“Really,” I said earnestly. “Kevin’s here.”
“Oh, yeah? And how’s that going? Engaged yet?”
“Not quite,” I said wryly. I supposed we were dating since I’d slept with him twice, but so far I’d dodged the let’s-be-exclusive conversation. I wasn’t sure why I was so reticent. The sex wasn’t mind-blowing, but it did the job. And I did genuinely like the guy. But I’d spent the last few months holding him at arm’s length, telling him I needed to keep my attention on Jahn’s surgery, then his recovery.
Obviously, I hadn’t planned on his sudden death.
How horrible was it of me to think that now Jahn was gone, I had no more excuses to hand Kevin?
Beside me, Kat craned her neck and scoped out the crowd. “So where is he?”
“He had to go take a call. Technically, he’s working today.”
“What are you going to do now?” Kat asked.
“About Kevin?” Honestly, I was hoping to avoid doing anything on that front for the foreseeable future.
“About your job,” she countered. “About the roof over your head. About your life. Have you thought about what you’re going to do?”
“Oh.” My shoulders sagged. “No. Not really.” My job in the PR department of Jahn’s company might pay my bills, but it was hardly my life’s ambition, and Kat was one of the few people to whom I’d confessed that deep, dark secret. Right then, however, that wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have. Fortunately, something across the room had caught Kat’s attention, effectively erasing my lack of direction and purpose from her mind.
She stood slightly straighter and the corners of her mouth tilted a bit, almost hinting at a smile. Curious, I turned to look in that direction, but saw nothing but suits and dresses and a sea of black. “What is it? Kevin?” I asked, praying he wasn’t heading our direction.
“Cole August,” she said. “At least I thought I saw him.”
“Oh.” I licked my lips. My mouth had gone suddenly dry. “Is Evan with him?” I forced my voice to sound casual, but my pulse was racing. If Cole was around, it was always a good bet that Evan was, too.
Then I remembered what day it was and my pulse slowed as disappointment weighed down on me. “Isn’t tonight the ribbon-cutting for the hospital wing Evan funded?”
Kat didn’t even spare me a glance, her eyes still searching the crowd. “Not sure.” She shot me a quick look. “Yeah, it was. You invited me before, you know, all of this happened.”
I blinked back the sudden prick of tears. “Evan’s going to hate missing this. Jahn was like a dad to him.”
Beside me, Kat took a quick step backward, startling me.
“What is it?”
She dragged her gaze away from the crowd, then frowned at me. “I … Oh, shit. I have to go make a call. I’ll be right back, okay?”
“Um, okay.” Who the hell did she need to call right now? That wasn’t a question I pondered for long, though, because I’d caught a glimpse of Cole. And right beside him—looking like he owned the world and everything in it—was Evan.
Immediately, my chest tightened and a current of electricity zinged across my skin. Technically, I saw him first, but it was my body’s reaction that caught my attention. Only after I felt him did I truly see him.
And what a sight he was.
Whereas Cole might be sex on wheels, Evan Black was the slow burn of sin and seduction—and tonight he was in rare form. He must have come straight from the hospital, because he was still in a tux, and although he was clearly overdressed, he appeared perfectly at ease. Whether in a tux or jeans, where Evan was concerned, it was the man that mattered, not the garment.
He had the kind of chiseled good looks that would have gotten him plucked from obscurity in the Golden Age of Hollywood, and the kind of confidence and bearing that would have made him a box-office draw. A small scar intersected his left brow, giving the angel’s face a hint of the devil.
He both came from money and had made his own fortune, and it showed in the way he held himself, the way he looked around a room, managing to take control of it with nothing more than a glance.
His eyes were as gray as a wolf’s and his hair was the color of cherrywood, a deep brown that hinted at golds and reds when the light hit it just right. He wore it long in the back so that it brushed his collar, and the natural waves gave it the quality of a mane—which only enhanced the impression that there was a wildness clinging to the man.
Wild or not, I wanted to get close. I wanted to thrust my fingers into his hair and feel the locks on my skin. I imagined his hair was soft, but that’s the only part of him that was. Everything else was edged with steel, the hard planes of his face and body hinting at a dangerous core beneath that beauty.
I didn’t know whether the danger was real or an illusion. And right then, I didn’t care.
I wanted the touch, the thrill.
That desperate need to fly I’d been feeling all night? So help me, I wanted to fly right into Evan’s arms.
I needed the rush. I craved the thrill.
I wanted the man.
And it was just too damn bad that he didn’t want me, too.
two
I’d known Evan Black for almost eight years, and yet I didn’t really know the man at all.
I’d just turned sixteen when I first saw him during the sweltering heat of a summer that marked so many firsts in my life. The first summer I spent entirely in Chicago. The first summer away from my parents. The first time I fucked a guy. Because that’s what it was. Not a sweet teenage romance. It was release, pure and simple. Release and escape and oblivion.
And damned if I hadn’t needed oblivion, because that was also the first summer without my sister, who was back in California, six feet beneath the sun-soaked earth.
I’d been lost after her death. My parents—wracked with their own grief—had tried to pull me close, to help and soothe me. But I wriggled away, too burdened with loss to cleave to them the way I wanted. Too heavy with guilt to believe I had any right to their help or affection.
It was Jahn who’d rescued me from that small corner of hell. He’d appeared at the front door of our La Jolla house the first Friday of summer break, and immediately steered my mother into the dark paneled office that was forbidden to me. When they’d emerged twenty minutes later there were fresh tears in my mother’s eyes, but she’d managed a cheery smile for me. “Go pack your carry-on,” she’d said. “You’re going to Chicago with Uncle Jahn.”