Hot CEO: An Enemies to Lovers Romance

by Charlize Starr

  At least that’s what I’m betting on.

  I head inside with enough wood for several days. I set it down by my fireplace, glancing around my cabin. My eye catches the slip of paper Mia had given me, the one with her name and number on it. It’s sitting on my counter. I think I really should have thrown it out. Instead, I keep thinking about her. I hate that I was so rude to her, and the more I think about it, the more it bothers me.

  I pick up the piece of paper, staring at her number before making a choice. I walk over to my phone and dial it. I can’t take her out for a coffee or anything, but at least I can apologize.

  “Hello?” she says, picking up after three rings. “Who is this?”

  “Hey, Mia, this is Jacob, from this morning,” I say, sitting down on a kitchen stool to talk.

  “Oh. Did you get that dry cleaning back already?” Mia asks. She sounds a little annoyed, and a little like she’s surprised to be hearing from me.

  “No. I – um,” I say, “I actually called to apologize to you.” The words feel awkward on my tongue, but I spit them out anyway.

  “Oh! You did?” she asks.

  “I know I was a jerk to you this morning,” I say.

  “You were,” she agrees quickly.

  I laugh, surprised at her honesty. The sound seems odd to my own ears, but I guess I haven’t had much reason to laugh lately.

  “Yeah, I know,” I say, shaking my head even though she can’t see the gesture.

  “Why?” she presses. I wish I could see her face right now. I wish I knew if she was smiling.

  “Let’s just say I was in a huge rush and a terrible mood. But I’m sorry for taking it out on you,” I say, going for honest. Technically honest, anyway.

  “It’s all right,” she says, voice softening. “I was a little stressed myself. It’s my first full day here in town, and I was headed to apply for a job.”

  “You just moved?” I ask, curious. The town below my cabin doesn’t get a lot of new permanent faces. There are plenty of tourists throughout the peak season, people here for the stunning colors the mountains turn in the fall and to stock up on local jams and ciders. There are a few people who come for the winter months: skiers and cozied-up lovers preferring the larger lodges who make up the steady trickle of people compared to the rest of the year. There are people who come to get married and spend a remote honeymoon here, and there are nature photographers and hikers and travel writers and retirees with time-share cabins, but all those people are temporary. It’s rare that someone new, and someone so young moves to a town like this in a permanent way.

  “I did,” Mia confirms. “I’m in a whirlwind of big life changes right now, so I guess the wind brought me here.”

  “To do what?” I ask.

  “I don’t know yet,” Mia says with a laugh, “but I got a job today over at Cobblestone Chocolates, so that’s a start.”

  “Those are the best chocolates in town,” I say. “Maybe on this whole side of the mountain range.”

  Her laugh is light and lilting, and it makes me feel lighter, too. “Then I made a smart choice,” she says.

  “Congratulations on the job,” I say sincerely, hoping to make up for this morning.

  “Thank you,” she says. She sounds sincere, too, and it makes me smile. She’s easy to talk to, and I can’t help but think about what it would have been like if things had been normal and I’d been able to take her out for a coffee to make up for the spilled one. I haven’t dated anyone in a long time. Even before this, I was married to my work. I was always the one behind a desk or on the floor while Calvin was out being the social one – the face of the company. While he was schmoozing with socialites and bringing models to events, I was spending hours going over numbers or perfecting new technology. For example: the one that had added all those extra zeroes to our revenue, that took us from local to international, that is probably linked to those attempts on my life.

  “Where did you come here from?” I ask, wanting to hear more about her. It’s just nice to talk to another person again, to hear a voice other than my own around this place. I tell myself this, but I know there are more reasons I want to keep the conversation going. Mia answers and tells me all about her life in the city, about her advertising job and how much she’d hated it. We talk about it until the sun is setting and my kitchen is getting dark around me, and after she hangs up, the cabin feels lonelier than it ever has. Even after we say our goodbyes, I’m still left wanting to hear her voice again, to talk to her more.

  Now is the wrong time to be thinking about dating anyone. I just met Mia earlier today, but there’s something about her. I can’t help but listen to those thoughts in my head. I think I’ve been lonelier up here than I’ve let myself realize.

  Chapter Five - Mia

  After four days in town and two shifts at my new job, people are already greeting me by my first name. Waiters, store clerks, customers at the shop, and even people on the street all say hello and ask me about my day like we’ve been friends for years. I absolutely love it. It makes it feel like the mess of my last job is so far behind me. It makes me feel like good things are already starting to happen here.

  Martin has been a wonderful boss so far and I’ve been looking forward to going to work every day. I’m learning to make chocolates in an old-fashioned mixer with just the right ratio of cocoa, milk, and sugar. I’m learning how to send out all our shipments, how to wrap them when they’re gifts or presented for businesses. I’m learning to make the schedule, looking at the availability of our part-time staff. I’m learning to fill up the glass cases just right, displaying the most enticing pieces right in the center. I’m learning to dip strawberries and pretzels in the perfect amount of chocolate and line them on trays. I’m enjoying all of it even more than I thought I would.

  “Thank you, sweetheart,” an older woman says, smiling at me as I ring up her order and hand her a steaming cup of hot chocolate. “I can’t make it through a cold day without a cup of this.”

  “We have it every day, all year round, cold or not,” I say, smiling. I haven’t actually tried the hot chocolate yet, but I know it’s a rich and creamy customer favorite and that Martin has been making it the same way for longer than I’ve been alive.

  “I know you do,” the woman says, handing me her credit card. Most of the customers here like to talk, I’ve noticed. I’ve always loved conversation myself, so it suits me very well. “Although sometimes you can’t keep it in stock during the tourist season. You’ll see.”

  “I’ve heard. But I think Martin is planning to make extra this year to accommodate it,” I say, grinning.

  “Oh, wonderful!” the woman says, taking her order. “Well, you tell him I said hello. I’ll see you again soon, dear.”

  “Have a great day!” I call after her as she leaves. I think of the small office I’ve left behind: a bland little box with a phone that rang constantly and so many people shouting at me or ordering me around or asking pointless questions or wanting rework after rework – as if what the world desperately needed right now was another frozen vegetable medley option. I don’t miss anything about it. I’ll take sweet people and pleasant conversations over a single minute of what I’d left behind any day.

  At the end of my shift, when I’m putting some of the chocolates in the fridge to be stored overnight, I remember Jacob saying these were the best chocolates in town. I wonder what kind he likes best. I wonder if I should send him some when he sends me that dry cleaning bill. I’m still so surprised at how well our last conversation had gone. I honestly hadn’t been expecting him to call at all, let alone him calling to apologize.

  That makes him a completely different guy than I’d thought. It changes everything I’d first thought about him. It was a nice thing to do, and our whole conversation had been so nice, so pleasant. He’d been just a little awkward over the phone. Maybe a little nervous. It had been fun to talk to him. Maybe, instead of a jerk who’d try to ruin my first morning, Jacob will turn
into my first friend in my new life.

  I decide to call him as I’m leaving. I’m on my way to a hair appointment, but it’s not for an hour, so I think I’ll have time. He picks up after just two rings.

  “Hello?” he asks, sounding just a little confused. I can’t help but wonder if his forehead has that same crinkle in it that it had had that first morning.

  “Jacob, hi!” I say, walking fast. “So, I have two questions.”

  “Mia,” he says, as if he hadn’t been sure at first or like he doesn’t talk on the phone much. Maybe both. “What are these questions?”

  “Well, first, I wanted to see if you’d gotten that dry cleaning done yet, and then I was wondering if you’d like me to send you any chocolate from work when I send back the bill since you mentioned you liked them,” I say.

  “Oh,” Jacob says. I can hear a rustling sound behind him. “About that dry cleaning. You don’t actually need to do that. I don’t get dry cleaning, anymore, anyway. Not that – you wouldn’t have to do it anyway, really, but I don’t use a dry cleaner,”

  “Not ever?” I ask I decide to walk toward the park as I talk. It’s a nice night, and I figure I can get some exercise in before my appointment.

  “Not anymore. Not since I moved into my cabin,” Jacob says, laughing a little.

  “So, it sounds like you’ve made some big life changes too,” I say, smiling. It hadn’t occurred to me that dry-cleaning would be a bit less common here than in the city, but I guess it makes sense.

  “I did. I used to have clothes sent out all the time, but now I use a machine I hooked up myself,” Jacob says. I picture Jacob with tools, building and fixing things. It’s a good image. There’s just something so attractive about a man who can work with his hands.

  “So, no dry-cleaning, then,” I say, biting my lip. “What about the chocolate anyway?”

  “I’ll let you know,” Jacob says, laughing again. “How is that going? Your new job?”

  “I love it,” I say excitedly. “It’s exactly what I was hoping for.”

  “Do you actually make the chocolate? Or are you more into sales?” Jacob asks. I smile again, picking up my pace as I wind past a giant tree in the park.

  “Both! Making it is so much fun. Martin has all this great old equipment – the kind that looks like you’re in one of those diners from the 1950s. It’s amazing to see it all work and get to use it myself,” I say.

  “It’s great they still work,” Jacob says. “Our old equipment, all this stuff my family has in storage, is mostly rusted and doesn’t do much. I had to take most of it off the line myself. It would have been more expensive to repair than it was all worth.”

  “Old equipment for what?” I ask, curious.

  “Whiskey,” Jacob says. “It’s the family business.”

  “Really?” I ask, intrigued.

  “My great-great-grandfather had a secret recipe, actually,” Jacob says. “He brewed it right in these mountains.”

  “And you still use it now?” I ask. The more we talk, the more Jacob seems to relax. The more comfortable he seems.

  “Not exactly,” Jacob says. “That recipe is long lost, but my grandfather used the legend of it to start the company as it is today.” Jacob having a family business is not something I was expecting, but I like hearing him talk about it. I picture one of the small desterilizers that do ten-cent tastings for tourists and sell to local restaurants, Jacob in charge of ten employees who have all worked there for years.

  “That’s a lot of history,” I say, headed back toward town for my appointment. I wonder if Jacob ever gives tours, talking to visitors in that rough and gravelly voice of his. Maybe I can get a tour of my own one day. “Did you move out here to be closer to it?”

  “In a way,” Jacob says after a long pause, like he was considering his answer carefully. He sounds a bit uncomfortable again, so I change the subject, wanting to keep him talking.

  “So, other than washing machines, what else can you fix?” I ask.

  Jacob laughs again, sounding surprised this time, but then he relaxes again and starts talking. He’s telling me about the improvements he’s made to his well when I reach my appointment. I almost hate to hang up, but I’ve had this hair appointment for days and I don’t want to inconvenience anyone by canceling at the last minute. Still, I sigh a little when we say our goodbyes, already eager to talk to him again by the time I check in at the salon.

  I find a seat in the lobby and I pick up a southern living food and beverage magazine to thumb through while I wait, thinking of my conversation with Jacob. In the middle of the magazine, there’s a two-page spread on some whiskey heir of a huge international brand called High Country Whiskey. It’s the top-shelf kind a date orders when he’s trying to impress you. The heir, a man a few years older than me, has a smug expression on his face and something in his eyes that makes me feel sure he’s not at all as charming as this spread is desperately trying to present him as.

  The spread says he’s known for throwing elaborate parties, getting into a bit of trouble, and being a real heartbreaker. I shake my head in disgust. I’m sure by heartbreaker they mean he tries to get every attractive woman he sees into bed with him that very night. The spread touches on a few of his famous exes – mostly names I recognize as models he’s apparently had messy breakups with – and I know I’m right. I’ve dated men like him: pampered rich boys who swear you’re the prettiest woman they’ve ever seen right until the moment another woman crosses their path. Apparently now he’s “back on again” with some singer girl, the vocalist for a rising country band with an electronic instrumental backing and a breakout single over the summer. The magazine promises me their relationship is much steadier than it was last time around. I feel sorry for the girl instantly, wondering just how steady a relationship with a guy like this could possibly be with his slicked-back hair and his partying and his self-satisfied smugness.

  Flipping to the ad on the next page – as if the two-page interview wasn’t enough of an advertisement already – I frown. It’s way too flashy for such an expensive product. The kind of people I’ve seen buys this whiskey aren’t people who want fast cars and scantily-clad women. There are too many bright colors and trendy elements here, not enough to signify high-class taste and a true gentleman’s drink. I sigh to myself, wishing I’d gotten the chance to design ads for a brand like this. Something glamorous and expensive. Something that really deserved my attention.

  The girl at the desk calls me back just then, and I wonder as I walk back with my stylist if I should ask if Jacob knows this whiskey playboy through business. I dismiss the thought quickly as I settle into my hair station though, since I doubt small mountain town distilleries really do much talking to the giants.

  Chapter Six - Jacob

  I know I shouldn’t even look or I’ll make myself angry, but I can never turn myself away from them – the industry publications, the lifestyle magazines, the gossip columns, everything that mentions the company and Calvin in the same breath. The two-page spread open in front of me gives me a headache just looking at it. It’s meant to be a positive piece in a southern beverage magazine, one we’ve done a lot of business with, calling him the face of the company. All through it, though, there are all the same obvious cracks in his persona as always. The “partying” reads as the heavy drinking it really is, the “mischief” and “troublemaking” less rich-boy hijinks and more the kind of run-ins with the law that our legal team has spent millions on, the “heartbreaker image” more his own self-destructive womanizing.

  It’s more frustrating than it should be, every article glorifying Calvin and calling me reclusive – if bothering to mention me at all. There is something extra maddening about this one, though, and I don’t think it’s just the way that even through the photoshopping and airbrushing on his photo I can see how bloodshot my brother’s eyes are – how off his pupils look and how drunk or high he must have been at the photoshoot. I think it’s the infuriating way it ta
lks about Maria and that damn music festival.

  Maria is the woman who's been in my brother’s life the longest, although I don’t think Calvin is actually any more serious about her than he is about anyone or anything else in this world. The columns always refer to them as “on-again, off-again,” and it’s true enough, I suppose. She’s been swearing she hates him and then back on his arm at least a dozen times since they met. Maria is the lead singer of a pop country band, always primed to be the next big thing. During their latest – or latest that I know of, anyway – breakup, she’d been playing a late afternoon slot at a huge music festival in North Carolina, the kind with hundreds of thousands of people in attendance. We’d been the official drink partner, with a huge tent and lots of merchandise being raffled off. It should have been a huge deal and really positive PR for us, but it turned into a nightmare.

  Calvin had decided it would be the perfect time to win Maria back, convinced it was romantic. He’s always loved a dramatic gesture, and he’s always been terrible at them, fucking them up in the worst possible ways. So, he’d ended up in a drunken fistfight with her current boyfriend, shoving him right into a table in our sponsorship tent, sending glass and alcohol flying everywhere. It was a disaster that, of course, turned into my disaster to clean up Monday morning somehow. It was the last straw in a string of outlandish behavior that only seemed to be getting worse and worse as of late.