by Julia Kent
Then again, she’s hardly average. Bet her number is higher. That mesh corset, after all.
Down, boy.
I raise my hand to a spot above my ear and run a tense hand through my hair. Across the table from me, Andrew McCormick does the same. With great concentration, I return my attention to the screen, where it should be, and not on Chloe Browne’s cleavage.
Where it wants to be.
Through the next ten slides, Chloe shows us exactly how brilliant she is, while I struggle to grasp the landscape of the meeting. She walked in here with a fringe idea and a slim chance of convincing Andrew McCormick to invest on the scale she wants.
And now they’re talking New Orleans, San Francisco, and—
“Rio would be a great target for 2018,” Chloe says, sitting down across from Andrew, tapping the end of a pen against the front of her teeth. “What about Tokyo for 2020?”
“The Olympics!” Andrew and Amanda say at the same time, then laugh.
“We’re getting ahead of ourselves,” I declare.
“You’re not convinced I’m worth taking a chance?” Chloe asks, her nose twitching with amusement, that curled lip driving me mad.
“You’ve convinced me,” Andrew says, standing and finally looking at his phone. “Nick, make it happen.”
“What?”
“Give Chloe whatever she needs.”
“Whatever she needs?” I choke out in surprise. Quickly, I recover, face showing no emotion, even if my pulse and half the blood in my body has migrated below my belt and I can’t stop wondering what’s under that corset. One peek of a nipple is like being given a single sip of Hennessy cognac.
It’s great, but you want the whole thing in your mouth eventually.
God help me, her eyes meet mine and her smile widens.
Best. Job. Ever.
“Right. Chloe, why don’t you go back to your office for an hour or so, while Nick and Amanda and I hash out some details in the conference room. We’ll call you,” Andrew says, standing and reaching for her hand. The only hint of emotion in Chloe’s face comes from the micro-movements in her eyes. She is pleased.
I want to please her. And not just with Anterdec’s money.
In this business setting, she should be pleased. Sharp and perceptive, she’s turned the meeting around. A green light from Andrew McCormick isn’t easy to obtain, and she marched right in here in secret dominatrix lingerie and she did it. I am intrigued and a little spellbound.
Maybe I’m just lightheaded from the lack of blood flow to the brain.
She unmoors me, turning back decades, making me feel like an awkward, uncoordinated teen.
But with a man’s appreciation for all that goes into making her her.
“Nick?” Andrew’s clipped tone makes me realize I’m in my own head. Chloe’s standing before me, her nose twitching with amusement, the rest of her face revealing nothing.
“Great presentation,” I say, shaking her hand. My eyes float down to her rack.
“It’s an eyeful, isn’t it?” she jokes.
“Certainly impressive,” I confirm. “The graphs.” I need to dial this down. Andrew’s giving me looks that could peel paint. “You give great data.”
“I aim to be Good, Giving, and Game.”
“Isn’t that what Dan Savage says about sex?”
“It applies to business, too.”
“A universal set of tools.”
She shrugs. “Everyone can have the same tools, Nick. Tool acquisition? Anyone can do that. The real skill is in implementation.”
With that, Chloe Browne leaves me speechless, hard as a rock, and the object of my boss’s ire.
One hell of a hat trick.
“Coffee?” Andrew’s admin, Gina, appears with a smartphone in hand, an app for a local coffee shop open.
Grateful for the save, I give her my order and will myself to think about subjects that deflate. She takes Amanda and Andrew’s requests and disappears with quick, nervous steps.
“Didn’t know Anterdec added a dating service to our portfolio. Cut it out, Nick,” Andrew says with a warning tone as he settles back into his chair.
Amanda snorts.
Catalogue that, too.
I say nothing. Eyebrows up, eye contact with my boss, but no words. I don’t challenge.
But I don’t back down.
“Oh, good Lord,” Amanda finally says with a sigh, reaching for Andrew’s hand. “We’re together. Nick can flirt.”
Before I can reply, Andrew leads her into the room we’re using here at O. I follow, loving the hypocrite he’s become in the course of three sentences. We settle around the table, Amanda perched on the edge, Andrew in his chair, me in the chair with the view behind him, the Financial District spread out for us, the ocean stretching behind him as if it were there for his pleasure alone.
It’s good to be the king.
“She’s good, isn’t she?” Andrew says.
And giving and game, apparently.
I give Amanda a look. She shrugs.
“Chloe?” I ask.
“Right. Smart, intuitive, an eye for design, and a great presenter. Gets three layers deeper than anyone in the room ever considered. She’s strategic and composed. Perfect face of O.”
Her O face sure does come to mind.
Damn it.
“You want to fund her?”
“The RV spa thing seems farfetched, but figures don’t lie.”
Chloe’s figure, bent over the edge of a bed, that sweet ass—
“Nick?” Andrew snaps his fingers. I shake myself like a wet dog.
“Right. How much should I put in her?”
Andrew’s jaw grinds, but before he can answer my garbled question, we’re interrupted.
Thank God.
“Twelve inches!” Gina exclaims from the doorway.
Timing really is everything.
“What?” Andrew sputters.
She’s holding a tray with three enormous white coffee cups in it.
“Twelve inches! The size of these coffees from downstairs. They’re so big!” As she hands out the coffee, Amanda stifles a giggle. Sunlight bounces off her ring. A wave of memory pours through me, lightning fast, like a retracting cable that snaps hard at the end, leaving marks.
Simone. Our engagement. Working nights through undergrad to pay for her little diamond chip of a ring...
The same ring she mailed back to me from France, along with her signed divorce papers.
“Jesus, Nick, what is wrong?” Andrew’s gone from anger to a furious concern, the irritated worry radiating off of him with a masculine sense that triggers my testosterone, sending me into high alert. We’re playing male hormone ping-pong, only without the paddles.
Paddles.
Chloe and a paddle....
“You’re not like this. You’re the focus man.”
“The what?”
“That’s what people call you behind your back,” Amanda explains cheerfully, her big eyes wide and friendly. They’re the color of mink, with lashes so long the bottom layer sticks to the top, making her reach up with a finger and rub.
“People talk about me behind my back? What do they talk about?”
“Your nickname—pun intended—is Focus Man. Now live up to it,” Andrew says sourly.
Damn. I’ve only been with Anterdec for a year, and so far, so good. After they acquired my firm, my prospects weren’t exactly certain. With three kids in college, this needs to last. Just long enough to have an empty nest, and then...
And then no one depends on me. I’m free. Free to pursue whatever I want for the first time in my life.
A flash of mesh corset fills my free mind.
“Focus Man?” I laugh. “I can think of worse names to call me.”
We all take a sip of our gigantic coffees and sit in silence for a moment. Andrew types on his computer, drinking more, then looks at me.
“Done. Gina can take care of specifics, but I green-lighted another gO Spa
RV and two more locations for new, full-service spas.”
“Do I get to help hire the staff?” Amanda asks Andrew with a wink.
“You,” he says archly, his voice going low and dark, “are staying at HQ with me.”
She gives him a wicked smile.
I miss having a woman smile at me like that.
I wonder if Chloe’s free for dinner.
If I’m Focus Man, I can be focused in more ways than one.
Chapter 6
Chloe
Carrie is right behind me as we head for our post-mortem in my office. That presentation went well. Better than well. My skin buzzes with triumph.
And maybe—just maybe—from being once-overed by a man with eyes the color of the sky.
“Oh my God, who died?” she gasps, pulling me out of my mini-fantasy.
There are roses in my office.
A lot of white roses. Six or eight dozen, by my guess.
Presentations like the one I just completed fill me with a weird mix of warrior-induced adrenaline and terror-induced cortisol. I’m primed for battle. This pathetic attempt to make up for what I saw that night—for what Joe did to me a month ago—has the opposite effect of what he intended.
The asshole just won’t let it go.
Won’t let me go.
Fury sears me from the inside out.
“Carrie, here, take some for your desk,” I say, grabbing the biggest vase and thrusting it at her. “Actually, take some for everyone. Take them all. They make my eyes water.” That’s a lie. My eyes aren’t blurring from rose fever. My vision is distorted by rage.
“Seriously, Chloe? Thanks!” It takes her three trips, but she gets them all out.
On her third go-around, she frowns. “Who are these from?”
“An old colleague.”
“He must really like you.”
“He used to,” I say faintly, my voice tinny, like I’m whispering through a pipe.
A sewer pipe.
Does Joe really think that eight dozen roses from Montelcini Flowers will magically erase the memory of his long stem in someone else’s mouth?
“What happened?”
What happened? What happened? The words spin through my mind, untethered and dangerous, like a pain-covered boomerang. None of this is Carrie’s fault, and I can’t get the image of Nick Grafton out of my head.
Any more than I can stop seeing the back of Joe’s blonde bunny’s head.
“Chloe?”
I steel myself and give her a neutral look. “Nothing. His tastes didn’t align with mine. He decided to go for a younger look.”
“That blows.”
Oh, if only you knew.
And with that, she’s gone. Carrie can take a hint.
I take out the mystery shop report and my Costco-sized bottle of aspirin, sit down at my desk, and do not move for the next hour.
Every ten minutes or so, the receptionist looks in and gives me an update. Joe has called six times. She wants to know when I am going to take his call.
NeverEver. Taylor Swift could not have said it better.
Deep in the details of an eviscerating—but accurate—mystery shop analysis, I don’t notice the man in the doorway until Carrie says, in a stage voice, “Her office is right here.”
“Chloe, that was a great presentation.” It’s The Frowner. Nick Grafton. Damn, I should have googled him but I forgot. “I’d like to talk more about your ideas for carrying the O brand through all levels of design. Things like that grey O border on the china—the client almost doesn’t even notice, but it’s always in view. Very smart. Would you have your admin call my assistant and set up a meeting for next week?”
“Of course. Thank you.” I’m flustered, surprised by his sudden appearance, and a little shaken. One sandal is off, and I’m frantically feeling around for it with my foot so I can stand up properly. And my lipstick is completely worn off… but that reminds me: “I have some thoughts about a line of private-label O cosmetics. I’d love your opinion.”
“Interesting. Next week then.” He hesitates. “A bit of a personal question—did you by any chance grow up around here?”
“Across the river, in Cambridge.” I look at him curiously.
“I have a younger brother, Charlie, and you look just like one of his friends. Any chance…?”
“Oh my god, Charlie Grafton!” I laugh. “I thought I recognized your last name. How is Charlie? We have totally lost touch.”
“Charlie’s, well, …” he starts, when my desk phone buzzes. I look down at it, but before I can pick up the receiver, the intercom starts, “Code Seven, Code Seven.”
We both stare at the phone, perplexed.
This is the call for security. Something is wrong at the front desk.
A business like O requires first-rate security 24/7. So much can go wrong, internally or externally, online or physically.
Privacy is paramount at O. Our cybersecurity is the tightest available. The last thing O needs is public exposure of our clients’ names.
Or their preferences.
* * *
We’re also on alert at all times for crazies.
Sometimes it seems like we’re a magnet for crazies. Conservative protestors pop up once in a while and need to be convinced that we really aren’t the place for protests. Generally, sending the g-stringed, all-male revue out to the protestors with boxes of donuts does the trick, but security is always there for backup.
And every once in a while, an O client confuses a staff member’s professional attention to physical pampering with True Love. Those situations can be tricky. Henry gets at least one proposition a week, and some of them are quite insistent.
What we offer our club members is relaxation and serenity. Our mission you might say, is inner peace. Our security team is invisible, dressed just like the spa staff, but when Code Seven is announced, they react very differently.
Nick Grafton is frozen in my doorway as men and women wearing grey silk kimono jackets and very little else race by.
I can hear shouting now, and some banging. Just like everyone else who works here, I have attended training sessions for this exact set of circumstances. I have the certificate to prove it.
And damned if I can remember one single thing that I am supposed to be doing.
Standing lopsided at my desk with one heeled sandal on and one off, staring like a deer in the headlights, is probably not what I was taught, though.
The shouting is getting louder, and dear god, is that my name I hear? Like some horror movie where the demon is closing in on the innocent victim? Nick Grafton and I look at each other.
Rushing toward the source of danger is probably wrong also? I hobble to the door as fast as possible. Three feet away, I trip, pitching forward. Nick catches me by reflex, one hand under my arm and one squarely on my breast as he inserts himself ahead of me, protectively.
I should be totally embarrassed. He’s a business associate and a complete stranger, but damn, that feels good. I need to fall more often. I need to practice klutziness. I never realized before what an important skill it is.
At that exact moment, my ex-boyfriend Joe heaves into view, dragging three security guards and screaming, “Chloe! Goddammit, let go of me! Chloe!” Joe’s tie is loose and his shirt is pulled out. His face is bright red and dripping sweat.
As Aaron Sorkin would say, this is not happening.
O’s corporate office is not huge. We all know each other, and everyone here knows Joe, at least by sight. The looks of fear on staff members’ faces shift to curiosity, and maybe a little embarrassment. But like a traffic accident, they can’t look away. They are Relationship Rubberneckers, and I’m a two-car pile-up on the Mass Pike. WBZ should cover this on the threes.
No one moves.
Just then, Joe looks up and sees me in Nick’s arms. Or hands. Or both.
He wrenches himself free from the security guards and lunges at Nick, who lets go of me.
“STOP!” I scre
am.
“She’s MINE!” Joe roars, a wave of hot breath expelling from him. Drunk, alcohol-soaked breath.
Nick makes two quick moves, so powerful and authoritative that he seems choreographed. Instinct makes me step back. I’m being protected, even if I didn’t ask for Nick’s help. His fluid grace takes Joe’s clumsy charge and turns his weight against him, overpowering my ex-boyfriend. I choke back a laugh driven by pure shock.
In seconds, Nick’s forearm is around Joe’s throat and one of Joe’s arms is pinned behind his back.
That was unexpected.
And if I weren’t mortified beyond belief, I’d have to admit it was kind of hot, too.
The security guards catch up. Nick says something to them that I can’t hear, and one of them handcuffs Joe. I can smell alcohol, and French cologne.
“Chloe, I have to talk to you, it’s all a mistake, I can explain, I’m so sorry, you know I love you, no one else matters to me, please.” Joe’s talking fast and low.
Henry comes sprinting in, dressed in a g-string, cowboy boots and a big belt buckle that says Everything’s Bigger in Texas. “Chloe, what the hell...? Joe?”
I’m undone. Without thinking, I take three unbalanced steps toward Henry and throw my arms around his mostly naked torso.
Nick looks at us for a long moment, then walks out behind the guards and Joe, who is still talking.
“Get your hands off of me! Don’t you know who I am? Chloe, call them off. Damn it, call them off! Please? C’mon, Chloe, you know I—”
Then—wait? Yep. The unmistakable sound of vomiting.
Some of those roses will need to go to the cleaning crew.
This is not my beautiful life.
* * *
Henry drives me home in his 1996 Audi. A fitting end to a day of uncertainty, discomfort, and some danger. Henry grew up in California, where he learned to drive. He is courteous. He observes the posted speed limit. He yields to the right-of-way.
In Boston traffic, this kind of thing will get you killed. No one expects it and no one knows how to react. Lacking a better idea, they usually respond with their middle fingers.
Surprisingly, we arrive safely at my condo. Climbing out of his car, I pause.
“So… you don’t mind if Jemma hangs out here tonight? I need some girl time. You come, too.”