Beautiful Stranger (Beautiful Bastard 2)

“Lucky, yes . . .” Smiling, Bennett took his seat again, looking up at me. “But I’m afraid you’ll have to find your luck somewhere else. I’m quite fond of my testicles; I’d like to keep them. I’m not going to smooth the way for you here.”

“You always were a prick.”

“So I’ve heard. Lunch Thursday?”

“You bet.”

I left Bennett’s office intent on having a look around the company’s new quarters. They’d taken over three floors of the building and I’d heard they’d already had quite a bit of work done. The spacious atrium was breathtaking, but the office areas were just as lush, with wide hallways, travertine floors, and plenty of natural light coming through windows, glass block walls, and skylights. Each office seemed to have a small sitting area—nothing to match Bennett’s, but perfect for sit-downs that didn’t call for the formality of a conference room.

That said, the conference room was breathtaking: a wall of windows looking out on midtown Manhattan, a wide polished walnut table that seated at least thirty, and state-of-the-art technology for presentations.

“Not bad, Ben,” I murmured, walking back into the hallway and staring up at a large Timothy Hogan photography installment. “Good taste in art for a total wanker.”

“What are you doing here?”

I looked up to find a very surprised Sara frozen halfway down the hall. I couldn’t help breaking into a grin; this really was my lucky day.

Or . . . not, if her expression was any indication.

“Sara!” I sang. “What a lovely surprise. I was just at a meeting. I’m Max, by the way. Pleasure to finally put a name to the”—I dropped my eyes and studied her chest, and then the rest of her, through her snug black dress—“face.”

Christ, she was hot.

When I looked back up, her eyes had grown to roughly the size of dinner plates. Honestly, the woman had the most enormous brown eyes. If they were any bigger, she’d be a lemur.

She grabbed my arm, pulling me down a hallway, her fitted knee-high boots clacking on the stone tiles.

“Lovely to see you again so soon, Sara.”

“How did you find me?” she whispered.

“A friend of a friend.” I waved my hand dismissively and looked her over. Her bangs were swept to the side and held in place by a tiny red clip, which matched her full crimson lips. She looked like she had stepped right out of some sixties photo shoot. “Sara is quite a lovely name, you know.”

She narrowed her eyes. “I should have guessed you’re a psychopath.”

I laughed. “Not quite.”

A young woman walked by, ducking her head and muttering a timid, “Good afternoon, Miss Dillon,” before scampering away.

And we have a last name. Thank you, terrified intern!

“Aaah, Sara Dillon,” I crowed. “Perhaps we could continue this conversation in a more private location?”

She looked around and dropped her voice. “I’m not having sex with you in my office, if that’s what you’re here for.”

Oh, she was fantastic. “I actually just came by to welcome you properly to New York. But I suppose I could just do that out here . . .”

“You have two minutes,” she said, turning on her heel and moving toward her office.

We turned corner after corner, finally reaching another smaller reception area lined in windows overlooking the city skyline. A young man sitting at a circular desk looked up at us as we passed.

“I’ll be in my office, George,” she said over her shoulder. “No interruptions, please.”

With the door closed behind us, she turned to face me. “Two minutes.”

“If pressed, I could get you off in two minutes.” I stepped forward, reaching out to brush my thumb along her hip. “But I think we both know that you’d like me to take longer.”

“Two minutes to explain why you’re here,” she clarified, her voice shaking slightly. “And how you found me.”

“Well,” I began, “I met this woman on Saturday. Fucked her against a wall, in fact. And I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her. She was extraordinary. Beautiful, funny, sexy as hell. But she didn’t give me her name, and she left me with nothing but her knickers. That could hardly even be considered a trail of breadcrumbs.” I closed the distance between us, tucking her hair behind her ear and running my nose along the side of her jaw. “And when I came this morning, touching myself while thinking about how she felt, I still didn’t know what name to say.”

Clearing her throat, Sara pushed me away, moving to the other side of her desk. “That doesn’t explain how you found me,” she said, cheeks flushed.

I’d seen her under the strobe lights, head thrown back and eyes closed, but I wanted to see her bare, with the sunlight streaming in through her office windows. I wanted to know exactly how far that blush would spread down her body.

I dropped the teasing bit a little. This Sara was so starkly different from the flirtatious Chicago transplant I’d met at the bar. “I happened to see you at lunch yesterday with Ben. We go way back. I simply put two and two together and hoped I’d see you again.”

“You told Bennett about Saturday?” she hissed, and the flush I’d been admiring drained from her face.

“God, no. I assure you, I don’t have a death wish. I just asked for your number. He refused.”

Her shoulders relaxed the smallest bit. “Okay.”

“Look, it’s a coincidence that I saw you, and I’m coming off a bit strong by being here, but I did want to see Ben regardless. If you ever want to have dinner . . .” I dropped my card on her desk and turned to leave.

“The video,” she said abruptly. “What did you do with it?”

I turned back, and the urge to tease her became almost unbearable. But the longer I took to answer, the more panicked she appeared.

Finally she broke. “Did you put it on YouTube or PornTube or whatever sites people use?”

I burst out laughing, unable to keep it in. “What?”

“Just please tell me you didn’t.”

“God, of course not! I’ll admit I’ve watched it approximately seven hundred thousand times. But, no, I would never share it.”

She looked down at her hands in front of her, picking at her fingernail. “Could I see it?”

What was that in her voice? Curiosity? Something more?