“What?”

“The first night we met, and then our first night in the warehouse in Brooklyn: the things you let me do. And then tonight, you flush at the word cunt.”

“I know!” I laughed, taking a sip of wine.

“I like that about you. I like your internal conflict, your sweetness. I like that you have this insanely wealthy family but I’ve seen you wear the same dress a few times.” He licked his lips and gave me a predatory smile. “Mostly, I like that you’re so clearly good and yet have let me do such bad things to you.”

“I don’t think they’re bad.”

“Ah, but that’s the point. Most people would think you were mad to meet me at that warehouse. You’re an American heiress and you let some whorish Brit take pictures of you naked. Take video of you masturbating in my office tonight just for the thrill of knowing I’ll watch it. But it’s what you’ve asked me for.”

He leaned back in his chair, watched me. He looked so serious, almost perplexed. “I’m a f**king bloke; I’m not going to say no to that. But I didn’t think women like you existed. So naïve in all these really obvious ways, yet so f**king sexual that a friendly, gentle little shag on a mattress would never be enough.”

I lifted my glass, took a sip while he watched my mouth. Licking my lips, I smiled at him. “I think you’ll find most women aren’t always satisfied by a friendly, gentle little shag on a mattress.”

Max laughed, murmuring, “Touché.”

“And that’s why the cameras and the women chase you,” I said, looking at him from over the top of my glass. “It’s more than the history with Cecily. If it were just that, they would have lost interest within a few weeks. But you’re the man from the paper with a different woman all the time. The one nobody can seem to catch. The man who obviously knows his way around a pu**y.”

Max’s eyes widened a little, pupils dilating like a drop of ink into the dusk sky. “I’m not with a different woman every night lately.”

Ignoring him, I finished my thought. “Women don’t always want to be treated like we’re delicate, or rare, or somehow more precious. We want to be wanted. We want sex to be just as raw as you do. You’re the guy who knows that.”

He leaned forward on his elbows, studying me. “But why do I feel like you’re the one giving me something special? Something you’ve never given anyone before?”

“Because I am.”

He opened his mouth to say something, but then my phone rang, vibrating where I’d put it on the table. And as both Max and I looked down at it, I knew we saw the name at exactly the same time.

ANDY CELL.

Twelve

I put Sara in a cab and watched as the taillights disappeared into the darkness.

Fuck.

She’d ignored the call at dinner, glancing at the screen before silencing it to vibrate against the table, but not before I saw who it was, and definitely not before I saw her try to hide her reaction.

ANDY CELL.

I’d never seen anyone shut down like that before; it was like someone flipped a switch and the light slowly drained from her face. She’d begun picking at her food and stopped talking, withdrawing into herself and answering in single-word sentences for the remainder of the meal. I’d tried to lighten the mood, told a few jokes and flirted with her shamelessly, but . . . nothing. After about ten minutes she’d put us both out of our misery, feigning a headache and insisting that she take a cab home. Alone.

Fuck.

I continued to stare off into the empty street as my car pulled up to the curb, idling quietly behind me. I waved off my driver, opening the door myself and climbing inside.

“Where to, Mr. Stella?”

“Let’s head home, Scott,” I said, slumping back into the seat. We pulled away and I watched the city rush by in a blur, my mood darkening with each block we passed.

Things had been going so well. She’d finally started to open up, to let me into that vault of a mind of hers. I was still reeling from her admission that her parents owned one of the largest luxury department store chains in the country, and then “Andy cell.” Fucking Andy cell.

Anger flared in my chest and for a brief moment I wondered how often they spoke. Six years was a long time and meant they had a history that would be hard to simply brush under the rug; I don’t know why I’d assumed he was completely out of her life. It made sense that she didn’t want to be in another relationship, but her forced distance always felt so much larger than that.