Wait. Was he her lover? He wasn’t. He couldn’t be. He was a one-night stand, and she was simply a curious woman conducting the necessary post-mortem research.
She continued on the hunt for Jack Sullivan. One of the first results mentioned that his company was the gold sponsor for a charity gala supporting breast cancer research next month. The company even sold a small, pink pocket-sized vibrator called The Divine, and donated half of the proceeds from that product to breast cancer.
Damn. Not only was he fantastic in bed, he was good to women in important ways too.
One of the next results was an article in a business magazine headlined Soldier-Turned-Sex-Toy-Mogul.
She was almost ashamed at the way goose bumps rose across her arms and legs. She wasn’t supposed to be stirred by such things, but holy fucking hell, the man had served his country, had been in uniform, had been stationed in Europe as an army intelligence officer. She didn’t know much about the armed forces—she grew up surrounded by the arts, since her father had been a theater professor and her mother a choreographer—but she’d treated a few soldiers and a few officers too, and she’d learned enough about the work. An intelligence officer managed, analyzed and provided strategies for soldiers on the front line based on the intelligence gathered during missions. Many often went onto jobs in the corporate world after leaving the military.
And here was Jack, a sexy-as-sin CEO and a former soldier.
Yeah, that was hot as hell.
Emboldened by this candy trail, she continued on it, hunting out more details. She found an article from last night in a local news outlet.
New York’s Most Eligible Bachelors
Sex toy mogul Jack Sullivan tops this year’s list of the city’s most eligible bachelors in business. Don’t you think he needs a new woman to mend his broken heart? Makes you just want to nab that man even more.
Her heart fell when she read those words. She brushed aside her naughty thoughts, focusing instead on the man behind the headlines. A pang of concern took root inside her as she read on, clicking until she’d learned exactly why he’d come to see her.
Her heart lurched towards him. His fiancée, Aubrey Sheen, had been a former Olympic skier, who’d died on the slopes in a freak accident a little more than a year ago. Apparently, the pair of them had travelled to Breckenridge, Colorado for a ski weekend seven days before their wedding. On the last run of the day, she’d crashed into a tree on an intermediate trail that she held the speed record on. She’d died on impact, the reports said. Michelle’s throat hitched as she read the stories, and the ones that followed it. Months later, the local press had started hounding the eligible-again bachelor about his status, and apparently being a widower had made him all the more appealing for those who cared about such things.
Michelle was not one of the people who cared about such things. Not one bit. She cared instead about the fact that somehow that man was hurting, and he wanted help for it.
She reminded herself that it wasn’t her job to help him. It was Kana’s now. She’d probably never see him again. Such a shame, since being with him was about the only thing that had made her feel it was possible to move on from heartache.
CHAPTER TWO
Improper
By the end of the session, Kana knew the basics, but not the truth. He wasn’t going to pony that up to someone he hadn’t even intended to spill a single word to. She was nice enough, a good listener, and asked questions that didn’t make him want to squirm, as he’d suspected he’d feel being in a shrink’s office for the first time.
But he’d be lying to the world if he said his mind was here between these four walls. He was elsewhere, trying to wrap himself around why it felt weird to want to see Michelle again. Or really, why it didn’t feel weird. Maybe that’s what was so off-kilter to him. Michelle didn’t know the details of his reason for this visit, but she knew he needed help, and that should bother him. He was a private man. Sure, he had a public persona as the head of a company that had become something of a press darling by virtue of the type of products it peddled. But beyond the necessary appearances, Jack wasn’t someone prone to sharing too much. That wasn’t his thing. Growing up in a home that wasn’t known for talking it out, or hugging it out either, he’d learned to deal with everything inside his head.
But oddly enough, it didn’t bother him that Michelle knew he was seeing a shrink. And that was information only Casey was privy to.
Maybe that’s why wanting more of Michelle didn’t feel as strange as it should. She already knew he had crap to deal with; he didn’t have to pretend with her that he was New York’s most eligible bachelor.
He wasn’t.
He had a hunch he didn’t have to be that guy with her. He relished the freedom he’d felt last night in letting go of what everyone thought they knew about him. He had enjoyed being Just Jack. He wanted to be that guy again. He wanted to see her again. He wanted to get to know the woman behind the pencil skirt, the sharp blouse and the black high heels. The combo was like a straight shot of heat to his groin.
“So, do you think you’ll want to keep going?”
Oh, crap. Kana wanted to know if he was game for more therapy. Hell if he knew. “Sure,” he said.
After she said a quick goodbye and shut the door, he honed in on the stairwell, covered two flights, and headed to the first office he’d been in, knocking sharply on the wood.
In seconds, Michelle opened the door.
“Do you have an appointment right now?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Good,” he said, stepping inside, clicking the door shut, and locking it behind him.
* * *
“Do you like Italian?”
She scrunched up her brow at the question, but then she connected the dots as she sat down. The last text he’d sent her was about dinner.
“I do,” she said, because it was the truth, and because it didn’t commit her. She wasn’t sure if she was going to continue this thing—whatever it was—with him. She wasn’t sure about anything, except the fact that he looked good at three o’clock in the afternoon when his five o’clock shadow seemed to start. Add in that dark hair that had felt so luxurious in her fingers, the chiseled cheekbones and the slightly loosened tie, and she’d have to say he seemed like a man who’d stepped off the pages of a magazine.
He took another step closer. “I made a reservation.”
“Where?” she asked, feeling a bit like they were having this conversation on another plane of reality. Then again, the last few hours had her feeling like she’d slipped into another world.