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eyes closed and she bit her lower lip as her body responded to his with a sensuous movement of her hips. “I’m not saying I believe you,” she breathed, “but if it’s true, why didn’t you wake me up?”
    Before Adam could answer, there was a sharp knock on the cabin door. Someone called out, “Yoo-hoo! Mr. Cochran, it’s Geneva Williams from Lake County Realtors,” in an annoyingly chipper voice
    Alicia gasped and whispered, ‘The realtor! Oh, dang, Adam, we’ve got to get dressed!” Seconds later he was sprawled across the bed alone while he could hear the sounds of Alicia frantically brushing her teeth. As so often happens in life, he was a victim of bad timing. On the other hand, maybe he was a victor of bad timing; if that knock on the door hadn’t sounded, it would have been too late to turn back; he would have broken the most sacred promise he’d ever made to the person who meant more to him than anyone else.
    ***
    After a long and productive day, Ada m lay on his back, staring up at his bedroom ceiling.   The heat was back on in Alicia’s room, for which he was grateful.  He needed to get some sleep, but at the moment all he could think about was Alicia. She’d been such an important part of his life for so long that he couldn’t remember his life without her. They had become instant friends in graduate school, since they were seeking the same degrees and were in most classes together. Moreover, they shared a lot of interests outside the classroom. Adam had never met anyone with whom he felt so comfortable. If she hadn’t been engaged, he would’ve wasted no time in letting her know he wanted her. After the breakup of her engagement, things had changed. At the time it seemed the right thing to do, the only thing to do. And now it was too late. Too many years had passed; too many things had developed—like their eternal friendship and their business partnership. If only he hadn’t given her his word... He groaned aloud and willed sleep to come. It came, finally, but only after a long, lonely, and poin tl ess amount of regret.

 
     
     
     
    Chapter Three
    The urban-chic offices of the Cochran-Fuentes Architectural Design Firm were almost empty. The lone occupant of the suite of offices on the top floor of the Cochran Building was Alicia Fuentes, who was sitting at her drawing table brooding. She looked vainly around the spacious, ergonomically efficient and tasteful work space to find something on which to focus, but she was failing miserably. She surveyed the long windows with the leaded panes, the gray Berber carpet with the blue saturation, the walls painted in a matching hue, and the black-and-white photographs of the firm’s most outstanding work that were displayed on the walls, but nothing caught her interest.
    Forcing herself to get off her stool, she stood up, stretched, and made a cursory inspection of the huge potted plants that were displayed strategically throughout the offices and the reception area. She was trying to convince herself that she was doing something meaningful, but she was just wasting time. The plants were professionally cared for by a firm that catered to the office-bound plants of corporations. They didn’t need her attention in the least, something of which she was well aware. She was just mousing around trying to shake off a sense of impending doom. Alicia was in deep trouble, and she knew it.
    She’d tried her best to ignore the symptoms, but there was no getting around it. She was falling in love with her best friend. It wasn’t really a surprise to her, some kind of huge cosmic shock that had just presented itself in a blinding flash of insight; the feelings she had for Adam Cochran had been growing steadily for the duration of their friendship. Adam had been her best friend, her strongest ally, her confidant, and her rock since their days in graduate school. Had it not been for the pact they’d made ten years before, she’d have been trying to get