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into the Prada store. This looked like any other rainstorm.
    “Before we lost power last night, I checked Twitter,” Duke said. “Because the storm hit at high tide, there’s a lot of flooding in lower Manhattan and in the subways.”
    “How long do you think this will last?”
    Duke went to check his iPhone for the answer and he swore when seeing the blank black screen. We had no connection to the outside world. We had no new information. It was just us. Unplugged.
    “The last report I saw said rain until this evening.”
    “I wonder how long the power will be out,” I said, glancing longingly at the computer. I wanted to know how much of manuscript I had lost. And I wanted to keep writing.
    “I’m sure it won’t be too long,” Duke said. Neither of us believed him.
    “What should we do until then?”
    “I have an idea,” he murmured.
    His idea was kissing.
    His mouth brushed over mine and instead of opening up to him, I found myself pressing my lips into a closed line and turning away. I wanted to kiss Duke. There was so much longing inside of me, bottled up and wanting release. But even Duke’s sweet, loving kiss reminded me of the night before. I remembered the taste of stale beer and fear, Sam’s stubble abrasive against my cheeks, my heart pounding so hard I felt like I was choking.
    Duke then reminded me why I loved him. When I was scared and uncertain, he laced his fingers through mine and just held my hand.
    Later that day
    T HE HOURS PASSED. The rain kept falling. The power did not return.
    Duke picked up his Kindle and I tried reading the few paper books he had—all of which were about business, sales or web development. Not exactly riveting stuff. My mind kept straying to the novel I had started last night. My heroine, Prudence, had suffered horribly. It was something she’d been able to push to the dark corners of her mind until a looming school anniversary party would force her to recognize what had happened to her and how she couldn’t move on.
    Rather than stay in London, this wallflower ran away. She found herself stranded at a country inn during an epic rainstorm.
    Her hero was there with her. John Roark, Lord Castleton, had a secret past. Perhaps not unlike my own hero—I hadn’t forgotten about that tell-all book about Duke. Oh, how I wished I had stayed at home and read the rest of that awful article or even bought the book and took it to bed.
    Speaking of books, Duke was very happily reading his. I desperately wanted to be writing mine. I glanced over at his laptop with the dead battery.
    “I think I’m going to have to write the old fashioned way. Do you have pen and paper?”
    We both glanced around his sleek, modern apartment. There was no clutter and no paper lying around. He didn’t have a lot of stuff.
    “Oh my God, you don’t even have paper,” I muttered. It made sense; he read everything on his phone or Kindle, probably never printed anything at home. Even his light bulbs and TV were controlled by apps on his phone.
    “I’m sure I do somewhere,” he said. A few minutes later, after looking through closets and drawers, he returned with a Moleskine notebook emblazoned with the logo of some startup or VC firm I didn’t recognize.
    “I got this at a conference,” he said. “I’m sure there is a pen around here somewhere.”
    Sheepishly he glanced around his apartment, which probably held as many pens as the Regency-era inn where my characters were stranded.
    “I always carry one in my bag,” I said. I found my handbag near the elevator. Amongst all the crap I carried around, I found one blessed pen.
    As Duke reclined on the couch with his Kindle, I sat beside him and wrote the old-fashioned way. By hand, with pen, on paper.
    My characters were eating lunch. A freshly made lunch, the likes of wish I would have killed for right about now.
    “Would you care for some wine?” Roark asked.
    “No thank you,” Prudence replied politely. She was always