Free Tempted in the City by Jo Leigh

In fact, it was the deepest connection she’d felt to him so far. There wasn’t one awkward thing about it. Not the quick swipe of his tongue across her lower lip, not the moan only she could hear.
    She sighed into him, and he held her tighter. Finally, he did the gentlemanly thing and pulled back. “Now there’s no question I’ll need to hail a cab for you so you won’t be late. Mind if I hitch a ride?”
    â€œNot at all. But don’t you have an appointment coming up?”
    â€œYeah,” he said, pulling her through a brief break in the pedestrian traffic until he could thrust his arm out for a taxi. “But later. At the office. That’s why I can’t help out at your place tonight.”
    â€œHuh. I was going to ask you to come into the UN for the ten-cent tour, but now that I know you lied, I’m not going to.”
    â€œYou know, I really would like to see the inside,” he said. “I don’t really know what you do, except that it has something to do with translation.”
    â€œSomething like that, yes. I’ll explain tomorrow evening, if that’s all right?” Despite her desire to show him her workplace they’d actually used up too much of her lunch break eating and talking. Which was fine, since she had a lot of work to do. Although trying to concentrate after what just happened? That would be a real feat.

6
    T HE NEXT MORNING Catherine stopped at the closest newsstand, bought two magazines and a London Times . After she’d paid the nice man who ran the kiosk, she was surprised to bump into a woman she recognized. It was her neighbor on the other side. She had a red front door and a large pot of marigolds on the stoop. At least Catherine thought it was her neighbor. So many of the older women had the same outdated hairstyle, hair severely pulled back into a tight bun.
    Still, Catherine smiled at her. “Good morning.”
    The woman looked at her as if she was insulted by the greeting. She did give Catherine a brief nod, however, before she summoned an actual smile for the kiosk man. Either Catherine had been mistaken and the woman wasn’t her neighbor, or else she’d managed to alienate the entire neighborhood with all the noise. But even so, the woman could have been a little more pleasant.
    Later, Catherine spent her lunch hour standing in line at yet another bakery—this time, the Lady M Boutique in Bryant Park. She knew a little bit more about what Tony liked, so she’d narrowed her choices for their dessert down to four kinds of cake.
    She hoped the line would move quickly, as she wanted to get back to work as soon as possible. Which didn’t mean she would be able to do any work. She’d been so distracted ever since yesterday, it was a little crazy.
    After Sal and his crew had left, she’d worked on the upstairs fireplace tile—a horrid, messy job that required more muscle than care. Not really her cup of tea, but once she’d started, she pressed on. Plenty of time to let her thoughts wander, and of course, they’d zeroed in on Tony.
    It helped that she’d listened to Marvin Gaye. God, such sexy music. And then she’d taken a long, slow bath in oil-rich water, using her fingers as a pale substitute as she tried to imagine what sex would be like with Tony.
    But it wasn’t until she’d slipped between her sheets that she realized the depth of the opportunity that had been handed to her. Tony wasn’t just gorgeous. He was bright and funny and he lived what she considered to be a real life. At least compared to what she was used to. Of course, she’d known people from all social classes, but her past relationships and all her friends and associates had some kind of tie to her rarified world.
    The kind of money her family had was used to a great extent to set them apart, to cushion them from the harsh realities of 99 percent of the population. At least her family had