Marin walked quickly in the shadows of the tree-lined side street at Sixty-Eighth and Lexington. It was May, and after a long winter, the trees were full of leaves and in bloom. It was a perfect spring night, and she had made it past the first hurdle.
The thought of seeing him had been the only thing that got her through dinner. She knew her parents meant well, but God—what was she supposed to say? I broke off my engagement because I experienced the most intense physical attraction I’ve ever felt in my life to a different man? She didn’t know what was worse: being the object of their worry or dealing with their disappointment if she told them the truth.
Marin reached the brownstone on Sixty-Eighth and Lexington and rang the doorbell. Her gaze lingered on her empty ring finger. It was still a shock not to see the Tiffany diamond ring Greg Harper had placed on her hand three days before Thanksgiving at the charmingly impossible-to-get-into restaurant One if by Land, Two if by Sea (made famous when Obama took his wife there on their New York City date night). Marin had worn the ring for nearly six months; when she said yes to him, she really had intended to wear it for the rest of her life.
What would Julian say when she told him she’d broken off her engagement?
He answered the door still dressed in the suit he’d worn to the office but without the tie. His reading glasses were a tip-off that she’d interrupted him working. Marin felt a pang of guilt. She should be working too. Burning the midnight oil, as her dad said. Instead, she was distracting Julian. And being distracted by him.
At age thirty-two, Julian Rowe was the youngest partner at the law firm she’d dreamed of working at since undergrad: the fabled Cole, Harding, and Worth. He’d built his career in M and A—as a young associate, he’d ridden shotgun on some of the most groundbreaking cases the courts had heard in recent years. And then, a few months ago and two years into her own tenure at the firm, she’d been assigned to his team to work on a merger between a pharmaceutical giant and a small but extremely profitable company providing DNA home testing.
There was almost enough work and a steep enough learning curve to keep her mind off the fact that Julian Rowe was beautiful.
Almost.
When she first saw him—tall, with near-black hair and deep, dark eyes—the first word that came to mind was striking. He had the perfectly chiseled nose of a young Clint Eastwood, and he spoke at a slight remove, as if his brilliant mind barely had time to stop and convey the information—it was already on to the next item of business. He had the remnants of a British accent from his first twelve years growing up in North London. Everything about him was achingly serious.
Marin wanted him—instantly. She’d never felt such a pure physical attraction in her life. She walked around the office charged up, adrenalized, all of her senses heightened. She felt like one big raw nerve. When he spoke to her, it took all of her effort to absorb what he said and not just stare at his lips. Over the conference table, she found herself leaning too close. She could barely sleep at night, she was so eager to get back into the office.
And all the while, she was planning her wedding.
“How’s the birthday girl?” he asked with a kiss after letting her in. He took her light cashmere wrap and hung it in the coat closet.
“Better now,” she breathed, his arms around her.
“I was surprised to hear from you. How did you get away? Didn’t you have dinner with your parents and—”
“Long story,” she said.
“Come on in,” he said. Julian occupied the entire four-story brownstone, which he had been renting for years from a widowed socialite who had moved to Palm Beach. The first night Marin saw it, she told him she’d always dreamed of having a place just like it.
“When the time is right I’m going to make an offer on it,” he’d said.
“What makes you think she’ll sell?”
“I’m a lawyer. I know how to feel these things out.”
“Well, I’m a lawyer, and I don’t.”
He’d regarded her with his usual heart-stopping intensity and said, “I find that hard to believe. You seem like a woman who goes after what she wants.”
That night, she had believed she would never see the town house again. Yes, they’d slept together. But it was just a onetime thing—just to get it out of their systems.
Of course, that first night had been the point of no return. How naive to think it would turn out any other way.
She thought of her mother’s expression when she’d told her the wedding was off, and winced.
“Cover your eyes,” Julian said, leading her into the house by the hand.
“Why? What are you doing?” This playfulness was a side of him she had seen only recently, maybe in the past few weeks of their two-month relationship. Every time he revealed a new facet of himself, some detail of his growing up, some endearing quirk of his personality, it was like a precious gift. All she wanted was to know him completely, and the sense that he was beginning to trust her more, to open up, thrilled her.
He told her to keep her eyes covered, and she allowed him to steer her from one room to the other.
“Okay—you can look now.”
They were in his living room. A flickering light caught her eye—a candle atop a chocolate cupcake on one of the antique side tables.
“Oh, Julian,” she said, kissing him.
“You didn’t give me much notice that I’d get to celebrate with you tonight. I planned on sometime later this week.”
“You didn’t have to do anything. Really. I just wanted to see you.”
The candle needed attention, and she knew Julian would not prompt her with something as clichéd as Make a wish, so she bent over the table and gently blew it out. He poured her a glass of wine and she curled up on his plush leather couch. Across the room, a glass table was covered with files and two laptops.
“You working on Genie?”
He nodded. “What else. But I’m about ready to wrap up.”
The DNA-testing company Genie was taking up all of his time and most of hers. It had also spurred on their relationship, sending it out of the sexual-tension zone into the sex zone.