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ago.”
    “Thirteen? You started your career at thirteen?”
    “I started my training at thirteen.” He lowers his voice. “You do know
    I couldn’t let you run, don’t you?”
    “I wasn’t—”
    “You were.”
    “If you think that, then why’d you come after me?”
    “Because you didn’t want to run. You just thought you had to.”
    “That’s a little arrogant.”
    “It’s honest. I like honesty.”
    I like it too, but I can’t give it to him. This ride was a mistake.
    “Liam—”
    He closes the distance between us, moving my bag out of the way,
    his powerful leg pressed to mine, his fingers sliding into my hair. I am
    shocked. I am excited and scared, frozen and burning up at the same time.
    “Do you know how much I like it when you say my name?” he asks, his
    voice a soft, seductive purr.
    Nerves and heat collide like fire in my belly. He likes when I say his
    name? This man who is overwhelmingly male, a powerful force like none I
    have ever experienced? “I don’t know what to say to that.” And it is as
    honest an answer as I’ve given anyone in years.
    “You don’t have to know, Amy. It’s okay not to know.”
    For the second time today, he has spoken words straight to my soul.
    Relief that reaches so far beyond this moment in time, and my possible
    response to his statement, flows through me.
    This is why I’m in this car, why I am drawn to this man. He makes me
    feel I don’t have to hold the world up on my own. And as crazy as it is, from
    the moment my eyes met his in the terminal, he has had a way of making
    me feel I am not alone.
    His thumb runs over my bottom lip and a shiver trickles down my
    spine. I think he will kiss me. I want him to kiss me. But he doesn’t. “Soon,”
    he promises, as if responding to my silent plea, as if he knows how much I
    crave his mouth on mine. His cell phone rings, but for a moment he ignores
    it to add, “And not soon enough.”
    He moves away from me and I want to pull him back. I want to feel
    his hands on my body again, his leg pressed to mine. But he is already
    answering his call, and too easily dismissing what I cannot. “Yes,” he says to
    his caller. “I’m here.”
    My fingers curl, nails digging into my palm. I have no one to call and
    ask if I’m here. I have only me and no matter how drawn I am to Liam, if
    today has proven anything to me it’s that there can always be only me. But
    as I glance at Liam’s strong profile, I pretend he is truly with me. And that I
    am truly with him. It is a small dream in the middle of a nightmare.

    ***
    Thirty minutes after we leave the airport, the Town Car pulls to a
    stop at a destination.
    Liam grabs my bag and exits street side while the driver opens my
    door. I step outside, enjoying a cool evening breeze that drives home the
    fact that I am no longer in New York. Scanning my surroundings, I appear to
    be standing in the center of high-end restaurants and stores where, despite
    the late hour of nearly midnight Mountain Time, people are casually
    strolling the sidewalks and the city is far from dead.
    With my apartment key in my hand, I glance behind me to find more
    stores and a hotel, and then forward again where apartment balconies
    seem to sit above the retail stores.
    “Hang onto my bags,” I hear Liam tell the driver, before he joins me,
    my joke of a suitcase and my bag in tow. “What apartment number?”
    “222, but I don’t see an entrance.”
    “The driver said there’s an elevator entrance beside the kitchen
    store.”
    Spotting the “Sur Le Table” sign he must be talking about, I turn to
    Liam and reach for my suitcase. “Thanks for the ride.”
    He holds on to both of my bags. “You’re alone in a new city. I’m not
    letting you go inside an apartment you’ve never seen before by yourself.”
    “The driver—”
    “Has been tipped well.” He motions me forward and starts walking,
    effectively giving me no room to argue.
    Staring after him, I am on unsteady