“But you were born in Brooklyn. You’re a genuine New Yorker.”
“Yes.” All through his early years when he’d felt rootless and insecure, like a rescue dog that no one had wanted to rescue, the city had been the one constant in his life. The place he’d slept had changed, the people who had taken him in had changed, but New York had stayed the same.
It was home.
Paige gazed at the Chrysler Building, its famous steel-and-glass rooftop illuminated against the midnight-blue sky like a jeweled wizard’s hat. “Name another city where you can see anything as beautiful as that? It’s pure fairy tale.”
He didn’t disagree. “William Van Alen, the architect, secretly constructed the spire in the ventilation shaft and raised it in ninety minutes. Made it higher than 40 Wall Street, which was being constructed at the same time. Can you imagine thinking you’re building the tallest building in the world, and then looking up and seeing that?” As someone with a brutally competitive nature, Jake appreciated the motivation behind the action. “They must have been so mad. The added height made it the tallest building until they constructed the Empire State Building.”
She smiled. “It’s magical. My favorite building in New York.”
He knew people who came to New York just to say they’d done it. People who stayed awhile, then left because they needed space, a yard, an apartment where they didn’t have to use the oven for storage, or slog down ten floors to do the laundry. No honking of horns, no sirens, no venting of steam, cleaner air, a slower pace—there were a million reasons to leave.
Jake only saw the reasons to stay, and Paige was the same.
He raised his glass to her. “To you, city girl.”
“To you, city boy.” She tapped her glass against his and drank. “Do you think New York is a man or a woman?”
The question made him smile. “It’s a woman. So many different moo
ds, the way she plays with people’s emotions—has to be a woman, don’t you think?” he teased.
“I don’t know.” She tilted her head, her expression thoughtful. “It could be a man. An elusive billionaire, showy about his wealth, secretive about his dark side. You think you know him, but he’s always capable of surprising you.”
“It’s definitely a woman. So many different looks. A whole closet of different things to wear.”
The crowd had increased and music drifted from the dance floor and floated into the night.
Ahead of them lay the Empire State Building and, beyond that, the bright lights of Broadway. The lights dazzled and danced, a city permanently awake.
Paige touched his arm. “Do you want to dance?”
He turned his head and looked into her eyes.
He wanted to do something with her, but it wasn’t dancing.
Dancing would mean holding her, and holding her would mean body contact and he wasn’t going there. “I don’t dance.”
Her smile dimmed. “Right. Of course.” She finished her drink and put her glass down. “It’s so pretty out here for a moment I forgot this was all about business. So let’s do this. See the venue properly. I’ll walk you through my ideas, and then you can do whatever it is you have planned for the rest of the night.” She walked away, elegant, dignified and all woman.
But not his woman.
Never his woman.
Jake stared after her, his gaze traveling from her ankles to her hips and lingering there.
He’d look around the venue, make all the right noises, and then go home and dance with a bottle of whiskey.
* * *
WHAT HAD SHE been thinking?
She’d asked him to dance, as if this was a date.
What was the matter with her? Where was her brain?
For a moment, under the glittering starlit sky and lights of Manhattan, she’d forgotten to keep her distance. She’d stopped thinking of Jake as a client and started thinking of him as a man.