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  Though I would probably be hard pressed to come up with a decent recipe for blood orange martinis. That was just way too fancy.

  I gasped and sat straight up in bed, practically having to peel my eyes open with my fingers to assess my surroundings.

  I wasn’t in my bed. That was my first discovery. I didn’t have the wherewithal for a down duvet, for one, and it would have been silly to splurge on that to complement my rickety futon that protested so mightily when trying to fold it up into a couch position that I’d given up and let it remain in the bed position for months. Who needed a couch, anyway? I never had people over to my tiny place.

  But where was I this morning? What had I done last night?

  My tired, puffy eyes fell upon my panties, on the floor right by the bed, then proceeded to my bra, a few paces away, then my black skirt, another few paces away, and my button-down shirt, almost all the way by the door, crumpled over what had to be my flats. It was a trail of clothes leading to the bed, and with a sudden shock bolstered by the emergency exit information emblazoned on the door, I realized that I was in a very nice hotel.

  The reason I was in that very nice hotel was because I’d had blistering hot birthday sex with a man I’d only met the night before.

  It came back to me the instant I realized I had a sweeter, more welcome ache between my legs to distract me from the one building in my brain. I touched myself, felt the wetness, smelled the musk, and knew that my foggy memories were much truer than a vivid sex dream.

  If I tried hard enough, I could still feel Peter’s hands coursing down my sides, making me moan in places that should’ve tickled, forcing me to make a litany of sounds I didn’t know I was capable of. My face flushed hot against the pillow, remembering that truth. The man had coaxed sounds out of me like he was drawing water from a well. I hadn’t been able to stop crying out thickly for him, especially when he replaced his hands with his hot mouth, that tongue just as musical when it was looping around my clit, delving deep into my body, bringing me to the very cusp of completion and then well beyond in just a few simple beckoning motions.

  I covered my face with my pillow. How was it that I’d gotten so lucky? Never in the history of my birthdays since I’d become sexually active — a misbegotten night in the middle of the woods with a boy I knew from my English class in high school, cold and damp, on the ground, utterly crappy — had I ever had sex like that. I’d had to cajole previous boyfriends into reciprocating oral sex, but it was Peter’s first inclination: to get me into the room, undressed, and thoroughly undone by his fingers, his lips, his tongue, and, yes, even his teeth, gently, oh-so-carefully raked over my labia, enough to make me shudder even now, recalling the surprisingly provocative move.

  And then, it was only after I’d come that Peter had guided his dick to my pussy with his hand, kissing me with my taste still on his tongue as he entered my body, swallowing the moans I made with his own mouth, the two of us breathing for each other.

  The thought of that coupling made me so horny I mustered the strength to look around the room to see if there was any evidence left to suggest that Peter was still in here with me — in the bathroom, perhaps — so I could get a little remedy for this hangover that didn’t come in a bottle.

  If Peter could bottle up what he had to offer in the bedroom, he’d be a billionaire.

  So, in my experience of being a grown woman having consensual sex, never in my life had I been with a lover so gentle, so attentive, so insistent that I should come not once, but twice — the memory of his hips pumping against mine, of my legs wrapped around his waist, of his fingers in my mouth, making me suck and scream at the same time, overwhelmed by the sheer kink of the situation, the way my climax was building yet again inside me, inexplicably, then crashing down, harder than it ever had in my entire life.

  It was enough to make me touch myself, tentatively, and groan. I was sore from our hotel room session last night, but not so sore that I’d say no to a repeat performance this morning.

  “Peter?” I rasped, grimacing at my voice and torn-up throat. I’d screamed myself hoarse, apparently.

  I rolled over to the bed and found a glass of water already poured, a pair of pills laid out on a saucer, a note scrawled on a pad of paper beside it.

  “Happy birthday,” it read. “Figured you’d need some aspirin. Cheers to twenty-three. It only gets better from here.”

  He was gone. I pulled a pillow over my face and pressed it, hard, at the realization that he had left me here. Alone. On my birthday. To contend with a hangover and soul-crushing arousal from last night’s sex.

  I hadn’t even gotten his number.

  I shuffled to the bathroom, wincing at the amount of mascara and eyeliner that had accumulated on my face, and knew I had to get ready to leave. God only knew what the checkout time was in this place, and I hadn’t forgotten that I had a dinner date with my mother and her soon-to-be husband.

  If only I’d gotten Peter’s number. Maybe he wouldn’t have been averse to going to dinner with me. That really would’ve pleased my mother — the fact that I had some kind of romantic prospect in my life. Peter was someone I would’ve readily introduced to my mother, and that was saying something.

  I showered and toweled myself off, the water sapping what little energy I’d had, and I fell back down in the bed. This was ridiculous. At this rate, I was never going to get out of here.

  I reached for the phone and dialed for the front desk.

  “Good morning, Ms. Ryan. What can I do for you?”

  My mouth worked in surprise. Had I given my name at the front desk? Had Peter given them my name? Was service here that good?

  “I was wondering what time checkout was,” I said, my voice still hoarse. I’d have to invent some kind of lie to explain it away over dinner — maybe an impending cold. Or talking too long with an old, fake friend, catching up over a meal.

  “Checkout is whenever you’d like,” the receptionist informed me. “Mr. Bly has the room through tomorrow, just in case, but he said you did have a dinner appointment. We had a wakeup call scheduled for you in a couple of hours.”

  “A couple of hours?”

  “The room is yours, Ms. Ryan, for as long as you’d like to stay,” the receptionist said warmly. “Can I send up some breakfast from our restaurant? An early lunch, perhaps? Mr. Bly also said that you should have anything you want.”

  I had died and gone to heaven. That’s what had happened overnight. I had somehow died, and room service and a hotel room as long as I wanted it was my version of heaven. I’d take it. The bed itself was heavenly — like a soft cloud that held my body perfectly.

  “I would love some breakfast, please,” I said. “And thank you.”

  There was no better hangover than a pampered hangover. I dressed myself in an oversized robe I found in a closet, treated myself to cable television, and gorged myself on waffles topped with mounds of berries, fresh cream, and a pot of coffee.

  And when it was time to exile myself from this paradise so I could get home and get dressed for dinner, I enjoyed one last romp in that heavenly bed, my own hand replacing Peter’s, my eyes squeezed shut to better imagine him pleasuring me, the ache in my groin spreading warmly in my body, one last sweet memory to help mark my twenty-third year.

  Chapter 5

  Dressed in my most posh outfit, I made my way across the city, precariously perching on the edges of bus seats, hurrying to stand when someone tried to sit next to me, and wishing I’d set aside some money for a taxi ride instead. A taxi would’ve been exorbitant, though. I was traveling to Manhattan proper, running late for dinner at one of the nicest hotels on the island.

  It was my fault. I’d told my mother that I lived in a neighborhood not too far from the hotel — a fib that had made her preen with pride.

  “Nothing but the best for my Gem,” she’d crowed, making me feel guilty and glad at the same time, a hot mixture of emotions I’d grown used to. If she knew I didn’t even have my ow
n bathroom, she’d probably wither away into an inconsolable mess.

  But now that she was visiting me, for the first time since I’d moved to the city, I needed to look the part of the reality I’d peddled to her over the past year. I’d gone over the notes I’d taken in my journal to keep my facts straight, tried to swallow my anxiety, and reminded myself that it could always be worse — I could still be sporting a hangover to go with the vintage pieces I’d arranged into what I considered to be a nice outfit.

  I’d found the gray blazer in a bargain bin at a fine retailer, and it dressed up everything I owned. A subtly sequined tank top I’d plucked off the rack of a secondhand shop added some pizazz, and the black tuxedo pants I’d literally pulled out of a dumpster near my night job completed the quirky but surprisingly elegant look. I felt invincible in this outfit, polished off with a topknot and smoky eye makeup. This outfit looked like it belonged to a young woman who was confidently coming into her own in the big city, not a girl frightened of the future and unsure of her place in it.

  “Look at you!” my mother exclaimed, making me glow with relief. “Look at my gorgeous girl in her gorgeous threads! Oh, just look at her, Frank!”

  “Geez, please don’t let my mother bully you into gushing over my appearance,” I said to the man who stood up from the table with her at the same time. “This is embarrassing.”

  “No need to be embarrassed,” he said, his British accent making me blanch, then shake my head at myself. What was this? Was it a British invasion here in the Big Apple? The injustice of the situation definitely wasn’t lost on me — I’d hooked up with a British sex angel last night, and my mother had netted one to marry.

  “This is Frank,” my mother said, beaming, and I tried to put my twilight moment behind me. It was good to see her so happy. She deserved to be happy.

  “I hope it is,” I said, smiling as I held my hand out for him to shake enthusiastically. “It would’ve been weird if you were just sitting here with a stranger.”

  “Oh, Gemma, stop it.” My mother chortled like a schoolgirl, and I allowed a waiter to pull out my chair for me as I gaped in undisguised shock. I’d never seen my mother like this in my entire life — practically giddy with excitement. There were days when she could best be described as dour, other days when she lorded her will over me with precise and exacting cruelty. I didn’t blame her for anything. She’d had tough moments in her life, and she did her best to protect me from them. This was just a side of her I’d never been acquainted with, laughing loudly in public with no concern for appearances, a slight blush covering her cheeks, making her look younger than her fifty-five years.

  “I’m going to run out and make a quick call,” Frank said. “I hope you two will excuse me.”

  “You’re fine, Frank,” my mother fussed at him, waving him away and giggling as he kissed one of her flailing hands. “You’re impossible. Get out of here. Make your phone call.”

  My mother watched him go, then leaned over to me eagerly.

  “I have to tell you something, but you have to try not to act weird,” she stage whispered.

  “You’re not pregnant, are you?”

  She spluttered into a laugh. “Don’t be ludicrous. You’re my one and only — well, of my body.”

  I peered at her. “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It means — oh, let it go, Gemma, that’s not what I need to tell you, and he’ll be back any minute!” My mother glanced toward the entrance of the restaurant and then back to me. “Frank is a very rich man.”

  “Of course he’s a rich man,” I said, taking a sip of my water. “He’s got you, hasn’t he?”

  “You’re not listening to me. I’m only telling you now so, if it comes up, you don’t make a weird face. Or do something foolish.”

  “I’ve been around people with money before,” I informed my mother. “I know how to behave myself.”

  “Gemma, he’s a billionaire.”

  “He’s a what?” I blinked at her. “Is that ‘b’ as in ‘billions?’”

  “Sh, here he comes!” my mother hissed, and patted my hand fondly before leaning back. “Well, that didn’t take very long at all.”

  “Just a quick call,” Frank said, giving her a peck on the top of her head. I looked at Frank appraisingly, trying to simply convert it into polite curiosity. I’d never been around anyone with as much money as my mother said her fiancé had. I half expected him to look different in some way, perhaps sprouting money out of his hair or pockets, but he just looked like a retiree who had aged well — gotten a little thick around the waist, maybe, but overall still a good-looking man.

  “Tell me the story of how the two of you met again,” I said. “How interesting that you’ve connected so well!” I had a strange, passing thought — was my mother a gold digger? Would I fault her for it if she was? She’d never been interested in dating before. Was it Frank’s money that had prodded her back into the dating world?

  “We don’t want to talk about us,” my mother said, rolling her eyes. “It’s your birthday, Gemma! Tell us about you!”

  “There’s nothing that’s going on that you don’t already know about,” I protested. “Let’s talk wedding. This is so exciting. You two are the ones with the big news. My birthday? No way — twenty-three is just a number, and not even a very important one.”

  “Well, you’re going to be my maid of honor, of course,” my mother said, her eyes alight with excitement. “But I wanted to save all that talk for later. Why don’t you tell Frank about your job? I want to hear more about this trip abroad that your company is thinking about sending you on?”

  And there I was, trapped in my world of lies. I hadn’t wanted to get into this, thinking that I could keep the focus on the impending wedding. I let my muscles go lax, easing into the state of being I needed to sound the most natural, and reminded myself that things could be worse — my mother might’ve demanded to see my apartment.

  “Well, my company has asked me to travel to—”

  “—France. There’s a reorganization going on at our branch there, and we need our best people on hand to help ease the transition. Gemma, of course, is a gem — well, you already know that. You’re her mother.”

  I turned in my chair, hardly believing what I was hearing, until I saw it with my own eyes.

  It was Peter Bly. In the flesh. The man who had helped me ring in my birthday last night and into the wee hours this morning.

  I was looking right at him, right into those blue eyes, as he repeated things that he couldn’t have possibly known, lies that I’d been feeding to my mother for whole months. What in the hell was he doing here? I was frozen with fear and shock, not sure what was going to happen next, not sure what I even wanted to happen next. There was no good way this was going to end. It was too twisted. Too many tangles of lies. I’d been caught at last, but certainly not in the way I’d expected it would happen.

  “I wasn’t aware that there was a branch in France,” Frank put in, frowning.

  “Well, it’s not a branch — yet,” Peter said smoothly. “More like an impending acquisition. We’re expanding, you see. Doing very well, thanks to the caliber of people we have on staff, like Gemma. She’s very dedicated.”

  “You could’ve told your old man that you were snapping up companies in France,” Frank grumbled, standing to shake Peter’s hand almost resignedly. “Well, Gemma, I see you already know my son. Peter, meet my soon-to-be wife, Lydia.”

  “Well, hello, Peter,” my mother said. “I had no idea that yours was the business my Gemma has been working for this entire time. How funny — and what a small world.”

  “It certainly is a small world,” Peter said, winking at me before taking the empty chair beside mine. “My apologies for my late arrival. Traffic in this city can be a bear. My car was stuck at a light for what had to be a full five minutes. I don’t know how you deal with all this congestion, Gemma.”

  I opened my mouth to reply and nearly yelped. Peter�
�s hand was resting on my knee, much like the touch I’d given him at Citrus Meridian the night before, the touch that had let him know I was very much interested in having more of him for my birthday celebration.

  “I just… It’s just a part of living here,” I said, trying hard not to shudder as his fingers crept up my thigh, gripping it. I thanked whatever merciful deity that had helped me pick out this outfit that I’d picked out these tuxedo trousers. A skirt would’ve undone me.

  “Gemma was so eager to leave our small town,” my mother said, giving me a disapproving look before laughing. “Look at her, though. I was so nervous for her, and she is absolutely thriving. I just can’t believe you work for Frank’s son. Is that going to be strange, ethically?”

  “Absolutely not,” Peter assured her, his fingers ranging even higher, tickling my inner thigh through the fabric. I fought the urge to squirm, or worse, moan. “It’s like keeping the business in the family.”

  I realized with a jolt that, though of course it hadn’t been apparent before last night, I’d had delicious and incredible sex with a man who was about to become my stepbrother. I stared at Peter, and he smiled at me for our parents’ benefit, pressing his finger all too knowingly against the zipper of my pants, just enough pressure to send a spike of pleasure right against my clit. I had to cough to cover a groan.

  “I think it’s wonderfully serendipitous that you’re working for the family company, Gemma,” Frank said. “And more wonderful, still, that Pete’s taken you under his wing.”

  He had me under a lot more than a wing last night, but neither of our parents needed to know that truth.

  “It’s a dream job,” I said, “it really is. I was just so thankful to get it. I’ve gotten a lot of great experience under my belt, so to speak.”