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But it did surprise her that he went to such lengths for someone like her.
Now wasn’t that a testament to just how much her self-esteem had taken a beating over the years?
Still, wouldn’t most women think that, knowing what she now knew about Julian Bauer?
Last night, tired from the event, her encounter with Julian, and the various interviews that followed, she’d done some light research on Julian, focusing solely on articles with his name in the byline.
She’d clicked on his Times profile and instantly recognized the blue eyes that seemed to see straight into her soul, even through the computer screen. She’d poured herself a nightcap, and as she read through his most famous exposes on the infamous and notorious, the rich and famous, the wolf in sheep’s skin and the sheep in wolf’s skin, she nearly forgot her gin sitting dangerously at the edge of her desk.
She’d quickly discovered that Julian deserved his reputation as a brilliant journalist.
He’d written about the skeletons of world politicians, drug overdoses of rock and roll stars, sins of priests, and dirty little secrets of Wall Street giants. He’d ended half a dozen careers and started the jail sentences of half a dozen more.
On the other hand, he’d occasionally given accolades where they were due and defended those who were wrongly targeted by the press. One of his most recent exposes was about Branden Duke, one of New York’s richest and most affluent men, a well-respected financier whose reputation had begun to tarnish due to family tragedies and recent events, including a sexual harassment suit by one of his employees that had turned out to be a complete lie.
For a moment, Skylar stared at a picture of Branden Duke and his beautiful fiancée, Cara Michal. Physically, they reminded her of herself and Julian— only Julian’s hair was more brown than black and Skylar’s hair was a much lighter blond, and their eyes were different. But even in the picture, Skylar could sense a certain electricity between the other couple; was it even half of what she felt whenever she was around Julian?
As the night dragged on, Skylar found herself almost drugged by the intoxicating allure of his writing. Her eyes moved as if in a trance across the screen, and she could hear his husky, raw voice against her ear as if he were reading to her.
He wrote with power, with passion, with a sense of righteous determination, and his writing gripped her just as easily as his callused hands had gripped her thighs on that bed at the mansion. His words sent goosebumps down her spine just like his fingers had, ghosting along her arms as she’d stood naked in front of that mirror with nothing on but her mask and her heels. She was drowning in his writing just the way she wanted to be drowning in him.
For the most part, Julian treated his subjects with an almost sultry reverence. He dug in deep and somehow managed to get past people’s guards to unlock key parts of themselves, but he mostly did so with respect.
In short, he pushed hard but was trustworthy.
For those who deserved it.
The others? Shredded. Humiliated. Destroyed.
With that basic understanding of the man, she’d turned off her computer and gone to bed, hoping for some sleep. But a restful night wasn’t meant to be. Instead, Julian had continued to work his way into Skylar’s thoughts, and she’d spent the night fidgeting, grabbing a few minutes sleep here and there, and finally giving up at five in the morning, drenched in sweat and panting. She’d put on a pot of coffee and settled herself down at her desk, and now here she was, working on a Saturday and trying not to think about the damn business card Julian had stuck between her lips the night before.
After trying for the third time to concentrate on a particularly complex project, Skylar finally sighed and slammed shut her laptop, then leaned back in her seat.
She still hadn’t decided if she was going to meet him tonight.
Biting her lip, she opened her laptop yet again and stared at the internet icon on her computer screen. Hadn’t she learned enough last night? Did she really want to open Pandora’s box once more, not knowing what she’d find?
And yet she also knew that, like Pandora herself, she could not stop herself.
Moving her mouse sounded like nails on a chalkboard. A single double-click sounded like a hammer strike against her metal desk. And pressing the keys, one by one, as slowly as she could manage with quivering fingers, sounded like a bomb going off, every one of them. She hardly dared to shift her pinky over to the Enter key because, in her tense, stress-fried mind, it would be just as loud as cocking a shotgun, aiming it out the window, and firing.
Licking her lips and tugging her chair closer to her desk, she let her eyes skim the page in front of her. This time, she skimmed past all the hits she’d looked through the night before and went to the third page of the search findings.
And that’s where she discovered that the writingbyJulian Bauer she’d looked through the night before was just the start. Page after page was filled with writingaboutJulian Bauer.
He was two years older than her, had earned a bachelor’s degree from Princeton and a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University, wasn’t married— that she could tell— and seemingly had no close family. Once he got his break in journalism, he’d done very well for himself; apparently, he had great instincts when it came to the stock market. Then, when he was thirty, he’d inherited a fortune from a distant relative, but while his real estate, cars, and other toys had become more lavish, he hadn’t strayed from his journalistic path, still writing for national, regional, and local papers alike.
As for what he’d said the other night about loving women’s bodies—well, that part seemed clear enough as she came across photos of Julian out with various women. He had a reputation as a womanizer, a playboy, and— as one unnamed West Village socialite put it— “a sex god.” She clicked through picture after picture of Julian captured by paparazzi, each photo with a woman on his arm. Some photos were of him on dates, others were of him coming out of brownstones or Upper East Side penthouses, belt buckle undone, black collared shirt unbuttoned, devilish grin uncaring. Julian Bauer had apparently fucked his way through the highest and richest levels of Manhattan society, and he apparently didn’t care that everyone knew it.
The amazing thing was, most of the pictures were frombeforehe’d become filthy rich; in fact, it seemed once he’d inherited his great aunt’s fortune, he’d become slightly more selective about who he dated, with the word dating being used quite loosely since he never seemed to see the same woman for very long.
But again, there was no mention or speculation of Julian being an escort.
Until she came upon one article in a magazine in which Julian sat for an interview . . .
Leaning forward, she clicked the link and up popped the feature of Julian, one written by a woman. Along with the article was a six-page photo shoot of Julian.
In all photos but one, he was clothed. But in one, he was naked but for a strategically placed mound of gold coins, and at the top of the pile was his Pulitzer Prize. Beside him were a journalist’s notepad, a camera, and a rolled-up newspaper.
