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soon as he left, she let out a sigh of relief. She should not feel relieved when her boyfriend went away. It was a bad sign. So was the fact that Simon stood from the table where he’d been chatting with his friends the second she was alone.
    “Oh no,” she sighed to Daniel. “Out of the frying pan and into the fire, huh bud?”
    Daniel burbled at her, resting his head against her chest and grabbing for the front of her dress with a slobbery hand.
    “Maybe you could arrange to drop a huge load in your diaper so we can have an excuse to make ourselves scarce, huh?”
    Daniel answered with a big yawn.
    “Yeah, I thought so.”
    “Jenny,” Simon greeted her, raising his glass to her. What she’d assumed was red wine from across the room turned out to be Coke. “What’s a pretty girl like you doing standing here alone?”
    “Enjoying myself immensely,” she answered. “Besides, I’m not alone.”
    “Of course not. You’re with our son.” He met and held her eyes with something that felt a little too close to scolding for her liking. “When are we going to deal with this?”
    “Some other time,” she answered, swaying to rock Daniel to sleep.
    “No time like the present,” Simon fired back.
    “I don’t know how they do things where you come from,” she fired right back at him as best she could with a sleepy baby in her arms, “but around here, we wait until the time is right and we won’t be spoiling someone else’s day to have the knock-down, drag-out fights.”
    “This doesn’t have to be a fight,” he said.
    Jenny frowned. Simon looked tired. Not the kind of tired that came from staying out late. It was barely eight o’clock. It was more the kind of weariness that comes over someone when they’ve been through an emotional ringer and were waiting for life to get back to normal. She knew that feeling all too well. She was still waiting for normal herself. Learning about Daniel must have been a shock, but Simon had only found out a few hours ago. Exhaustion like that didn’t hit you in a few hours. There was something else.
    Something else that she didn’t know and didn’t care about, she told herself. Simon could have his own problems. She had enough of her own.
    “You want to dance?” he asked, changing his tone and his expression to be charming.
    “Nope,” she answered.
    “Did I hear you say dance?”
    Jenny twisted to discover that her mom was only a few yards away and closing in fast. A chill ran through her blood. She would have to pay more attention to who was around her when she was talking to Simon if she wanted to keep her secrets to herself.
    “I’m not dancing, Mom,” she said. “In fact, I was just about to put Daniel to bed.”
    “Here, let me do it,” her mom said, rushing in to pry Daniel from her arms. “You go enjoy yourself. It isn’t every day you get to dance with a man like Simon Mercer.” Her mom flashed a wide smile to Simon and giggled when Simon winked back. Maybe Neil was right about obnoxious celebrities disrupting everything after all.
    “Shall we?” Simon extended an arm to her, acting so British she thought the queen might swoop in to back him up.
    “Fine,” she sighed. She didn’t take his arm, but walked beside him until they reached the grassy patch that was serving as the dance floor.
    The music was slow enough for Simon to pull her into his arms and hold her close, but thank God it wasn’t a love song. People were watching them and the photographer’s face lit up as though he’d struck pay dirt, so she smiled her best smile.
    She waited for Simon to say something, to give her an excuse to lay into him. He was quiet. He smiled at her and held her close. The longer that went on, the more her body remembered the feel of him, the contours and plains of his torso, the warmth of his lips against hers, sliding their way across her body, exploring her with expert skill. She remembered the way he fit inside of her, the pleasure he’d drawn out of