Because He Torments Me

by Hannah Ford

  Before Callum comes in this afternoon? What?

  I felt like someone had sucker punched me.

  I was going to see him again, already, and here I was, wearing one of the outfits he’d sent to me. It would have been much better if he’d seen me wearing something of my own, or better yet, something amazing and perfect and beautiful, just as nice as the things he’d gotten me only purchased on my own.

  Get it together, Adriana. You need to keep things professional. Stop thinking about him.

  I had to get to human resources, and then find someone called Betty to show me how to stuff prize packs, which seemed like something they’d give a college intern, not a publicity assistant.

  I turned and hurried down the hall, back toward human resources.

  Job: One

  Adriana: Zero.

  **

  The anticipation of seeing Callum consumed my thoughts, causing a physical response that made it almost impossible to concentrate.

  Of course, it wasn’t like I had much to concentrate on.

  Filling out forms in human resources was mindless, as was addressing the prize packs, which literally meant writing addresses on envelopes, slipping a book inside of them, and fastening them shut before tossing them into a bin that would be sent to the mailroom.

  I ate a quick lunch in the Archway cafeteria with Betty, the publicity receptionist who’d shown me how to do the prize packs, not that there was much to show. She was a nice woman, Betty, but she was in her sixties, and there wasn’t much to talk about.

  When I got back from lunch, I hovered outside Kiersten’s office.

  The prize packs were done, at least the ones on the long list that Betty had given me, and I was hoping they weren’t going to give me another list to start working on.

  “Kiersten?” I said. “I’m done with the prize packs.”

  “Have you had lunch?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good.” She leaned back in her chair and slid a pair of glasses onto her face, one of those trendy chic pairs with Ralph Lauren frames. She slid a packet of papers across the desk to me. “This is the info for the Callum Wilder book tour.”

  I picked it up and ran my eyes over the top sheet.

  “He’ll be going from city to city, reading and signing. In certain cities we’ll have a twitter giveaway for a chance to join Callum for dinner. Of course he’ll be promising to talk about his business secrets, but it will mostly be young women who enter.” She sighed. “Women cannot get enough of Callum. You’ll be in charge of a lot of that, picking winners, vetting them, that sort of thing.”

  Wonderful. I pictured myself looking through entries from young, beautiful women, all of them desperate to win a dinner date with the sexy and enigmatic Callum Wilder.

  “Do you think you can handle that, Adriana?” Kiersten barked.

  “Yes,” I said. “Yes, I can.”

  The phone buzzed and Betty’s voice came over the speaker. “Callum Wilder is here,” Patty said. “Shall I show him to the… oh, wait, sir, no, you can’t just -- um, Kiersten, he’s coming back, I’m sorry, I couldn’t – ”

  The rest of her voice faded away because suddenly, there he was, standing in front of us.

  Callum.

  He was dressed in one of his signature black suits, and today his shirt was grey, his tie grey and black striped. He looked as if he’d gotten a haircut since I saw him yesterday, the hair on the back of his neck shorter than it usually was, his sideburns neatly trimmed, his face clean shaven.

  And those eyes.

  Blazing blue, as always.

  “Callum,” Kiersten said, giving him a smile and rising from her seat to shake his head. “How are you?”

  “Good, thank you. And yourself?”

  “I’m good, I’m good.” She turned to me. “And you know Adriana.”

  “Yes, of course,” Callum said smoothly, not showing any trace of knowing me as anything more than a work relationship. He gave me a curt nod, but didn’t make a move to shake my hand.

  I nodded back at him, hoping I was as good as he was at keeping my emotions in check.

  Callum glanced at his watch. “I have another meeting at three.”

  “Oh, this won’t take long,” Kiersten assured him. “Let’s move to the conference room, shall we?”

  We shuffled out of the office and started down the hall toward the conference room. The two of them walked ahead of me, chattering about publication dates and galleys, and I followed them like a lost puppy.

  When we got to the conference room, Kiersten asked Callum if he wanted a drink.

  “Water with lemon,” he said.

  “Of course. I’ll be right back,” she said and turned to leave.

  “I can get it,” I said, panicked at the thought of being left alone with him, even if only for a moment.

  “No, it’s okay,” Kiersten said. “I got it.” She left the room, obviously trying to prove to Callum that he was such an important client that she was willing to fetch him beverages.

  Not like he needed to be made to feel as if he were important – he was already arrogant enough.

  He sat down at the head of the table, and I involuntarily scoffed.

  “Do you have something to say, Adriana?” he asked.

  I sat down on his left side, making sure to slide my chair over so that there was a fair amount of distance between us. Although at this point I could have been in New Jersey and there wouldn’t have been enough distance between the two of us.

  “No,” I said.

  “Are you sure? You seem like you want to say something.”

  “No. I don’t.”

  He shrugged, then reached into his briefcase and pulled out a copy of the Wall Street Journal and began reading.

  “Kiersten will probably be back any second,” I said.

  “So?”

  “So you might want to put your newspaper away.”

  “Show me a man who knows how to multi-task, and I will show you a man who is successful.” His eyes never left the page and it made me furious, the way he was sitting there, acting so cold and distant.

  I thought about how he had another meeting at three, how he had other things to be caught up in, important deals and appointments. And how even though I had this new job, he still occupied my every thought. It made me so angry I could hardly stand it.

  “Stop jittering,” he commanded.

  I hadn’t noticed, but my leg was moving under the table. He reached out and put his hand on it, to stop me from shaking, and I cursed myself for not moving even further away from him.

  I looked up at him, and he looked up from his paper, and his eyes locked on mine. A tiny smirk moved over his lips, the side of them curling up arrogantly.

  “You look very pretty today, Adriana,” he said huskily. “That’s a nice outfit.”

  “Thank you.”

  “You’re very welcome.”

  I swallowed as he kept his hand on my knee for a beat longer, and I held my breath, hoping he would move it higher, hoping he would try to touch me, kiss me, or say something that would let me know he was just as effected by me as I was by him. But instead, he pulled his hand away from my leg, leaving me almost gasping for air.

  Kiersten returned then, holding a glass filled with crushed ice, water, and lemon, which she sat down on a coaster in front of Callum. A thin bead of condensation ran down the side of the glass and pooled on the coaster. It reminded me of Callum getting out of the pool, the droplets of water that slid down his torso and clung to his chest hair.

  I averted my eyes, my hand tightening around the pencil I was holding.

  “So!” Kiersten said. “I thought we could start with the dates we have planned for your tour, and hope that you don’t have any conflicts.” She pulled a sheet of paper out of a manila folder and slid it across the table to him, then placed an identical page in front of me.

  Callum picked it up and glanced at it. “I’ll have my assistant go over my calendar,” he sa
id, offering no more information. “I trust you have hotel and car for every venue?”

  “Yes, of course,” Kiersten said. “You’ll have a car to take you from the airport, flights will of course be – ”

  “I’ll take my jet,” Callum said.

  “Oh,” Kiersten said, looking slightly taken aback. “Yes, of course.” She made a note on her pad.

  “I’ll need a tour assistant,” Callum said. “To travel with me.”

  “Yes,” Kiersten said. “Adriana can go with you.”

  My eyes widened and my heart jumped into my throat. Adriana can go with you? This was the first I’d heard of such an arrangement. I looked down at the printed out page in front of me, running my eyes over the cities – Philadelphia, LA, Seattle, Boston. I was supposed to travel with Callum? On his jet, the one where he’d slid his fingers inside of me before whisking me off to Tampa to fuck me until I couldn’t remember my own name?

  That was impossible. I couldn’t do that.

  I would have to figure out a way out of it, I would have to say that –

  “No.” Callum’s voice was cold, unwavering.

  “What?” Kiersten asked, seemingly startled.

  “No. Someone else can accompany me.”

  Kiersten frowned slightly, but recovered quickly. “Okay,” she said. “No problem. I’m sure we can ask one of the other assistants to do it.”

  Callum nodded, as if the matter was settled, and my body burned with fiery rage. How dare he say that to my boss, that he didn’t want me going on tour with him? What did he think? That I was going to get attached to him if I had to go on the road with him? That I even cared about him at all?

  “Don’t forget the dinners,” I blurted, and the two of them looked at me.

  “What?” Kiersten asked.

  “The giveaways. The dinners. With the girls.” I jutted my chin in the air.

  “What dinners?” Callum asked.

  “It’s very exciting,” I said, infusing my voice with false cheer so that he would see just how totally unaffected by him he was. “We have a plan to raffle off a date with you in every city you’re in. One night. With you. Doesn’t that sound just perfect?” My voice was falsely cheerful, but I made sure to emphasize certain words, like ‘one night.’

  I saw his jaw set and a vein throb in his neck.

  Good. Cocky bastard. It was about time someone rattled his seemingly unshakeable exterior.

  “No, it’s not like that,” Kiersten said, shooting me a look that could kill. “We’ll be doing a twitter giveaway in select cities where people who retweet information about your book may be chosen for a dinner with you, where they’ll have the opportunity to ask questions about business.”

  “No,” Callum said. He took a sip of his water and leaned back in his chair, right back to being an arrogant ass.

  “But it’s a wonderful opportunity,” I said. “For you to get to know your readers, see the kinds of things they’re interested in, the kinds of things they want from you.”

  A tight smile passed over his face, but I saw his fingers grip the arm of his chair so tightly that his knuckles began to turn white.

  “I don’t think it’s the best use of resources,” he said.

  “I can do it,” I said.

  “You can do what, Adriana?” Callum asked.

  “I can choose the winners. I can set up the dinners, I can take care of all the arrangements for the night. I’ll make sure it’s all set.” I gave him a friendly smile and made a note on my pad, wanting him to know that I relished the idea of handpicking women for him to spend the night with.

  “Adriana, if Callum doesn’t want to do it, we don’t have to,” Kiersten said hurriedly.

  “No, it’s okay,” Callum said, his tongue licking his bottom lip again. “If Adriana has a vision for this particular project, then who am I to stop her?”

  “Thank you, Mr. Wilder,” I said, and watched the grip on his chair tighten even more. “You won’t be displeased.”

  The rest of the meeting passed without incident, and before I knew it, we were gathering up our papers and Kiersten was showing him out.

  She walked him to the elevator, and once she was back, she turned her wrath on me.

  “What the hell was that?” she demanded.

  “What the hell was what?” I asked.

  “You don’t just go and bring up a publicity plan to an author without making sure it’s okay with me first,” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” I said honestly, “I thought he knew about it.” I blushed, suddenly realizing how stupid I’d been. In my effort to prove to Callum that I didn’t care about what he was doing or who he was having dinner with, I’d hurt myself.

  “Never mind,” Kiersten said. She pulled off her glasses and rubbed her eyes. Then she glanced at her watch. “You might as well go home and get ready for the party.” Her eyes ran up my outfit. “It’s not black tie, but it’s more formal than business casual.”

  “What party?” I asked.

  She sighed. “The launch party. For Aubrey Zane’s book?”

  Oh. Right. She’d mentioned something about a launch party, but she’d never told me I was expected to attend or when it was.

  “It starts at eight. I’ll text you the address.”

  I nodded. “Okay.”

  “Bring whoever you want. We need to fill the room, and if we don’t, there will be hell to pay.”

  She wandered back to her office, mumbling to herself about the guest list.

  I stood there for a second, watching her go.

  It was definitely official.

  My first day of work had been a one hundred percent disaster.

  ***

  It was storming outside, and cabs passed by, all of them occupied, their tires splashing through puddles and causing dirty water to slosh up onto the curb.

  The subway was packed, and the umbrella I’d been so smug about remembering this morning had been left at the office. So by the time I got to my apartment, the beautiful clothes I’d been so careful with this morning had been reduced to a sodden mess that clung to my body.

  When I stepped inside, I’d never been so thankful to be home in my life.

  I felt exhausted, as if I’d had the longest day ever. Yet I hadn’t even learned anything, and had spent my day addressing envelopes for fuck’s sake. I glanced toward the living room longingly, thinking about how nice it would be to take a shower, climb into my pajamas and then watch tv or relax with a good book.

  Instead I was expected to get dressed up and attend some bullshit party.

  From down the hall, I heard the sound of Nessa laughing, and then a muffled male voice.

  “Nessa?” I called, walking down the hall toward the voices. “Are you home?”

  The door to the bathroom was open, and I could see Nessa standing in there, a glass of wine in her hand.

  Someone was under the sink – there were a pair of male legs sticking out.

  “Hey,” Nessa said when she saw me. “The sink was clogged, so Isaac’s being nice enough to fix it for us.” She sounded giddy and hyper, her cheeks flushed. I couldn’t tell if it was from the wine or from Isaac being here.

  “Hi, Adriana,” Isaac called from under the sink.

  “Hey, Isaac,” I said. “Thanks for fixing our sink.”

  “No problem.”

  “How was your first day at work?” Adriana wanted to know. She reached up and wiped a smudge of mascara off my cheek, and I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I groaned. My hair was wet and hanging in lank chunks around my shoulders, my eye makeup was running down my face, and my mascara stuck to my lashes in clumps.

  “It was a disaster,” I said. “And I don’t even have time to tell you about it, because I have to go back there.”

  “To work?”

  “Yes. Well, to this launch party for Aubrey Zane’s new book.”

  Nessa grabbed my arm. “Aubrey Zane? Aubrey Zane the pop star? I love her!” She started humming the
melody of Aubrey Zane’s latest hit, and a second later, Isaac emerged from under the sink and joined in with her.

  “I didn’t know you like pop music, Isaac,” Nessa said.

  “Don’t tell anyone.” He reached over and turned on the sink, and the water came flowing out of the pipes and down the drain effortlessly. “Good as new,” he said. He held up a hair tie. “This hair tie was your culprit.”

  “Ah,” Nessa said. “I’ll be more careful next time.”

  Isaac tossed the hair tie into the trash, and when he turned away, Nessa winked at me. ‘I did it on purpose’ she mouthed, and my eyes widened in surprise. Nessa has clogged her own sink just to get Isaac over here? I wasn’t sure if that was diabolical or brilliant.

  “Anyway,” Isaac said. “My friend Garrett’s coming over in a few, we’re going to go out for a drink. You guys in?”

  I could tell from the look on Nessa’s face that she wanted to very badly. But I couldn’t get out of my work commitment even if I wanted to.

  “I’m so sorry,” I said. “It sounds wonderful, but I really have to go to the launch party.”

  “Well, do you… I mean, are you allowed to bring guests?” Nessa asked.

  “Yes,” I said, before I could think better of it. I wasn’t sure if showing up to the launch party with my roommate, my neighbor, and a guy I’d never met before was a great idea. Then again, Kiersten said she was worried about filling the room. And after the day I’d had, there was no way things could get any worse.

  “It’s formal, though,” I said. “Not black tie, but you have to dress up.”

  “I have a dress I’ve been dying to wear,” Nessa said. “Isaac?”

  He shrugged. “Sounds good to me. What time?”

  “It starts at eight,” I said. “In Soho.”

  “Meet us out front and we can share a cab?” Nessa asked Isaac.

  “Sounds good. See you then.”

  Isaac left and Nessa immediately began dancing around the apartment, delighted at her luck.

  I laughed and then headed for the shower.

  I needed to have a good attitude about this, I decided. It was time for me to forget about Callum Wilder, to forget about my bad day at work. Every second was a chance for a new beginning.