“We don’t have to be married, or live together, to have sex.”

She didn’t say anything for so long, he wasn’t sure what to think.

She’d changed. In some ways he didn’t like.

For instance, this ability she’d developed to close herself off from him. He wanted that for her. Understood that it was necessary. Didn’t mean he had to like it.

“You think you could be satisfied with that? Sex without commitment?”

He couldn’t tell a damn thing about what she was thinking.

“I think that sleeping with you would be better than not sleeping with you.”

His penis was hard. His heart pounding. “I’m not seeing anyone,” he continued when she remained silent. “Jeff tells me you aren’t, either. It’s not unheard of, you know. Two people who can’t live together, but still care about each other, being attracted to each other, seeking each other out for physical company now and then.”

Leaving her in the morning was a given. He had full confidence on that score. Had proved his resolve to himself—and to her—enough to know that it was rock solid. It was the next hour he was concerned about.

“I’m asking seriously, Brett. Can we really have sex and walk away without scalding ourselves?”

She wanted it as badly as he did. The fact that she wasn’t driving them the hell out of there was proof of that. That peculiar little tremor in her voice said so more quietly. It was that tremor that called him to his feet, to cross the carpeted expanse between them. Keeping his hands to his sides, he leaned over and placed his lips against hers. The choice was hers. She could grab hold. Or step back.

Ella opened her mouth. The boat lurched.

And Brett didn’t think of anything but getting them naked.

* * *

THE SPLASHING SOUND woke Ella from her doze. She hadn’t been deeply enough asleep to lose awareness of the fact that she only had a few hours left in Brett’s arms.

But the rest of the world had ceased to exist.

There it was again. That splash. She blinked against the darkness.

And that was when she remembered... “The crank!”

Jumping up from the bed of clothes on the floor of the boat, tripping over them, she rushed to lower the anchor. And saw that they’d docked against the edge of the lagoon that led into the ocean. A few feet more to the right and they’d have floated out to sea.

“I’d say fate was smiling on us tonight.” Brett’s low tones, soft and sexy and relaxed behind her, had her instantly wanting him all over again.

“Or you could say that we were just incredibly stupid,” she whispered, holding on to the crank for dear life.

She no longer felt like the Ella Ackerman she’d been before meeting Brett again. She was hot and desperate and willing to do anything to keep him with her.

In the dark.

As long as it stayed dark.

Which would only be another couple hours based on the moon’s position in the sky.

“Can you go again? Or are you too sore?” He was rubbing his penis between her legs from behind.

She couldn’t answer him. Because her mind was screaming no. So she nodded. Felt Brett nudge against her. His kisses on the back of her neck.

And when he offered himself to her, she took him.

CHAPTER TWENTY

MORNING CAME. IT always did.

Brett hoped the weekend hangover didn’t kill them all. No one had even come close to getting drunk. It was the emotions that had flowed too freely that might do them all in.

He and Ella had made sure to return to their respective sleeping places by dawn.

Chloe got up first and made breakfast while Ella and Brett got up separately, avoiding each other.

Ella cleaned up the cabin. And then showered.

Brett packed the cars. He’d shower later. After a long, hard swim in his pool.

As planned, Chloe said goodbye to Jeff—with a long hug and trembling lips—then buckled her son into the car seat in the back of Ella’s vehicle, before climbing aboard herself.

Ella pulled away. She didn’t glance back.

He couldn’t tell if she was crying.

“Let’s go get drunk.” Jeff had made the suggestion before. In another lifetime. They’d been kids then.

“Can you stay over at my place?”

“Yeah.”

So Sunday was taken care of, then.

Monday he would go back to being a man.

* * *

A WEEK PASSED with no word from Jeff. As promised.

And no word from Brett, either. He hadn’t come right out and said he was serious about them sleeping together on anything more than a one-time basis. But Ella knew he was.

She’d certainly known what she was doing.

And like a masochist, she’d hurt herself again.

At least this time, she knew she’d survive. She hadn’t lost her heart to Brett all over again.

How could she have? He’d never given it back the first time.

By Saturday, she was able to smile again without feeling as if she was going to cry. She’d finally accepted a dinner date with Jason Everly, the pediatric pulmonary specialist on her ward. Chloe wasn’t thrilled about the idea, but Ella figured it might help take her mind off Brett.

Turned out that Jason was the type of guy who wasn’t opposed to going to bed on the first date.

He tried his damnedest to get Ella to go home with him. And she was tempted. Just to get Brett out of her system.

But in the end, she turned him down.

Maybe the next time.

Jason asked her out again for the following weekend, accepting a chaste kiss good-night, so she figured there really would be a next time.

No word from Jeff meant there was no need to be in touch with Brett. There’d been a case brought forward to the High Risk team earlier that week, but it hadn’t involved Ella. She’d read the report. Assumed Brett had, too. Wondered what he thought about the date rape, death threat and ultimate arrest of the victim’s boyfriend.

And then tried not to think about him at all.

The task was made a little more difficult by the fact that Chloe was at the Stand six days a week now. In counseling. And setting up a permanent menu and kitchen-duty schedule. Ella could see that Chloe was getting stronger every day.

Enough that Ella believed her when she said she wasn’t in contact with Jeff at all. On Friday night, two weeks after their weekend getaway, they went to Uncle Bob’s for dinner with Cody.

Chloe looked over at Ella with her burger poised halfway to her mouth. “Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Dink!” Cody squealed and kicked his legs, reaching forward, and Ella reached for his sippy cup without breaking focus.

“For bringing me here. I’ll never forget everything you’ve done for me.”

Ella shrugged. “You and Jeff, you’re my life. I couldn’t sit by and watch as Jeff slowly unraveled.”

“He still might, you know.” Chloe’s eyes took on a sheen of tears. “We have no way of knowing if he’s getting help. He could just be sitting there, waiting for me to call and say I’m coming home.”

“Didn’t you two talk at all when we were at the cabin?”

It was the first time she’d asked her the question. Some things weren’t her business. Unless Chloe needed to talk about them.

“Yeah, we talked. I told him what I thought. He told me what he thought...”

“Which was?”

“That while he’d been out of line, I was overreacting. He wants us to go to marital counseling together. I told him I’d think about it. That first I had to have this time to myself to figure out what’s going on inside of me with all of this.”

“And have you found any clarity?”

She asked only because she’d been noticing the difference in her sister-in-law.

“Yes.” Chloe gave up pretending to eat. “I know that Jeff pushed me into that doorjamb on purpose. And that’s all I need to know to be certain that I can’t go back there, can’t take Cody back there, until he’s able to admit what he did and get some help.”