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  We just entered dangerous territory and I reach for my wine. “Let’s hope so, since I’m on an unplanned job search.”

  “Unplanned?”

  “Right,” I say, glad to share one piece of truth. “Unplanned.” I take a drink, steeling myself for his questions and my lies.

  “You don’t have to tell me,” he says, obviously reading my discomfort.

  “It’s fine,” I say, setting my wine aside. “I relocated here from Los Angeles to work for this very rich man, a stockholder of a big holding company.”

  “For him or the holding company?”

  “Him. I was to be his assistant, but the job was bigger than the title. I saw it as a chance to learn at the highest level of the corporate world. He said he’d mentor me. It was exciting and the pay was spectacular. Unfortunately, two weeks after I arrived, one of his companies folded and he filed for bankruptcy.”

  “Now that’s a fucking bad break.”

  “He paid me a month severance—”

  “A whole month. That’s generous of him.”

  “Hey. It’s better than nothing, and like I said, my pay was spectacular.”

  “What did you do back in Los Angeles?”

  “I was a paralegal chasing a bigger dream,” I confess, and there is at least some truth to the statement, but here comes the lie. “Every time I thought I’d make it to law school, I hit a bump in the road.”

  “And yet you took a job that wasn’t leading you to law school at all.”

  “I did,” I say, not having it in me to say more.

  His eyes search mine, probing and far too aware. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty-seven. And you?”

  “Thirty-two. Do you have family or friends in Denver?”

  I twirl the base of my glass. “No family or friends.”

  “You moved here with nothing but a job?”

  Not by choice, I think, but I say, “Just ambition.”

  “I’m impressed.”

  “I don’t have a job,” I remind him, wishing I deserved the admiration I see in his eyes.

  “Anyone who dares to do what you have will come out on top. That takes balls very few men or women possess.”

  I grab an opening to turn the conversation back to him. “And you do?”

  “Yes. I do.” His reply is quick, but he is quick to turn the conversation back to me. “Aren’t you just a little tempted to go back home?”

  Home. I almost laugh at that word. “This is where I live now.”

  “Surely leaving has crossed your mind,” he presses.

  “No, actually. It didn’t and it won’t.” I cut my gaze reaching for my wine, stunned when he catches my wrist before I succeed. I try not to look at him, but somehow I find myself captured in his far too astute stare. “You’re alone,” he states.

  “I’m with you,” I say, cringing inwardly at the obvious, nervously spoken statement so ridiculous that I’ve invited further probing.

  His hand curls around mine and he drags it to his knee, and the way he’s looking at me, like the rest of the room, no, the rest of the world, doesn’t exist, steals my breath. I haven’t allowed anyone to really look at me in a very long time.

  “Emily,” he says, doing whatever he does to turn my name into a sin that seduces rather than destroys me.

  “Shane,” I manage, but just barely.

  “Did you say yes to dinner because you didn’t want to be alone?”

  I am not sure where he is going with this, if it’s about reading me or if he needs validation that I am here for him, so I give him both. “I like being alone,” I say, and on some level, it really is true. “I said yes to dinner because you are the one who asked.” My lips curve. “Actually you barely asked. You mostly ordered.”

  “I couldn’t let you say no.”

  “I’m actually really glad you didn’t.”

  “And yet you say you like being alone?”

  “It’s simple and without complication.”

  “Spoken like someone who’s lived the opposite side of the coin.”

  “Haven’t we all?”

  “Who burned you, Emily?”

  I blanch but recover with a quick, “Who says anyone burned me?”

  “I see it in your eyes.”

  “Back to my eyes,” I say.

  “Yes. Back to your eyes.”

  “Stop looking.”

  “I can’t.”

  Those two words sizzle, matching the heat in his eyes, and my throat goes dry. “Then stop asking so many questions.”

  He reaches up, brushing hair behind my ear, his fingers grazing my cheek, and suddenly he is closer, his breath a tease on my cheek, his fingers settling on my jaw. “What if I want to know more about you?”

  “What if I don’t want to talk?”

  “Are you suggesting I shut up and kiss you?”

  Yes, I think. Please. But instead I say, “I don’t know. I haven’t interviewed you as you have me. I know nothing about you. I want to know if you—”

  He leans in, and then his lips are on mine, a caress, a tease, that is there and gone, and yet I am rocked to the core, a wave of warmth sliding down my neck and over my breasts. He lingers, his breath fanning my lips, promising another touch I both need and want, as he asks, “You want to know if I what?”

  Everything. “Nothing.”

  “The food has arrived,” our waitress announces, and I jolt, tugging my hand from Shane’s and feeling like a busted schoolgirl and bringing attention to myself I don’t need or want.

  “Here you go,” our waitress announces, setting a plate in front of me, the scent of butter and spices teasing my nose, but I am suddenly no longer hungry. In fact, I feel a little queasy. Noting the way the waitress has set her stand in front of Shane’s side of the table, I grab my purse and round the seat opposite him and murmur, “I’m going to the ‘room.” I don’t look at him but I feel him watching me, willing me back to my seat, while he remains somewhat, thankfully, trapped.

  “In the back of the main dining room,” the waitress calls after me.

  “Thank you,” I murmur, pretty sure it’s not loud enough to be heard, already almost to the bar exit. I pass the leather wall and I stop, my gaze landing on the front door and an easy escape.

  “Bathroom?” Susie asks.

  “Yes,” I say. “Please.”

  “Behind me and all the way to the back and left.”

  “Great. Thanks.” Following her directions, I cut left, away from the exit, relieved Shane hasn’t shown up, and actually thankful I haven’t made it out the door. If I’m to start a new life, I can’t hide in my apartment out of fear. I have to pay the bills, which means navigating Shane and every other person, and situation, I might face. This is my life now and I have to learn to cope with questions I don’t, and won’t, answer.

  I pass through the dimly lit dining room that is far too long, giving me way too much time to think and yet I can’t think. I reach a long hallway that cuts left. I’m almost at the bathroom door when suddenly my wrist is shackled, and another second later, I’m against the wall, with Shane’s big body crowding mine.

  My hands land on the hard wall of his chest, his legs framing mine. “What are you doing?” I demand.

  “You’re upset.”

  “You just shoved me against a wall in a hallway,” I say. “Yes. I’m upset.”

  “That’s not why you’re upset.”

  “I’m a very private person.”

  “Good. So am I.”

  “You have me shoved against a wall,” I repeat. “In a public place. And you kissed me. In a public place.”

  He cups my face. The act is possessive, a claiming driven home by the way that autumn scent of his teases my nostrils. “That wasn’t a kiss,” he declares, his mouth closing down on mine, his tongue pressing past my lips. The instant it finds mine, the taste of spiced cognac fills my senses. Another lick and I moan, my fears, the public place, and my secrets fading away, for the first time
in an eternal month. This, him, is what I craved this night. Not brown butter ravioli and fancy wine. I don’t fight to remember the privacy I’ve declared I value. My fingers curl around his shirt, and suddenly I am kissing him back, my body swaying into his, the warmth of his seeping into mine, but it doesn’t last.

  As if he was waiting for my total submission, he tears his mouth from mine, denying me his kiss, and I’m left panting. “That was an appetizer,” he declares, his voice a low, sultry rasp. “And you were right. Alone is better, which is exactly how I planned to spend this night. Until I saw you and alone wasn’t better anymore. And now I know why. You want what I want.”

  “Which is what?”

  “No complications.”

  Relief and the promise of the escape I now know I’d hoped for rushes over me. “Yes. Yes, but you keep—”

  “Thinking about kissing you. That’s all I could do sitting at that table. And I should warn you. When dinner is done, I’m going to do my damn best to convince you to go somewhere else with me where we can be alone.” He covers my hand with his. “Come. I’m going to feed you, because if I have my way, you’re going to need your energy.”

  He starts walking, taking me with him, and I grab his arm. “Wait.” He pauses and turns to look at me, those intense gray eyes of his stirring a giant dose of nerves in my belly that I shove aside. “I don’t want to go back out there.”

  He narrows his gaze on me, his big hands settling on my shoulders. “What are you saying?”

  “I prefer somewhere else,” I say, and my voice is remarkably steady considering I’m so out of my comfort zone with this man and my actions tonight that I don’t know what I’m doing. But what I do know is that I don’t want to spend the one night I have with this incredible man at a dinner table.

  He stares down at me, his expression unreadable, seconds ticking like hours before he asks, “You’re sure?”

  “Yes,” I confirm, and it’s a relief that I mean it, that nothing dictates this choice but my own wants and needs. “I’m sure.”

  Again, his reply is slow, and he seems to weigh my words before one of his cheeks presses to mine, his breath a warm tease on my ear and neck as he whispers, “I want you to leave with me, but be clear. That means I will fuck you every possible way, with the full intent of ensuring that I’m the man you compare all others to.”

  Every nerve ending I own is suddenly on fire with the bold words that I know are meant to test my resolve. I do not intend to fail. Not this night. “You can try,” I whisper.

  He eases back to look at me, the gray of his eyes now flecked with pale blue fire. “You, Emily, are a contradiction I cannot wait to explore.” I don’t have to ask what he means. I am a contradiction, and in ways he can’t begin to understand. He takes my hands again. “Let’s pay the bill and get the hell out of here.”

  “Yes,” I agree, barely speaking the word before he’s walking again and this time I let me lead me forward.

  Together, we enter the dining room, side by side, walking through the rows of tables toward the hostess stand, and I am more affected by my hand in his than anything else before this. It’s the unity I think, the sense of being with someone, a façade of course, and that alone cuts deep. I am not with him. I am not with anyone at all and yet tonight I am pretending I am. Maybe that’s the appeal of one-night stands. You get to live the fantasy, experience human touch. Pretend you matter to someone, and them to you, until it’s over.

  We’re almost to the hostess stand when abruptly, Shane stops walking. A moment later, he’s in front of me, his back to the entryway, blocking it from my view, his hands on my arms. “My father is here and he’s the last person I want to see right now. I’m going to grab a waitress and pay the bill. Wait for me at the back door.”

  Stunned, confused, I stammer, “I … yes … okay.” Embarrassment follows, and I turn on my heel, intending to dart away, only to have him snag my hand, and angle me back toward him. “I’ll be right there,” he says, his voice thick with promise.

  Unable to process the wave of emotions overwhelming me, I manage a choppy nod and he releases me. I pretty much lunge forward, and still, the short walk feels more eternal than his long, gray-eyed stares. He doesn’t want to be seen with me. He doesn’t want to introduce me to his father, and that is fine, I tell myself, but it feels bad. Really bad. Why would he bring me to one of his regular places, if this is how he was going to react if we ran into someone he knows? Why do I care? It doesn’t matter. I do. Illogical as it might be, I do care. What was I thinking coming here in the first place? Low profile went right out the window and it’s time to get myself back under control.

  Rounding the wall to the hallway again, I continue onward and cut the corner where I spy a BATHROOM sign right next to one that reads the EXIT. Exit wins. Double-stepping, I close the distance between me and it, hoping to escape before Shane follows, if he follows. That he might not is a humiliation I really can’t stomach right now. I reach the door and forcefully shove the heavy steel open, finding myself on a street with mostly retail stores that are now closed. I scan for someplace to disappear to, not about to be some sort of obligation to a man I barely know. I cut left when I spot an open coffee shop.

  I all but run toward it, a gust of chilly wind lifting my hair from my neck, and I swear this Texas girl pretending to be a Cali girl will never get used to chilly summer nights. Reaching the entrance, I glance right without meaning to, at the same moment the back door of the restaurant opens. My heart leaps and I quickly enter the coffee shop, traveling the narrow path between the vacant round wooden tables.

  Passing the register, I wave at the person I barely look at behind the counter. “Bathroom before I order,” I murmur, entering yet another hallway and immediately finding the bathroom. I turn the knob, entering the tiny box intended for one and lock myself inside. Falling against the door, I shut my eyes and touch my lips, remembering that kiss Shane had surprised me with, and I swear I can still taste remnants of cognac on my tongue, remnants of him. I bury my face in my hands, dreading my empty apartment and bed that might have been filled with Shane. Yet another part of me is relieved. I push off the door, dragging my fingers through my hair, staring at my pale face and now messy chestnut hair, and I swear, I look like my mother and I’m making the same mistakes she did. Only she could have turned back time, and made them right, and I can’t. And I was about to add tonight to the list. If anything had happened to me, no one would even miss me. But that’s the point I guess. For one night, I wanted someone to know I exist again. Actually, I wanted him to know. Just him, and I don’t know why.

  It hits me then that I haven’t even checked my phone. I dig it from my purse and look for the call I’m expecting, and find the screen blank. Blank, damn it. What the hell is going on? Nothing I can control, that’s for sure, or I wouldn’t be in Denver. I wouldn’t be doing a lot of things. I drop the phone back in my purse. I need to go home. Okay, not home. That apartment is not home. I just … I need to go. I grab the door, yanking it open, only to gasp at the sight of Shane standing there. “What are you doing?”

  He holds up his hands. “Just hear me out and if you want me to leave, I will.”

  “I do. I want you to leave.”

  “He wasn’t with my mother.”

  I gape. “What?”

  “The woman my father was with wasn’t my mother.” There is a rasp to his voice, and steel in those gray eyes. “I couldn’t have you be a part of that potential confrontation.”

  The wall I’ve placed between us, falls away, my chest pinching with the familiar emotion of betrayal he must be feeling. A feeling I know all too well but wish I did not. “I’m so sorry.”

  “I’m sorry. I know what I made you feel. Like I was embarrassed to be with you and that simply isn’t the case.” He offers me his hand. “Come with me.”

  I could say no, but I don’t want to. And I should ask where we’re going, but very out of character for me, I simply don’t care, nor
do I think about any of the reprimands I gave myself in that bathroom. This isn’t about an agenda I must follow. This is about one night with this incredibly sexy man. I slide my hand into his.

  I never lie to any man because I don’t fear anyone. The only time you lie is when you are afraid.

  —John Gotti

  CHAPTER FOUR

  SHANE

  The instant Emily’s delicate little hand settles against mine, I close my fingers around hers, holding on tight, wanting her to the point of almost need. This night, somehow, she’s become the light in the darkness that is my fucked-up family.

  I drag her to me, my hand molded to her lower back, hers settling over my thundering heart, her eyes on my chest. “Look at me,” I order.

  She tilts her chin up, those pretty blue eyes filled with desire, but also trepidation that I will take great pleasure in tearing away. “This isn’t,” she begins. “I don’t normally…”

  “I know.”

  “You know?”

  “Yes. I know and I don’t make a habit of taking women I just met to bed.”

  “Then why me? Why tonight?”

  “Because it would be unfair to someone else for me to fuck them while thinking about you. I want you. Just you.”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Because you’re you. That’s the only answer I have for either of us.”

  “I don’t know what that means.”

  “Neither do I, but we won’t figure it out standing here in yet another hallway.”

  She studies me for several long moments, and I fight the urge to pressure her, but I wait, and when she finally nods her approval, the relief I feel defies all reason and my understanding of who I am as a man. But I don’t question it or give her time to change her mind. I take her hand, leading her through the tables, me in front, simply because it’s the only way I can hold on to her. Now that I have her, I’m not letting her go. I want this woman. I’m not letting her get spooked and run again.