Page 20 of Hate to Crave You

“Of course, Miss Julianna.”

As he merged into the New York City traffic, she pulled her phone from her purse and sent her father a text, giving him an estimated time of arrival.

There wasn’t a response, but she didn’t expect one.

Just as she went to put the phone up, it rang and she eyed the unfamiliar number for a moment. She almost just slid it back into her bag, but on a whim, answered. “Yes?”

“Good morning, Julianna,” a warm, inviting voice said into her ear.

Wow. Roman’s voice was as good as the rest of him. She’d noticed he had a nice voice, but when the rest of the package was there to distract her, it was hard to focus on something as simple as a voice.

“Roman.” She smiled a little. “How did you get my number?”

“I have my ways. Besides, if you’re nice, you would have given it to me before you left,” he teased. “It’s awful to give a man the night of his life, then disappear the way you did.”

“Ah, yes…that’s me.” She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Taking her cup of coffee, she added, “Love them and leave them, that’s my motto.”

She sipped at the hot beverage as he laughed in her ear.

“I can believe that. Listen, I meant to ask you before you left, but you had to leave so quickly, I didn’t have a chance…are you going to the gala fundraiser for STEM in a few days?”

She blinked, a little caught off guard.

The STEM gala was one of her personal favorite events, a rather new one in the city, but she’d been attending since the first year when it had just been a handful of couples. In the past few years as the support for STEM projects grew, the popularity of the gala had grown as well.

“Of course, I’ll be going.” She sipped her coffee and looked outside, taking in the familiar sights of Lower Manhattan.

“Do you have a date?”

She laughed. When had she last had time to go on a date? She couldn’t remember, but it had been months, at least. “No, I don’t have a date. I’ve been…busy.”

“Perhaps we could go together. I haven’t had time to find a date either.”

“You and me. Going together.” She tapped her index finger on the side of the coffee cup and shook her head at the very idea. “Eyes would pop out if the two of us arrived at an event like that together.”

“All the more reason.”

The humor in his voice tugged at a sense of mischievousness she’d long kept buried and before she realized it, Julianna found herself saying, “Yes. Why not?”

It wasn’t until after she’d disconnected the call that she realized what she’d just committed to, though. There were amillionreasons as towhyshe shouldn’t go and very few reasons why she should.

But she wasn’t going to call him and tell him she’d changed her mind.

Instead, she eyed the number on her phone, then went to edit the contact so she could save it.

After all, she’d have to call him to make plans for their upcoming…date.