“We’re going to celebrate Dick getting fired. Come with us,” Barbara had said after the show.
And I’d stupidly agreed.
It didn’t seem stupid at the time, especially since we were celebrating at The Bristol Lounge, one of my favorite restaurants. It was part of the Four Seasons Hotel and directly across from Boston Public Gardens. The truth is I’d wanted a distraction from Henry’s visit. It was ridiculous but I couldn’t get his intense blue eyes out of my head. Or the remorse that had etched itself all over his face.
Maybe he really did feel bad for the way he’d treated me.
Yeah, maybe he did.
But did that change anything?
He’d still treated me poorly and who was to say he wouldn’t again?
Just because people felt awful for doing something didn’t mean they wouldn’t repeat the crime.
The real problem was my attraction to him.
I could admit it.
I was attracted to the son of a bitch.
There was something deeply wrong with me that I could be attracted to a man I didn’t even like.
Turned out that lunch with my colleagues was a terrible distraction idea. Because Henry was dining at The Bristol Lounge with none other than Caine Carraway.
“Maybe we should go somewhere else,” I said as we stood in the lobby outside the restaurant. Henry hadn’t spotted us yet.
Barbara frowned. “This is your favorite place. You love the Bristol Burger.”
I did love the Bristol Burger.
And for the first time in weeks, I was hungry.
Dammit.
No man was chasing me away from my goddamn burger.
“You’re right.” I nodded, sounding more assured than I actually felt. “But I’ll walk on your left side.”
My friend eyed me in confusion as I huddled at her side, trying to hide behind her as the host led us up the few stairs onto the main floor of the restaurant and right past Henry and Carraway’s table near the bar area, to a larger table at the back of the restaurant. As far as I could tell, he hadn’t spotted me and there were now pillars between us that I could hide behind.
Relieved, I slid into my chair beside Barbara.
“Drinks?” the waiter asked.
We’d finished giving him our orders when the sight of Henry Lexington walking into view around one of those aforementioned pillars and toward our table made my pulse skitter.
He gave me a soft smile as if we hadn’t been enemies up until twenty-four hours ago. “Miss Ray, what a pleasant surprise.” That soft smile grew into a roguish grin. “Are you stalking me?”
I arched an eyebrow, wondering what the hell kind of game he was playing now. “A burger. I’m stalking a burger.”
“The burgers are very good here.”
“Mr. Lexington,” Barbara said beside me, sounding delighted to see him, and awfully familiar. “What a pleasure to see you.”
“You too, Barbara. And please, I’ve told you before—smart, beautiful women should call me Henry.”
I didn’t know what to do first: be surprised they knew each other or gag at his flirting with her.
“You know each other?”
“I know everyone worth knowing.” He winked at Barbara and she tittered like a schoolgirl.
Dear God.
And then I was the focus of his attention. He leaned against Andrew’s chair who was, as always, oblivious to anything but himself. “So this burger… will it put you in a good mood?”
“Excuse me?”
Those blue eyes were too intense, much too intense. “A good enough mood to agree to have lunch with me tomorrow?”
I was going to kill him.
How dare he put me on the spot in front of my colleagues, in front of Barbara! What? Did he think I’d be civil to him because we had an audience? I scowled. “No.”
“Are you seeing someone?” he persisted.
“No, she’s not,” Barbara interjected, giving me an “Are you crazy?” look. “And yes, she’s free for lunch tomorrow. You can pick her up from the station at one.”
“Fantastic.” Henry gave her a grateful, gorgeous smile before turning it on me. “See you tomorrow.”
He was gone before I could even get past the shock that had sealed my lips. Finally, they parted. “What was that?”
Barbara shrugged. “Me making sure you don’t miss out.”
“How dare you decide if not making a date with Henry Lexington is me missing out.”
She raised an eyebrow at my snippiness. “He’s Boston’s most eligible bachelor, Nadia. For a reason.” She gestured to where he’d been standing. “You can’t tell me you don’t find him attractive.”
“I’d have to be blind,” I gritted out begrudgingly. “But he and I don’t exactly see eye to eye.”
“Didn’t seem that way to me. You could’ve cut the sexual tension with a knife.” She shuddered, wearing a dreamy smile. “If a man looked at me the way Henry was looking at you, I’d slather myself all over him like butter on bread.”
I chuckled because she was hard to stay mad at. “Barbara, the man is a known slut. He’s not the settling-down type. When he looks at me, he’s merely thinking about sex.”
“Sweetie, so are most men and plenty of women,” she patted my hand, “but is there anything wrong with sex?”
Only the fact that I hadn’t had it in a while. “No.”
“So why can’t you go on a date with him expecting nothing but a free lunch and, if you’re interested, the possibility of sex? I’ve heard he’s very good.”
“Well, he’s had plenty of practice.” I huffed. “I don’t like him very much.”
“Oh, sweetie, does everything have to be so serious? You don’t have to like someone to have fantastic sex with them, believe me.”
I stared at my friend, contemplating her advice.
She had a point.
I mean, it wasn’t like trusting a man long enough to get into a serious relationship was in the cards for me at the moment. But I liked sex. My sex life didn’t need to dry up because I didn’t want to be in a relationship. And the last relationship I was in was over a year ago. Pete. He hadn’t lasted long. Neither had Mike before him. Or Denny before that. I was kind of a serial monogamist because I wasn’t very good at letting the men in my life really get to know me. Pete, Mike, and Denny had all dumped me for the same reason: I couldn’t trust them long enough to be real with them.
But I missed sex.
Maybe I should start being more like Henry Lexington. A true bachelorette.
Maybe the man himself could teach me how, and by reducing him to no more than a one-time sexual partner, I could purge myself of the hurt that he’d added to when he’d treated me so poorly. Maybe I could dispel myself of some of the anger that had nestled, seemingly permanently, in a painful hollow in my chest.
* * *
There was a big beautiful vase of flowers waiting on my desk when I returned after hair and makeup the next morning.
I admit to feeling a traitorous little thrill in my stomach when I saw the expensive calla lilies (how he knew those were my favorite, I did not know). Shaking my head in frustration that he could both piss me off and surprise me, I reached for the card.
Changing your number doesn’t change how I feel. Darling, talk to me.
Fuck.
Of course Henry didn’t know I loved calla lilies.
But he knew.
Worry pricked at me as I stared at the card. I’d told him too many times to count to leave me alone. I’d changed my number… He wasn’t going all stalker on me, was he?
Hating to rid my desk of the beautiful flowers, I flipped the card and called the florist who was clearly up at the butt crack of dawn.
“Olivia’s Garden, how can I help?”
“Ah, good morning, I received some flowers this morning.”
“Miss Ray?”
“Yes,” I said surprised.
“Yours were a very early delivery. Did you like them?”
“The flowers are beautiful. However, I really don’t want contact with the man who bought them. Would it be possible for you to take them back and let him know that I sent them back?”
“I’m afraid flowers are nonrefundable.”
“No, I don’t care about him getting his money back. I care about sending a message.”
“What flowers would you like to send him to do so?”
Was she for real? “No, I don’t want to send flowers.”
“We also send chocolates, gift hampers, and wine.”
“Never mind.” I hung up and slumped into my chair.
“Ooh, who sent the flowers?” Angel asked as she passed by.
“A misogynistic, egotistical, shallow, social climbing, cheating asshole.”
She considered this. “He has good taste in flora.”
Because she was funny, but mostly because I needed to, I laughed. Hard. And for a moment I felt better.
* * *
The flowers were another reminder of what happened when I trusted men. I wasn’t saying there weren’t men out there who could be trusted. Of course there were. I trusted Joe!
But that was different. When it came to men I was sexually interested in, I never seemed to be able to discern the trustworthy ones from the untrustworthy ones. Before Pete, Mike, and Denny, when I was still naïve enough to trust, I’d ended up choosing the latter, and paying for it emotionally.
It made me more determined to try things the way Barbara suggested, the way that Henry did things.
I didn’t need to trust him to have sex with him, right?
I ignored the voice screaming in the back of my mind: Wrong!
It was Joe’s voice. I’d called him the evening before to relay my thinking to him.
“No, no, no,” Joe had cut me off. “Nadia, you are not the one-night-stand kind of girl.”
“We don’t know that,” I’d argued.
“Yes, we categorically do. Don’t do this, honey. You’ll get hurt and you know I hate seeing you cry.”
“Joe, I’m older and wiser now. Maybe this is the path my life is supposed to take.”
“It’s not. One day you’ll meet a man you’ll instinctively know you can trust. If you do this… I think it’s going to take you back to a bad place. You’ll start hating yourself again and I can’t watch you do that to yourself.”
Uncertainty and unease, and maybe even a little bit of panic, settled over me at Joe’s words. He was the only friend I had left from college, the only one who’d stood by my side, so he knew what he was talking about. Yet, I was tired of standing in one place. “Joe, I need to make a change.”
He was silent for a while. “You’re a grown woman, honey. You do what you have to do and you know I’ll be here. But I am officially worried about this strategy.”
“Barbara thinks it’s a great idea.”
“Barbara doesn’t know what I know.”
We’d ended the conversation soon after, and for a while I considered taking Joe’s advice. But then I thought about my limitations as a girlfriend, and about Henry and how much I wanted to scratch that itch.
Then again, I might have been getting a little ahead of myself. Henry, when he wasn’t being a villain, was naturally flirtatious and charming. That didn’t mean he was attracted to me. This lunch could merely be an attempt to make amends and assuage his guilt over the way he’d treated me.
* * *
At one o’ clock on the dot, I found Henry waiting for me at reception. He drank me in from head to foot in a leisurely, decadent way, like he was savoring every minute of watching me walk toward him.
Okay.
So maybe he was attracted to me.
He held out his elbow and gave me an arrogant half smile that was much more attractive than I’d like. “Ready to go, Sunshine?”
For a moment I was caught off guard, not only by the nickname but by him. He was like a completely different person to the one who had burst into my home and threatened me against hurting his friend. This man was way more complicated than I think most people even realized.
I tried to shrug off the butterflies in my belly—they’d been there since lunch yesterday—and ignored his offered arm. “Sunshine?” I yanked open the reception door and held it for him.
Henry shook his head, laughing at my rejection, and wandered through the open doorway ahead of me.
“Well?” I said.
“Well what?”
But my query was lost in the feeling of being overwhelmed as the elevator doors closed me in the small space, alone with him.
My cheeks flushed. I could cook bacon on those things.
I shot Henry a look out of the corner of my eye seeing his continued amusement.
“What now?” I huffed.
“Nothing.” He shrugged. “You’re adorable when you’re angry.”
“If you knew anything about women, you would know that is the last thing you want to say to one who’s angry.”
“Actually, considering how adorable I find you when you’re angry, it would make sense I’d want to keep you that way.”
I rolled my eyes. “Very cute.”
He nudged me playfully with his elbow. “We’re just two cuties then, huh?”
The elevator doors opened and I strode out ahead of him. “I’m cute. You… I’m thinking undiagnosed multiple personality disorder.”
Henry’s laughter rang out behind me and I had to suppress a smile at the compelling sound. He hurried to my side. “I’m growing on you.”
“Like a wart.”
He grinned and rushed to open the exit door. As I passed him, his blue eyes twinkled mischievously at me. “This is going to be fun.”
I wasn’t at all surprised to find Henry drove a silver Mercedes S-Class Cabriolet. He had the top down and as he opened the passenger door for me, I almost balked at sliding against the pristine ivory leather seat in case I marked it. Sinking into the luxurious car, I could only stare at the incredibly sexy interior.
Henry got in next to me and threw me the kind of excited grin a child might at Christmas. “Ready?”
“This is quite the car.”
“The words say impressed; your tone does not.” He observed as he pulled on his seatbelt. “Is it the top? Do you want it up so it doesn’t mess your hair?”
“I don’t care about that.” I frowned, annoyed that he’d think I’d be that concerned with my appearance. “I care about how weird this is.”
As we pulled into traffic, Henry slipped on a pair of aviator sunglasses. “What’s weird about two adults having lunch together?”
“Because forty-eight hours ago, we were enemies.”
“So melodramatic. We were merely mistaken about one another.”
“You were mistaken about me. I think I have you pegged accurately.”
“And that’s why we’re going to lunch because you don’t.” He shot me that sexy smirk. “You don’t know the good stuff.”
“Has anyone ever said no to you in your life?”
“Yes, frequently.”
“Have you ever listened to them?”
Henry chuckled. “Rarely.”
His laughter and the sight of him driving this beautiful car with lazy confidence, his strong hands lightly resting on the wheel, those ridiculously hot sunglasses—it all affected me. Greatly. A sensuous ripple fluttered in my lower belly.
Dear God, I really wanted him.
The realization caused my breath to escape from me in a shudder, drawing his attention. Quite abruptly, I made a decision. “I’m just going to put it out there in case you’re planning to take me to a stupidly overpriced restaurant for lunch.”
“Okay.” He drew out the word, sounding amused and wary at the same time.
“I don’t particularly like you. In fact, you have become one of the villains in my story so far. I don’t want to date you and I doubt very much that you are interested in dating me. However, I also doubt that you feel so guilty about your treatment of me that you merely want to turn around my opinion of you. No, sir. I’m here because you’re attracted to me. That’s okay because apparently, I’m attracted to you too. You’re hot and it’s obnoxious but I can’t deny it.”
Henry’s mouth twitched like he was trying to suppress a smile. “Okay.”
“We’re attracted to each other or you wouldn’t have asked me out and I wouldn’t have let myself be manipulated into saying yes. But let’s not pretend this is something that it’s not with chivalry and a date. You want to fuck me. And I’m amenable to the idea. So let’s cut all the bullshit and just do it.”
“Jesus.” Henry almost ran into the back of a car that had stopped at the light, slamming hard on his brakes. He looked at me and even though I couldn’t see his eyes, I knew his expression was incredulous. “You’re amenable to the idea of me fucking you? Did I hear that right?”
I flushed. “I’m sure you’re used to women with gentler manners but I’m a straight talker. I don’t believe in flowering up a situation so as not to offend delicate sensibilities.”
The traffic moved forward and Henry didn’t speak.
In fact, he stayed silent for a while.
So long that I began to feel my cheeks burn with humiliation.
I’d read him wrong. He really did only want to make amends.
I wasn’t his type.
Oh God.
This month had been really, really bad for me.
Finally, he pulled up outside a pizzeria on Tremont Street. Once he killed the engine he took off his sunglasses and turned toward me. His expression was surprisingly sober as he intently studied my face, as if he hoped to find answers there. “You’re right,” he said, his voice low, deep, “I want you. But I don’t consider anticipation bullshit. We’re going to have lunch. And you’re going to agree to have lunch with me on Thursday. And then you’re going to agree to be my date to the Delaney Charity Ball this Saturday. After which we’ll go back to your apartment and I will happily fuck you into satisfied exhaustion.”
For a moment, I couldn’t speak because his last sentence turned me on, his words alone sparking delicious excitement deep in my belly.
What the hell would the rest of him do to me?
Of course, after a second or so of physical arousal, the rest of his words sunk in. “What?” I shook my head in confusion. “No. We don’t need to have lunch or go to a ball together.”
“No lunch dates, no date to the ball, no penis for you. And you don’t want miss out on my penis. It’s a good one.”
God, I didn’t want to laugh but he had the kind of irreverent charm that could melt the toughest critic. It was a gift. It was also a mask because I knew there was a dangerous character lurking behind it. Henry Lexington couldn’t be trusted. The thought sobered me and Henry frowned. “What’s the harm in a few dates, Sunshine?”
The harm was in him. I wasn’t a naïve girl in a romance novel who thought she could seriously keep her emotions detached from a guy she was having sex with all the time.
Joe was right about me.
That’s why it would be a one-time thing.
And even then, I was questioning my sanity over letting it happen that one time.
“This week, sex on Saturday after the ball, and then you and I are done.”
Henry contemplated me a moment. And then he held out his hand. “Deal.”
Tentatively, I slid my hand into his and had to fight against a thrilled shiver as his thumb caressed my skin. “Deal,” I managed.
He raised my hand to his mouth and gently pressed his lips to it. I stared at him, confused by the old-fashioned gesture as he let go. “Now, let’s eat.”
After hurrying around to open my door, Henry helped me out of the car; I was bemused when he held tight to my hand as he led me toward the restaurant.
We were having lunch at a pizza place?
I didn’t know whether to be insulted or relieved.
As if he’d sensed my thoughts, he flashed me a grin. “I could’ve taken you to a fancy restaurant but I wanted to enjoy my lunch with you. And this here is the best damn pizza and ice cream place in Boston.”
Relieved, I followed him inside. “You like pizza?”
His brows drew together. “Is there a person alive who doesn’t?”
“Fair enough.”
We were seated at a small table; I sat on the red leather banquette that stretched the entire length of the restaurant and Henry across from me in a black wrought-iron chair. I suddenly found I didn’t know what to say or do now that we’d put our attraction out in the open.
Henry, however, never seemed to be uncomfortable with any situation. “So what made you want to be a meteorologist?”
“Um…” I stared at him, confused. “Are we really going to do the ‘getting to know you’ thing?”
“What else are we going to do? Sit here and stare at each other? I could do that because the view is spectacular but I’ve always found a view gets even more beautiful when you know a little something about it.”
“Do you always know the right thing to say?”
He smiled. “I asked a question first.”
I sighed. “Fine. I grew up in Connecticut, a small town, and one day for career day in junior high, a broadcast meteorologist from the local station came to talk to us about her work. She was smart and glamorous and she was very kind to me.” I gave him a wry, somewhat embarrassed smile as I admitted, “I was a chubby, awkward kid. Not very popular. Everyone else was clambering for her attention. But she picked me out and showed me how her job worked. I fell in love with it right there and then.”
“One moment of kindness can change everything.”
“Kindness costs nothing and yet it’s worth everything.”
His answering look was too soft, too tender.
And thankfully the waiter came to take our order at the right moment.
When he was gone, I changed the subject. “And you? Do you like working for your father’s bank?”
“I do. I’m a managing director so I’m responsible for bringing in revenue. It means wining and dining clients, traveling a lot. It suits my personality.”
“I’ll bet it does.” He was the perfect salesman—no smarm, just natural charm. “And did you become a managing director right out of college?”
“No. My father is grooming me to take over as COO shortly. He’s been grooming me forever. I went into the bank after college as a junior analyst. Worked up to senior analyst, then to VP, then to director, and then to managing director. My father wanted me to understand how the business functions at every level. Well, not every level. He didn’t start me in the mailroom.”
“That’s smart.” I was impressed he’d worked his way up through the ranks, even if it wasn’t from the mailroom. “And you genuinely like it? You wouldn’t have wanted to do anything else with your life?”
Henry grinned at me. “I’m not a cliché, Nadia. I’m not a poor little rich boy with a woe-me story of familial pressure and suppressed passions. I have a good family, a blessed life, and a job I like and can depend on.”
I nodded, wishing it weren’t rare to come across someone who was so content with their life.
“I thought you weren’t interested in the whole getting-to-know-each-other thing?”
I rolled my eyes at his teasing. “I’m naturally a curious person. Don’t get a big head about it.”
“Curious, you say?” He raised an eyebrow, and I saw the sexual speculation in his gaze.
“One night, Henry. Not a lot of time to indulge my curiosity.”
The blue in his eyes appeared to darken, to smolder. “It’s time enough.”
Arousal had deepened his voice and suddenly I was imagining all the things I’d like him to do. Lust shot through me, shocking the heck out of me. My breath stuttered and I even felt my nipples peak against my shirt.
Shit.
The pizza arrived, cutting through the tension-filled moment.
I stared down at the yummy-smelling plate, looking forward to tasting pizza that was famous for its charred crust.
“Nadia?”
Reluctantly, for I feared what looking at him would do to me, I lifted my eyes.
Henry stared at me like he wanted to devour me instead of the pizza. “The way you say my name gets me extremely hard, so you might not to want to say it in public too often.”
As turned on as his cheeky words made me, they also gave me a little of my equilibrium back. “And you, Henry, might not want to divulge your weaknesses to me.”
“Go ahead. Call me Henry. I’m perfectly comfortable walking around aroused in public. I just thought it might embarrass you.” He flashed me a mischievous grin before lifting a slice to his lips.
I tried not to laugh.
I did.
But damn, he made it difficult.
The sound of my laughter clearly delighted him, his answering smile big enough to light up Boston.