had tagged along after him and her brother. The glint of a hairpin imprisoning a long graceful curl had made his palms itch. What would happen if he reached up and...
His arms had instinctively tightened to resist the temptation, the act pulling her fully against him. His body had reacted, his pulse rate climbing dangerously. A soft gasp had left her throat, and the fingers that had been politely resting on his shoulder curled into the fabric of his suit jacket.
He’d looked down just as her eyes came up. Raw awareness had shimmered between them, and her teeth had sunk deep into her bottom lip—the lip he hadn’t been able to stop staring at. The world around him had faded away, and the self-destructive tendencies he’d thought long gone had swooped down, nearly consuming him.
As if recognizing danger, Chloe’s husband had suddenly appeared beside them, his hand outstretched, a warning frown between his brows. He’d spirited her away, a mysterious ethereal creature with huge blue eyes and slender curves. The memory of her body pressed to his had stayed with him long into the night.
Nope. No thinking about curves, racing pulses or anything else. She was his best friend’s sister. Sweet. Innocent.
Married.
Nothing like the women he dated—sophisticated women who knew exactly what the words “no strings” meant and would play by his set of rules. Women who were the opposite of Chloe Jenkins.
So what was she doing, wandering the streets of New York at midnight? By herself? She’d said there’d been a hitch in her hotel reservations. Why not just choose another place, then? Or drive home to Connecticut, if it came down to it?
He’d only seen her once since her wedding day, and she’d never attempted to contact him. Until tonight.
He should have said no. Should have reminded himself of that crazy dance and told her to steer clear of him—or told her he had company, with just enough emphasis to let her know exactly what that meant.
But there’d been something about her voice on the phone. A shaky uncertainty, as if she’d expected him to flat-out refuse to let her come up—something he would never do to Chloe, even if Jason weren’t his best friend. Even if seeing her again messed with his head and brought up thoughts better left buried.
The buzzer to his apartment rang, and he punched the button on the keypad that would release the lock on the main entry downstairs.
Doubly glad he’d sent Katrina on her way, he opened the door and waited for the elevator to arrive on the fifteenth floor.
In less than a minute the doors whirred open, and whereas his date’s four-inch heels had clacked purposefully across the space, Chloe stepped onto the cream marble floor with the grace of a dancer, not the slightest sound coming from her pale, high-arched feet.
And yep. There it was. The buzzing in his skull that signaled danger.
He blinked and looked closer, realizing what he’d first thought were some kind of flesh-colored shoes were actually nothing of the kind. Pink tipped nails glittered in the hallway light. Even as he stared, she curled her toes under her feet as if trying to hide them. His head cleared in an instant.
What the hell was going on?
Had she been robbed? Assaulted?
His gaze traveled up her slim calves and over her knees and lingered on the hem of her raincoat, a white-knuckled fist keeping the edges together.
Concern erased all traces of irritation. “Chloe, are you okay?”
“Y-yes.”
He finally met her eyes and found them bright. Too bright—the blue depths teeming with some terrible emotion.
One glance at the twin mascara tracks running down her delicate face, the swollen bottom lip, and he knew.
Chloe was in trouble. Big trouble.
CHLOE PERCHED ON the edge of an overstuffed leather couch and took another sip of her whiskey—her second glass—wincing as it hit the sore spot on her lip.
Sitting on the matching ottoman across from her, Brad’s eyes glittered with the same dangerous undertones they’d held fifteen minutes ago in the hallway when he’d gently touched the corner of her mouth and asked, “Where is the bastard?”
It had taken her a moment to realize he thought Travis had hit her.
He had. Just not with his fists.
There was no way she could explain the bitter humiliation that clogged her throat, that made her want to crawl away and hide from the world. Not to a man like Brad, who’d gone through girlfriends in droves back in high school. Girls who had been drawn to the same rough-edged smile she’d once been, only hers had been a childish infatuation that had eventually faded away, like a temporary tattoo.
Until the night of her wedding. When a single touch had brought it all roaring back. She’d been mortified at her reaction. Terrified that he’d see the truth in her eyes. Travis had rescued her just in time.
Rescued. That was one way to put it. Especially since her Prince Charming had turned out to be the villain of the story.
She continued to sip her drink, welcoming the fiery warmth that bloomed in her stomach.
“Let me take your coat, at least.” Brad’s low voice broke through her inner turmoil.
“No!” Her hand went to the tie, fiddling with it. “I—I’m still cold.”
What was she going to do? If she stayed the night, he was going to figure out she didn’t have much on under the coat. She could crash on Brad’s couch, huddled under a blanket—but the image of herself in the hotel bedroom doing much the same thing caused something between a laugh and a cry to exit her throat.
“Okay.” He sat straight up, elbows coming off his knees. “Ready to tell me what happened?”
Her glance flickered to Brad’s onyx-tiled fireplace. “I already explained. My hotel was overbooked. There were...people staying in the room.”
And she could only imagine what those “people” were now doing.
Unless Travis had already passed out, as he tended to do on the nights he’d had too much to drink. Her wedding night had been a disaster. As had the nights that had followed. When her girlfriends had giggled about how many times in a row they’d done you-know-what on their honeymoons, she’d laughed right along with them, all the while wondering if there really was something wrong with her.
Travis’s frustration had grown as her response to him had become more and more mechanical—as she’d forced herself to participate. As a result, he’d started working longer hours. To save for their future, he’d said. She’d had no idea her parents had been one of his biggest clients until she’d found some paperwork on his desk—along with some hefty fees they’d paid Travis for managing their investment accounts.
Despite the warning signs, she’d never suspected anything was off until she came home sick from her night shift at the hospital to hear terrible shrieking noises coming from the bedroom. She’d raced back to find him naked—flat on his back—another woman straddling his hips. He’d pleaded for forgiveness, promised it was a mistake, said it would never happen again.
Stay? Or leave?
She’d decided to fight for her marriage. For eight long months. Tonight had been the pièce de résistance in her campaign to rekindle the spark he’d once felt toward her. She’d seduce him.
Only Travis hadn’t needed seducing.
He just needed someone other than her.
Her eyes closed, and she took a longer pull on her drink. So much for her two weeks’ worth of vacation.
“Hey.”