Running one hand through my hair, I do a full turn in front of the mirror and then smile at my own reflection.

Not bad.

Not bad at all.

“What do you think?” I ask Ashley, who’s sitting behind me, casually scrolling down some app on her phone. Slowly, she raises her head to look at me, narrows her eyes, and then finally nods approvingly.

“You look like you’re ready to kick some ass and take names,” she says, and then she immediately returns her undiluted attention to her phone. Whatever she’s looking at, it must be more important than my dinner date slash business meeting with Mr. Hot Stuff.

“C’mon, Ashley, help me out, will yeah?” I say, placing both hands on my hips and staring at her. Reluctantly, she sighs and stuffs her phone inside her purse. “And what the hell are you doing with your phone? You’ve been glued to that thing for almost an hour now. Are you texting someone I should know about?”

“Nah, not really,” she shrugs, but then gives me a grin as I stare her down, my lips pursed. “Alright, alright. No, I’m not texting anyone...but I’m trying to find Taylor’s Facebook profile.”

“Shouldn’t be too hard. I mean, he’s pretty well known.”

“His private profile,” she adds, one eyebrow raised. “Do you think he’s seeing anyone?”

“A man like Taylor? I’d be surprised if he isn’t seeing an army of women,” I tell her, but I almost regret it as I see the look in her face. She does her best to hide it, but I can tell that, if she had a choice, Taylor wouldn’t be seeing anyone...anyone but her, that is. “Why don’t you ask him? I’m pretty sure he’d have an answer for you.”

“Maybe, who knows?” she sighs again. Jumping up to her feet, she then offers me a wide smile. “But you’re right—tonight you need me. And tonight’s not about Taylor...it’s all about Colt McCoy, am I right?”

“Right you are,” I agree, glancing at my reflection once more. “So, you think this will impress him?”

“Impress him? Girl, dressed like this...you’ll rock his socks off. And his underwear too, if you’re lucky” she adds, her sly grin letting me know all about the dirty thoughts going on inside her head.

Leave it to Ashley to turn everything into sexual innuendo.

“It’s not like that,” I try to say, but my words sound like a lie even to myself. This should be more of a business meeting than a proper dinner date but, at the same time, I can’t stop myself from being attracted to the human train wreck that is Colt McCoy. There’s just...something about him.

“Well, that’s your loss then,” Ashley laughs. “I mean, have you taken a good look at the man? He seems like he was Photoshopped from head to toe. You could do worse than that, you know? And, after Hoyt, I’d say you need to try a real man.”

“Yeah, I know...but this is about the spa, not about getting laid,” I reply, although I wouldn’t mind if these two things went hand in hand. And Ashley’s right—after being with a bastard like Hoyt for ages, I really need to know what it’s like to be with a real man again.

“Right. So keep your head on your shoulders...and not under the table.”

“Right,” I laugh with her, straightening my tight black dress with the palm of my hands. It’s slutty enough to draw a man’s attention to my curves but, at the same time, there’s an edge of classiness to it that should manage to keep away the horndogs of the world. I’ve straightened out my hair, which cascades down my shoulders, and a pair of discrete Tiffany rings hang from my earlobes. All that, coupled with a pair of gorgeous Manolo Blahnik shoes, mean that I’m ready as I’ll ever be.

And that’s a good thing, because my phone is already buzzing in a fury inside my purse—meaning that my car is already downstairs, waiting for me.

“Okay, girl, you know what to do,” Ashley whispers, stopping me as I head toward the door by placing both her hands on my shoulders. She makes me turn toward her, looks me straight in the eyes, and then gives me a nod and a grin. “You’re the hottest of ‘em all, Serena. Now go forth and dazzle him.”

“I will.”

With that, I finally march out of Ashley’s apartment and make my way to the ground floor, my heart beating with the same rhythm with which my heels are clicking across the marble floor—which is fast.

As I leave the building and draw close, the driver leaves the car, walks around it, and opens the door for me. With a thankful smile, I slide into my seat and, just a minute later, and I’m cruising through the asphalt arteries of the city that never sleeps.

It doesn’t take long before the black car halts to a stop right in front of the Time Warner Center, where an army of yellow taxis does the same as my driver, stopping on the curb to leave a never-ending river of people.

As I walk toward the Time Warner Center’s gigantic glass facade in front of me, a parade of thoughts starts racing through my mind. I have no idea what Colt’s intentions really are—does he want to join forces with me, pull a fast one over me to win the site, or something else entirely? I’ll have to keep my wits about me, that’s for sure.

One thing’s a certainty, though: Colt McCoy doesn’t play around.

Per Se is one of the most exclusive restaurants in New York, and it’s not the kind of place where you can book a table with a simple phone call. Well, you can, but you better start calling a few months in advance.

“Ah, shit,” I mutter under my breath as I get to the entrance of Per Se. Looking at it from the inside out, the place looks completely deserted. There are a few dim lights on, but there’s no one inside the dining room. On a normal day, the place would be completely packed.

Did Colt pick a day where Per Se would be closed?

Did he do it on purpose? Just to make fun of me?

“Serena,” I hear a voice say right from behind me, and I turn around as fast as I can. “You look...stunning,” Colt says, a smile on his lips and a carefully arranged bouquet of flowers on his hands.

Jesus.

I guess it’s a date after all.