"What?"But he doesn't answer. He turns and walks back to the bathroom to retrieve the clothes he left there last night."What the hell, Calder!" I say, struggling against my bonds.My annoyance doesn't seem to bother him. He returns a moment later, his pants already on and his shirt in his hand. He slips it over his shoulders as I watch."This is just a sick joke, isn't it?" I say. "Another one of your lessons?"Calder is now fully clothed. He sits down on the bed, looking down at me with that smug smile of his. If I could move, I'd slap it right off, but I guess he was thinking ahead."Is this payback for last night?" I ask. "I didn't make you come over, you know. I would've been fine."The question seems to knock a little of the wind out of his sails. His smile drops slightly and his eyebrows shift toward each other."You shouldn't have had so much to drink," he says finally."So you're going to lecture me now? I don't want to hear it."He sighs. "Do you have any idea how

We spend the rest of the day and much of the night making love.The following morning, he tells me he'd like to go back to his apartment to grab a few things. When he rushed over on Friday night, he hadn't anticipated staying all weekend."Come with me," he says. "We'll grab some food."The food is only a pretense, I know. I can see it in his eyes. He's afraid, like me, that the minute we step back into the real world, everything will come crashing down around us. The minute we part, we'll start thinking about all of the things that might push us apart again.I agree to go with him, of course. I'm not ready for the spell to be broken just yet.I sense that something's off the minute we reach Calder's building. Calder does too, judging by the way he glances around the parking lot. He grabs my hand as we step out of the car, but the gesture feels more protective than affectionate.We're halfway to the building when I see the man with the camera. He was waiting behind a car, but he

"This place will always be a part of you, you know."We're sitting in the grass out on the lawn of the former Cunningham estate, staring up at the night sky. I have no idea what time it is - long past dinner, I'm sure, and probably far into the night - but for whatever reason neither food nor sleep interests me very much right now. I've even called my dad and told him I won't be in to work tomorrow.Calder doesn't respond for a long moment."It's not the house," he says. "Not really." He picks at the grass next to him. "I was never really happy with the idea of another family living here, but I told myself that at the end of the day, it would still be someone's home. This - this thing they want to do... it destroys everything that made this house special."I can't know the pain he's feeling, but I understand in some small way. You expose the secrets of a place like this, and they cease to mean anything."But maybe it's better this way," he says. "Maybe this is what needed to happe

If I thought the Center might benefit from the sympathetic press we've received since the Intown Voice story went live - well, it's nothing compared to the attention and support coming our way now that I'm in the hospital. If I'd have known, I might have let myself get pushed down a flight of stairs even sooner.Dad tells me I have a mild concussion. I also had to get a total of twenty stitches: eleven on my scalp, five on my arm, and four on my cheek. I broke two fingers on my right hand and cracked my radius on the same arm.In other words, I'm pretty damn busted up.I've never been in the hospital before. And I never thought that my first trip would end up making the news. But when you're the ex-lover of an ex-billionaire and you were attacked by a reporter, well, people apparently pay attention to these things. My room has been flooded with flowers, mostly from people I don't even know, and according to Dad money has been pouring in. Now there's no way I can refute Asher's words

BOOK THREE: SWEET VICTORY"This is the last of it."Calder's voice draws my eyes up from the bookshelf I'm attempting to assemble. He's standing in the doorway, holding a cardboard box with the word "Miscellaneous" scrawled across it in Sharpie.I grin. "Then it's official?"He meets my smile with one of his own. "It's official."I leap up and run over to him. He barely has time to drop the box on the counter before I jump into his arms. My arms go around his neck, my legs around his waist. He stumbles back a step, laughing as he holds me up."We live together," I whisper. "We really and truly live together."And before he has the chance to respond, I'm kissing him. It seems only right; after nearly six months of dating, Calder Cunningham and I have finally decided to take things to the next level. A week ago we signed the lease on an apartment together, and tonight, for the first time, we will be calling the same place home."Mm," he says against my lips. "What do you say we c