by C. Morgan
Could I do those things with Rylen? Better yet, did I want to?
The phone rang close to ten thirty in the morning. It was Rylen calling to update me about Muse.
“He’s doing well this morning,” Rylen told me. “He was still a bit groggy when I first came in, so I let him sleep before taking him out of his cage to check him out and change his bandages. The incision site is clean and looking good. His spirits are high. He’s eating and drinking already. Your cat has quite the appetite.”
“He got it from his mama,” I said.
Rylen chuckled. “He’s stolen my receptionist’s heart already. She’s missed three calls because she’s been back here cuddling him.”
I was glad to hear he had someone there to scratch under his chin and keep him company. “I fell in love with him the first moment I saw him. Believe me. I get it.”
“I’d still like to monitor him until the end of the day. Based on how well he’s doing, I can bring him home to you tonight. Say around five thirty?”
“That would be amazing,” I gushed. I couldn’t wait to give him all the love and have him back home. Not having him weaving between my legs this morning while I had my coffee had felt odd. “Thank you so much, Rylen.”
“Please stop thanking me. At this point, I’m just doing my job.”
“Just because it’s your job doesn’t mean I’m not grateful.”
I could hear in his voice that he was smiling. “I’ll see you tonight, Natalie.”
I’m looking forward to it. “See you tonight,” I said.
I hung up the phone and caught Victoria smiling at me.
I frowned. “What?”
“You like him.”
“Oh please.”
“You do,” Victoria said, pointing an accusing finger at me. “You’re my best friend. Do you seriously think you can convince me that you’re not into this guy? You were giggling like a schoolgirl. And blushing. Just talking to him on the phone!”
“So what?”
“So, now I get why you don’t want to go to Paris with him.”
I spun in my chair to face her and crossed my arms. “Enlighten me.”
“You’re scared you’ll start to like him too much. Commitment freaks you out. It always has. And he’s the exact kind of guy that screams serious relationship.”
“You’re grasping at straws.”
“And you’re in denial,” she said stiffly. She rose from her chair and made for the door. “I’m going to go get a hazelnut latte. Should I come back with a peppermint mocha?”
“You’d be dead to me if you didn’t.”
Victoria left the office smiling and shaking her head at me. I stayed at my desk staring at the picture of the Eiffel Tower on my computer screen.
Did my best friend’s words have any merit? Was I crushing on this guy? Was it fear of something happening between us that I couldn’t control that was keeping me from agreeing to go to Paris with him?
I massaged my temples as flashes of last night burst against my eyelids.
“Get a grip, Nat,” I said to myself. I’d been with men who knew what they were doing in the bedroom. I’d had my world rocked before.
But last night was different.
I shook my head. “No, you just have a little crush. It will fizzle out. They always do.”
The way he kissed you…
I closed my eyes. Now was not the time to make myself dizzy with lust. I had a full day of work ahead of me and I’d be seeing him again tonight.
Butterflies fluttered around my stomach as I tried to get back to work and keep my mind trained on the task at hand. Nevertheless, Rylen still wandered through my thoughts.
Chapter 20
Rylen
Muse still wasn’t sure if I was friend or foe when I took him out of the cage at the clinic at the end of the day. His tail flicked, and his eyes, wide and alert, watched every move I made as I opened a spare pet crate and set it on the floor beside him. I’d filled it with blankets to make it comfortable for him and hoped he’d go in of his own free will. If he did, he’d be less likely to associate me with any negativity from forcing him in, and instead, I’d be able to instill some positive memory by being the one who brought him back home.
Of course, I was the one who’d brought him to the hellhole where he was poked and prodded and cut open, but a guy could hope the cat of the girl he had a crush on wouldn’t hate his guts.
Muse eventually crept into the crate on his own. It wasn’t an easy task with the plastic cone around his neck but he managed. Once he was settled and lying down with his chin resting on the black tank top I’d taken from Natalie, I closed and locked the door and carried him out to the lobby of the clinic, where Kelly had just turned off the lights and was waiting at the front door.
She crouched down in front of the crate and poked her fingers through it. “Bye, Muse. You’re such a sweet little guy. See you in a couple of weeks.”
I’d make sure the cat returned in two weeks or so to check on his recovery. Feline health could be fickle. Even though I’d seen nothing during his examinations to give me any reason to worry, I still wanted to be as thorough as possible to make sure he was in the clear. Infections or negative side effects due to shock were common in cats, especially male cats, after surgery. Keeping close tabs on him would ensure he returned to his normal health.
Kelly and I locked up the clinic and made our way to our vehicles.
“So Drew told me you spent the night with Muse’s owner the morning you did surgery,” Kelly said as she opened her car door.
I tucked Muse’s crate on the back seat of my truck and secured it with a seatbelt to make sure it didn’t move around as I drove. I shot a look over my shoulder at her. “Drew has a big mouth.”
“Well, we both knew that.” Kelly leaned on her open car door. “Is this something that might last? I know you haven’t really been with anyone since Mona.”
I blinked at her.
Kelly smiled. “I know it’s a bit forward of me, Rylen, and we don’t talk about these kinds of things. But if you like this woman, I’m happy for you. It’s been a rough two years. I’ve had a front-row seat to the fallout. I’m sorry for overstepping. I just… I want you to be happy, you know? You’re a good guy. And a good friend.”
I closed the back door of the truck. “Thanks, Kelly. You’ve been in my corner since everything fell apart. I don’t think I’ve properly thanked you for covering for me in the beginning. You pulled a lot of early mornings and late evenings. I appreciate it. Truly.”
Kelly waved me off. “Please, don’t make me emotional. For once, I didn’t cry today.”
Kelly had a big heart and that sometimes worked against her in our line of work. Watching people have to say goodbye to their pets or receive bad news always made her misty-eyed. Sometimes, she’d have to excuse herself to go in the back and have a good cry where either myself or Drew would be there desperately trying to make her smile again. It never took too much time, but it hurt both of us to see her breaking down.
Her big heart meant she felt everything more intensely. I’d never considered how it had been for her watching me go through my divorce or live out of my clinic. Without her and Drew, I’d have lost my practice.
“I’ll see you tomorrow morning,” I told her. “Don’t worry about me, Kelly. Whatever this is with Natalie, I’ll figure it out.”
She nodded, satisfied with my answer. “If she has half a brain, she’ll see what you have to offer and she won’t let you go.”
I chuckled and stepped up into my cab, where Muse was meowing steadily. I had to get him home. I waved goodbye to Kelly as I pulled out of the parking lot and spoke to Muse in a low, soothing voice for the entire drive to Natalie’s apartment.
The cat never stopped meowing. He was an anxious passenger.
When I arrived at the apartment, I carried him out in his crate. We crossed the lawn, stepped into the lobby, stopped in front of Natalie’s door, and knocked. Muse had s
topped meowing now. His nose was pressed against the grated door and his whiskers twitched as he smelled his home.
The door swung open.
Natalie, dressed in blue jeans and a royal blue T-shirt, dropped immediately to her knees and stuck her fingers in the cage. “Hi, baby,” she cooed before looking up at me. Her eyes were big and glassy, and they looked greener than ever. “Can I take him out?”
I nodded. She let me inside and I set the crate down so she could open the door. Muse didn’t hesitate to come out. Natalie rocked back to sit on her bottom. She crossed her legs and Muse climbed up into her lap.
I warned her about the stitches and the tenderness at the incision site. She hung on my every word as she stroked Muse’s back and the top of his head. In a matter of thirty seconds, he started purring up a storm. His eyes were half closed in a dopey state of contentment.
After a few minutes, he’d had enough. Natalie frowned as he climbed out of her lap and made his slow procession to a little bed in the corner of the living room, where he curled up and closed his eyes.
“He’s still sore,” I explained. “He’ll probably be like this for a couple of days. Nothing wrong with that so long as he’s still eating and drinking a lot of water. You’ll want to keep an eye on his use of the litter box, too. Make sure his feces are normal and solid and he’s urinating without any problems.”
“I can do that.” She got to her feet and looked up at me. “Do you have plans tonight?”
I shook my head.
“You do now,” she said. “I want to take you to dinner to thank you for everything you did for Muse. And for me.”
She wanted to take me out? Wasn’t it supposed to be the other way around? I hadn’t properly dated a woman since Mona and I were in the courting stage of our relationship, and that was roughly six years ago.
Am I getting ahead of myself? I was assuming this was a date but maybe all Natalie saw it as was a casual dinner between friends. A way of extending gratitude over food and drink.
“Dinner sounds good,” I said.
Natalie fetched her jacket and put on a pair of boots. She asked me to wait a minute and went down the hall to the bathroom. She cracked open the door and I heard a shower running. Steam wafted out around Natalie as she asked Victoria to watch Muse while we were gone. Victoria hollered hello from the shower to me, and I assumed she poked fun at Natalie about going out with me because Natalie muttered something under her breath before closing the door and hurrying to meet me.
“Let’s go.” She grinned.
“And where are we going?”
“I know a place.”
Natalie had me drive out to Ghirardelli Square. The old chocolate factory had been converted into a marketplace of shops, cafes, and the restaurant we were currently sitting in, McCormick & Kuleto’s. It was a spacious and somewhat formal restaurant. I’d never been, even though Mona and I talked about coming all the time. There was plenty to see and do here besides just eat, and the views from the massive windows of the dark ocean and twinkling night sky were beautiful. Christmas lights winked on barges floating far on the horizon and close on the roofs of nearby buildings.
We sipped red wine and ordered appetizers to share, which we were presently digging into.
I washed down a bite of coconut shrimp with a sip of wine. “So I’ve been wondering something since we first met.”
Natalie looked up at me as she licked coconut from her fingers. “Hm?”
“Why did you get into the escort business? Obviously, you’ve been very successful and you have a mind for business strategy but you could have tried anything. Why this?”
Natalie shrugged one shoulder. “Honestly?”
“Honestly. If you want to share, of course.”
She smiled. “Well, when I first got into the business, I wasn’t the boss lady. I’ll tell you that much. I was a desperate twenty-one-year-old who needed cash to get out of an abusive relationship.”
Those weren’t the words I’d been expecting. It was impossible for me to picture Natalie in an abusive relationship. She was a woman with grit and confidence. She was everything I thought a man could never dream of controlling.
“People usually look at me just like that when they find out.” Her eyes glittered as she paused to take a sip of wine. “You’re surprised?”
“Yes.”
“When I think back on it, I’m surprised too. I’ve changed a lot from the girl I used to be. That girl didn’t know her self-worth. She didn’t know what she was capable of if she actually just went for it. So she acted out of desperation. I applied at an escort service that promised a safe and respectable work environment. I went to parties with wealthy men and oftentimes at the end of the night they brought me back to a hotel so their wives wouldn’t know about it. When the abuse continued at the job I thought would save me from the abuse at home, I started thinking about ways to gain the upper hand. Ways to get out from under anyone’s thumb who wanted to control me. I told the clients I liked that I was quitting and going independent, and they followed me.”
“Just like that?”
Natalie laughed. “It sounds easy but it wasn’t. I had to weed out the bad clients. I had to stand my ground, which was something I’d never been very good at. But eventually things came together enough that I was able to hire other girls and start managing their events instead of going myself. Sometimes I still wonder how I got here and am struck with paralyzing fear that it’s all going to fall out from under me.”
“Imposter syndrome,” I said.
Natalie cocked her head to the side. “Yes, exactly.”
I understood what that was like. I’d felt it for the first five years of opening my clinic. I felt like I wasn’t worthy of my own practice, like I didn’t know enough to even hold the title of veterinarian. Kelly had been there to talk me up and remind me I’d put in the work and earned this fair and square. Without her reassurance, I might still be questioning my skill.
“Your business speaks for itself,” I told Natalie. “You’ve singlehandedly built your own empire from the ground up. You eliminated parts of the industry you didn’t like. You tailored an experience to the clientele you wanted to service. And you provided a safe and respectable career choice for a lot of women. That’s something to be proud of.”
Her eyes danced back and forth between mine. “Are you just saying that to try to get me into bed with you again?”
I grinned. “Is it working?”
Chapter 21
Natalie
Normally, I wouldn’t talk about business on a first date—if this could even be considered a date. I wasn’t entirely sure what this was. All I knew was that I’d wanted to extend my gratitude, and the best way I knew how to do that was over food.
The fact that we were in what would definitely be considered a “date scene” had only occurred to me once we’d been seated. Christmas decor dazzled all around us and outside the restaurant. Couples held hands over the table. Women ran the toe of their high heels up the side of their man’s leg. Our server winked at us when he dropped off our shared appetizer platter.
Yeah. It was kind of sort of most definitely a date.
Rylen made it easy for me to open up about my work and what led me to open On His Arm. He sat intently and listened, and he didn’t give me those pity eyes people usually had when they found out I’d escaped an abusive relationship. Instead, he looked almost inspired, like he admired the determination and strength that it took me to break free and build something for myself.
He’d said as much when he acknowledged my imposter syndrome.
Now after all those things had been said, I found myself coming up with zero reasons why I shouldn’t go to Paris with him.
Our meals arrived and the server topped off our wine. We talked about things that didn’t matter while we ate and didn’t dive back into anything serious. Rylen told me all about the animals he’d treated today: a pregnant guinea pig, a cat with bladder crystals, an old Shih Tzu w
ith cataracts. He had enthusiasm when he spoke of the animals and their owners. The satisfaction he got from helping people made it impossible not to grin at him as he talked animatedly with his hands and nearly knocked his wine glass right off the table.
“Sorry,” he said, straightening his cutlery as if wary he was going to cause some sort of mess in the next half a second. “I can get a little excited when I talk about work. It hasn’t felt like this in a while. I sort of lost my excitement for anything but it’s starting to come back. It feels good.”
I could relate. After fleeing my abusive ex, I’d lived under a dark canopy of shades of gray. Nothing sparked interest. Nothing tempted me. “I get it. Nothing feels better than waking up again after going through a storm.”
His eyes fixed on mine. He raised his wine glass. “Cheers to waking up.”
“I can toast to that.” I tapped my glass against his and we sipped in unison.
An hour later after I had a bit more wine in me and the waistband of my jeans felt a little snug, we escaped the restaurant in favor of the fresh air outside. Here at Ghirardelli Square, there was much to see. In the center of it all stood a tall Christmas tree with a glistening star balanced at the top. Children ran circles around the base of the tree while their parents snuggled up on stone benches with hot chocolate in hand.
Rylen and I made a slow procession around the outside of the square.
In another lifetime, it might have been him and his ex-wife wandering around this part of the city while their daughter played with friends around the tree. I couldn’t help but wonder how it had all fallen apart. How could a woman walk away from a man like Rylen? He truly seemed like a dream come true. He had looks that could kill and a heart that could put you back together if you were hurting.
Were there things about him he was keeping hidden away from me? Did he have a temper? Ninety percent of the time, the men I seemed to be attracted to always had a temper and a tendency to drink a little too much, which always resulted in a loss of control and explosive fights. It wasn’t in my nature to back down. I believed I could teach those men a lesson. I believed I could be the woman who was strong enough to hold them together.