Page 5 of His Valentine

Especially when I sat down and glimpsed those heart-meltingly gorgeous baby blues of hers.

The plan was to wait a few minutes, make sure no boyfriend was coming back, then strike up a conversation with her. But right after I asked the bartender for a drink, she beat me to it.

“Drink twins,” she said adorably.

When I looked over at her, I knew I was done for.

I was staying at The Regal that night to get a first-hand understanding of their security. I own a private security company, Titan, and the owner of The Regal had recently hired us to evaluate the hotel. While my crew is more than capable of doing this sort of stuff without me, and it would technically be possible for me to run Titan from my office, I prefer to be more actively involved than that.

I’d spent the afternoon assessing the hotel’s potential security issues and making note of what work we’d need to include in our estimate. I’d meticulously familiarized myself with every square foot of the building, from the below-ground garage to the rooftop bar. By that evening, I knew the building’s security strengths and weaknesses and had an email drafted to the owner summarizing said findings.

Before sending that email, though, I was going to spend a night in the hotel—an extra measure I liked to take in the event that any additional issues became evident at night.

While I waited for night to fall, I figured I’d go down into the lounge and shoot the shit with the bartender.

That was what brought me into the lounge. As for ordering the club soda and lime, I didn’t want any alcohol dulling my acuity that night. When I learned the knockout sitting two stools over from me was drinking the same thing, though?

Fuck, man. How could thatnotfeel like fate?

Honest to God, I didn’t sit down on that bar stool with thoughts of hooking up with her so quickly. It just happened. We had an instant connection. I mean, yeah, there was the drink thing, but it wasn’t just that. It was our little debate about music. It was the laughter we shared. It was justher. I never thought I’d say something like this, but it felt like she was the one I’d been waiting for my whole life.

And while I could have just asked for her number, while I could have just asked her on a date, there was an urgent, mutual yearning between us that neither of us could ignore.

Thirty minutes after meeting Lena, I was up on the eighteenth floor with her, swiping my key card through the reader on my door while my cock throbbed against my jeans.

The couple of hours that followed were ones for the history books. The first time our lips met, it felt like every goddamn firework in the world went off. When I felt her bare skin against my palm for the first time, I understood the meaning of the wordsoulmatelike I never had before.

This was destiny. She was meant to be mine. I was meant to be hers.

I used my hand to bring her to her first orgasm, my tongue to bring her to her second one. The third time—well, I had her wrists pinned down to the bed with my hands and my mouth on her breasts, so you can guess what I used to make her come. I went over the edge too that time, and I swear, as I came, I saw stars.

On the bed, in the marble-tiled shower, in the middle of the hotel room floor, up against the window-with-a-view with her hands splayed against the glass…we’re running out of places in this room to fuck, sweetheart,I murmured in her ear at one point, and she just gave me a coy smile and told me we could always start over from the beginning.

Eventually, though, satisfied exhaustion got the best of her, and she fell asleep nuzzled up against me in bed.

I held her for a while, then carefully removed myself from the bed. Believe me, I didn’twantto leave her, not even for a brief while, but I needed to get the rest of my work done. I got dressed, slipped out of the room, did a quick but thorough walk around the premise and spotted a few other potential security issues, then returned to my room. She was just as I’d left her, and as I slid back into bed beside her, my heart settled once again.

In the morning, though, alarm flooded my sternum the moment I woke up. Lena was gone. At first it seemed incomprehensible. What could possibly have made her want to leave after the night we’d just had?

Then I realized I’d never gotten her number, that I hadn’t even gotten her fuckinglast name, and my bewilderment morphed into searing regret.

I stayed in the room that morning until the last possible minute, on the off-chance she would come back. When she didn’t, I left the room and went downstairs to check out. On my way out, I spoke to some of the hotel staff about Lena, but nobody was able to help me out.

I spent the next few weeks actively trying to track her down. If I’d known even justonething more about her, I would have been able to find her. But all I had was her first name and the memory of her beauty etched into my mind.

Scouring the internet only turned up women named Lena who weren’tmyLena. And when I looked her up in one of the databases that I have access to as an owner of a security firm, that was a dead end, too.

It was like she didn’t even exist.

Eventually, I forced myself to stop searching for her. Yet she remained on my mind. Every time I was out in public, a part of me always held out hope I’d see her again.

If fate had brought us together once, it could happen again. Right?

But time just kept going on. Weeks—then months—passed. The seasons changed. Winter descended. Snow fell from the sky and blanketed the city.

And my stupid broken heart stayed that way.

“I guesswe should probably address the elephant in the room,” Lena says, placing a protective hand on her stomach. We’re sitting on opposite sides of a booth in the diner I’ve brought her to, and our waitress has just walked away with our orders scribbled on her notepad.

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