No, I hadn’t heard that, but it doesn’t surprise me. They’d start an escort business if they could get away with it. “Has Ian been saying anything weird about me?”

“Huh? No. Why? You guys have a row?”

“You could say that.”

“Don’t worry about that jackass. He’s probably preoccupied looking for his next blond squeeze. Hey, maybe it could be you!”

I don’t say anything for a while. Not until I see her getting ready to type something else. “Don’t even joke about that.”

Eva disappears for a while. Probably talking to someone. Probably drinking. Probably answering for the umpteenth time that, no, she wasn’t there to watch her brother fuck his girlfriend in public. Why do people ask her that? I was there. No way Eva would have hanged around for more than five minutes after the festivities began. Speaking of, I have yet to get a wedding invitation from the Warrens. I’m slighted.

My evening is ruined. Not because something bad has happened, but because now I’m no longer able to enjoy the afterglow I’ve been simmering in since Friday night. I don’t want to have sex, but I’m thinking weird things about Ian. And my work. He’s going to ride me hard about my presentation all this week. What will happen when we see each other tomorrow? Will we acknowledge what happened? Or are we going to pretend it’s all in the past… like what happened a decade ago?

Against my better judgment, I text Ian.

“We need to talk. About Friday.”

I hit send before I lose my nerve.

Unsurprisingly, I don’t hear from him for a long time. He’s at his family’s party, and I’m here working to keep me distracted. I order in dinner and double up on that wine to settle my nerves. Soon enough I’m in the bath, relaxing in a plethora of bubbles and staring at my Ziploc-covered tablet trying to read a book.

My phone, which is perched safely on a shelf, buzzes.

At first I forget that I texted Ian. Which is good, because otherwise I may not have picked up my phone and looked at his message.

“What is there to talk about?”

Seriously?

I’m gonna I don’t even know.

“You know what. Unless it was so terrible that you’ve blocked it out of your mind.”

“Hardly.”

That’s it for a minute. He wants me to continue the conversation.

“Is it going to be weird tomorrow?”

“Only if you’re the one making it weird.”

“So we’re good?”

“We’re good.”

I watch my bubbles bob on the water, my teeth playing at a hangnail. “See you tomorrow.”

“Good night.”

For some reason, this exchange hasn’t made me feel better. If anything, I’m more anxious than ever. Because… well, you know. Ian and I had sex. Not just any sex. Really, really hot sex that nearly ate me alive and left him absolutely breathless afterward. I don’t care who you are. I don’t care if you’re the most hardened man in the universe – emotionally, that is. If you have that kind of sex with a woman, it’s going to affect you. You’re going to treat her differently.

And this is Ian Mathers we’re talking about here. A man who, even back when I first decided to sleep with him, is known for going through a lot of women quickly. That doesn’t mean he treats them with disrespect, of course. I have never heard about that, but it does mean that I’m no longer an interest to him. He’s conquered me. He knows what it’s like to fuck Kathryn. He knows what my nipples look like and what I sound like coming from his cock, and what it’s like to have my stupid horny cunt squeeze him half to death. Fuck me. I am so stupid.

Excuse me while I try to finish my bath in peace. It’s going to be a long week, and I need all the relaxing I can get right this second.

Chapter 14

IAN

Monday morning. Cloudy. Drizzly. Enough to make me carry an umbrella until I reach the building we’re still sequestered in this week.

Naturally, I run into Kathryn in the elevator.

The operator hits the button for our suite and then steps out again, the doors closing in front of us. Kathryn is fighting between looking relaxed and tensing up around me. I don’t blame her, but I wish she wouldn’t. It’s making me tense.

“Good morning,” I finally say, wrapping the plastic wrap around my umbrella as securely as possible. I text my assistant – who is in the building with me this week – to bring some coffee from my favorite café down the street. The coffee pot isn’t going to be enough today. “Have a nice weekend?”

She glances at me before looking at the mirror paneling. She’s very business. Heavy coat, minimal makeup, and that silky blond hair pulled into her French twist. When she wears her hair like that, it makes her neck look longer, especially when there’s no jewelry there.

I briefly remember kissing that throat three days ago. How warm she had been beneath her skin. Her heart beating furiously as I rubbed her slit and parted it for my cock.

Great.

It’s eight in the morning, I haven’t been properly caffeinated yet, and I’m already getting hard standing next to this woman. Please put me out of my misery.

“The weekend was fine,” she says. “I hear you had quite the garden party at your estate.”

The numbers tick away the floors as we pass them by. “Let me guess who told you that.”

“Not your mother. I haven’t seen her in a while.”

The idea of Kathryn and my mother conspiring about something makes me want to vomit. “The party was fine. You and your father’s absence was noticed.”

“We had a meeting earlier that day. Sorry.”

Why is she sorry? Not like I missed her this weekend.

We arrive at our floor. The doors open, and I see Valerie my assistant waiting to ride down to get that coffee I asked for. Good mornings are exchanged. Kathryn walks ahead and hails her mousy assistant who cowers at her boss’s feet. If Kathryn Alison swung that way, I would assume she was in a BDSM relationship with that poor girl. (Or would it be lucky girl?)

Reaching the office space is a mistake… because right there, mocking me, is Lana Andrews dressed in her tight red skirt and chiffon black blouse.

She’s stunning. She knows it. She smiles at me.

Fuck.

“Ian.” Her sweet voice chaffs my ear. “I’m glad you’re here. There’s someone I want you and Kathryn to meet.”

The woman of the moment is behind me, and even though we face the woman standing between us and our project, I still tense at Kathryn’s presence. Apparently, fucking her only made certain things worse. Who knew?

“And to what do we owe this pleasure, Lana?” I ask. “I thought that everything that needed to be said was exchanged yesterday?”

A woman I’ve never met turns around and stands in the office doorway. Tall. Self-assured. Older than my mother. She extends her hand with a fake smile. “Colleen Woodrow,” she introduces herself. “You must be Ian Mathers.”

The way she looks at me says she damn well knows me. Probably from tabloid trash.

We shake hands. Kathryn introduces herself next, and Colleen Woodrow is as inexplicably cool to her.

The same registers in my head. After what Lana said yesterday, I went home and did research on the council. I was going to have to do it anyway, but that was a perfect impetus.

Colleen Woodrow is the co-chair of the council. A big deal when you consider she had to be voted into the position. One of those positions you never think about because you’re too busy deciding on who you want to be mayor or governor. But no, at some point in my life I probably checked the box saying that I voted for Mrs. Woodrow. And now I’m probably going to regret it.