Uneasiness nipped at my stomach, and I forced down the bite of food. “I don’t know, you seemed to know a bit more than that earlier.”
“Oh, I have a library of observations. I’m talking about knowing you.”
“You know where I live. Where I work and that I’m allergic to peanuts.”
“It’s been a few weeks, Sara. It’s weird that you still hold me at arm’s length.” He blinked away. “I’m not sure I can forever be strangers.”
“But we’re so good at being strangers,” I joked, and when his face fell, I relented. “What do you want to know?”
He looked back at me, thick, dark lashes pressing to his cheeks as he closed his eyes, thinking. He was so gorgeous; my pulse took over my entire head, hammering inside my cranium like a drill.
Opening his eyes, he asked, “Have you ever had a dog?”
A laugh burst from my lips. “Yes. My father always had Dalmatians, but my mom is currently obsessed with labradoodles.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Labrador retriever and poodle mix.”
He shook his head, grinning. “You Americans always messing with our canonical breeds.” I lifted my wine to my lips and took a sip just as he asked, “Why are you so scared of being with someone?”
I stammered out a few unintelligible noises before he laughed, waving me off. “Just checking to see how far I could go. Do you have siblings?”
I shook my head, relieved. “Only child. Crazy parents, so thank God they only had me. Another would have killed them.”
“Why?”
“My parents are . . . eccentric,” I explained, smiling as I thought about them.
Eccentric almost didn’t cover it. I imagined Mom with her feather-wigs and jewelry. Dad with his thick glasses, short-sleeved dress shirts, and bow ties. They were from another time—almost another planet—but their eccentricities only made them easier to love.
“My dad’s always worked a lot but when he’s not at work, he becomes obsessed with one thing or another. Mom likes to be busy but Dad never wanted her to work outside the house. She grew up in Texas and met Dad in college. She was a math major, but once they got married, she sold cosmetics from home, and then sold some crazy no-wrinkle cotton clothes. And most recently, skin stuff.”
“What exactly does your dad do?”
I hesitated, wondering, How can he ask this? Does he really not know anything about me?
“So, my last name is Dillon, right?”
He nodded, interested.
Max is British. He’s probably never heard of Dillons.
Telling him this felt like lifting a heavy iron chain. It was nice to think about being unburdened, but almost easier to leave it alone than try to lift it. My entire life people had looked at me differently after learning who my family was; I wondered if Max would be any different.
I took a deep breath and looked at him. “My family owns a chain of department stores. They’re regional, like, in the Midwest? But they’re big there.”
He paused, eyes narrowed. “Wait. Dillons? As in ‘You Should Love to Live,’ Dillons?”
I nodded.
“Oh. Wow. Your family owns Dillons. Okay then.” Max ran a hand over his face and laughed to himself, shaking his head. “Shit, Sara. I . . . I had no idea. I feel like a wanker.”
“I like that you didn’t know who I was.” I felt my stomach drop, realizing that now that he knew I was someone, he probably would look me up. He’d learn about Andy, and realize what a fool I was to not know what an entire city had known all along.
Max would know I’d been someone else’s doormat before I’d ever been his mystery.
I looked away, feeling a little deflated. I didn’t want to talk about lives or histories or family. I searched wildly for a new topic.
But he spoke before I could come up with anything. “You know what fascinates me about you?” he asked, pouring me another glass of honey wine.
“What?”
“The first night we met, and then our first night in the warehouse in Brooklyn: the things you let me do. And then tonight, you flush at the word cunt.”
“I know!” I laughed, taking a sip of wine.
“I like that about you. I like your internal conflict, your sweetness. I like that you have this insanely wealthy family but I’ve seen you wear the same dress a few times.” He licked his lips and gave me a predatory smile. “Mostly, I like that you’re so clearly good and yet have let me do such bad things to you.”
“I don’t think they’re bad.”
“Ah, but that’s the point. Most people would think you were mad to meet me at that warehouse. You’re an American heiress and you let some whorish Brit take pictures of you naked. Take video of you masturbating in my office tonight just for the thrill of knowing I’ll watch it. But it’s what you’ve asked me for.”
He leaned back in his chair, watched me. He looked so serious, almost perplexed. “I’m a f**king bloke; I’m not going to say no to that. But I didn’t think women like you existed. So naïve in all these really obvious ways, yet so f**king sexual that a friendly, gentle little shag on a mattress would never be enough.”
I lifted my glass, took a sip while he watched my mouth. Licking my lips, I smiled at him. “I think you’ll find most women aren’t always satisfied by a friendly, gentle little shag on a mattress.”
Max laughed, murmuring, “Touché.”
“And that’s why the cameras and the women chase you,” I said, looking at him from over the top of my glass. “It’s more than the history with Cecily. If it were just that, they would have lost interest within a few weeks. But you’re the man from the paper with a different woman all the time. The one nobody can seem to catch. The man who obviously knows his way around a pu**y.”
Max’s eyes widened a little, pupils dilating like a drop of ink into the dusk sky. “I’m not with a different woman every night lately.”
Ignoring him, I finished my thought. “Women don’t always want to be treated like we’re delicate, or rare, or somehow more precious. We want to be wanted. We want sex to be just as raw as you do. You’re the guy who knows that.”
He leaned forward on his elbows, studying me. “But why do I feel like you’re the one giving me something special? Something you’ve never given anyone before?”
“Because I am.”