Page 19 of Pretending I'm Yours

I look different somehow. Less controlled, a wilder man than I was twenty-four hours ago on my way into what I didn’t know would be my last day at the office.

“No maybes about it,” he presses. “I’m right. Just do it and enjoy yourself. You deserve a beautiful distraction this holiday season.”

I don’t know about “deserving,” but I’m certainly going to enjoy spending a week with a woman who tastes like heaven and looks at me like she can’t wait to devour me whole.

And I’m not sure I could say “no” to this if I tried, not even if Hunter thought that was the best course of action.

“So, where do I take her for our first date?” I ask, excitement for the night ahead taking over. “I looked for dinner reservations, but all my favorites are closed for Christmas, andtheater tickets wouldn’t give us much time to talk before the end of the night.”

“I’ve got you covered, brother.” I can hear his grin in the words. “Remember Edwin? My friend who quit his investment banker job to apprentice with a master gardener up in the Bronx? He works at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden now and owes me a favor. I bet I can get you private access to the gardens tonight. The holiday lights are up, and I’m sure it’ll be romantic as hell. All you’ll have to do is pack a picnic."

It’s an awfully romantic gesture, but the offer is too perfect to pass up. “That would be amazing. Thanks, man.”

“My pleasure. I’ll text you the details once everything is set up.” He pauses. “And Anthony?”

“Yeah?”

“Stop wrestling with your morals and go for it, okay? Fate can be a bitch, but sometimes she hands out unexpected gifts, too. When that happens, our job is to enjoy them.”

I thank him and end the call.

Afterwards, I stand at my window watching the snow fall, anticipation rising inside me. It’s the second time someone’s insisted Fate is on my side in less than twelve hours.

I’m still not sure about that, but come this evening, I’ll be walking through a winter wonderland with a gorgeous, compelling woman who can’t wait to have me in her bed.

It might not be Fate, but my luck could be worse.

A whole hell of a lot worse…

chapter 6

MAYA

Tonight’s the night.

Thenight, the one I wasn’t sure would ever come, and I couldn’t be more excited if Santa had left a pile of presents and a bag of jewels under the rickety table in my shabby hotel room.

I throw a kiss to Pudge, whispering for my sleeping kitty to be good while I’m gone, and then practically dance out the door and down to the closest subway.

Forty minutes later, I emerge from the station near Prospect Park just as the sun is sinking behind the bare trees to find a handful of people lingering outside a nearby movie theater, getting tickets for an evening show. But all in all, this part of the city is peaceful at Christmas. I wander across the street, past the imposing façade of the Brooklyn Public Library without encountering another soul, feeling like the only patron in a museum after hours.

I love my hometown and hope to spend at least part of the summer there for as long as I’m lucky enough to be alive, but this city…

I could get used to pillars and art and public transportation and restaurants featuring food from every part of the world. For breakfast, I had a delicious Chai-spiced porridge at an Iraniancafé around the corner from my hotel. For lunch, I grabbed a bowl of noodles from a vendor in Bryant Park and found a chair near the ice rink, fantasizing about the evening to come, while I watched the skaters spin beneath the skyscrapers of Midtown Manhattan.

But I wasn’t thinking about what I was going to have for dinner, the way I usually would on a trip to the city…

I’m a foodie for life, but tonight, other appetites are top of mind.

All day, I’ve done my best to talk myself down from the ridiculously giddy state Anthony left me in last night.

There has to be something wrong with the man.

No one can be that perfect, that sexy and clever and gracious and insanely gorgeous. He was probably putting on a show for a new client, or I’m simply projecting my dreamy fantasies of a thrilling first lover onto an ordinary man.

Brains do things like that. They’re unpredictable. Dangerous. When they really want something, they have a habit of seeing what they want to see, not what’s actually standing in front of them.

I learned that firsthand, watching my sister fall hard for loser after loser, no matter how many times we all told her that the guy she’d brought home to “meet the family” had fallen short of our dreams for her. But she wanted to be in love so badly, she refused to listen.

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