Chapter One

Mallory Dale glanced out the twenty-first-floor conference room window of the law firm. Park Avenue was still lined with traffic, but rush hour was technically over. She was looking at Friday night, out-on-the-town traffic, and this meant she was late. Extremely late.

Across the table, her boss flipped through the files she had spent all week painstakingly organizing.

She fidgeted with the handbag in her lap. Inside, her Black-Berry vibrated every few minutes. It had been like that all day, text after text:

I love you.

Or: don't be mad.

She imagined now the messages were more likely along the lines of:

Where the fuck are you?

"I think we're in good shape," her boss said, moving the color-coded manila folders into a box. The top button of his blue oxford shirt was undone, his tie loose. Not for the first time, Mallory thought how lucky she was to have a hot boss. Paralegal work was boring, and working late sucked, but at least she had something nice to look at across the conference room. Although on a night like this, when she was seriously late for her night job, her real job—her real life, actually—Gavin Stone's considerable attractiveness was small consolation.

"We're done?" She jumped up, pulling her bag onto her shoulder.

Gavin smiled at her, shaking his head.

"Am I making you late for clubbing ... or whatever it is you kids do on a Friday night?"

"Yeah. Something like that." Let him think she was clubbing. Or drinking. Or just running out to get laid. Anything but the truth. The thought of her day-job boss knowing

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