The Marriage Ultimatum (City of Dreams Series) (2 page)

It was the guy. She wasn’t about to be mugged. She was about to be mortified. The hottest guy on the planet was about to see her impersonate a drowned rat. With a couple of long strides, he reached her side and opened a golf umbrella over both their heads.

“I’m waiting for the company car service.” Nerves made her blurt out the obvious.

“As am I.”

Something in his formal tone made her wonder if, in spite of his perfect diction, English was not his first language. The company car finally appeared, and Sabrina hurried forward, dodging the mushrooming puddles. She scooted into the backseat and turned to thank him for the shelter of his umbrella only to watch him settle in beside her and pull the door closed.

“This is my car.” No way was she standing out in the rain for another second.

“Yours?” He raised a skeptical black brow and tossed the umbrella onto the floor. “We must have the same one.”

“No, that’s never happened; you must be mistaken,” she said in her best Gert Bordon frosty supervisor tone.

His mouth quirked up, but he wasn’t making a move to get out and who knew how long it would be before another car would arrive? So Sabrina wasn’t going anywhere either. She slid further along the seat, but couldn’t resist taking another look at him. His eyes, crinkled in the corners with amusement and fatigue, made her damp places warm and her inner places damp. This was not good. She was seriously out of her comfort zone. Just the sight of him rolling his shirtsleeves over his brawny arms stole her oxygen and her concentration.

“It’s VGI ride sharing, a green concept, don’t you think?” His voice was grave, but amusement sparked silver in his eyes.

Sabrina let out a belly laugh at his serious tone. So the man had a sense of humor to go along with the stubble. Dangerous.

“Only a concept, if you ask me. VGI owns practically half of Manhattan and no doubt the entire fleet of these cars. Green isn’t the first thing that comes to mind when I think VGI.”

“No doubt VGI is guilty of all of those capitalist crimes.” He lifted his massive shoulders in an unconcerned shrug. “I’m headed downtown, you?”

She fidgeted with her humidity challenged hair, which flowed all over the leather back of the seat. Why hadn’t she bothered to re-braid it? Why hadn’t she taken Lacey up on her offer to trim the uncontrollable mass? She nodded, suddenly out of breath, all of her smart-alecky comebacks forgotten.

“Brooklyn.”

Feeling his scrutiny, she tugged at her skirt. This morning’s smallish tear in her fishnets had turned into a huge rip over the course of the day.

Jolted by the familiar rattle and whine of tires on the steel-girded surface of the Brooklyn Bridge, Sabrina looked out the window.

“Woops, did we pass your block? We’re in Brooklyn.”

“I thought I’d see you home first.”

His gaze drifted down again, settled on her lips.

One sizzling look and her lips were seared. As his knowing gaze roved over the rest of her, every sane thought evaporated. Something primal took over. Red-hot images of everything their lips could do for each other flashed through Sabrina’s mind. And then he was right there. With a speed belied by his size he was beside her, his hands cupped her jaw and his head lowered. Sabrina’s eyes slid closed and her body arched into him. As his tongue circled her lips, Sabrina knew this reality was so much better than anything she could imagine.

His tongue scorched where it touched and blood rushed to her lips. Naive though she was, she recognized she was being seduced by a pro. He was all power and hard muscle and yet she only sensed the strength, because no part of his big body touched any part of hers aside from his mouth and the light touch of big, calloused hands on her jaw. Then he raised his head to press small kisses to each of her cheekbones.

Without the touch of his lips, her mouth felt as bereft as a candle thrown into a puddle. She craved the warmth of his hands on her. She grasped the front of his shirt to shift him closer. Her hot fingers found his jaw, and slowed to savor his stubble. Bold as she’d never been before, she put a hand to his neck and pulled his head back down, silencing his chuckle as she set her mouth back on his.

After that, she lost all sense of place and time. His large hands slid down to cup her rear and he pulled her onto the hardened triangle of his thighs. Sabrina moaned into his mouth, splaying her legs wide around his hips, no thought but that she wanted this moment to go on and on. He pulled his mouth away to let them both grab some air and she protested.

“Don’t stop.”

But in that same instant, she realized the car wasn’t moving anymore. Through the fogged up windows she could see the outline of the tired brownstone where she lived.

Reality intruded as unwelcome as her six o’clock alarm.

She skittered off his lap and tugged her skirt down. Her hands shook too much to tuck her sweater back in.

He reached out to cup her chin, and she jerked in response to the rough scrape of his fingers against her softer skin.

“Invite me in.”

“I…no. We can’t.”

Sanity returned and Sabrina whispered the words through swollen lips, raising a hand to her jaw to where his whiskers had scraped against her tender skin.

“Can’t we?”

His eyes were at half-mast, his wicked smile almost made her weaken.

“You know. Company policy. We both work for VGI.”

If only she could sink through the floor. What a dumb, unsophisticated thing to say. But the truth blurted out awkwardly was still the truth.

She wouldn’t do anything to jeopardize her job, she couldn’t. Besides, Alex was upstairs with Mrs. Egan.

“I won’t tell if you don’t,” he coaxed.

No, she couldn’t. Alex depended on her. He didn’t have anyone else. And neither did she.

“No, I…” She shook her head. “It’s complicated.”

****

He waited until she was inside the building before tapping the plexiglass to give his driver the signal to move.

Wow.
Not even as a teenager had he gotten so turned on so fast that he lost complete awareness of his surroundings in the backseat of a car. He’d even run to a deli and bought a can of Red Bull, which sat forgotten in the pocket of his vest. He’d waited outside in the rain. When was the last time he’d been so gauche? Never.

It had to be jetlag. And his piss poor sex life.

The trip back to his Battery Park penthouse was too short to erase her image. He pulled out his phone and scrolled through his list of New York women. He detested what was essentially a booty call, but maybe the solution to this amped up, unsettled feeling was just that simple.

No, he wouldn’t.

He blanked the screen and headed for the shower. He flipped on the steam, then the cold water, and then the steam again but nothing settled his aroused body. So he leaned back against the cool marble of the shower wall, closed his eyes, and gave full rein to the fantasy. He saw cat’s eyes that glittered with desire, lush pink lips, cascading copper hair and endless legs clasped tight around his waist.

Chapter 2

No Shoes, No Shirt, Big Problem

If she’d known the kind of day she was going to have, Sabrina might have dragged the sheet back over her head and stayed in bed. But ignorance had her peeling her eyes open at dawn before she gamely dug through to the bottom of her closet in search of anything that hadn’t already been worn twice and was relatively unwrinkled. An impossible ambition when she hadn’t done laundry in weeks.

Okay, she thought, yanking on a skirt and top, let Gert Bordon raise her eyebrow and lecture her on corporate dress code. Definitely. Not. A. Big. Deal. She’d suffered worse torment when she’d worn her threadbare clothes to every new school she’d attended over the years. The mean kids stared and smirked or worse called her hurtful names. The kinder ones, as only New York City kids could sometimes be, pretended to believe her when she said she was into wearing vintage, as if her twelve-year-old self was seriously experimenting with fashion in too short jeans and ripped sneakers.

A few hours of fitful sleep separated her from her graphic dreams, in which she hadn’t said no to Mr. Sexy Stubble. Only the reality of her emailed overtime workload report convinced her the entire episode hadn’t been a chocolate-induced fantasy. Her body still hummed with an excess of aroused nerve endings as she took a quick shower.

Alex was back to his usual self, his teething episode finally behind them, and he careened around their tiny, untidy apartment as Sabrina made a slapdash effort at feeding them both before they plodded, toddler-style, up to the fourth floor where Mrs. Egan welcomed Alex into her waiting arms.

Mrs. Egan’s incessant chatter usually enfolded Sabrina like a cozy blanket. Today she took one look at Sabrina’s drained face and stopped opining on who she thought should win her favorite dancing competition program. She shooed her out the door knowing that Sabrina was in danger of missing the last train that would get her to work on time. She thrust an oversized envelope into Sabrina’s hand and spoke fast.

“This was on the ledge above your mailbox. From the nursery school.”

Sabrina had been both too wiped out and too wired to remember the mail last night.

“And Alex and I will get to your office a little before five, so you can take him to his checkup.”

“Yesrightthanksseeyoulater,” Sabrina called over her shoulder as she rushed down the stairs. Most days it felt like her life was a runaway train that just kept moving faster with each passing moment, while she sprinted through quicksand destined never to catch up.

On the subway, she snagged a seat and skimmed the pre-school application. Then her brain clicked into gear. For Alex to be considered for a spot in the class, Sabrina had to provide Alex’s official birth documents and vital information with the application.

How in hell had she missed this? So anxious to give Alex the very best start in life, she had completely overlooked this obvious side of the equation.

How could she hand over information, which would reveal to the school that Alex was not her child but actually her brother?

She stared unseeing at the shuttered faces of her fellow straphangers as scenes from her childhood bombarded her. Her mother sobbing because her father had picked up and left them with no indication of where he was going and when, or if, he would return. Surprise. He hadn’t come back. Her mother discovering that her father had drained the joint account just before he left. Killer surprise.

The nasty stigma of being on public benefits, as friends, initially full of well-meant advice, began to avert their eyes and evade their company. The years when her mom chased down promising jobs as they hopscotched from neighborhood to neighborhood in search of better housing. The numbing too-good-to-be-true relief when her mom grabbed the opportunity to be receptionist at Pinnacle Realty, and they finally climbed out of welfare. It was so long in coming Sabrina never quite lost that feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop, even though her mom had aced the receptionist gig and was soon studying to become a broker.

History would not repeat itself. She would not make those mistakes. Marriage was out of the question. Neither would she give the authorities information that would cause them to separate her from Alex, no matter what expert reason they provided. Alex was her only family, and she wasn’t letting him go.

She had a plan. She had some money socked away for his preschool tuition, money she might have used to finish traditional college instead of going the online route. They would be secure enough for a time, and then Alex could attend public grade school. She would get her degree and then she’d stop working so much overtime, move on to the kind of job you could get when you had a college degree. In a few years, Alex would go out for the baseball team or run track, maybe take music or art lessons. She had big plans for him, for both of them, together.

But right now, she needed Alex to be able to take that first step into their new life by getting into preschool. The question was how. Sabrina couldn’t risk the inquiries that would lead to the discovery that she struggled mightily to keep a roof over her brother’s head. If the authorities got a glimpse of their hand-to-mouth existence, if they discovered she wasn’t Alex’s mom and there was no father on the scene, they’d take him. He’d go into foster care. As tough as her childhood had been, Sabrina and her mom always stayed together. No, that was not an option. They would never find out Alex wasn’t her son. Never.

****

“Ms. Boyd?”

Sabrina lifted her head, rubbed the back of her neck and glanced at the little clock icon on her desktop. It said 4:30. She hadn’t taken a break all day. She’d skipped lunch so she could scoot out a little early and get Alex to his checkup.

Gert Bordon, soulless and sour-pussed, stood poised before Sabrina’s desk, a slip of paper in her hand and judgment in every line of her angular body. She made no secret of her disapproval of Sabrina’s less-than-professional attire and so-called lifestyle. In her oft-expressed opinion, Sabrina should spend less time texting to check on her child and more time focused on work.

After Alex became her sole responsibility, Sabrina stopped challenging Ms. Bordon’s presumptions. Her mantra was don’t complain and don’t explain. She knew her work was top notch. Short skirts didn’t mean she was heading out to a club after work, but that she hadn’t bought something new in years. Her overlong hair wasn’t a fashion statement but the result of the high price of a city hairdresser. She knew better than to correct Gert Bordon’s misapprehensions. The fewer people who knew about her life and Alex’s, the better. But Gert Bordon’s eagle-eyed gaze never wavered from Sabrina. If Sabrina didn’t trip herself up, Gert Bordon would no doubt be happy to stick out her foot and watch Sabrina take a tumble into unemployment.

Sabrina took the slip of paper.
Really? Paper?
What happened to email or the telephone? Gert Bordon’s paper summons and personal appearance at her cubicle spelled trouble. She waited to see Sabrina’s reaction to whatever was written there. Well, no way would she give her one. In this war between Sabrina and her supervisor, Sabrina discovered that attitude was everything. What was that saying, ‘never let them see you sweat’?