“Are you hungry?” I ask Sasha.

“I could eat.”

Her words have my mind spinning. But I stay in control and remain respectful as we walk away from the bookstore. Neither of us says much, and I can’t help but wonder what she was really doing there.

My phone chimes with a text and I glance down to see a message from my cousin, but I don’t open it. I know if something were wrong, Dex would call.

“What’d you buy?” she asks me, breaking the silence and I look down at the bag I’m holding.

“Oh this, it’s for my cousin, well for her husband. He’s the business partner you heard me on the phone with at the airport.” I give her a smile, and she returns it. “They’re expecting their first baby soon, and she asked me to pick it up for her. It’s some new father book she’s gonna give him as a present.”

“Oh, that’s really nice,” she says softly.

“Is this okay?” I ask as we stop in front of a small eatery.

“Do they have alcohol?” she asks, the sides of her mouth curling up into a devilish grin.

“I’m sure they do.”

“Then it works for me.”

That’s my kind of girl.

I open the door, and we are quickly seated in an intimate booth. The music in the restaurant is low, and as I stare across the table at Sasha, I have so many things I want to say to her, but that line of business and pleasure keeps popping up in my head, now throwing everything I want into limbo. It’s the same as our car ride back from the meeting today, and I find myself wanting to ignore her to keep myself under control. She brings out a side of me that shouldn’t be seen in public, a side that even I’m unfamiliar with.

“Why did you question me in the meeting this morning?” she blatantly asks.

“You don’t want me to answer that.”

“Sure I do, I want the truth, always.”

“I don’t think you do, though,” I plead with her and hope she will drop it.

“Try me.” She sits back and crosses her arms over her chest, her perky tits tempting me . . . again, and I let out a large exhale. “What? Am I boring you?”

“Far from it. The last thing you are, Sasha, is boring. Are you sure you really want the truth?” she nods, but before I can answer the waitress walks up. I raise one finger to the girl, signaling that we need a minute longer and she walks off. My eyes are wide, as I prepare to speak. I’m as serious as I think I’ve ever been.

“Sasha, I don’t know what it is about you, but since I met you on that airplane, you’re all I can think about. You’re all I want. My body reacts to you in a way it never has with anyone else. It’s like I’ve lost control of it. Then this morning when you were at that meeting, I got so pissed because I don’t mix business with pleasure. And even then, I couldn’t control my thoughts as I watched you up there, so to keep my mind off what I was imagining doing to you, I called you out.” I wait for her to respond, knowing my reason sounds totally absurd, but it’s the truth.

“If that’s the truth, then why ignore me when we rode back together?”

“That line again, it’s got me playing devil's advocate in my own head. So rather than letting myself get carried away and fuck you in the back of my car while my driver watched, I ignored you, again to keep myself under control. Trust me, it was the only way.”

She blinks a few times and then sinks back further into her seat. It’s as if I just stripped the air from her lungs, but that’s what she’s been doing to me all along.

“I don’t get it.”

“Trust me, neither do I. But it’s what you do to me. This morning, you had no bra on, and my mind was being so fuckin’ bad.” My eyes are screaming at me to look at her tits right now. She licks her lips making me speak my mind. “Like that, please don’t do that.”

“What?” she asks me so innocently.

“You know what you’re doing.”

“I’m not doing anything, Westin.”

“Yes, you are, and unless you want to end up face down on this table, you better stop it.”

The waitress walks up and this time speaks, “Are you two ready to order something to drink?”

Sasha’s eyes are wide. My words shocked her. “We’ll take two gin and tonic’s,” I order for the both of us, remembering her order on the flight.

“If I . . . have this control over you, then why were you at the bar with that girl the other night?”

“I swear, she started to talk to me, I didn’t initiate it.”

“Would you have fucked her?”

“Maybe.”

“Do you sleep with a lot of women?” 

“Define a lot.”

“I think that answers my question. So, why am I any different? Why should I believe a word of what you’re saying? If I’m just one of many then surely you’ll be over this when the next girl comes along.” Her words piss me off. I’m trying to be honest here, as hard as it fucking is to lay my feelings out on the line, and she thinks it’s all a goddamn joke. That it’s not real. I shake my head just wanting to leave. I’m not the type of guy who lets women get into his head like this.

The waitress sets our drinks down, and I slam mine down in one gulp while looking at Sasha as I take my wallet out and place a twenty on the table. She crosses her arms closing herself off from me, and I give her a wink.

“If you walk out of here—”

I cut her off before she can finish her statement. “I’m putting myself out there for you when I shouldn’t since we’re going to be working together and you’re acting like this is a fucking joke. Don’t you get it, Sasha? I’ve never felt this way before or expressed my feelings like this. Please don’t mock me. There is no one in the world like you, and I get it, I’m not the guy for you.” My heart is racing, I haven’t felt this much adrenaline—ever.

She takes a tiny sip of her drink and as much as I want to turn my back on her, goddammit, I can’t.

“I don’t know what to say to all that,” she finally whispers.

“Say something, anything,” I beg her and to my surprise, she stretches her hand out to me for a handshake saying, “I’m Sasha Monroe, it’s nice to meet you.”

I take her hand in mine and lean down, kissing the top of her soft skin, just like I did the day I met her. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, I’m Westin Smith.” And like that, our past is water under the bridge. Sasha’s eyes soften, and sweet, simple conversation flows from her lips allowing me to get swept away in her words, in her voice, in the woman that she is.