The woman he would look for would probably be like his brother’s woman, Anya. Exceptionally beautiful, warmth radiating out of every pore. A woman who owned and operated a salon and had nothing to do with Knight’s business. A woman so far out of our world, the only reason I knew what she looked like was because I saw her in her private section in Knight’s nightclub, Slade, when I went there for a drink and to pick someone up to fuck.

I resolutely turned from my phone to my computer, where my email was on the screen.

I grabbed my mouse and hit refresh even though I’d only sent the email to David ten minutes earlier. A carefully worded request that was really a demand that he send all the accounts and other pertinent reports by noon that day.

Not surprisingly, David had not replied.

My eyes slid to my phone.

This had to stop.

I straightened in my chair, looked back to my computer and got to work.

* * * * *

Three Hours, Fifteen Minutes Later

My phone sounded.

My eyes shot to it before I snatched it up.

I stared at the text long enough for the screen to fade to blank.

Hotel Teatro. Six o’clock. I’ll text the room number later.

Oh God, he’d texted.

God, he wanted to see me again.

I touched my thumb to the button on the bottom of my phone to engage it. I went to texts.

I was about to reply when I stopped.

Sebring wanted one of two things.

A fuck from me, this time since we’d have a bed and privacy that fuck (maybe) lasting longer.

Or, less likely but still an option, he wanted to start something minimally real and somewhat normal.

Outside of what I knew of him, I did not know the man. I knew he looked good, sounded good and felt great.

But I knew nothing else. We hadn’t kissed so I didn’t even know how he tasted.

What I did know was that no man deserved the kind of hassle I could bring into his life.

I closed my eyes, feeling that realization settle around my heart so heavy, it felt like it was struggling to beat.

This surprised me since I lived with that sensation every moment of every day of my life. Except for some reason this heavy felt a lot heavier.

I put my phone down and turned my attention back to my computer.

It was half an hour later and I was at the espresso maker across the room finishing making my second espresso of that morning when I heard the tone from my computer telling me I’d received email.

I went back to my desk and saw an email from David.

No attachments. No accounts. No reports. No files at all.

Simply a one line, two sentence email.