Fate has a funny way of working against me. As my drinks with Gillian were winding down, I found myself certain I was being watched. If I hadn’t caught her eye, and if I hadn’t been through with my cocktail, I’d have gone about the rest of the evening without a whisper of worry. I’d have returned home feeling confident in being able to forget her.

But Emma Brightman does not exist to be forgotten. She’s worn the most cunning beaded dress tonight, swirling, decorative lines of red and gold beads over a silk sheath. It helps that the dress is pushing up her breasts, so that the tops of them curve invitingly. I want to pull her closer, trace my tongue along the cunning swell of those—

“Who was the business meeting?” Emma takes a sip of rosé. “She’s pretty gorgeous.”

Instantly, my fantasies are dashed on the rocks of reality. Gillian was punctual as ever for our meeting. Her eyes shimmered with hurt, and hope. She…

I can’t think of her now, not when I’m with Emma.

“Financial allocations. Nothing to interest you,” I say. Emma stiffens.

“Right. Because I’m an airhead LA blonde who can’t or won’t understand basic business.” She takes a long drink of her wine, I think in an effort to get this over with quickly. “Like you said at my Mom’s party. You haven’t changed at all.”

Somehow this woman enrages me and arouses me all at once. She’s so quick to assume the worst; why should I want her at all? Besides how tempting she looks in that spangled gown, how her dark golden hair tumbles around her shoulders.

Really, no idea why I should be enthralled.

“Do you always believe the worst in people?” I ask as the waiter delivers my Old Fashioned. Emma smirks and rolls her eyes.

“I work in Hollywood. It’s an essential quality for staying in a job.” She clinks glasses with me.

“I’m surprised you’re not doling out advice professionally.” Fuck, why do I sound so damned robotic and monotonous? Probably because I can’t stand to be seen as weak. “You seemed good at it, I mean.”

Emma gives a sound of surprise. “No sting at the end of that compliment? I feel like I need to brace myself for the next attack.”

“How do you know you wouldn’t like it? The attack, I mean.”

Fuck, her eyes go wide with surprise. Because that’s all I can think about: the attack, the surprise, the erotic confusion that comes from lifting this woman into my arms and carrying her to one of Al Capone’s favorite private drinking rooms. I know this because a glowing neon sign is pointing out that particular nook. There, we’d order a bottle of iced champagne before shutting the curtains, and I’d undress her, become intimately acquainted with her round, perfect—

“Gorillas,” I mutter. I discovered this afternoon that thinking of those sad, lonely gorillas is the only thing that sets my lust for Emma on simmer rather than boil.

“Gorillas? Like…a surprise attack by gorillas?” Emma is lost, as she should be. I am insane.

“Would you like another drink?” I notice she’s taken another hefty swig of rosé, probably trying to keep her composure in the face of this conversation.

“I think I’d better.” She flags the waiter, then orders a gin gimlet. “You?” she asks me.

“I’ll stay with the Old Fashioned.” I dismiss the waiter with a nod of my head, and go back to staring into the amber liquid in my glass. Emma smirks; even her smirk is delectable. Damn this woman.

“That’s always been you, hasn’t it? Old Fashioned through and through.” She crosses her arms and relaxes against the seat. That’s how she feels during this drink, relaxed and unconcerned. I want her at the edge of her seat, panting with a growing lack of erotic control. How would another man go about this? He might comment upon her hair, describe it as a mass of goldenrod, a shimmering assortment of—

“Your hair,” I tell her, leaning in, “is a mass of tendrils.”

She blinks. “Not sure if insult? Please to add more information?”

I think the best thing to do would be to set the building on fire and leave. This night isn’t going to get any better.

“I was simply proving your point: an old fashioned man compliments a woman’s, er, tendrils.”

“Okay. Let’s switch gears, because I think we’re getting even more confused than we usually are.” Emma holds up her glass. “How about a game?”

“Come again? A game?” In my wildest dreams, it will involve removing articles of clothing. I can imagine Emma sitting before me in only a lace bra and panties. Then, I imagine her delicately undoing the clasp of her bra and removing it, revealing a pert, perfect pair of—

Don’t say gorillas, Fraser. Don’t you fucking say gorillas.

“We take turns guessing facts about each other, you know, what we’ve done in the half a lifetime since we last met. If I guess something about you and it’s wrong, I take a drink. If I’m right, you take one.” She arches an eyebrow, her mouth quirking with mischief. “Want to play?”

I stiffen. It’s one thing to bare our bodies, but another to reveal our pasts. I can’t have Emma getting closer to the truth of Gillian. Of what I was really doing here tonight.

But if I can keep her here with me, and with alcohol, perhaps it will be worth it.

“All right. You go first.” I recline in my seat, looking the picture of ease. I hate myself for it; I hate to lie about anything. “Take your best shot.”

Emma narrows her eyes and places one finger against her lips. “You lost your virginity in college.”

I pick up my glass…and then indicate for her to drink. “You lost.”

“You’re kidding?” She clucks her tongue as she drinks. “After college?”

Oh for fuck’s sake. “Last year of boarding school. A night of passion with Cecily Rothschild in the boathouse.” Fuck, I’ll never forget that night. Or those boats. Massively uncomfortable.

Emma snorts, and claps a hand over her mouth. “You, of all people? Mr. Pleats and Polos got laid in high school? God, I’m so ashamed. I had to wait ‘til spring of freshman year at UCLA.”

I’m not going to guess about her first sexual experience, because I don’t need to give my throbbing half-mast erection an excuse to unleash itself. Is it my imagination, or does Emma slide around the table a bit? No, it’s no imagination. We’re sitting alongside each other now, and the scent of her perfume, the Chanel and gin and strawberry lip gloss and Los Angeles sunshine, it all envelops me. I have to keep my hand steady on the table. I clench my jaw, which she notices. Her eyes light up.

“Aw, don’t like being touched? Don’t worry, I won’t get closer.”

Get closer, damn you. Touch me.

Gorillas.

“It’s my turn.” I appraise her, from the golden tops of her (plentiful, succulent) breasts to her (bright, exquisite) green eyes. What do I know of her? She’s free with her advice and her love; she clearly adores Justin, and that little girl I saw her dancing with in the kitchen. But it’s love that’s desperately looking for a direction. There’s something still unformed about it, sweet and childlike in a way. It’s never taken root. It’s never…

“You’ve never been in love.”

I don’t know why the hell that comes out of my mouth. Why not something like ‘you’ve backpacked across the country’ or even something flirtatious like ‘you’ve forgotten your underwear at someone’s house before’? Because I see the way my words hit her; they’re a blow. I’m waiting for her to tell me to take a drink, to save face. Hell, I’m bringing up my glass to do it for her. But Emma waves her hand, and takes a sip of gimlet.

“Guilty as charged. Thirty-two and never in love.” She sighs, a cheek in her hand. “Lots of lust, though. Some reciprocal lust.” She winks, trying to lighten her spirits again. “Some hot reciprocal lust.”

I clench my fist under the table, collectively strangling all these phantom lovers in my imagination. I don’t tell Emma that, of course. Something tells me she’s not a woman who likes a man to take control.

Not until she wants him to, of course. Bloody hell, I’m going to have to sit with my legs crossed soon if my cock doesn’t calm itself.

“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.” I sit as straight as possible, staring into her eyes. Those green, marvelous depths. Her lips part with a breath of surprise.

“You know, I can’t get a read on you,” she says. And I don’t want her to. I don’t want her to know what kinds of lewd and decidedly naked thoughts are dancing in my subconscious as we speak. I don’t want her to know how I want to throw her down in this booth, with half of hipster Los Angeles watching, and have her screaming my name in ten seconds flat. Above all, I don’t want her to know about performing in Cambridge’s all male a capella group in my first year. I don’t want her to know about the straw boater hats we used to wear.

Emma Brightman would never let me live down those straw boater hats, no matter how rugged and aggressive I am in bed.

“I don’t like to be conspicuous,” I say at last.

“That explains the stick-up-butt expression.” She clenches her jaw, and her eyes go taut at the edges. She winces, as though pained. “See? You’d do a lot better if you’d only relax your face a little.”

“With whom, might I ask, am I supposed to do better?” The effects of that drink are coming on at last; I hear myself growl those words. I let my eyes trace over her body, and when I look back at her face, I find that she’s…blushing.

Emma is blushing because of me, and I feel a surge of hot, very masculine pride.

“You know. Just. Anyone.” She dives back into her drink, and now is my moment. I lean in closer to her, breathing in the intoxicating scent of her perfume. Her hair. Her body.

“Do I look more relaxed now?”

She gazes back into my face. My hand rests on the seat behind her. All I need to do is reach down, graze my fingertips down her bare arm. I can feel her shudder at my touch, hear the soft sigh that comes from her lips.

“You look kind of cross-eyed,” she admits.

Right. Fix that, Fraser. Fix it now.

“Now?” My voice pitches lower, deeper.

“You look constipated.”

“Now?” Deeper still.

“Dewy.”

“Now?” If I go any lower, I’ll blow out my vocal chords.

“Just right.”

She leans back against the booth, a smile quirking those perfect lips of hers. Hell, was she flirting? I can’t tell. I’ve lived in England since I was eighteen, and we’ve a different way of doing things there. What happens is you shake hands with someone, make polite conversation in the office kitchen every weekday for eight years, get pregnant, and then admit you love one another. Works perfectly.

American was my first language, but not my fluent one.

If Emma was flirting, though, I think I might need to summon a vehicle to whisk her off into the night. An ubermensch, perhaps. Or some other car service composed of desperate twenty somethings with piña colada air fresheners in their Kias.

I would summon a hungry college student and have him drive us to my place, where I could get her into bed and out of—

“Gavin? I mean, Mr. Walker? I mean, uh, hey you?” Emma sits up straight, looking bewildered at the gentleman who’s strolled up to our booth.

No. No, it can’t bloody well be.

“Emma. I thought you said you had a drinks night with your girl friends?” Gavin Walker tsks in a voice dripping with false hurt. “I feel so misled.”

“So misled, you had to come down to the same bar? What a stunning coincidence,” she drawls, but I hear that excitement that laces her voice. Her expression lights up, an easy, unconscious shift of her features. Seeing Gavin has given her a jolt of exhilaration. “This is my old friend, Fraser Drake. Fraser, this is my boss—”

“Gavin.” I manage his name with a neutral expression, which is the best I could hope for. He returns this with a half nod, and a…sympathetic smile.

Sympathy, of all things. I ought to murder him.

“Fraser. Good to see you. Surprised, actually. I thought you were in London.”

Oh, he knows why I’d be in London, the bastard. He’s going to tell Emma. My entire cover has been shattered.

Why the hell did I come out here? To Los Angeles? To this bar?

To Emma?

“I’m sorry, this is crazy. You two know each other?” Emma looks from Gavin to me, and whistles. “And did you hate-fuck at one point, because there is some impressive eyeballing going on right now.”

“I would never give my eyeballs to just any man.” Now I remember why I choose not to drink in public. I speak words.

“Fras and I go back a long way. Man, how long’s it been?” He sticks out his hand to shake mine, to pretend to Emma that we’re excellent friends. Gavin doesn’t mind creating a placid, untroubled surface for company. He can save face with the best of them.

I’ve nothing to save, and no desire to save it. Whatever ‘it’ is.

Also, he called me Fras. If these were dueling days, we’d be out behind the bar this instant, pistols drawn. We’d have to let the valet clear out first, though.

“It’s been quite a while,” I say in answer, and stand. I do have a few inches on Gavin Walker, and I’ve spent enough hours sparring at the gym to make that every inch worthy of concern. Gavin takes a step back…and slides into the booth after Emma. I clench my jaw. Damn him.

Emma turns her eyes to him, a laugh bubbling on her lips. They must laugh, these two, all day at the office. They must flirt. He’s the type of man Emma Brightman should want: easy, enjoyable, enjoying.

Everything I am not.

“Stay, Fras. Let’s swap stories with Emma.” Gavin’s eyes crinkle at the corners with laughter.

If murder were only legal…

“I’m afraid I’ve overstayed my welcome. Enjoy the rest of your evening.” I nod to Emma, and is it my imagination or do I detect a look of hurt in her eyes?

“Seriously? This booth fits more than two, you know,” she says.

“Thank you for the invitation, but I’ve got work to do.” I turn around and start to walk away, but not before I hear Gavin tell her that we went to the same college. Cambridge, yes! He spent a junior year abroad there, then moved back for a while after college. Isn’t it funny?

Isn’t it fucking hilarious?

As I leave the bar, the drinks roiling in my gut, I resolve myself not to think of her any longer. She prefers Gavin to me; hell, any woman with eyes would do the same. She’ll be better off with him.

And so will I, without her.