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he would have slipped into a smoking jacket by now and lit up a pipe, while pressing a button that turned his couches into a big circular bed under a mirrored ceiling.
    So there was a regular female in his life. Somewhere.
    A blonde.
    That certainly calmed things down, didn't it? For a moment anyway.
    The slow, steady thump of expectation still passed up and down her body on a determined march toward misbehavior. There didn't seem to be anything she could do about it, but since there was a woman in the picture she was safe from forming any deeper feelings, right? She knew what she was getting into. Nothing more could come of this. Nothing.
    This what exactly?
    One night stand. Overdue.
    And a really, really stupid idea.
    But if she didn't take this chance now, she may never have another. It was part of the cleansing, she assured herself, all part of making the new Bryony. Seizing life by the balls. By the...numbnuts.
    She washed her hands, dried them on his neat towels, and opened the door.
    "What were you doing in there?"
    He was right in front of her, shoulder propped against the door frame, espresso cup in one hand.
    "What do you think I was doing in there?" She swept grandly by. "If I wasn't allowed to use the facilities you should have told me."
    "You just took a long time. That's all." He followed her. "Something to eat? I can order."
    "It's ten o'clock at night," she reminded him.
    "So?" He grinned. "We could have a midnight feast. In bed."
    She dropped onto his couch, but then immediately got up again. Where's your girlfriend ? she wanted to ask so badly. But she banked it. Didn't want to seem interested. Or remotely disappointed. And Blondie couldn't be that permanent since her hot iron was kept in the guest bedroom, not the master suite. Thus she justified not asking.
    Icy rain slanted against the wall of windows overlooking the park, reminding her to be grateful that she was inside a warm building and not alone. On a night like this it was good to have company. Suddenly her purse danced. She jumped, opened it and dug for her phone.
    "Hello?"
    It was Helena. "Where did you disappear?"
    No way could she let her cousin know where she was. She could imagine Helena yelling at her to get out of there now, drop everything and run. Suddenly she felt sixteen again, as if her father wanted to know why she hadn't made curfew. "I...went home. I wasn't feeling good." She knew Ben was looking at her. His gaze was intense, burning through her with a smoldering heat. "I tried to find you to say goodbye."
    Bed? Bed ? Had he just said something to her about bed? Yes, he had. She'd tried to cancel it out by ignoring it happened. But now she couldn't concentrate on anything else.
    "We could have given you a ride home, Bry."
    We? So things were patched up with Carl.
    Bed. He'd said it. He was thinking the flashing neon sign too.
    "I wanted to get home before the storm," she said to Helena on the phone. "It's pretty bad out there and I knew it would be tough to get a cab. Traffic was awful. Cars sliding all over." Nervous, she crammed words in until they leaked around the edges. "Everything ok?"
    "Everything's fine." As if there was never anything wrong. Amazing what a risky quickie can do, she mused. "I'll call you tomorrow," Helena exclaimed in the loud voice she used to tie up conversations. "Just wanted to make sure you got home ok."
    "Yep. No problem."
    When she shut the phone, Ben came to stand beside her and look out. "Why did you lie about where you are?"
    "I didn't lie." She hesitated. "It was a slight evasion of the truth. I didn't feel like answering a barrage of questions."
    "Oh. Right."
    "Besides. Why would I lie? If she asked me outright I would have told her. It's perfectly innocent." She stared at their reflection in the window. He was turned toward her, one hand rubbing the back of his neck. Bry knew he was staring at her, but what specifically caught his interest she couldn't tell. Her heart thumped hard. It felt as if