19. CARSON

She’s holding something back, but I’ll be damned if I know what it is.

And really, who am I to be demanding anything from her? It’s been twelve years. We’re both different people now. Am I such a child that I need an apology after all this time?

That kind of attitude was partly responsible for Cassie being the only girl in school who would look at me. The fact I was all gangly angles didn’t help matters, either.

Well, things have changed. Dramatically.

“Sure,” I say. “I know how school is. I guess it was my turning point.”

Cassie smiles. It’s dazzling, especially combined with the stunning sleeveless wraparound she’s wearing. The aquamarine color really brings out the blue in her eyes, and it lifts her cleavage to the point where I can barely keep my eyes off of it.

Where was I? Oh, yeah.

“My time at Harvard really showed me that I wasn’t learning much that I didn’t already know,” I say. “And it drove home the fact that I didn’t want to have my nose buried in books for the rest of my life. I wanted to live, not just learn.”

“You were totally bored in classrooms,” she says. “That was why you decided to build that nuclear reactor model for the science fair. You wanted to actually engineer something.”

I smile. “You remember that?”

She seems startled by the question.

“Vaguely,” she says quickly. “I remember that we won.”

I remember, too. I also remember going for dinner with our parents that night, and then heading off to the old abandoned barracks at the edge of the base. We made out until her hair looked like a rat’s nest. She barely got it back under control before we went home.

“A scale version of that reactor would have worked if we’d had some uranium,” I remind her.

She laughs. “I know! I don’t think the judges ever figured that out. If they did, they probably would have called the government on us.”

I chuckle, too. We sit in silence for a while until our server brings us a couple of lemon sorbets.

“I don’t remember ordering this,” Cassie says.

“It’s palate cleanser before the next course,” I say with a wry smile.

She blushes, shaking her head. “I’m such a hick.”

“Forget it. I guess you don’t come to restaurants like this very often.”

“No,” she says. “But I bet you do.”

She’s opened the door, now I’m going to walk through it. I want her to know about everything I’ve accomplished since she left me standing there like an idiot on prom night.

“Most nights, I order in from room service,” I say. “My building has a concierge and a full-service restaurant, so I just call ahead and tell them to bring something up when I get home.”

Cassie’s eyes widen.

“Wow,” she says. “Where do you live?”

“Park Avenue. Penthouse suite.”

Sure, I guess you could call that second sentence a bit of an asshole thing to say. And you would be right. I couldn’t help myself. Being around Cassie makes me nervous for the first time in a long time. I keep feeling this deep need to prove myself over and over again – a feeling I haven’t experienced in years.

She lets out a low whistle.

“I was thinking,” she says. “It was kind of strange that we’ve both lived in New York for so long and we’ve never run into each other before. But now I realize we kind of run in different circles.”

“I tend to travel a lot, too,” I say. “I spend a lot of time in Europe. Northern Australia during the winter. I love snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef.”

“Yeah, I can see you’ve become a lot more – uh, active than you used to be.”

I beam in spite of myself. Somehow she makes all the years of chasing every woman I met fall away, and I’m back as that skinny kid again, trying desperately to win her approval.

Who am I kidding? Every one of those women was just an attempt to either forget about Cassie, or to somehow validate that I was worthy of such a beautiful woman.

Jesus, I’ve got some issues. Is it enough for me to just admit that? I’m thinking not. I know I’m coming off as a show-off, but for some reason I can’t help myself.

“It’s important to stay fit,” I say.

Good one, buddy. How lame can you get? I can’t believe she still has the ability to screw me up like this after all these years.

“Well, you’ve done it in spades,” she says. “I bet you could get into action movies if you wanted. You remind me a little of Jason Statham these days.”

“Too much work,” I grin. “It would cut into my leisure time.”

“See?” she says. “That’s what I’m looking for! I want to have so much money that I can say things like that.”

I return her smile. Wonder what she’d say if she knew I just paid twice what she can hope to get from selling her shares of this Tricialicious venture, all so I could chase a woman and take her virginity?

Which is exactly when the realization hits me. Holy shit, I’ve wasted the entire first day of the Chase with Cassie Vincent!

What was I hoping to accomplish tonight? Some sort of revenge? Whatever it was, it’s not worth throwing $20 million down the tubes and condemning a poor woman to having sex with some creepy old pervert.

I hope none of this shows on my face.

“Something wrong?” Cassie asks.

“Uh, no. I was just thinking about something I forgot to do.”

“Nothing important, I hope?”

“Depends on how you look at it. But I don’t want it to spoil our catching up.”

She glances at her watch. “Actually, I was just thinking that I probably should be getting home. I’ve got a busy day tomorrow.”

Shit, I’m so confused.

Part of me is struggling to believe Cassie’s not climbing all over me right now and the other part just wants to take her to bed and get it over with.

And all of me can’t stop thinking of the poor quarry being handed a hotel room key by some sadistic rich bastard while I stand around and try to figure all this out!

“Of course,” I say. “Besides, if we skip dessert, I can flip Matthias the bird tomorrow.”

She giggles and my stomach flips. No matter what I do, I can’t stop feeling like a horny teenager around her. She’s not like any other woman I’ve ever been with. It was always so much more with her.

Cassie collects her purse as I pull her chair out for her. At least I can try to act like a gentleman.

She looks at me sideways.

“Don’t we have to wait for our bill?” she asks.

“They’ll just put it on my account.”

She giggles again. It’s like music to me.

“Quit teasing me, Carson. Your life, it’s like everything I’ve been dreaming about. I’m totally going to have an account somewhere when I’m rich!”

I can’t help but laugh, too. I put an arm around her waist and lead her toward the foyer. Touching her like this sends a jolt straight to my dick, making me feel like a teenager yet again.

We reach the coatroom to pick up Cassie’s wrap, but there’s no one at the desk. Cassie looks around with some alarm.

“I really do need to get going,” she says, glancing at her watch again. “Maybe I’ll just leave it here and pick it up another time.”

“Not at all,” I say, making my way into the room itself. “Come here and point out which one it is.”

She follows me in and the door closes behind us. The room is lit only by a tiny sconce lamp on the wall.

“Should we really be in here?” she asks. “What if someone sees us? They might think we’re stealing something.”

“Cassie,” I chuckle. “I spend about a hundred grand a year in this place. They know I don’t need to steal what I want. Now let’s find your wrap.”

She swipes through the hangers for a few moments before finding it.

“It’s up there,” she says, pointing to the shelf above the hanging rack. “I can’t reach.”

I move in behind her and reach over her toward the shelf. As I do, I catch a whiff of her fragrance and suddenly I can’t think. It has the same effect on me as her laugh, making me hard as a rock. And dropping me into a memory back into a time when we were still thick as thieves.

“You,” I whisper in her ear. “You smell so…”

She gasps as my hardness presses against her ass through the thin fabric of my suit pants. I’m helpless to do anything except stand here, breathing into her neck.

I feel her spin around in the dark and wrap her arms around my neck. Suddenly her breasts are pressed against me and her hips are pushing their way into the hardness in my pants.

My lips press firmly on hers, my tongue slipping around and under her own. With that, all rational thought flies out of my head, leaving nothing but animal passion in its place.