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This trip was a complete bust.

  I follow a few paces behind Carson the entire walk back to my hotel. We don’t talk; instead, he walks quickly, as if he’s in a rush to get somewhere. Come to think of it, he probably is. He’s a busy man with a demanding job, and he made time for a dinner with me on short notice.

  He made it clear through all his sexual innuendos how he wants this night to end, but my body just isn’t something that’s available to him. It belongs to William, the man I love, and I did my best to make that clear to him, too. I’m sure he’s rushing me back to my hotel to get rid of me.

  When the doors to the Hyatt are suddenly in front of me, a stab of regret pierces my gut. I have the urge to lean in for a hug, but I push it as far as I can to the deepest recesses of my mind. I stick out my hand to shake his.

  “Thanks for meeting with me,” I say.

  He places his hand in mine, his grip firm and sure. “It was my pleasure.” His eyes linger on mine, and a thrill surges through my chest as a throb starts to ache between my legs.

  I’m looking for an appropriate reason to invite him up, but I come up short.

  No. No, no, no. This is all wrong.

  His hand still clutches mine, and to a passerby, it would look like a simple business handshake, but it feels like more, and that’s what’s wrong.

  “Thanks for dinner.” I feel like this is where etiquette should make me say how it was nice to meet him, but it wasn’t. I didn’t come here for friendship.

  But, on the other hand, no matter what I want and no matter how I look at it, eventually this man will be my boss. This isn’t the last time I’ll see him, and that thought gives me a bigger sense of…relief? Excitement? Anxiety? I’m not sure, but it gives me a bigger sense of emotion than it should.

  “Again, my pleasure.” He clears his throat and finally drops his hand.

  “Okay then. Good night.”

  He nods once. “Night.”

  I turn to walk through the doors and into my hotel, and I hate the sadness I feel. This is ridiculous. I don’t even know this man, and I shouldn’t feel anything for him but irritation, anger, and loathing.

  But I don’t. I push away the sadness. I’ll call William as soon as I get up to my room and fill him in on the night. I’ll feel better after I hear his voice. I’m steps away from pressing the elevator call button to go up to my room when I hear my name.

  “Sylvie!” I spin around, and Carson’s striding toward me, confidence oozing out of him once more. “Wait up.”

  My eyebrows draw in. “Did I forget something? Do I owe you for my half?”

  He chuckles. “No.” He shakes his head. “You up for one more drink?”

  “Oh, I…I don’t think so. That’s not a good idea.”

  “Let me take you to dinner tomorrow, then. Like I said earlier, I’ll even pay.”

  I can’t help my laugh. “That’s a really nice offer, but I’m flying home tomorrow.”

  “How about a tour of the King building before you go?”

  I shake my head. “My flight is in the morning.”

  “Then breakfast. I’ll take you to the airport.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?” His eyes are burning into mine.

  “I don’t need to explain myself to you again.”

  “You’re right, you don’t, but do it anyway. Please.”

  “I have a boyfriend.”

  “I don’t care.”

  “Clearly.” I raise both brows pointedly. “And besides, you’re going to be my boss.”

  He shrugs. “So?”

  “So I think it’s best if I keep my distance.” Because if I don’t…if I have one more drink with you…if I agree to breakfast with you…

  I don’t know what might happen.

  Nothing.

  I silently berate myself for even allowing that thought to slip through. Nothing will happen—ever. I’m with William. I’m going to marry William someday.

  I’m not sure why I have to keep reminding myself of that fact when I’m in Carson King’s presence.

  “Good night, Carson.”

  He looks as disappointed as I feel. I look away, because those eyes are damaging me. They’re tempting me away from everything I hold dear, and it’s not worth it—not for someone like him.

  I don’t wait for his reply. Instead, I turn away from him, stride the few steps toward the elevator, and press the call button.

  CHAPTER 8

  CARSON

  It was four years ago. I remember the exact time and the exact place.

  I walked into Halliday’s on Fourth like I owned the damn place. I sidled up next to a hot brunette at the bar, offered to buy her a drink, and started chatting with her. Her name was Sarah.

  After three drinks bought and paid on my dime, I offered to take her home. She said no. It was a little after ten at night.

  I tried a different approach, but the answer was the same.

  I went home and jerked myself off while I watched porn. The women on my screen looked nothing like Sarah. They were blonde, and that’s when I decided I would only date blondes. I had far better luck with them than I did with brunettes.

  Maybe it’s stupid, but the last time I was rejected by a woman was four years ago at almost this exact same time of night. She was brunette, and her name started with an S.

  I’m beginning to think it’s some sort of curse—the curse of the S-named brunettes who reject me around ten o’clock at night after I’ve paid for their entertainment for a couple of hours.

  I walk back to the office. There’s more to do—I never reviewed the packet of resumes Lauren left on my desk, never signed off on the sponsorships after my meeting with Harold.

  I just don’t care.

  I don’t give a fuck about what I do. I’m not bettering the world. I’m charging people insane amounts of money to allow them to access the internet. I’m providing entertainment, I guess, and news.

  I’m in a shitty mood after being rejected. I thought opening myself up might be my way in, but Sylvie was stubborn. I can’t blame her for wanting to be faithful to her loser lawyer boyfriend. If she loves him, that’s great, but I got the sense that she felt something for me tonight.

  It was just a couple of hours, but they were the most memorable hours I’ve had in a while.

  People come and go from our lives all the time. Why is it that some make a bigger impact than others?

  I can’t remember the name of the woman I slept with last Monday. Maybe that makes me a horrible person. She was unremarkable, like all the others, but I vividly remember the old man—a complete stranger—at Denny’s when Carter and I were kids. I was maybe seven, and Carter was probably six. He walked up to my parents after he’d finished his meal. He was alone, and he had a walker. “Those are two good boys you’ve got there. Well-behaved. You keep doing whatever you’re doing.”

  That quote is burned into my memory. I think of that man often. What prompted him to come to our table and make that comment? Does he have kids of his own—grandkids, or great-grandkids even? Is he doing well? Is he still alive?

  I remember my mom’s eyes filling with tears at a stranger’s comment. I wonder if he’d still say the same thing if he saw me today—if he saw me trying to hit on a woman who told me no because she has a boyfriend. If he knew how badly I wanted her in my bed, in my arms. If he knew I’m going to buy enough shares of her family’s company so it can become part of my family’s company.

  The old man who came and went from my life in the blink of an eye has been a beacon of my moral compass for nearly my entire life, and I know I’ve let him down on more than one occasion. My moral compass doesn’t always point north as it should. It might be broken, and I might not care enough to get it fixed.

  My point is that some people come into our lives and leave an impression. I knew nothing about that man apart from the few words he spoke to my parents, yet he still impacts me to this day. After just a couple of hours with Sylvie, I
already know she’s another one who will affect my life for a long time to come. I size people up for a living, and I could read her right away. She’s someone I want to share more than one meal with. More than one bottle of wine. More than one walk to and from a hotel room.

  More than one night.

  I sign off on the sponsorships. I flip through resumes. Everything is tinged with regret tonight.

  What would’ve happened if she wasn’t taken by another man?

  I’ll never know.

  I need to clear my head, and there’s only one thing I can think of that will do just that. I text Miller.

  Me: What’s on for tonight?

  Miller: Your dinner is over already?

  Me: She’s got a boyfriend.

  Miller: Hasn’t stopped you in the past.

  Me: Stopped her. Not me.

  Miller: I’ve got a couple yoga instructors over showing me a thing or two.

  Fuck. Yes.

  I feel a sense of boyish glee, despite my sour mood from the way tonight didn’t pan out for me. The last yoga instructor I was with was one of the best lays I’ve had in a long time. Surely she’ll take my mind off Sylvie.

  Me: Are you taking on both? Or is there room for me?

  Miller: Come on over. I can’t handle both.

  Me: Tell me one of them is blonde.

  Miller: One of them is blonde.

  Me: Be there in twenty.

  I text Geoffrey next. I own several cars, but I never drive anywhere. Finding parking in Manhattan is like winning the lottery, anyway. My driver, Geoffrey, gets paid well to take me wherever I want, whenever I want. He pulls up outside the King building a few minutes later, and I slide into the back. “Miller’s place.”

  He nods once. Typically while I ride in the back of a car, I’m busy scrolling email or taking care of business. Tonight, though, I stare out the window as we pass by the familiar streets. I wonder what this city looks like to someone like Sylvie. Was this her first time in New York? Or has she been here before? San Diego and New York aren’t just separated by physical distance; their differences couldn’t be more pointed for two major cities in the same country.

  I take a deep breath and shake my head. This isn’t me—this reflective bullshit as I stare blankly out the window. I don’t even know this girl, and she’s got me all fucked up in the head.

  Yoga instructor.

  That’ll knock some sense back into me.

  Geoffrey pulls up to the curb outside Miller’s Tribeca apartment. He’s lived in the area for years. It’s not far from the financial district where he works, and he just moved into a sweet new two-bedroom apartment—perfect for a night like tonight. I’ve spent the night here more than once after drinking too much and because it’s just an easy place to go with a woman. His guest bedroom is practically my second home.

  His doorman knows I’m coming, and he lets me in. When I get up to his eighth floor apartment, the yoga girls are demonstrating some of their yoga poses for Miller. In what I can only describe as doggie style, both girls are bent forward at the waist with their hands flat on the ground and their feet behind them. I walk in to two dress-clad asses up in the air, and I grin over at Miller. From this angle, it looks as though both are wearing thongs. One is wearing a hot pink one for sure, and the other has a little bit of a shadow marring my ability to get a good look at the color.

  You’re welcome, he mouths in my direction.

  I chuckle.

  “Oh, hi!” Pink thong has noticed my arrival, and, lucky me, it’s the blonde Miller promised me. She straightens.

  “Hi. Don’t let me stop you,” I say.

  She giggles. “Miller asked us to help him with his downward dog, so we’re just demonstrating.”

  “I could use a little help myself,” I say, and I move toward her as she bends at the waist again.

  Sometimes this shit is just too goddamn easy.

  CHAPTER 9

  SYLVIE

  Should I have gone with him for just one more drink?

  I sit in my hotel room as I wonder.

  I did the right thing.

  It’s after eleven here in New York. I called William when I got back to the room, but he sent me to voicemail; he’s at that event tonight, so I didn’t really expect him to answer. It’s only eight back home, and I’m restless. I haven’t adjusted to this time zone yet despite the fact that I took a redeye to get here and only slept an hour or two on the plane. I need to hear William’s soft voice warming my ear. He’ll call me when he can, but that could be hours from now and I could be sleeping.

  I can’t stop seeing the expression on Carson’s face when he told me he didn’t want the company. He was forlorn, sincere. An air of loneliness surrounded him.

  He’s surely the life of every party. Men who look like that and have the personalities to match always are. He has earned the right to be confident. He’s got it all—the looks, the money, the charm—but as I got to know him a little bit tonight, it’s clear that despite all that, he isn’t happy. It must be lonely to be at the top and have no one to talk to.

  Maybe that’s why he chose me. Our lives are similar; mine is just on a much smaller scale. I’m not necessarily being groomed to take over Baker, but I do work for my family’s company. I understand what it’s like to be expected to work there. The difference is that I actually like my job. From the sound of it, he doesn’t.

  His words replay in my head for the millionth time. I feel like I’m taking something from you, so I wanted to give you something to take from me.

  His velvety voice wrapped around those words as he gave me a piece of him that no one else owns. My concern is that he gave me more than just a confession, and my fear is that I’m going to hold it and protect it.

  It’s a big responsibility, owning that part of him, and I think about what I could do with it.

  I could tell my board. They’d think twice before selling their shares to someone who’s not even invested in the future of the company…wouldn’t they?

  I’d like to think they would, but the truth is, Carson is right: money talks, and he’s got it. He can do whatever he wants with it, and I hate him for it. I hate what he’s going to do to Baker.

  But I don’t hate him.

  I want to see him again.

  I shake my head, vehemently denying the traitorous part of my brain that allowed that thought to surface.

  I will see him again. He’ll be my boss. He’ll come in, steal the company, and be there to reorganize it—unless he hands the dirty work off to his lackeys, but really, it seems like that’s what his father did when he enlisted Carson to try to get my dad to sell.

  My dad.

  I try not to let the tears fill my eyes as I think about him. Aside from my mom, I’m the only one who knows—not even William is aware. He doesn’t want his employees to think he’s weak, but the disease will eventually take over his body.

  It started on his left side, which is better than his right since he’s right-handed. It was a little tremor in his hand, something he couldn’t control. He hid it, pretended it wasn’t happening, but then his handwriting started to change—so he worked hard to boost technology, to go paperless. He started losing sleep, feeling dizzy. Eventually my mom made him see his doctor, and he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s.

  He says he’s still in the early stages, that he’s fine, but I’ve seen him lose his balance when he thought no one was looking. I’ve seen him change before my eyes. He’s still got his mind, though. That’ll always be his…until it’s not anymore.

  I leap up from the couch and resume my pacing to force a change of energy and a change of thought.

  Sitting in a hotel room staring out at the New York skyline from the little couch by the window is doing nothing for my restlessness. I do need another drink, actually, and I wish it were with Carson. I wish I could tell him about my father. I can’t tell William; my dad made me promise to keep it to myself. I need to talk about it, though, and Carson shared
his deepest secret with me tonight.

  But I can’t give ammunition to the enemy. If he knew what we were going through on a personal level, it would be so much easier for him to come in and take what isn’t his.

  I slip my shoes back on and head down to the lobby bar. A glass of wine even by myself in a hotel bar has got to be better than sitting up in the room with nothing but my thoughts to keep me company.

  Just as I order a glass of red, my phone lights up with an incoming call. William Rutherford.

  I pick up the call. “Hi. How’s Canterbury?”

  “Insufferable without you. How was your dinner meeting?” The sound of his voice throws a big, wet dose of guilt over my head.

  How was my dinner meeting? I’m not totally sure how to answer that. “It was…interesting.”

  The bartender sets my wine in front of me and I hand him my credit card.

  “Did you get him to cease the takeover?”

  “No,” I mutter. “There’s no way to stop him. I even brought up diluting shares, and he has more money than he knows what to do with.” I sip my wine, and it warms the ache in my chest.

  “We don’t have time to dilute shares, and I’m not convinced the board would agree to it anyway.”

  “Why not?”

  William is quiet for a beat, and my heart races as I grip the stem of my wineglass.

  “William, why not?”

  He lets out a sigh. “There are some rumors going around. I don’t want to talk about it over the phone.”

  “What kind of rumors?”

  It’s quiet on his end.

  “William.” My voice is sharp and pointed, and he sighs again.

  “People are worried about your dad.”

  “What people?”

  “Board members.”

  “Which ones?”

  “The insiders.”

  I blow out a breath. “All of them?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re one of them,” I remind him.

  “I am.”

  “What are you worried about?”

  “He’s making mistakes, Sylvie.” His voice is gentler than it was a few seconds ago. He’s trying to soften the blow.