Chapter 2

"I'm off next week. Want to go to the beach?"

"No."

"Then where do you want to go?"

"Somewhere you don't need gloves."

Everything behind me went completely still. I yanked the blanket over my head. I seriously couldn't keep living like this.

Like always, he brought me a mug of hot milk before bed. I drank it in a few gulps, and my eyelids started drooping almost right away. Half-asleep, I thought I heard him murmur something, but I couldn't make it out. I remember thinking, Why does his hot milk make me this sleepy every time? Must be psychological.

The next day, I met up with my best friend Sophie Carter and cried my heart out. She'd been my college roommate, and now she ran a counseling studio that supposedly specialized in every kind of relationship disaster.

Ironically, her own love life was a total circus. She switched boyfriends faster than she switched phone cases, and somehow every last one of them stayed hopelessly devoted to her.

"Tell me honestly. Am I the problem?" I slumped over the coffee table, dead inside. "Am I just too needy?"

Sophie rolled her eyes. "Less than once a month and you think that makes you needy? Girl, that's called being deprived of basic marital affection."

"But he's really good to me. He cooks, drives me around, keeps track of my cycle..."

"Stop, stop, stop," Sophie cut in. "Are you giving him the nice-guy speech? 'He's so good to me, but...' The part after the 'but' is the real problem."

I went quiet for a while. "But I feel like he treats me like a patient, not his wife."

Sophie set down her coffee and looked at me seriously. "Did you ever think of another possibility?"

"What possibility?"

"What if he can't perform?"

I froze. Honestly, that thought had never crossed my mind.

Lucas had an insanely good body - six-two, broad shoulders, narrow waist, and ridiculously sexy veins standing out in his arms. Sure, our intimate time never lasted long, but he definitely didn't seem like a guy who couldn't perform.

"I don't think so," I said. "He..."

"He what?"

"He gets turned on."

"Getting turned on and actually being able to follow through are two different things," Sophie said, lowering her voice. "I had a client whose husband was a doctor too. Guy worked himself half to death every day and wasn't exactly great in that department. Men care about pride more than anything. They'd rather you think they're cold than let you know they can't do it."

I frowned. That... actually kind of made sense.

"And think about it," Sophie went on, counting on her fingers. "He's a surgeon. He stands for over ten hours a day. You think his lower back's in great shape? If his back's shot, how's the rest of him supposed to be any better? Then add stress and no sleep on top of that..."

"Okay, enough," I cut her off. "The more you talk, the more believable it sounds."

Sophie spread her hands. "So you've got two options. Either accept that he has no sex drive, or accept that maybe he just can't perform. Pick one." I didn't want either option.

"There's a third option," Sophie suddenly said, leaning in close, eyes shining with mischief. "Shake him up a little."

"How?"

"Men are territorial. Make him think someone else might be after you, and he'll get anxious. Once he gets anxious, his true colors will show."

"You mean... pretend I'm cheating?"

"No need to go that far. Just create a little sense of crisis." Sophie blinked at me. "Like going to a mixer?"

"I'm married."

"Who says married people can't make friends?"

I looked at Sophie's face, which practically had trouble written all over it, and suddenly regretted asking her out.

But underneath that, there was also a tiny flicker of anticipation.

Sophie moved fast. The very next day, she sent me an address for a private cocktail party hosted by a friend of hers. According to her, it'd be full of successful people and, "just by coincidence," a few single men.

"Just go relax, have a couple of drinks, and come home," she said. "Doesn't Dr. Sterling work late every day? He won't know."

I spent the whole day going back and forth on it.