Beautiful Stranger

“Nice photo, Stella. A bar ?”
    I felt my eyes go wide. “What, the eighteenth-floor stairwell would be better?”
    His head whipped to Chloe. “Seriously, Chlo? You told her that?”
    “Of course I did.” She waved him off with an impatient hand, and beside her, Max laughed.
    “You did that, Ben? Shagged your intern at work?”
    “A few times,” Chloe said in a stage whisper.
    Max rubbed his palms together, obviously delighted by this turn of events. “How very, very interesting,” he said, eyeing Bennett. “Funny you didn’t mention this when you were basically calling me a whore the other day.”
    “Oh, that’s rich. Pot, meet kettle,” Chloe said, motioning between the two men.
    “And I’m done here,” Bennett grumbled. “Max, stop by my office before you leave.” He gave Chloe a quick peck on the lips before walking out of my office.
    Chloe turned to Max. “I want to know what it’s like to work with your mother when this kind of news hits the papers. Did she freak out?”
    Max shrugged. “She pretends I don’t have an active libido. It’s better that way.”
    “What are we even talking about?” I groaned. “Chloe, I love you but get out of my office. George!” I yelled.
    He poked his head in within a few milliseconds of hearing his name.
    “Stop listening in. Take Chloe down to the break room and buy her some chocolate.” I finally met Max’s eyes. “I need to talk to Max alone.”
    Chloe and George disappeared down the hall andMax shut and locked my office door. “Are you livid?” he asked, wincing.
    “What? No.” I sighed, dropping into my chair. “If I remember correctly, I jumped you. I believe you even warned me not to.”
    “True,” he said, flashing his dimple in a smile as he lifted the photo up. “But I also come out of this looking quite good. I mean, the back of this head can only belong to a ridiculously fit woman.”
    I tried to bite back my laugh and failed. He bent so that we were eye to eye. “We’re together a lot, Sara. It’s just a matter of time before we’re photographed.”
    I nodded. “I know.”
    He straightened, looking out my window with a dramatic sigh. “I suppose we’ll have to confine our snogs to bedrooms and limos now.”
    He said this with a smirk, but something twisted in my belly, and not because I was averse to the idea of Max in a bed. It’s just that I wasn’t done having Max everywhere else.
    I’d wanted to hold on to this New Sara a little longer.
    “That doesn’t look like a happy face,” he noted.
    “I like what we do.”
    His face fell the slightest bit. “The wildness of location?”
    I nodded. “Just feeling like I could do anything I wanted with you.”
    He paused, seemed to be thinking something through. “That doesn’t have to change, Sara. Regardless of where I have my wicked way with you.”
    I smiled. “I know.”
    “But you realize if we continue that, and I’m not averse, it’s possible we’ll eventually be caught.”
    He was right, and the reality of it was enough to make my hopes shut down a little.
    “We’ll figure it out,” I said, but even I heard my lack of conviction.
    “Sara, it’s possible to have fun even with more standard relationship rules.”
    I nodded, and gave him as convincing a smile as I could manage. “I know.”
    But the truth was, I didn’t know. I only knew that I didn’t want what I had with Max to resemble any bit of the life I had before.

Fourteen
    At three in the morning, I woke up with such an absurd idea I was immediately positive I should go get a shot of whiskey so I could fall back asleep.
    But I didn’t get up, and I didn’t have a shot, and I most certainly didn’t go back to sleep.
    I was up half the night, my mind spinning over what to do with Sara’s paradoxical need to remain a secret yet still explore her wilder side with me. Admittedly, she’d been more relaxed than I expected about the photos in the Post, but we’d been lucky, and they hadn’t actually gotten her face or anything too telling. Anything more revealing could turn her skittish, if that hadn’t happened already. I could tell she had feelings for me beyond the adventure of public orgasms and our shared exhibitionist fetish, but that was a far cry from anything lasting, and miles away from what I felt about her.
    I sat up, lit with an idea and wondering if I’d be mad to try this with her. At the same time, it struck me as the perfect solution. Sara clearly got off on the idea