“Hello, darlings. Sorry I’m late.” A petite woman with long bleached blond hair and a tight black cocktail dress lowered herself into the empty seat. Her profile was turned to him, but Michael recognized her. He’d kissed that jaw. “I had to make a quick stop before—” She faced him, and her expression went as surprised as the Botox allowed. “Well, well, well, hello, Michael.”

“Hello, Aliza.” What an excellent time to bump into his least-favorite former client.

24

“You two are acquainted? How wonderful is that.” Her mother clapped her hands together.

Stella felt like she was going to vomit. Philip’s mom was the woman from the club. She’d given Michael his car. The one he drove every day. The one he wouldn’t let Stella replace.

Michael reclined in his seat with a cool smile, looking casual, perfectly comfortable, and drop-dead handsome in his black suit. “We go a ways back.”

Aliza released a husky laugh and stroked her hand down his arm. “We do.”

When he didn’t so much as flinch at the contact, Stella’s throat knotted. Michael liked older women—he’d said so. With her large breasts, tiny figure, whiskey-smooth voice, and sophisticated seductiveness, she was sex incarnate. Stella reminded herself he’d ended things with Aliza. Today, he hadn’t given Aliza three glorious orgasms with his beautiful mouth before making love to her like he couldn’t get enough.

“Please do tell me, who did you come here with?” Aliza’s eyes swept over the table and considered Stella’s mother before they went back to Michael’s face.

“He’s here with me.” Stella scooted closer to him and covered his hand with hers. She expected him to flip his hand over and interlace their fingers like he usually did. When he remained immobile, her stomach dropped. What did that mean?

Aliza picked up her whiskey and considered Stella over the glass’s rim. “Well, aren’t you wholesome-looking. Your daughter is beautiful, Ann. I can see why Phil likes her so much. It’s a shame she isn’t single.”

Her mother smiled, but Stella could see from the tension around her eyes that she was worried. “Thank you, Aliza. These two look very happy. It’s no shame at all.”

Stella squeezed Michael’s hand tighter as she stared up at his profile. Before tonight, they had been happy. What was wrong? He remained impassive, his gaze trained on Aliza. Stella was touching him, but he felt miles away.

“So it’s serious?” Aliza looked at Stella’s parents before she smirked and sent Michael an amused glance. “Meeting the parents now, Michael? Would you have met mine for the right price?”

“What are you talking about?” Philip narrowed his eyes as he looked from his mom to Michael and back again.

Aliza took a healthy drink from her lowball glass and smiled suggestively. “We used to . . . go on dates.”

“You’ve got to be kidding me.” Philip stared at Michael in rising disgust. “You’ve slept with my mom?”

“Not exactly,” Michael replied with a tight smile.

Aliza chuckled. “There wasn’t any sleeping involved, if I remember correctly.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake. I need a drink.” Her father pushed away from the table.

“Get me another whiskey on the rocks while you’re at it, darling,” Aliza said, shaking her glass.

“You’ve had enough.” He fled toward the cocktail bar in the back corner.

Aliza’s throaty laugh floated over the table before she drained her glass of the amber fluid and set it down. “Never.”

Because Stella was sitting so close to Michael, she saw when Aliza’s red nails brushed over his thigh. He didn’t move. He merely stared at the woman as her hand stroked leisurely upward, coming closer and closer to the fly of his pants. Why wasn’t he stopping her? Did he want her to touch him?

Standing up abruptly, he said, “I’m going to get some air. Excuse me.”

Before Aliza could pursue him, Stella jumped up and followed him through the back doors. The air outside smelled of nighttime, cut grass, and chlorine, and the coolness sent goose bumps over her bare shoulders and arms.

“Michael,” she called out.

He paused next to the blue glowing swimming pool. “You should go back in, Stella.”

She walked to his side. This distance between them was making her panic. How did she bring them back together again? She took his hand and wrapped him around her waist as she pushed her body close. “But I’ll miss you.”

His eyes softened, and he tightened his arms around her. She sighed and rested her cheek on his chest, breathing him in. If he could hold her like this, everything was still okay.

“You were having a good time before my past sat at the table.” He swept his hand up and down her back.

“I would rather have stayed home with you.” She brought herself closer to him and kissed his throat. “Why did you let her touch you like that? It drove me crazy.” He was hers.

“Did it?” He skimmed his lips over her jaw, brushing light kisses upon her sensitive skin.

“Yes.”

“It’s a bad policy to make a scene with former clients. Even if they don’t appreciate it at the time, they come to later on. I’ll do my best to afford you the same courtesy in the future.”

In the future. After they separated. “I don’t want that.”

He was part of her life now, one of the best parts. He couldn’t leave.

“That makes things easier for me,” he said.

“No, that’s not what I meant.”

“What do you want, Stella?”

“I want . . .” She licked her lips and took a breath. Could she say she wanted him? Could she say she loved him? She smoothed her hands over his chest and gripped his shoulders, and he watched her with rapt attention. She wished she were better with words. She wished she could let her body speak for her. Her body always knew how to communicate perfectly with his. Even now, she found herself responding to his nearness, leaning in close, fitting against him just right.

His Adam’s apple bobbed, and he pulled away. “Come on, then. Let’s get back to your place. Unless you want to try it in the car?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Sex, Stella.” The words were hard and clipped in the night air.

Her lungs constricted so tight she could barely breathe. “That’s not what I was going to say.”

“Then we need to end this farce. Because I don’t have anything else to give you.”

“But you do. You listen to me and talk to me and—”

“I will never be able to talk to you like that asshole in there. I don’t even want to. I’m too stupid to give a shit about math and economics.”

“That’s not true. You are smart.”

“I’ve amounted to nothing. I’ve gone nowhere. I fuck people for money, and when that’s not enough . . .” He met her eyes with a steady, serious gaze. “I think about stealing it. I plan it out in my head, who I’d take it from, the lies I’d say, how I could cover my tracks. Because I’m just like my dad.”

She shook her head. What was he talking about? He would never steal. She had no doubt of it.

“You wanted to know why I hate him. I’ll tell you the whole reason.” He paused for a heavy second before saying, “He’s so good at cheating he’s famous for it. He was in the news a while ago. Haven’t you heard of him? Frederick Larsen.”

“I don’t . . .” But even as she spoke, the familiar sound of the name dredged up memories. She drew in a sudden breath. “The con artist. He seduced women and . . .”

“Stole from them. He told everyone he owned a software company. He was gone so often on ‘business trips.’ My mom knew he cheated, but he always came back. Until three years ago when he disappeared and his other wife showed up on my mom’s doorstep looking for him. It turned out every dollar he earned came from some swindled woman. And he swindled my mom the worst. Before he left the last time, he cleared out her bank accounts and cashed out on enormous loans in her name. She had to mortgage everything to the teeth to pay them off, but even that wasn’t enough. She was going to lose the shop and her house she’d worked so hard for. My sister was going to have to drop out of school because we suddenly couldn’t pay for it.”

He turned away from her and began unknotting his tie with violent jerks of his hands. “The job I’d been so crazy about—the one I’d traveled across the country for, thinking my family was home safe with my dad—paid such a small amount I had to quit. I didn’t have any skills that paid quickly, not like you. So I took this thing my father gave me, my body that’s the same exact height as his, my smile that looks just like his, and I sold it. I fucked half of California with it, day and night for months, and I used that money to help make everything right. But by that time, my mom got sick, and she . . .”

The tie fluttered to the ground, and he loosened his top buttons like his shirt was suffocating him. He covered his eyes with his palm as he breathed raggedly.

Stella stepped toward him hesitantly. She placed her hand on his face, finding it drenched with hot tears. Her throat was too swollen to speak, so she wrapped her arms around his neck and held him with all her strength. He buried his face in her hair and held her back.

“It’s not your fault your dad did that horrible thing, and you’re nothing like him,” she whispered. How could he possibly believe that?

“If I’d been there, I might have noticed what he was doing, and I might have stopped it.”

“Shhhh.” She smoothed her fingers through his hair. “Even if you’d been there, you wouldn’t have found anything until it was too late. He fooled tons of people. That’s what he’s good at.”