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I remove my phone from my pocket and dial her. She picks up on the second ring. “Nick,” she says, and damn it, how is it that my name on this woman’s lips can make my cock hard and my heart soft?
“Hey, sweetheart.”
“Did you finish your prep?” she asks, once again showing concern about my work that I’ve never given another woman a chance to express. Maybe they would have. Maybe they wouldn’t have. I just didn’t care to have them try.
“We’re ready,” I say. “We’ll kill it at every turn.”
“I’m glad,” she says. “I was worried I’d distracted you.”
“You do distract me, Faith, but in all the right ways. Where are you?”
“My house,” she says.
“I thought you were staying at the winery?”
“I was inspired to paint.”
I lean back in the chair, shutting my eyes, imagining her standing at her canvas, beautiful, gifted, focused. “Are you painting me, Faith?”
“Yes,” she says. “Actually I am. I’m still trying to understand you. Now that you’re gone…”
“Now that I’m gone, what?”
“I don’t know. Something.”
“Something,” I repeat, opening my eyes and standing up, facing the window, the glow of the lights on the Golden Gate Bridge before me. “There is something, Faith,” I add, wanting her to tell me what I sense. “What is it?”
She’s silent for several beats. “Are we talking about you or me, now?”
“You,” I say. “I’m your attorney and the man in your bed and life. What haven’t you told me?”
“We’re new, Nick. There’s a lot I haven’t told you.”
I feel those words like another claw in my heart, and every warning that’s been thrown at me the past few hours digs it deeper. I have never been a fool who thinks with his dick. I’m not starting now. “I want you to tell me, but you know I’ll find out.”
“Of course you will. You enjoy a challenge. Good night, Nick.”
She hangs up.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Tiger
That conversation with Faith haunts me most of the night, and by seven in the morning, I’m at work behind my desk on the fifth floor of the second tallest building in San Francisco. By eight, I’ve woken up three clients and drafted a contract. All while wearing a black suit with a royal-fucking-blue tie that reminds me of Faith’s dress. Her ripped dress, and that moment in the car when I’d leaned in and tasted her. The pencil in my hand snaps.
It’s at that moment that North pops his head in the door. “Can we—”
“No,” I say. “If you aren’t ready now, you won’t be. You have three hours before they arrive, and you need a set of balls. Go find them.”
He shoves his glasses up his nose. “I actually know the location of my balls. The use of said—”
“I’m not going to teach you how to hold your balls,” I bite out. “Go play with them alone.”
He has the good sense to leave. Unfortunately, my assistant, Rita, appears in the spot he’s just left. “I have coffee,” she says.
“You never bring me coffee,” I say, but nevertheless, in a rush of bouncing red curls and sweet-smelling perfume, a cup is in front of me. I glance at it and her. “When I ask for coffee, you say ‘fuck you.’ What the hell is going on?”
“It’s my twentieth wedding anniversary,” she says, waving fingers at me. “I woke up to a sapphire this morning. I guess at fifty I’ve still got the goods.”
