“Nine sisters?” He nearly dropped his slice of pizza.
“I’m second to last.” And maybe that was why I didn’t care about bringing a husband and babies into the family. There were already more than enough of them to make my mother and father happy for the rest of their lives. I’d spent enough time feeling crowded and overlooked.
But it wasn’t just feeling neglected. I just hadn’t ever wanted in on the traditional family style that everyone else seemed to be drawn to. When my sisters were playing “bride” with their Barbies, I was playing “orgy.” When they were playing “mommy” with their baby dolls, I was off making mud pies with the boys or sneaking my aunt’s trashy romance novels.
For years I’d been dragged to church, been made to feel by the nuns that my lack of desire to grow up to be a wife and mommy were failings to be overcome. Thankfully I had parents that understood and encouraged my individuality. They didn’t understand, but they loved me despite my unwillingness to conform. And as soon as I was old enough, I was the only child of theirs they supported living on her own in the city.
And, thank the lord, because that’s when my life finally began. My adulthood was for me. My space. My time. I lived the kind of life I’d always dreamed of, and I never regretted it.
Well, almost never.
“Nine sisters? That’s insane!” Nate exclaimed.
“They were trying for a boy,” I said, rolling my eyes. “As all good Italian Catholics do.”
“I’m glad they kept trying.” Our eyes met and I felt a wave of heat crash into me. There was so much tension between us. Good tension. The kind of tension that I knew how to work with. I moved a little closer so that my knee would press against his, accidentally of course.
“What about you? How did a millionaire ad executive become so good at the game? This doesn’t look like the type of environment where I would think Reach execs would hang out.”
“Some of them would,” he said, considering. “Cade plays a pretty good game, but he’ll hustle you. Unlike most of the rest of them, I wasn’t born with a silver spoon in my mouth. This was my type of thing growing up as well.”
“You’re from New York City?” I couldn’t hear any accent in his voice to tell for sure.
“Southern California.”
“How did you end up here?” I didn’t know a lot about the ad firm he worked for, but I knew some. Like that there were five men who owned the worldwide conglomerate, and most of them had been well-bred financial moguls, carrying on their family traditions. It was easy to see how they’d all met and ended up working together, except for Nate. How did he fit in?
“Well, that’s an interesting story,” he said. “I met Donovan Kincaid a while back, when he was looking for someone to be in charge of Creative in the company. At the time I was an art dealer.”
“An art dealer.” Explained his eye for detail. “That sounds sexy. How did you get into that line of work?”
“I kind of fell into the business after school. I was good with art. Always had an eye for it even though I wasn’t the best artist myself. I worked at a gallery for a while learning the ins and outs, met the right people, then got hired by a private donor. Soon I was dealing in high-priced art. By the time I met Donovan I’d made a fortune in the biz.”
“Wow. I know nothing about that kind of work. What was it like?” Was it as awesome as I assumed?
“Amazing. Glamorous. It was a job that took me around the world. I saw a lot of things, met a lot of people. It was a really crazy, fascinating time in my life.”
“Then how the hell did Donovan Kincaid convince you to give that up and come work in an office behind a desk?” His life before Reach sounded so exciting, so thrilling. Exactly the kind of thing I would be into in another time and place. I couldn’t understand why he’d want to trade the world, a life of travel and prestige, for something so stifling—a nine-to-five at a desk trying to please clients and sell customers with his team’s ads.
“It’s definitely not as exciting,” Nate admitted. “But it’s a hell of a lot more legal.”
I gasped. “You dealt in stolen art?” I didn’t know if I was appalled or turned on. Both? It was so nervy. So outrageous. So adventurous.
“A lot of it was stolen, yeah.” He looked down at his wine, a bit ashamed, maybe. Or maybe he didn’t want me to see how unashamed he was. “It was a lot of fun. But high stress. When Donovan approached me, I was about to turn forty. I figured it was time to settle down, so to speak. Not that I’m completely settled,” he corrected. “I still travel a lot. Still grab waves whenever I have the chance to surf. Love my bike. Still deal a piece of art here and there. Legal art, these days. Of course.”
“Nathan Sinclair, you might be the sexiest man I’ve ever met. And I have met a lot of sexy men.”
He found my knee under the table, and he pushed his hand higher, up under my skirt to my bare thigh. “Does that mean I can come home with you? Because I really, really want to fuck the hell out of you right now.”
And it was stupid, and it was not what I’d intended for the evening at all, but I answered in exactly the same way I had the last time he’d asked. “Okay.”
Chapter Seven
“So the waves are because you like surfing. And the koi, because you were in Japan when you got the tattoo.” I took another bite of bacon, then fed a bite to Nate. We were eating breakfast in my bed the next morning. We’d effectively spent sixteen hours together now—a record date for me—and I wasn’t ready for it to end anytime soon. It was the weirdest sensation—wanting Nate in my space, not minding that he was here. But being conscious of it all the same.
It was still my space. My apartment. I was the one who’d made us a breakfast of bacon and pancakes, and fresh fruit I’d picked up from the market. I didn’t feel comfortable with him going through my cupboards or my drawers. I still had to take deep breaths when I thought about the fact that I’d let him stay all night in my bed.
“Yeah, I got the arm tattoo in Japan with Cade—he’s one of the guys that owns Reach,” Nate said, feeding me a bite of cantaloupe. “I was there helping him and Donovan set up the office when the company first started. Sold a couple of pieces while I was there too. Legal pieces, of course.”
“Of course,” I chuckled. I crossed my legs and finished off the bacon. Nate was sprawled out in front of me and I was sitting up, the plate of food balanced on his torso.
I traced the pinwheel symbol on his chest. “And what does this one mean?”
“That’s a stylized version of a spider’s web,” he said.