2. Adrian

Chapter 2

Adrian

I spotted her the moment she appeared through the revolving glass doors.

A flash of long, auburn hair, hanging down over one shoulder in waves, caught my eye. Lily had warned me to watch for it—she'd said it was her most prominent feature, but with every clicking step she took in my direction, everything else about her seemed to shine.

The freckles that dotted her barely tanned complexion, the green of her eyes that looked almost as though sunlight were reflecting off dew-dampened moss, the flow of her patterned skirt and the white cardigan that stopped just beneath the swell of her breasts—all of it, every bit, was so vastly different from what I'd normally look for in a woman. It gave me pause, if only for just a moment, and luckily for me, she seemed in no rush to get across the room.

Even though her eyes were glued to me, wide as fucking saucers.

I wasn't necessarily unaccustomed to the occasional glance or longing stare from passersby, but something about her , something about the glimmer in her eye as she stepped up to me, her mouth moving, but the sound of the crowd drowning her out, was different.

Maybe it was how she was dressed so differently from every other woman I'd dated. Maybe it was how she was twenty years my junior and so obvious that she was going to look up to me. Maybe it was the one auburn brow raising and not a single wrinkle under her eyes. Maybe it was the almost ethereal way she moved, her twitching hands smoothing out the lines in her skirt and playing with the bell-like edges of her white knitted cardigan.

"Are you…deaf?"

Her voice . It hit my ears and stirred something, but I couldn't quite figure out why. "Sorry," I laughed, letting my gaze take her in entirely, top to bottom and back to top. "I didn't catch what you said."

Her cheeks reddened. "I asked if you were John," she said. She took a step back, nearly bumping into an older man with binoculars around his neck, and just briefly, her white teeth caught on her cherry-red lips. "I have the wrong person, I'm so sorry."

In a flash, she turned, her long hair lifting and settling down her back. Somehow, I'd already messed up and spent far too much time ogling her than actually listening , and her calling me by my fake name just hadn't registered. It didn't snag my attention like a name was meant to.

Before she could take another step away from me, I reached out to her instinctually, one hand closing around the smallest part of her wrist. Her head whipped around again.

"You don't have the wrong person," I grinned, hoping it was enough of an apology so we didn't have to keep dancing back and forth. "You caught me off guard, is all. You must be Lily."

She blinked at me, her head tilting to the side like a confused puppy. "So you are John."

Yes. But no. It still didn't feel right, and I felt bad for lying to her, but I'd stick to the deception. "And you're Lily," I answered. A lie by omission was easier for me.

Her lips tugged up at the edges, and she stuffed her smile down, but not before I could see it. "Thank fuck for that," she chuckled. She took a step toward me, and I let my hand slip from her wrist, the sensation of her skin touching mine fading and leaving me tingling. "Thought I'd just royally embarrassed myself in front of a stranger."

Slotting myself in beside her, I motioned toward the hall on the right-hand side. The slow trickle of foot traffic headed in that direction, and rather than trying to go against the grain as I normally would if I were on my own, I didn't want to be weaving between patrons as I tried to speak to her. "I am technically a stranger, Lily."

"Nah," she laughed. "I've spoken to you at least…twice?"

"Twice," I nodded.

"Not a stranger, then." Her hand reached for a pamphlet in a plastic container hanging on the wall, and a flash of plain, white-tipped fingernails caught my eye. The polish didn't seem to clash with the rest of her outfit—not when everything else was so carefree. Those nails looked more like what I'd seen the women in my office block wear, and I couldn't seem to take my eyes off her hands as she flipped through the pamphlet. "Oh my god, they're showing Ai Weiwei's work this month. How did I miss this?"

Ai Weiwei. She knew who that was. Fuck, that was attractive. "Lucky for you, I bought us tickets to both the museum and the exhibition, so…"

I slipped the printed ticket the front desk had given me out of my jacket pocket and held it out to her. Her head whipped in my direction, those wildly green eyes flitting between mine and the slip of paper in my hand, and for a split second, that motion felt like a wave of memories flooding into the back of my mind. A smile spread across her lips as she plucked it from my fingers.

"I'm not going to lie, I wasn't sure if you'd be excited for it," I chuckled. "You said you were into contemporary. Ai Weiwei isn't only that."

A single brow raised at me as we entered the main foyer. Massive glass panels above let in the cloudy sunlight, painting the marble floor and white walls in little dancing rainbows and soft lighting. People milled about around us, the gentle echoes of their footsteps bouncing through the bright space, but all I could do was look at her .

What was it about her? She was gorgeous, of course, but my God, it was like I'd been knocked off my game.

"And you said you were into photography, but Ai Weiwei isn't that either," she grinned.

I snorted. "I'm sorry, but Dropping A Han Dynasty Urn absolutely counts as photography."

"Okay, and Ye Haiyan's Belongings absolutely counts as contemporary art," she smirked. She spun on a dime, flitting in front of me and walking backward toward the exhibition room on her right as if she knew this space like the back of her hand. "And I'd argue that your example leans contemporary, too."

I followed her, enraptured by her knowledge of the subject and how little of a show it was. After the two conversations we'd had on that website and the letdowns I'd had before, I'd assumed, wrongfully, that the woman who turned up today would be somewhat interested in art, but mostly interested in sleeping with me. This one, though— Lily —felt oddly like a reunion with an old friend. There was ease and comfort between us that I hadn't expected.

And she was smart .

"Contemporary?" I smirked, watching as she walked, slipping through the crowd easily. She maneuvered herself toward the gift shop that stood in the middle of the room to swerve around an older woman, nearly knocking a book off its display, but missing it by a millimeter. It didn't even seem to register for her. "Fine. You can say that. But you can't say that A Study of Perspective isn't photographic art."

Her nose scrunched, and shit, there it was again—that pang of familiarity. "The ones where he's giving the middle finger to different landmarks?"

" National landmarks," I corrected.

She shrugged. "They're okay, I guess."

"Not a fan of fingers , Lily?"

Her cheeks heated as her mouth opened for a retort, but a person walking far too quickly passed beside her. She shifted her weight onto one foot, her hip jutting out to the side to create some space, but she wasn't quite quick enough.

Bodies collided, and she spun, shifting her far more to her left than she had expected.

"Watch out—" I started, but nope, it was already happening. Too late to stop it. Not even my reaching out to her could have helped it, even if I'd managed to grab her.

She slammed into the little display at the gift shop.

A Greek-style column, about waist high, swayed back and forth as she desperately tried to grab for it. Atop it, little replica figurines depicting a scene from what I could only assume was the first Olympic Games started to wobble, and I dashed to her side, steadying them before they could crash to the ground.

But something warm brushed against my hand as the last one slotted back into place. She'd reached for it, too, and for the briefest of seconds, her fingers ran across the tops of mine.

Her face had gone a striking shade of red by the time we'd both retreated.

Only a handful of people turned to look at her, but the woman behind the cash register eyed her harshly, her gaze narrowing as Lily took a step away from the sculptures. "Anything broken?" she called.

"No," I called back. "Sorry!"

"Oh my God," Lily breathed, her fingertips resting against her lips as her gaze switched rapidly between me and the replica artwork she'd nearly ruined. "Why didn't you warn me?"

I blinked at her. "I didn't see her coming."

"I…" She shook her head, her cheeks somehow deepening one more shade of red. "Imagine if that was a real sculpture, John. I could've ruined something priceless."

John. Ugh. Why had I gone with that name? It sounded so wrong, so incorrect. No matter how many times I'd used it, it never hit my ears just right, and something about the way she said it just made my spine stiffen. It wasn't what I wanted her to call me.

————

The freeness with which she offered me information as we moved from exhibit to exhibit was fascinating.

She was an aspiring art teacher and a recent graduate with her master's in contemporary art theory, along with being a freelance artist on the side. She'd recently moved to Manhattan and was sharing an apartment with her friend, and casual dates were her way of meeting more people and learning the area well. I didn't question how many times she'd been to this museum in particular on dates, but she seemed to know it inside and out, and the moment she told me that her favorite spot for coffee was SUITED, I had to stop for a moment to think.

I knew that cafe. I'd been a handful of times for lunch or on my way to work. My assistant often grabbed coffee from them.

They were in the financial district. As far as I knew, it was their only location, and although I could see an aspiring art teacher who had just moved to the city passing through the financial district once or twice, I couldn't imagine it would be her regular spot. But the way she spoke about it made it seem like she visited it almost daily.

"What about you?" she asked, her head whipping around with a grin so wide I could see the tops of her upper teeth and the thinnest line of her gums. Behind her, Ai Weiwei held the Han Dynasty urn in the first of the three images, poised and ready to drop.

But I caught it.

Not the urn, of course. But it hit me, staggeringly, as she smiled at me like that—why I'd felt those waves of nostalgia and familiarity around her, why it had been easy to talk to her, why it seemed less like a blind date with a stranger and more like reconnecting with an old friend.

Shit.

I wasn't the only one lying about who I was. At least I didn't have to feel as bad about filling her head with the idea of John. He was an idealistic version of myself where I wasn't the owner of an international events planning company, but instead a travel photographer with different tourism companies in my portfolio. I now saw that the face across from me was Ava Riley's, although she no longer had braces or dyed black hair. She'd grown up in the last ten years, so much so that I hadn't even noticed who she was at first.

But I should have known. I should have considered the possibility of running into her at some point. David, her father, had said she'd recently moved to Manhattan, and although I hadn't had the chance to visit his office as of yet, I was surprised I hadn't seen Ava walking around the financial district. From what I'd heard, she'd set up an office for whatever business she was starting in some of the spare, unused offices on David's floor.

"John?" she asked, blinking at me as if I was the one who had gone insane here. Maybe I had. Maybe we both had.

Fuck . I didn't know what to say to her. One minute ago, she had been someone else, someone I didn't know, someone I could freely admit to being wildly attracted to. But now…shit, she was my best friend's daughter. I'd met her when she was ten.

But she wasn't ten anymore, and she wasn't fifteen anymore, either.

"Sorry," I said, clearing my throat with a bit of fake laughter. I let my gaze move to the photo of the man behind her, his fingers just barely holding onto the urn. "I missed what you said."

She turned to look at the photograph before looking back at me. "Were you that into the picture of him?"

I shrugged. "It's an amazing work to see in person."

She watched me, her eyes practically burning a hole through my head, and I couldn't tell if the little crease forming between her brows was from curiosity and attraction, or if she'd somehow made the connection, too. Surely, she must have—I barely looked any different than I had ten years ago in comparison to her massive transformation. I'd gone from thirty-five to forty-five, and yes, I'd gotten a few more grays and maybe a handful of extra laugh lines, but she had become a full-fledged woman.

A woman that I'd spent the last hour ogling and imagining how many different ways I could fuck her.

I, at least, had a solid reason for hiding behind the persona of John. It kept me away from the women who threw themselves at me solely for my money, and it allowed me to find casual partners that I might not be able to cling to as Adrian. That, and I didn't want to worry about having to disclose my son to anyone I was seeing.

Even if it crossed the lines I'd drawn out so clearly with him.

No lying. It was our one major rule, and every time I did this, every time I left the house to go meet someone, that's exactly what I spent my entire evening doing.

"Can I be honest for a second?" she asked, taking a single step toward me. Her hand came to rest on the length of my forearm with just barely enough weight to feel it over my jacket. Her cheeks warmed again, bringing those freckles I hadn't fully noticed ten years ago right back to the surface. She has to know. "I do these occasionally. Blind dates, or whatever. But I think this might be the most exciting one I've ever had."

If she'd said that moments ago, it would have been game over for me. Even now, it almost was. I couldn't deny that I was intensely attracted to both her body and her brain.

The cost of exploring what I felt would be her father potentially murdering me at the golf course next Saturday.

I let out a breathy chuckle as we started moving again, her wistful little movements as she found her stride alongside me feeling far too electrifying. Maybe she didn't know. She would eventually, of course, but could I get away with it until we bumped into each other at the next charity event or party of her father's?

Maybe.

"I can honestly, wholeheartedly agree."

————

The sun had dipped well below the horizon as we finally emerged from the closing museum. We were among the last to be shooed out, partly because we were so engrossed in a conversation about whether contemporary photography counts as photographic art or contemporary art, that we'd barely had a moment to notice the time, and partly because I just didn't want it to end.

Her hand slipped into mine on the bustling sidewalk beside Central Park. Taxis honked, nightlife roared, and the sounds of the city bled into my mind, influencing me, convincing me that it didn't have to end just yet. Sure, I was meant to be walking her to the nearest subway stop, but we could go anywhere.

"Lily," I said. My feet stopped in their tracks, drawing a hasty " asshole " from the man who was walking behind me, and before she'd even heard me, she felt the tug on her hand.

She spun around. "Yeah?"

The lights from the overhead streetlamp and the headlights passing by reflected in her eyes, and for a moment, she wasn't Ava. She was Lily, the mysterious New York newbie who loved art and frequented a cafe on the other side of Manhattan from where she should be spending her time. She wasn't the high-up socialite with a father who was my best friend.

And I could act on that.

I pulled on her hand, dragging her to me, closing the distance.

I let my free hand rest against her cheek, let it erase the little bit of chill on her skin from the late autumn air. I could feel the blossoming warmth across her face as she realized what I was doing.

I pressed my lips to hers, and Goddammit, I'd thrown myself into the deep end.

She melted into me. Her mouth parted, and in an instant, she let me in, and although I hadn't been able to pick up a distinct scent from her in the crowds, the taste of her mouth was unexpectedly calming in the sea of chaos.

The moment her tongue dragged across mine, something shifted for her though. I could feel it in the way her fingers loosened in mine, in the way she brought her hand around the back of my neck, in the way she stepped backward but pulled me with her out of the middle of the sidewalk. She met resistance, and as I dropped her hand to cup her waist instead, I felt the roughness of tree bark scratch against the backside of my knuckles.

Goddammit, I wanted more.

My brain ran in circles as she kissed me, cycling through idea after idea. I couldn't bring her home, not when she could easily run into an image of her father on the wall, not when my son was sleeping on the other side of my penthouse. I could take her to a hotel, but that seemed almost dirty, and even though I had all the money I could ever ask for, I would struggle to find somewhere good enough last minute in Manhattan.

I was running out of options as her lips reluctantly broke from mine, and I said the only thing I could think of.

"I have a boat," I breathed. I wasn't even sure if she could hear me over the sounds around us.

"A boat?"

"It's docked down at North Cove," I said, pulling back just enough to look into her eyes. They flitted anxiously back and forth between mine, and for a moment, I wondered if she really had no idea who I was. "Let me take you out."

"I…" Her teeth dragged across her lower lip just like they had in the lobby of the museum earlier, and for a second, I was right back there, not knowing who she was or what she could do to me. I could live in that a little longer. "Okay."