Free A Week in New York (The Empire State Series Book 1) by Louise Bay

be Ethan letting me
know about plans tonight. I hoped it would Ethan letting me know about plans
tonight.
    It was Leah. I pressed Accept and hooked the phone under my chin while I
grabbed a towel to wrap around me.
    “Hey, I have a fun-packed day planned. I got those tickets for Book of
Mormon and I thought we could go do the Empire State this morning. How long are
you going to be?”
    “Oh, great. You got those tickets. That’s awesome.”
    “Don’t worry. It’s the matinee. It won’t interrupt your holiday romance.”
    “There’s no romance, Leah. And anyway, it wouldn’t interrupt anything. I
don’t think we’re seeing each other tonight.” I wasn’t sure if we were seeing
each other tonight. How did we leave it? Fuck. This wasn’t supposed to be
complicated.
    “Oh. Are you ok?”
    “Of course. We’re not attached at the hip. It was just a fling. Nothing
complicated.”
    “Was?”
    “I don’t know. I’ll be ready in 15 minutes. Shall I meet you somewhere?”
    We agreed to meet in line at the Empire State Building. I pulled on my
jeans and a t-shirt and combed my wet hair. There was no point in blow drying
it in this humidity. I’d leave it to frizz. I’d brought a few more things with
me last night, thinking I may be staying tonight as well but I was careful to
collect everything. I didn’t know if I’d be back. Before I left I took out my
phone and snapped a couple of photos of the view. God it was amazing. Worth
every penny this ginormous suite must have cost. When I grew up and won the
lottery, I was going to live here.
    Leah waved at me from the entrance to the ticket hall.
    “There isn’t much of a queue.”
    “Who’d have thought it? It’s 8-frigging-15 a.m. on a random Thursday in
July. Of course there isn’t much of a queue.” I hadn’t realized how early it
was until I was in the cab on the way to meet Leah.
    “Alright, grumpy knickers. I’m just trying to make sure we squeeze
everything in. I want to make sure it’s not just the New York men you get to
experience.”
    I rolled my eyes at Leah and then leaned in and kissed her on the cheek.
“Sorry.”
    Without the queues we got to the top quickly and without the pushing and
shoving that the crowds would inevitably bring later. The view of the park was
almost surreal. Unlike from the hotel, where the view was lower, you could see
the whole thing—as if a slice of somewhere else had been picked up and planted
in amongst the buildings and bustle of the city.
    “So you’re not seeing him tonight?” Leah interrupted my thoughts that for
just the twenty seconds before hadn’t been full of Ethan.
    “I’m not sure. We were and he invited me to the Hamptons, and then it got
weird, and now I’m not sure.”
    “Wait, he invited you to the Hamptons?”
    “Oh, yes. Sorry. I was going to speak to you to see if you would mind if
I went. I guess it doesn’t matter now.”
    “Of course I don’t mind. You should go. I’m sure it’s fine. He didn’t
uninvite you, did he?”
    I shook my head. No, not yet. That would come later … I was sure of it.
     

 
    Ethan
    I’d officially grown a vagina.
    Make that two vaginas. I was becoming a vagina farmer. What the fuck was
the matter with me? It stung when she said that women didn’t want to sleep with
me more than once. I mean, I knew it wasn’t true, but the fact that she might
think that. A vagina farmer. Fuck.
    She was the greatest lay I’d ever had and I had to wear her down to spend
the weekend with me. That stung, too. That was it. I needed to kick some ass
and take some names. I wanted to get this work done so I could fuck her out of
my system. Just after I had another look at that sexy-as-hell text she’d sent
me of her in her underwear.
    I worked like a maniac all day. I was sure that my associate was on the
verge of quitting two or three times. I could see the panic in his eyes as I
piled more and more work onto him, but I was too busy to think about it. He
said that he