A Week in New York (The Empire State Series Book 1) Read Online Free Page A

imagine being
with anybody else. He makes me happy and I want to make him happy, forever. It
doesn’t matter if we’re married or not.”
    “That’s nice,” I said. I meant it.
    “It will happen for you.”
    I smiled at her and shrugged my shoulders. “It’s all about
fun for me now. I’ve tried to find ‘it’ or ‘the one’ and it hasn’t happened, so
I officially give up. I want fun. Nothing complicated.”
    The air conditioning in the museum was a godsend. “Shall we
just stay here all day? We can be cool and cultured at the same time.”
    “No doubt our very expensive restaurant will have A/C and we
can get a cab. It’s too hot to walk.” Leah always looked perfectly beautiful,
but even her glossy straight hair had the start of a frizz around it. I’d long
since given up with mine. The humidity took the hint of a natural curl and
turned me into Diana Ross.
    “Ok, as long as I can day drink, I’ll let you take me to
lunch.”
    “I’m honored.”
    “You should be.”
     

Chapter Four
     
    Ethan
    I scanned the restaurant but I couldn’t see her. Maybe my intel was
wrong.
    I’d felt cheated when I got back to the hotel. I was hoping to put my
hard-on to good use and clear my head. But she’d cleared out. No number. No
goodbye. You’d think she would have hung around to see if I was coming back.
We’d had fucking phenomenal sex. I’d made her come five or six times.
    I didn’t like it when things didn’t go my way, so I’d made a few discrete
enquiries with the lobby staff, who I had hoped might have put her in a cab,
but better than that, the concierge had booked lunch for her for later today. Anna
was meant to be in this restaurant this lunchtime.
    “So what’s the big news?” Andrew asked.
    “What?”
    “Why have you dragged me out to lunch?”
    “Dragged you? You’re my bud.”
    “I saw you last night, dude. I’m sick of you.”
    “Fuck you.”
    “Did you get laid?”
    I raised my eyebrows.
    “Dude. Come on. Did you?”
    I grinned at him.
    “Fuck you,” he said.
    “That’s what I thought.”
    I heard her laugh and looked up from my menu. Yes, it was her at the door.
She was with her friend from the night before, the one that was seeing
Armitage. She didn’t see me as she made her way behind the waitress to a table
across the room from us. She looked different from last night. Somehow better
than I remembered. Even though it had just been a few hours since I last saw
her, the sight of her warmed something in me. I quickly looked back at my menu
before I could see where she was seated. What the fuck was I doing? I was
fucking stalking this girl. Suddenly I realized what a pathetic prick I was.
“Let’s order,” I huffed and immediately caught the eye of a waitress who scurried
over.
    “So, you still haven’t told me what we’re doing here,” Andrew said.
    “Shut up and order,” I barked. “I’ll have the rib eye, rare, with
spinach. And a beer.” The waitress gave me the look. The look that said she’d
go down on me right there if I asked her to. It calmed me. I grinned at her and
she blushed. Not my type.
    I slung my arm on the back of the booth and relaxed. On a quick scan of
the restaurant I couldn’t see her. Maybe we could have lunch and I could get
out without running into her. What was I thinking coming here?
    “I spoke to Mandy about setting you up. I guess this is why we’re here.”
    “Was she ok about it?” I liked Mandy; we’d been friends a long time. I
didn’t want to piss her off, but I really didn’t want to be fucking her friends
again.
    “She told me your penis would shrivel up and fall off, but you’re off the
hook. No more set-ups. For now, anyway. But you’re coming to dinner on Friday
right? Come over in the afternoon and we can play tennis.”
    Andrew and Mandy’s place in East Hampton had a tennis court. I was using
my sister’s place. She had moved to London with her husband last summer and
didn’t make it back very often