“I’d say it worked. So long as the intended effect was a spectacular orgasm. For both of us,” he added.

She shot him a smile. “Yes.”

He placed his hand on her back and led her out of the office, now bathed in the twilight glow of a building coasting into evening. Most of his employees had left for the day, and he waved quick goodbyes to the few remaining, hunched over laptops in their cubicles.

Perhaps she should have been embarrassed to be seen leaving with the CEO, knowing what they’d just done in his office. She wasn’t, though. Maybe because she believed him when he’d said his office was soundproofed, or maybe because she was still glowing from that earth-shattering orgasm he’d delivered. Honestly, she wouldn’t have been surprised to hear a news report that one of the planet’s tectonic plates had shifted. It had been that powerful a climax. Unbidden, she shuddered, the sweet, memory washing over her.

“Chinese? Thai? Indian?” he asked as they walked past the gleaming white reception desk with the letter J embossed in silver on the wall behind it. Joy Delivered was the Louis Vuitton of sex toys.

An image of a Thai fusion restaurant on the Upper East Side flashed in front of her eyes. She’d been researching cool new eateries, so she mentioned the name, and some of the dishes on the menu. “I’ve been wanting to try it. Tonight seems a perfect opportunity,” she said, and he dusted her lips with a kiss saying yes.

“Do you want to walk there? It’s not too far away.”

“I’d love to.”

When they reached the lobby, he laced his fingers through hers, and squeezed. A private little gesture. A silent moment. Sending a message just to her that he liked holding her hand in public. Tingles skipped through her bloodstream, so happily and so quickly that she barely noticed a familiar face a few shops down, watching her from the fruit stands outside a bodega.

When it registered why the dark hair and thick glasses felt so familiar—like the man who’d bumped into her then held her elbow too long—he was gone. Worry shot through her bloodstream, but she quickly tamped it down. This was Manhattan, an endless island of people and faces. It was the land of the unknown, but when you live in close quarters with millions, the city has a way of fooling you. Tricking you into believing you know everyone.

Even so, she peered into the doorway of the bodega as they walked past, but the view inside only confirmed her theory. New York was jam-packed with people. He was nobody she knew, just like last time.

“You okay?”

She smiled. “Totally. I just thought I saw someone who looked familiar. This guy with glasses.” She returned to far more pleasant topics. Their hands together. “I never would have pegged you as a guy who likes to hold hands in public.”

“Why? Do I seem like an asshole who doesn’t want to have his hands all over his woman?”