For a beat, they just stared at each other, both breathing heavily, neither moving. Except for her fingers, which seemed extremely eager to go south. With a groan, Diego caught her hand in his. “Playing with fire.”

She yanked her palm free and lightly banged the back of her head against her driver’s side window a few times.

“What are you doing?”

“Trying to knock something loose,” she said. “Like my good sense.” Lifting her head again, she gave him a light push on the chest.

She wanted space.

Fine by him. He stepped back but didn’t go far.

“You’re looking at me like I’m a ticking time bomb,” she said.

“You are.”

“Flattering.”

“Look…” He tried to access any part of his working brain, but there appeared to have been a shutdown across the board, all circuits down. “That—”

“Can’t happen again,” she said and nodded. “Agreed.” She paused. “That’s what you were about to say, right?”

Actually, no.

“Because it can’t,” she said slowly, looking a little uncertain as she took in his expression.

“When did you come to that conclusion?” he asked. “When you had your tongue shoved down my throat, or when you yanked my shirt up to get to bare skin?”

Her mouth went tight. “When you stopped kissing me and started talking.” She pointed at him. “We made a pact to stay as clear of each other as possible through this. Let’s stick to it.” And then she got in her car and drove away.

The theme song of his life.

Chapter 4

The next day, Daisy got up early because eating ice cream for dinner as she had been lately required hitting the gym a few days a week. She was on the treadmill for an hour and a half before she looked down to check the screen. She’d only been on it for four minutes.

It was going to be one of those days.

When she got to the office, she worked her fingers to the bone with Carol on her back about more incoming bids, more clients, more, more, more…making Daisy question whether she would ever really retire.

“Of course, she’s not going to retire,” Daisy’s best friend from college said, video chatting Daisy during a quick lunch break from New York City where Poppy worked at a large corporate concierge firm. “She’s just dangling a carrot to keep you from entertaining other offers.”

“I have no other offers,” Daisy said with a laugh, shoving the last of her sandwich into her mouth.

“Well…” Poppy gave her a hopeful smile. “I’ve already planned out my New Year’s resolution. It’s a doozy. You ready to hear it?”

Daisy’s New Year’s resolution was to put the clothes she tried on every morning back on hangers and into her closet instead of on the chair in the corner of her room. “Sure.”

“Well…I’ve been thinking. You’re unhappy there. I’m unhappy here. And we both do basically the same thing. So, why not—?”

“Run away to an island beach somewhere and become barmaids?”