Outrage flares through me, hot as the surface of the sun. I open my eyes and stab Cam with a look. “He’s not gay! He’s been married for years!”

“To a man?”

“No! To a model, if you must know—some airheaded Amazon with a thigh gap and a twenty-inch waist!”

“Huh.” He matches my fierce gaze with one of his own. “So he’s superficial.”

“What? No!”

“Yes, he is. Just like you are.”

I gasp. He might as well have stabbed me in the gut.

“Don’t gimme that look,” says Cam, slowly shaking his head. “You’re in love with some bloke based on nothing more than his résumé and his pretty face.”

“That is not true!”

The cat jumps off his lap and trots into the living room, sensing the fountain of magma about to explode from the top of my skull. Cam rises and moves toward me.

“No? How many conversations have you had with him?”

“A lot!” That’s a lie, but I’ll be damned if I’m backing down.

“That don’t involve work,” he clarifies.

I open my mouth to answer but snap it shut and turn back to the oven. “Forget it. Your pie’s almost ready. Take it and get lost.”

“The answer’s none, right?”

I refuse to answer. Cam correctly takes my silence as a yes and presses on.

“And how much time have you spent with this ‘perfect’ man away from work? Or work-related functions?” he adds quickly when I turn to speak.

My face throbs with heat. “You don’t have to spend years in private conversations with someone to know they’re a good person.”

“No, but one date would be a good start. It seems to me you don’t really know anything about him other than that he’s pretty and has rich-boy tastes. Ballet, opera, art . . . sounds like things someone who was tryin’ real hard to impress other people would put in a bio.”

That bit of insight stings especially badly because under Michael’s smiling picture on the company website is his bio, which is where I’ve discovered most of the fascinating facts of his life. The other places of discovery being Wikipedia, the social pages of newspapers, and overheard conversations around the office.

And the one holiday party where I hid behind a cluster of potted palms and eavesdropped on his table.

I stare right into Cam’s eyes when I answer. How is he suddenly so close?

“I’ve worked at his company for ten years of my life. I’ve seen how he treats people, how he speaks to them, how he interacts with his employees, vendors, and guests. He’s an incredible man. An exceptional man. And yes, he’s beautiful, but it wouldn’t matter if he weren’t because he’s so good. He’d never make someone feel small, or put them down for their beliefs, or heartlessly mock their feelings.”

My voice is rising, and my hands begin to shake. Cam and I are somehow now standing almost nose to nose, but I keep going because I’m so damn mad.

“He’d never have sex with a stranger he met in a bar and then throw her out like garbage! He’d never aggravate his neighbors with loud music, or wander around half-dressed like a psychopath, or steal someone’s cat!”

“But he would marry an airheaded model with a thigh gap and a twenty-inch waist.”

I scoff in disbelief. “Oh, you’re saying you’re above marrying a beautiful model, is that it?”

“No,” he says quietly, his jaw hard. “I’m sayin’ if he were the altruistic, benevolent demigod you make him out to be, he’d marry a woman who more closely reflected his true heart.”

I’m momentarily impressed by his use of several big words in that sentence but quickly return to outrage. “Rich men marry women for their beauty every day.”

“Aye, they do, and those rich men are the same superficial fuckers who dump those beautiful girls once their looks fade and swap them out for a younger replacement.”

My jaw unhinges and lands somewhere in the center of my chest. Cameron McGregor has . . . ethics?

No. I’m hearing him wrong. This is the man whore we’re talking about. He’s just playing devil’s advocate.

The oven timer dings. For seconds that feel like eons, Cam and I stare at each other in bristling silence, neither one willing to back down first. Finally I can’t take the tension anymore and turn away, cursing under my breath.

As I don a pair of oven mitts, Cam sits down again, which is the opposite of what I want him to do. “Here.” I remove the bubbling dish from the oven and set it on the stove top with a clatter, then rip off the oven mitts and toss them on the counter. “Here’s your stupid shepherd’s pie. Now go back to Kellen’s apartment and leave me in peace with my pathetic one-sided love story.”

“Never said it was pathetic, lass.”

His voice is gentle, which only pisses me off more. “But that’s what you think. It’s pretty obvious you think I’m dumb as dirt for feeling the way I do.”

“The heart wants what it wants,” Cam says, watching me steadily. “But sometimes what you think is love is just a beautiful form of self-destruction. The worst thing in life is to give yourself away in exchange for nothing.”

He’s surprised me again with his eloquence. I’d have bet my life this swaggering, skirt-chasing beast didn’t have it in him.

Then it hits me: this is exactly how he’s so successful with women. Pretty speeches and dazzling smiles, parading around in his underwear with his muscles on display, all of it designed with the goal of getting girls on their backs with their feet in the air.

My heart hardens against him like a pond freezing over in a bitter winter frost. The entire population of Manhattan could skate on it, it’s so cold.

“Well, my life is mine, and what I do with it is my business,” I say stiffly. “Now please leave. I’m exhausted. I worked all weekend, and I have to get up early to go back in the morning.”

Why am I explaining anything to him? Why am I not hurling the burning-hot dish at his head? And why, oh why am I letting this blunt instrument of a man upset me? His opinion means nothing!

Cam’s face darkens with that strange tension again, but then he breaks into a grin, and the moment passes as if it never happened at all. He rises, stretches his arms overhead, then yawns as if this entire conversation has bored him to tears.

“Tell you what, lass. I’m gonna do you a huge favor.”

“If the next words out of your mouth have anything to do with your penis, I will kill you where you stand.”

“Just hear me out before you go all doo-lally on me now, darlin’.”

That growl echoing through the kitchen is emanating from inside my chest. “I don’t know what doo-lally means, but what did I tell you about calling me darling?”

“You can tell what it means from the context. And I’ll call you whatever I want. Darlin’.”

The smug, grinning bastard. I oughta knee him right in his balls.

“You make me feel violent, McGregor. I wish I were a man so I could kick your ass.”

He laughs like I’m being silly. “Cute. But there isn’t a man alive who could kick my arse.” He flexes his arms, causing his ridiculous biceps to pop out and shine.

I pinch the bridge of my nose, feeling a migraine coming on.