Mogul (Manhattan #2)(26)

Pushing that thought away, I jump back to the matter at the forefront of my mind since last night, and I dial my grandmother.

“How’s my girl?” I ask when she answers.

“Oh, Ian.” She giggles. “Am I seeing you for dinner as planned?”

“That’s right.”

“I’m making meatballs, your favorite.”

“I’m salivating already. Listen, Gran. How about you call the dog walker, Sara, so she and I can take Milly out for you tonight?”

“She was coming this afternoon for Milly’s walk. I was planning to cook your meatballs while they were out.”

“Good. Something’s come up at the office and I’ll be free early.”

“Ian Ford!” she chides before I can end the call.

Reluctantly, I raise the phone back up. “What?”

“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re doing. I want you to know that I fully, wholeheartedly, very thoroughly… approve.”

I smile, relieved, and run my hand over my jaw. I don’t want her to get her hopes up. I’m still not eager to jump back into a relationship, not after the last one I had. But I crave Sara in a way I haven’t craved anything but work for a long, long time.

I owe it to myself to find out why she has this effect on me.

I will buy myself some time with her, somehow. Some way.

If only Sara thought of me half as positively as my grandmother does, it might even be easy to ask her out for an evening.

Fuck if I haven’t looked forward to a date in a long time.





MRS. FORD



Sara



I’m dog-walking for Mrs. Ford this evening, and I can’t help but dread what I have to say. But there’s really no choice, is there? I can’t risk bumping into him. Not when I’m not certain yet of what there is between us, or if there can even be anything serious between us. I need space and I need to think, and one thing I know for certain is that Ian doesn’t let me think at all. But the fact that I may not see him ever again fucks me up quite a bit. Guest in room 1103. Handsome and almost like some dream, gone before I could hardly remember, but definitely addictive.

It seems the guy is not only on my mind, because he’s the first thing Mrs. Ford mentions when I walk into her apartment that evening. “My grandson hasn’t been in town for a while. He’s going through a very ugly divorce.”

“Oh.”

“It’s been going on for a while, but that little tramp he married just can’t let go.” She shakes her head. “That’s what he gets for marrying a woman more interested in his money than his happiness.”

“What does he do?”

“He’s a film producer. Mostly documentaries. He travels for work a lot. I admit he doesn’t like being in the city anymore, and with good reason!”

“Mrs. Ford,” I say as she moves around the kitchen in a floral caftan and enough jewels to open her own store.

“Yes, dear?”

“I don’t know that I can continue walking Milly. Bryn is about to open her business, and as her PA, I’m going to be much busier. I also do some catalogue modeling on the side, and it’s time-consuming as well.”

“You’re modeling, Sara?”

“Yes,” I say, feeling self-conscious as she turns to scrutinize me, “but I told her to cut my face off the images.”

“Why on earth?” She sounds aghast.

“I don’t know. But I would rather be doing something that stimulates my mind a little more. Posing is boring and it makes me self-conscious.”

“You have nothing to be self-conscious about; you’re gorgeous, Sara—model gorgeous, with that ballerina body and those beautiful eyes. Tell me the real reason you can’t walk Milly.”

I pause for a moment, my brain near exploding with one word.

Ian.

Ian.

Fucking IAN.

Having fucked IAN.

Wanting IAN.

“I just don’t know that I can keep coming, that’s all.” I move around the counter to help her cut vegetables as we talk. I don’t pay much attention to what I’m doing, but I need to do something.

“Is it about my grandson?”

“Excuse me?”

“He asked me when you were coming over.”

“Huh?”

The door chime rings, and Mrs. Ford raises her heavily jeweled hand. “That must be him,” she says conspiratorially with a wink, and I stiffen on my feet when, a minute later, I hear a key being inserted into the lock.

“Ian, darling!” Mrs. Ford squeals like a girl, and I hear Ian’s voice reach and tickle my ears (among other parts).

“Gran. How’s my girl today?”

My mouth dries up as I set the knife down and turn to watch him fill the living room with his ever sexy presence.

If I thought I might get lucky and the guy would have gotten a face and body transplant today, I was mistaken. He’s still my Dirty Workaholic, the most sexual being I have ever known. His repressed energy seems to bubble under the fabric of his black slacks and white dress shirt. Just like it always does.

I’m trying to suppress my reaction to his presence, but my body parts aren’t in accord with my brain. Damn him.