Chapter 2: No Names

Juno's POV

I should have said no.

He bought the drink and I let him. When the bartender set it down, he didn't touch me or tell me I was pretty. He drank, and stared at the piano in the corner like it owed him money.

"You play?" I asked.

"No. You?"

"No."

"Good. Then neither of us has to."

I laughed for the second time that night. It still felt strange in my mouth.

"Rules." He turned on his stool to face me. His knee stopped an inch from mine. "No names. No jobs. No sad stories."

"That's a lot of rules for a man who sat down without asking."

"I didn't hear you complain."

"I'm complaining now."

"No, you're not." He held out his hand, palm up. An old white line ran across his knuckles. "Phone."

"Why?"

"It's lit up three times since I sat down, and every time, you look like someone slapped you."

He was right. Margaret had texted twice. Sloane once. I hadn't opened any of them.

I put my phone in his hand. He stacked his own on top of it and slid both into the inside pocket of the jacket hanging on his stool.

"There. Now it's just the bar."

We talked until past ten, and none of it was real. He complained the bartender was watering his whiskey. I told him the bartender was watering his and not mine, because I'd tipped better.

He tasted my glass, then his. "Son of a bitch." He stared at me. "How did you know?"

"I watch hands. His pauses over your glass. It doesn't pause over mine."

He looked at me differently after that, as if I'd pulled a card out of his ear.

"What do you do?"

"No jobs. Your rule."

"I'm breaking it."

"I read contracts. The small print. The part nobody reads."

"Sounds boring."

"It is. Until it isn't."

He was quiet for a moment. Then he dropped some bills on the bar, stood, and pulled on his jacket. My phone went with it. I watched him button the pocket shut.

"I have a room upstairs," he said. "If you come, you get your phone back in the morning. If you don't, I leave it at the front desk."

He walked away without waiting for an answer.

I sat there for maybe thirty seconds.

Then I picked up my bag and followed him.

He was waiting at the elevator, holding the door with one hand. Neither of us spoke on the way up. Twelve. Thirteen. Fourteen. My pulse was loud in my ears.

Suite 1407 was bigger than my first apartment. A wide window seat looked out over the East River, black and blurred with rain. He threw his jacket over a chair.

He didn't grab me. He stood by the window and looked at me across the room.

"You can still go," he said.

"I know."

"I mean it. Say stop, and I stop. Any time."

"Then stop talking."

He crossed the room in three steps.

He kissed me hard, and he tasted of whiskey. His hands went to my face, then into my hair, and he pulled out the clip that held it up. It hit the floor. My hair fell down my back, and he groaned low in his throat.

"Christ," he said against my mouth. "Look at you."

In all my years as a wife, nobody had kissed me as if I were the only thing in the room worth wanting.

I pulled at his shirt. A button snapped off and rolled under the bed. He laughed against my throat.

"That was a good shirt."

"Buy another one."

He lifted me like I weighed nothing and set me on the edge of the window seat. The glass was cold against my back, and he was hot everywhere else. He pushed my wet coat off my shoulders, then drew down the zipper of my dress, slowly, watching my face the whole time. I nodded. He kept going.

The dress slid down my arms and caught at my waist. He pulled it free and dropped it on the floor. He unhooked my bra next and slid my underwear down my legs, and then there was nothing left to hide behind.

A tremor ran through me under his stare. He looked at me like he wanted to remember every inch.

Out of habit, my arms came up to cover myself. Years with a husband who never really looked at you will do that.

He didn't pull them away. He caught my wrists gently and waited, his thumb moving over my pulse, until my heart settled and I let my arms fall.

He took his time. He kissed my shoulder, the side of my neck, and the spot under my ear that made my breath catch. He moved lower and drew one nipple between his teeth and tongue, slow and hard, until I gripped the edge of the window seat. His hands slid down my sides and stopped at my hips. He held them there without moving until I was the one arching toward him.

"Patience," he said against my skin.

"I've had five years of patience."

He laughed, low and rough, and I felt it all the way down my spine.

Rain beat against the window behind me. His hands settled on my ribs. I closed my eyes, the way I always had, and waited to disappear.

His fingers tipped my chin up.

"Look at me," he said.

I opened my eyes. His were dark and steady, and he didn't look away. Neither did I. It was the most intimate thing that had ever happened to me.

His hand slid down my stomach and between my thighs. I was already wet, and he groaned when he felt it. He pushed two fingers inside me, slowly, his thumb circling until my hips jerked off the seat and I had to grab his wrist.

"Don't hold back," I whispered.

It was the first thing I had asked anyone for in years.

He didn't. He dragged his shirt off over his head and threw it behind him. He was broad and hard everywhere, and a long pale scar ran across his ribs. I wanted to ask about it. I didn't. No sad stories. His rule.

He took a condom from his wallet and undid his belt. His pants hit the floor with a clink of the buckle. He tore the packet open with his teeth and rolled the condom on without taking his eyes off me.

He gripped my hips and pulled me to the very edge of the window seat. He stood between my knees, and I wrapped my legs around his waist.

He held still, his forehead against mine, both of us breathing hard. Then he pushed inside me, slow and deep, and the breath ripped from my lungs. He stayed there, letting me feel all of him, before he pulled back and thrust into me again.

He held me with one arm locked around my back and his other hand buried in my hair. Grant had kept me like furniture in a cold, beautiful house. Tonight, I could feel every inch of my own skin.

He didn't go slow after that. Every time he drove into me, the glass shook against my back, and I stopped caring about anything else. I dug my nails into his shoulders.

"Fuck," he said, low against my ear, and I heard myself begging him not to stop. I wasn't even embarrassed. I wrapped my legs tighter around him and pulled him harder against me.

He dug his fingers into my thighs and fucked me harder, deeper and faster, until I couldn't think in words anymore. Every breath came out of me as a moan. The rain got louder, or maybe I did.

When I came, it rolled through me from the soles of my feet to the tips of my fingers, and a cry tore out of me that didn't sound like mine. He followed a moment later with a groan and pressed his face into my neck. I held on to his shoulders with everything I had. We stayed there, chest to chest, until our breathing slowed.

We didn't make it to the bed the first time. The second time, we did. He was slow then. He took his time learning me. I didn't want slow. I climbed on top of him and rode him at my own pace.

I'd been quiet for five years.

I wasn't quiet that night.

Afterward I lay with my head on his chest and listened to his heart slow down. His fingers moved through my hair.

"Still no names?"

"Still no names."

"Shame." His voice was heavy with sleep. "I'd like to know what to call you when I think about this."

I didn't answer. I watched the rain until my eyes closed.

When I woke, the room was gray and he was gone.

His side of the bed was cold. His jacket was gone from the chair. My phone lay on the pillow beside me with a folded sheet of hotel notepaper under it.

Best bad decision I've made. R.

I read it three times. A small, stubborn smile pulled at the corner of my mouth.

My wet coat still lay by the window seat where he'd pushed it off my shoulders, my bag beside it. At 7:02 on Saturday morning, the coat pocket buzzed.

The burner. Ledger had mail again.

I pulled out the laptop and sat cross-legged on the bed in the hotel sheets. One new message.

From: Ronan Sayer, Sayer Capital Subject: My offer stands

I've asked before. I'll keep asking. Whatever Ellison pays you, I'll triple it. Name your terms.

R. Sayer

Since Calder Street, Ledger's address had gone around the deal world as Ellison's secret weapon. This man had been writing to it for three years. I had deleted every message unopened. Ledger worked for Grant, so I never looked at anyone else's offer.

Now Ledger worked for nobody. This was the first message of his I had ever opened.

Everyone in New York business knew his name. He had built a company from nothing, lost all of it three years ago on a deal called Calder Street, and built it again from zero. He was thirty-five. He never gave interviews.

Grant hated him more than anyone alive.

And I was the reason he'd lost Calder Street. My plan. My clauses. Sent from this laptop at three in the morning. Yet I had never seen his face. As Ledger, I dealt in names and numbers, not people.

Under his signature sat a small photo, the kind companies add to every staff email.

A man with dark hair. A thin scar through one eyebrow. A white shirt with the sleeves rolled up.

I looked at the screen. Then I looked at the empty pillow beside me.

The button from his good shirt was still on the carpet, half under the bed.