Everything about Jacob was hot, and it was hard to stay focused on the purpose of our meeting. We kept going into our personal lives even though it was a business meeting. But he was easy to talk to, and he was so different from my previous clients. He was a mixture of vulnerable and arrogant, and the combination kept me on my toes.

It made me want to know more about him. What had happened to make him so suspicious of life? And what had made him so sure of himself? It took a lot of man to be that confident, but at the same time, he seemed like something big had almost succeeded in breaking him.

Of course, it wasn’t in my job description to get to know him that intimately. All I had to know was that he wanted to keep trying to fix his image and that whatever had happened in his past wouldn’t come around and bite us in the ass.

Who he was now outside of his football image didn’t matter.

Except, it did. When he smiled at me with those cornflower blue eyes and that cocky grin, I wanted to know more. I wanted to know who was behind that arrogant mask, that attitude.

We ate our burgers, talking about college days, about hopes and dreams and what the future looked like as opposed to the lives we were living, now. Everything had been so shiny back then, the dreams I’d built. Now? Life was never as perfect as we’d dreamed it could be, but it was real the way a fantasy could never be.

I hadn’t met anyone who saw it the way I did, but Jacob seemed to understand.

And the fact that I knew that meant we had gone far off topic.

When I had had more than enough wine and our plates had been cleared for a while, I had to wrap up the meeting. I could only keep going for so long before it would go over into a personal meeting and not a professional one. I could not fuck Jacob again. That would not be good. I seemed to have to keep reminding myself of these things, though, because I kept quickly forgetting.

“Let’s call for the check,” I said and waved at the waitress.

She brought it, putting it in the middle of the table.

I reached for it the same time Jacob did, and our hands touched in the middle. I looked up at Jacob, and his eyes found mine. A current ran from his hand to mine, and I swore he could feel it, too. My breath hitched in my throat and something passed between us, something almost palpable.

I swallowed. “It’s a business meeting. I’ll pay.”

He hesitated before he let go. I didn’t know if he hesitated because he was reluctant to let me pay, or if he didn’t want to let go of my hand. I hoped it was the latter and scolded myself for it almost right away. I was looking for trouble even thinking about him this way. 

“Okay,” he mumbled. “But if this was a date, I would insist on paying.”

“Good thing it’s not a date then,” I told him. “I mean, for that reason, anyway.”

“Uh huh.”

He looked at me with a half grin, half thoughtful expression on his face. It was clear he didn’t want to say anything more, and neither did I.

Jacob was a client. Not only that, but he was one of the most famous clients our company has ever had. I couldn’t think of him as someone I would be interested in.

Plus, right now no one had found out about us, and it was likely no one ever would. If I did something else with him and it all came out, God, I could just imagine the bad publicity. And the poor man didn’t need any more of that. He was pretty torn up over what they were saying about him already. I could tell.

He was the kind of man who would pretend like everything was fine, but things got to him.

I didn’t know him all that well when he’d been friends with Kyle, because they were both always doing their own thing and rarely wanted me around. But it wasn’t hard to see that side of him now.

The waitress came back to our table with a card machine, and I swiped my card to pay for our meal. When that was done, Jacob got up. I got up, too, and took a deep breath.

“You can smell the sea,” I said when my lungs filled with the tangy, salty air that was so strong this close to the beach.

Jacob nodded. “I haven’t even been to the beach since I’ve been back.”

I blinked at him. “What?”

He shrugged and nodded, looking a little embarrassed about it. “I’ve had my hands full. You know, training and bad publicity and all that. It’s a full-time job.”

I chuckled. He was good at making light of a serious subject. It was good to know, to see how he handled things.

“I can’t believe you haven’t been,” I said. “You must be dying of withdrawal.”

He shrugged. “I’ve been in Texas for a good five years,” he said. “You get used to not being close to the ocean.”

I shook my head. “I can’t imagine being away from the ocean. I think I might die.”

Suddenly, he jerked his head up, as if a thought occurred to him that he couldn’t ignore. “We should go to the beach.”

I frowned at him.

“Now?”

He nodded, a devilish grin on his face.

Oh, how I wanted to agree. But I shouldn’t. Should I?

Stalling, I glanced at the time on my phone and then outside.

“It’s after nine. It’s dark already.”

“The ocean doesn’t go away when the sun sets.”

I rolled my eyes at him, but I was smiling.

“Okay,” I said. “Why not?”

“Why not indeed?” he said a bit sarcastically, but he was smiling, obviously happy that the night wasn’t over yet.

And so was I.

I couldn’t seem to resist this guy.