Before that line of thinking could get me into even more trouble, my phone buzzed in my purse. I pulled it out: Bennett.

BACK FROM MY MEETING. LET’S SIT DOWN AT 2.

The clock on my phone read one forty-five. “I have to go.”

“We’re establishing a pattern here, Sara. You come, you go.”

I offered him a half-smile, half-wince, but when the waiter came back with our food, I slid a twenty onto the table and asked him to put mine in a to-go container.

“I’d like your number,” Max said, stuffing the money back in my purse.

“Absolutely not.” I laughed.

I had no idea how this had unraveled. Okay, that was a lie, I knew exactly how it had unraveled—he’d started whispering in that hot accent and then fingered me—but I knew better than to let myself get involved with Max. For one, he was a player, and in no way did I want to go down that road again. And two, my job. It had to come first.

“I will eventually get it from Ben, you know. We go way back.”

“Bennett won’t give it to you without my permission. Very few people want to punch my ex more than I do, but Bennett is one of them.” I kissed Max’s jaw, relished the sharp stubble, and got up. “Thanks for the appetizer. Delete the video.”

“I’ll consider it if you go out with me again,” he answered, eyes shining with amusement.

I exited and crossed back over Fifth, biting back a smile.

Four

Three days after I’d given her an orgasm for lunch I wasn’t any less obsessed.

“So who are you bringing tonight?” Will asked absently, eyes on the folded copy of the Times in his hand.

The drive back to the office from the tailor had been silent up to this point, broken only by the sound of the engine and the occasional car horn or shout from the street. I continued to go over the files I’d brought—photographs from a new exhibit in Queens—as I answered, “Going solo, actually.”

He looked up at me. “You don’t have a date?”

“No.” I glanced over just in time to see his eyebrows inch up in surprise. “What?”

“How long have we known each other, Max?”

“Six years, I’d say.”

“And in all that time, have you ever attended a social function without a date?”

“I really wouldn’t remember.”

“Perhaps we could check Page Six. I bet they’d know,” he deadpanned.

“Very funny.”

“It’s unusual, that’s all. It’s our biggest event of the year and you don’t have a date.”

“It hardly matters, yeah?”

He laughed. “Are you serious with me right now? ‘Who is Max Stella taking?’ is one of the first things people ask when there’s a party like this.”

“I like how you play me up as the skirt-chasing wolf in contrast to you, all upstanding and virtuous.”

“Oh, I never said anything about being virtuous,” he said over the top of his paper. “I’m simply suggesting that people might wonder if you’re meeting someone there, that’s all.”