Michael appeared in the doorway. “Sean, shut up and go home.”
He gave me a look that made my inner thighs bloom with heat.
“I’m going. Have fun, kids. Nice to meet you, Felicia. Make sure my brother holds up his end of the bargain.”
My cheeks got warm. Damn it. I hated to blush but Sean obviously knew everything and that was just a touch awkward. Nothing for it but to just own it. “I’ll be very firm with him,” I said. “Rest assured.”
Sean laughed. “Good.” He clapped his brother on the shoulder. “You’re in trouble. Talk to you later, man.”
He moved down the hallway and Michael gestured to his flat. “Come in, Felicia. It’s good to see you again.”
“See?” I said. “There it is. Polite.”
“And that’s a problem?” he asked, looking amused.
“No, it’s just a smoke screen I wasn’t prepared for. I like the combination though. A lot.” I wasn’t even bothering to be coy. Why should I? He’d read all my texts. There was no hiding what I wanted when I’d already literally spelled it out.
“I like that such a sweet and pretty face hides a devious mind.” He shut the door behind him.
“Devious? That seems a stretch.”
Michael stepped into my personal space and looked down at me. “Devious. Naughty. Sexy. Beautiful.”
I had to tip my head to look up at him. “You make me sound very intriguing.”
He nodded. “You are.”
Then he cupped both of my cheeks with his hands and gave me a sensual kiss. Neither light nor hard, but that delicious in-between where your mouths meet like partners in a dance. I sighed in pleasure.
He broke off the kiss and said, “Let me take your bag and coat.”
I’d teased him a little about being polite, but it was actually part of the reason I’d always been attracted to older men. They had manners. Of course, a lot of men my age did as well, but an equal number did not. “Thank you.” I handed him my handbag and peeled off my coat.
“I wasn’t expecting your bag to be so heavy.” He hefted it up and down before setting it on his console table.
“I popped into a shop on Houston and bought six candles. They have the best scents.”
“That explains it. I ordered you sushi. It should be here in a few minutes.” He took my coat and hung it in the closet.
“Wow, that was nice of you.” I was hungry, but I was also feeling a massive sense of anticipation. I wasn’t sure I could sit through two hours of chat and dine without it being weird.
“Do you want a glass of wine?”
I nodded and reached down to take off my boots. This was like take two. We’d already done this once today.
Only this time the sexual tension crackled between us.
I followed him into the kitchen and watched him pour two glasses of wine. Again. “It’s like we’ve done this before just three hours ago.”
He laughed. “If something is worth doing, it’s worth doing again.” He handed me a glass. “Cheers.”
We lightly tapped the glasses together.
“So tell me what I don’t know about you,” I said. “We talked quite a bit online, but there are plenty of gaps left to fill in.”
“I grew up in Manhattan, did I tell you that?”
I shook my head. “No. So a true New Yorker, then.”
“Go Yankees.” He moved toward the sofa. “Let’s sit down. How about you? Where did you grow up since it wasn’t Pennsylvania?”
“I grew up in London, a posh kid with posh parents.” I put my glass down on the coffee table and sat down. “Then when I was sixteen my father lost everything to gambling. Well, I guess he’d been losing for years, but that was the year it became impossible to hide it anymore. The bank took the townhouse, the country house, the fifteen-car collection, and my tuition check to private school bounced. My mother filed for divorce. Not that I blame her. That’s a hell of a secret to keep for years.”
“Wow, that sounds like it was very disruptive for you at that age.”
It hadn’t been a great time in my life, that was for damn sure. “It was. But it probably made me work harder than I would have otherwise. Those years and then modeling gave me a perspective and maturity I wouldn’t have had. I was a bit of a brat as a girl.”
“How is your relationship with your parents now?”
“Mum and I are fine, though we don’t see each other in person that often. My father remarried a woman with money, and while I don’t actively dislike him, we’re not close.” I picked up the wine. Talking about my father was never particularly comfortable. “My mother is the one who taught me about fashion. She was quite the shopper and socialite.”
“My family has a lot of money as well,” Michael said. “I was a rich kid too. Private schools, polo lessons, a vacation home out in the Hamptons. We were mostly left to raise ourselves, and I have to say, we didn’t do that bad of a job. Sean is a head chef at a great restaurant in Brooklyn and my sister, Maeve, is in television production out in LA.”
“To city kids raising themselves,” I said, lifting my glass again. It was actually nice to be talking to someone who had a similar background.
Most of my friends were from suburban upbringings and they had shared experiences that were foreign to me, like the cul-de-sac.
“I wouldn’t trade it for anything. I had a ton of freedom. We thought we were pretty cool back in the day.”
“Are your parents still here?” I asked.
He nodded. “They still live in the same apartment I grew up in on Fifth Avenue. Classic Upper East Side.”
I wondered if I would have thought he was hot when he was back in school. Then again, I’d been a toddler. “What made you want to be a doctor?”
“I like helping people and I like being in charge.”
That made me laugh. “Well, that’s honest.”
He shrugged. “It’s true. And I like the challenge of solving the puzzle. What is wrong and how do we fix it?”
His phone buzzed. “The sushi is here. I’ll be right back.”
As he went down to the lobby to get the delivery, I pulled my feet up onto the sofa and tucked them under my thighs. I looked around, searching again for any personal signs that this was Michael’s home. Or rather, what it said about him. But it was just a showroom for the furniture. There were no personal photos sitting around, no treasures from vacations. Though I thought it said more that he was a minimalist than cold-hearted.
He’d have a heart attack if he saw the cluttered box I lived in. It was better now that Leah had moved out. I’d taken her room and turned it into my storage and mailing room. It was floor-to-ceiling shelves and racks filled with clothes, boxes, and tissue paper. Organized chaos. My bedroom had become the location of my photo shoots in bad weather. My preference was to shoot outside with a building behind the model but that wasn’t always possible in the winter, so I had to keep my furniture to a minimum to make room. My bed was a twin, which was ludicrous at my age, but it was a small room.
I’d been fretting about the additional rent, but the clothes Michael wanted sold were going to help out dramatically on that front.