Chapter 9: In Need of a Girlfriend

The moment the last bandage was secured over her elbow, Vivian was already reaching for her purse.

"Mr. Hartwell." She turned to face him with a smile that was perfectly polite and perfectly impenetrable. "I appreciate everything, truly. But I'm completely fine now, so I won't take up any more of your evening." She glanced toward the attendant nearby. "Could someone tell me if there are taxis available in the area? I can call one from the gate."

"There aren't any," Ethan said, without looking up from the document in his hand.

"That's fine." She was already pulling out her phone. "I'll book a rideshare. If someone could just give me the address"

"You can't."

Vivian looked up. "Sorry?"

The attendant nearby stepped forward with a gently apologetic expression. "The Harlow Residence is a fully private estate, Miss. Outside vehicles aren't permitted past the perimeter gates. It's a security restriction, no exceptions."

Vivian stared at her phone.

Then she put it back in her bag with the careful composure of a woman who was absolutely not going to let anyone in this room see how deeply she wanted to scream.

"Perfect," she said pleasantly. "Then I'll walk."

She picked up her purse, slung it over her shoulder, and directed a crisp, professional smile at the most dangerous man in New York. "Thank you for everything, Mr. Hartwell. Really. Get some rest."

She turned toward the door.

"Who said you could leave?"

Four words. Quiet. Unhurried.

Vivian stopped.

She turned back slowly, and found that Ethan had risen from the armchair all six feet of him, bathrobe exchanged now for a dark shirt and trousers, still slightly damp at the collar. He stood between her and the door with the calm of a man who had never once needed to physically block anything in his life because the world simply tended to stop when he asked it to.

She kept her expression neutral. "Is there something else you need, Mr. Hartwell?"

He looked at her. Really looked at her, the kind of direct, unhurried scrutiny that made most people start apologizing for things they hadn't done yet.

Vivian held his gaze and waited.

"Yes," he said.

And then he crossed the distance between them, not fast, not threatening, just inevitable and before she fully registered what was happening, his fingertips brushed her lips.

Barely a touch. A ghost of contact.

But her entire nervous system registered it like a live wire.

He stilled.

Something changed in his expression minute, internal, a man quietly surprised by his own data. His eyes dropped to where his fingers had made contact and darkened by a single, deliberate degree.

No aversion, he noted, with the detached clarity of a scientist recording an unexpected result.

None at all.

Vivian stepped back.

"Mr. Hartwell." Her voice was even. Her pulse was not. "If there's nothing specific"

Her wrist was caught.

Not roughly. But firmly, inescapably, with a grip that made it immediately clear that he was not asking.

"I have something to say."

She pulled. He didn't release. She turned back to face him with an expression of remarkable composure given the circumstances. "Then say it. Please." She kept her voice measured. "And if it's about compensation for the accident don't. It was partly my fault for being in the road. We're even. Let's leave it there."

Ethan was quiet for a moment.

Then

"Do you have a boyfriend?"

Vivian choked.

Not figuratively. She actually choked on her own breath — a completely undignified sound in what had been, up to that point, a remarkably composed exit strategy. She pressed a fist to her mouth, coughing, eyes watering.

Ethan, without missing a beat, drew her slightly closer and rested a steadying hand at her back, waiting out the coughing with the patience of a man who had asked a completely reasonable question and was still waiting for his answer.

When she finally recovered enough to look at him, his dark eyes were already on her face.

"I happen to be in need of a girlfriend," he said.

A pause.

"What do you think?"

The room was very quiet.

Vivian stared at him.

Her face moved through several colors in quick succession surprise, disbelief, a flash of something almost like laughter before settling on an expression she couldn't quite name.

Ethan Hartwell.

The man who had spent six consecutive years at the top of every Most Eligible Bachelor list ever published. The man whose name alone was enough to make entire boardrooms rearrange their schedules. The man who, as far as anyone in New York knew, had never, not once looked twice at any woman.

Love at first sight with her?

She would sooner believe someone had switched his brain out with a different one.