by Ellie Danes
I popped my head out of the shower just as the music stopped.
I sighed and wished more than anything — as I rinsed my body of the suds — for there to be some sort of supernatural reason for that song to start blaring. I hit my forehead against the shower in dread. Did I even want to get out of the damn shower now? Did I want to find out?
Fuck. I knew what I had to do.
I yanked the lever to shut the water off. “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I groaned, growing even more annoyed at the situation.
What did she want?
I grabbed a towel and wrapped it around my waist, not even bothering to dry off. I wasn’t in a rush, except I wanted to get this over with as soon as possible, and get back to my lazy Sunday.
I glanced at the mirror as I made my way out of the door and stopped for a minute to look more closely. My stubble was jutting out in all sorts of directions. I kind of liked it. I smiled at myself a bit. Yep. I was leaving it. It was fucking Sunday. I’d leave the shaving to tomorrow.
Today was all mine. Well, mine and hers for just a few short minutes. That was all I would spare her.
I tightened the towel around my waist and shuffled toward my nightstand, where my phone was still charging. I looked at it for a second and watched as droplets fell from my hair to the cherry wood bedside table.
A missed call, and a text message.
A fucking text message. Thank fuck she hadn’t left me a voicemail, so at least I wouldn’t have to hear her speak.
I was scared of the text, though. Like it was a rattlesnake, rattling its tail to warn me to back the fuck off or it was going to strike.
I took an angry, deep breath and grabbed the phone, yanking it away from the charger. I clicked the display on, and there it was, a text from the worst woman in the world: Amelia. My crazy, stone-cold terror of an ex-girlfriend.
I laughed out loud. She was asking me out for a brunch date.
I blew out a large huff of breath and dramatically plopped onto my bed so that I was lying down. I eyed the message, reading it over and over again. I hoped all that I could hope that it would somehow change, that the texting gods would somehow erase it from my phone and make me forget it ever happened.
Of course, they didn’t — and it was still there, staring me right in the face. I knew better than not to respond.
Hating this turn of fate, I tapped out a few words, agreeing to meet her.
It wasn’t because I remotely missed anything about her; it was for one reason, and one reason only: she was still one of the lawyers on Bio-Research’s team, and it couldn’t hurt to stay in her good graces. Knowing her, in fact, it was probably way more beneficial than being in her bad graces, and that was because, straight up, Amelia was crazy.
After I hit send, I tossed the phone next to my pillow and looked up at the ceiling. I let my mind wander. I needed to calm down and to let my mind drift. I needed it to pull away from any and all thoughts of Amelia until it was time to go.
My thoughts drifted so far that it was almost like I was dreaming. Dreaming about Kate.
Part of me wished the day was just a normal working weekday. That way it would have been Kate that I was meeting up with as part of my morning routine, rather than Sunday brunch with a woman I still resented.
I inhaled, pretending that my lips were pressed against Kate’s red hair. It was almost like Kate was here with me.
It was like I could feel her, smell her…almost as if I could just extend my arm out next to me and fucking touch her.
She was torturing me, but in the best way imaginable.
She was different.
She was special.
I couldn’t help but think about Kate the entire way to the restaurant Amelia had chosen for us.
Amelia wanted to meet at a posh downtown restaurant — one that I used to love frequenting but rarely did anymore. I just didn’t have the time. Plus, Amelia was the one who’d introduced me to it, and I didn’t want to risk running into her there.
It was a swanky little spot with the best ravioli that I had ever had. But it was small — and because it was so damn good, it was almost impossible to get a seat.
But Amelia was Amelia, and she could get us in anywhere, even on a busy Sunday.
Amelia was always good at that — hell, I’d venture to say that she was even better than I was at the art of persuasion, and I used to think myself quite the master.
Resigning myself to the inevitable, I got ready to go.
With a jolt of energy and a lot of newfound courage — mostly thanks to a couple swigs from a bottle of Jack that I’d found hidden underneath my bed — I walked through the front door of the restaurant. My gaze met the hostess’s, but only for a second. Almost immediately after capturing the hostess’s eye, I caught a glimpse of Amelia.
She was sitting in the small lounge area just off of the entrance, sipping a mimosa while playing what looked like a dumb puzzle game on her phone. And as much as I hated to admit it, she still looked really good.
She always would, though, I was sure. She’d probably always look like a twenty-year-old. Forever in her prime.
I smirked as I made my way toward the small, intimate table she sat out. I had to admit, when we first broke up, a part of me really hoped she’d all of a sudden grow ugly. And I didn’t mean just run of the mill ugly…I’d hoped for boils, hives, moles, warts, and many, many deformities — all together, combined. I wanted her to look like a witch that had just been dipped into some sort of acid. Now that I looked back on it, I’d been demented to even think about it. Still, I’d known that it would never really happen, not that it would matter anyway.
Thankfully, now I was over her, and her looks did absolutely nothing to me.
Her long, golden blond hair looked silky smooth to the touch and lay over her shoulders in loose curls. And her blue eyes contrasted almost perfectly against her strangely bronzed skin. Fuck, it was New York — who the hell could be tan and live in New York? Especially in the winter?
I sighed. She was still as sexy as ever, even though it was artificial. It was her trademark, and she sure as hell used it. Every-fucking-where she went. Her seductive mien was hers, and she owned it. Other women may have claimed to have it, but Amelia really did.
I had been with models — women who forged their entire livelihood on having pretty faces — but Amelia was still better at getting what she wanted.
She used it to her advantage — and I had never seen anyone not fall for it.
I used to love her sex appeal. I used to love that everyone in the room stopped to look at the woman I was with. It wasn’t that I’d needed the confidence or ego boost. It was just that I’d enjoyed having a woman that people deemed my equal. A woman who men wanted and women wanted to be.
It sounded shallow, and it that’s because it was. But in my defense, I had come a long way since then. Although not that much time had passed, I had changed. I wasn’t really the guy that fell for Amelia anymore, even though it was painfully obvious she still wanted me to be.
I’d always had a bit of a reckless side. Before my responsibilities at MTS, I was the best example of a cliché. A rich and reckless asshole with a thirst for women and nice things.
I mean, really. Take one rich, over-privileged guy. Add in a bitchy bombshell of a girlfriend and we had the makings for a fine asshole.
That was exactly what I’d been like when I’d dated Amelia.
Now, though, I wasn’t wrapped around her finger like every other person in the world seemed to be. Sure, when we’d first met, there was heat—a lot of fucking heat. It was attraction in a purely sexual sense, and at very first sight.
For a while, at the beginning of our relationship, there wasn’t a single day that her clothes would stay on her body. I’d been crazy ravenous for her.
It had helped that she was smart. Not a lot of women as beautiful as her had bothered to hone their minds as well as their bodies, but damn it all, Amelia totally had.
Sometime
s, though, even when we’d been dating, I found myself wishing that she wasn’t so smart. I found myself wishing that she had just been another one of the many airheads I met at the bar. Because if she hadn’t given me any sort of substance, I would have never kept her around for longer than one night.
And that would have saved me a lot of trouble — and a whole lot of disappointment.
Looking back, I could see why she wasn’t the one for me. But damn, it had been a fun ride. And not only that but maybe, for the guy I’d been when we were together, maybe she had been perfect for me. But now, things were different — and as soon as they became different, I’d quickly realized she wasn’t right. She wasn’t good. She wasn’t kind. And she sure as hell wasn’t equal to me like I’d superficially thought that she was.
Meeting Amelia hadn’t been anything like when I met Kate.
Hell, ever since I met Kate, I couldn’t get her out of my head. She was always there. I didn’t know what the two of us might have — or if we had anything at all. For all I knew, I could just be a cheap thrill while she waited to go to San Diego and start her teaching job.
I hoped that wasn’t the case because she didn’t seem like that type of woman, but I couldn’t help but wonder if we had a future as anything more than friends. Because dammit, I really liked her.
The creak of the chair brought my thoughts to the present as Amelia leaned back, a coy smile on her face. It was like she was waiting for me to start the conversation. For probably the first time in my life, I didn’t have anything to say. Unlike her, I felt like everything that needed to be said had already been said and anything that needed to be done had already been done. I had my closure, and I wasn’t looking for anything more. Not from her. So I sat down in front of her and waited.
“So, you just sit down and don’t say anything?” She raised a single, perfectly shaped eyebrow.
“Well, I thought you’d stand to greet me and then let me know why it was that you wanted to meet here today.” I wasn’t about to play her game.
“Well,” she huffed. “Come here, you.” She was like an obnoxious aunt who didn’t know when to quit. She came over to my side of the table and looped her arms around my neck and then kissed my cheek.
She angled gently pushed my head down, providing me with a view directly into her cleavage.
“It’s really good to see you,” she whispered in my ear as she leaned her head down.
“Thanks,” I grunted. “Now let me go.”
She let me go, and her eyes were glazed over with something that I hadn’t seen on her face in a long time…
Lust.
She bit her lips and licked them just before turning slowly away from me. Her hips swayed, probably intentionally, as she went back to the other side of the small table and I watched, amazed at how obvious it all seemed. Nothing Amelia did was ever by accident. Every movement her body made was calculated for some self-serving end.
“So, how are things?” She smiled coyly, almost like she was innocent.
I knew otherwise. I knew what she was trying to do. She was trying to wrap me around her finger once again — but that wasn’t going to happen. Not in that moment, or any other moment to come. “Things are good.”
To me, this wasn’t a personal visit. It was business. I wanted to be as cold and unattached as possible.
Amelia’s attention was already on her phone. This was so different from yesterday’s date with Kate. Kate was probably the sweetest person I had ever met, and she’d barely even glanced at the menu because we’d only had eyes for each other. Until my work call, I hadn’t even seen a phone on our table. It felt like Kate was from another universe. How the hell could someone so kind, so genuine, be living in New York City?
“Sir,” a man’s voice said, shaking me back to reality. He laid a plate of Eggs Benedict directly in front of me. My favorite. But I hadn’t had a chance to order yet.
“Sorry,” I said to the waiter, “but there must be a mistake—”
“I ordered for you,” Amelia piped up as the waiter set a plate in front of her.
“Your drinks,” the waiter said, just before placing a mimosa in front of each of us.
“Keep them coming,” she said with a giggle and handed him a folded twenty.
Well, at least I was getting a decent meal out of this unfortunate brunch. But I couldn’t help but wonder why she’d invited me to this thing. I really hoped it wasn’t what I thought it was for. If it was a hook-up, I was not available or even interested.
Her subtle actions, though, told me that I might have been right. There was something there — in the tone of every word, behind every single one of the looks she flashed me.
But I still hoped this wasn’t about sex. Even the thought of kissing those luscious and moist lips made me cringe. They were sexy, and she licked them seductively to make them glisten even more. The action didn’t turn me on, though; it did the complete opposite.
I felt vaguely queasy, and I worried I wouldn’t be able to eat my Eggs Benedict.
“You know, I miss you,” she said, and my eyes immediately rolled to the back of my head.
My worst fears were coming true. She did want what I thought she wanted.
I knew that look. That stupid, flirty look. It was the look that had first trapped me in the beginning. It was the look I’d grown to despise when I saw her flirt time and time again, man after man, as she tried to get her way.
I thought that was all she knew. Flirt with some desperate guy; if he had something to give, he’d give it.
My time with her hadn’t been all bad. Not always. But it got bad pretty fast.
I remembered seeing the same look that she was giving me now when she’d first met my dad, and again when she first met the Murphys. Both of them. It was a seductive one. One that said, ‘if you do what I want, I can be yours.’ She was a human succubus if I’d ever seen one.
She wasn’t interested. Not in any of them — at least, I didn’t think. She just gave them the look they all craved. The look of being wanted. And she only gave it to them so that they could give her a leg up; she never bothered with men that couldn’t.
So I knew, as soon as I saw those eyes narrow and square in on me, what she was doing. When she licked her lips, subtly for most, but not for me. To me, it stuck out. Everything she did stuck out. It was all predictable, and none of it was surprising.
She even used her words to sound as sultry as possible and to plant the seed of seduction.
But I wasn’t my dad, and I wasn’t the Murphys, and I sure as hell wasn’t some poor rich fool she could run over anymore. I’d seen Amelia’s true colors. I’d seen her work my dad, right in front of me, after we broke up. To rub her cleavage pretty much all over him and whisper in his ear that he needed to give up on the lawsuit.
‘Hard-on-for-days’ was what he called her behind her back. He’d known her game, too. But I wasn’t sure he wouldn’t have fallen for it if it hadn’t been for me.
“Did you hear me?” she asked, shaking me from my thoughts. “I miss you.”
“Oh, yeah?” I humored her, just before taking my first bite of food. Damn if I’d let her ruin my good breakfast.
“I’m not really sure why we didn’t work out,” she sighed, taking a small sip of her mimosa.
“Because you’re a cold-hearted asshole who disparaged my father?” I cut into my Eggs Benedict again and shoved the bite into my mouth. I was purposely careless in my actions. I wanted her to know how much of a bitch I really thought she was.
“Your father stole that imaging technology, Ian,” she said. “That’s what I told you when I took the case and joined their legal team. I wanted to be on the winning side.”
“Yeah, you mean after I basically tortured it out of you to tell me if you were so much as considering taking on the Murphys as clients?”
She didn’t say anything, though. We’d already had the conversation. I just wanted to jab as much as I could, and maybe even a part of me wanted
to believe that there was something human about her — that she’d somehow, someway, be able to show even the teeniest bit of emotion about something.
But that probably would never happen. She was a lawyer and a cold-hearted bitch. Those two things usually meant no emotions would ever be shown, even if they were felt.
Her looks hadn’t changed, but the way that I looked at her definitely had.
If someone had told me that I’d feel disgusted when looking at someone so aesthetically beautiful just a year ago, I would have laughed in their face. Especially since I really had cared about Amelia, once upon a time.
If anyone asked me to describe her, I would say was that she was a tempting seductress. That’s all she was. She had very little other substance. She was smart, sure — but her tempting side more than surpassed her intelligence.
But admitting that to myself didn’t mean that I wanted her physically. I had to stay strong in that regard. Because no matter how good she looked on the outside — no matter how sexy she was on the surface — deep down, she was as stone cold as they came.
“Anyway,” she said, “I texted you to come because I was hoping that we could discuss the lawsuit.”
“Why?” I asked. I couldn’t decide if I was relieved or not. At least she didn’t want to get back together, but talking about business? I’d thought I was free of MTS and BioResearch for at least today. Just today to forget about work—that was all I’d wanted.
“Why?” She laughed. “Because this is costing everyone a lot of money and it’s silly. Just drop the case.”
“I’m not dropping the case.” I could only hope that my voice was firm enough this time because clearly, it hadn’t been the fifteen other times I said it when Bio-Research asked.
“Why are you being so stubborn on this?” She glared at me, clearly growing annoyed.
I didn’t care how annoyed she was because I was getting pretty damn annoyed myself.
“Why are you such a disloyal and cruel-hearted person?” I snapped.
She slammed her hands against the table and let out an aggravated sigh. It might have been funny getting that reaction out of her if she hadn’t pissed me off, too.