Beautiful Stranger (9 page)

I felt guilt and embarrassment settle in my chest like a lead weight. “I know,” I said, inhaling and letting it out again slowly. It was one thing to imagine how people saw me, another to hear it straight out. “I always worried that if I said anything about him to someone, it would be misconstrued, and somehow break his public strategy. Plus, we weren’t like you and Bennett. We didn’t have a lot of fun together by the time I met you. Andy was a phony and an epic jerk and it took me a really long time to see that. This thing on Friday was just fun.”

Chloe looked up. “Hey, it’s fine. I knew it was something like that.” She turned back to another box. “So this is good then, he’s not like Andy.”

“Yeah.”

“So you mean he’s
into
you.”

“At least physically, which is fine for me right now.”

“So what’s the problem? It sounds like the perfect situation.”

“He’s kind of intense. And I don’t really trust him.”

Putting down the books in her hand, she turned to face me. “Sara, this is going to sound really weird, but just hear me out, okay?”

“Of course.”

“When Bennett and I started . . . whatever it was we were doing, I was determined that every time it happened it would be the last. But I think I always knew
it would keep happening until it had run its course. Luckily for us, I don’t think we’ll ever stop feeling what we felt those first few times. Even so, I didn’t trust him. I didn’t really even
like
him. Above all of it, he was my
boss
. I mean, hello, inappropriate.” She laughed, and following her gaze over to her desk, I saw that the first and only thing she’d unpacked so far was a picture of the two of them at the house in France where he’d proposed to her. “But I think if I’d just given myself permission to enjoy it a
little
bit, it might not have consumed me so much.”

I was starting to know exactly what she meant about being consumed. And I knew, too, that I was consciously fighting it with Max, with the
idea
of Max. But my reasons were different. It wasn’t a boss-employee thing, or any other kind of power struggle. It was the simple fact that I didn’t want to be anyone else’s but my own for a while. And although this thing with Max was insane and completely different from anything I’d ever felt before—
I
was different—I liked it. A lot.

“I do like him,” I admitted carefully. “But I don’t think he’s boyfriend material. In fact, I know he’s not. And I am most definitely not girlfriend material right now.”

“Okay, so maybe you just get together every now and then as fuck buddies.”

I laughed, pressing my face into my hands. “Seriously. Whose life is this?”

She looked at me like she wanted to pat my head. “Sara, it’s
yours
.”

George was reading a newspaper in my office with his feet up on my desk when I returned.

“Working yourself to the bone?” I teased, sitting on the corner of my desk.

“On my lunch break. And you had a package arrive, darling.”

“You found it in the mailroom?”

He shook his head and lifted the parcel off his lap, waving it at me. “Hand delivered. By a very cute bike messenger, I might add. I had to sign for it and promise not to open it.”

I snatched it from him and jerked my chin to the door, wordlessly telling George to scram.

“You’re not even going to tell me what it is?”

“I don’t have X-ray vision, and you are not going to be here when I open it. Get out.”

With a noise of protest, he kicked his feet off my desk and left, closing my door on his way out.

I stared at the package for several minutes, feeling the rectangular shape of it beneath the padded envelope. A frame? My heart jumped in my chest.

Tucked inside were a wrapped parcel and a note that read,

Petal,

Open this with discretion. It is my favourite.

Your stranger.

I swallowed, feeling a little as if I were on the verge of unleashing something I would no longer be able to contain. Looking up to ensure that my door was firmly shut, I unwrapped it, my hands shaking when I realized that it was indeed a frame. Made of deep, simply cut wood, it held a single photo: a picture of my stomach, and the curve of my waist. The black table beneath me was visible. Max’s fingertips were also visible at the bottom, as if he was pinning me to the surface at my hips. A faint beam of light spread across my skin, a reminder of the door opening nearby, of the person wandering around the room just beyond the screen.

He must have taken that picture just as he’d buried himself in me.

I closed my eyes, remembering how it had felt when I came. I was like a bare wire, plugged into the wall and with the charge that would illuminate that dark ballroom running through me instead. He’d bared my clit with his fingers, stroked me just like that. I’d
wanted to close my legs against the intensity of it, but he’d growled, held me open with his pounding hips.

I shoved the frame back in the mailing envelope and hid the entire thing in my purse. Heat spread like a clawing vine across my skin and I couldn’t even turn up the air, couldn’t open a window this high in the building.

How did he know?

I felt the weight of it pressing down on me, how much I’d wanted it to be a photo of us, how much I’d wanted to be seen. He understood, maybe more than I did myself.

Stumbling to my desk, I sat down and tried to take stock of the situation. But directly in front of me was today’s
New York Post,
open to Page Six.

There, smack in the middle of the page, was a story titled,
Sex God Stella Goes Solo.

The playboy millionaire venture capitalist tried something a little new Saturday night at MoMA.

No, it wasn’t looking at art, and it most certainly wasn’t raising money (let’s be honest: the man already raises money better than every slot machine in Vegas). Saturday night at his annual fund-raiser to benefit Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation, Max Stella arrived . . . alone.

When asked where his date was, he simply said, “I’m hoping she’s already inside.”

Unfortunately for us, photographers were forbidden from the event.

We’ll get you next time, Mad Max.

I stared down at the paper, knowing George had put it here for me to see and was probably now laughing to himself.

My hands shook as I folded it and shoved it in a drawer. Why hadn’t it occurred to me that a photographer could have been in there? That there were no photographers in the event at all was a miracle. And although Max had certainly known this, I hadn’t, and I hadn’t even
thought to care
.

“Crap,” I whispered. I knew, with sudden clarity, that this thing between us either needed to end absolutely, or I needed some semblance of control. Feeling relieved in hindsight was a slippery slope, and I’d already dodged three bullets in my first week.

I hit the spacebar on my laptop to wake up my computer and googled the location of “Stella & Sumner.”

I couldn’t help but smile. “Of course.”

Thirty Rockefeller Plaza.

Stella & Sumner took up half of the seventy-second floor of the GE Building, one of the most iconic
buildings in the city. Even I recognized it from blocks away.

However, for such a well-known venture capital firm, I was surprised how little space it required. Then again, it took very little to run a company that basically just raised and invested money: Max, Will, some junior executives, and assorted math brainiacs.

My heart was hammering so fast I had to count ten deep breaths, and then duck into a bathroom just outside their office doors to get myself together.

I checked each stall to ensure it was empty, and then looked myself right in the eye. “If you’re doing this with him, remember three things, Sara. One, he wants what you want. Sex, no strings. You don’t owe him more. Two, don’t be afraid to ask for what you want. And three”—I stood up straighter, taking a deep breath—“be young. Have fun. Turn the rest off.”

Back in the hall, the glass doors to Stella & Sumner opened automatically when I approached and an older female receptionist greeted me with a genuine smile.

“I’m here to see Max Stella,” I said, returning it. She had a familiar smile, familiar brow. I glanced down and read her name placard: B
RIGID
S
TELLA
.

Holy crap, did his
mother
work as his receptionist?

“Do you have an appointment, love?”

Her accent was just like his. I jerked my attention
back to her face. “No, actually. I was hoping I could just get a minute.”

“What’s your name?”

“Sara Dillon.”

She smiled—but not a knowing smile,
thank God
—looked at her computer, and then nodded a little to herself before picking up the phone. “I’ve got a Sara Dillon here hoping for a chat.” She listened for barely three seconds and then said, “Right.”

When she hung up, she was already nodding. “Straight down the hall to the right. His is the office at the end.”

I thanked her and followed her directions down the hall. When I drew closer, I saw that Max stood in his doorway, leaning against the frame and wearing such a self-satisfied smile that I pulled up a good ten feet short of my destination.

“Get over yourself,” I whispered.

He burst out laughing, turning and walking into his office.

I followed him in, closing the door behind me. “I’m not here for what you think I’m here for.” And then I paused, reconsidering. “Okay, maybe I
am
here for what you think I’m here for. But not really. I mean not here, and not
today
here, when your mother is right out there! Oh my God—who hires their mother as their
receptionist
?”

He was still laughing, that damn dimple etched into his cheek, and with each rambling word I unleashed he seemed to laugh harder. Goddamn if he wasn’t the most playful, adorable . . . infuriating . . .
ass!

“Stop laughing!” I yelled and then slapped a hand over my mouth as the words echoed back to me from the walls all around us. He struggled to straighten his expression, walked over to me and kissed me once, so sweetly I literally forgot for a beat what I was here for.

“Sara,” he said quietly. “You look beautiful.”

“You always say that,” I said. I closed my eyes, felt my shoulders slump. I couldn’t remember a single instance in the last three years where Andy had complimented me on something other than the wine I chose for dinner.

“That’s because I’m nothing if not honest. But what are you wearing?”

I opened my eyes and looked down at my white blouse, pleated navy skirt, and thick red belt. Max was staring directly at my chest, and I felt my nipples harden under his gaze.

He grinned. He could tell.

“I’m wearing . . . work stuff.”

“You look like a naughty schoolgirl done right.”

“I’m twenty-seven,” I reminded him. “You’re not being a pervert by checking out my boobs.”

“Twenty-seven,” he repeated, grinning. He acted
like every bit of information I gave him was a pearl he could string on a necklace. “How many days is that?”

I narrowed my eyes at him. “What? It’s . . .” I looked up for a few seconds. “About nine thousand, eight hundred fifty. But more, actually, since my birthday is in August. About ten thousand.”

He groaned and pressed a dramatic hand to his chest. “Fuck. Numbers queen and stacked like that. I’m helpless against your charm.”

I couldn’t help but smile back at him. He’d never been rude or sharp with me, and had given me more orgasms in a week and a half than any other man had in . . .
ugh, Sara. Depressing. Move on.

He looked me over once more before saying, “Well, I certainly can’t wait for you to tell me why you’ve blessed me with your visit today. But let me answer your most recent question. Yes, my mother is my receptionist and it does seem uncouth. But I dare you even to try to get her to leave that desk. I assure you, you’ll walk away with one ear pulled from your head.”

He took a step forward, and suddenly he was standing so close. Too close. I could see the tiny stripes in his tailored suit jacket, see the shadow of stubble on his chin.