“To watching sex footage before I’ve even had my morning coffee,” Vanessa smirked.

Pushing a stray lock of hair behind my ear, I rolled my eyes and finished the toast with, “To Ethan Cocker never finding out that we saw his O-face without his knowledge.”

She cocked her head in agreement as our glasses touched. From her smirk I knew that she had been just as impressed by his appeal as I was. Any red-blooded female watching that man’s climax would have been silenced into a trance, too.

She asked from behind her glass, “Have you met him yet?” before taking a sip.

“Yes I finally did. I love warm nights like these. Look at this view! Buckhead’s skyline is far prettier than—”

“Don’t change the subject,” Vanessa laughed. “I want to talk about your meeting with Growly McCumsticky.”

Whiskey Blue wasn’t a place where you spoke loudly about such things. Probably eighty percent of the clientele around us didn’t have rooms there at the W hotel, where the high-end bar called home. The fantastic cabanas stationed atop an outdoor patio a hundred and twenty-five feet up, had a draw all their own. Everyone had style and money there. And a sense of decorum that Vanessa didn’t aspire to. Which was one of the reasons I loved her, despite how many times she made me blush.

I gave her a look to keep her voice down. In return she gave me a Cheshire-cat smile from behind her glass, one five-inch heel swinging.

“What? You think none of these six figure salaries have heard the word fuck before?”

I chuckled and shook my head at her.

She and I were new friends, had met less than six months ago while playing golf at Cherokee Town and Country Club. As usual I had been there with Brock and two of our investors, maintaining healthy business relations.

Vanessa was golfing with two women I knew who sat on the board for the club, and they seemed to be having a far better time than I was.

My eyes kept gravitating toward the three women. After the game was finished and they were enjoying afternoon cocktails at a table near ours, Vanessa caught me looking and came over to introduce herself. She knew who I was, which had me at a disadvantage. She said she was a lawyer, specializing in corporate law, and gave me her card.

Two of the men at our table had heard of her, although Brock had not. I looked her up, found her reputation flawless, and put her on retainer immediately.

But what I loved most about her was that I’d found a woman friend who had class and style but who could make me laugh like I was a kid again.

My upbringing was so stuffy and it only got worse after I turned sixteen and my parents were in that accident. Living with my grandparents, I felt like the fun was choked out of me. There was a goal attached to everything I did. I was taught to be hyper-vigilant about appearance, thinking always of rising to the top, which of course included social circles. My high school and college years were only about grooming me to take over my grandfather’s corporation.

I never went to wild parties like my friends did, only the ones that were at the country club, or had some sort of upwardly mobile reason for me to attend. I didn’t keep many friends long term because I was always studying. The few football games I attended in high school were when my grandfather was out of town.

Trying to be perfect had given me an ulcer by age twenty-three. I took over the company at age twenty-seven. That was last year. Before meeting Vanessa I hadn’t belly-laughed since I was nine and someone put a toad in Mrs. Wallaby’s desk, making her scream and pee herself in front of the whole class. So when Vanessa’s eyes grew bored that night at Whiskey Blue, I blinked to my martini and tried to be more like her.

“What do you want to know, that Ethan Cocker tried to bend me over his desk, too?” I smirked, hoping I didn’t look like a phoney.

Her eyes sparkled again and she leaned forward like I wasn’t a hopeless case. “Did he?”

On a shy laugh I leaned away from her. “No! Of course not! In fact he was a cocky bastard!”

“Emphasis on cock,” she smirked.

“Oh my God, you’re too much.”

“What did you talk about?”

“How much I wanted him to bend me over the desk.”

Vanessa laughed and glanced to her left. “Sure you did. I would’ve paid money to see you do that.” Her smile faltered long enough for me to follow her gaze.

“What is it?” I asked. “See someone you know?” She didn’t answer, so I prodded her. “Vanessa, who are you staring at? I can’t see around this column.”

Her dark eyelashes fluttered and she came back to me, smile returning. “I thought I knew someone. An ex. But it wasn’t him.” Under her breath she added, “Thank God,” and took a sip of her martini.

I didn’t like the look on her face, almost like she’d been afraid for a moment. “You okay?”

The frown vanished and she smiled, “Yes, I’m fine! Everything’s fine.” Twisting in her chair she scanned the other cabanas, the breeze lifting her dark-brown hair. “Do you see anyone interesting?”

I knew she meant men. “Not that I’ve seen.”

Turning back to me on a sigh, she asked, “Brock and you ever…?”

“No!”

Vanessa laughed and held up her pinky. “He have one of these?”

“How would I know?” I laughed, reaching over and making her put her hand down. Anyone who looked would know what she was talking about. “But I doubt it. He’s a big guy.”

“That’s not always an indicator. Speaking of big.”

“I was waiting for you to say something.” When Ethan had pulled out there was almost an audible gasp in the room. He was more than well endowed.

“You think his family has that surname because of their size?” Vanessa smiled, not speaking quietly enough for my liking. But that was part of the fun, and why I was always on the edge of laughter with her. She cared little for what people thought, her elegance inarguable despite her crass sense of humor. I envied this quality, though I knew I’d never emulate it.

“What are you saying? That long ago when they were doling out last names they…” I couldn’t finish, though I wanted to.

She smirked, “Yes, they took one look at his great, great, great, great-grandfather’s cock and said, Cocker! That’s your name, because buddy, you earned it.”

I laughed so hard my stomach hurt. Vanessa was right there with me, bent over and cackling with abandon.

“What’s tickled your funny bones, ladies?” a deep male voice interrupted.

I looked up and discovered Ethan Cocker standing above us. His chestnut brown hair was tousled as usual, but he was dressed like he’d stepped off a GQ magazine, dark grey, stylishly cut jeans and a white cotton button-up, sleeves rolled halfway up his forearms. The white made his skin look even more sun-kissed and in his hand he held a whiskey with a single cube of ice floating in the center.

Vanessa lost her voice for once.

I blinked like I’d forgotten who I was.

His smile turned into a smirk as he glanced between us and settled on me. “You haven’t introduced me to your friend, Boss.”

“Oh, so now you’re claiming you work for me after all?” I sarcastically shot back.

Vanessa’s eyes darted to me. From her reaction I heard how angry I’d sounded. She had questions in her eyes, wanting to know what had transpired between us that I hadn’t told her about.

I cleared my throat and looked up at Ethan again to avoid her searching stare. His smirk was waiting for me and my heart began to pound. He was incredibly handsome. Those chestnut eyes of his, I could disappear in them.

In an effort to gather myself I said, “We were laughing about surnames and their origins.”

Vanessa brought her glass to her lips and added, “Yes, family history and how certain traits are passed down.”

Ethan glanced to her for a moment, but came back to me. “Like how the name Smith was given to Blacksmiths.”

“Exactly.” I gave him a strained smile, trying to be polite. But the air was awkward and I had no idea what to say.

He was eyeing me like he was out of words, too. He licked his lips and glanced to Vanessa, “Well, I’ll let you get back to it.” He turned on his shiny heel and left us gawking after him. Vanessa and I didn’t speak, we were distracted, incredibly interested in who he was with. When he joined three people standing around a high table inside, his fingers floated up to touch the shoulder of a pretty girl with warm brown hair almost like his, but without the blondish streaks at the end. I felt a little sick at how familiar she was with him, so comfortable as she asked him a question. He replied, and she looked over at us. So did the black-haired man and the tall blonde he was with.

I glanced away like the police had just spotted me after I robbed a bank, but Vanessa wasn’t so quick.

“I wonder if his date knows what he was doing yesterday with your intern?”

“Stop staring, Vanessa,” I muttered, growing more embarrassed.

She faced me, her eyelashes falling toward my martini. “Don’t you need another?”

It was nearly empty, but I replied, “No.”

She suggested, “You could go in there and order a fresh one.”

“There are servers for that,” I breathed, chest heaving slightly. I didn’t like the reaction I was having. Would this happen every time he was around? I was extremely jealous of his date and secretly begging God that she wasn’t his girlfriend. I couldn’t stand the idea that he’d cheated on her, plus I’d want to steal him from her and what would that make me? A bitch, that’s what. “He’s on a date. What do you want me to do, flirt with him anyway?”

“I would,” she smiled. “But it wasn’t me he was staring at.”

My body tingled with hope, which was ridiculous. All those things he’d said about women in the workplace, why in the world would I want to kiss someone like that? I was a total feminist and he was, regardless of his good looks and compelling appeal, a sexist slacker. “He was just talking to us. For a very brief moment. There’s no way he was staring at me.”

“Oh no?” Vanessa asked, her gaze drifting back inside. “Then why is he staring at you now?”

I cut a quick glance to Ethan but his back was turned, and nobody was looking our way. Frowning I met my friend’s eyes. She chuckled, “Made ya look.”

“Not funny.”

“You want him,” she challenged.

“No, I just find him irritating, that’s all.”

Her eyes narrowed and she set her glass down. “I’m going to the ladies room. Excuse me.”

As her heels clicked away I frowned toward the skyline, buildings glinting against the darkness, a sliver of a moon high above them. And somewhere above that was Mother Nature laughing her ass off.