“You shouldn’t say things like that,” she whispers in response to my statement. Her long lashes lower over her dark eyes and a delicate breath escapes her parted lips, warming my palm. “Bailon, I—”

“Mateo,” I correct her because I need to hear her say my name. She needs to moan it. My name needs to fall off the tip of her tongue like a curse and a plea, all rolled up into three syllables. “I want you to say my name. Not Bailon, but Mateo. That’s what you call me.”

Her mouth begins to move, and I realize she’s silently counting. One, two, three … ten. My cock jolts in satisfaction because I know I have her. Women don’t sigh like this, don’t arch their bodies like she’s doing, unless they plan to turn conversation into reality. I stroke my fingers down her face to cup her chin and trace the tip of my thumb over the outline of her lips. She shivers like I’ve just circled her clit instead.

I have her.

I fucking have her and—

“Why?” she breathes, and I know what she’s asking. Why do you have to make me question myself, Bailon? Why do you have to make me want more?

I’m glad her eyes are closed and she can’t see my chest puff out as I drawl, “Why what?”

Her eyes fly open and they instantly narrow into furious thin slits. “Why are you so persistent?” Jerking her face from my touch, she slides her chair back a few inches from the table. Disappointment sinks to the pit of my stomach, ruining the hard-on she started with those sexy little sighs. I’ve called it wrong. Again. She’s not giving in—no, she’s giving me a piece of her fucking mind.

“There are so many other women who’d gladly fling themselves into your bed at the word go—no questions and no arguments,” she says in a rush. Brown curls cascade over one shoulder as she inclines her head, sizing me up with a harsh glare. “I guess I don’t get it. You’re not the type of man to chase after a woman, so why are you doing this?”

She doesn’t say she doesn’t think or that I don’t seem like that type of man but that I’m not. Listening to her try to read me makes my jaw clench so tightly my teeth hurt.

She’s wrong about me. I’d chased a woman before. I’d chased Delfina, and I’d loved her and then I’d lost her. Bile stings my throat because for the second time tonight there’s an image in the back of my mind of dark hair and eyes, but they don’t belong to the woman staring back at me. I hate Jamie for bringing that face back into my thoughts after I’ve spent so many years trying to forget Delfina’s death.

“So now you know me well enough to tell me what type I am?” I ask in a steely voice. Jamie tears her gaze from mine and chews on her bottom lip. “There’s no need to be persistent when all I need is a distraction and any pussy will do, right?”

Flinching at the darkness behind my tone, she takes a moment to appear utterly bewildered before she hauls in a breath and says, “I never said that. And I didn’t mean to offend you, I just—”

“I’m not offended at all,” I grind out. “If anything, I appreciate your willingness to remind me exactly of what I am.”

We spend the rest of the meal—and the drive to her apartment in Brighton—with an awkward silence dangling between us, but I have no intention of breaking it. Instead, I attempt to convince myself just how ready I am to get the fuck away from her. I tell myself not to give a shit how good she smells, but I still breathe her in like an addict as she leans over to grab her handbag from the floorboard, filling my senses with the scent of jasmine and roses. I try to coax myself into believing I don’t care how soft her skin is, but I can’t resist touching her one last time before she rushes out of my car.

The pulse point in her wrist throbs beneath my fingertips as she spins around to look at me, her expression strained. “What?” She dips her dark gaze to my hand on her wrist and lifts her chin angrily. “What is it … Mateo?”

I don’t understand why I’m still drawn to her—this woman who’s done everything to turn me off. She won’t fuck me. She wants a family. She can’t even meet my stare right now. And yet, I can’t let her go because I want to chase away the memories she’d evoked earlier tonight.

I need her to be the one to do that.

“Your coat.” I draw my fingers from her wrist, one by one, and she snatches her arm to her chest like my hands are made of acid. My mouth goes slack but I hide my disappointment quickly, leaning over to reach in the backseat for the dry-cleaning bag. I drop it on her lap and her legs tremble. “You forgot the reason you met with me tonight,” I say stiffly.

“I—” A line etches between her brows and she worries her lips together anxiously. After a long pause, she grants me a curt nod and swings her legs out of my car. I meet her with a scornful look when she leans over to peer inside. “Thank you for dinner, Mateo. I mean that. I’m sorry that I…”

She’s at a loss for words. Good. “That you don’t trust yourself enough to let go? Or that you don’t understand why a man like me would pursue you?” She grits her teeth, several emotions flashing over her beautiful face. There’s only one reaction I want to see, and she’s denied both of us that pleasure. That interruption from reality.

“Te lo dije antes,” I say. “Estas asustada.”

She doesn’t look me in the eye as she moves her head from side to side, causing her curls to bounce around her bronze cheeks. “And I told you before, I’m not scared of you. Not one little bit.” Then, without another word, she slams the door and stalks off toward the entrance of her building. I watch her go.

And I fucking hate it.

* * *

“What are you doing here?” the blonde behind the desk asks. Her green eyes bulge at the sight of me striding across the narrow reception area. “I mean, I thought you were—”

“What’s that saying, Daisy? A leopard can’t change its spots?”

“Yeah … something like that.” She crosses her slim arms over her chest and drums her fingernails over the tattoos covering her forearms. “I just figured you wouldn’t come back after what had happened.”

The muscles in my neck flex, but I give her a mocking smile and take one of the seats by her desk. “Exley’s the best. Not even his shit judgment in his employees can change that.” Her lips curl in a frown at my insult, but I gesture toward the blue door leading to the workshop. “He’s expecting me.”

“I’ll go let him know you’re here,” she says stiffly, then leaves her desk to disappear through the door.

It’s been three days since Jamie Armstrong stumbled out of my car after turning me down again. Since that night, the memories have dragged me down like the goddamn plague, and I know I need something to occupy my thoughts. Something to put both Delfina and her out of my mind. When I called Jace Exley first thing this morning to request an appointment, he had immediately cleared his schedule. “We owe it to you, Bailon,” he’d said, and I sat in early morning traffic rolling my eyes as he apologized fifty fucking times over what Lucy Williams did. “Whatever you need, we’ll make sure it’s right—at a huge discount.”

After the catastrophic shit storm his former marketing director had conjured with a press of her drunken finger, he had better make it right. After all, if she hadn’t taken that picture, Jamie Armstrong would have remained the unnamed woman I admired in passing. She wouldn’t have pranced into my office and she wouldn’t be the source of just about all of my present irritation.

“Mr. B?” I turn my head to see Daisy holding the door to the workshop open. “Jace said come on back. You know the way?”

She knows I do—I’ve come to EXtreme Effects too many times to count—but I still, mutter, “Like the back of my hand.”

Jace Exley’s office is at the end of the hall. I take my time getting there, sneering at the stunned looks on his employees’ faces as I pass. I find him behind his desk, a contrite expression tugging at his features. “Bailon, it’s good to—”

I lift a hand and slide into the seat in front of his desk. “You’re the last person I expect to roll out the bullshit, Exley, so spare me the pleasantries.” I’ve always admired Jace. Like me, he’d grown up dirt poor, but he dug himself out, refusing to let anyone knock him down. That’s why I don’t buy the groveling act for a second. “I have a job for you.”

Gritting his teeth, he jerks a sheet of paper and a pen off the corner of his desk. “Go ahead, I’m listening.”

Because I have an appointment with Priscilla this afternoon—one she’s a week late for—I cut to the chase, explaining in quick detail what I want and expect. He scribbles notes, occasionally frowning and shaking his head. When I’m done, I cock an eyebrow. “I need it within a week—two at the most.”

A muscle tics in his jaw. When he realizes that my gaze is zeroed in on it, he brushes his hand over the lower half of his face, covering his beard. “That’s a quick timeline. We’ve been swamped and—”

“You’re welcome.” He turns three shades of red, so I continue, “Victoria told me she’s referring everyone who reaches out to her to your company. She takes the whole concept of owning her shit to a new level, doesn’t she?”

“You understand we specialize in metal works and not”—Jace tosses his pen onto the surface of the metal desk and motions in frustration at the notes he made while I was talking—“what you’re asking us to do.”

I lift my shoulders. “Then branch out. Think of how many will fly off the shelf now that Victoria’s getting you so much more publicity than your … previous marketing methods.”

“This isn’t your usual style,” he growls because I’ve hit a sore spot referring to Lucy. Huffing, he lifts the page of notes and scans his gaze over it. “Besides, I heard a rumor you were done with the parties.”

“Sonora talks too much.” I had forgotten how close she and Exley are. I make a mental note to tell her exactly how much I appreciate her giving him a play-by-play of my every move when I return to the office this afternoon. “For the time being I am done with the parties. Doesn’t mean I can’t have fun.”

And I have every intention of doing that because Jamie Armstrong was right about one thing—there are other women, plenty of them, who’ll fling themselves in my bed at the word go. I don’t need her. Don’t need the headaches she’ll give me and I sure as fuck don’t need her whining to me about babies and husbands every other second.

Yet, she’s still on my mind. The little nurse who wouldn’t.

Jace lets the paper drift to his desk, works his fingers against his mouth like it’s a fucking bongo, then lets out a relenting sigh. “Fine. We’ll get it done.”

“I figured you would,” I say, and he scowls. He looks like he’s about to tell me to go fuck myself, but then his phone starts ringing with a custom tone that makes me freeze midway into rising from my seat. Lucy is calling. Lucy is calling. He punches the ignore button fast, but I’m intrigued. I sit back down. “Does she need her friend to make calls for her too?”

“Bailon—”

“Don’t tell me you’re still hung up on that woman after she made a fool of you and all your hard work.”

The look he sends me is lethal, so I respond to it with one of my own. “She’s not the person you think she is, Bailon.”

Tell that to my reputation, you little shit.

“I never said she was.” I push away from his desk and head to the door. “Just make sure you keep her away from cameras when you’re fucking her, or she’ll send Jamie Armstrong a pic of your dick too. I’ll call you at the end of this week to check up on—”

“Jamie,” Jace repeats her name in a low voice edged in confusion. “It’s funny, I’ve known you for what? Three, four years?” I give him a tense shrug, so he continues, “You don’t remember the names of women you’ve met once—I don’t even think you remember the names of women you’ve known for years—and somehow you know hers?”

Fuck Jace Exley. The only thing I want from him is what I’ve asked for—not observations into whose names I remember and don’t remember. Cutting my eyes to him, my nostrils flare at the curious look he’s giving me. “I remembered Lucy’s name, didn’t I? Call Sonora if you have any questions about my order and to schedule delivery when you’re finished.”

* * *

Fate is a fickle bitch that I’ve never put much stock in, but by some fucked up stroke of it, Jamie Armstrong comes hurtling back into my life several days later. I’m closing out my week with a trip to my accountant—because taxes are also a bitch with a deadline that just so happens to be on Tuesday—when his door opens slightly and his receptionist pokes her head in.

“Mr. Noble?” she says tentatively, and he gives her that stiff, agitated stare I send Sonora’s way whenever she interrupts meetings. “Jamie Armstrong called back and said she’s fine with meeting you at eight. Is that still okay?”

While I know there’s a damn good chance it’s not the same Jamie, the one that should’ve been mine, I whip my head around and study Julian’s expression. The irritation melts from his face faster than I can say filing extension, and I feel my eyebrows dart up toward my hairline at the look that replaces it. Anticipation.

“Thanks, sweetheart,” he tells the receptionist with a wink that makes her giggle despite the fact she’s here to deliver news about an engagement with another woman. “Just put it in my schedule.”

When she wiggles off, I cast a curious look at him. “Didn’t realize you were dating again.” He’d called me last fall, blubbering like an idiot because he needed me to recommend a divorce attorney since his wife was about to take him to the cleaners after she found out about the escorts he took on a business trip to Chicago. “Let me guess—blonde and stacked with a penchant for talking in a baby voice?”

Carving his hand through that ridiculous haircut that makes him look more like he should be waiting tables at some hipster coffee shop than handling my financials, he snorts. “The opposite. This one’s got dark hair—mixed, maybe? She’s a nurse at St. Catherine’s.”

A hard fist bangs into my stomach even though I tell myself there’s a possibility there are two nurses at St. Catherine’s named Jamie Armstrong. That’s got to be it. Because the woman who’s turned me down not once or twice, but three fucking times, wouldn’t go for a cheating shit like Julian Noble.

“I see,” I say in a voice that’s dropped dangerously low. I lean closer to his desk and drum my fingertips on the edge. “She must be a solid seven to drag you out of the office this time of the year.”

He takes the bait, grabbing his phone out of the top drawer. After a few clicks, he places the phone on the desk and spins it around toward me. I grit my teeth for control because the Instagram feed I’m staring at belongs to the woman who’s shoved her way into my thoughts since she first dismissed me. How the fuck had this happened?

“A hard ten,” Julian says with a weasel-like chuckle that makes me want to punch him in the throat. “Not my usual type, but I saw her picture on the hospital’s Facebook page, and I made my buddy connect us.”

His buddy is an asshole too. A sneer drags at the corner of my mouth as I gaze down at his phone and my eyes skim over her image. Even though it’s clear she took this photo after a workout, she’s stunning—her dark curls are captured in a high, messy ponytail, and her bronze skin is still dewy from exercise. Her eyes are squeezed together and her lips are parted in laughter. Frustration spirals to the pit of my belly. She should be laughing at something I’ve said, should be closing her eyes like that because I’ve touched her in a spot no other man can reach.

She should not be going out to dinner with Julian-Fucking-Noble.

“She’s sexy, huh?” he questions, jerking his phone back to his side of the desk. He chuckles again, and this time I want to punch him in the balls. “I’m taking her to The Renaissance.”

I instantly want to tell him that I took her to an Italian restaurant first, but I give him a cool smile then force a nonchalant yawn into my elbow. “Mmm, you never know. She probably used a hundred and one filters and you’ll regret pulling out all the stops.”

“Christ, Mateo, do you have to be skeptical about everything?” He laughs. Again. The shithead. “And as far as pulling out all the stops goes”—he lifts his shoulders, and that predatory grin makes my fingers twitch even more to do some damage to his face—“I like to think I’ll be well rewarded for my efforts.”

If he tries to fuck her—hell, if he lays one clammy hand on her—I’ll break every bone in his fingers and he’ll have to close out tax season punching in numbers with his tongue.

I smile tightly. “You never know what will happen.”