Seeing the time, Hunter stood up and buttoned his suit jacket, smoothing down his designer tie. Hunter walked over to his massive floor-to-ceiling window overlooking Central Park and scowled at the dark gray clouds. Snow was predicted for that evening, just a light dusting, but that wouldn’t stop Hunt from his daily run around the park. Keeping fit kept him sane and he needed to spend a little time each day outside. If he didn’t, he felt like the walls of his office and apartment were closing in on him, pulling to the surface memories of being locked up in group houses.
After his meeting with Kate and Adie, he’d walk toward the park and back. That would do him until he could pull on his exercise gear. Hunter turned at the brief knock on his door and saw Duncan pushing it open.
“Your four-thirty is here, Hunter.”
Hunter looked at the slim woman walking into his office, immediately taking in her tousled brown hair and bright red, sensuous mouth.
There she was...
And it terrified Hunter to realize that he’d missed this woman he didn’t know.
Two
Stepping into an enormous light-filled office—thanks to the floor-to-ceiling windows framing a helluva view of Central Park—Adie pulled a professional, happy-to-meet-you smile onto her face. This meeting was important. Hunter Sheridan was Kate’s friend, her hotshot influencer and the one Adie needed to snag if she had any chance of making fast inroads into the crème de la crème of Manhattan society.
Kate, as she’d explained to Adie, didn’t understand why Hunter Sheridan wielded so much influence, but maybe it was, per Kate, because he didn’t give a damn what society thought about him or whether they accepted him or not. Hunt, Kate said with a smile, was a true individual, and while he could be charming if he tried, he could also be rude, demanding and impatient.
He was a hard man...
Adie, laying eyes on the man standing near the window knew just how very hard this man could be.
Stopping suddenly, her eyes clashed with his. She understood, somehow, that he’d known exactly who she was last night...
While she hadn’t known anything about him at all.
She’d thought him to be anyone other than Manhattan’s Most Magnificent. Though today he did look the part, Adie reluctantly conceded.
He was a natural clotheshorse and she loved his black Italian designer suit. His shirt was white, his tie silver and, if she’d had any doubt about his wealth last night, she had none this morning. He looked like what he obviously was—megarich and powerful.
And she’d asked him, without knowing his name, to come upstairs with her, to see her naked.
God, she couldn’t be more humiliated if she’d walked through Knightsbridge naked with her hypercritical mother pointing out all her flaws to pedestrians passing by.
Adie had spent many hours since their encounter cursing him, but mostly cursing herself. Falling into a man’s arms wasn’t what she did, not anymore at least. In her teens and twenties, she’d been addicted to attention, throwing herself into the arms of any man who would catch her. She’d fall in love easily and completely, convinced that this guy would be the one to give her what she so desperately craved: love, time, attention, a family.
Most of the guys ran, scared by her intensity. But a few stuck and because she was completely messed up, when they offered to take the relationship to the next level—handing her an “I love you,” a “let’s move in together” or even a “will you marry me?”—she was the one who galloped away.
Because the thing she wanted the most also terrified her to death.
And really, she now knew that it was better to be alone than to be rejected.
Because nothing lasted forever.
Five years ago, soon after turning twenty-five, she’d wised up and realized that her behavior was destructive and demeaning. After a lot of self-reflection, she accepted the fact that she constantly sought attention because she’d never received any from her parents as a child. She accepted the fact that she used guys and relationships as a distraction to fill the holes in her heart. After years of chasing love, she’d decided that she no longer wanted it. She needed to learn to be happy on her own.
By keeping busy and living an over-full life, she’d become strong and independent, totally career focused and committed to providing her clients with six-star service. She never allowed any romantic relationships to develop, terrified she’d revert back to being that demanding, clingy woman she’d been.
And sex was a vague memory.
But Christmas was always a bad time of year for her, and Adie knew the stress of the holiday season triggered sadness and depression in lots of people. She wasn’t immune. As the festive season rolled around, and images of perfect people, families and situations bombarded her, she was reminded of her ugly childhood and neglectful parents. Seeing Kate with her mom last night at the Christmas market had rubbed salt into that particular wound...
It was obvious that mother and daughter took great delight in each other and adored being in each other’s company. Rachel, despite being a successful attorney, took her role as a mother very seriously. Her kids, as Kate told Adie, were the reason Rachel’s sun rose every morning. Losing her twin brother, Steve, had devastated Kate, but Rachel was the one who took a year off work, who’d been unable to function for months after Steve’s death.
Adie had no doubt that should something happen to her, her mom would hold a very tasteful funeral and cry prettily. Lady Vivien Ashby-Tate had the emotional depth of a puddle and after a week, she’d become bored with playing the mourning mommy.
Adie pushed her hand through her short-cropped hair, wishing she could chide herself for being harsh. But the reality was that her mom didn’t love her, never had, and Adie was a burden her parents wished they’d never been saddled with.
Seeing Kate and Rachel together had made all those old feelings of neglect and need float to the surface. She’d berated herself for not being in a relationship, for not pursuing her dream of having a family. She’d felt herself slipping back into neediness. And that was before the sexiest man she’d ever laid eyes on walked through the door.