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“Every man needs his wits around a tempting woman.”
I rolled my eyes. “And every man needs a line that isn’t generic as hell.”
“Nothing about me is generic.” He stepped back, and my body missed the warmth and presence of him, the lost kiss crying out in the space between us. Snagging my wine glass from the counter, he downed it in one gulp. “Let’s go out on the balcony.”
* * *
Forty-two stories up seemed like a million. I stopped six feet from the railing and felt as if I was teetering on the edge of it.
“Not a fan of heights?” he asked.
“No.” I settled into a padded chaise lounge and kicked my feet up onto it. Reaching down, I pulled off my dirty and mismatched socks before I had to endure another second of them.
He walked over to the railing and put his weight on it, looking down at a gridlock of traffic and movement. “I’m terrified of heights. I fell out of a window when I was fourteen.” He turned to me, holding out his arm and pointing to a scar that ran halfway down his forearm. “Broke my arm and lost enough blood to drown a rat.”
His story didn’t match with the easy way he rested against the railing, his weight heavy, as if daring the iron barrier to give under the pressure.
“You don’t look scared to me.”
“I’m good at covering it.”
He jerked his head in the direction of the fall. “This scares the shit out of me. The height, the fall and what that distance could do to a body. But this railing is safer than that chair, safer than being close to you.”
“Then why am I here?”
He pushed away from the railing and stepped forward until his body blocked most of the view. The wind howled and I watched those gorgeous forearms as he brought his hands to his hips.
“Because I’m shitty at listening to reason. Because my wife is out of town and I have three uninterrupted days to figure out who Bell Hartley is and why I can’t stop thinking about her.” He met my eyes. “I think you need to figure out why you are here. You’ve got at least three good reasons to have slammed the door in Vince’s face.”
It was a fantastic point. I brought my knees to my chest and stole a glance of him out of the corner of my eye. He looked fearless. Strong. Damaged and repaired perfection. I met his eyes and felt my heart twist.
Why was I here?
Because he might be worth the risk to my heart.
“So… you brought me to a hotel suite.” I gave him a playful smile in an attempt to avoid the question. “Hoping to get lucky?”
“I was hoping you’d like the suite.”
“It’s a suite.” I shrugged. “It’s fine.”
He found that amusing, his mouth twitching. “A thousand-dollar-a-night suite, and it’s fine. You’re a tough woman to impress.”
“I’d rather be impressed by you, rather than your real estate holdings.”
“The suite was meant as a gesture of my commitment to a relationship with you. I’ve seen where you live. I’ve seen how hard you work. I want to provide for you, to give you a safe place to live.”
“You want me to live here?” I twisted in the chair and looked back through the large windows, re-examining the suite with new eyes. Gold-print wallpaper. A thick fur rug on top of the walnut-colored floors. A far cry from my crowded room, in the house that never sleeps, with the affordable rent.
“You’d like it here. Daily maid service.” He ticked off the pros on one hand. “All the room service you’d ever want. An expense account at the stores.”
He wanted a mistress. Someone he could keep quiet and happy with credit cards and jewelry. A new Meghan. Maybe, at an earlier moment in my life, with another man I couldn’t care less about, I might have been tempted. Now, I was only sad, feeling the ghost of Dario’s girlfriend hanging out in the space between us. “Was this Meghan’s?”
“No. I gave her until the end of the month to move out of hers.”
I made a face. So generous of him. So handy that he had a stack of available places to house his prospective fucks. “How long did you date her?”
He moved forward and sat on the end of my chaise lounge. “About five months.”
Five months. I thought of my pathetic night of moping, my descent into reality TV and ice cream. That had been after seven days. Five months would destroy me.
Our heights now equal, I studied him. “How long do most of them last?”
He reached for my hand, pulled it into his lap, and traced his fingers over the back of it. “I don’t want to talk about other women. I want to talk about us.” He looked at me and frustration tightened his features. “What don’t you like about the suite?”
