Night Pleasures. Jule McBride

      SHE NEVER SHOULD HAVE gone to his house, Selena thought the next day as she secured a file under her arm and headed for the copy machine, trying to ignore the fact that Edison was behind her, the brush of his hand-stitched Italian loafers sounding soft against the gray carpet.

      His voice was equally soft. “Selena. Wait.”

      Wait. Such an inconsequential word shouldn’t have evoked a response, but she’d waited all her life to have dinner in a restaurant such as Passer la Nuit with a man like Edison Lone. He was brilliant. Funny. Sexy. And he kissed in a way a woman apparently couldn’t recover from. Feeling self-conscious, she tried to ignore that she’d left her black-framed glasses at home this morning and spritzed on perfume.

      This was no time to get acquainted with Edison. For all she knew, the two of them would meet again down the road—possibly in criminal court. She’d been functioning on knee-jerk attraction, but now she had to concentrate on why she’d come to IBI—to gather information. During dinner, she’d become convinced that Edison hadn’t been sent to spy on her, which was all she needed to know.

      “Selena.”

      Taking a deep breath, she stopped in her tracks, waited a second, then turned around. “Look,” she managed to say, her throat constricting with unwanted emotion as their eyes locked. “I meant what I said, Edison.”