do you feel like?’
Her cheeks rush with pink in that way she has.
‘For dinner,’ I clarify, grinning, anticipation tightening my gut, and in all parts of me, as I look forward to how I know this night will end.
‘Oh.’ She bites down on her lower lip; I brush my thumb over her flesh, so she parts her mouth and bites the pad of my thumb instead. ‘Pizza?’
‘A girl after my own heart.’
‘There’s a great place just a few blocks away.’
‘I’ll get delivery.’ I move towards the kitchen bench, lifting my phone and loading the app. I place an order for a few different ones. When I turn around, she’s stripped down to her underwear, her eyes locked to mine with an intensity that almost bowls me over.
‘Hot tub?’
Hell to the yeah. I nod, affecting an air of calm nonchalance. ‘Go ahead. It’s warm. I’ll grab some beers.’
I hear her squawk as she steps out onto the balcony—it’s just below zero out there. I turn around just in time to see her running across the tiles and up the one step before sliding in over the edge, so just her head bobs up. The relief on her face takes my breath away.
So does the fact she’s here, in my penthouse, her smile, her eyes, her body, her laugh.
I spin away and yank out some beers, cracking the tops of them as I walk, placing hers on the edge of the hot tub.
‘Oh, thank God, it’s real beer.’
‘What did you expect?’
‘Tepid lager?’ she says with an impish grin.
I laugh, stripping out of my clothes, down to my jocks, and stepping over the edge of the spa. She’s watching me with undisguised hunger and my dick reacts accordingly.
‘It did take me a while but it turns out I’ve developed a taste for your beer.’
She sips from her bottle, moving to one of the seats on the edge of the tub. Manhattan sparkles beneath us, an array of little tiny lights that make up a thriving island metropolis.
‘Do you think you’ll miss it?’
‘American beer?’
‘New York,’ she corrects, smiling.
‘Yeah.’ I’m surprised by how deep the word comes out, and troubled seeming.
‘I can’t imagine not living here,’ she says, simply.
‘You don’t miss home?’
‘LA?’ Her face is one of disgust. ‘I miss it during the winter,’ she says after a second. ‘And I miss some people. And I guess there’s always a nostalgia for where you grew up, so that on certain days I find myself thinking about the way the light would hit my bedroom wall, and I long to go back. Not to LA but to when I was a teenager and everything was so much simpler.’
It’s a fascinating statement.
‘In what way is your life no longer simple?’
‘Are you kidding? My life is a study in clean simplicity,’ she says with a self-deprecating smile. ‘No mess, no fuss, no complications. I mean that people aren’t simple. Life is messy and complicated, no matter how hard you try to fight that. I can control only so much, you know?’
‘You sound like someone who’s been hurt,’ I prompt with curiosity, swimming across to her and taking the seat right beside her, careful not to touch because touching Imogen invariably leads to much, much more.
‘Not really.’ But she’s lying.
‘Imogen?’
Her eyes fix to mine, her pupils huge, swallowing up almost all of her icy blue. ‘I’m just speaking generally,’ she says unconvincingly, after a lengthy pause.
There’s more to it, I’m sure of it. ‘As you get older,’ I say, sipping my beer, ‘things do get more complex.’
‘Yes.’ She smiles, a little uneasily. ‘You come to understand people and their motivations better.’
We’re quiet a moment, reflective.
‘So what happens when you go home?’ It’s a clunky attempt to change the topic but I let it go. My wheels are turning, wondering what she was thinking about a minute ago, and we’ll come back to it later, when she’s a little more relaxed, less guarded.
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean, do you become the Playboy of London?’
Frustration nips at my heels, a frustration that’s hard to fathom. ‘No, I expect not.’
‘I can’t really see you hanging up your bachelor shoes.’
‘It’s been five years since what would have been my wedding day,’ I say with a shrug. ‘Five years of the kind of pace of life that would wear anyone down.’
‘You’re over it?’
I shake my head, surprised to realise that I’m speaking the truth. ‘I’m ready for the next phase of my life.’
Her eyes skim my face, perhaps trying to see if I’m being honest.
‘I wouldn’t necessarily be going home,’ I continue, ‘if it weren’t for my father’s demands.’
‘Demands?’ she prompts, moving to close the space between us. ‘You don’t seem like someone anyone could make demands of.’
‘His insistence, then.’
‘Same deal.’ She laughs softly.
‘He’s my father,’ I point out. ‘He holds a certain power.’
‘I can understand that,’ she says, her forehead crinkling with her frown. ‘Even when I’m someone who’s turned disobedience into an art form.’ It’s said lightly, with a curve of her lips, but I feel there’s more to it.
‘You? Miss Strait-Laced?’
‘Do I really seem that strait-laced to you?’ she points out with a slow, tempting wink.
‘Not in bed,’ I assure her. ‘But everywhere else.’
She opens her mouth but closes it again, grimacing slightly.
‘That wasn’t a criticism.’
‘I know. And you’re right. This…’ she waves from her chest to mine, inadvertently drawing my gaze downwards ‘…is the craziest thing I’ve done in years—probably since I put as much of my trust fund as I could get my hands on into the charity.’
So many questions fire in my mind. ‘So
