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expert.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    His muscular arm squeezed her gently, and his lips pressed softly against her forehead. “Don’t be, sweetheart. God knows I deserve what I get.”
    “I’m not.” Talia licked her lips nervously. “An expert, I mean. I don’t have much experience with this kind of thing.”
    “I gathered that.”
    She stiffened. “Every girl is entitled to a rebound.”
    “I see. And that’s what I am?”
    “Of course. Dylan and I were together a long time.” She felt bolder. “In fact, I think the longer your relationship was, the more rebounds you get. Right?”
    “Am I the one-night stand expert or the relationship expert? You can’t have it both ways.”
    An uncomfortable silence formed, wrapping her in a blanket of insecurity and making her wonder why she would bring home a stranger. It shouldn’t have mattered how inexplicably attracted she was to him. Erik Aasen was still a stranger.
    “How long?” he rumbled, breaking through her self-condemnation.
    “How long what?”
    “How long were you and Dylan together?”
    “The better part of three years, but we hadn’t been engaged long.”
    She felt his body go rigid beside her. It was a curious reaction to such irrelevant information.
    “When was the big day supposed to be?”
    “I hadn’t set a date. I didn’t feel certain about him yet.”
    “Good instincts.”
    “I suppose.” Talia thought back to the reception and the blonde who’d demanded so much of Erik’s attention.
    “What?” he prodded. “I can tell you’re gearing up to ask me something.”
    “How can you tell that?”
    He reached down, pulled her lower lip out of her mouth, and smoothed the frown lines between her eyes. “You’re thinking very hard.”
    “There was a woman at the reception,” she began slowly. “You spent a lot of time with her.”
    “Probably my sister, Desiree.”
    “No, I saw your sister get into her car. It wasn’t her. This woman had long blonde hair.”
    She couldn’t have said why, but she felt the reticence in his body. He didn’t want to talk about that woman, didn’t even want to mention her. Why? What special place did she hold in his life?
    “That was probably Courteney. Her father is a business associate of mine. We’re in the midst of a large merger.”
    That wasn’t so unreasonable. “Does Courteney work for her father?”
    “No.”
    Okay, not so reasonable then.
    “Courteney is a very ambitious, very…” His voice trailed off. “My younger sister calls her determined.”
    “And you? What do you call her?”
    “A pit bull,” Erik muttered in low tones.
    She burst out laughing, her surprise chasing away her doubts. It was too bad, really, that one-night stands and rebounds never lasted. There were an awful lot of things about Erik Aasen that appealed to her, even if he was way out of her league.

Chapter Four

    Erik awoke with a start. He was unused to waking up in a stranger’s bed, and it was somewhat disorienting. He was also alone. It was an odd combination, one not conducive to putting him in a good mood.
    Giving his body a few moments to adjust, he looked over Talia’s studio apartment in the harsh light of day. It was tiny, but that wasn’t unexpected. The room was roughly the equivalent of the foyer of his Beacon Hill home and probably the size of his closet at the Brookline estate.
    She didn’t have much. But the things scattered around the small space were well cared for and lovingly placed. Several sheets of music sat waiting on the piano. A violin bow was carefully balanced against the stand. She’d cleaned up before leaving for work. The dishes in the sink had been washed and put away, the cabinets closed and countertops wiped down. The room felt like a home, something neither of his residences had ever managed to do.
    Erik swung his legs over the edge of the bed and stood. He had to get moving. This was completely unlike him. He had firm rules about spending the night with his dates. The