He laughed and a shiver of heat had run up her spine. “Belongs to the bar.”
“Don’t you need to give it back?”
“I will. Tomorrow.”
They shared a cab and when he asked her to have dinner with him, she said yes. Maybe it had been the wine, maybe it was the storm. She didn’t know. All she knew was that she didn’t want to go back to her office, she didn’t want to go home to her empty apartment, and she rather desperately wanted to have dinner with him.
A relative stranger. Friend of a friend. Not likely a serial killer.
The thoughts had tumbled upon one another until she’d been nodding yes. She thought dinner might be awkward but it wasn’t. He spoke proudly of his years in the air force and made it seem as if it really wasn’t a huge deal to have served in both Afghanistan and Iraq. He talked of the people he’d served with, the people they’d helped, even the enemy. And she ate her pasta and felt like a Lee Greenwood song, simply proud to be an American.
She talked of her work, the intricacies of acquisitions, the theatre she’d seen the previous week, and showed him pictures on her cell phone of her best friend’s little girl, who at eighteen months had her very first tutu.
She told him about Bryson Wagoner. Not much because she figured it bad form to talk to one man about another. But he’d asked if she was currently seeing anyone and she’d confessed to breaking off the relationship after Valentine’s Day, when he’d tried to propose.
They lingered over coffee and dessert, and like a crazy person, she thought about inviting him back to her apartment. But finally, when the restaurant was shutting down, he hailed down a cab and carefully put her inside, with just a casual peck on the cheek.
And she realized that she might have just had the best night of her life and it wasn’t going to happen again. At the last minute, she pressed her business card into his hand.
It had taken him two days to call, two frantic days of jumping every time her office phone rang only to be disappointed. She didn’t tell anyone about him. Didn’t want to admit to her esteemed colleagues that she’d been duped by some guy or that it simply hadn’t been as special as she’d built it up in her mind. At least not for him.
She’d been practically shaking when his call had finally come in. She’d—
“I’m ready,” Charity said, interrupting her memories. She was holding the cat cage and it was swinging as Hogi turned circles in the small space.
“Great,” JC said. What was important now was that Charity was coming home with her. They would get a chance to know one another, to become friends.
A chance to find the truth.
She reached for the doorknob but Royce beat her to it. “I’ll go first,” he said. “Keep close behind me. Do exactly what I say when I say it.”
“Fine,” she said. She made a deliberate attempt to relax her jaw. Her poor teeth did not deserve to be mashed together. She managed to smile at Charity. “Doing okay?” she asked.
“I guess,” the young woman said. “Are you some kind of cop?” she asked Royce.
“No,” he said.
“Royce is part of my security detail. Goes with the territory of being a CEO,” JC said, making her tone light.
“Cool,” Charity said. “I’m kind of hungry.”
“We can get lunch at my hotel,” JC said, happy that the young woman didn’t have more questions.
“Is there a pool?” Charity asked, her eyes big, looking more like a little girl than a woman old enough to be living with an abusive boyfriend. JC thought longingly of what it might have been like to have Charity live with her, like a real little sister.
“Of course,” JC said.
“Not going to be any damn swimming,” Royce said. “Let’s go.”
Her red dress had gotten his attention. He’d been nursing a beer, thinking about leaving, when he’d seen her across the rooftop patio. The wind had been playing with her skirt, making it swirl around her legs, and he’d had to tighten his grip on his bottle because his damn hands were simply itching to know if her skin was as soft as it looked.
She’d given him a dismissive smile and he’d been just reckless enough to think the hell with that. The rain had been fortuitous and he’d been ready to insist upon dinner when she’d graciously agreed.
And he’d had a great three hours. Still, when the night had ended, he’d been prepared to let her go. Had told himself to be content, to simply enjoy the serendipity of their meeting. She was out of his league.
But damn her, she’d pressed her business card into his hand and he’d gone home and slept with the damn thing under his pillow. For two nights. And when he wasn’t sleeping, he’d been staring at it. Until finally he’d called.
Yes, the red dress had made an impression. But it was a strapless white bikini that had been his Achilles’ heel. Two weeks into their relationship, he’d met Jules at the pool that was on the roof of her condo building. She’d been all long legs and sweet curves in a bit of nothing that had him instantly breaking into a sweat.
And she’d been a damn fish once she got into the water. But he was a good swimmer, too, and he caught her. And when her warm body brushed up against him, he cursed the few other guests lounging around the pool.
He somehow managed to let her go, to let her swim away. Had managed to lie next to her on the beach chair, like a reasonable person, pretending to read a damn book. Had managed not to touch her.
It had almost killed him.
It was their sixth date in two weeks and he desperately wanted her in his bed. But he was waiting for a sign that she was equally needy, equally ready.
Jules was different. Jules was important.
They shared a bottle of chilled white wine that she had in her bag. And hours later, after the summer sun had finally slipped beneath the horizon, and they were the only two left at the pool, he didn’t protest when she led him toward one of the curtained cabanas. And when she confidently stepped out of her suit, he wondered how much more wonderful he could stand.
They made love. And afterward, he realized as he held her still-quaking body close, that it had been a terrible mistake.
It was going to be so hard to let her go.
Ten weeks later, at the end of summer, he’d found out just how god-awful it could be.
And now, eight years later, he was helping her herd a belligerent teenager and a mangy cat into a dirty elevator. Really hadn’t seen this one coming.
“Nice car,” Charity said when they got there.
He didn’t answer. He was busy looking up and down the street, trying to spot anything unusual. He wanted Jules back inside her hotel.
The back seat of his BMW was barely big enough for Charity, her suitcase and the cat carrier. But once she got wedged in, and Jules had taken the passenger seat, he didn’t waste any time getting the car started and driving.
The only sound inside the car was the damn cat, making some kind of squealing noise that wasn’t a purr, or a meow, or anything faintly resembling any noise a cat should make.
When they got back to the hotel, he saw two of the doormen look at the cat carrier and exchange glances, but nobody tried to stop them as they proceeded up to the fourteenth floor. Thankfully, the cat had stopped squealing now that it was out of the car.
Once inside the hotel room, he had Jules and Charity wait near the door while