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he’d tested its patience lately. What was it now, three movies in a row that had bombed? His luck had to run out sometime.
    â€œNetwork or basic cable?”
    â€œPfft. You kidding? I think it’s a small-town . . . Christ . . . pig-calling contest or something. Marsden Arts Center.”
    Niall didn’t laugh along with Trent. Instead, he fixed him with a sharp look. “Did you say Marsden?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œMarsden, New York?”
    â€œYeah. Why? You know it?”
    He yanked the paper out of Trent’s fingers. “No, but I know somebody who does.”

Chapter 4
    T he assault on Celia’s senses as she approached the open door of Niall’s loft nearly made her jump straight back into the elevator. The thudding music, the cacophony of voices, the swarms of people . . . she knew about this side of night life in New York City, but only by hearsay. This was not her thing. She didn’t get invited to these types of parties. Her nights were spent scarfing cheap dim sum in Chinatown with her roommates and frequenting dive bars when there was a two-for-one well-drinks special. This was a whole nother level of partying.
    For the hundredth time since she’d forced her feet onto the M train in Brooklyn and let it carry her toward the SoHo address Niall had texted her (along with a rather demanding note for his boxers and a—she had to admit it—really hot photo of the two of them from Vic’s shoot), she wondered what the hell she was doing. The celebrity summons her, and she goes? Insanity.
    But she couldn’t deny that she wanted to see him again. Well, sort of. Sometimes. First she’d decided to follow the trail of breadcrumbs to his lair—er, his apartment—and let the chips fall where they may, consequences be damned. Then she’d changed her mind as she’d realized going to a near-stranger’s place alone was a stupid thing to do. But then the more reckless part of her—the part she’d promised she’d indulge, and even nurture, after spending too much of her too-safe life in her tiny rural hometown—gave her grief. Drop the boxers in the mail? Seriously? it sneered at her. Throw them away and pretend you never met the guy? Worse!
    She hated to admit it, but the reckless part of her had a point. If she didn’t take this opportunity—for what, she had no idea, but something other than doing nothing —she’d end up doing something stupidly tame, like folding up those boxers into a tiny square, stuffing them into the bottom of her keepsake box, then discovering them decades later after a life left unlived, wondering what could have been.
    How overly dramatic. Maybe Niall Crenshaw had rubbed off on her already. All she knew was, after a bit of Danny’s prodding (okay, more than a bit), she’d finally made the trip, and now here she was, outside Niall’s apartment.
    Well, she thought, on the upside, she didn’t need to worry about being alone with him. The possibility had consumed her ever since she’d received his text, but she’d never considered the opposite—that she’d be unable to find him in a crowd in his own apartment.
    Celia stood frozen in the hallway, wide-eyed, watching the ever-changing scene framed in the doorway: what seemed like hundreds of bodies, each one more beautiful than the last, writhing, talking/shouting over the music, hugging, drinking, smoking, eating, moving on again.
    â€œHey, Niall! Did you order a stalker?”
    Celia stifled a gasp and her heart rate picked up. Stalker? Somebody thought she was a stalker? Okay, this whole thing had been a mistake. She should have lied to Danny. She should have walked out of her apartment, shoved those boxers into the nearest garbage can, gone to a movie to hide out for an appropriate amount of time, then reported back that there was nothing to report: that she’d just handed them over and left. Better yet,