Through conversation, they discovered they had several mutual friends and shared connections.
“You’re awfully quiet, Addison,” Kyle said, a smug smile across his face as he leaned back like he’d just sealed the deal.
“Hard to get a word in with you two.” The truth was I didn’t feel the need to sell myself to Wilder. He knew how much it meant to me to land him as a client. I’d just told him the night before. And he couldn’t possibly pick Kyle. Kyle was… Kyle. He was arrogant and smug, and Wilder was smart enough to see through all of it.
“So as I was saying…” Kyle continued. Wilder kept his gaze on me for a few seconds too long before turning back to Kyle.
A hand gripped my knee underneath the table on Wilder’s side before inching up my inner thigh. He shot me a wink, and a fire began to ignite in my core. Words unspoken, as if we had a language all our own, forced my heart to skip two beats.
“Will you two excuse me for a second?” I had to get up, walk around, and get some fresh air. I headed to the bathroom to pat some cool water on my face, and when I emerged, I fully expected him to be waiting for me like he did the last time. But he was still back at the table with Kyle.
I counted down the minutes until our lunch was over. I just needed a few minutes alone with him, a private meeting to ensure we were on the same page with everything—personal and professional.
“I’m very sorry I have to cut this short,” Wilder said as he checked his watch and stood up. “It was a pleasure meeting you both.”
He shot me a wink and his lips curled into a throttled smile.
“I’ll be in touch with Ms. Bliss very soon with my decision.” His eyes lingered on me before he turned to walk away. The view as he left was breathtaking, and I couldn’t wait to sink my fingers into his muscled glutes and feel the weight of his body pinning mine once again.
“What’s with you?” Kyle sneered. “I’ve never seen you so quiet before. You don’t want his business, or what?”
I shot him a smirk, opting not to feed into his little pissing match. He could prematurely claim victory all he wanted, but he had no idea what was about to hit him. Standing up and grabbing my purse, I slapped cash on the table and headed to the door.
A hand gripped my arm, stopping me the second I made it outside. “You can’t skate by on your good looks forever.”
“Do not touch me.” I jerked my arm out of Kyle’s grasp.
“I’m just saying, I know what men see when they look at you.”
I stepped toward the curb, attempting to hail a cab and tune him out at the same time.
“They see a hot piece of ass. A one-night stand. A pair of pretty lips,” he said. “And they smell it on you. The desperation. They prey on you.”
Kyle must have noticed something between Wilder and me. Something set him off. Something made him feel woefully insecure about this whole competition between us.
“Like the way you preyed on me?” I said as a cab pulled up. “Not all men are like you. And thank God for that.”
I climbed into the cab, trying to pull the door behind me quickly so he couldn’t follow, but he stopped it mid-pull. With the door half open and a sinister leer on his face, he said, “That’s where you’re wrong, Addi. We’re all the same.”
I yanked the door shut, almost slamming his hand in the process, and hightailed it back to the office, wiping the tears as quickly as they fell and praying I could hold myself together long enough to get through the rest of the day.
* * *
“Addison, Brenda is calling a staff meeting,” Skylar said, standing in the office doorway later that day. The office usually closed at six, and it was five-thirty. We never had impromptu meetings before closing.
I glanced at my watch. I was supposed to meet an old client for dinner that night and go over a few new listings. She was a single mom divorcée in the market for a classic six on the Upper East Side, and I had a hot listing on my hands that’d be perfect for her, though it was slightly out of her preferred price range.
“It’s mandatory,” Skylar said with an eye roll, as if she knew exactly what I was thinking. I supposed my perfectionist tendencies forced her to be more intuitive when it came to working for me.
We headed to the conference room. Brenda was a bundle of excited energy at the head of the long table. Her fingers twitched and flexed as she made small talk with another agent. A smile permanently fixed on her face told me she was about to announce good news.
I sat down far away from Kyle and stared out the window, wondering what Wilder was doing in that very moment.
Stop thinking about him!
“All right, everyone,” Brenda said when the last agent entered the room and closed the door. “I have big news!”
“We’ve just landed a huge client,” she said. “One of our biggest yet. His name is Wilder Van Cleef of Van Cleef Investments. He called me earlier today, shortly after meeting with Addison and Kyle, and told me he’d absolutely give us his business and that choosing his agent was an absolute no-brainer.”
My lips curled into a smile, though I was the only one in the room who knew what it meant.
“He said he was blown away, and he’s never met an agent of this caliber before,” she continued. And then I saw her eyes travel to Kyle, who sat leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed as haughty look his sculpted face. “This contract is going to mean a lot for Bliss Agency. And it’s going to especially mean a lot for Mr. Kyle Maxwell. This very well could push him up a few spots from seventh real estate broker in all of Manhattan to maybe second or third. Who knows, maybe even first?”