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“Dinner? We can have some here.”

Kara sighs, saying, “I guess I could eat.”

The food’s excellent, and we have wine with it.

After dinner, we continue our fun conversation—I’ve missed that spark she brings to the gossip and mundane tales since we don’t work in the same department.

She’s into computers and loves packaging pitches, but they have her stuck doing admin work at Clearwaters.

The company is on the edge of hip—just old-school enough to be cool—but she hates handling admin accounts if she doesn’t get to be creative.Which they don’t allow .

Even me, who’s clawed her way up from my first intern job there as a freshman in college, had to pay dues photocopying, doing the duller parts of copywriting, of graphics before they cottoned on to my skills and then just took my input and turned it into their successes.

Luckily, the CEO took a chance on me this time. And I’m determined to make it happen.

And then when we put in enough time, by age twenty-eight, three years from now, I hope we can walk to start our own agency.

But there’s a lot of sweat and finger-bleeding thankless times between now and the future. Things are changing for me. I can feel it. So I can’t fuck this up.

When Kara starts in again, this time about some cool place in Brooklyn, just over the Williamsburg Bridge, I concede to another drink at the bar.

“Fine, but you’re missing out,” she says.

I laugh. “I don’t need that kind of hangover. Tomorrow’s big. Especially if you want to grab our dream.”

“I said fine.”

We head back to the bar and stick to wine, and I don’t say anything as Kara orders another bottle for us on my tab. She doesn’t know the tab’s my personal card, but I can afford it. I’ve got a trust fund. The upside of dead parents, I guess.

We jump around topics, landing on favorite comedy, the cutting edge one that’s set here in the Big Apple on Netflix.

“So,” Kara says, topping off our drinks from the bottle, “about that casual sex?”

“It’s not my style and you know it. I’ve never had a one-night stand.”

“Are you sure?”

“I think I’d know.”

She rolls her eyes. “I meant the casual sex. Because there’s a hot and sexy man who keeps checking you out. ”

I’m saved by the concierge, who comes over and gives me a key card. “For your room, Miss Banks.”

“That,” I say as he disappears, “is my cue to leave.”

“With the hot man?”

“Alone.”

“If you don’t go for him,” Kara calls out as I get up to go, “I will.”

I turn back and laugh. “Knock yourself out.”

The elevator takes me up to the top floor and when it opens; I check the card and the number. But lucky for me, I don’t have to use it as the door’s open, a maid coming out of it. Hurrying, I hold the door for her and her cart, which is loaded with fresh towels that steam.

When I step inside, I’m in another world.

I grew up well-off. But this… this is another thing completely. There’s a ground floor with a large lounge suite and TV and a bathroom that looks like something out of Vogue . There’s even a balcony. A real one.

There are other rooms, but I hurry up the sweeping stairs to the immense room.

A king-sized bed dominates it and there’s another bathroom, this one with a view from the bed to a giant claw-foot tub set against a window overlooking the park.

I press a button and the windows darken a little, but I can still see out and a thrill passes through me.

Tinted. And as I turn to the vanity, there’s a towel, wet, steaming, and scented. I pick it up and hold it to my face.

I’m in heaven.

What I should do is work on tomorrow’s meeting, but I know it backward—every word of my presentation all the counterpoints.

And I’m a little tipsy and need to wind down.

So instead, I fill the bath, pouring in some of the spiced scented oil.

I can’t place it, but it’s divine, with a hint of dark sugar to it, clean and rich and something I sort of want to eat.

Then I strip and sink in .

It’s so relaxing I could do with a drink and my Kindle or an actual book, but doing nothing is Zen, too.

I’m half dozing when something shakes me. Footsteps.

My skin buzzes and before I can do a thing other than start to sit up, a shadow falls over me.

“I didn’t order an escort,” says a deep voice of fine gravel, “so would you mind explaining what you’re doing in my room?”

Panic hits. And before I can scramble up, he’s there and I can’t breathe.

The man from the bar. Dark hair. Bespoke suit in the richest blue-hued charcoal. He’s tall—much taller than I guessed in my brief glimpse—and he’s older.

Even better-looking.

My mouth goes utterly dry. But I manage to gather my wits and glare. “This is my room. How the hell did you get in?”

“Role-play? Didn’t order that, either, though if I did, it wouldn’t be quite so… mundane.”

Outrage takes me over, and I rise from the water, intent on kicking him out, intent on?—

He’s staring at me. Ice-blue eyes, like the tundra, are on me and melting fast as his gaze traces over my wet breasts and my nipples tighten, and then when he’s had his fill, he drops to my bare pussy.

Bare.

Oh. My. God.

I’m naked. I squeal and start to step back, and my feet slip.

He’s there in an instant. Electric hot fingers on my wrist, holding me up.

I can’t look at him and instead look past him to the open closet.

There’s a tux. And shoes. And now that I’m looking, there’s a shaving kit, too.

A sonic toothbrush in black on a stand. How…

On the bed’s a briefcase and a key card.

The key card.

That’s how he got in.

I want to die.

I’m in the wrong room.

But something warm, soft, and somehow less pleasing than his hand presses against my front. My collarbone.

“Yeah,” he says, humor lacing his voice. “The last thing I want is the high-class escort with mundane role-playing game fantasies suing my ass after falling in the tub.”

“This is your room?” I swallow. Hard. Because I still can’t look at him and behind him, on the vanity, is a glass of golden liquid, and I can smell that pleasant sugared scent of whiskey on him with him so close.

“It is.” He helps me out of the tub and I wrap the towel around me, clocking his ice-blue gaze, not lifting as I do so. “Do you mind telling me what you’re here for, aside from the… obvious.”

Does he mean bath? Then heat flashes through me as he steps back to get his drink and leans back against the vanity. I catch a glimpse of a blonde wild child trapped in icy headlights in the mirror, but I turn my gaze to him from my reflection. “Apart from the hooking?”

His mouth curves and my heart throbs, and down deep between my legs, I tingle. It’s a hell of a sexy smile. “I said escort.”

“There’s a difference?”

“Money and class,” he says, “and you’re nothing like any escort I’ve met.”

I somehow withhold a snort. “Met many?”

His grin widens and then vanishes behind his glass as he takes a sip. “A few.”

“So…” I say, “I’m not your first? ”

“Oh, you’re definitely a first.”

I gather my flailing thoughts. I’m naked under a towel and it isn’t mine. “Can you turn around while I dress… Actually, get out of here. Please.”

“I’ll let you dress.”

Oh fuck. Oh, holy shit. Oh, everything. I slip my dress on, which has seen better days, and try to pull it from sticking to my damp skin. I rush down the stairs and almost run into him. With a stumble back, I put up my hands.

“I’m sorry, I thought… there must have been a mix-up.”

He holds up my key card. “Right card, wrong room.”

“I’m sorry,” I whisper. Oh hell, is he good-looking, and I can’t read his expression. This man, this room, is out of my league. “I just thought they hadn’t sent up my bag. I… there was a mix-up, and they upgraded me. I’m here for some meetings and I’ll go. I’m sorry.”

I start for the door, but he just holds out a drink. “What’s the rush? You’re here now, on the clock.” He smirks and winks at his little joke. “So you might as well join me for a drink.”

And even though it’s not something I do, I nod. “Okay.”

I take the drink.