“Stop!” Sarah cut her off before descriptions got out of hand. She so did not want to know what she and Frank were into in the bedroom department. She would never be able to go to lunch with them again. “Just behave for the next hour or so, okay?”

Marcy nodded before returning her attention to the mirror to adjust her cleavage. When she was satisfied the ladies were positioned for optimal appeal, she spun back to Sarah with a sly smile.

“Let me just tell you, from what I felt, it’s one lucky girl who gets the honor of landing that man.” Marcy’s eyes grew big and Sarah felt herself blush yet again. It had to be a record for her today.

“Let’s just get back out there before they think we fell in.” She ground past her rigid jaw.

What she really wanted to do was turn tail and run back to the agency. She wanted to scream. Rant that she knew all too well what it felt like to land Falon Wolfe. She hadn’t forgotten in the nine years she had tried to block him from her thoughts. No matter what she’d done, he still found his way into her dreams more nights than she was willing to admit to. Apparently, fate was having a good ol’ laugh at her expense to throw him in her path yet again. Thank God he didn’t seem to recognize her. Although, the more she thought about it, the more she wasn’t sure if that said something negative about her or him.

Back at the table, Marcy made sure to slide into the seat next to Frank, leaving Sarah to cozy up to Falon. Sitting at the very edge of her chair, she couldn’t seem to relax. This close to him she could pick up on the subtle scent of his spicy cologne but it was the underlying scent of his skin, something dark and mysterious and oh so familiar that had her nearly falling off the chair.

Every time the man adjusted his position she swore she could feel the bunching of her muscles in response to his heat. Her entire focus was on the man beside her she was oblivious to the conversation flowing around her. She snuck a peek at Falon as he threw his head back in laughter at something Frank had said. The sound of his deep laugh sent a delicious shiver down her spine and wondered if they would notice if she moved to another table. She was going to go crazy before lunch was over.

“So, where did you go to school?” Frank’s question cut right through her escape plans. Uh-oh, things just went from uncomfortable to DEFCON 1 in seven little words. Sarah ignored the zing of awareness and scooted closer to the table and the conversation that could prove to be very embarrassing.

“Northwestern for undergrad then on to Harvard Business,” Falon spoke around the waitress placing their meals in front of them. Sarah looked down at her salad dispassionately wondering where her appetite had gone.

“No kidding,” Frank said around a mouthful of medium-rare cheeseburger. “Sarah here went to Northwestern, didn’t you?”

She cringed when he pointed his dripping, pink burger in her direction. His quick movements caused lettuce and condiments to spill onto the table and Sarah to narrow her eyes at his unrepentant sloppiness. What did Marcy see in the man?

“Really?” Falon turned the full force of his liquid brown eyes on her and she fought her impulse to squirm in her seat.

“Y-yes.” The man had her stuttering like the girl she had been the first time she laid eyes on his chiseled features and square jaw. “I graduated five years ago with a degree in business management.”

“No kidding.” He continued to study her and she got the feeling that he was trying to place her in the twisted road of his past. “You would have been a freshman my senior year.”

She could only shrug and pick at her salad and avoid meeting his eyes. She was afraid that he would see that girl she had been that first year in college behind the hardened resolve life and forced upon her. She never wanted to be that vulnerable again.

“It’s a big school, I’m not surprised we never ran into each other,” she mumbled before forcing a forkful of salad past her lips. God, but she remembered in vivid, glorious detail.

“We were in the same program, we should have run into each other at some point.” She could still feel his quizzical gaze on her as he spoke. She forced herself to swallow. Might as well get the whole story out now and save herself the danger of him digging around in the past.

“I was pre-law that year.”

“Just that year? What changed?”

She turned and looked him in the eyes. “My father was a pilot and proud of the fact. My parents were making the rounds picking up my brother and me for fall break. They had just left Boston with Eric when the storm hit. They never made it to Illinois.”

She didn’t miss how quiet the table had gotten during her explanation. Frank and Marcy knew the story, they had been with the agency when her father had been involved and the memories were almost as painful for them as they were for her. Maxwell, Williams, and Blake was a family then, and they still were now. No matter how dysfunctional they may seem from the outside, those who were left at the agency were its backbone.

“I’m … I’m sorry.” Falon’s voice was rough and she thought she detected genuine regret there. She shrugged and pushed back the pain of the memory of that phone call telling her that she lost three of the most important people in her life in an instant.

“I changed my major my sophomore year. With my father and Eric gone, it was up to me to help Gramps with the agency.”

“You’re Ralph’s granddaughter?” She could only smile at the startled realization in his voice.

“So they tell me.” She felt the wistful smile form before she could stop it. “Someone had to take care of the old man, so after college I joined the agency and did my best to save a sinking ship.”

Chapter Three

Falon sat at his borrowed desk flipping through the last ten years of client history for the agency. Unable to focus let alone read through the pile of papers, he frowned. Something kept tugging at his memory as he replayed Sarah’s story. It sounded so familiar. It could be that it reflected his own past. Except where hers had a private plane his had a drunk driver and his parent’s ancient rusted-out Cadillac.

When Sarah dropped the bomb about being Ralph Maxwell’s granddaughter, his mind immediately jumped to the conclusion that the failed business was a case of misplaced loyalties. He figured the old man placed his young granddaughter in such a pivotal position within the company as both an act of penance and blind faith in his only blood heir. He’d seen it before more times than he liked to admit.

Four hours of searching for Sarah’s mishandling of the finer workings of the agency and the only thing he had to show for it was a growing headache and a grudging respect for the woman. The business had been slowly declining years before she was hired as the accounts director. If the paper trail was to be believed, she had actually turned things around in that first year. Looks like she put that Northwestern education to use. But whatever efforts she had made just hadn’t been enough as the next year things started to slip away again.

Running a hand over his face, he tried to push the past back where it belonged. He was fifteen when the accident happened and three years later he vowed to never go back to the lifestyle he’d survived since. Sighing, he pushed back from the desk and loosened his tie. His jacket found a home across the back of the only other chair in the room hours ago during his first round of distractions. When he picked up the mug Frank had loaned him and found it empty, he decided a little caffeine fortification was in order if he was going to get through the next hour or so and actually get something accomplished.

He walked down the hall to the small kitchen located across from the conference room. It was eerily quiet. He always found the sound of silence in a space that should be bustling with activity disturbing. Growing up on the wrong side of Chicago he had learned the dangers of an empty building the hard way. Frustrated with himself, he pushed the memories of an empty stomach and abandoned buildings back where they belonged. He knew coming back here would bring back thoughts of his past, but he hadn’t counted on them being so frequent. Shake it off Wolfe, it’s not like you’re not used to an empty room.