“Don’t forget your umbrella. We wouldn’t want that pretty face to get soaked,” Townsend whispered in my ear, sending another delicious tingle through my body. What was it with this man and whispering? Couldn’t he just talk like normal people? I reached blindly around me and yanked my umbrella out of his hand. Without a look back I marched out of the bar, keeping my head high. Only when I reached the parking lot twenty feet from the bar’s main entrance did I stop and finally let out a long breath.
The night air had cooled down. I shrugged into my coat and hurried to unlock the door to my Chevrolet. It was an old thing, but it had been a graduation gift from my stepdad, so I loved it. Even though it was a pain driving in the city, I preferred it to being stuck in a cab with a male driver I couldn’t trust.
I jammed the car into first gear and pulled out of the parking lot. My gaze brushed over the stranger towering in the bar’s doorway, watching me a moment before I drove past.
Did he follow me out? My heartbeat sped up but I didn’t halt. If anything, I floored the accelerator and the car spluttered forward. The engine lets out a drawn-out protest, but I didn’t care. Whatever Townsend’s business was, I decided he was a creep, and I had no intention of ever seeing him again. I was definitely not the kind of woman who’d ever succumb to a hard body and dimples to die for.
I reached my tiny apartment in Brooklyn Heights in less than an hour and parked the car opposite from the five-story building that had been my home ever since graduating from college two years ago. The street was damp and deserted. The street lamp in front of the building cast a golden glow on the steel door, which led into a narrow hall with a lobby area. Minding the large rain puddles, I fished my keys out of my bag and let myself in, then rode the elevator up to the fifth floor.
My roommate and best friend, Sylvie, wasn’t home. Ever since she landed the investment job of her dreams, she barely ever made it home before midnight. I had been taught to put one hundred and ten percent into everything I did, but Sylvie took working hard to a whole new level. She went so far as to sacrifice her hobbies, friendships, and health by doing unpaid overtime in an attempt to gain recognition for all the extra effort. Any attempts I ever initiated to make her realize just how unhealthy her stress level had become were futile so far, but I wasn’t going to give up.
Dropping the umbrella into a brass holder and my handbag and coat on the old coffee table in the hall, I kicked my shoes off and headed for the kitchen to pour myself a much-earned glass of wine. I was halfway through my second glass when the key turned in the lock and Sylvie’s blonde head popped into my line of vision.
“What a surprise!” I sat up and pointed at my glass. “Want one?”
“You better have a bottle.” She slumped onto the couch next to me and put her long legs up. I scanned from her striped skirt that rode just above her knee up to her face and damp, blonde hair. Something was different. Her mascara was smudged. The skin beneath her blue eyes was swollen and red as though she had been crying, which was impossible. Sylvie wasn’t the crying kind. In all the years we had been best friends, I never once saw her shed a tear. She never looked anything less than perfect and happy.
I sat up, instantly feeling something was wrong. “What happened?”
“I got the boot.”
“What?”
She took the glass out of my hands and drained it in one big gulp. “They kicked me out. Said something about not needing another intern. Blah blah.” She rolled her eyes. “Whatever.”
“Oh, crap.” I shook my head in disbelief. “But you worked so hard.”
“I know, right? But you know what? I am okay. C’est la vie. Time to move on.” She jumped up, and a smile spread across her lips. “Let’s get plastered.”
I narrowed my gaze. There was something in the way she avoided looking at me that raised my suspicion. “Wait!” I grabbed her arm and pulled her back down on the sofa. “You’re not telling me everything.”
She rolled her eyes again.
“Spill it,” I said.
She pressed her mouth into a tight line.
“Sylvie,” I prompted.
“Fine. I slept with the boss.”
My jaw dropped. “No.”
She nodded. “I did. His personal assistant, who’s best buddies with his wife, started to suspect. So the bastard got the jitters and decided to get rid of me.”
“Is that even legal?”
Was it?
Sylvie shrugged. “Probably not, but it’s a small world, and I need this reference if I ever want to land another banking job.”
“The bastard,” I mirrored her words. Sylvie was the brightest person I knew. She had graduated in the top of her class, and any firm would have been happy to have her. “You’ll find something else in no time.” I had no doubt about that.
She smirked. “Yeah, only next time remind me not to screw the boss, no matter how hot he is. You’re so lucky you have Sean. At least he’s not married and lying to you about not having slept in the same bed with the wife for the last two years. Talk about cliché.”
My arms wrapped around Sylvie, and she leaned her head against my shoulder the way she always did when a relationship turned sour. They always did, whether we wanted it or not.
“Sean’s not perfect, you know. And I don’t want commitment,” I said.