past, your parents. I don’t even know the name of this guy you’re supposedly in love with. It’s kind of hot, this whole secrecy thing you’ve got going. But secrets are one thing. You lied to me.”

“I did lie,” she admitted. “I’m not at work, obviously. I was visiting a friend.”

“A f**king rich friend from the looks of it.”

“He’s also his friend. I didn’t want to hurt your feelings.”

“Well, they’re hurt. No big deal. They’ll get unhurt. Eventually. Same way as I’ll get unfrozen.”

“Eventually?”

“Right. Can we maybe go somewhere and talk—”

“Wyatt, I can’t see you anymore.” Eleanor let the words rip fast and hard, like tearing off a bandage.

“Am I suddenly invisible?”

She rubbed her forehead.

“You have to stop being so cute and funny, okay?” she said. “He comes back in three days. I can’t do this anymore, play this game with you.”

“It’s not a game. I’m in love with you.”

“And I’m in love with him.”

“You can’t be. He’s in his thirties. You’re nineteen. I mean, what could you have in common with someone that old? What could you two even talk about?”

“He’s brilliant and funny and fascinating, and I’ll never reach the end of the mystery of him.”

“Guys that age love younger girls. You’re easy prey for them. They can impress you by just being older.”

“I am not easy prey, okay? I’m not some sheep being eaten by a big bad wolf. He speaks eighteen languages. He’s six foot four. He’s stunningly beautiful and yes, I’m using the word beautiful. He rides a motorcycle and he lives this life like you can’t believe and he brought me into it. These parties I’ve seen, you can’t imagine it. And the people? Rich and powerful people like you wouldn’t believe. And, Wyatt, none of that matters. What matters is that he loves me and there is nothing he wouldn’t do for me. He loves me so much that if I wanted to be with you more than him, he’d let me be with you. He loves me and he knows me, and I am a more interesting person when I’m with him than when I am without him. Without him I’m just an NYU English major with a part-time job and too much homework.”

“That’s all I am, too.”

“Yeah. Exactly.”

The words hung in the air between them, hovering like a poison cloud. She knew she’d crossed a line, pushed the knife in too deep. As much as she adored Wyatt, he could never compete with a man like Søren. First of all, Søren was a man and Wyatt was only a nineteen-year-old boy.