He lifted his chin toward the middle of the room. “Would you like to dance?”
“Um…” I looked around for Miles, for someone or something to use as an excuse. Finding nothing, I forced another smile. “Sure.”
Jack led me to a corner of the dance floor while a full twelve-piece band played “Perfect” by Ed Sheeran. He held me in his arms but kept a respectable distance between us. He was graceful on his feet, and unlike most men under fifty, he knew how to lead.
“So your mom told me you just moved back to New York to start an internship at Apex.”
I shook my head. “My mother has a habit of saying things that shewantsto happen as if they’re true. I didn’t actually move back. I’m only in New York temporarily, for the summer. I live in San Francisco.”
“Oh. Is that where you’re from?”
“No, I was born here in the City. I went to college in California and decided to stay out there after I graduated.”
“Where did you go to school?”
“Stanford.”
“Impressive. So it’s probably not just my paralegal who’s smarter than me…”
I chuckled. “How about you? Are you from here?”
“Born and raised out in Amagansett—on the east end of Long Island. I moved into the City to go to college, and like you, I never left.”
“How do you like working at Apex?”
“I love it. I work a lot of hours, but it’s been a great experience so far. Usually the first few years out of law school, new attorneys do a lot of monotonous grunt work to put in their time. But Apex has so many holdings and has grown so fast that I’ve been involved in dozens of different lines of business and transactions. You really get to dig in and get your hands dirty from the beginning. What about you? What department are you doing your internship in?”
“My MBA is in quantitative analysis, so I’m interning in the data-science department.”
“Nice. I work with them a lot. Maybe we’ll get a chance to work on a project together.”
Our conversation came to a natural lull, and I found myself looking around the room over Jack’s shoulder. Guests seemed to be enjoying themselves, smiling and laughing, eating and drinking. I scanned through the happy crowd until I found a set of eyes that were definitelynotsmiling. I swallowed a surprise gasp. Jagger Langston was staring right at me. His face was completely unreadable, and he made no attempt to hide what he was doing, even when I stared back. He lifted a glass to his mouth and drank as he watched, never taking his eyes off of me. The man had an unmistakable quiet intensity about him, one that unnerved me yet also sent a shiver of excitement down my spine.
My dance partner said something, which I had to ask him to repeat, and then we turned and Jagger was no longer in my line of sight. Though ten seconds later, when the view came back, he was waiting—as he was after every turn for the rest of the song. When the song ended, I took a step back, thanked Jack for the dance, and told him to have a good night.
I was happy to find Miles in his seat as I made my way back to the table. “You disappeared for a while,” I said.
“I got stuck talking to your cousin Rachael.”
“With the eight cats? Better you than me.”
Miles shook his head. “She has ten now. Where were you?”
“My mother tried to fix me up with some guy who works at Apex.”
“Was he cute?”
I shrugged. “He wasn’t bad.”
“Nice guy?”
“Seemed like it.”
Miles sipped his wine. “Perfect. Bang him.”
I laughed. “What? No!”
“Why not? You were desperate enough to use some random app to meet a guy to get one under your belt. Someone who works with your stepfather is probably safer. I’m sure they vet people, and you know he has a job. He’s already got more going for him than the last guy I hooked up with.”
