“Well…what if I told you I had an empty house I could lend you. It’s out of state—” He held up his hand as she went to interject. “Just wait a minute. It’s in Connecticut, in horse country there. It’s a farmhouse, but it’s close to the town, so you wouldn’t be isolated. You could crash there for a couple of nights, get your feet under you, figure out where to go next. And it’s better than a hotel, because you won’t have to use a credit card. You could leave your house tonight after dark and get there in less than two hours.”

Marie-Terese frowned as she thought it over.

“Not a handout, not cash, no strings,” he said. “Just a place for you and your son to lay your heads. And when you’re ready to leave it, just lock the place up and mail the keys back to me.”

Marie-Terese walked around to the windows in the dining room and looked out at the stunning view as she tried to think through what the next day and week and month would be like….

She got nothing back. Not a clue.

Which was a pretty clear signal she needed somewhere safe to figure it all out.

“Okay,” she said quietly. “This I will take you up on.”

She heard Vin approach from behind, and as his arms went around her, she turned and embraced him as well.

They held each other for a long, long time.

It was hard to say when things changed for her…when she started to notice not just the comfort of his broad chest against her, but the warmth of his body and the strength in his muscles and the spice of his expensive cologne.

He was warm, though.

And so very strong.

And so…

Marie-Terese ran her hands up his back, feeling the softness of the silk shirt he had on, but concentrating on the hard man beneath the fabric. In a flash, she saw him in the mirror in his old bedroom, naked and rearing up before her, his muscles flexing along his spine.

Vin moved his hips back. “I think…I think we should probably—”

She arched into him and felt the erection he was trying to hide. “Be with me. Before I go…be with me?”

Vin’s entire body shuddered. “God, yes.”

He took her hand and the two of them hit the stairs fast. On instinct, she headed left toward a black-and-gold room with a massive bed, but he tugged her in the opposite direction.

“Not there.”

He took her into another bedroom, one that was smaller and done in warm reds and tans. As they landed on the satin-covered mattress, they melded hip to hip, mouths fusing, tongues meeting, hands going to zippers and buttons and belt buckles.