Surrender Your Love (Surrender Your Love #1)(3)

“Oh, crap.” I shook my head in disbelief. “But you worked so hard.”

“I know, right? But you know what? I am okay. C’est la vie. Time to move on.” She jumped up, and a smile spread across her lips. “Let’s get plastered.”

I narrowed my gaze. There was something in the way she avoided looking at me that raised my suspicion. “Wait!” I grabbed her arm and pulled her back down on the sofa. “You’re not telling me everything.”

She rolled her eyes again.

“Spill it,” I said.

She pressed her mouth into a tight line.

“Sylvie,” I prompted.

“Fine. I slept with the boss.”

My jaw dropped. “No.”

She nodded. “I did. His personal assistant, who’s best buddies with his wife, started to suspect. So the bastard got the jitters and decided to get rid of me.”

“Is that even legal?”

Was it?

Sylvie shrugged. “Probably not, but it’s a small world, and I need this reference if I ever want to land another banking job.”

“The bastard,” I mirrored her words. Sylvie was the brightest person I knew. She had graduated in the top of her class, and any firm would have been happy to have her. “You’ll find something else in no time.” I had no doubt about that.

She smirked. “Yeah, only next time remind me not to screw the boss, no matter how hot he is. You’re so lucky you have Sean. At least he’s not married and lying to you about not having slept in the same bed with the wife for the last two years. Talk about cliché.”

My arms wrapped around Sylvie, and she leaned her head against my shoulder the way she always did when a relationship turned sour. They always did, whether we wanted it or not.

“Sean’s not perfect, you know. And I don’t want commitment,” I said.

“At least he’s honest. That’s more than you can say about the majority of guys out there.”

Call me a romantic, but I didn’t agree with Sylvie on that one. Surely not all men were liars or commitment-phobes. I rolled my eyes as I thought of the guy everyone seemed to think was a catch. Sean—the boyfriend who wasn’t ready to commit, and neither was I, for my own reasons. He was good-looking, successful, and the guy I had been hanging onto for almost a year even though I knew it was a dead end relationship that might be over any minute. If you’d call his ‘let’s hook up every now and then’ a relationship, then that was about all we had: a sort of friends-with-benefits thing.

Less of a friend, more of a sex buddy.

We met when Sylvie left her handbag in a bar on a drunken night out. Sean found it,and when he turned up at our doorstep she should have been the one to thank him for not stealing her money and tossing her ID card in the nearest dumpster. However, Sylvie had been puking in the bathroom for nearly an hour...so Sean met me instead. We hit it off instantly, and I really thought he might be long-term material. As it turned out, even planning a weekend break was too much commitment for him. I couldn’t remember the last time we went on a romantic date. In fact, I couldn’t remember ever planning any sort of event that didn’t involve a drunken night out with our friends.

Right from the beginning, Sean had made it clear we weren’t exclusive, and I was fine with that because he made me feel comfortable. Around him, I felt as though I could be myself. When we talked time seemed to fly, and we’d end up talking the night away. Okay, so I wasn’t in toe-curling, belly-warming, butterfly-feeling love, but then again does that even exist outside of Barbara Cartland’s novels?

“Anyway,” Sylvie continued, jerking me out of my thoughts. “How was your meeting with that guy?”

“Mayfield,” I said to refresh her memory.

“Mayfield,” she repeated.

“Don’t even get me started.” I waved my hand, choosing to avoid this particular conversation. “He didn’t turn up.”

“It seems like we both need a drink.” Sylvie jumped to her feet again and pulled me up with her. I hesitated. She might be unemployed now, but I still had a job. While it might be fun to linger around New York’s bars, sipping on margaritas at midnight, I didn’t have Sylvie’s platinum Visa card—courtesy of her dad—to pay my bills. I had to get up early in the morning and do my job.

“Come on, babes.” Knowing it would make me laugh, she put on the fake British accent she picked up on one of her family vacations. “Let’s forget this bloody day.” My lips twitched. “We’ll be back in a jiffy.” Which, in Sylvie’s personal dictionary, was the equivalent to a whole-night bender. But she was my best friend; she needed me. She would have done the same for me. Naturally my resolve never stood a chance.

Rolling my eyes, I shook my head and followed her out the door. The cool night air whipped my hair against my skin. Luckily our favorite drinking spot was just around the corner, so we didn’t have to brave the cold for long before we settled into our usual booth, surrounded by Sylvie’s countless admirers and a few shots of tequila with lime.

***

A penetrating ringing noise woke me up too soon. I groaned and covered my ears with my pillow, silently begging whoever was making such ungodly noise to shut it. It took me a moment to realize it was my alarm clock. I rolled on my side and knocked it over in the process. A male voice let out an amused snort. I sat up, instantly awake. My gaze settled on the guy on the left side of my bed, and I felt the telltale heat of a major blush rushing to my face. He was propped up on one elbow, one arm tucked beneath his head; his chiseled chest with dark hair trailing down his flat abdomen was on full display. The sheet covering his modesty left nothing to the imagination. In fact, it only managed to stir an unwelcome pull between my legs. Not only was he strikingly good looking, he was also well endowed. A heady—yet dangerous combination—in a man. My tongue flicked over my suddenly dry lips as I pried my gaze away from the bulge that was evident beneath the thin sheet.