David Dylan. There he was. The first link went toArchitectural Digest, and the next few, I’d already visited for research on the feature. Farther down the page, things shifted away from David.
“GQS will acquire Multi-Parcel Express, CEO Gerard Dylan announces”
Gerard Dylan. David’sfatherwas the CEO of worldwide shipping company Global Quick & Speedy? A search on Gerard provided endless articles, both business and personal. A profile of his home life presented four perfect smiles: Gerard and his wife, Judy, a daughter, Jessa, and son, David. There was no mistaking David’s sister, who had the same obsidian hair that complemented clear brown eyes and long black lashes.
David was magnificently photogenic with a piercing gaze and sturdy features. I sifted through images of him, mostly working or at events. His tall frame and broad shoulders dwarfed anyone who posed with him. A profile shot with his sister, laughing and dressed in head-to-toe black, could’ve been from an advertisement.
A few rows down, red-carpet David’s arm rested around Maria’s waist. Her green eyes narrowed at the camera as if gloating. Two more photos with her. And another with a leggy redhead.
Was anyone immune to his spell? Could he turnanymarried woman against herself, make her question the life she’d been so certain was right? I hated that these women got to live in David’s attention out in the open—and take it home with them at night.
Get wrapped up in his embrace.
Senses stolen by his kiss . . .
I shouldn’t know how that felt, but I did. I’d tasted it only a few moments, but I wanted more. But perhaps evenmore, I vehemently wished these women would never experience it again. That the kiss had meant something to him, and I hadn’t just been another in a long line.
But what right did I have to even think like that?
Bill couldn’t have known how right he was comparing my behavior to my mother’s.
Jealousy. Madness. Irrationality. Obsession.
In the weeks before she’d lost control, she’d picked fights with my dad and me over stupid things like not turning out a light after leaving a room, or over not-so-small things, like how she suddenly hated Dallas and wanted to move. She’d confided in me that she’d begun following my father and had seen him get out of a cab with the same woman she’d found in his office—his client, Gina, I’d later learn. But at the time, hiding my mom’s secret stalking had kept me up at night.
Now, here I was, unable to stop scrolling down the page, except when I saw David with a different woman. Who was the blonde? An ex, a friend, a fuck buddy?
Why was I doing this? It’d gone beyond research and morphed into—
“Bad news?”
I gasped, nearly jumping out of my chair when David appeared in the doorway as if I’d conjured him. I slammed my laptop closed. “What?”
He took a few measured steps into the office. “You look upset.”
Any hope I had of calming my heart rate went out the door as it raced at the sight of the most beautiful man I’d ever seen, come to life from the cover of a magazine. Here in my office. At night.
Since our kiss almost a week earlier, I’d had one pervading thought—don’t think of the kiss.
It never happened.
Never speak, or think, of it again.
Yet the harder I tried to forget it, the more I remembered.
His breath caressing my lips, a man so dashing in a tuxedo that he could sweep any girl away within seconds . . .
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“I was driving home from my office and saw your light on.”
At the end of the workday, in a tailored suit jacket, his slacks wrinkle-free, dress shirt open at the collar, David was both put together and casual. “That’s not a reason,” I said.
He cleared his throat and checked his watch. “There’s no one at the security desk downstairs,” he said. “I walked right into the building and up here. Didn’t even need a keycard.”
“And?”
“It’s unsafe. You should file a complaint.” He glanced at theArchitectural Digest, opened to his spread, then at one of two framed pictures that’d been added to the corner of the desk since his last visit. David picked one up. “Who’s this?”
