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“Oh, you’ve been here a while. I just assumed.” My cheeks heated.
“Liar.” He grinned at me. “But a very pretty liar.” His words were a teasing caress, stroking some secret inner part of me.
“Er…thank you, I think?” I looked up at him, intrigued. There was an air of danger about him, but the sexy kind of danger. The kind that said he’d throw me over his lap and spank me. Hold me down and thrust his knee between my thighs while I moaned “no” but meant yes. No man I’d been with had ever done that, and I suspected that was why I’d never had an orgasm yet. Plenty of frustrating neargasms, sure. But no Big O.
He cocked his head to the side. “Do you like to take orders?”
Oh God. Could he read my mind? My cheeks flushed with embarrassment.
“You…you want me to take your drink order?” I mumbled.
His laugh was rich and gently mocking. “Sure, we’ll start with that. Go get me another shot of Macallan.” He waved at the bartender, who nodded at him. “He’ll put it on my tab.”
There was an idiot grin on my face as I hurried to get his drink. He’d called me pretty.
He took the drink and tipped me a hundred bucks without a second glance, then strolled away, leaving me feeling disappointed but oddly relieved.
Sure, he was blindingly handsome, but I could feel the menace rolling off him, even then.
He vanished into the crowd for the rest of the evening, until it was close to quitting time and I was cleaning up. Then he walked up to me.
“Tamara,” he said with that easy grin. Like I should be dazzled that he’d taken the time to find out my name.
And I kind of was.
“There’s an all-night speakeasy I’d like to take you to. My limo’s waiting outside.”
“Oh, I can’t. I have friends waiting for me.” My gaze dropped to the floor as I lied.
Why would I turn down an obscenely wealthy man who oozed sex and self-confidence, who might finally let me reach the heights of pleasure that I craved?
I think it was because I knew what he was asking for—one casual fuck, and then I’d be cast aside and forgotten. If he’d wanted to get to know me, he’d have gotten my phone number and asked me out on a proper date. Men like him didn’t have relationships with girls like me. They used us like the towel that blotted the wet spot, and cast us aside just as easily.
It would be mind-blowing, no doubt, but it would leave me with an achy and empty feeling. I’d had a couple of brief encounters before, and they’d always left me feeling cruddy the next morning.
And him? If he was anywhere near as hot as I suspected, if he was exactly what I’d been looking for all along, he’d be like a drug, and I’d suffer endless withdrawal.
So I politely bowed out. There was a glint of disappointment in his eyes, but he just nodded and left without a word.
I thought that was the end of it until a week later, when I got a corporate brochure in the mail, with a picture of him tucked into it. And a blank job application. They were looking for temporary clerks over the summer.
I was giddy with excitement. Maybe he was just intrigued because I’d turned him down. But who cared why? He liked me! He really liked me! The fact that he’d taken the time to find out who I was and where I lived was beyond flattering. I went and applied for the job, and a couple of weeks later, I was working there.
But then things got weird.
From the day I set foot in that gorgeous Gilded-Age building on Fifth Avenue, Joshua never acknowledged me. He didn’t just ignore me; he completely iced me out. When I was in the same room with him, I could feel disdain rolling off him like a chilling fog. I didn’t understand it. If he wasn’t interested, why had he sought me out and invited me to work there?
As the summer dragged on, I had to accept the unflattering truth. Men like him wanted new toys and quickly grew bored with whatever they’d craved yesterday. He’d had a crush on me for a hot minute, and he’d got over it before he’d even bothered to sample the goods.
It stung, though. I kept wondering if it was something I’d done. But what? I hadn’t even had the chance to offend him.
I became mildly obsessed. I Google-stalked him, trying to find out everything I could.
What I found was all superficial. Company press releases. News reports on his company’s latest acquisitions. He was quite the mystery man. He was photographed at the most exclusive restaurants and nightclubs in New York, but the few interviews he’d given were just canned publicity features.
I only found one mildly helpful tidbit—a reporter on a forum claiming that after he’d written an unflattering piece about Joshua Smith, he’d been abruptly fired from his job.
And when I tried to look up the article that he’d written, apparently it had been erased from the internet.
