Chapter 1
Jack needed a woman.
Not the one lying by his side, the sheets slinking past her gorgeous breasts and down her slim belly.
But the woman who could assure the safety of his business.
Sex and business. They were his two favorite things. Last night he’d partaken of the former. Today would be about the latter. He had turned The Fiorini Group into the giant it was now, but he couldn’t risk complacency.
As he looked out at the sun rising over the sparkling Hudson from his penthouse in the West Village, Jack felt something he hadn’t since high school.
A twinge of worry.
It was small, but there it was, niggling at the back of his brain like an unwelcome visitor. His company had been his world, and he’d been happy to devote his life to it. Lately, however, there had been whispers. Whispers that his place at the head of the business he had helped build might not be as assured as he’d once thought.
But it would be a cold day in hell when he went down without a fight. He just needed to summon the legendary Jack Bennett magic in the boardroom on Tuesday, and he’d be back on course.
Well, he needed her, too. With the last Fiorini in his pocket, and the magic, there was no way he could lose.
He checked his watch. He’d be late for brunch, and that was no way to treat Eva after what she’d been through, but he’d gotten zero sleep last night. The sleeping blonde—Chloe? Kalie?— lay curled around him, clutching him as if she had no intention of letting go. She’d been the hottest woman at the whiskey bar last night, and they’d had a good time. A very good time, complete with toe-curling multiple orgasms for her, of course. Feeling her body warm and soft against him, he could easily go for another round. There was no question she would be up for whatever he had in mind—in the bedroom or on the road to happily ever after.
But that was the problem. There was no happily ever after. Few women saw sex with Jack as just sex, but that’s what it was. What it had always been. He didn’t have the time or the inclination for anything else.
And today, he had other things on his mind. Big things.
Lifting the blonde’s limp, tanned arm, he slid out of her embrace and headed to the shower. After shaving and donning his suit, he woke his date with a kiss on the cheek, and sent her on her way. She cooed sleepily for him to call her as she headed downstairs to the town car he’d ordered to take her home, but thankfully departed with minimal fuss. Once the door shut behind Chloe-Kalie, Jack turned, surveying his reflection in the hall mirror as he added the finishing touch, a pair of custom made Jacob and Co. cuff links. The Harvard assholes whose messes he’d mopped up during his years of work study would kill to be him now. To have even one-fifth of the life he’d achieved, on his own, without his daddy’s trust fund.
Things have changed, he thought as he got into his limo and headed to midtown. No one dismisses me. Not anymore.
His phone dinged. Another text from Lucy. What are you up to?
He pressed his lips together as he deleted the text and shoved the phone into his pocket. Ex-girlfriends came out of the woodwork at the least opportune times. Relationships that lasted for more than a few weeks were always a mistake and Lucy, for all her beauty and refinement, was quickly proving to be the biggest mistake of them all. Wild in the bedroom was all well and good, but in Lucy’s case, wild came with an extra serving of crazy on the side.
Crazy, and apparently not inclined to take a hint when her texts went repeatedly unanswered.
On impulse, Jack pulled out his phone again and thumbed in the exact same message—What are you up to?—to the tight-bodied girl who’d snagged the treadmill next to his at the gym last week. She was a little thing, but he’d been impressed by how easily she’d matched his stride. They had chatted afterwards at the juice bar. She was in college, studying some worthless major—Archaeology?—and had clearly been thrilled when Jack asked for her number.
Almost immediately, his phone pinged again—