‘But?’ he prompts, when I don’t finish the sentence.
My teeth press into my lower lip as I think that through. ‘But, I’m twenty-nine and I have barely been in a relationship. I mean, a couple of guys but nothing serious, nothing that could ever go anywhere.’
He’s quiet, listening attentively.
‘And suddenly, everyone seems to be pairing off, like the club has become its own kind of Noah’s Ark or something.’
He laughs gruffly.
‘I’m almost thirty and I have no social life to speak of.’ I grimace. ‘I haven’t dated in four years. The guy I have the most frequent conversations with is my doorman, Mr Silverstein, and he’s seventy-five years old and very happily married. My parents won’t get off my back about being single. It doesn’t matter that I’ve built all this, they really only care about me getting married and having babies—not so many that I ruin my figure, mind you.’ I pause to roll my eyes, making the mental excuses for my mother that I always bring to the fore when I’m frustrated with her. How she’s an aging Hollywood starlet who sees youth and beauty as her greatest assets—and both are shifting away from how she wants them to be. ‘But more than that, I’m…getting used to being alone.’ I swallow, the raw truth of the confession surprising me.
‘It’s not that I want a relationship.’ The very idea fills me with panic. ‘There’s no way I could fit one in. I barely have time to workout in the day. I have to get a manicurist to come to the office if I need my nails done.’ I shake my head, hating how entitled that sounds, resisting an urge to explain it’s part of the whole image thing my clients expect me to project.
‘So our night in Sydney was…what? Your sexual equivalent to an in-office manicure?’ he teases.
Heat blooms in my cheeks.
‘Dial-a-Fuck?’ he pushes, and I laugh, shaking my head.
‘Honestly? I was seriously starting to worry I might have forgotten how to even do sex.’ I laugh, and am relieved when he does too.
‘So… Dial-a-Fuck meets sex refresher course?’
‘Sex for Beginners,’ I agree with a wink.
‘Well, Miss Carmichael, I’m delighted to say you passed, with flying colours.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
Silence hums around us, buzzing like paparazzi at fashion week. I hold my breath and wait, though I have no idea what I’m waiting for.
‘Why did you come here?’
His brows lift, just a little. ‘I was looking for you.’
Heat spreads through my body.
‘Why?’
His hands lift to my hair, flicking it between his fingers. ‘You suit blonde.’ His smile is somehow self-deprecating. ‘Then again, you also suit pink.’
I laugh. ‘Did you come here to discuss my hair?’
‘No.’ His eyes pierce mine. ‘I came here to find Miss Anonymous.’
‘Why?’
‘Because last week was the best sex I’ve ever had, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you. I want more. More of her, you, this. And I think you do too.’
My jaw drops, my heart stops, my pulse cracks like a frozen river.
‘Nicholas—’
His name rushes from my lips, too much air, too much feeling. It’s too much. If sex were a college degree, this guy would hold several PhDs. He really thinks I’m the best? The best he’s ever had? Pride soars in my chest, and, more than that, the addiction centres of my brain are going into overdrive because he’s damned right. I do want more of this.
But… ‘We agreed it would just be one night.’
‘That was before.’ He shrugs away the objection, as though it doesn’t matter.
‘But you’re not… Neither of us wants… I mean, what are you saying?’
‘I’m glad you asked,’ he says teasingly, pulling me closer, wrapping his arms behind my back so our bodies are cleaved together in a way that is both sexy and intimate. ‘I came here wanting to fuck Miss Anonymous again, and I did. And still I want more. And now, I think I can see a way for both of us to get what we want.’
‘What’s that?’ I sound as if I’ve run a marathon.
‘Go out with me.’
Panic spirals through me and I shake my head on instinct. ‘I don’t date, Nicholas. I didn’t mean to imply that I want that…’
‘Relax.’ He grins, and something fizzes in my gut. ‘I don’t mean for real.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You haven’t dated in a long time, and that seems like a waste. So date me. Play with me. Fuck me.’ He says the last in a voice that is so deep it rumbles right through my bones. ‘I’m moving home in a month and, suddenly, I can’t think of any way I’d rather spend what remains of my time in New York than with you.’
His voice whips against me, seductive and intense. But I hold onto Chance, to what I owe Abbey, to the single-minded focus this business takes to run. ‘I can’t.’ My tone is clipped, strange-sounding in the midst of our conversation and what we’ve just done. ‘I don’t have time to date.’
‘That’s a cop-out.’ His words are a little mocking.
‘I’m sorry you feel that way, but it’s the truth. I work really hard, and I can’t spare the time to fill your last few weeks here in New York.’
‘You’re saying you’d rather work than do more of this?’ He lifts a brow and, damn it, he is so hot, and I want him, and he knows it. He knows what he’s doing to me. I swallow, frustration biting into my belly.
‘Look, Nicholas, I appreciate the offer.’ I wince, knowing it sounds like some kind of real-estate merger. ‘But this was only meant to be one night. I hadn’t—’
‘Had sex in a really long time,’ he supplies, a smile on his lips, as if he’s teasing me, and a smile twitches on my own lips in response.
‘I haven’t had a life in a really long time. No friends, no boyfriend, I barely see my family—though I can’t say that’s a bad thing, actually—but I got… I know it’s kind of sad to admit this, I got lonely, okay? I just wanted one night to be like a regular woman in her twenties. And it was great. You were great. But that’s all it can be between us. I can’t afford to get distracted.’
‘Great. I don’t want to distract you.’ He wiggles his brows. ‘At least, not beyond this month.’
‘Nicholas,’ I groan, lifting my hands to my face and covering my eyes. ‘I can’t do it. This all means too much to me—’
‘I get it.’ I remove my hands to find him watching me. ‘Your work is important to you. But you just said you haven’t had a life in a really long time. So why not give yourself one? Just for a few weeks.’
His words catch in my chest. I frown.
‘I’m not talking about a relationship, and I’m not talking about long-term. I’m literally talking about you and me, doing more of this.’ He gestures towards my desk and the window that still bears my handprints. ‘Dating for a few weeks, having fun, all kinds of fun, until it’s time for me to leave.’
‘And then what?’
‘Then, I go back to my life, and you can go back to working twenty-two hours a day and pretending you’re