“No,” he said, and it was a sharp, irritated sound. “I’ll handle it. That won’t—I said I’ll fucking handle it, but no one goes home, is that clear? If they do, then they clean their desk and take their shit with them.”

He started to pace in front of the window and I sat back, reminded of a puma. His movements were sleek, graceful. I could watch him walk for hours. It would be better if he were only wearing that white towel around his hips, though.

“Give me a minute to get wired in. Yes. Call me in ten.”

He set the phone down and turned to me. “I’m sorry. That was my operations manager. We had the servers down today to install a patch. The team found some corrupt code and servers can’t come back online until it’s fixed—”

“Oh shit, yeah, you don’t want a horde of angry gamers pounding at your door. If I wasn’t here, I’d be one of them, demanding you get my game up.”

In spite of his darkened mood, he smiled. “I’m going to get my notebook so I can see what’s going on. Why don’t you grab something for yourself out of the bar? I’m sorry.”

I cleared my throat. “Will this take long?”

He sighed. “Yeah, probably. I think our night is shot.” And despite his obvious irritation and disappointment, he sounded remarkably calm about it.

Me? I was very annoyed. All my hopes fell. So much for the auction. So much for coming to Amsterdam a girl and leaving a woman. So much for—

I turned and left the room. He met me downstairs a few minutes later with a stylish leather laptop case from which he extracted one of the sleekest, most expensive-looking machines I’d ever laid eyes on.

His name was engraved in the stainless steel across the top: Adam Drake, Draco Multimedia Entertainment, with the company’s logo: a field of stars depicting the constellation Draco. Some girls got excited about jewelry, others about designer bags. Me, I got all hot and bothered over hardware. And while that earlier impression of his other hardware had begun to affect me, this bad boy he’d just whipped out of the case made my heart palpitate. That sexy little box was probably ten times faster than mine.

Adam set the notebook on the table, opened it and looked at me. When he noticed the focus of my attention he smiled wryly. If I could only jimmy his password…I wondered how many game secrets that thing carried on it.

“Why don’t you go get comfortable? This is going to be intermittent and if you’re not tired, I could use the company.”

I trundled off to my room where the bellhop had dumped my bag. I shimmied into some clothes I’d brought with me—yoga pants and a tank top. Then I went to the mini bar, pulled out a chilled glass and a Dr. Pepper for myself. After asking what he drank—he took coffee—I fiddled with the automatic coffeemaker and brought it to him, settling on the couch to watch him work.

Once in a while he’d glance up at me. “Why don’t you see if something’s on TV?” he asked, his hands moving over the keyboard with lightning speed while he spoke. “I’m going to be running a program here in a minute and can come watch with you while I wait.”

My mouth quirked. I wondered if they aired reruns of Friends 24/7 in Amsterdam.

In the lounge, I flipped through the channels until I found a showing of a famous B movie from the fifties, Forbidden Planet. I’d seen it several times before and could have followed it easily had it been dubbed into Dutch. But this late-night version was in the original English with Dutch subtitles.

After two more phone calls and about ten minutes, Adam joined me on the couch. I grimaced, realizing I looked wretched in my yoga pants and tank top—a far cry from the glamorous black dress and glittery heels from earlier.

During the commercial break he told me he’d be right back and climbed the stairs. When he returned, he was wearing dark blue pajama bottoms and a white T-shirt. He again settled on the couch next to me. This time, I leaned against him, nestling into the crook of his arm. He rested his arm on my waist, almost hesitantly at first. As if he was reluctant to touch me.

When I looked up at him, his expression lay somewhere on the spectrum between fear and puzzlement. Had I surprised him with this show of sudden affection? It was nonsexual yet comforting, at least to me. And I had no idea if I could explain why it was so.

After an hour, he was back at the computer and soon I felt my lids growing heavier as Commander John Adams and Altaira, wrapped in each other’s embrace, witnessed the explosion of Altair IV from space. I was soon drifting off to sleep.

Sometime afterward, I had the sensation of being carried by strong arms. Was this the moment? Would he lay me across his bed, wake me and have sex with me now?