“Gin and tonic for me, thanks,” I said. “So, when is Mom planning on telling me?”
“I don’t know. Soon,” Coco said. “She just told me today. She and her new husband-to-be are coming to the city. I guess he has a son who lives here. She wants us all to do dinner.”
“One big, happy family.”
“Exactly.” Coco took a sip of her freshly-delivered wine. “That woman is persistent. She’s fifty-eight years old and won’t give up on the notion that we need to have this perfect nuclear family.”
“That ship has sailed.”
“You’re tellin’ me,” Coco said, and a hint of the Kentucky accent we’d both buried years ago came out to play. When we first moved to New York, we’d practiced for months at hiding it, and Coco had learned a few techniques in college when she studied broadcast journalism. No one could tell we were from Kentucky anymore, though occasionally when one of us got mad, the accent came out in full force.
Coco’s phone began to vibrate, and she raised a finger and mumbled an apology as she answered the call. It was probably Harrison. Her ex-husband. I never understood their relationship, and Coco would never elaborate too much about why they had been divorced for two years but still lived together.
“You just want me to move so you can sell me an apartment,” she’d tease, trying to change the subject.
Coco wandered off from the table to take her call, and from the looks of her flailing hand motions, she and Harrison were going at it again. My sister was fiercely independent, but she loved just as hard as she lived her life, and her tender heart was her Achilles heel.
Which was also why we were never allowed to talk about her high school boyfriend who was now a famous country music singer. Never mind the fact that his face was plastered over every billboard in Times Square every time one of his albums came out. She seemed to live her life like he never existed, and I’d feel her wrath if I dared mention his name or his music around her.
I took a sip of my cocktail as I waited and rearranged my silverware, scanning the room for a familiar face. I’d sold and leased thousands of apartments and condos and brownstones over the last few years, and I always seemed to run into people I knew anytime I was out. It had become something of a game for me.
As I glanced around, I filled my mouth with another sip of my drink, practically choking as soon as I saw him.
Wilder.
At this restaurant.
Sitting across from a woman with blonde hair like mine.
And he saw me.
I coughed as the sip slid down the wrong pipe, bringing a linen napkin to my lips as I tried to get it under control. I wedged myself out and away from the table and headed toward the bathroom, not wanting to make a spectacle of myself.
I’d forced him out of my mind that day so I could get a little work done, and I still hadn’t decided what I was going to do about him. There was no denying how liberating it was to give up control of my body to a man who knew exactly what to do with it. But there was also no denying how freeing it was to have total possession of my own heart.
When I emerged from the bathroom, he was standing there. Arms crossed. Smirk across his face. Waiting for me.
“Small world,” he said, looking me up and down. He stepped into my space, owning it. “You here on a date?”
“No,” I said. “My sister. She’s around here somewhere. You?”
“Here with my aunt. Definitely not a date,” he said. “I’m a kinky man, lovely, but I’m not that kinky.”
“Okay, well, enjoy your dinner,” I said, trying to play coy and hoping he couldn’t see the effect he was having on me. Being in his presence made it hard to breathe, and I could barely think straight when we locked eyes.
“Wait,” he said. His hand took my wrist and guided me back to him. “Is this how you dress when you’re having dinner with your sister?”
He glanced down at my blouse. A few of the buttons had come undone throughout the day due to stretched button holes. I’d been meaning to take it to a tailor, but I’d been too busy lately. His hands gripped the side of my hips as he ran them down the smooth fabric of my hip-hugging pencil skirt.
“What’s wrong with what I’m wearing?” I asked him.
His determined hands slid up to the curve above my hips, and he stepped closer to me until his body had nearly pinned me against the wall. He leaned down, his lips against my ear, and said, “Because this sexy little body of yours belongs to me, and you’re showing it off for the rest of the world.”
His voice vibrated low and tickled my eardrum, sending my heart into instant arrhythmia.
“I don’t like to share,” he said. “That’s another thing you should know about me.”
My words caught in my throat as my thoughts scrambled in every direction. I couldn’t possibly have casual sex with a man who made my body betray my mind the way Wilder did. He could be very bad for business. He could wreak all kinds of havoc with my priorities. My life’s work. And I couldn’t afford to cheat on my work with a plaything like him.
“I still haven’t given you my answer,” I said. “Aren’t we getting a little ahead of ourselves?”
“Look,” he said. “We both know how this is going to go. I won’t take no for an answer, and you’re going to give into me sooner or later once you realize I’m exactly what you need. Let’s drop this little act of yours and stop wasting each other’s time.”