“Oh, no. I’m really sorry.”

“I know. I thought I’d be more depressed, but it’s kind of okay because it was Clara who shot me, and her and I are kind of getting to be friends.”

“Still, after everything that happened today, that’s rotten timing.”

“Yeah, but I could tell she, like, felt really bad about it, and she needs the money even worse than I do, so I told her it was okay, and we’re going to hang out tomorrow and work on our project about child sex trafficking. The good thing is that I don’t have to carry around those stupid Nerf guns anymore.”

The doctors overrode Coop’s protests and insisted on keeping him overnight. Coop had already kicked Heath out, but he seemed to expect Piper to hang around, not that she would have left.

The orderly assigned to transport Coop from the ER to his private room looked like a nice kid, but Piper stayed by the wheelchair as they traveled up an elevator and down several long corridors. Coop fumed the whole time, not from pain, but because the medical staff wouldn’t let him walk.

There were too many people hanging around outside his room, and Piper wasn’t having it. “If you’re not his doctor or nurse, you shouldn’t be here. Move on.”

Mr. Nice Guy raised his hand from the wheelchair and gave his cocky grin. “Appreciate your concern.”

The adrenaline she’d been riding on had faded, leaving her exhausted and heartsick. All she wanted to do was get away, but she couldn’t leave him in a hospital full of people looking for excuses to come into his room. He needed someone stationed outside his door until he was discharged, and while a nurse took his vitals, she got Jonah on the phone and told him what had happened.

Coop had been given the hospital’s version of the penthouse—a large room with a city view. He had the head of the bed in an upright position as she came back into the room from talking to Jonah. “You should be lying down,” she said.

He looked at her oddly, as if she were a stranger he was trying to identify, but then he reverted back to his normal self. “Get serious. I had worse injuries in high school. I can’t believe they’re not letting me out until tomorrow.”

“It’s for your own good.” She turned her back on him and went to the window.

“Thanks, by the way,” he said. “I appreciate you watching out for me.”

He didn’t sound begrudging, and she pondered what it must have cost him to say those words. How could she have done this to herself? How could she have fallen in love with someone so different? “I’m the one who’s grateful,” she said. “If you hadn’t come back to the apartment . . .” She turned to him from the window. “Why did you?”

He dropped his head back onto the pillow. “I wanted to talk to you.”

“It couldn’t wait until morning?” She wrapped her arms around her chest, hugging herself.

“It was important,” he said.

She regarded him quizzically.

His jaw set in that obstinate way she’d come to know. “I was hoping you’d calmed down enough to realize this whole breaking-up thing makes no sense. Instead of that, we need to ratchet it up. That’s what I’d been planning to talk to you about at dinner on Wednesday night before you had your freak-out. Moving in together. My place, not yours.”

The knife twisted in her chest. “Why would I move in with you?”

His eyes narrowed. “It’s a good thing I have an oversize ego because if I didn’t, you’d have destroyed it.” She swallowed the constriction in her throat as he went on. “You’re being stubborn about this for no reason. It’s common sense.”

Could he really have convinced himself of something so fundamentally wrong? “I don’t know why you’d say that.”

“I’ve done a lot of thinking about the two of us this week.” The color was coming back to his face. “You look me in the eye and tell me this isn’t the best relationship you’ve ever had, because I know it’s the best one for me.”

That brought her to a full stop, and she quashed a dangerous spark of hope. “Really? If this is your best relationship, you are in serious need of therapy.”

She watched his stubbornness take over. The stubbornness that refused to accept a loss. The quality that made him a champion, but also made her so wary of him. She had to do something quickly. Something definitive. She knew exactly what it was, but she wasn’t certain she could go through with it. She took a deep breath. She had to do this for no other reason than that she loved him enough to want the best for him . . . even if it broke her heart.

“Here’s the thing, Coop . . .” She took a shaky breath. “As soon as the dust settles, you need to call Deidre.”

He tilted the bed back a few inches. “I’ve lost the desire to do business with her.”

“What happened with Noah wasn’t her fault, and I’m not talking about business. I’m talking about your personal relationship.” She pushed the words through her throat. “She’s better than Hollywood. The two of you are perfect for each other. And she’s already half in love with you. If we learned anything last night, we learned how short life can be. If you keep dallying around with another woman—namely me—you’re going to screw up your chance to find your perfect woman.”

He looked at her as though she’d developed a hole in her brain, and the bed came back up. “Deidre Joss is not my perfect woman.”

How could he not see what was so clear? “She is! She’s smart, successful, beautiful—the kind of woman who’ll always have your back. And she’s crazy about you. She’s also nice. A decent human being.”

“It’s official,” he declared. “You are out of your mind.”

“You’re thirty-seven years old. It’s time.”

“Let me get this straight. You’re trying to break up with me and fix me up with another woman, both at the same time? Do I have that right?”

“Not any woman. You and Deidre are a matched set. I’ve seen the way you act when you’re together. You could easily fall in love with her if you’d give it half a chance. It might not be clear to you what you should be doing with your life, but it’s clear to me.”

“Go ahead,” he said with something close to a sneer. “Tell me. I know you’re dying to.”