I will not do anything that could, in any way, result in my smelling him, and losing control of myself, and doing something I might regret.

Not that it matters, because he doesn't like me that way. Anymore. He thinks of me as just a friend.

But I mean, I don't want to embarra.s.s myself in front of him.

And anyway, I have a boyfriend. Who really, really loves me. Enough to want what's best for me.

So, in conclusion: Stay away from Michael-Check.

Do not hug him-Check.

Don't even shake his hand-Check.

Do not do anything that could result in smelling him-Check.

Got it. I think I'm good. I can do this. I can totally do this. This is cinchy. We're just friends. And it's just lunch. Friends have lunch all the time.

Since when do friends give each other million-dollar pieces of medical equipment, though?

Oh, G.o.d. I can't do this.

We're here. I think I'm going to be sick.

An excerpt from Ransom My Heart by Daphne Delacroix Finnula had been kissed before, it was true.

But the few men who'd tried it had lived to regret it, since she was as swift with her fists as she was with a bow.

Yet there was something about these particular lips, pressing so intently against hers, that caused nary a feeling of rancor within her.

He was an excellent kisser, her prisoner, his mouth moving over hers in a slightly inquisitive manner-not tentatively, by any means, but as if he was asking a question for which only she, Finnula, had the answer. It wasn't until Finnula felt the intrusion of his tongue inside her mouth that she realized she'd answered that question, somehow, though she hardly knew how. Now there was nothing questioning at all in his manner; he'd launched the first volley and realized that Finnula's defenses were down. He attacked, showing no mercy.

It was then that it struck Finnula, as forcibly as a blow, that this kiss was something out of the ordinary, and that perhaps she was not in as much control of the situation as she would have liked. Though she struggled against the sudden, dizzying a.s.sault on her senses, she could no sooner free herself from the hypnotic spell of his lips than he'd been able to break the bonds with which she'd tied him. She went completely limp in his arms, as if she were melting against him, except for her hands, which, as if of their own volition, slipped around his brawny neck, tangling in the surprisingly soft hair half-buried beneath the flung-back hood of his cloak. What was it, she wondered dimly, about the introduction of this man's tongue into her mouth that seemed to have a direct correlation to a very sudden and very noticeable tightening sensation between her thighs?

Tearing her mouth away from his and placing a restraining hand against his wide chest, Finnula brought accusing eyes up to his face and was startled by what she saw there. Not the derisive smile or the mocking eyes she'd become accustomed to, but a mouth slack with desire and green eyes filled with...with what? Finnula could not put a name to what she saw within those orbs, but it frightened as much as it thrilled her.

She had to put a stop to this madness, before things went too far.

"Have you lost your reason?" she demanded, through lips that felt numb from the bruising pressure of his kiss. "Release me at once."

Hugo lifted his head, his expression as dazed as a man who'd just roused from sleep. Blinking down at the girl in his arms, he gave every indication of having heard her, and yet his hand, still anch.o.r.ed upon her breast, tightened, as if he had no intention of releasing her. When he spoke, it was with a hoa.r.s.e voice, his intonations slurred.

"I rather think it isn't my reason I've lost, Maiden Crais, but my heart," he rasped.

Friday, May 5, 4 p.m., limo on the way to therapy I suck.

I am a horrible, terrible, awful person.

I don't deserve to be in J.P.'s presence, let alone wear his ring.

I don't know how it happened! How I let it happen.

Also, it was completely my fault. Michael had nothing to do with it.

Well, maybe he had a little bit to do with it.

But mostly it was me.

I'm the world's worst, most disgusting girl.

And I know now that Grandmere and I DO come from the same bloodline. Because I'm just as bad as she is!

Maybe all of this really is from hanging out so much with Lana. Maybe she's rubbed off on me!

Oh, G.o.d. I wonder if I have to give back my Domina Rei membership now? Surely a Domina Rei wouldn't have done what I did?

It all started out so innocently, too. I got to the Boathouse, and Michael was there, waiting for me. And he looked fantastic (no big surprise), in a sport coat (but no tie), with his dark hair kind of messy like he'd just gotten out of the shower.

And the very first thing that happened-the very first thing!-was that he came over to lean down to greet me with a kiss on the cheek.

And even though I tried to back away, crying, "Oh, no, I have a cold!"

He just laughed, and said, "I like your germs."

And that's when it happened. Well, the first time. I got a great big whiff of him, his fresh clean Michael smell, all those dissimilar molecules smacking me in the olfactory senses all at the same time. I swear, it was so much I nearly fell over, and Lars had to reach out and lay a hand on my elbow and go, "Are you all right, Princess?"

No. The answer was no, I was not all right. I nearly got knocked out. Knocked out by desire! Desire for forbidden dissimilar molecules!

But I managed to pull myself together, and laughed like nothing had happened. (But something had! Something had happened! Something very, very bad!) Then we were being led to our sun-dappled table (Lars took up a seat at the bar so he could keep one eye on some sporting event, and one eye on me. Oh, why, Lars, why? Why did you sit so far off????), and Michael was chatting away, I had no idea about what, I was still all dazed by the pheromones or whatever that were tweet-tweeting around my head, and we had a table RIGHT BY THE LAKE, so I had to start keeping an eagle eye out for Lana and Trisha, in case they happened to row by.

But also I think I was dazzled by the sun twinkling on the water, it was all so beautiful and fresh and not like we were in New York at all, but in...well, Genovia, or something.

I swear, I felt as if I were on drugs.

Finally Michael was like, "Mia, are you all right?" and I shook my head like Fat Louie does when I've scratched his ears too much, and I went, laughing all nervously, "Yes, yes, I'm fine, I'm sorry, I'm just a little distracted." But I couldn't tell him WHY I was so distracted, of course.

Then at the last minute I remembered my excellent news, and I gushed, "I got a phone call this morning from an editor-she wants to publish my book."

"That's great!" Michael said, his face breaking out into this big smile. That wonderful smile that I remembered from back in my freshman year, when he used to slip into Algebra to help me with Mr. G's a.s.signments during cla.s.s, and I thought I'd died and gone to heaven. "We've got to celebrate!"

So then he ordered sparkling water, and he toasted my success, and I was totally embarra.s.sed, so I toasted his success back (I mean, honestly, my romance novel isn't going to save any lives, but as he pointed out, while his CardioArm is saving a patient's life, the family members of that patient could very well be sitting in the waiting room keeping happy and calm by reading my book. Which is a very good point), and we sat there sipping Perrier on the water in the middle of a Friday afternoon in Central Park in New York City.

Until the bright rays of the afternoon sun caught on the diamond in the ring J.P. had given me, which I forgot to take off. Anyway, the resulting reflection sent an explosion of little rainbows all over Michael's face, making him blink.

I was mortified, and said, "I'm sorry," and slipped the ring off and put it in my bag.

"That's some rock," Michael said, with a teasing smile. "So are you guys, like, engaged now?"

"Oh, no," I said. "It's just a friendship ring." Mia Thermopolis's Big Fat Lie Number Eleven.

"I see," Michael said. "Friendships have gotten a lot more...expensive than when I was at AEHS."

Ouch.

But then Michael changed the subject. "And where's J.P. going to college next year?"

"Well," I said carefully. "Sean Penn's optioned this play J.P. wrote, so he's thinking about heading out to Hollywood next year, and doing college later."

Michael looked very interested to hear that. "Really? So you guys would be doing the long-distance thing."

"Well," I said. "I don't know. We're talking about me going with him...."

"To Hollywood?" Michael sounded totally incredulous. Then he apologized. "Sorry. You just...I mean, you've just never struck me as the Hollywood type. Not that you aren't glamorous enough now. Because you totally are."

"Thanks," I said, completely embarra.s.sed. Fortunately the waiter had brought our salads by then, so I was able to distract myself by saying no, thank you, to ground pepper.

"But I know what you mean," I went on, when the waiter went away. "I'm not really sure what I'd do all day in Hollywood. J.P. said I could write. But...I always thought if I put off college for a year, it would be to go out in one of those little boats that put themselves between the whaling ships and the humpbacks, or something. Not hang around on Melrose. You know?"

"Somehow I don't see your parents giving the seal of approval to either of those plans," Michael said.

"And then there's that," I said, with a sigh. "I have some things I need to figure out. And not a whole lot of time left to do it. The parental units want a decision on where I'm going by the election."

"You'll do the right thing," Michael said confidently. "You always do."

I just stared at him. "How can you even say that? I so do not."

"Yes, you do," he said. "In the end."

"Michael, I screw everything up," I said, laying down my fork. "You, more than anyone, should know that. I completely ruined our relationship."

"No, you didn't," he said, looking shocked. "I did."

"No, I did," I said. I couldn't believe we were finally saying these things...these things I'd been thinking for so long, and saying to other people-my friends, Dr. Knutz-but never to the one person to whom they really mattered...Michael. The person to whom I ought to have said them, ages ago. "I never should have made such a big deal over the Judith thing-"

"And I ought to have told you about it from the beginning," Michael interrupted.

"Even so," I said. "I acted like a complete and utter psycho-"

"No, Mia, you didn't-"

"Oh my G.o.d," I said, holding up my hand to stop him with a laugh. "Can we please not try to rewrite history? I did. You were right to break up with me. Things were getting too intense. We both needed a breather."

"Yeah," Michael said. "A breather. You weren't supposed to go and get engaged to someone else in the meantime."

For a second after he said it, I couldn't inhale. I felt as if all the oxygen in the room had been sucked out of it, or something. I just stared at him, not sure I'd heard him correctly. Had he really said...was it possible he'd really...?

Then he laughed, and, as the waiter came back to pick up his empty salad plate (I'd barely touched mine), said, "Just kidding. Look, I knew it was a risk. I couldn't have expected you were going to wait around for me forever. You can get engaged-or, what is it? Right, friendship-ringed-to whomever you want. I'm just glad you're happy."

Wait. What was happening?

I didn't know what to do or say. Grandmere had prepared me for tons of situations-from dealing with thieving maids to escaping from emba.s.sies during coups d'etat.

But honestly, nothing could have prepared me for this.

Was my ex-boyfriend really intimating that he wanted to get back together?

Or was I reading too much into things? (It wouldn't be the first time.) Fortunately just then our main courses came, and Michael steered the conversation back to normal ground like nothing had happened. Maybe nothing had happened. Suddenly we were talking about whether or not Joss Whedon will ever make a Buffy the Vampire Slayer feature film and how much Karen Allen rocks and Boris's concert and Michael's company and Dad's campaign. For two people with relatively nothing in common (because, let's face it, he's a robotic-surgical-arm designer. I'm a romance writer...and a princess. I love musicals and he hates them. Oh, and we have totally dissimilar DNA) we have never, ever run out of things to say to each other.

Which is completely weird.

Then, without my knowing quite how, we got to Lilly.

"Has your dad seen the commercial she made for him?" Michael asked.

"Oh," I said, smiling. "Yes! It was wonderful. I couldn't believe it. Was that...did you have something to do with that?"

"Well," Michael said, smiling too. "She wanted to do it. But...I might have encouraged her a little. I can't believe you two still aren't friends again, after all this time."

"We aren't not friends," I said, remembering what Lilly had told me about how he'd said she had to be nice to me. "We just...I don't know what happened, really. She never would tell me."

"She'd never tell me, either," Michael said. "You really have no idea?"

I flashed back to an image of Lilly's face as we sat in G&T that day she told me J.P. had broken up with her. I'd always wondered if that had been it. Could this whole thing have been over a boy? Is that what I was being so dense about?

But that would be so stupid. Lilly wasn't the type of person to let something as dumb as a boy get in the way of a friendship. Not with her best friend.

"I really," I said, "have no idea."

The dessert menus came, and Michael insisted on ordering one of each dessert, so we could try them all (because this was a celebration), while he told me stories about the cultural differences in j.a.pan-how one takeout restaurant delivered meals in actual china bowls that he'd place outside his door when he was finished eating, and the restaurant would come back to pick them up, which takes recycling to another level-and some of the embarra.s.sments he'd suffered because of them (karaoke ballad singing, which his j.a.panese coworkers had taken very seriously, high among them).

And as he talked, it became clear that he and Micromini Midori? Not a couple. He mentioned her boyfriend, who is apparently a karaoke champion in Tsukuba, several times.

Then I started giggling in a different way when, after all the desserts came, I noticed two girls in a boat in the center of the lake, arguing fiercely with each other, and rowing in circles, not getting anywhere. Lana's plan of spying on me completely and utterly failed.

It was later, after the check came-and Michael paid, even though I said I wanted to take him out, to thank him for the donation to the hospital-that things really started to fall apart.

Well, maybe they'd been falling apart all afternoon-steadily crumbling-and I just hadn't been paying attention. Things have a tendency to do that in my life, I've noticed. It was when we were standing outside the Boathouse, and Michael asked what I had to do for the rest of the day, and I admitted that-for once-I had nothing to do (until my therapy appointment, but I didn't mention that. I'll tell him about therapy someday. But not today), that everything disintegrated like one of the madeleines we'd been nibbling on.

"Nothing to do until four? Good," Michael said, taking my arm. "Then we can keep on celebrating."

"Celebrating how?" I asked stupidly. I was trying to concentrate on not smelling him. I wasn't really paying attention to anything else. Like where we were going.

"Have you ever been in one of these?" he asked.

That's when I saw that he had led me over to one of those cheesy horse carriages that are all over Central Park.

Well, okay, maybe they're not cheesy. Maybe they're romantic and Tina and I talk about secretly wanting to ride in them all the time. But that's not the point.

"Of course I've never been in one of these," I cried, acting horrified. "They're so touristy! And PETA is trying to get them banned. And they're for people who are on dates."