Chapter 1
LEAH
"Benjamin Maximus James, drag me again, and you're kibble!"
Yelling a dog's full name on a Brooklyn sidewalk at eight in the morning is not exactly my most dignified moment.
The massive, glossy black Great Dane has approximately two hundred pounds on me, and he knows it. I dig my heels into the pavement and grip the leash with both hands like my life depends on it.
Which would be easier if I didn’t have hips designed for dramatic entrances instead of emergency dog braking.
He drags me anyway.
I end up skipping after him in a graceless, desperate little shuffle, praying I don't bite the concrete while he hauls me toward his destination with the focus of a true predator.
My hips bounce with every step. Benji plants himself in front of one very ordinary sidewalk bush, and sniffs it with the devotion of a man who has finally returned home after years at sea.
I know this bush. I know what this is about.
"Okay," I tell him, catching my breath. "Was it worth it? Was the bush worth humiliating me in front of the entire block?"
He ignores me. Obviously.
"Are you upset because your mom left with her suitcase? Is that what this is?" I tug his leash gently. "I promise she's coming back, buddy. She wouldn't leave you. Ever."
He lifts his enormous head and gives me a long, soulful look.
I sigh. "I know. It's scary when people you love leave with luggage. Trust me, I get it."
The irony is not lost on me that I say the exact same thing to my daughter, Eliza, every time I have a work trip.
She's gotten better about it as she's gotten older.
Seven is a lot more reasonable than four.
But there are still mornings she clings to me like a barnacle and cries, and I have to peel her off and remind her that I always, always come back.
Same energy, different species.
I finally manage to coax Benjamin away from the bush and aim us both toward the coffee cart parked at the corner. That had been the entire point of this walk. Coffee. Simple. Achievable. A small, beautiful reward for being a good friend and a functional adult before nine a.m.
"Good morning," I say to the barista, a young woman with a blue handkerchief tied over her hair and an expression that shifts from politely professional to slightly alarmed as she clocks the animal at my side.
To Benji's credit, he sits when I tell him to. He also immediately stretches his giant head over the counter to inspect the menu.
"He's just looking," I tell her.
She seems to decide this is fine. "What can I get you?"
"Iced Americano with the whipped coffee on top? The amaretto one?" I do a small, inexplicable swirling gesture with my finger, as if that helps. "You know the one."
"Got it." She doesn't blink. God bless New York service industry professionals. "Anything else?"
"One of those dog cupcakes, if you have them." I nod at Benji. "For the gentleman."
"One doggy cupcake for the giant gentleman, coming right up."
She turns to the espresso machine, and I start wrestling with the zipper on my belt bag so I can actually pay for things like a person who has her life together. Benji's leash goes through my belt loop. Simple system. I've done it a thousand times.
"Where's your daughter today?" the barista asks over the grind of the machine, the rich, dark smell of espresso filling the air.
"Zoo trip with a school friend." I finally win the zipper battle. "She didn't want me to come."
"Getting to that age?"
"Apparently." I hand over my card and try not to look as gutted as I feel. "I thought it would happen at like, sixteen. Not seven."
The barista gives me a sympathetic smile.
I watch the espresso pull into the little cup, that gorgeous caramel ribbon, and feel my soul start to return to my body.
Benji's nose goes up. His nostrils flare.
He looks at the coffee cart with the kind of reverence he usually reserves for the pizza bush.
"I was going to say—"
The leash goes taut.
Then the world tilts.
What happens next is one of those terrible, slow-motion sequences that my brain records in excruciating detail for future 3 a.m. replay. I hear the barista shout. I hear myself shout louder. I hear the very distinctive, very final sound of denim giving up the ghost.
The rip is spectacular.
Benji has spotted something. Another dog, specifically, a massive brindle beast emerging from the boutique hotel next door, and every single one of his two hundred pounds launches toward it simultaneously. The leash, which I had helpfully threaded through my belt loop, catches.
Physics does the rest.
I’v always hated physics.
I spin.
I go down.
My knees hit the sidewalk hard enough that I see stars.
For a second I just stay there, on my hands and knees, trying to figure out what just happened.
Then I see the crowd.
And I feel the breeze on my exposed hips and pray I’m just imagining things.
Then I see the phones.
Shit. Definitely not imagining.
FML.
Phones go up everywhere, screens tilted toward me, strangers recording with the casual efficiency of people who have been conditioned by years of internet content to document first and feel second.
My underwear, as it happens, is very much on display.
Cute underwear, at least. Small mercies.
Also lace. Also bright red. Also currently stretched across the most generous hips in Brooklyn.
"Oh my God, are you okay?" The barista is leaning over the counter, eyes huge.
I am not okay. My knees are bleeding, my dignity is in tatters on the pavement next to me, my best friend's dog is somewhere I can't see, and approximately half of Brooklyn is currently filming my lace underwear for posterity.
Then something happens.
A shadow falls over me.
Wide.
Solid.
Immovable.
A man steps directly between me and the crowd.
From the knees down I’m half naked on a Brooklyn sidewalk, and somehow the most embarrassing part is that my brain immediately registers one extremely inappropriate thought:
Who is he?
He doesn't rush.
He doesn't scramble.
He just moves, with the kind of unhurried, absolute authority that makes everyone around him instinctively go still.
He's huge. Not just tall, though he is extremely tall. He's built like something architectural. His suit, dark and clearly expensive, does absolutely nothing to hide the fact that underneath it there is a body that that makes responsible women lose their minds.
Not young-guy attractive either.
Dangerous older-man attractive.
He stands with his back to me, facing the crowd, and he says nothing for a moment.
Just looks at them.
One by one, the phones come down.
Not reluctantly. Instantly.
Like he didn't ask.
Like he ordered.
"Eyes." His voice is quiet. Low. The kind of low that doesn't need volume to carry weight. There is an accent underneath it, something European that I can't quite place, and something else I absolutely can place, which is authority so complete it borders on frightening. "Off. Her."
That's it. That's all he says.
The crowd doesn't just look away. They actually drift back. A little shuffle of collective retreat, like a tide going out.
I stare at the broad expanse of his back, at the way his shoulders fill that jacket, and I think: who is this man, and why does my heart feel like it's trying to escape my chest?
And why does my brain keep noticing his shoulders while I'm half naked on the sidewalk?
He turns around, and I get my first real look at his face.
Oh no.
Oh, this is not fair.
Salt-and-pepper hair, thick and slightly tousled, like he ran a hand through it on his way out the door and it only got more attractive for it. A jaw that could cut glass, circled by a neat, short beard that is somehow both polished and rugged at once. And eyes.
Blue. Not a soft blue. Not a gentle, friendly blue. Steel blue, sharp and clear, with the kind of intelligence behind them that you feel more than see.
A full, undeniable silver fox.
Possibly early fifties. The kind of age where men stop pretending and start owning every room they walk into.
And it works for him in the way that some things just work, the way red wine works, the way old leather works, the way a voice that sounds like it was poured over gravel and dark wood just works.
The kind of man who probably remembers a time before Instagram and still somehow looks better than every man currently on it.
In one hand, he holds Benji's leash.
In his other hand, the leash of the brindle beast, who I now recognize as a Cane Corso. A massive, beautiful one, with bright bronze eyes and a panting grin.
He looks down at me with those steel-blue eyes, and there is humor there. But not cruelty. Not even a hint of it.
"I believe this belongs to you," he says.
My brain is currently operating at about forty percent capacity.
The other sixty percent is busy processing the fact that a devastating silver fox just rescued me while I was flashing Brooklyn.
"I, uh." I blink. "Yes. I. Thank you."
Eloquent. Stunning. Truly one of my best moments.
Something shifts in his expression. Not quite a smile, but close. He looks at the barista.
"Do you happen to have an extra apron?"
She blinks, then vanishes, then reappears with a balled-up black apron. He takes it from her with a quiet thank you and turns back to me.
"Can you work with this?" He holds it out.
"Yes." I take it. "Good idea."
He extends his free hand to help me up. I take it, and his grip is warm and steady and I have to actively stop myself from cataloguing the way his hand feels wrapped around mine, which is large and firm and I need to stop that line of thinking immediately.
He looks away as I shake out the apron, fold it in half, and tie it around my waist like a makeshift skirt. It barely covers what needs covering, and the logo reads Bean There, Done That across the back, which I will think about later and be mortified by, but right now, it is a gift.