Second Time Around

by Nancy Herkness

  “Petra, sugar, I think it’s time to go home,” Farr said. “You’re leaving for San Francisco early in the morning, remember?”

  “Oh, Farr, you’re so sweet to worry about me,” Petra said, patting his hand. “But I came to talk to Kyra and she’s been so busy.”

  “She’s working,” Farr said, rebuke in his voice. “We should not be taking up her time.”

  “But I need to speak with her about Will. And I’m leaving tomorrow, so I need to do it now.” A steely testiness put an edge on Petra’s usually melodious voice. “Maybe Kyra could spare a few minutes to give me a quick peek at the private party room. Just the two of us.”

  The lady knew how to use leverage.

  Kyra looked at Farr, his usual courtly manners unraveling at the edges. “Of course,” Kyra said, signaling Bastian to take over her section of the bar and explaining Petra’s request in a low voice.

  “I’ve got it covered,” her fellow bartender said. “Get that party commission!”

  “Working on it.” Kyra let herself out from behind the bar and came around to collect Petra. Farr stood to help her off the stool, steadying her when she wobbled on her Jimmy Choo stilettos.

  Farr shook his head. “Not sure this is a good idea.”

  “Possibly not,” Kyra said. But Petra was determined, and Kyra’s boss would be unhappy with her if a lucrative private event went elsewhere because of her personal issues. She didn’t trust Petra not to drop some mention of Kyra’s part in tonight’s meeting, when Petra spoke with Derek.

  The room used for private parties was up a short flight of glass-and-chrome stairs. Kyra flicked the switch for the ceiling projection before she opened the door to usher Petra inside.

  Because it was evening, the ceiling displayed the night sky with the Milky Way spread across its high vault, an occasional star sending out sparkling rays at random intervals. The room was set up for a cocktail party, with tall circular tables covered in blue velvet that glinted with silver threads. The polished marble floor was inlaid with lines of silver that gleamed in the low light.

  Petra gave it all a cursory glance before she headed for a silver leather divan, her high heels clicking on the stone floor. “Why don’t we sit for a minute?” she said over her shoulder, with a slight wobble in her gait.

  Kyra had no choice but to follow as Petra sank onto the sofa with a graceful folding of her long, elegant legs. A pang of envy pricked at Kyra. Even drunk, Petra couldn’t be less than gorgeous.

  Kyra perched on an ottoman facing Petra and gestured toward the room. “The decor is very flexible. This is a late-night party setup, but we can do one for any time of day. We’ve even done storms.”

  Petra ignored her sales spiel and leaned forward. Kyra could smell the vodka and cranberry on the woman’s breath. “I didn’t want to talk in front of Farr because he and Will are such good friends.”

  “About the party?”

  Petra made a vague gesture of dismissal. “About Will. And you. And me.”

  Kyra almost laughed as she pictured some sort of weird ménage à trois. But Petra was bent on having the conversation. “You know that Will and I were engaged?” she asked. “Just a few years ago. He wanted me to say that I broke the engagement, but he did it.”

  “I’m not sure you should be telling me this,” Kyra said, shifting on the ottoman.

  “I saw how you looked at him at the Spring Fling,” Petra said. “And I wanted to warn you.”

  So she’d been watching Will and Kyra at the party. Of course, Kyra didn’t know who Petra was then, so she hadn’t noticed the other woman’s attention. “Warn me?” Kyra straightened her spine, trying to look more confident than she felt.

  “Will isn’t really capable of love,” Petra said, her eyes dark, unreadable pools in the dim lighting. “I was perfect for him. I move in the same circles and have the right connections. Our mothers are tennis partners, so I know his whole family. But he couldn’t commit to me.” Incredulity rang in her voice before she lowered it as though telling Kyra a shameful secret. “He’s in love with his job. He insisted that we go to this falling-down villa in Italy where we could get to know each other better.” Petra made air quotes around the last phrase. “It was bad enough that he dragged me there, where there were no stores or friends to visit, but after two days of sitting around, he got on his computer to answer e-mails.”

  That must have been after Petra insisted that he take her to Rome. “That seems kind of unromantic,” Kyra said to placate the indignant woman in front of her.

  “Well, the sex was really good,” Petra said, making Kyra’s cheeks go hot with discomfort. “At the beginning. Then he went back to his first love . . . Ceres. I couldn’t compete with a giant corporation. I don’t think his partner, Greg Ebersole, liked me either.” She looked bewildered by that.

  Kyra was beginning to understand Will’s dislike of Petra. For all her outward warmth and understanding, the woman refused to take any responsibility for the end of their relationship. She was spreading the blame around wherever she could lay it. Announcing to the Spring Fling guests that Will had ended the engagement was just another way to shift the onus away from herself. Kyra had seen this before. In her mother.

  Petra reached out to lay a hand on Kyra’s knee, her tone softening. “You’re not part of Will’s world, so you can’t understand a man like him. I can tell you’re a nice person, and I don’t want to see you get hurt like I was.”

  Kyra felt like Petra had hauled off and punched her in the stomach. She had told herself repeatedly that she didn’t fit into Will’s environment, but to have someone say it out loud made her lose her breath. Did everyone at the Spring Fling think Will was just slumming it with her?

  Petra was still going. “If he couldn’t bring himself to marry me, well, you know what I’m trying to say.”

  Pride made Kyra force a laugh. “You don’t have to worry about me. I’ve known Will a long time. I’m well aware of who he is.”

  “But that was in college,” Petra said. “He’s changed. I just didn’t realize it until too late.”

  Hadn’t Kyra said the same thing to Emily earlier? Money and power had an effect on the people who wielded them. But she’d seen Will’s pain when he talked about his engagement to Petra. It was real.

  “We’ve all changed since college,” Kyra said with what she hoped was a wry shrug. She pushed up from the ottoman. “I’ve got to get back to the bar. My boss will wonder where I am.”

  “Oh my gosh, that’s right! You’re working. I hope you won’t get in trouble.” Petra unfolded her legs to rise gracefully from the divan like Venus out of the sea-foam. “I’ll talk to your boss and explain that you were showing me the party room.”

  “It’s okay. My boss likes me.”

  “I like you, too.” Petra shocked Kyra by pulling her in for a hug, Petra’s sweetly exotic floral perfume enveloping them both.

  Kyra gave Petra a quick, awkward squeeze and extricated herself from the other woman’s grasp. “Thanks. That’s nice of you.”

  Petra linked her arm through Kyra’s. “Some night when you’re not working, we’ll have to go out together.”

  Kyra was trying to steer Petra’s slightly tottering footsteps toward the door. “That would be great,” she said, knowing the invitation wasn’t real.

  “When could you do it?” Petra stopped right in the doorway.

  “Do what?” Kyra tried to keep her moving without letting the door swing shut on both of them.

  “Have a girls’ night out. I bet you know all the best clubs.”

  Kyra nearly laughed. She knew exactly one club: Stratus. “I don’t get out much because of my job. But we’ll figure out a time.” In the next century maybe.

  Farr saw them coming down the stairs and leaped off his stool to take Petra’s other arm. She smiled at him. “Such a gentleman.”

  “So I’m told,” he said, but his face lit with pleasure. “Now this gentleman would like to see you home safely.”r />
  Petra leaned in to murmur in Kyra’s ear. “Don’t tell Will we talked about him. It’s between us girls.”

  “Right,” Kyra said noncommittally. She had no idea what she was going to say to Will about this evening. She could barely figure out what she thought herself.

  “Kyra, it’s been delightful,” Farr said, brushing his lips against her cheek. “This is my kind of place. I’ll be bringing some work associates here because I know they’ll appreciate it.”

  That would please Derek. The IB guys threw around money to impress each other.

  She watched Farr guide Petra out of the room before she went back to the bar, her composure shaken to the core. Bastian pulled a folded bill out of his pocket and handed it to her. “He left a hell of a tip for you. In cash.”

  She glanced down. It was a one-hundred-dollar bill. “Wow.” She slipped it into her pocket with an odd sense of resentment. Did Farr think she needed the money?

  “He took care of me as well, even though all I did was give him a glass of seltzer. A class act,” Bastian said.

  Or maybe he was just what Bastian described, a nice guy who did the right thing.

  “To top it all off, he says he’s coming back,” Kyra said, trying to shake off Petra’s poison as she surveyed the customers on her section of the bar. No one needed a refill.

  “And the woman.” He whistled softly. “She’s a model, right?”

  “No, just looks like one. She’s a Connecticut blue blood, so no need to lower herself to object status.”

  “Is she throwing the private party here?” He looked hopeful.

  “She might.” Although Kyra suspected that had been merely an excuse for coming to talk to her.

  “I’ll make sure I’m available to work it.” Bastian glided away to check on his customers.

  Since he was darkly handsome in a chiseled, male-model way, Kyra was sure that Petra would be happy to have him on the waitstaff.

  As she picked up her bartending duties again, she had to force herself to focus and smile at the customers because she was still reeling from the conversation with Petra. She’d thought . . . no, she’d deluded herself into believing that the people at the Spring Fling had liked her as a person. That the majority didn’t care how much her dress had cost or that she worked as a bartender. Not that she’d volunteered that information. She’d enjoyed the party except for the encounters with Betsy Chase. Now Petra had thrown a pall over that pleasure as Kyra wondered how many people had murmured Not our class, dear, when she walked away.

  The most humiliating realization was that Petra had warned her out of a genuine concern for Kyra’s feelings. It was clear that the other woman didn’t consider Kyra a threat to her designs on Will because Kyra offered no real competition. That galled her more than anything.

  As she poured out a Negroni, she felt her cell phone vibrate in her back pocket. No visible cell phones were allowed at the bar, so she had to wait fifteen minutes until she found a reason to go to the wine cellar to check the text. Pulling the requested bottle from the rack and setting it down on a shelf, she yanked out her phone.

  Will’s name showed on the display and a thrill of anticipation quivered in her chest. She closed her eyes to fight it down. Petra’s words pinged around in her brain, but they couldn’t quell the exhilaration that frothed through her from just seeing Will’s ID on her phone. She looked down at the screen.

  At my back I always hear Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near. What time will you be done with your duties at Stratus?

  Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress.” She loved that poem and knew it by heart. It was funny, passionate, and amazingly powerful. She typed, Patience! An hundred years should go to praise thine eyes, and on thy forehead gaze. Will finish up in an hour.

  She’d get Cleo and Bastian to take any lingering customers. She’d often done it for them when they had dates. She didn’t want to miss any time with Will, since Petra had reminded her that it would be limited.

  His text came back at light speed. I look forward to spending two hundred to adore each breast. For, lady, you deserve this state, nor would I love at lower rate. But now let us sport us while we may, like amorous birds of prey.

  She laughed at his mash-up of the lines, even as the irony of them struck her. I always had a problem with that vulture image . . . sharp beaks tearing at bare flesh and all that. Kind of gory. Have to go back to work.

  As she walked up the stairs, another text pinged. One hour. I’ll be waiting.

  Heat flashed through her like a lightning strike at the image of Will, all the muscled length and breadth and power of him, waiting for her.

  Chapter 11

  Outside Stratus, the limousine’s glossy black paint gleamed under the club’s entrance lights. Kyra’s step hitched slightly when she saw it. Desire had been simmering inside her ever since Will’s text message and now it was ready to boil over.

  The back door swung open as soon as she got within ten feet of the car, and Will unfolded himself from the interior. He was dressed in jeans and a moss-green polo shirt, the most casual she’d seen him since college. Closing the space between them in two strides, he pulled her against him and brought his mouth down on hers for a kiss like a furnace blast. She let the heat inside her rise to meet his so their tongues touched and twisted in a dance that promised far more.

  “Hey, get a room,” a passerby called out, but his tone was admiring, rather than grumpy.

  Kyra had forgotten they were still standing on the sidewalk and she tried to pull away, but Will had splayed his hands on her bottom to hold her tight to his erection and he didn’t ease the pressure. He lifted his head a fraction of an inch, and she could see the flare of his nostrils as he breathed hard. “It’s New York,” he said. “We could do it in an alleyway and no one would care.”

  “Yes, but I work here.” Kyra braced her elbows against his chest and pushed. “Also, I have to tell you something first.”

  “That sounds ominous,” Will said, taking her backpack before he helped her into the limo.

  She’d decided not to let Petra get into her head with her subtle disdain. Possibly easier said than done. So she was going to tell Will that Petra and Farr had visited Stratus without divulging the underlying reason.

  Tossing the pack onto the seat facing them, he slid in beside her and hauled her onto his lap. She could feel his cock pressing against the juncture of her thighs, and her eyes nearly rolled back in her head. “I can’t focus when I’m sitting on your lap,” she said.

  “You have no choice.” He gathered up her hair to kiss the nape of her neck, sending shivers careening over her skin. “I’ve been waiting all day to have you here.”

  “Fine, I’ll make it fast.” She took a breath. “Petra and Farr stopped by Stratus this evening.”

  He dropped her hair and sat back so she could see his frown in the dim light. “Petra and Farr? Did they know you would be there?”

  Kyra had thought about just how much she should tell him. “They did. Petra is considering throwing a fund-raiser there so she wanted to get my thoughts on it. Farr was being a good friend and escorting her. You know he really likes her, right?” She was trying to distract him from thinking too hard about Petra’s presence.

  He looked surprised. “Farr likes Petra? You mean in more than a friendly way?”

  “I’m pretty sure.”

  Will brushed off her tangent. “Petra didn’t go there to plan a party,” he said. “She has a rotating list of venues she uses. I know because I’ve been to every one of them.”

  There it was, the world that Petra and Will moved in together, while Kyra was merely an employee in one of those venues. She shoved the thought away because right now she was with Will in their own little world.

  “Maybe she feels the need for a fresh location. Shake things up.” Kyra didn’t want him brooding on the topic because she preferred not to answer any additional questions. She’d told him enough to stave off trouble later on, bu
t not enough to cause trouble now. “Anyway, we all had a nice chat while Petra drank one Cosmo too many before Farr took her home.”

  Will looked pained when she mentioned the Cosmo. “I hope she didn’t embarrass you.”

  “Actually, my fellow bartender Bastian is desperately hoping she will return. He was quite smitten.”

  “Another one in her long string.” Will’s tone was sardonic. Then his mood turned severe, and she glimpsed the streak of ruthlessness that had propelled him to the top. “I’m not happy that she tracked you down at your workplace.”

  “She was just a customer,” Kyra said, wishing he would let it drop. “Not a big deal.”

  “Your life should not be troubled by my past. I’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

  Kyra felt a thrill of primitive exhilaration at Will’s protectiveness, especially when he wound his hand into her hair, his eyes glittering in the passing city lights, saying, “I have zero interest in discussing Petra any further.”

  “Then my job here is done.” She’d dodged that bullet.

  He used his grip on her hair to tilt her head so he could go back to kissing her neck. His other hand came up to cup her breast through the black silk blouse she wore. She felt both of his touches like brands, scorching her skin and marking her as his. Beneath her, his erection grew harder. She shifted so it hit her right between the legs, and she breathed out a wordless exclamation of pleasure.

  “Kyra,” Will growled against her neck. “I want you now. Right now.”

  “Yes!” she said, and suddenly she was being lifted upward by strong hands on her hips.

  “Thank God you wore a skirt,” Will said. “Straddle me.”

  She’d worn the short, black skirt for exactly this reason. And red lace lingerie, since she’d used her only set of fancy black lingerie last night. If this fling with Will continued much longer, she’d have to go shopping for more sexy undies. She knelt over him, one knee on either side of his thighs. He yanked her skirt up to her waist, his breath hissing in appreciation when he saw her panties.

  “Sorry not to enjoy these more, but they need to come off,” he said, jerking them down over her hips.