Midnight At Tiffany's (From Manhattan with Love 0.50)

She wondered if she’d misunderstood. “You want me to take you to Central Park?”

“Why not?”

There were a million reasons. For a start, he was a stranger. Matilda knew better than to go walking in Central Park with a stranger. Matilda would make the safe, sensible choice, say no and go home to her one-room apartment that rattled and shook every time a train passed. She’d sit on her own, drink her sad little Cup-a-Soup and contemplate how she was going to support herself now that she’d lost her job.

That was Matilda’s life, but she was tired of being Matilda. Right now, being Matilda sucked.

There was a long, pulsing silence while she hovered between reality and fiction.

A champagne-soaked curl wafted in front of her eyes and he lifted a hand and gently pushed it back.

His touch was electric. Sensation shot through her, so sharp she almost gasped.

“I think that sounds like a great idea.” The words fell out of her mouth, and his mouth curved into a sexy smile that sent ripples of heat through her body.

“In that case we should at least perform basic introductions. I’m—” He hesitated briefly and then held out his hand. “Alex.”

Alex, she thought. It was a good strong name. Maybe she should change her hero’s name to Alex. At the moment he was Charles, but she was beginning to think that didn’t fit her character.

She imagined Lara murmuring “Alex” as she kissed her way down his ripped, muscular frame.

“Alex—”

“That’s right. And now it’s your turn.”

Distracted, Matilda stared at him. Her turn? Her turn to do what?

He raised an eyebrow in silent question and she realized he was waiting for her to tell him her name, not do unspeakable things to his body.

Silence throbbed around them. She felt the strength of his hand on hers and her heart thudded against her ribs like the drum in an orchestra.

I’m Matilda.

Matilda.

Matilda.

“Lara,” she said huskily. “My name is Lara. Lara Striker.” Kick-ass heroine and all-around bad girl. “Pleased to meet you.”

CHAPTER THREE

IT WAS SO unusual not to be recognized, especially when leaving one of his own events, that for a moment Chase wondered if she was playing an elaborate game, but experience had taught him to spot a fake and one glance at her face told him that she really didn’t recognize him.

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sp; She’d been at his party and yet she didn’t know who he was? He was intrigued, then disgusted with himself.

Was that what this life had done to him? Was he really so full of his own self-importance that he thought everyone should know who he was? He shook his head, weary, disillusioned and at the same time relieved that she didn’t recognize him.

There would be no conversation about investments, no pushing him for his predictions about the property market and building costs. Just a genuine interaction between two people with no hidden agenda.

It was such a refreshing situation he hardly knew what to do with it.

“So, Lara, why did you leave the party? Were you bored? Was the food terrible? Or was it simply that you’d been showered by champagne?” He saw her hesitate. “You can be honest. I left, too, remember?”

Her gaze slid from his. “It didn’t really work out for me.”

“Why not? You were hoping to meet someone?”