“So what happened?”

“The last time I saw him was on the water taxi. I was stuck playing tour guide to some kid whose dad was doing business with mine. Hudson got the wrong idea, thought I’d chosen the yacht club guy over him.”

“Why didn’t you just explain the sitch?”

“At the time, I didn’t know that’s what he’d assumed. But that’s only half of it. My parents were on the boat that night, too. I was so scared they’d find out about us. I thought if I even looked at him, my mother would see right through me.” Allie took a deep breath. “I ignored him completely. Acted like I didn’t even know him.”

“Ouch.”

“I wanted to apologize, but I never got the chance. The next day my dad had some crisis at work and we headed back to Chicago a week early.” Allie’s throat tightened. “I never saw him again.”

Harper got a wistful look in her eye. “And now here you are, ten years later, like it was meant to be.” Her dreamlike state, no doubt the result of reading far too many romance novels, baffled Allie. This wasn’t a Lifetime movie. It was her life. A life, she might add, that included wedding invitations that were already in the mail. It was too late to start wondering “what if.”

When Harper finally snapped out of her trance, a wicked smile spread across her face. “He was good, wasn’t he? Like, multiple orgasm good.”

“Harper!”

“Don’t bother denying it. I’d bet my next paycheck that man knows “ladies first” isn’t just something you say when holding a door open.”

Allie’s face heated. “No comment.”

“He’s probably a little kinky, too.” Harper leaned forward. “Did he tie you up?”

Allie’s mouth dropped open in shock. So much for Nicholas Sparks, she’d gone right to Fifty Shades. “We are so not having this discussion.”

“Oh, c’mon! At least tell me if it was worth the wait. Shit, after ten years of foreplay you two must have been ready to combust.”

Allie couldn’t help but smile. “Let’s just say if I’d known what I was missing back then, I might not have spent so much time saying no.”

“I knew it!” Harper grinned. “Although I gotta say, didn’t think you had it in you to take on two men at once.”

“I’m not . . .” Allie lowered her voice. “I’m not taking on two men. I haven’t been with Julian since he got back from New York.”

“Really? How’d you managed to keep the Count at arm’s length?”

“Julian,” she said, emphasizing his actual name, “stayed at his hotel all week.”

“He seems to be doing that a lot lately.”

“I may have given him the impression my period started a few days early,” Allie muttered into her glass.

“And let me guess, Prince Prissy Pants has a problem with a little blood?”

Realizing that correcting Harper was a waste of time, she ignored the term of endearment. “He thinks women are too emotional to begin with. Can’t deal with all the drama.”

“What you see in that man besides his great hair is beyond me.”

The waiter appeared at the table, his gazed trained on Harper. “Would you like another Sucker Punch?” he asked. “Or maybe a Screaming Orgasm?”

Oh. My. God. He had to be kidding. Although judging by the way Harper was batting her eyelashes at him, the lame pickup line was actually working. Quite well.

“Just the check, please,” Allie said, meeting Harper’s scowl as the waiter turned to leave. “Don’t look at me like that. We both have work tomorrow.”

“So what are you going to do?”

Allie dug through her purse, looking for her wallet. “Pay the bill and put us each in a cab.”

“I mean about the Tempting Tycoon.”

Honest to God, the nicknames! Allie opened her mouth, intending to change the subject with some pithy reply, but then closed it again. She considered her answer for a long moment, and in the end, simply spoke the truth. “I don’t know,” she admitted.

And there it was, the doubt she’d been denying since Hudson first kissed her in his office. Apparently two lemon drop martinis and something called a Sucker Punch were all it took to shine a big old spotlight on the truth. She almost laughed in spite of herself. If Hudson only knew. Then again, he did a pretty good job of breaking down her defenses without the help of three lethal cocktails.

Harper was suddenly serious. It was almost unnerving. “Are you going to see him again?

“He wants me to come to his penthouse tomorrow night, but I haven’t made up my mind.”

“Look, Julian is in France for the next two weeks. It’s the perfect opportunity for you to sort this whole mess out. But I’ve got news for you: you’ll never be able to do that until you figure out what’s going on between you and Hudson. You need to talk.” She raised a brow. “And I don’t mean horizontally.”

Allie chewed on her bottom lip. “So you think I should go tomorrow?”

“What I think is that this thing with Julian happened really fast. You owe it to yourself to be sure. You’re not married yet, Alessandra, and if that message was any indication, the Duke of Bullshit sure as hell knows it.”

Allie sipped the last of her cocktail while considering her friend’s advice. She hated to admit it, but Harper was right. The only way she was going to be able to move forward was to resolve her feelings for Hudson Chase. Once and for all.

She stared into her empty glass. Her mind buzzed with scattered thoughts and unanswered questions, but one thing was clear: she had to see him again.

Chapter Fifteen

Hudson watched Allie move through his living room. His every sense heightened; his hands fisted with a growing, never sated desire. Despite his fear that she would destroy him again, his body ached with a craving that beat out any idea of self-preservation. It was taking everything he had to not drag that beautiful body down to the floor and fuck her with every bit of primal instinct to make her his.

His gaze slid over every inch of her, noting the way her dress clung to his favorite curves, before finally settling on the back of her neck as she arched over the Fazioli piano. She let her fingers skate over the ivories, then looked up, meeting his stare reflected in the window. The predator in him awoke, stretching, unfurling its muscles with graceful fluidity. He wet his lips and locked his eyes to hers as he leisurely stalked toward her. “I thought you’d never get here.”

Allie turned to face him, her cheeks flushed, her eyes luminous. “I wasn’t sure I was going to come.”

He came to a stop in front of her and swept her hair off her shoulder. “Oh, I hope so.” He dipped his head and pressed his lips to the curve of her neck. “If you’ll let me, I’ll show you a hundred ways, if not more.” He brushed his nose along her throat to her ear. “I want to learn what pleases you.” His lips trailed along her jaw until his mouth hovered over hers. “Will you let me do that?”

Lust pulsed between them. Allie grabbed him by the hair, pulling his head down and crushing his mouth against hers. With a growl that was more animal than man, his hand locked to the base of her neck and his tongue shot between her lips, taking her mouth like he was going to take the rest of her; hard and deep.

There was no denying what he wanted. He’d never stopped wanting her. He couldn’t stop. He’d only pushed his feelings for her to the darkest recesses of his mind where they’d rolled around like a grenade with its pin out.

Hudson backed her against the glass wall, the Chicago rush-hour traffic whizzing below them. His hands slid down her arms, lifting them above her head. He cuffed her wrists with one hand, pinning them to the glass as the other moved between her legs. His fingers brushed over her panties before tearing through the lace with deft fingers, shredding them from the place that was his to claim. Only his.