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The cameras are going off like fireworks around us, but I can’t think past the feel of his hand spread wide over me, the solid wall of his body, the sharp bite of his teeth catching my lower lip.

I gasp.

Somewhere beyond the roar in my ears, voices start shouting.

"Everett! Is this your girlfriend?" One paparazzi photographer calls out.

"How long have you two been together?" Another asks.

"Where have you been hiding her?" A third yells from his spot on the stairs, security blocking their ability to take another step closer to us.

He pulls back just enough for air, our mouths still almost touching, his breath warm against my skin. My chest is heaving. My brain has completely left the premises.

His eyes lock on mine.

Then, so quietly only I can hear it, he says, "Just remember, you asked for this."

A shiver races all the way down my spine.

Before I can respond, he turns us toward the cameras, one arm still locked around my waist.

"Yes," he says smoothly, as if I didn’t just fuse our lives together on the front steps of Hawkeyes Arena. "She’s my fiancée."

The reporters erupt.

Questions fly from every direction, words crashing over each other too fast for me to follow.

What?

Since when?

What’s her name?

Are wedding plans already underway?

My mouth is still numb from his kiss. My pulse is still pounding against my ribs.

Everett doesn’t answer another single question. He just dips his head toward the open car door and says, "Get in."

I blink up at him. "I’m leaving with you?"

His expression doesn’t change, but there’s something newly dangerous in it. Something that tells me that maybe six months with Everett might not have shown me every side of him.

"We have a lot to discuss," he says. His gaze flicks meaningfully to the frenzy of cameras around us. "Thanks to you."

Jeremy slides out of the back seat and moves to the passenger front, leaving the back of the town car for just Everett and me.

I should probably be regretting my decision to poke the bear in public.

Instead, still dizzy from champagne and adrenaline and the kiss that nearly melted me on contact, I bend to grab my shoes, climb into the backseat of Everett Kauffman’s town car, and realize I may have just changed the entire course of my life in under thirty seconds.

Chapter Five

EVERETT

I climb into the backseat after her and shut the door on a wall of camera flashes.

The quiet that follows is immediate, insulated, expensive. The silence money buys.