Chapter 19
Samantha
Jacques Bar, 10:20 p.m.
I swiped the wand of mascara over my lashes, leaning close to the mirror. When I was finished I stood straight and studied the finished product.
My dress was black, knee length, sleeveless, fitted. It was snug in the bodice with a low, square neckline, the suggestion of corset-like curves at my waist. There was a slit three inches up my left thigh and the whole thing fit me like a glove. It was a dress that cost more than even my considerable salary allowed, but today I had bought it anyway.
I’d accessorized it with a silver necklace, silver bracelets, and black heeled mules. I’d bought an expensive sapphire ring, and I put it on the third finger of my right hand. I had my hair up in the back, with large pieces drifting down in front and framing my face. Dark, smoky liner around my eyes. Understated gloss on my lips.
I never looked like this. I could dress properly, and I usually did, but this… this was entirely different. The dress, the hair, the ring—all of it was classy, yet somehow it was showy at the same time. The sort of look that said I’m a very rich woman, so rich I buy what I want. And although I had a good job now, I had come from very humble beginnings, so that woman was not me.
My smoke-lined eyes kept drawing my attention in the mirror. I was a professional, and though I never went out in public without makeup, I always kept it understated. Years of working for CEOs had taught me never to give anyone in the office the wrong impression. Too-short skirts gave the wrong impression, as did too-low tops and too-high heels. And fuck-me eye makeup definitely gave the wrong impression. So I never wore it.
But I was wearing it tonight. I was wearing all of it. And I felt… perfect. Free.
I flipped off the bathroom light and picked up my small purse. At the door of my condo, I paused for just the briefest second as the doubts came in.
He’s not going to be there.
He was joking.
He was horny and not serious.
He doesn’t think like you do, doesn’t want you the same way you want him.
He’s going to stand you up. On Monday it will be awkward, he’ll apologize, and both of you will pretend it never happened.
It was a test, just to see if you would do it. A dare, that’s all.
This isn’t going to work.
And most of all, again: He’s not going to be there.
The Jacques was one of the classiest and most expensive bars in the city, attached to a five-star hotel on the Upper East Side called the Lowell. I had never been there. To be stood up at the Jacques, after I’d spent a good percentage of my paycheck, would be embarrassing. Humiliating, even.
But the game was already in motion. If Aidan Winters—or whoever he was tonight—was going to stand me up, I would find out in the next twenty minutes. Taking a breath, I left my place and locked the door behind me.
It was ten o’clock p.m.
It was a beautiful bar.It was small enough to be intimate, large enough that couples could sit at the tables and talk without being overheard. The maitre d’ gave me a nod and a smile as I entered and told him I was going to have a drink at the bar. At first I thought he must recognize me from somewhere, but then I realized it was the dress. In the dress I looked like I belonged here.
There was only one available seat at the bar. I let my eyes sweep once across the backs of the other customers—he wasn’t here—and then I sat, silently admiring the dark brown and gold finishes, the subtle lights, the impeccable white jacket and black tie of the bartender. When he asked what I wanted, I ordered a martini. When he gave it to me I sipped it, letting the place soothe my excited nerves.
It was understated, but the other patrons here were rich. I worked for rich people, and I knew them when I saw them. I also knew people who wore their wealth like a well-worn old coat, one they were comfortable in and never took off. Somewhere in their logical minds, these people knew that wearing a three-thousand-dollar blouse wasn’t real life for most people, but deep down it didn’t compute. It was real for them, and that was all that mattered.
They weren’t obnoxious, and they didn’t show off. Couples, most of them older, sat talking quietly, and a couple groups of suited men had quiet, intense conversations. Probably deciding the financial fate of the world as they sipped whiskey. Or maybe they were just talking about golf.
No one looked twice at me. No one told me I didn’t belong, that it would be best if I left. Even the bartender, who likely knew most of these people by name, didn’t give me the side-eye. I had spent years studying, and as a result I played my part well.
But it was ten twenty-five, and I was still alone. Then ten twenty-seven. Ten twenty-nine.
The sixtyish couple sitting next to me at the bar paid their tab, got up, and left. A man slid into the open seat beside me. And just like that, the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. Because I knew that scent. I knew that man.
“Bourbon,” he said to the bartender, his voice in that one word going down my spine.
My heart did a little spin of triumph, but I tamped it down and tried to get into character. I could do this. I was almost completely in control when I let myself glance at him, just once, the way I would glance at a stranger. I had to look away in shock.
Aidan wasn’t wearing black. He was wearing a dark blue four-button suit with a white shirt and a tie of lighter blue. The top button of his shirt was undone and his tie was loosened an inch, as if he were unwinding from work. He was clean-shaven and his dark hair was mussed. A gold watch I had never seen before glinted on his wrist. I had never seen my boss wear anything but black, and the effect was startling, as if he were a different man.
That was the idea. I had to think of him as a stranger. The blue suit made it easy, just as I hoped my dress and makeup made it easier for him. I smiled privately to myself as I sipped my martini. For once, I was wearing black and he wasn’t. The switch was delicious.
Then I stopped thinking of him as Aidan at all.
In the corner of my vision, a beautiful masculine hand reached out and lay casually on the bar. “Magazine editor,” the voice next to me said.
I gave him another brief glance. “I’m sorry?”
He was looking at me, his dark eyes speculative. With his other hand, he touched his fingertips to his crystal bourbon glass. “I’m trying to guess what you do,” he said. “Hotelier. No, that’s not right. Head of marketing. Director of a fashion line.”
I couldn’t help it; I was a little amused. “Is this a pickup line?”
“I don’t use lines,” he said. “I just talk. What’s your name?”
“You don’t use lines because you don’t pick up women, or because you don’t need lines to pick up women?”
“That’s too complicated a question. Here’s a simple one. What’s your name?”
Oh, he’s good.The thought gave me a thrill, like I was going over the first hill in a roller coaster ride. I was in the hands of a master. “Sarah,” I said.
His eyelid didn’t even twitch. Not a ghost of an admission of the lie crossed his expression. “Nice to meet you, Sarah,” he said. “I’m John.”
There was the briefest pause between us, an acknowledgment that we were going downhill on the roller coaster together. The momentum was starting. We weren’t Samantha and Aidan, we were Sarah and John. We were both in this. We were doing it.
I was more turned on than I could remember being in years.
I held out my hand, partly because that was something Sarah would do, and partly because I felt the overwhelming need to touch him. He raised a brow and shook my hand in greeting. His touch was as warm and strong as I remembered. I recalled that touch against the back of my neck, and I felt the shiver of it all the way down to my lower back. Between my legs. He could do that to me with just a handshake.
Still, I turned back to my martini and took a sip. “I’m not any of those things you guessed,” I said. “Sorry.”
“Okay, then. Tell me what you do.”
I licked a drop of alcohol off my glossed lip, still looking ahead. “I run a finance company.”
“You’re the president?”
“The CEO.”
I’d thought of that in advance. I didn’t know everything about who Sarah was—I’d improvise—but that much I knew. After so many years of working for them, tonight I was a CEO.
“That’s interesting,” Aidan—John—said. “By the laws of the jungle, you and I should be oil and water.”
“Why?”
“Because I deal in art for a living, while you deal in cold-blooded money.”
That made my thoughts turn. Aidan had chosen to be an art dealer tonight. I wondered why. “If you mean that you buy and sell art, then you definitely deal in cold-blooded money,” I said.
He smiled at me. I felt that smile deep in my belly, felt it thrum between my legs and in my nipples. “I deal in beauty,” he said. “I deal in passion and raw emotion.” He lifted his bourbon glass and looked at it in the golden light of the bar. “The money just appears. Though I’m not complaining.”
My throat was dry, watching him. “You make enough of it to have a drink here.”
“Because I’m staying here.” He took a sip.
He was staying here? At the Lowell? The place was a thousand dollars a night. And then a thrill of excitement shivered up my back. He had a room, just upstairs. Minutes away.
I took another sip of martini, feeling it burn down my throat. I turned to find him looking at me, his dark eyes fixed on me. Our gazes held. I couldn’t look away.
“What are you doing here, Sarah?” he asked, his voice low.
You. I came here for you.The words rose to my lips, but I didn’t say them. Instead I said, “I’ve had a hard week. I’m tired of making decisions. I want a drink, and I want to stop thinking, and I don’t want to sleep alone.”
There it was. The words I would never say to a stranger I’d just met in a bar. But I could say them to this particular stranger. This stranger, and no one else.
I kept my gaze on him, reading his reaction, because I knew how to read every line of his face. His dark eyes didn’t even flinch.
“So don’t,” he said.
I wanted him. If there was a way to hide that, I didn’t know what it was. I wanted to taste him and to touch him. I didn’t care if he was picking me up in a bar for a one-night stand. I wanted him any way I could get him, for as long as I could have him. Wanting him had brought me this far, doing something I’d never imagined doing. And now it was driving me crazy.
John the art dealer put his drink down. He reached into his pocket and put a few bills on the bar. Then, thank God, he stood, turning to look at me.
“Let’s go,” he said.