The mention of the tabloids was like a bucket of ice water. There was no way I wanted to invite that kind of media scrutiny into their lives. Or mine. I snapped my jaw tight, the words he’d said bulleting around my brain, causing maximum damage.

“You leave first,” he went on. “I will be a few minutes behind you. Head straight for the quay. Don’t stop to talk to anyone.”

I nodded. I could do that.

“I’ll have Evan meet you at the gate. It has a code.” He leaned forward and whispered the number in my ear.

There was no way to remember a gate code for fuck’s sake. I hardly knew my own name. I brushed past him. This was all too much. And his words were too much.

“Joséphine,” he said.

I turned back.

“You look beautiful,” he said. His eyes swept over my dress and back to my face. “You are beautiful. I didn’t mean to imply otherwise. I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

The night outside felt different. I felt eyes crawling over me, the breeze like pin pricks on my skin, the sounds jarring. My flip flops smacked on the cobblestones, and I almost fell. I moved to the flatter concrete sidewalks where available, dodging people, and then crossed to the quayside. I followed what Andrea and the guys had done when we passed the security gate and waved like I knew where I was going. They weren’t concerned about pedestrians since all the jetties where the mega yachts were had coded gates. Oh shit. I couldn’t remember which one it was. The third or fourth jetty? Or was it the fifth one?

Now, if only I could go back and erase the last twenty minutes. I’d known my life would change before I’d gone up the stairs to him at the nightclub, but I hadn’t been prepared for this. For him. To discover that he was struggling with his attraction to me as much as I was to him. My brain could barely compute. And I hadn’t been prepared for the way I’d fallen apart for him, leaving me feeling like roadkill. I said a prayer that it had been far too dark for anyone to have gotten a clear photo or video. My heart climbed up my throat with nerves and shame.

“Josie.” Evan’s voice, amplified by the concrete and water reached me right as I was starting to sweat with panic. “You okay?” he asked as I reached the gate where he stood. He opened it before I had to try and remember the code.

“Fine,” I said.

“I thought you guys would stay out for a while, have a chance to—”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“He’s a good guy—”