“He’s hot, isn’t he?”

“I never said that.”

“Which is how I know he is.”

Wrinkling my nose, I took a sip of lemonade. It was surprisingly good and fresh. “Okay, he is. But he’s completely guarded—”

“I don’t blame him, Miss No-Pictures.”

“You can’t see me, but I’m giving you the finger.”

“I’m kidding. Hey, it happens. You get in that self-protect mode, and everyone is viewed as a potential threat.” Tate was also an actress and starred on a long-running, highly popular cable sitcom. Her tone turned teasing. “Although I’ve never had it happen with a hot guy I’d be in close proximity to for the entirety of my vacation.”

“God. I feel like such a moron. He was clearly torn between wanting to laugh his ass off at me and running out of the airport.”

“Take it as a challenge. Once you show him the real you, he’ll be unable to resist.”

I already had been myself. And I certainly didn’t want to make a challenge out of Lucian—or any man.

“Doesn’t really matter,” I said with forced levity. “Men are not on my vacation to-do list.”

“Men should always be on the to-do list, Ems. At the very least, they should be doing you, especially on vacation.”

“I have no interest starting something. I’m still recovering from Greg.” Just saying his name caused my insides to clench uncomfortably. After I caught him, he’d been on the next plane home to LA. It had taken me a month to wrap things up in Iceland. And then I’d had nowhere to go, because Greg and I shared a house in Los Angeles, and like hell was I going to go back to it while he was there.

I needed to find a new place to live. I needed to get my life back in order. The desire to just hunker down and stay here wasn’t at all like me. I usually strode through life, determined to take it by the coattails and make it my own. But from the moment my grandmother told me about Rosemont, I’d grabbed on to the idea like a lifeline, something inside me insisting that was where I needed to be. Maybe it was foolish. But I was here now, and even though my interactions with gruff and far-too-hot Lucian Osmond had me jittery and anticipating our next collision, I felt good.

“Greg was a shit-burger,” Tate said, pulling back into the conversation. “But don’t write off all men because of it.”

“You know me better than that.” I frowned and plucked at my sundress. “It’s not that. It’s . . . this guy”—for reasons I didn’t want to examine, I couldn’t voice Lucian’s name just yet—“all but screams back off. I’ve never met someone with more walls around him.” And yet, he had flirted. I hadn’t imagined that. He’d flirted, but he didn’t like that he had. “And there’s no escaping him here. Can you imagine the awkwardness of the day after? No thank you. I’m going to sit back and enjoy my solitude.”

“Solitude sucks, Em.”

I bit back a smile. “Spoken like an extrovert.”

“Says the introvert.”

We both chuckled.

“Well then,” she said. “Do what you have to do to feel better, and then come back home. I miss you.”

“Miss you too.”

I hung up with a sad smile. I did miss Tate. But I didn’t want to go back home. Truth was I didn’t have a home now. It was unsettling, and I snuggled down into the bed, wrapping my arms around that empty ache that took up residence in my chest.

Turned out I needed a nap. With the windows cracked to let in the sweet wisteria-scented breeze, and while curled up on a plush bed with silky blankets, I slept without tossing or turning, without care. It was glorious. I woke feeling rested and alert.

After taking a long hot shower and taking time to dry my hair, I walked back to the living room and found an envelope had been pushed through the mail slot.

It was an invite to coffee and cakes at four. On cream vellum paper with actual calligraphy writing. A vibrant rainbow-hued butterfly, edged in raised gold, graced the bottom corner of the note, right beside the signature scrawled with a flourish: AMALIE.

It was so wonderfully old world and beautiful. I pinned the note on the small corkboard hanging by the back door in my kitchen and got ready. And then dithered. Did I arrive early? Just on time? Never late—that would be rude.

Twenty minutes to four, I decided to quit stalling and just go. Outside, the air was crisp but not cold. I followed the winding path made from moss-edged slate to the big house. The invitation had instructed me to head toward the north terrace, wherever that was. When the path turned, I followed it toward a gate that had been left open.

With every step forward, the flutters of anticipation in my belly grew in size and strength. It unnerved me. I met new people every day. As an actress, I was thrust into constant social situations. But I knew that wasn’t why my body felt tight and warm or why my heart beat just a little faster. It was him. I wanted to see him again and wondered if I would.

That Lucian of the grunts and hmms had gotten under my skin in less than two hours was more than unnerving. It was downright alarming. Especially since I knew he’d do his best to ignore me like the plague. It was written in every line of his big, beautiful, tense body.

“So get over it. You’re an actress. Just play it cool,” I muttered under my breath.

“Talking to yourself?” drawled an unfamiliar voice behind me. “You’ll fit in just right.”

The shock of finding I wasn’t alone had my heart lurching into my throat. I spun around to find a tall Hispanic man with an incredible Elvis pompadour smiling at me. There was no malice in the expression. He seemed happily amused.

“Hello there.” He held out a perfectly manicured hand. Long red nails glinted in the dappled sunlight. “I’m Salvador. Everyone calls me Sal.”

I took his hand and shook it. “Hello, Sal. I’m Emma.”

“Oh, I know who you are.” He smiled wide. I found myself crushing on his crimson lipstick. “I put the invitation in your mailbox.”

“Right. Lucian said I should contact you if I needed anything.” Mentioning his name brought forth a fizzy anticipation that needed to be ground down into dust. Then again, wouldn’t it be better to know if he lived on the property or just worked here and went home to . . . God, was he married? Involved with someone? He’d flirted, but plenty of asshats who were in relationships did that. No, I wouldn’t think about dickhead Greg. Still, there was a lot I didn’t know about Lucian. And damn if I didn’t want to.