With a shake of my head, I step out of the elevator and onto the marble floor of the lobby in the building that houses my brothers’ business.
Before I can make a getaway, Harrison wraps his hand around my bicep, sending a noticeable shiver through me.
“Tell me your name,” he demands in a low tone as his breath slides over my cheek.
I hold steady, determined not to allow him to see me react.
It’s not as if this can lead to anything. The second he realizes who I am, he’ll retreat into his role as my older brother’s best friend.
I’m untouchable, which is why I’ll savor the feeling of his hand on my skin for a second longer.
I glance up at his face, at his ridiculously handsome face. “I need to go. Bye, Harry.”
That brings a smile to his perfect lips. “Harry?”
“That’s what your friends call you,” I say as I tug my arm free, take a step forward, and then another until I exit the building and disappear into the pedestrian traffic on one of the bustling sidewalks of New York City.
CHAPTER TWO
Harrison
I’ve followed the blonde beauty from the elevator for three blocks, but it’s far from intentional. The trek from my best friend’s office to mine is this exact route.
I admit that I’ve never enjoyed the view before today. Concrete, more concrete, traffic, a sea of strangers, and trash bags typically dot the horizon, but today it’s the swaying hips of the woman who called me Harry.
Harry.
That’s a name reserved for my closest friends.
I’ve never introduced myself as anything but Harrison, yet the gorgeous blonde in the pink dress tossed Harry out as if she’s said it to my face before.
She hasn’t because I would remember her.
I slow as I near a group of people stopped at the corner waiting for the light to change so they can all rush across the street toward their mid-day destinations.
Since the blonde is completely unaware that I’m less than a foot behind her, I take a step forward because I view now as the perfect time to charm her name out of her.
The voices of the people around us and the seemingly unending noise from the midday traffic in Manhattan aren’t enough to drown out the sound of a phone ringing.
Several heads in the group waiting to cross the street drop in search of their phones, including the London-born woman.
“Hi,” she says in a tone that carries over the other voices in the group. “How are you?”
She glances to the right as he listens to whoever is fortunate enough to have her number.
“Tomorrow night at Dunfoy’s Pub.” Her voice softens. “Be there for ten. I’ll be the one in the red dress with the martini glass in her hand.”
A laugh escapes her just as the light signals it’s safe to cross.
It’s misleading.
This is Manhattan.
It’s always ‘step into the street at your own risk’ here since the drivers on this island are in as much of a rush as the pedestrians.
“It feels like it’s been forever,” she says into her phone as I trail her. “I can’t wait to see you.”
As soon as she’s on the sidewalk, she turns sharply to the right to wait to cross another street.
I pause briefly, tempted to say something, anything that will give me a moment more of her time, but I continue on my way, leaving her on the corner.
I need to get back to my office for a meeting. I haven’t been to Dunfoy’s in years. Tomorrow night seems like the perfect time to revisit the bar.
“I have this idea.”
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard those words come out of the mouth of my youngest sister.
After my father died when I was four, my mother channeled her grief into a new family.
Two of my half-siblings bear the surname of the mechanic my mother took her BMW to a week after my father’s funeral. Nine months after Floyd, the mechanic, worked on my mother’s engine, my half-brother, Ryden Duran, was born. A year later, my mother brought my sister, Joslyn, home from the hospital.
When Floyd skipped town with a woman who drove a Maserati, that divorce was already in the works.
My mom set her sights on a new man then. He was a widower with no children and a thriving orthopedic practice. Dr. Denton was the charmer my mother had been searching for her entire life.
My youngest sister, Roxy, was born just months before that marriage crashed and burned. Literally. The doctor’s private plane went down in flames, leaving my mother to face the reality that her husband had been in serious shit with the IRS before his death.
“Harrison?” Roxy stresses each syllable of my name. “Did you hear me?”
I look up to see her standing in the doorway of my office. A neon pink backpack is slung over her shoulder. It’s a sharp contrast to the navy blue school uniform she’s wearing.