“Neither can I.”

I leave her to her job and head home, a list forming in my head of all I need to prepare for her. She’ll need clothes and bathroom products. I have almost seven hours until she’ll arrive. That’s more than enough time for my assistant to make my home presentable for my girlfriend.

My girlfriend.

Mine.

Since I was born, I’ve had everything I could want. Money has bought me my every whim. I could never begin to fathom all that belongs to me, and still I know there’s never been anything as beautiful and special and precious as Alayna. And she is mine. As much as I am hers. I know I appear stoic and steady, but inside, I’m delirious and dizzy with this knowledge. How could I ever believe that my strength was in impassivity? This—this never-ending rush of love and joy and vitality—this is real power.

I’m not fooling myself—this won’t be easy. There will be obstacles. Celia. My mother. My past. Her past, even. But none of that feels as monumental as what’s going on inside of me. Alayna is reason enough to fight every foe and more.

So, while much of my night is filled with preparing for Alayna’s physical presence in my life, it’s also spent formulating a plan to protect our love. I’ll find a way around Celia. I’m the one who built her; I can surely outplay her.

And Alayna…I’ll keep my secret from her. Whatever it takes, whatever the cost. She’ll never know the betrayal that brought her into my life. For her sake, I’ll hide this truth. Only for her.

Chapter Seventeen

Before

Opening the door to the loft was tricky with my mouth lip-locked to the curvy brunette I’d brought home, but somehow I managed. Inside, I pressed her against the wall and held her hands above her head, my torso digging into hers, trying to find some comfort for my raging hard-on.

I licked her lower lip and pulled my head away. “Monica, I’d like to be a gentleman about this, but there’s just no polite way to tell you how much I’m going to make you come tonight.”

She gasped, and I leaned in to nibble on her ear. The moans elicited from the sharp nip of my teeth on her lobe made my cock pulse.

She gasped again, but this time it wasn’t quite as sexy. She pushed me away from her and with an angry look over my shoulder asked, “Who the fuck is she?”

It took me a second to follow her gaze. When I did, I had to fight against the smile that tried to crawl across my lips. “Celia. I didn’t realize you’d be over tonight.”

I was as surprised as Monica to see my guest. Good thing I was excellent at winging it.

“Yeah,” Celia said, feigning embarrassment. “I guess I should have called first.” She was dressed only in a white fluffy towel, her hair wrapped in a second towel on top of her head. Even without the blush that would add to the authenticity of the moment, her speech and gestures appeared genuine.

A small burst of pride spread through me. I was impressed.

“Hudson,” Monica said, reminding me she was still there—like I could forget with my dick still throbbing in my jeans. “Who the fuck is she?”

“She’s…” I ran a hand through my hair and looked from one woman to the other, as if searching for an explanation.

“I’m Celia. A friend.” She tugged her towel higher over her lithe body. “I’m really sorry to interrupt your date. I’ll just go get dressed. Excuse me.” She apologized again as she ran to my bedroom.

“Hudson?”

I took a deep breath, removing the delight from my expression, before turning back to my date.

“She’s no one, Monica. An old friend. I didn’t know she’d be here.”

I moved back in to kiss her again, but she turned her face from mine. “Why is she here then? Does she have a key?”

Her suspicion delighted me. The entire setup of the scheme with Celia was to make my latest “girlfriend” doubt my fidelity. The experiment was meant to examine how long the subject—Monica—would stay with me if given repeated evidence that I may not be faithful. This was the first time in our relationship I’d given Monica any cause for doubt. We’d only been seeing each other for a week. I hadn’t even fucked her yet, an activity that had been on the evening’s agenda.

Until Celia had shown up, anyway. Now I was even more interested in getting it on with Monica, because, though I hadn’t expected my partner in crime to show up on this particular night, the fact that our game was proving fruitful made me very happy. Turned me on.

“Yes, she does have a key.” I did my best to sound like I was ashamed of this admission. “But only because she stays here now and then. When she’s fighting with her boyfriend. I didn’t know she’d be here.” The excuse was made up on the fly since I hadn’t been given a chance to prepare for this scenario.

Monica’s eyes widened. “She’s naked, Hudson!”

“Obviously she didn’t know I’d be here either.” I pulled her into my arms, and leaned my forehead against hers. “Come on. I’ll make her sleep on the sofa. Or we can get a hotel room.”

She melted into my body, her hands resting on my forearms. “I can’t believe I’m even considering this.”

“Monica, come on. Stay. I want you to stay.” This was easy to say because it wasn’t a lie. I’d been looking forward to burying myself inside her since the moment we’d picked her out for our experiment two weeks before. I kissed down the side of her face. “You know you want to stay too.”

“I do want to, but I don’t know.”

God, she was so close to being convinced. I rocked my pelvis into hers as I descended upon her mouth for a kiss she couldn’t say no to.

But before my lips met hers, she pulled away. “No. I can’t. Maybe this is innocent like you say, but I think it’s a cue to take a step back.”

I dropped my head with an only slightly exaggerated sigh. “Okay. I understand.” I grabbed my cock through my pants. “I’m crazy hard for you right now though. I’m going to be thinking about you all night.”

“Good. I’ll be thinking about you too.”

I escorted her out to the hall with a mixture of satisfaction and disappointment. On the one hand, she was going to present quite a challenge. That was a thrill I was looking forward to. On the other hand, she was leaving me with an ugly case of blue balls.

While we waited for the elevator, she turned to me with doe eyes. “Call me?”

“Tomorrow.” I planned to call her, but I already knew it wouldn’t be the next day. I’d make her sweat first. It would plant more seeds of doubt. “Goodnight.” I kissed her seductively, letting her know what she was missing out on.

After, I put her on the elevator. I kept her gaze locked with mine until the doors closed.

Then I went back to my apartment to deal with Celia.

She was lounging on the couch when I returned, sipping a bottle of Diet Coke. She was dressed now, or more accurately, no longer in a towel but in my bathrobe. Her hair was also no longer wrapped up, and I saw it wasn’t even wet. I suspected she had underwear on under the robe as well.

“How did it go?” she asked.

“Considering that I’m hard as stone, I’d say not very well.” I adjusted myself as I walked to the bar to make myself a drink.

“But she still wants to see you again?”

My back was to her, but I could tell she was eager for a progress report. It was understandable, though I imagined she’d listened to a good portion of it from the bedroom and already knew what had happened. Plus, it was fun to taunt her, so I delayed answering.

“You don’t seem to care that you cock-blocked me,” I said instead as I poured myself two fingers of Scotch, a recent discovery of mine.

“I don’t. I care about whether she’ll see you again.”

I turned toward her and took a sip of my drink. “She’ll see me again.”

Her entire face lit up, and she clenched her fists in a sign of victory.

While I was also feeling triumphant, there was a bone to pick. “But what the fuck, Celia? It wasn’t in the plan for you to be here tonight.”