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He hadn’t mentioned that.
She dug deeper to find an obituary to find out why he’d died. She read the small notice:
Henri Pena died of a heart attack. His wife, Gena, died eighteen years before. She struggled with bipolar disorder. Pena never remarried, citing Gena as the love of his life. He is survived by a son, Xavier...
Emma stared at the article online. Xavier lost his father a year ago. Then he lost his fiancé. The emotional trauma went much deeper than she realized.
Not exactly going to convince him that trying love again is a good idea.
Emma sighed. No wonder he didn’t want to risk a relationship. She stared at Xavier’s picture, wondering how she could convince him to try, and yet she knew it was out of her hands. He had to decide to risk his heart and his future. There was nothing she could do.
Emma pulled up her Word document once more and began typing.
* * *
The mystery woman from the subway train led Xavier by the hand to the steps of her apartment building and with a quick punch of numbers on a keypad, buzzed them both inside. On the stairwell, she turned and pressed her body against his, so that he felt the fullness of her breasts, even through her leather jacket, and even without kissing him, she reached up and gently massaged his groin, a bold, aggressive move that would normally have him standing at attention inside of a minute. But for some reason her touch felt clumsy and awkward, and he was keenly aware of her too-red lipstick. Everything about her was just...wrong. Not that she wasn’t gorgeous—the woman could have any man she wanted, especially with that body—but there was something about her that was just lacking.
Xavier realized it was because she wasn’t Emma.
Every time he looked at this mystery woman all he could think was: her nose isn’t as cute as Emma’s. Her hands are bigger than Emma’s. Her butt’s almost too skinny. Not like Emma’s. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t shut his brain off. She went on working him with her hand, but she was quickly finding him unresponsive. Would he not even be able to get hard?
That had never happened to Xavier before. Not once. This woman before you is gorgeous. What’s your problem? A voice shouted in his head. But he knew exactly what his problem was: Emma.
“Kiss me,” she murmured, flicking her hair back, too-red lips parted. Xavier didn’t want to. That was the worst part. This woman was willing and sexy and he...didn’t want to kiss her. Yet, he dipped his head and kissed her anyway. She slipped her tongue in his mouth, and ground against him. Every move she made just made him less turned on. Because she wasn’t Emma.
When you fall in love, other women, they just aren’t as beautiful, his father had told him. Xavier never believed him. Now, he wasn’t so sure. He thought he’d loved Sasha, but he’d always been able to look at other women, appreciate them. Now, here with this woman from the train, objectively gorgeous, he couldn’t even appreciate how sexy she was.
“Come on,” the woman said, taking his hand and leading him down to the basement apartment—her apartment. Part of him wanted to flee. What was he doing here? He should go find Emma. Apologize, try to convince her that he’d been wrong.
Had he? Was he really going to turn Nost off? What would his co-workers say, what would the investors say? The headline: Founder finds true love on No Strings website didn’t seem like it would exactly reel in users.
He followed the woman down the stairs and into her apartment as the door shut behind them. Yet, was he really going to do this? He glanced around at the woman’s mismatched furniture, the clutter of junk mail choking the coffee table, an empty pizza box sitting on the kitchen counter. The apartment was nothing like Emma’s carefully designed place, where every piece of furniture seemed made for the space, where she had her pots and pans neatly hanging from a rack above her sink. He could relax there all day. But here? No. Here would be a quick and dirty fuck and then he’d never see this apartment again. Or this woman. And he’d never know her name, either.
Normally, the idea of that turned him on, made him so hard he could feel the blood pulsating to his very tip, but that was before Emma. The thought of Emma made him want to go be with her. Made him want to see if she could rouse him where this woman couldn’t.
Now would be the time that Xavier would normally pounce, where he’d work his magic on a stranger, but instead, he just stood in her living room feeling uncertain.
“What you say we get our freak on, Mr. X?” she said, and her words jarred him back to reality. She grabbed his crotch once more, but it didn’t respond to her touch. The strange woman didn’t seem to care. She knelt before him and began to unzip his pants.
