Never in my life have I felt this way about someone.

Is it sexual? An overwhelming need to get laid? It has been a few weeks since I’ve had a woman in my bed. Maybe longer. I haven’t had the interest lately.

But now, as I study her picture and remember her assuredness, her vivaciousness, my cock stirs.

I try to convince myself that’s what my interest is—physical. Or that it’s her mind. Maybe that’s it—I’m intrigued by her ideas, her innovative way of thinking, so much so that it arouses me. Because what else can explain her effect on me?

I’m so consumed with figuring out the answer, so in need of exploring my fascination, that I called my investigator earlier in the day to look into her further. I told myself it was about business. Perhaps she didn’t show up at the meet and greet because she’d already been offered a job. If I find her, I can counter.

But I know it’s more than that because if she doesn’t accept a job, I’ll have to find another way to get close to her. I need to know if this preoccupation has staying power. It fleetingly occurs to me that the intensity of my fixation is very similar to the way I used to feel when starting a new experiment. I dismiss that notion immediately. This is different because for once I’m not interested in another person’s emotions, but rather my own.

It’s about damn time.

Though I’m not sure I like it.

Pinching the bridge of my nose, I lean forward at my desk and try to erase Alayna from my thoughts. My efforts are interrupted by the buzz of my secretary. “Yes, Patricia?” Maybe it’s my investigator now.

“Your two o’clock is here. Dr. Alberts.”

“Fuck.” I hadn’t meant to say that aloud. “Fine. Thank you. Send him in.” I’ve forgotten about my appointment with Alberts, even though I’ve been seeing him regularly for over two years now. The truth is I don’t want to remember my appointment. He’s helped—I wouldn’t be able to resist the temptations that I do if it weren’t for him—but lately I’m restless. I miss the excitement of my old life. My days now are drab and endlessly the same. Perhaps it’s why I’m so intrigued with Alayna Withers. Seeing her that night, I felt something for the first time in years. For the first time since I quit playing the game.

I stand and circle my desk to greet Dr. Alberts when he walks in. Though I don’t need to, I gesture to the sitting area then take a seat on the edge of the leather couch, crossing a leg over the other. Alberts sits in the armchair as usual. This is our routine. He’ll suggest I lie down, I’ll politely decline. He’ll pull out his electronic notepad and jot notes when I answer his prompts—the same prompts he gives me week after week. How are you feeling? Are there any new life stressors? How will you deal with those? Have you had any inclinations to play?

I’m bored before he’s even begun, and I can’t bear to go through the moves yet again.

He must sense my mood—or my constant shifting gives my anxiousness away—because he varies from the ritual immediately.

“What’s on your mind, Hudson?” he asks.

I run the tips of my fingers across my forehead, contemplating the answer. I could blame my anxiety on work. There is much to be concerned with there, such as the rumblings at Plexis, one of my smaller subsidiaries, where I fear I’m losing control of the board. Before the Stern symposium, that was my major focus. After, Plexis is barely on my radar. How can I concentrate on silly business when I can’t get the thought of deep brown eyes and a silky confident voice out of my brain?

That’s what’s on my mind—her.

But what could I tell Alberts about Alayna Withers? About a student I saw for twenty minutes at a business school event? Talking with him is supposed to help sort out my emotions, but these emotions are too vague and unidentifiable. Too intense and strange.

Instead, I choose to mention the detail of my last few days that will interest him the most. “I saw Celia.”

“You did?” Alberts shows his alarm with only a slight raise of a gray eyebrow. “What were the circumstances of that encounter?”

“I’d like to say it was innocent. But it wasn’t entirely.” I run my hands through my hair while he waits for me to continue. “She called me. She’s been using my identity to play someone—an employee of my sister’s.” I cringe thinking about how close to home Celia’s game was with Stacy. And how I did nothing to stop it until the other night.

“Were you aware she was doing this?”

“Yes.” I answer his next question before he has the chance to ask. “No, I didn’t encourage it, but I was aware.” I stand, needing to pace as I talk. “Celia asked me to help her wrap up the game. I agreed. I told her where I’d be and when. She made the arrangements for the rest to happen.”

Glancing toward Alberts, I expect to see a look of disapproval. It’s not there. The man is as careful with his emotions as I am.

Next he’ll want to know why I agreed to help. It’s an easy enough answer—the game needed to end. I didn’t appreciate my name being pulled into her scheme and being available for her staged embrace was the easiest way to end it.

But that’s not what he wants to know. “How did it make you feel? Playing again, after so long?”

I pause, considering his question. There had been a certain spark, a thrill that had run through my body as I’d kissed my childhood friend. Not because of the woman I’d been kissing or even because I’d been kissing at all, but because I knew the effect I was having on Stacy—on Celia’s intended target. In the moment, I wanted to immerse myself in the feeling, wanted to grab it and hold onto it. It was feeling, for God’s sake. Feeling, where I’d been void. All I’d have to do was stop fighting the impulse, and I could have the excitement back in my life. With Celia there, egging me on as she always did, it would have been so easy to fall back into our old patterns, to resume our games.

But all it took was the look in Stacy’s eyes, the devastation she felt at my supposed rejection to remind me that my entertainment came at the price of others’ emotions.

“There was a rush,” I answer honestly. “Then it was over, and until now I hadn’t given it a second thought.” Even without the reminder of the consequences of the game, I would have abandoned any notion to play again when I went to the symposium. That brief spark with Celia had been completely obscured by the charge that jolted through me at the sight of Alayna Withers.

Alberts clears his throat and I look to find he’s studying me. He narrows his eyes. “Then you aren’t concerned that you’ll be pulled back into the game?”

I let out a huff. I’m always concerned I’ll be pulled back into the game. But am I worried that Celia will pull me back? “No, I’m not.”

“Do you plan to see her again?”

My eyes widen when, for a second, I think that “her” refers to the brunette that’s plaguing my thoughts.

But that’s not who Alberts means.

“No, I don’t plan to see Celia again.” She’d like me to. She asks me over and over. I see her enough at family events as it is. Her presence isn’t a temptation to me as my therapist believes, but seeing her is still not a good idea. She’s a painful reminder of all the wrongs I’ve done in my life. Of all the wrongs I’ve done to her.

I resume my pacing, hoping not to go down that path of conversation today, not wanting to revisit my past.

“Hudson, sit down.”

I’m surprised he hasn’t requested this before. I sit, crossing my ankle over my bouncing knee. “Sorry. I have a lot on my plate at the moment.” I take a quiet but deep breath that does nothing to relieve me.

Dr. Alberts leans back, a distinct contradiction to my own tense posture. “I don’t sense that your anxiety has to do with your meeting with Celia. Is there something else you aren’t telling me?”

It’s on the tip of my tongue to bring up my strange reaction to Alayna Withers, but I’m again lost on how I’d phrase it. “It’s nothing. Work is stressful.” Work is always stressful.