by Amelia Wilde
“To say the least.”
“Who is she?”
I shoot Connor a look. “She’s nobody, Connor. It was a one-night stand.”
He leans back in his chair, linking his fingers behind his head. “You don’t look like it was a one night stand.”
“Fine,” I say with faux irritation. “I’m thinking about seeing her again. What’s it to you?”
He shrugs, then shakes his head. “Thought you’d finally rebounded from Emerald. That’s all.”
My hand clenches involuntarily into a fist at the mention of her name. “She’s a nobody.”
Connor takes the hint and stands up. “It looks like the merger can go ahead as planned.”
“Glad to hear it.” My friend and CFO lingers at the door. Back before Emerald, I’d spend most weekends with him and other friends—and women—at the Purple Swan. Connor is paid handsomely, as are all of my high-level employees, but a membership at the Swan would still be beyond his means.
A weekend out with friends will take my mind off Angelica.
“Plans for the weekend?” I say, turning back to my computer.
“Not yet,” Connor says casually.
I look up at him and grin. “Swan tonight?”
“Damn straight,” he says, and disappears before I can change my mind.
By 2:00, I’m regretting making plans with Connor instead of texting Angelica. My mind is locked on the memory of her face, her body, and I’m beginning to think I’ll combust if I can’t see her again soon.
I want to focus on business—on getting everything right—but how can I do that if my days are consumed with thoughts of a woman I’ve seen one time?
I thought a one-night stand would be optimal. Cleanse my mind of Emerald. Claim a gorgeous woman. Instead, it’s lit me on unholy fire. The worst part is that she was happy with a single night, too.
Yet the look on her face this morning told me she enjoyed it more than a little. She might be open to a few more meetings.
But am I?
Yes.
Denying myself life’s simple pleasures isn’t going to make the business day any easier. Perhaps in this case indulgence is the key to concentration. I could pull it off. I could see her a few more times. See how it plays out. You never know. I thought Emerald was one of a kind. Turns out she was fool’s gold. The same could happen with Angelica. If I keep her at arm’s length—except in bed—that outcome will have little impact.
The same won’t happen with Angelica, says the little voice in the back of my mind. She’s like nobody else on the planet.
I scoff out loud. This is pathetic.
And yet....
I need to drive Emerald out of my mind forever, but more than that, I need to see Angelica again. My cock demands it, even if I know better than to allow her any more influence over me.
You are in control, I remind myself sternly. I can be done with her at any time, and I won’t be any worse for wear. If I can stop thinking about her to the point of obsession, wondering whether our paths will ever cross again, then I’ll be able to focus on work.
I power through the next couple of meetings with the division heads and am mostly pleased with their status updates, although I need to ratchet up the pressure on a few of them to make sure Brandon, Inc. is performing at an appropriate level.
It’s nearly 4:30 when I send Angelica a message.
I don’t overthink it. I type it out and send it, my heart in my throat.
I need more of you.
I’m upping the ante from last night, admitting a little weakness, and we’re both going to know it. Need is far more powerful than want.
The moments drag by with excruciating slowness. I cancel my final meeting of the day, reschedule it for Monday morning. By then this will all be resolved.
I’m climbing into the car at 5:15 when her message comes in.
Same.
Yet no suggestions for where we should meet, or what she wants to do. The ball is still firmly in my court.
Good.
Let’s eat in. Be at my place tomorrow at 8:30.
I wouldn’t miss it for anything.
The tone of her message, with a few minor changes, could be chirpy, flirty—but I read it for what it is: completely serious.
11
Angelica
Hadley is not pleased with me today.
One of my sources for the package I was putting together bailed on me on Monday when I had to reschedule for that failed trip to the police department. I need one more quote—it’s part long-form piece on multilevel marketing schemes and part advertisement for the scheme that’s put the most money into sponsoring the site. The person I bailed on last Monday was the VP of the “second-most trustworthy” program of them all, at least according to the package, and it has taken me, along with two assistants and three photographers, the better part of two weeks to put together.
My boss stands at the corner of my desk, hand on the hip that’s jutting out to the side, with a scowl on her face.
“This needs to be live by 5:30,” she says again, as if we haven’t been going over what needs to happen for the last ten minutes. But there’s no point in arguing.
“Absolutely. I’m only waiting on a final quote, and I should have that by 3:00.”
I hope.
“This hasn’t been a good week for you, Angelica.” Her tone is clipped, cool, but there’s something in it that makes me think this could be an opening to pry out a little humanity from beneath her battle armor.
I tilt my head to the side, let the corners of my mouth turn down a little. “That’s the truth—I didn’t foresee what happened with my brother over the weekend, and—”
Hadley cuts me off. “If there’s something in your personal life that’s going to begin affecting future projects, then that’s what I need to know. I’m not interested in the details of last weekend.”
Never mind, then. No humanity to be found. Hadley is all robot.
I make a show of refreshing my inbox in case the rep from PeakBody has confirmed any availability for this afternoon. “It’ll be live by 5:30,” I promise. If this woman doesn’t email me back, I’ll find some other quote.
“Let me know the moment it is,” Hadley replies, then turns on her heel and walks away before I have a chance to respond.
The moment she’s out of sight, I lean back in my seat and spin it around.
It does not help that Jett Brandon has been on my mind all morning. I can’t stop thinking about his hands on my skin, the weight of his body on mine, the dirty things he whispered into my ear while he fucked me.
No matter how many times I replay those moments in my mind, I still blush every time.
I rub my hands over my face and check my email again.
Get out of my head, Jett.
He made it crystal clear that our encounter was one and done, even if he did take me to a fancy club for dinner beforehand. And even if he was interested—by some strange twist in circumstances—there’s always the little detail that I helped at least one shady criminal, and probably a crime ring of some kind, gain access to his personal records. Eventually he’ll discover that it was me, and then—oh, Jesus—I’ll probably end up in jail.
Why haven’t I thought of that until now?
Oh, right...because I watched Charlie punch my brother so viciously that he needed four stitches. I have no doubt that he could do much worse to him.
I can’t think about that, either, because the thought of getting arrested and sent to jail for years makes cold sweat break out on my forehead.
It’s always possible he won’t find out.
Charlie and his people haven’t done anything stupid enough to make headlines—at least not yet—so the best thing I can do for now is to not lose my job.
I’m still waiting for an email or a phone call from PeakBody when the text comes in. I’m so on edge that I hear the vibration from inside my purse, which is tucked in the bottom drawer of my desk. As I scramble t
o get it out, my heart pounds with anticipation.
Maybe I was wrong about Jett.
But it sinks down into my toes when I see that the message is from Charlie.
It’s not good.
I’m going to give you one more chance, it begins, and my stomach turns over. The program you should have installed on Brandon’s machine isn’t working. I’m sending a messenger with a new drive. Find a way to go in person and download the data yourself.
It’s like all the oxygen has been sucked out of the room.
So much for my plan to spend the next couple of weeks thoroughly forgetting Jett Brandon.
OK, I text back. I start to type that I did install the program, but then I delete it. Charlie clearly doesn’t give a shit.
And then I lie. He’s interested in me. I’ll be back at the penthouse this weekend.
The answer from Charlie comes immediately. Don’t fuck this up again.
A quiet panic tightens my shoulders, presses against my chest. How the hell am I going to convince Jett that not only do we need to see each other again, we need to go back to his penthouse? After all that “one night” business? After I played it so cool?
The tension at the back of my neck doesn’t dissipate when the VP of PeakBody calls me at 2:55. I rush through making the final touches on the piece, my hands trembling on my keyboard. By the time another text comes in at 4:30, my nerves are stretched so thin that I’m on the verge of snapping, breaking down in the middle of the office.
This time, it is from Jett.
I need more of you.
When I read his words, it’s tears of relief that spring to my eyes.
Jesus, what is this? Never once in my life did I think I’d feel so happy about getting a second chance to commit a crime.
Play it cool, Angelica.
I wait as long as I possibly can to answer so it gives him the impression that I’m not hung up on him. At the same time, I can’t play hard to get. Not this time. He has to know I want it.
At 5:15, I send my response.
Same.
Let’s eat in. Be at my place tomorrow at 8:30.
It’s almost as if he’s making things easy on me, and I fight off another wave of paranoia. There is no way in hell that Jett Brandon is trying to set me up. I’m a nobody.
A nobody he needs more of.
When I answer him again, my words are honest and true.
I wouldn’t miss it for anything.
12
Jett
Angelica sits across from me at a table for two I’ve set up in the middle of my expansive living room, cheeks flushed from the wine we’ve been drinking all through dinner, head thrown back in laughter.
I want to kiss her. The distance between us is setting my teeth on edge.
“Turns out, you can’t screw your way to popularity.”
We’ve been trading innuendoes for more than an hour, carefully dipping our toes into conversations about school days. I don’t give her much of anything—not about myself, anyway—but my friends and I got up to some amusing shit at Exeter, and it’s the perfect fodder to be a little raunchy, to keep coming back to sex again and again.
It doesn’t hurt that Angelica is enjoying this dinner. She gushes over every dish that arrives at the table and it seems genuine. She’s not trying to flatter me.
The uniformed waiter I’ve hired for the evening comes to clear away the main course in preparation for dessert. Angelica thanks him, then flicks her eyes back to me, letting them travel down over my body. I’ve unbuttoned the top two buttons of my dress shirt and rolled up the sleeves, which is as casual as she’s ever seen me dress apart from the hours we spent naked in the bedroom.
That’s where I want to be. But Angelica’s eyes are shining, which makes me hesitate to end this early.
That thought brings me up short.
I shouldn’t care at all that Angelica is loving the experience that I’ve created for her. She’s here for one purpose and one purpose only—and that’s to fuck me like there’s no tomorrow.
But I care enough, a flicker in my closed-off, locked-down heart. If my heart wasn’t racing with excitement at the idea of locking the door behind us and having my way with her, I’d be able to shut it down completely.
I should do exactly what I want, which is to take her into my bedroom and make her come until she’s senseless, until she’s so satisfied that she can’t help but fall asleep.
And then I should consider myself one step closer to ending things with her and moving on.
She claps her hands together when the waiter reappears with dessert, which is miniature dark chocolate cheesecakes dusted with edible gold.
“Wow,” she breathes when he steps away. Then she looks at me, suddenly sheepish. “Do you mind if I take a picture of this? It’s incredible.”
“Do you mind if I take a picture of you? You should see your face in the candlelight.”
She laughs again, and the sound makes a strange longing bloom to life in my chest.
A longing for what, I don’t know.
“I’ll go first,” I say, then pull my phone out of my pocket. I take two photos—one of her smiling directly at the camera, and then one afterward, when she’s looked back down at dessert. Then she reaches into her purse and takes out her phone.
But instead of snapping a photo of the dessert, she looks at something on the screen. Her face falls.
“Angelica?”
She looks up at me, flustered, then sets her phone to the side.
“Is everything all right?” It’s clearly not, but she’s silent. It’s best for both of us if I keep her at arm’s length…but what has upset her so much? I need to know.
“It’s…my apartment.” She bites her lips, picks up her dessert fork. Two days ago she was spread out on my bed and begging, but now she seems unsure of herself.
“What happened?”
“That was my landlord. The apartment above me flooded, and it came through the ceiling.”
Her voice is tight, strained, but it seems like an overreaction. I try to keep things light. This is the last thing I want to derail the entire evening, have her leave before the main event. “The building didn’t come down, did it?”
She gives me a little smile, rolling her eyes. “No, but a pretty substantial part of the bathroom will need repairs. It shouldn’t be a big deal.”
I’m not convinced. “Shouldn’t be?”
“They’re putting us up at the Sheraton in Tribeca.”
“And that triples your commute.” She’d mentioned working in the Garment District at the Swan.
“Yeah.” She sighs a little, then brightens. “You’re right, though—the building could have come down.”
Still, the furrow in her brow gives her away. Exchanging the details of days at the office wasn’t a high priority on Thursday, but I gather her boss is demanding and hours can run long.
Maybe it’s because I can’t stand the thought of having her walk out of here. I don’t know. No matter what the reason, I can’t stop the words from coming out of my mouth.
“You have another option.”
Angelica grins, then teases. “What, stay with you?” She’s doing her very best to make it seem like a joke
Her eyes are blue and wide and tinged with hope. “At least for tonight. I’ll have clothes brought up for you. You don’t need to go back for anything until the repairs are finished if you don’t want to.” By the time I’m finished speaking, I’m already soaked in adrenaline. Having her body at my disposal for the next few weeks—that would be a treasure. I can have my fill of her and then we can go back to our lives.
She narrows her eyes, puts her fork back down. “Are you sure? I mean—we met not long ago. I’m...” Whatever she’s going to say, she reconsiders. “We don’t know very much about each other. It’s not a problem for me to go to the Sheraton.”
The way she’s looking at me pushes me over the edge. I take my napkin from my lap and drop it onto the ta
blecloth, then stand up and cross to her side. Offer my hand. Pull her to her feet.
When I kiss her, she melts into me, leaning against me like I’m shelter in a storm. The kiss deepens, gets a little harder, rougher, and when she pulls back we both catch our breath.
“Stay with me tonight.” This time, it’s not a question.
She answers me with another kiss.
By the time we end it, the desserts are forgotten in the living room. We’ve moved down the hallway, and she’s tearing my shirt off in the bedroom, I’m bending her over the bed, and there’s no more discussion about stupid shit like going to the Sheraton. There’s only pleasure, and I think that if she stays, it might not ever end.
13
Angelica
In the early hours of Sunday morning, I wake up curled under Jett’s luxurious comforter, still a little lightheaded from the events of last night.
He bought my story, hook, line and sinker—and I don’t know how to feel about it.
He’s an arrogant womanizer, there’s no doubt in my mind. He’s the kind of man my mother warned me about. She was probably picturing the manager at the corner store—a guy with a “good job”—not a billionaire with the wealth of the world at his fingertips. But it still applies.
I thought up that story about my apartment on the ride over. Something that would make my life more frustrating, but not necessarily leave me homeless. And he’d hardly hesitated to invite me to stay with him.
For sex.
Of course, it’s for the sex.
Right?
Why do I keep wondering about that when I’m the one who’s working so hard to win him over?
I turn over under the covers and let my eyes trace the automatic shades covering the windows.
To say I’m torn is the understatement of the year.
I want to erase the distance between us, climb onto his gorgeous, naked body, and rock against him until he wakes up. In another world, we could spend all day in this bed. There would be no reason to leave, and I could sit back and enjoy the ride.