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1
“Is setting me up on a blind date your idea of a morbid joke?” Tague Mason asked as his wide strides carried him swiftly along Manhattan’s Sixth Avenue. He stealthily wove through the early morning foot traffic as his friend, Chip McAllister, dodged oncoming pedestrians in an attempt to keep pace. “Or is this L.L. Branson you want me to meet related or befriended to an out-of-your-league prospect and you can’t seal the deal without a wingman?”
“Please,” Chip scoffed, his breath a white puff of frigid December air. “I don’t need your help to score babes.” He bristled a moment, then conceded, “Well, yeah, okay. Sometimes I do.”
Tague gave a half-snort. “If only you’d put this much effort into catapulting yourself from associate to partner before you’re thirty.”
“I’m not on the overachiever’s accelerated timeframe. I’ll leave that to you.”
Both men worked at the premier law firm Mason, Hoffman & Stein, founded by Tague’s late grandfather, Alexander Mason. Tague was a high-powered, international corporate attorney who’d spent the majority of the past two years on a copyright infringement case for a large media conglomerate in Tokyo.
Chip was primarily a divorce lawyer, but consulted on various other cases when necessary.
They were both twenty-eight. Both Harvard Law graduates. Both from wealthy families.
That was where the similarities ended.
Chip McAllister was five-ten with light-brown hair, hazel eyes and an every-girl’s-best-friend air that caused women to flock to him in droves. Unfortunately, the vast majority of those women didn’t end up fucking him, but cried on his shoulder about some other guy—ex-lover or wanna-be lover.
He never seemed to mind—too much. Chip was good-natured and always lent a sympathetic ear.
Tague was still single as well, but that was currently more by his design than anything else. His ambition and laser-focus on his goals, combined with his six-foot-four-inch stature, powerful build, dark eyes and even darker hair, had him exuding a raw intensity that typically made women take two steps back and regard him from a safer distance.
Sparking curiosity was never a problem for Tague. Batted eyelashes, lingering gazes, suggestive smiles... He was all too familiar with every flirtatious gesture and feminine wiles employed by womankind. But even the most brazen of those who approached him oftentimes found him a bit too potent. Too commanding. Too in charge of every facet of his life, including a chance meeting, a one-night stand, a two-week sexfest. Whatever.
Even as Tague made his way toward his office building—on the opposite side of the street, because Chip was adamant about the coffee-shop stop before they headed into the firm—he knew exactly how this spur-of-the-moment arrangement his colleague had set up would go.
The woman would be attractive. Very much so. She’d be intelligent, and Tague would appreciate that. But she wouldn’t comprehend the fact that his work meant everything to him. Or that he was meticulous, cautious even, when it came to his personal acquaintances because he’d been burned before.
Badly.
“You realize I’m only in Manhattan for a brief period,” he told Chip.
“A social engagement or two while you’re here won’t kill you. In fact, it might help to improve that surly disposition. All work and no dating makes Tague a very grumpy boy.”
“Grumpy scares the shit out of opposing counsel,” he said with the same hard stare that had caused many a lawyer to forget their own defense.
“Give me a chance here,” Chip urged. “I think you’ll be amenable to my selection.”
Tague doubted it.
Just like the ebb and flow of the bustling city, the steam rising from manholes, the screeching of brakes and the endless honking of car horns, every nuance of his romantic life held the potential to be predictable because he was a Mason. Scripted, if anyone other than Tague had a say in the matter. Unfortunately, two extremely prominent people once had. His parents.
When it came to Harper and June Mason, predictable meant Tague “ought” to date women within the family’s high-society circle who had no grander aspiration than trophy wife. Polite ladies who lunch. Genteel sorts who spoke softly, agreed with anything he said and didn’t make waves in private. And especially not in public.
Bor-ing.
Tague wanted siren-red vivaciousness. Not everything-should-be-beige pretentiousness.
And he’d learned the hard way that the only one who could control his destiny was himself. To allow someone else even the slightest bit of influence over him... That could prove—had proved—detrimental.
Never. Again.
Even nine years after his ill-fated relationship with Renee Redmond, the only woman Tague had ever fallen in love with, thoughts of the massive destruction his parents tended to incite with the force of an F5 hurricane did nothing more than evoke the desire to punch something. Or someone.
Chip was damn lucky Tague cut him slack for hijacking his morning to make this spontaneous introduction. Were it anyone else butting into his life in this manner, they likely would have been left sprawled on the floor as Tague stalked off.
“For the record,” he told his friend, “I do date.”
“Sure you do.” Chip gave a semi-
eyeball roll. Again, something only he could get away with, because they’d been through thick and thin during their years at Harvard. “You’ve been overseas all this time.”
“I can ask a woman out when I’m in Tokyo. I am fluent in Japanese,” Tague retorted.
