I don’t want to take her home, I want her in my house, even if I can’t have her in my bed. A plan starts to form, how I can keep her. She’s right, her mother would, I’m sure, call the police if she failed to return home as expected, but what about if she wasn’t expecting her?

Evan slows to a stop outside the front door to my house and I don’t waste any time, unclipping my own seat belt and then hers before I lift her into my arms and out of the car. Richard, our house manager, opens the door before I reach it and his brow arches in concern at Starling’s prone body. “Could you please show Dr. Harris straight up to Starling’s room when he gets here, please?”

“Of course, shall I inform your parents that you’re home?”

“Yes, please, let them know Starling got a little overwhelmed in the car and fainted. Assure them that I’m having her checked over, but both her and her mother will be staying here tonight.”

“Very good, sir,” Richard says, his old-fashioned, courtly manners making me smile.

“You’re going to bring her mom here?” Clay asks on a laugh as he follows me up the stairs and to the bedroom beside mine that I had decorated for Starling this summer.

“I want her here, and if having her mother here is how I achieve that, then so be it.”

Opening the door to her bedroom, I carry her inside, then close it behind me, shutting my friends outside. Crossing to the bed, I carefully lay her down onto the comforter, pulling her sneakers off her feet and placing them on the floor. I debate stripping her out of the ugly waitress uniform, but decide against it. That wouldn’t be easy to explain to her mother.

Sinking down onto the bed beside her, I run my fingers through her hair. Her eyes flutter open and she blinks, looking up at me as her full lips form an O shape. She stares at me for a long moment, before her eyes roll back and she slumps back into unconsciousness again. My heart starts to beat at a frantic rate, just as there’s a knock at the door. “Dr. Harris, thank you for coming on such short notice.” I greet him, opening the door wider and allowing him to enter. “This is my fiancée, Starling, she got a little flustered in the car and passed out. I’ve been monitoring her pulse, which is steady and strong, but she’s been in and out for a little over five minutes now.”

“Has she come round at all?”

“Briefly for a few moments, then she passed out again,” I tell him.

“Starling, can you hear me?”

Her eyelids start to flutter and she looks up from her position on the bed. As she comes to, she blinks, looking around in shock before her eyes land on me then the doctor. Bolting upright, she wildly surveys the room, trying to figure out where she is.