“I suppose it is,” she said, and she and Jack certainly had great sex in spades. They also had an intimate relationship. Which was a weirder thought because where she came from intimate relationships were more than just great sex. And that’s what she and Jack had to be about. The sex; only the sex. Nothing more.

  Besides, these problems would all end in a few more days. The clock was ticking, unspooling minutes and seconds until their thirty days expired in a little more than one week. She fast-forwarded over the next ten days. She’d be spending half of them abroad. Without him. Which would suck royally because their plan was working, at least for her. Her heart was healing. Clay was in the rearview mirror. She felt like herself again. Like she could breathe and live and feel without the weight of all that urequited-ness yanking her down.

  She didn’t want to miss a single second of her time with Jack. And she wanted to let him know how much she would miss him while she was away. When she walked back into her office fifteen minutes before her last appointment of the day, she returned a few quick calls to colleagues, then dialed Jack.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Too Far Gone

  “I don’t want to fuck this one up.”

  Jack tossed a Nerf basketball up in the air, catching it easily on the way down. He lay on his purple couch, feet crossed on the armrest, an afternoon coffee on the table. Casey lounged on the chair with her cinnamon dolce latte and an iPad, as they reviewed their plans for the upcoming charity gala. He also needed to talk to her about his meeting later this week in Los Angeles with the CEO of one of their online retail partners.

  She shot him an inquisitive look, tilting her head to the side. “The charity gala? ‘Cause you’re good at fucking up a lot of things, but I don’t even know how you could mess that up,” she said, then the corner of her lips twitched playfully.

  He threw the ball at her, but she caught it quickly. “Ha. Now I have your weapon.”

  “To answer your question, no, not the gala. But things with Michelle.”

  “Ah,” Casey said, and set down the iPad. “So you like her a lot?”

  He took a deep breath, nodded several times and sat up. This was not a conversation to be had lying down. “I do. I really do. She’s . . ..” He started, but let his voice trail off. He shared more with his sister than anyone, but could he really say all the things that were forming on the tip of his tongue? Amazing, smart, beautiful, direct, open, lovely, funny, and absolutely perfect for him. “She’s great,” he said, and it seemed wholly inadequate, but when Casey flashed her winning smile he knew she understood all that was unspoken.

  Casey drummed her hands on the coffee table in excitement. “You should bring her to the gala next month,” she suggested.

  Jack narrowed his eyes. “It’s not like that.”

  “What? How is it not like that?”

  While he might run a sex-centric company with his sister, he didn’t want to dive into the finer details of his sex arrangement with Michelle. So he deflected. “That event will be crawling with photogs. She’s a prominent psychologist. I sell dildos. I should do my best to keep her out of the limelight.”

  Casey laughed, then tossed him the ball. “Well, when you put it like that, you are kind of Captain of the Dildos.”

  He caught it easily in one hand. “And you’re Queen of the Dongs.”

  “I wear that title with pride,” she said. “So when do I get to meet the Princess of the Weiner Dealer?”

  Jack cracked up, a deep, rumbling belly laugh. After his shoulders stopped shaking, he threw a question back at his sister. “Why are you so focused on my love life?”

  She shot him a look, like he was crazy for asking. “Because I don’t want you to wind up like Mom and Dad,” she said, as if the answer were obvious, and when she phrased it that way, it was. “The last four years when you were already in college and I was still home were the worst. Dinners were painful. I’m just glad you were in school nearby.”

  Their parents had met in college, married soon after, and then proceeded to drift apart for the next twenty-one years they were together. He swore they kept a calendar and marked with an X each day until they neared Casey’s high school graduation. Bitter, snippy, unhappy people, they simply didn’t want to be together anymore, but they clearly felt it was their duty to do so until they got Casey out the door. Jack had tried to come home on weekends as often as he could, to rescue Casey, take her to the movies, attend her swim meets, help her with homework and then college apps. As soon as graduation came, their dad walked out the door happily swinging his suitcase, and their mom threw a party.

  Never had two people been so excited to sign dissolution of marriage papers.

  “I’m glad I was nearby too. And I’d rather not end up like them either, but I think we’re safe in that regard, seeing as I have no plans to get married, or get serious, or anything like that.”

  She rolled her eyes, huffing at him. “You’re already too far gone.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You just said you didn’t want to fuck this up. She’s not just someone you’re dating. She’s someone you care deeply about.”

  He didn’t want his sister’s observation to register, even though somewhere inside, it resonated, hitting a part of him he’d thought was broken irreparably. Michelle awakened feelings in him he’d thought were missing from his very DNA. Her vulnerability, her strength, her humor, and most of all, her openness with him on everything floored him, and had worked its way into his heart, that stupid organ that barely worked. He didn’t know how to handle all he felt for her—but his desire for her went much deeper than the physical.

  “And that’s another reason why you should do the story with my friend,” Casey added. He arched an eyebrow in question. “The one at the New York Press. I mentioned it before. It would be good for you.”

  He shook his head. “Moving on. Let’s talk about the campaign,” he said, tapping the newspaper spread out on his coffee table. “The metro section says our guy is still getting clobbered. You said you were going to do some digging on Conroy. Did you find anything?”

  Casey’s lips quirked up. “As a matter of fact, I did.”

  “I knew I wasn’t the only spy in the family. What did you find?”

  “Actually, I didn’t dig up any dirt. You saw the picture I sent you of the door. But I don’t think we need to go that way. The people in their district are really responding to Conroy’s message about cleaning up the area, right? Even if it’s not based on the truth, he’s touching a nerve that everyone can agree with. Everyone wants a cleaner, better neighborhood.”

  Jack nodded. “Sure.”

  “At its heart, that’s a positive message. He might have subverted it with his focus on the clubs, but he’s doing well with that message. And my theory is Denkler’s just backed into a corner now, trying to fight back, and it’s not working. Conroy made the campaign about something else and now Denkler’s on the defensive.”

  The cogs in his head started turning. Slowly at first, then more quickly, and soon the train was racing down the path. “He needs to go on the offensive and change the conversation. That’s what we need to do. This isn’t about digging up dirt. This has to be about something better than dirt,” he said, snapping his fingers as the ideas whirring in his head came fully into focus. The data points, the bits and pieces, the clues all came together, and he assembled them quickly into a strategy. “I know exactly how to do it,” he said, then laid out his plan for his sister.

  Her eyes sparkled with excitement as he shared his thoughts.

  “I love it,” she said.

  “Can you work on it while I’m in California? I fly out in two days.”

  She shook her head. “You didn’t hear?”

  “Hear what?”

  “She went into labor. Danielle Paige. You were meeting with Danielle, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “I was talking to her marketing VP earlier today. She said all of Danielle’s meetings this week are being postponed.”

  “That does sound like a reasonable excuse,” Jack said dryly.

  After Casey left a few minutes later, his cell phone buzzed, and it was Michelle on the other line. His damn heart thundered just from hearing her voice. Her sexy, pretty voice that he loved to listen to.

  “Hey. I have a session in a few minutes,” she said. “But I just wanted to tell you I’m going to miss you a lot when you’re in California and I’m in Paris, and you better be able to handle that nine-hour time-zone difference because I’m going to require a lot of phone sex with you.”

  Lust swamped his body, and he was hard instantly. This woman affected him like no one ever had. A dirty word, a sexy line, and he was at attention. “It’ll only be a six-hour time difference. My trip to California was cancelled,” he said, and then the rational part of his brain bounded forward, knocking on his skull. His schedule was clear. But just as he was about to speak and suggest they not have phone sex, she beat him to the punch.

  “Jack, do you want to spend the night with me? Or really, five nights?”

  It went against everything they were supposed to be. But then, his time with her was already turning into more than he’d bargained for. He said the only thing he could say. The only thing that was completely true. No questions, no concerns, no second-guessing. Besides, it was everything he wanted from her.

  “Yes. God, yes. So fucking much.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Illusions

  “Are you going to tell the truth now?” he asked, as he ran his finger against the top of Michelle’s hand. The plane soared away from New York, the sparkling lights of the city he called home growing more distant. He wouldn’t miss it one bit, since he was with her.

  She pulled her gaze away from the window and raised an eyebrow. “The truth about what?

  “You might not even have to tell me. I guess I might see when we land at seven a.m.”

  She shot him another confused look. “What are you talking about?”

  “Well, this is the first time I’ll have seen you in the morning. You turn into a monster, right? You have dragon breath, or seven toes?”

  She turned her fingers into claws, then bared her pretend fangs. “Thirteen toes, actually.”

  “I knew it. That’s why you’ve been afraid of spending the night.”

  “Absolutely. I’m hideous, and you’ll go running for the hills when you see me when the sun is all the way up.”

  He leaned in close. “What if I want to fuck you in the morning?”

  “We’ll just have to see if I let you,” she said.

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  “Was it tough to get away from the office at the last minute?” she asked, shifting gears.

  He shook his head. “Not when you run the company,” he said, flashing her a confident grin.

  She rolled her eyes.

  “Besides, I was supposed to be away this week in California anyway.”

  “I’m sure you’ll be working the whole time too in Paris.”

  “Not while I’m fucking you.”

  “You have a one-track mind, Jack Sullivan.”

  “No, it’s two tracks. Fucking you, and thinking about fucking you.”

  “You know that only makes me want to tease you this whole flight,” she said, her eyes sparkling. “Sort of like what you said to me the night we met.”

  “Payback is a bitch,” he said, grabbing her shoulder and planting a quick kiss on her delicious lips that tasted of the champagne the flight attendants had handed out in the first-class cabin during boarding. Surely, they wouldn’t be the only couple locking lips on this flight. The cabin appeared rife with lovers, boyfriends and girlfriends, husbands and wives, and of course, solo businessmen, and women, too. Even though he’d only had a day’s notice, he’d snagged the last seat in first class, and the airline had found two first class seats together. Being next to her for a seven-hour flight and unable to touch her the way he wanted was hell, but he’d happily suffer that kind of torture. He found he preferred the time with her to the time without her.

  “But to answer your question, no, it wasn’t that hard to get away. My sister pretty much pushed me out the door.”

  “She knows about us, right?”

  He nodded. “She wants me to date again,” he said, the words coming out easily. Everything was becoming increasingly easy to say to her. Maybe it was her warmth, her lack of judgment, her kindness that made talking to her simple. Even about things he didn’t usually share.

  “Because of Aubrey?”

  Like this topic. “Yeah.”

  “I think that’s common with widowers. The family always wants to set the man up with a new woman not too long after and vice versa. There’s a whole subset of the romance novel genre with widower heroes.”

  He cringed inside, gritting his teeth. Okay, maybe it wasn’t so easy when he hadn’t come clean with all the details. When she still operated under the illusion the rest of the world had about him. “Yup. I know all about that.”

  “Remember when you told me at dinner that you don’t really miss her anymore? Is that why you came to me in the first place? To be able to move on and let go of all that missing?” she asked, her voice quiet to keep the conversation private. The low hum of the airplane flying through the night was like a shield; their words were just for them.

  But how could he answer her without lying? He was tired of being weighed down with guilt, and with the public’s misperceptions about his emotional state, or lack thereof. Obviously, he’d been devastated by Aubrey’s death. He wasn’t a cruel asshole who had no feelings. He was broken when it happened, and in the days and months that followed, he missed her in the way you miss a close friend. But he wasn’t grieving a lost love, a significant other.

  He didn’t want to waste a single ounce of energy with Michelle on anything but the truth. He couldn’t lie to her, not when she was so patently open with him about so many things. He shook his head. “No.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “No?”

  “It’s not missing that I came to you for. It was other feelings. Guilt. Regret,” he said, biting out the honest words.

  She shot him a sympathetic smile, cupped his cheek in one hand. “It’s normal to feel all that as well. I hope you’re starting to let go of that too,” she said, then ran her thumb across his lips, almost as if she were wiping away the rest of the conversation, exonerating him of the need to expand on what he’d said. He’d managed not to lie; but he hadn’t revealed the whole truth. That would have to do for now. It was a step. A small one, but it brought him closer to this woman who always seemed able to share her whole self.

  Well, except overnight.

  “Besides, it’s hard for me to think of anyone but you,” he said, and it was freeing to say something that was incontrovertibly true. He kept his gaze on her the whole time, searching her eyes for her reaction. The expression in them matched the one in his, making his heart thump harder against his chest.

  “I feel the same,” she whispered, and it was as if a layer of the ice he’d encased his heart in split wide open, letting loose what lay beneath. He could feel that damn organ trying to wriggle free from the chill he’d wrapped it in.

  “That guy you mentioned the first night we went to dinner?” he asked, and she nodded, so he kept going. “Do you still think about him? You said you were in love with him for ten years.” Maybe he was playing the shrink now, asking her questions about her past. But it wasn’t a question borne from a game, or pretend therapy. He was asking as the man who wanted her all to himself. Who didn’t want to share space in her head or her heart with anyone else. The more he had of her, the more he wanted. And he wanted it all.

  She shook her head, her lips curving up in a smile. “You’re the only one I think about now, Jack.”

  He cupped the back of her head, pulled her close, his lips brushing hers. “I want you so much. I don’t know how to go this whole flight without being inside you.”

  She laughed. “You are a two-track man.”

  He laughed too. “I told you so.”

  “But aren’t you the one who taught me about holding back?”

  “Yes. Ignore all I’ve ever said on that.”

  “Just think about how amazing it will be when we finally make it to the hotel,” she said in a sexy purr.

  A low rumble worked its way up his chest as he pictured her naked, spread out on white sheets for him. “I want to walk into a hotel room and find you with your hand between your legs.”

  “That might happen. But there’s something else I want to do while we’re in Paris,” she said, taking time with each word then pulling back to meet his eyes. Her teeth were pressed into her lower lip, the only sign she was nervous.

  His eyes widened with anticipation. “What is it?” he asked, heat roaring through his body with ideas, images of what his sexy, naughty woman might want.

  “This is going to be kind of dirty,” she said, her mouth falling open in an O, her eyes wild. Blood pounded in his head. He hoped she was going to say the very thing he wanted, the thing he’d been planning to ask her for in bed. Tension rolled through his bones.

  “I like dirty,” he growled.

  She moved closer. They were face-to-face, inches apart in their cushy, leather first-class seats with more than three hundred other passengers, not to mention pilots and flight attendants on this jet with them. But she was all he saw.

  She reached for his collar, played with the edge of the fabric in her fingers, her eyes still on him. “You know how I like it when you play with my ass?”

  Lust thundered in him. He was engulfed by hot, raw desire for her. “Yes.”

  “I want more.”

  He swallowed thickly. He wasn’t sure he could speak right now. He knew he couldn’t move. He was so fucking hard it hurt. “Oh God,” he groaned.

  “I never have before, and I want to. With you. Do you want to?” she asked, her pretty voice so straightforward. He’d never been asked before. He’d never encountered anyone so blunt with her wishes.