Sienna's POV

By ten o'clock, the whole wedding had moved out to the garden for fireworks.

Everyone was crowded on the lawn with sparklers and champagne, Olivia's grandmother shrieking every time a rocket went up. Noah had his arms wrapped around his new wife, both of them staring at the sky like teenagers.

Nobody was watching the house.

I slipped off my heels, hooked them on two fingers, and headed for the back staircase. Ten more steps and I'd be in my room, out of this dress, and done pretending I hadn't just signed a contract to follow my one-night stand around the world for an entire season.

I made it to the third step.

"You're missing the show."

Kai was leaning against the banister at the bottom of the stairs, half in shadow. The clear garment bag hung from one finger, my red dress glowing through the plastic like a warning sign. The torn seam gaped right down the middle.

"I brought your dress back," he said.

"Great. Now bring back my dignity."

"That one's going to take longer." He held up the bag. "I brought it over from the hotel this afternoon. Plain box, my name on the label. Nobody opened it. Nobody saw it."

"You're sure?"

"I carried it up here myself. Your brother thinks it's a spare suit."

I came back down the steps and reached for the hanger. He didn't pull it away this time. But his sleeve had ridden up, and in the porch light that pale scar ran clear up his forearm, smooth and shiny against the tan.

My hand stopped.

I suddenly remembered a phone call years ago, Noah sounding exhausted in a way I'd never heard before. *My friend crashed. He's a driver. They don't know if he'll race again.* I'd said I was sorry and asked if he was eating enough, and then I'd forgotten about it.

I'd never asked for a name.

"What?" Kai said.

"Nothing." I took my hand back. "We need to talk. Not out here."

---

The library on the second floor was empty, lit only by one brass lamp on the desk. Somewhere between the fireworks and the stairs, it had started to rain. Water streaked down the tall windows and blurred the garden lights into gold smears.

I spread the filming schedule across the desk. Jules had already sent the full calendar, and I'd printed it in the bridal suite like a psychopath.

"Bahrain. Jeddah. Melbourne." I tapped each one. "Paddock access, garage access, the team hotel. I'm with Mara Ortiz almost every day."

Kai dropped onto the leather sofa and rubbed his jaw. "I'm back at the factory Tuesday. Simulator work, then media day."

"Which I'll be filming."

"Which you'll be filming." He looked at me. "So we keep it clean. Work is work."

"Obviously."

"And whatever happened in Monaco stays in Monaco."

"Obviously," I said again, and hated how fast it came out.

He watched me for a second too long. The rain ticked against the glass.

"You don't sound sure."

I folded my arms. "Look. We're adults. It was one night, and it was good. I'm not going to pretend I don't want to climb you right now, because we both know I'd be lying." His eyebrows went up. I kept going before I lost my nerve. "But I'm also not going to turn this into some big complicated thing. So if it's still there, we deal with it like grown-ups. We make terms."

"Terms," Kai repeated.

"No dates. No feelings. No one finds out."

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "Friends with benefits?"

"Strictly benefits."

That got a laugh out of him, short and surprised. "Wow. You're cold."

"I'm efficient."

There was a pad of wedding stationery on the desk, cream paper with *Noah & Olivia* printed in gold across the top. A few white rose petals had fallen onto it from the centerpiece. I brushed them aside, grabbed the black pen next to the lamp, and started writing.

"One," I said. "Noah never knows."

"Agreed."

"Two. We don't mess with each other's work. You don't ask me to cut footage. I don't ask you for inside gossip."

"Fine."

"Three. Nothing in public. No dinners, no walking into the hotel together."

"Four?"

I paused with the pen over the paper. "If anyone gets serious, it's over."

He was quiet. Then he got up, came around the desk, and held out his hand for the pen.

I gave it to him. He bent over the paper, close enough that his shoulder brushed mine, and wrote in neat block letters.

*5. If either of us is uncomfortable, it stops. Anytime. No explanation needed.*

He added *K.M.* beneath the list.

I read it twice. It was the same thing he'd asked me last night, with his hand on my cheek. *Tell me to stop, and I stop.*

"That's a good rule," I said, quieter than I meant to.

"It's the only one I actually care about."

I cleared my throat and took the pen back. "Do you treat every woman like a race? Rules, regulations, penalties?"

Kai tilted his head toward the paper, then toward the pen in my hand.

"Sweetheart," he said, "who picked up the pen first?"

I opened my mouth. Nothing good came out.

I tore the sheet off, folded it into a tight square, and shoved it into my clutch.

"One more thing," I said. "Not a rule. A fact. You are not coming to my room tonight."

"Okay."

"I mean it. Noah's room is next door to mine, and he checks on me when he's drunk."

"Okay," he said again, perfectly easy, already stepping back.

I waited for the argument. The grin. The *you sure about that?*

It didn't come. He just picked up a rose petal from the desk, turned it over in his fingers, and nodded at the door like I was free to go.

It was exactly what I'd asked for. It annoyed me anyway.

"Good night, Kai."

"Good night, Sienna."

I walked out with my heels in one hand and my clutch in the other. I was halfway down the hall before I realized the garment bag was still draped over the arm of that leather sofa.

I didn't go back.

---

My room was dark. The fireworks had stopped, and the rain had gotten louder. I sat on the edge of the bed, still in the sage-green dress, and stared at the folded square of paper sticking out of my clutch.

Ten minutes. That was all it took.

My phone lit up on the comforter, the screen bright enough to make me squint.

*Your dress is still in my room.*

No emoji. No question mark. Nothing I could hold against him.

I typed *Keep it* and deleted it. I typed *Leave it outside my door* and deleted that too, because Noah would trip over it at three a.m. and ask questions I didn't have answers to.

Then I stood up.

The guest wing was at the far end of the villa, down a long hallway lit by a few weak sconces. The tile was cold under my bare feet. Laughter drifted up from the terrace below, and every time a door creaked somewhere, my heart jumped into my throat.

*It's just a dress,* I told myself. *Get it and leave.*

The brass plate on the last door read *Suite 7*. Of course it did.

I didn't knock. The handle turned.

Kai was standing by the window with his back against the frame, rain running down the glass behind him. His jacket was gone, his sleeves rolled to the elbow, the scar pale in the lamplight. The garment bag hung from the closet door, red silk glowing through the plastic.

He didn't look surprised to see me at all.

I stepped inside and shut the door behind me. The lock clicked under my hand.

"This changes nothing, Kai."

He pushed off the window, slow and unhurried, and didn't come any closer. He just looked at me, waiting, the same way he had last night.

"Then come here," he said softly, "and prove it."

Sienna's POV

I crossed the room in four steps, and he caught me before I made it to the fifth.

His mouth found mine like he'd been waiting all night to do it, which, judging by the way his hands slid into my hair, he had. I backed him into the armchair by the window. His navy jacket had been hanging over the back of it, and it slid off and hit the floor in a heap.

"That was a nice suit," he murmured against my lips.

"You have a lot of suits. I've been counting."

He laughed, low, and kissed the corner of my jaw. Downstairs, a car door slammed. Someone shouted goodbye in French. I pulled back an inch.

"Your brother is downstairs," I whispered.

Kai's eyes stayed on mine. "Then we'd better keep our voices down."

But he didn't kiss me again. He tipped my chin up and pressed his lips to my forehead, soft and quick, which was somehow worse than anything else he'd done.

"You can still walk out," he said. "I mean it. No hard feelings."

I was holding my room key card. I'd been gripping it so tightly the edges had left dents in my palm. I looked at it, then at him.

Then I set it down on the desk beside the lamp, face up, where we could both see it.

"I'm not going anywhere."

Outside, somebody on the beach had found the leftover fireworks. A late rocket went up and burst green and gold, lighting the wet glass and the side of his face.

"Last chance," he said.

"Kai. Stop giving me exits."

He smiled, finally, and walked me backward toward the bed.

---

I'd planned to be cool about it. Like last night. Efficient. Strictly benefits.

That plan lasted until he knelt on the mattress, shoved the bedside lamp out of the way with one hand, and peeled the sage-green dress off my shoulders like he had all the time in the world. His fingers traced the strap marks on my skin. Then his mouth followed.

"Fuck," I whispered. "You're being slow on purpose."

"I'm being careful on purpose. Different thing."

"Be less careful."

"Bossy." He kissed the inside of my wrist, right over my pulse. "I remember that about you."

His shirt came off. My dress joined it somewhere on the floor. His watch knocked against the nightstand when he braced himself over me, and the sound made us both freeze and then laugh into each other's mouths. He unclasped it and set it beside the lamp, silver and heavy.

His crushed boutonniere fell off the bed. I didn't care.

Last night, I'd been Nora. A woman with no last name and no brother and no schedule taped inside her head. Tonight he knew exactly who I was, and he kept looking at me like that was the point.

When his hand slid down my stomach, lower, and his fingers found me, the sound came out of me before I could stop it.

"Kai."

Not a whisper. His name, loud and helpless in the dark.

He went still. Completely still, his forehead resting against mine, his breathing rough.

"Look at me, Sienna." His voice was quiet. "Are you sure?"

He was already easing his weight back, giving me room, and I could feel it, the second-guessing. Noah's voice on the terrace. *She's off-limits.* The scar on his arm. The promise.

I grabbed his hand before he could pull it away and laced my fingers through his.

"I've never been more sure."

Something in his face changed. Softened, then went fierce.

"Okay," he said roughly. "Okay."

And he stopped being careful.

The sheets twisted under us. The last fireworks faded over the water, one by one, until there was nothing left but moonlight across the end of the bed and the sound of him saying my name back to me, like it was something he'd been saving.

---

I didn't know how long we'd been lying there. Long enough for my heartbeat to slow. Long enough for his thumb to draw lazy circles on my hip while my cheek rested on his chest.

"Rule five still applies," he murmured. "If you want to go back to your room..."

"Shh."

"I'm just saying."

"I'm comfortable. Stop talking."

He laughed, the sound rumbling under my ear.

Then I heard footsteps in the hallway.

Heavy. Uneven. The specific rhythm of a man who'd had three glasses of champagne and was pretending he'd had one. I knew that walk. I'd been hearing it outside my door since high school.

"Sienna?" A knock. "Are you in there?"

I shot upright so fast the comforter slid off the bed and pooled on the floor.

"Oh, God. That's Noah."

Kai was already sitting up, scanning the room like it was a crash scene. "Why is he here?"

"I don't know. Shut up." I scrambled across the mattress. Robe. There had to be a robe. I found the white hotel-style one on the closet hook and shoved my arms in, then stepped on one of his black dress shoes and nearly went down.

"Liv's been looking for you," Noah called through the door. The frosted glass panel beside the frame glowed with hallway light, and his blurry shape filled it. "You're not in your room. Then I saw the light on in here."

I tied the robe with shaking hands and forced a yawn into my voice. "I fell asleep. Sorry. I came looking for a book."

"In the guest suite?"

"It's quiet."

I turned around to find something else to say and saw Kai's shirt. Right by the door. Next to his belt and the navy jacket, scattered across the floor like a trail of breadcrumbs.

I pointed at the narrow door in the corner. "Closet. Go."

Kai grabbed his pants and moved. He was halfway there when Noah spoke again, sharper this time.

"Who are you talking to?"

"No one."

"I heard a guy's voice."

"I'm watching a movie."

Silence. Then, "On what? There's no TV in that room."

My stomach dropped through the floor.

"My phone," I said. "Noah, go back to the party."

He didn't leave. His shadow stayed in the glass.

"This is a family rental. I set up the codes." His voice had gone flat in a way I didn't like. "I have the backup for every door in this place."

I dropped to my knees and shoved the shirt, the belt, and the jacket under the bed, then kicked the shoe after them. Behind me, the closet door stood half open, Kai's shape a darker black inside it.

I looked up.

His watch sat on the nightstand, right next to the lamp, gleaming. I could read the engraving on the clasp from across the room.

*K.M.*

"Sienna, open the door. I know someone is in there."

The keypad beeped.

Once.

I lunged across the bed.

Twice.

My fingers touched cold metal.

Three times.

And the lock clicked open.