NYC Angels: Tempting Nurse Scarlet by Wendy S. Marcus Page B

small matching table and below a large ornate gold-trimmed mirror. Quiet and the smell of wealth greeted her.
    It reminded Scarlet of her youth. The memories were not pleasant ones.
    Each door she passed looked the same. Pristine. Just like the bland textured walls that surrounded them.
    The hallway, the lobby, the entire building, while lovely, lacked personality. Where were the signs of life, the feeling of warmth and welcome? Scarlet loved her New Jersey apartment, for her crazy boisterous neighbors and the smells of their varied meal menus, as much as its proximity to New York City.
    She found Lewis’s door and stopped. What if he was in there with someone? What if the reason she and Jessie couldn’t reach him was he’d turned off his phone so as not to be disturbed during his four days of debauchery.
    “
Please, Scarlet. You have to go. What if he’s lying on the floor dying and there’s no one to help him?”
Boy Jessie had a vivid imagination.
    She lifted her hand to knock. Stopped.
    What if he answered the door partially dressed and reeking of sex? She swallowed down a lump of regret-coated disappointment—which made no sense since they’d only known each other for two weeks and could barely even qualify as friends.
    But that kiss.
    She shook her head to dislodge the memory. Notthat it’d worked any of the other five dozen or so times she’d tried.
    Best to just get it done and be gone. With a fortifying breath she knocked.
    And waited.
    She knocked harder.
    Nothing.
    She slid her hand into the front pocket of her jeans, closed her fingers around his key, and prayed she didn’t have to use it.
    “Lewis,” she yelled, knocking even harder. “It’s Scarlet. Open up.” She pressed her ear to the door to listen for any sounds coming from inside.
    Nothing.
    Scarlet removed the key from her pocket, and trying to ignore an overwhelming feeling of dread, inserted it into the lock.
    Lewis stood under the spray of hot water hoping to wash away his funk. He missed his old life, but it turned out, not as much as he missed Jessie. Talk about a totally unexpected twist. And since he’d dropped her off at his parents’ house the night before, he’d spent a large chunk of his ‘I’m finally free to do whatever I want’ time thinking of her, wondering what she was doing, regretting not going to Lake George, wishing he could be the one to teach his daughter to swim, to help her overcome her fear of the water, bemoaning the missed opportunity to reinforce the tenuous bond that’d formed between them over the past week.
    But if he suddenly barged in on her vacation Jessie would know he’d lied about having to work, to get rid of her, exactly as she’d suspected.
    Tenuous bond severed.
    Served him right for lying in the first place.
    More than once he’d picked up the phone to call Scarlet, to fill the quiet. To cheer him up and make him smile. But at some point in their conversation she’d undoubtedly bring up his request that she help him with Jessie’s room and look to make arrangements to get together. And even though it’d been three days since he’d changed his mind about having her over, he had yet to tell her. He wasn’t ready to put an end to the possibility. And she’d no doubt want to know why—women always wanted to know why, and he had no idea how to answer.
    “I want to have sex with you so bad I don’t trust myself to be alone with you without a thirteen-year-old chaperone?”
    What if the stars aligned and she admitted, “I want you, too.” Because after their kiss, he could tell she did.
    What then?
    They’d pack a lifetime’s worth of sex into the next seventy-two hours and it’d be great—Lewis would make sure of it. But she’d want more. They always wanted more, more of his time, his attention, his lifestyle, and money.
    Things Lewis was not prepared to give.
    And he couldn’t risk hurting Scarlet’s feelings or making her angry. Not with her close relationship to Jessie which