The Hot One(7)

Like I’m playing charades, I act out diving from a plane. Or really, falling off a cliff. “I believe you’ve called me Bungee Jump Tyler for a reason.”

“And you think you’re gonna bungee jump right back into her life? Like you did with the Powder deal earlier this year?” he asks, mentioning a show we worked on. I took the lead and pushed hard in the negotiations. It was one of the riskiest deals we ever attempted, but with a laser attention to loopholes, and making them work in our favor, we nabbed a big new client, and got the client what he wanted.

“And if memory serves, my full-speed-ahead approach worked like a charm, did it not?” I tilt my head, waiting for his acknowledgment that my aggressive strategy sometimes is the perfect counterbalance to his more circumspect one.

Clay shakes his head. “No. Your aggressive approach combined with your eagle-eyed focus on details did it. The perfect combo. That was precisely what the client needed.” He shrugs with one shoulder. “But with a woman? Is this strategy going to solve your regret?”

“Not regret,” I correct. “Curiosity.”

“Right, of course. You’re a cat, and you simply can’t resist pouncing into the empty cardboard box to see what’s inside. Just like any cat would do.”

“Exactly.” And like a cat, I’ll land on my feet.

Clay claps me on the back. “Good luck.”

I arch a brow. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

He grips my shoulder. “It means . . . good luck.”

“No, it doesn’t, counselor. It means something else. Just say it, man. Dispense all the wisdom.”

“It means, good luck parachuting into her life without a plan.”

“Fine. You think I need a plan?”

“I fucking do,” he says, laughing.

“Why?”

He sets his hands on his hips. “Women aren’t empty cardboard boxes for kitty cats to play in. They’re complicated, beautiful, sophisticated creatures with amazing bullshit detectors. And since you broke her heart years ago, you might want to consider applying a little finesse to your plan.”

I huff. “Then I’ll come up with the finesse in the elevator.”

“Hope you land safely,” he says with a quirk of his lips. “I’ll see you tomorrow after you meet with LGO about After Dark.”

I salute him. “Full-speed-ahead on that one, too.” I tap my watch. “Time is ticking.”

I saw the look on Delaney’s face. She thinks I have a kid, that I rebounded from her in seconds flat. I can’t let her think that. I say good-bye to Clay and head down the hall. The second the elevator doors close, I look her up online. I wonder where she’s practicing. Hell, I’m not even sure where she wound up going to law school. When we broke up, we broke all the way up. I went cold turkey and didn’t look back. It was the only way to do it. The only way I would be able to achieve my dreams, no matter what our make-believe fantasy for our future might have been. I was twenty-two, and yeah, I wanted to have it all. But that shit isn’t possible. I focused on one thing and one thing only—my career. She was driven as hell, too, just as determined to ace law school, and I’ve no doubt she did. That woman was the fiercest competitor I’ve ever gone up against in a debate tournament.

She was fiery in bed, too, but that’s also where she lowered her guard the most. Where she let me in. When our clothes came off, she truly gave herself to me, and I greedily consumed her, every time.

Afterward, we’d had some of our best talks. We’d lie in bed, tangled in sheets, and that’s when Delaney would share her hopes and dreams, her sadness and her disappointment. Sometimes, it felt like pulling teeth to get her to open up to me, and my God, I wanted to know all of her. She still held pieces of herself back, but I knew the key to unlocking her. Kiss her. Touch her. Please her.

That’s when she most felt like mine.

It doesn’t take long to find her. When I click on her Facebook profile and see her occupation, I blink. I grab hold of the brass handrail in the elevator to steady myself. Never would I have pegged Delaney Stewart, one-time aspiring barrister, as the owner of Nirvana, a rejuvenation spa on the Upper West Side.

Sure, the woman gave one hell of a shoulder rub. She worked the kinks out of my neck from being bent over studying at my desk. She ran her hands through my hair and whispered sweet nothings of relaxation as she massaged my scalp.

But I never imagined she’d turn those talented hands into a career. Not when she was so damn good at law. For the flicker of a second, a dark notion swoops down from the sky. This isn’t because of how I went into the last debate like a boxer, fighting to win . . .

I was merciless in that competition. Was that what drove her away from law school? Shit . . . I hope to hell I wasn’t that much of a dick that I destroyed her dreams in one debate.

I dropkick that thought away.

The elevator dings at the lobby. I step outside and walk to the doors, clicking on some of her pictures. That smile. That hair. That face.

My body reacts instantly, giving her photos a full salute.

“Settle down, champ,” I mutter. My dick remembers her quite fondly. No surprise. My cock loved her, and she loved my cock. She had all sorts of names for all of her favorite parts of me.

I scroll through her recent pictures, checking out Delaney and her friends at some sort of event full of dogs and people in the park. In one, she’s toasting with martinis at what looks like a Girls’ Night Out. In another, she lounges in a yellow bikini under the bright blue sky with the same women she ran with today.