Checkmate

by Diana Nixon

  I shook my head, running my hands through the messy locks and realized that the surroundings didn’t seem so scary anymore. The first rays of sun broke through the clouds, adding more light to everything I could see, including my tumbled dress and my ruined shoes. Eventually, I thought it would be much easier to walk without them, so I took them off and kept walking, welcoming the cool ground touching my bare feet.

  I don’t know how much time passed before I heard a car, slowing down behind me, and a man’s voice saying, “Do you take cash, Sweetheart?”

  “Excuse me?” I turned around, ready to smack whoever was sitting behind the wheel, when my eyebrows rose in surprise, and I almost gasped, recognizing the driver.

  “Jeremy?”

  “Scarlett? Oh, God… Sorry, I didn’t know it was you.” He laughed quietly, waving through the opened window. “Get in!”

  “What are you doing out here at such an early hour?” I asked, fastening the seat belt. As far as I remembered, Jeremy lived a few blocks away from me.

  “Actually, I was going to ask you the same question,” he said, slowly moving his eyes from my face and down to my dress and bare feet.

  “It’s a long story.” I shook my head, as if it would help me get rid of the memories from last night. “Can you take me home please? I need a shower and at least three cups of very strong coffee.”

  “Okay.” He looked at me again, but said nothing.

  Jeremy was one of Jill’s ex-boyfriends, but unlike her, I never thought he was a douche. I was actually sure he was a good guy, sure he enjoyed boobs and curves. What man didn’t enjoy boobs and curves? But it didn’t mean he wasn’t still nice and well-educated.

  “Don’t you need to be at work today?” He asked after a few silent moments.

  “I do. Why?”

  “It’s six thirty,” he replied, pointing to the dash panel. “I thought you had to be in the office by eight.”

  “Oh, no!” I groaned, closing my eyes. “Do Mondays always have to suck?”

  Chapter 2

  Obviously, I didn’t have time to go home. I asked Jeremy to take me to the office, where I kept an emergency set of clothes and shoes that I was more than happy to get changed into.

  Being a head of the PR department of Wilson’s Publicity, I had a stand-alone office and even a secretary whose everyday job was driving me up the walls. Not that I didn’t like Stevie, but she could be a real pain in the ass.

  Stevie was an all-knowing lady in her late fifties who somehow was sure that she was here not only to make my schedule, but also to give advice about every step I took. I didn’t mind her honesty when it came to my work, but I always tried to ignore the rest of her life lectures. Sometimes I simply excused myself and left the office, saying I needed some fresh air, because even hiding in the office couldn’t save me from whatever speech she had prepared for today.

  I looked at my reflection in the mirror and grimaced. I saw my normally blue eyes darkened from the late night. I am slim, with just enough curves to show off the fact that my body is female. But today, even a very expensive ivory skirt with a matching jacket couldn’t hide the traces of my awful night. My blond locks looked as if I had been dragged by my hair from a truck through Queens, and my grimace returned at the thought of the scenario that actually happened. I could still smell the tequila from the Margaritas and Frenchie’s cologne on my skin. I felt awful.

  How the hell was it possible that I didn’t remember any of what happened after I passed out in the damn limo? What if the French jerk took pictures of me? Or worse — made a video of whatever we did in his bed together? What if he posted it to one of those video websites where any loser who had a cell phone with a camera could post videos? Oh, God…

  “This is not happening, this is not happening!” I kept repeating to myself, trying to relax my face, and hopefully, make it look at least a little better.

  “Good morning, Miss Wilson!”

  Jeez, I almost jumped out of my skin, hearing Stevie’s greeting.

  “Morning!” I replied from behind the closed door.

  “Is everything okay?” She asked worriedly, letting herself in without a knock. As always, she looked wonderful, wearing a dark-green dress with a thin gold belt, outlining her small waist. Despite her age, the woman obviously knew how to stay in a good shape.

  “Yeah, just was caught in the rain,” I replied, combing my hair.

  She looked skeptically out of the window and smiled slightly. “I see. Would you like a cup of coffee?”

  “That would be great. Thanks.” I forced a smile and sat at the desk, trying to remember what plans I had for the day. However, Stevie was still standing there, with that irritating expression, saying I was missing something.

  “What?” I asked, hoping I didn’t have any mascara under my eyes.

  “You have… something… right here,” she said, pointing to my neck. I went back to the mirror and removed my hair to see what she was talking about.

  And there it was, a bright red hickey that I somehow missed trying to make myself up. Damn you, Frenchie…

  “Must be an allergy,” I said, trying to seem calm, even though my blood was starting to boil, and the only thing I badly wanted to do now, was to punch something, or better someone.

  “Didn’t know you had allergies,” Stevie said, still smiling cunningly. “To what?”

  “Chocolate,” I said, pretending to be reading a paper.

  “Right.” She waited for a few more seconds, but I didn’t want this conversation to proceed, and she obviously got my unspoken message, and left, closing the door quietly behind her.

  I leaned back against the chair and shouted mentally at myself for being so unbelievably stupid. There was only one person able to make me come back to my senses, so I pushed the red button on my phone and said, “Stevie, have you seen Jillian?” She worked as my father’s secretary, so even at work, I had my best friend to talk to.

  “Yes. Miss Murano arrived about an hour ago.”

  “Why so early?”

  “She has a new boss to meet today, remember?”

  “Oh, right. Thank you.”

  My father was about to head a new blanch of our company in LA, so he had to find someone to take his place here. Unfortunately, I wasn’t an option, since he and my mom still thought that I was too young to do the job. It was a little offending, but I loved my work a lot, and I was sure I still had a whole life to give orders and chew people for not following them. I found a light-blue handkerchief, put it around my neck and went to see Jill.

  As always, my friend was busy working. She had a ton of papers spread all over her desk, and her phone was ringing off the hook.

  Also, as always, Jill looked amazing, even after a night at the club, partying and drinking, with her dark hair falling down her back in perfect curls that you would think she spent hours on, when she probably actually fluffed and hair-sprayed them and ran out the door. She has dark-brown eyes that are almost always smiling outside of right now, when she is frustrated with the ringing telephone. Jill was always a scrawny little thing growing up. But now, she has blossomed into a beautiful woman with curves that belong on the cover of a Victoria’s Secret catalog.

  “Bad morning?” I asked, taking a seat across from her.

  “That doesn’t even begin to fucking cover it,” she replied, dropping a stack of files to the floor. “Shoot! If I am still alive by the end of the day, I swear, I will start going to the church again.”

  I chuckled, knowing how much my friend hated church. Her parents were devoted Catholics, and when she was a kid, they made her go through all the stages of becoming a real Catholic, starting from Sunday school and to the daily prayers that they all gathered to read in the evenings.

  “Living alone has many advantages, right?” I said, looking absently through the papers on her desk.

  “Damn true.” She sighed and sank into her chair, rubbing her eyes. “I didn’t get even a wink of sleep last night.”

/>   “I already figured that much.”

  Finally, she looked at me and frowned, watching me intently. “Emergency clothes, hair is a mess, last-night make-up. What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Make-up is fresh.”

  “Whatever.” She crossed her arms, chuckling. “Did it finally happen?”

  “What?”

  “Did you fuck someone?”

  I rolled my eyes. “No.”

  “Okay. Did someone fuck you?”

  I burst out laughing. “Why do you always have to be so damn spadish?”

  “Answer the question, Scar!”

  My laughter died the moment the memories of last night flashed in my mind. “I don’t know.”

  Her jaw dropped as if she didn’t know what to say, and that was probably the first time I ever saw Jillian speechless.

  “What the hell?” She asked slowly, still drilling me with her dark-brown gaze. “What do you mean you don’t know? Was it too fast? Too slow? Was his dragon too short? Or was it too dark in the room and you didn’t manage to realize that you were f-”

  “Uh, please, Jill. Stop it!” I cut her off and took a piece of paper from her table, and started drawing invisible circles on it, trying to come up with a more or less intelligible explanation of the things that, to be frank, I didn’t know how to explain.

  “I’m just trying to understand what is going on here,” she said, spreading her arms.

  “That makes two of us,” I said quietly and lowered my eyes to avoid meeting her piercing stare.

  “Okay. Let’s start from the very beginning. I remember leaving you at the bar, and then I saw you talking to some dark-haired guy. What happened next?”

  “He kissed me.”

  “Wow! That was fast.”

  “Look who’s talking!”

  “Okay, never mind. And?”

  “And then I said I wanted him.” I felt my cheeks reddening. Not that I was a virgin of course, but it still felt like that after almost an eternity and a half of nothing but work-and-home days, with no love life to speak of.

  “Holy shit! I can’t believe you said that! You sure you weren’t drunk?”

  “That’s the thing. I was drunk. Maybe even dead-drunk, because I don’t remember anything of what happened after we got into his limo.”

  “Oh, no, Baby. That is not good.”

  “I know.”

  “Are you on a birth control?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, at least you couldn’t get pregnant,” she said, sounding genuinely relieved for me.

  “You are not helping, you know? What if he took pictures, or made a video of what I can’t even remember?” I said frantically, recalling my earlier concerns about videos and the Internet.

  “What’s his name?”

  “Don’t know.”

  Jill’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Well, ‘no-names’ sex happens. But still… Do you know where he lives?”

  “I think I could find the directions, but the memories of the place are vague. And please, don’t look at me as if things like this have never happened to you.” Her nose was scrunched and her forehead was creased, it made me feel… Well, slutty.

  “Never.”

  “Are you serious? You remember everyone you slept with?” I said with a doubt.

  “Actually, I do. I even have their addresses and cell phone numbers,” she said, looking smug.

  “What for?”

  “Well, who knows? Maybe one day I will start missing one of them?” She laughed.

  “You are hopeless.”

  “Not as hopeless as you are. Look at you! You’ve spent almost seven years living like a nun, and now, I find out that you spent a night with a guy whose face you don’t even remember.”

  “Actually, I do remember his face.” It was hard not to. No matter how much I hated the guy, I had to admit that he looked like a candy.

  “Good. Which means you won’t fall for his charm if you ever see him again.”

  Jill’s phone rang and I rose to my feet to let her get back to her work, when something caught my eye.

  “No, he’s still not here,” she said into the phone. “Yes, I will let you know when he arrives.”

  “Who’s Dominique Altier?” I asked as soon as she finished the conversation. The name was written in French and my heart missed a beat at the view of it. I always knew that karma was a bitch, but I never thought she would do her best to complicate my life so much.

  “My new boss,” Jill said, pointing to my father’s old office.

  “I didn’t know he wanted a foreigner to take his place.”

  Something felt so wrong about the name.

  “Dominick is not just a foreigner. He’s the shark of the sharks in the publicity business. I thought you knew him. He was here last year, at the presentation of a new project that we made for Cartier.”

  “I was in LA at the time.”

  “Oh, right. Well, you will see him in about-” she looked at her watch, “half an hour.”

  “Can’t wait,” I mumbled absently, as I put the paper with the name back on the table.

  “Hey, you okay?” My friend asked, worried. “Maybe you should go home and sleep for a while?”

  “No, I’m fine. It’s just that I didn’t know I would have to work side by side with another Frenchie.”

  “Another Frenchie?”

  “Never mind. I’ll talk to you later.”

  “Okay.” Jill nodded and went back to her desk.

  The smell of coffee made my mouth water. The moment I entered my office, I saw a big cup of a steaming mug that I was dying to have since the very moment I woke up in the damn stranger’s bed.

  “I thought you needed a big one,” Stevie said, nodding to the mug.

  “You were right, as always.” I took the cup and inhaled deeply, saying, “God bless the discoverers of coffee.” Then I took a sip and my body welcomed the burning liquid, washing down every woe from my morning.

  “Magnifique,” I said almost in a whisper, remembering the word heard last night. It awakened that weird sensation in my belly that I thought I would never feel again. And again, I thought about how much I was sorry that the things with the stranger didn’t go well. A part of me still craved him…

  I shut my eyes firmly, hoping to make the images of him kissing me so passionately go away. Uh, if only the power of my persuasion wasn’t so weak.

  “Do you need anything else?” Stevie asked, bringing me back to reality.

  “No, thank you.” I emptied the cup in a few gulps and gave it back to her. “Time to work.”

  “You have a meeting with the new head of the company in a few hours. And Mr. Larson asked you to call him back, as soon as possible.”

  “Will do it right away. Find me his number, please.”

  Stevie nodded and left the office, leaving me alone with my mental turmoil and tons of work.

  About two hours later, I was as exhausted as ever, and no amount of coffee could save me from falling asleep, but I certainly didn’t want to doze off while I was meeting with the new head of the company; that wouldn’t look proper. I locked the door and asked Stevie to not put anyone through to me. The couch looked so welcoming, soft and comfortable. I kicked off my shoes and laid down, hoping a few moments of peace and quiet would help me find the strength to live through the rest of the day.

  Unfortunately, my heaven wasn’t supposed to last very long. After a few minutes, I got a call from my father who said he wanted to introduce me to the new head of the company. So I got up and made sure that I looked more or less presentable, and went to meet Mr. French.

  The moment I opened the doors to the meeting hall, the familiar smell of cologne burned my nostrils. I felt my heart dropping to my feet.

  There were about two dozen people in the room, but I was looking for one particular face.

  “Scarlett, Sunshine, there you are!”

  “Hi, Dad,” I said, embracing my father.

  “Are you o
kay? You look a little pale.” He looked at me from head to toe, and asked quietly, “Is there too much work? Do you need to take a few days off?”

  “No, Daddy. I’m fine, really. Just a sleepless night.”

  “Okay. But let me know if you want to take a break. I don’t want you to pass out in the middle of your office from exhaustion.”

  “It won’t happen,” I said, forcing a smile.

  “Good. Now, let me introduce you to Mr. Altier. I’m sure you two will get along nicely.”

  And then, I saw the devil that has been plaguing my last night and morning with hell and muddling my brain with a mix of bittersweet emotions, standing there in his full glory near one of the windows that I desperately wanted to jump out of.

  “Dominick, here’s the woman I told you so much about,” my father said, making our guest’s attention focus on me. “The sunshine of my life, my daughter Scarlett.”

  Someone, kill me now, I thought to myself, staring into the familiar bright-blue eyes. In the daylight, they looked even more mesmerizing. Damn it…

  I wasn’t the only person stunned by this unexpected second meeting. Mr. Altier seemed completely shocked as well for what felt like an eternity, then his usual leisure smile returned, and he took my hand in his, placing a soft kiss on the back of my palm.

  “Enchanté, Miss Wilson.” His eyes met mine, and I thought I would never be able to speak again, when he said, “Have we met before? Your… face looks so familiar.”

  No shit, Sherlock?

  “I don’t think so,” I said, pulling my hand out of his. “Nice to meet you too, Mr. Altier.”

  “Please, call me Dominick. First names are much easier to remember,” he said with that damn grin that I badly wanted to slap off his smug face. “Especially when you finally know the first name.” He had lowered his voice so I was the only person to hear him. To my huge disappointment, my father was busy talking to someone else, and I had no choice but to keep talking to the devil.