Page 1 of Late Night Talking
Chapter One
Islip into my shoes and look over my shoulder, watching my boyfriend fix the collar of his suit jacket before catching my eye in the mirror and winking. A smile spreads slowly across his face, and I turn away from it.
“Are you sure I should be going?” I ask.
Ethan crosses the room to me, slipping his arms around my waist and kissing along my neck. “Of course. I want you there beside me.” He reaches over to the vanity, where my necklace sits. He doesn’t have to ask me if I’m going to wear it tonight. It’s too nice to wear all the time—silver stars glittering with diamonds on a platinum chain—but if we’re going out for a night on the town, that necklace is going around my neck. He puts it on me, letting his fingers brush along my skin.
“It’s a business meeting.” I turn my head to look at him, and he settles a soft kiss on my lips before letting me go.
“You think these guys don’t bring whatever woman they’re fucking that week to business meetings?” I spin around, and Ethan’s eyes go wide, realizing what he said. “Hey, I didn’t mean it that way. I just meant that they bring dates, too.”
I’m not feeling terribly reassured, but he takes my face in his hands and makes me look into his eyes: dark, the color of midnight. “We’ve been together for three months. Isn’t that enough to prove you’re not just a one-night stand?”
I smile, feeling his words bubble low in my stomach. “I guess it’s a just classic ninety-night stand then.”
He chuckles and moves away from me, going back to the floor-length mirror on the closet door. He’s in his best suit, Gucci, and he honestly looks breathtaking. Sometimes I look at Ethan and I think he’s so beautiful, he must be a dream. And the fact that he’s with me? When I look in the mirror, I’m happy with what I see, but Ethan’s a ten, and I’ve always felt a little like I didn’t measure up. Just like I never quite felt like I was in the same league as—
“The truth is,” Ethan says, looking at me again in the mirror, “this guy we’re going to see. He terrifies me. More testosterone in his left eye than I’ve got in my whole body.” At this, I turn and make sure he sees me roll my eyes. I certainly don’t have any issues with Ethan’s testosterone levels. “But I need to land this deal with him or I’m not looking at a bonus this quarter. And no bonus this quarter—”
“Means no new, fancy apartment,” I finish for him. He’s told me this at least twenty times, and my body responds now the way it has the last twenty times: my stomach clenches, and my chest pulls tight. Because once Ethan gets his new, fancy apartment on the Strip, he wants me to move in with him. And I haven’t exactly told him no.
I brush my hair over my shoulder, trying not to ruin the perfect waves that I painstakingly put in this afternoon. “And how does one impress a man with that much testosterone in his left eye?”
Ethan’s hands stop tying the sleek tie he’s chosen for the night. “You bring your gorgeous girlfriend to prove you have a dick big enough to satisfy someone like her.”
I know it’s a joke, but it makes unease settle along my skin anyway.
∞∞∞
The restaurant that Ethan’s hotshot client chose is one that I’ve been to only once, and when we pull up, the memory is like a weight in my stomach.
Finn. He brought me here for our one-year anniversary dinner. And then he told me he had to move to London for a little while and asked me to go with him. If he had asked me a few months before, I would have saidyeswithout hesitation, but he asked me a week after I was made manager at Lilac, the cafe I’ve been working at for almost two years now. I knew I didn’t need that job. I knew that Finn would take care of me with his embarrassingly substantial bank account, but Lilac is the first thing I’ve ever been really good at that didn’t involve taking my clothes off, and I didn’t want to leave when I was finally making a way for myself in the world.
Ethan comes around to my side of the car and opens the door for me, helping out with one big, smooth hand. As soon as I’m out, my skirt fixed around my legs, he wraps an arm around my waist, pulling me tight to him in a possessive way. And I know it’s because we’re walking into Guy Savoy, a place that Ethan could never afford to take us himself. Ethan is pretty well off, working for the biggest accounting firm in Vegas, but he’s not raking in the millions the way the regulars at this place are. We’re only here because his prospective client is footing the bill. I smile up at him in reassurance, but his face is turned away from me.
At the door, the maître d’ greets us and shakes Ethan’s hand. “How may I help you tonight, sir?” he asks, stepping back behind his podium and giving Ethan a polite nod.
“We’re with Mr. Casey,” Ethan says back, and my whole body jerks like I just stuck my finger in a light socket. Ethan feels it and sends me a curious look.
All I can do is stare back at him. No. He didn’t just say Mr. Casey. He couldn’t have. He couldn’t have because Finn Casey hasn’t made an appearance in Vegas since…well, since the night my entire life crumbled. Not since the night he came back to visit after being in London for four months, and we sat on opposite sides of the bed, our backs to each other, while I told him I couldn’t do the long-distance thing anymore. The night I walked away from him and never saw him again, eight months ago.
Nerves rush along my skin, and when Ethan turns to follow the host to our table, he has to pull me along, my whole body in shock. The world seems too bright, the lights behind the wall sconces blinding as I stumble behind Ethan to the table. Have I stepped into some other universe?
I’m still trying to decipher how this could be real when we stop in front of a table, and there he is. He stands, giving me a full view of his tailored designer suit, and reaches out to shake Ethan’s hand. I haven’t looked at his face, haven’t let my eyes travel up any further than the top button of his shirt, because maybe if I don’t look, it won’t really be him, but I know it is. I know the set of his broad shoulders, I know the fit of his jacket, and more than anything, I know the deep rasp of his voice as he says, “And who is this?”
“This is my girlfriend, Devin. She’s always wanted to eat at the Savoy.”
I glance sideways at Ethan, but his chin is held high with pride. He has no idea how foolish he sounds. Firstly, because no one calls it the Savoy, and secondly, because Finn knows I’ve been to Guy Savoy. When I finally gather the courage to lift my eyes, I suddenly feel like I’m drowning. Those eyes, the ones I’ve seen in my dreams over and over again, are right there. Blue like a lake on a cold winter morning. And his face, blank and shielded, never giving anything away. He doesn’t reveal that he knows Ethan is full of shit, and he doesn’t reveal that he knows who I am, even though I feel like it must be written all over my face that I’m currently dying inside.
Finn leans politely across the table to shake my hand, and it’s like pressing my palm to a hot stovetop. He slips his hand away quickly, but I see the way his eyes drop, the way they take in the necklace and then move away so fast no one would ever notice he looked at all. But I know how to read Finn’s eyes like no one else does.
His jaw works as he settles back into his seat. Ethan pulls my chair out for me, and I watch the way Finn watches us, examining every movement Ethan and I make. This can’t be a coincidence. It can’t be. Why is Finn here? And why is he hiring a new accounting firm? I think about that day, so long ago, when I walked into that conference room and watched Finn shove a man against a wall for having the audacity to fuck around with his money. He hired a new accounting firm the next day, and I know for a fact that he loves that firm. He would never hire a new one.
So why the hell are we here?
We order wine, and then Finn leans back in his chair and folds his hands on the tabletop, showing off his favorite Rolex. “Alright, my friend. Dazzle me.”
They talk business as we have caviar and black truffle soup, Finn ordering a second bottle of wine and then a third, until heat is humming across my skin and Ethan has started to laugh at everything. He doesn’t seem bothered by the way Finn stares at him with that expressionless look he always wears. Maybe because that’s Finn’s reputation, the man you can’t break.
