The woman starts. “Oh. Right. Here, I’ll let you in.”
She does so, letting me step inside first. “Thank you,” I call over my shoulder, and take the stairs two at a time until I reach her door. Then I knock. “Leila! Open the door.”
There’s no answer. However, Henry meows on the other side of the door. It’s growly, aggressive. Leila would have reached her apartment before me, so either she’s hiding inside or she went somewhere else. I was under my impression Leila didn’t have family in the city, nor any other close friends. Though, to be fair, we never discussed friends. I could be wrong.
Another thirty seconds of knocking, and still no answer. I’m now under the impression she isn’t home. If she refused to answer the door, I’m fairly certain she would say so. But where would she go?
My stomach is in knots. My pulse beats a tattoo against my throat. I am not going to lose this woman. If I have to grovel on my hands and knees, beg for her forgiveness, then that’s what I’ll do. Never in my life have I met a woman who makes me feel so deeply, live so brightly. And I ruined everything.
“What is all that racket!” a wavering voice demands.
Turning, my fist halfway to the door, I spot Leila’s landlord poking her head out into the hall. Her eyes are small, glinting. She wears a bathrobe. Curlers pull at her long gray hair. The quintessential New York landlord.
I lift a hand in apology. “Hi. Sorry. I’m looking for Leila.”
“Aren’t we all?” she mutters, then frowns. “You’re the young man who paid her rent for the rest of the year.”
That’s right. I’m sure Leila has no idea. It’s not like I’m looking for praise. I want her to be comfortable, to not worry. Leila had mentioned once she was behind on rent, and I chose to remedy that situation. So I paid her rent in full for the year, as well as any rent owed, with interest. “Yes, ma’am. I did.”
She nods approvingly. “Good man. She’s flighty, that one.”
Don’t I know it. But I’m not going to give up. If I have to drive here every day, morning or night, rain or shine, I’ll do it. I’ll do whatever it takes to make her mine.
Monday. It begins with a crash of thunder, jolting me from a restless sleep. I’m sweating, the sheets smelling of Leila and strangling my limbs. Untangling myself, I move to the window, wearing nothing but black briefs, feeling hollow-chested and eaten by guilt. A flash of lightning rips open the sky and illuminates the city briefly before plunging it into darkness.
Needless to say, I won’t be going for my morning run. Instead, I attempt to get some work done in my home office, but I’m too distracted and rather than respond to emails, I end up studying the empty room, my mind adrift. I look to the bare walls, remembering how Leila mentioned the sterility of my apartment. How it didn’t feel like a home to her. Then I think of her apartment. Cramped and cluttered, but lived in, with small homely touches, nice artwork, stacks of library books, shoes piled near the door. Every inch of my place is immaculate. She was right. It’s not a home. Because for me, a home isn’t a place. A home is a person. How different would this apartment look were Leila to live here with me?
Three hours of sitting in the half-darkness with the storm raging outside, and I finally move to the kitchen for my cup of morning coffee. Except the coffee is gone.
“Fuck!” I growl, slamming my palm on the counter. An entire weekend spent obsessing over Leila, and food shopping slipped my mind.
There’s nothing to do but go to work. I dress and head downstairs, snarling a barely civilized, “Morning” at the doorman. Tony, as if sensing my dark mood, doesn’t attempt conversation on the drive to the office. The sounds of the city hammer onto my ears. I try to lose myself in my phone. Doesn’t work. Deep sigh. I slip it into my jacket pocket. Whatever.
I imagine Leila will call out of work. That’s fine. I can work around her. I expect she’ll return Tuesday, Wednesday at the latest. She can’t miss too many days, as she needs to make a living.
At the office, Peg greets me with a wary, “Good morning, Mr. Schaffer.” She wears a white sweater and dangly earrings that look like leaves, and taps out what I imagine to be an email on her computer.
“Morning, Peg.” I head straight to my office to figure out a game plan. Or rather, a business plan. In its simplest form, it’s an outline of steps needed to be taken to reach a goal, my goal being winning Leila back. First step is to give Leila a raise. Everyone likes more money, and after dealing with a lot of my crap, she deserves it. Then I’ll speak to my financial department about allocating some funds for employee lunches. A weekly lunch voucher would be a nice perk. For Leila, that’s one less meal she has to worry about.
Next, I’ll talk to her about accompanying me to Florida next month. She can meet my mother, and I’ll show her the best beaches. We can go shopping, have a nice candlelit dinner. I’ll call the hotel to set it up.
Everything will work out.
“Peg!” I call.
Seconds later, she pokes her head into my office. “Yes, Mr. Schaffer?”
“Please call the florist and order a dozen red roses to be delivered tomorrow to Leila’s office,” I say as I boot up the computer.
The following silence draws my attention. Reluctance etches Peg’s features into harsh lines, a deep frown creasing the skin between her eyes.
“Is there a problem?” I snap.
Peg flinches. “Mr. Schaffer, Leila called this morning and said she wouldn’t be back to work.”
“I’m aware of that,” I say slowly, like I’m speaking to a child. It’s a dickish way to treat Peg, but I’m too frustrated to care. “That’s why I said order the roses for tomorrow, when she’ll be back.”
“Leila isn’t coming back, sir. She quit.”
A ringing sounds in my ears. The world slows, goes still. It feels like I’m stuck in a white box. Everything is lifeless, dead. I heard that right, didn’t I? Leila isn’t returning to Solonay. She quit.
My fingers tremble against the keyboard. I pull my hands away, rest them in my lap. My mind has gone blank.
“Thank you, Peg.” A clear dismissal.
With one last worried glance, she returns to her desk, shutting the door softly behind her. Gripping my hair in both hands, I bow my head and suck in huge gulps of air. It feels like I’m coming apart at the seams. When my engagement fell apart all those years ago, I was too angry to feel anything. It had been my fiancée who had betrayed me. Now I’m on the other side of things. Leila would rather be unemployed than work for me, the man who lied to her, manipulated her. It’s tearing me apart.
My phone rings. I answer it with a growl. “What?”
“Mr. Schaffer, your conference call begins in five minutes.” Peg is unflappable in the face of my poor mood. The woman is too good for me and my business.
I clear my throat and lower my voice. “Thank you, Peg. I’ll be out shortly.”
Grabbing my required documents, I exit my office and move to one of the smaller meeting rooms where the marketing team awaits. The core team is five employees, with another two working part-time. I greet them with a stiff nod and take my seat at the head of the table.
“Greg.” I turn to the assistant director of marketing, since the director is currently out of town. “Please brief me on the upcoming app release.” In two weeks, we’re releasing a new app that caters toward budgeting for small businesses. We’ve been working on it for over a year and, as such, I’ll accept nothing less than perfection.
Greg glances at the rest of his team, who all watch me with wariness. This shouldn’t be anything new. They know how hard I am on my employees. I only accept the best, and I’m not about to lower my expectations just because Leila quit.
But Greg hesitates, and suddenly my anger rushes up and out. “What?”
Everyone looks at Greg, and from their expressions, it’s clear they’re happy Greg i
s the target of my ire, not them.
He gulps. Greg is built like a truck, with corded arms inked in tattoos and a shaved head. He looks scary as hell, but in reality, he’s a sweet man who dotes on his pregnant wife. He also has a strange obsession with candles. “One of our investors dropped, sir. It happened just yesterday. I got the call. That wouldn’t be a problem, normally, except Clary informed me GreenWorks released a similar app over the weekend. It looks… eerily similar.”
The news sends my stomach into a nosedive. Fuck. I can do a lot of damage control, but one of our competitors releasing the same app weeks before us? That’s not something I can fix. It’s unacceptable. “I thought we had already researched this,” I say, my voice rising in volume. “You told me they had no plans to create an app.” What kind of coincidence is it that my largest competitor creates the same app on the same month we’re to release ours?
“Mr. Schaffer.” Justine, one of the director’s assistants, raises her hand to speak. “GreenWorks has supposedly had this under wraps for months now. They did a good job of covering it up. We looked into it last year, but it’s not always possible to get answers.”
“I’m not interested in explanations, Justine. Releasing an app that already exists is worthless. Solonay doesn’t follow trends. It sets them.”
She pales and falls silent, staring down into her lap.
I scrub my face with the heels of my palms. My blood pressure keeps climbing and climbing. I have half a mind to fire someone right now, but it’s too close to the app release to risk it. “Get Michael on the phone. I don’t care if I have people working day and night. This app needs to blow GreenWorks out of the water, you hear me?”
Everyone sits frozen in their seats.
“Why isn’t anyone moving?” I bark. I know it’s not their fault, but I can’t stop myself. It’s not my team I’m furious at.
It’s myself.
“Mr. Schaffer,” Peg snaps from behind me. I didn’t even hear her open the door.
With a cold smile, I whirl around. “Peg, you know how I feel about interruptions.”
Her eyes blaze behind her glasses. Shit. I’ve seen that look a few times over the course of my career. It’s never a good sign. It tells me I’ve overstepped, badly.
This day has been absolute shit and I don’t know how I’m going to fix it.
“A word,” she says, daring me to refuse. Though I’m the boss, she’s basically my second mother. And you never say no to your mother.
With a short nod to my team, I follow Peg back to my office. As soon as I close the door, she lets loose.
“What the hell is wrong with you today?
“What’s wrong with me?” I roar, spearing my fingers through my hair and striding to the floor-to-ceiling windows. “Shouldn’t you be asking what’s wrong with my team? They’re incompetent, slow—”
“I’m going to stop you right there,” she says too softly. I turn and find Peg has taken a seat in my sitting area. She gestures to the other chair, and with reluctance, I sit. This close, I see that underneath her anger is concern. It hits me hard. I don’t want Peg seeing how distraught I am over losing Leila.
Peg says, “I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess that something happened with you and Leila over the weekend. That’s the only explanation as to why she would quit on short notice.” A moment passes as she studies me in closer detail. She’s right, as usual.
“What happened?”
Slumping forward, elbows on knees, fingers twisting in my hair, I tell her everything. I tell her about Leila accidentally calling me that fateful night, believing I was the number of a local pizza parlor. I tell her about the charade, though I leave out the phone sex. Lastly, I tell her how Leila discovered I’d been lying to her. My shame is so great my throat tightens before I finish my explanation, and I have to physically force out the words. When I’m done, quiet settles between us.
Peg says, simply, “You were an asshole.”
She’s right. I was. Am.
“What do I do?” Peg is good at navigating tangles, finding the knots, loosening them. If it were up to me, I’d keep yanking in hopes that something would give, but in reality, I’d only tighten the knots further. “I was thinking I could send her flowers. Also a new restaurant opened on the Upper East Side and—”
“Oh, Byron. You may be rich, but you have a lot to learn about women.”
It’s hard not to take offense at her comment. I’m a people person through and through. What about women don’t I know? They like pretty things. They like to be desired. They want to feel protected and cherished.
At my confusion, Peg pats my arm in pity, like I’m a sad, stray cat left on a doorstep. “In case you haven’t noticed, Leila isn’t your old fiancée.”
“That is glaringly obvious,” I respond through a stiff upper lip. The two women are night and day. My ex-fiancée is forgettable. Leila is most definitely unforgettable.
“Really, it’s obvious? Then why are you treating Leila the same way?”
At this, I pull my arm away, glaring at her. Peg at least has the sense not to laugh in my face. That wouldn’t go over well. “You’ll have to explain, as I’m a little slow on the uptake today.”
“You’re going on about sending Leila flowers, taking her to dinner—”
“What’s wrong with flowers and dinner?”
“Byron.” That’s all she says. My name. She says so much in a single word. I’m clearly missing something. “Leila doesn’t care about flowers or eating at the fanciest restaurant or having the most expensive clothes.”
My voice is harsh, gravelly. “What’s wrong with giving someone nice things?”
“You’re missing the point. Leila doesn’t care about things. She wants to be seen. She wants you to see her.”
I toss up my hands, at a loss. “I do see her.”
“You do? Then tell me who she is.”
“She’s frustrating. A mess. She… she fumbles her way through life and trips over her own feet and can’t arrive to work on time to save her life.”
Peg looks pleased by my description of her. “Go on.”
Deep, calming breath. Who is Leila Engleton? She is so much more than I ever thought she’d be, someone who slipped into my heart when I wasn’t looking. “She loves pastrami on rye. She worships her cat. She’s kind and works harder than anyone I’ve ever met. She makes mistakes, but she fixes them too. She’s a firecracker, and lonely, vulnerable, but when she lets you into her heart, you know she’ll do anything for you. She loves pineapple pizza and The Princess Bride.” A pause as I think further on the matter. “And she never tries to be anyone other than who she is,” I finish, finally understanding where Peg is coming from.
Leila doesn’t want flowers. She wants me to apologize. She wants me to listen and to show her through actions that I am dependable, trustworthy. She wants to be accepted, and I accept every piece of her.
“What if it’s too late?” I say.
Once again, a flash of anger in Peg’s keen gaze. “Byron Schaffer, I have never known you to give up about anything. Don’t start now.”
As usual, Peg is right. I go to my desk, shut down my computer. “Peg, cancel all meetings for today. And please reschedule my conference call in the afternoon for later in the week.”
Peg wiggles giddily in her seat, then hops to her feet. “Go get her, Mr. Schaffer.”
Chapter 33
Leila
Unemployment isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.
How long has it been? A week? Three? A month?
It’s been one damn day. Monday. I should be at work. But I quit, because I can’t bear the thought of looking into Byron Schaffer’s devastatingly handsome face, remembering all the lies he spun with his seductive voice.
Currently, I lie in bed, gazing up at the ceiling, watching the fan circu
late. I wear sweatpants and a t-shirt, no bra. No point in putting one on when I don’t have to go out in public.
Terror has incapacitated me. I have barely any money in savings. Certainly not enough to cover food, rent, and utilities for the month. I’m already behind on payments with Ms. Hayes, and I don’t know how much longer I can avoid her. I’m tired of running. I’m tired of never catching a break. If I’m upfront with Ms. Hayes about my situation, would she give me time to scrape together some money?
Byron’s betrayal has revealed one thing, at least. I don’t want to live like him. I don’t want to run from my problems, run from the truth. I don’t want to surround my life with lies. Today seems like a good time to change direction.
After climbing out of bed, I brush my hair to remove the snarls and cross the hall to Ms. Hayes’s apartment. Bracing myself, I lift my hand to knock.
Ms. Hayes answers the door. One look at me, and her sparse eyebrows shoot upward. “Ms. Engleton, what a surprise.”
“Hi, Ms. Hayes,” I mumble. “Sorry about avoiding you before.” I’m going to be evicted. Maybe not today or tomorrow, but soon. There’s nothing I can do at this point. “I wanted you to know I won’t be able to pay my rent this month. I know I still owe you a little for last month too. I hope to find another job soon, but that’s no guarantee.”
Ms. Hayes appears deeply confused. “Ms. Engleton, your rent has already been paid in full for the remainder of the year.”
Wait… what? That has to be a joke. “That’s not funny, Ms. Hayes.”
“It wasn’t supposed to be. That man. Byron. He paid it about a week ago. He didn’t tell you?”
Dazed, I can only shake my head.
Ms. Hayes shrugs. “He did. So you’re off the hook. Lucky you.” She closes the door in my face.
Like a zombie, I return to my apartment. I barely make it to my couch before I collapse.
Emotion swells inside me. It’s too much. The only choice is to let it out
Anguished sobs rent the air. My chest feels like it’s caving in. My vision goes hot and blurry. My nose drips. Why would Byron do something like that for me? It’s selfless, too generous. It doesn’t mean anything to him—it’s just money, after all—but it means the world to me. With my rent paid, I’ll actually be able to save money. I won’t have to worry about being homeless. Maybe I can finally invest in a proper wardrobe.
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