"I think it's about time I did. And that, I imagine, is your cue to exit stage right." When she said nothing, he set down his beer. "Why don't we try something different? You stay and I'll go."

"Don't." She still didn't look at him, but kept staring at the bubbles rising and dancing in her glass. "Please don't. I know you don't think much of me. You care about me, but you don't think much of me. And maybe I deserve that."

"We're even there, aren't we? You don't think much of me either."

How could she answer when she wasn't at all sure just what she thought of Joshua Templeton? She turned then. He was waiting, and she was grateful for that. Halfway across the room, but waiting.

"You're important to me," she told him. "More important than I expected or wanted you to be. Isn't that enough?"

"I don't know, Margo. I just don't know."

Why was her hand shaking? It was civilized, wasn't it? Just as it was supposed to be. "If you're… if this has run its course for you, I'll understand." She set her glass down. "But I don't want to lose you altogether. I don't know what I'd do if you weren't in my life."

This wasn't what he wanted, this calm, gentle understanding. He wanted her to rage, to throw the wine at his head, to scream at him for having the nerve to think he could walk out on her.

"So if I walk out, we'll be friends again?"

"Yes." She squeezed her eyes shut as her heart contracted. "No."

Relieved, he crossed back to her. "You'll hate me if I go." Gathering her hair in his hand, he drew her head back until their eyes met. "You need me. I want to hear you say it."

"I'll hate you if you go." She reached up, framed his face with her hands. "I need you." She pulled his mouth to hers. "Come to bed." It was the best way to show him, the only way.

"The easy answer," he murmured.

"Yes, it should be easy. Let's make it easy." The moment he lifted her into his arms, she tugged at his jacket, whispered hot promises in his ear.

But he didn't intend to make it easy this time, for either of them. He stood her next to the bed, let her undress him with quick, eager hands. When she would have pulled him down with her to the sheets still warm from the lights and her body, he gathered her close and began his assault.

One long, lazy meeting of lips that spun out and trembled and shimmered with something new. Simple tenderness. He took her hands, drew them down to her side, behind her back, and cuffed them there so that his free hand could stroke over her face, down her throat, into her hair while his mouth continued to seduce.