Beautiful Stranger (Beautiful Bastard 2)

“I do like him,” I admitted carefully. “But I don’t think he’s boyfriend material. In fact, I know he’s not. And I am most definitely not girlfriend material right now.”

“Okay, so maybe you just get together every now and then as f**k buddies.”

I laughed, pressing my face into my hands. “Seriously. Whose life is this?”

She looked at me like she wanted to pat my head. “Sara, it’s yours.”

George was reading a newspaper in my office with his feet up on my desk when I returned.

“Working yourself to the bone?” I teased, sitting on the corner of my desk.

“On my lunch break. And you had a package arrive, darling.”

“You found it in the mailroom?”

He shook his head and lifted the parcel off his lap, waving it at me. “Hand delivered. By a very cute bike messenger, I might add. I had to sign for it and promise not to open it.”

I snatched it from him and jerked my chin to the door, wordlessly telling George to scram.

“You’re not even going to tell me what it is?”

“I don’t have X-ray vision, and you are not going to be here when I open it. Get out.”

With a noise of protest, he kicked his feet off my desk and left, closing my door on his way out.

I stared at the package for several minutes, feeling the rectangular shape of it beneath the padded envelope. A frame? My heart jumped in my chest.

Tucked inside were a wrapped parcel and a note that read,

Petal,

Open this with discretion. It is my favourite.

Your stranger.

I swallowed, feeling a little as if I were on the verge of unleashing something I would no longer be able to contain. Looking up to ensure that my door was firmly shut, I unwrapped it, my hands shaking when I realized that it was indeed a frame. Made of deep, simply cut wood, it held a single photo: a picture of my stomach, and the curve of my waist. The black table beneath me was visible. Max’s fingertips were also visible at the bottom, as if he was pinning me to the surface at my hips. A faint beam of light spread across my skin, a reminder of the door opening nearby, of the person wandering around the room just beyond the screen.

He must have taken that picture just as he’d buried himself in me.

I closed my eyes, remembering how it had felt when I came. I was like a bare wire, plugged into the wall and with the charge that would illuminate that dark ballroom running through me instead. He’d bared my clit with his fingers, stroked me just like that. I’d wanted to close my legs against the intensity of it, but he’d growled, held me open with his pounding hips.

I shoved the frame back in the mailing envelope and hid the entire thing in my purse. Heat spread like a clawing vine across my skin and I couldn’t even turn up the air, couldn’t open a window this high in the building.

How did he know?

I felt the weight of it pressing down on me, how much I’d wanted it to be a photo of us, how much I’d wanted to be seen. He understood, maybe more than I did myself.

Stumbling to my desk, I sat down and tried to take stock of the situation. But directly in front of me was today’s New York Post, open to Page Six.

There, smack in the middle of the page, was a story titled, Sex God Stella Goes Solo.

The playboy millionaire venture capitalist tried something a little new Saturday night at MoMA.

No, it wasn’t looking at art, and it most certainly wasn’t raising money (let’s be honest: the man already raises money better than every slot machine in Vegas). Saturday night at his annual fund-raiser to benefit Alex’s Lemonade Stand Foundation, Max Stella arrived . . . alone.

When asked where his date was, he simply said, “I’m hoping she’s already inside.”

Unfortunately for us, photographers were forbidden from the event.

We’ll get you next time, Mad Max.

I stared down at the paper, knowing George had put it here for me to see and was probably now laughing to himself.

My hands shook as I folded it and shoved it in a drawer. Why hadn’t it occurred to me that a photographer could have been in there? That there were no photographers in the event at all was a miracle. And although Max had certainly known this, I hadn’t, and I hadn’t even thought to care.

“Crap,” I whispered. I knew, with sudden clarity, that this thing between us either needed to end absolutely, or I needed some semblance of control. Feeling relieved in hindsight was a slippery slope, and I’d already dodged three bullets in my first week.

I hit the spacebar on my laptop to wake up my computer and googled the location of “Stella & Sumner.”

I couldn’t help but smile. “Of course.”

Thirty Rockefeller Plaza.

Stella & Sumner took up half of the seventy-second floor of the GE Building, one of the most iconic buildings in the city. Even I recognized it from blocks away.

However, for such a well-known venture capital firm, I was surprised how little space it required. Then again, it took very little to run a company that basically just raised and invested money: Max, Will, some junior executives, and assorted math brainiacs.

My heart was hammering so fast I had to count ten deep breaths, and then duck into a bathroom just outside their office doors to get myself together.

I checked each stall to ensure it was empty, and then looked myself right in the eye. “If you’re doing this with him, remember three things, Sara. One, he wants what you want. Sex, no strings. You don’t owe him more. Two, don’t be afraid to ask for what you want. And three”—I stood up straighter, taking a deep breath—“be young. Have fun. Turn the rest off.”

Back in the hall, the glass doors to Stella & Sumner opened automatically when I approached and an older female receptionist greeted me with a genuine smile.

“I’m here to see Max Stella,” I said, returning it. She had a familiar smile, familiar brow. I glanced down and read her name placard: BRIGID STELLA.

Holy crap, did his mother work as his receptionist?

“Do you have an appointment, love?”

Her accent was just like his. I jerked my attention back to her face. “No, actually. I was hoping I could just get a minute.”

“What’s your name?”

“Sara Dillon.”

She smiled—but not a knowing smile, thank God—looked at her computer, and then nodded a little to herself before picking up the phone. “I’ve got a Sara Dillon here hoping for a chat.” She listened for barely three seconds and then said, “Right.”