It was an understatement. His apartment was like a view into the side of him he didn’t let anyone see. Maybe a glimpse of the true Cole. It felt familiar, comfortable in a way she couldn’t really explain to herself. It felt right. Which made no sense.

“How did you get your landlord to let you do this?” she asked. Because it was unquestionably his work, his taste. She’d worked with him long enough to recognize that.

“I’ve lived here for so long she’ll let me do just about whatever I want.”

“Why? Why do you live here?” Sierra asked, catching a glimpse of his bedroom through the doorway on the left side of the kitchen. “Why not buy a house if you were going to do all this work making it the way you want it?”

Cole pushed away from the door and shrugged. “Didn’t want the hassle, I guess. This is comfortable. Winona—my landlady—doesn’t want to find a new renter, so she lets me fix the place up. I don’t want to hunt for a house and start over. Plus she makes me dinner whenever I want it.”

“Your landlady cooks for you?”

“Cooks is a stretch. She serves sandwiches at Sunshine’s.”

“You read a lot,” Sierra said, somehow surprised and yet not surprised at the same time. She took two steps to the nearest shelf and ran her finger down the spines of some of the books at shoulder level. “Smarty-pants.”

“Why are you here, Sierra?”

Oops. The smarty-pants thing might’ve hit a raw nerve again, because an edge sounded in his voice.

She angled away from the custom-made bookshelf to face him fully, a smile bubbling out as she remembered the news she’d come to share. “We,” she said dramatically, stepping closer to him, “did it. We made it to the next round of the Eldridge contest. One of ten companies.”

“Yeah?” A smile inched up the corners of his mouth and sincerity shone in his eyes. “That’s great news. You deserve it.”

“We. I know you’re behind the scenes, but you’re part of it. A big part of it, as I’m pretty sure it was your excellent writing that did it.”

He blew out a lighthearted scoff as if to disagree. “Come here.”

Before the words were all the way out of his mouth, he’d pulled her into his arms, and this…this was exactly where she ached to be, enveloped by his strong biceps, pressed up against his hard chest, breathing in his masculine scent.

It took about half an instant for the tone of the hug to switch from celebratory to charged, the awareness between them jumping straight to sexual. Because…three eternal days…