When It Hits You (The It Series Book 1)

by Nicki Elson

  “He has an actual name, you know.”

  “Yeah? What is it? Wait, no, save it for poolside soul-spilling.” Lyssa opened her mouth to continue her protest, but he stopped her with, “You wouldn’t abandon your partner on the very evening he got callously dumped, would you?” He blinked faux puppy dog eyes, and although she knew he was teasing, she suspected some truth behind the joke.

  Huffing out a breath, she said, “Fine. But after that, this little Baltimore crawl is over.”

  His lips spread wide in a smile. “Great. See you in a few.” Winking, he headed over to the convenience market by the front desk while she went to the elevators.

  Once in her room, she brushed out her hair and pulled it up into a high ponytail. Then she changed into a cami and chose yoga pants instead of jeans. She could easily roll them up to dangle her feet in the water. It wasn’t like she’d thought to pack a bathing suit for a work trip, so she was surprised to find Hayden swimming mini-laps when she arrived at the pool. He reached the edge and stopped, folding his arms over the gutter and kicking his feet behind him. Fat drops of water spilled from his short black waves now plastered to his forehead, running down to get caught in the stubble of his new beard. He wiped a hand over his whiskers to squeegee out the water.

  Nodding toward a six-pack on one of the round, frosted glass tables, he said, “Help yourself.”

  She continued looking down at him. “You’re wearing swim trunks?”

  “It’s the customary attire for a swimming pool.”

  “No, I mean, why do you even have them for a business trip?”

  “I try to work in a swim every morning when I stay somewhere with a pool.”

  “You do?”

  He shrugged. “Kind of small for a real workout, but it’s better than nothing.”

  She turned her attention from him, taking two towels from the nearby stack and laying them at the edge of the hot tub to make a dry place to sit. Then she doubled back to the beverages.

  “Would you grab me one?” Hayden asked.

  “A beer or a towel?”

  He smiled and waded toward the ladder. “Both.”

  She grabbed a towel and two beers, turning in time to see Hayden lift his wet and half-naked body out of the pool. Oh, what she wouldn’t have given for a pair of mirrored sunglasses right then. That way, she could’ve given his magnificent physique more than a cursory glance as he approached to snatch the towel from her hand. From what she’d gleaned, the reality of Hayden struck dangerously close to Fantasy Hayden.

  Moving to the hot tub, Lyssa rolled her pants to above her knees and lowered to the towels while Hayden settled into the water, sitting on the submerged bench across from her. He raised his arms to his sides and rested his elbows on the ledge while one hand gripped the beer Lyssa had given him. As she dipped her legs into the warm water, she couldn’t help but notice the way its tiny waves lapped at the flat, firm planes of Hayden’s chest, licking his stiff nipples and spilling over his smattering of dark hair. Keith’s chest had been completely smooth, so it’d been a long time since Lyssa had raked her hands through a lush, manly thicket. She didn’t realize how lost in that train of thought she was until Hayden broke her out of it.

  “My dad loved my mom,” he said. “Correction: my dad still loves my mom.”

  “That’s…nice?” She wasn’t sure where he was going with this.

  “No, that’s horrible.”

  “Why?”

  “Because my mom doesn’t love him. When I was eight, she left my dad for another man. I think that guy might’ve loved her, too, not sure because he wasn’t around for very long.”

  Lyssa watched Hayden take a long drink, and it finally clicked in her brain that he was embarking on his soul spilling. When he swallowed and clinked the bottle onto the dry tile next to him, she ventured, “So you take after her, and that’s why you can’t settle on one woman?”

  He gave an ironic grunt. “I wish. I take after my dad, and letting my mom into his heart practically destroyed him.”

  “Aha, you think that was his fatal mistake, and you’re determined to not repeat it.”

  “Eeegh!” he exclaimed, imitating the sound of a game show buzzer when a contestant answered wrong. He brought his bottle back to his lips, the signs of a cocky smirk twitching the corners of his mouth.

  Lyssa flicked her foot out of the water, sending a light cascade of drops splashing onto him. “Would you please get to the point?” she shouted.

  He laughed, nearly spitting out his beer into the soothing, chemically treated water. “You’re half right—I’m determined to not repeat my dad’s mistake. But his mistake wasn’t letting a woman into his heart. It was letting in the wrong woman.”

  “And you think Roni’s the wrong woman. That’s why you don’t want to get serious with her?”

  His shoulders lifted in a prolonged shrug. “I dunno. Tough to say, but so far I haven’t seen or felt anything to make me certain she’s worth the risk.”

  “So you’ll continue spreading the risk among other women until one stands out and proves herself worth—oh my God! Like the wild card investor pool! So, this whole idea is based on the schematic for your love life?”

  He chuckled. “Never thought about it like that, but yeah, looks like it is.” Lyssa took a long swig of her beer, congratulating herself on the breakthrough. While she swallowed, Hayden crooned, “Quid pro quo,” and the carbonation burned its way down her throat.

  “What do you want to know?” she asked.

  “Lady’s choice.” He reached his bottle forward as if to toast her, so she braced her toes on the watery bench beneath her, stretching forward to tap the mouth of her bottle against his.

  “I say we kill these, open another, and then we’ll see which confession I land on,” she suggested.

  “Deal.”

  They chugged what they had left, and Lyssa hopped up to bring two more bottles over. She twisted his open and handed it to him before resuming her seat and taking a sip of her own drink. “Since you’ve let me in on why you choose to date so many women, I’ll tell you why I choose to date none. Men, not women.” She giggled, giving away the fact that all the alcohol she’d consumed that evening was starting to hit her.

  Hayden tapped the bottom of his new bottle on the surface of the water, tilting his head and watching her, ready to listen.

  “Okay, so, why Keith—the programmer—and I broke up.” Nerves caused her to push her calves straight out in front of her and splish-spash her fidgety feet. “I’d become rather, er, fond of Andre Agassi, and Keith was intimidated, I guess. He told me to make a choice—either him or it. I chose it.”

  She’d been watching the bubblegum pink of her enameled toenails but now raised her eyes to Hayden’s. She saw something tender in his gaze rather than the teasing glint she’d been prepared for.

  “The thing is, I wanted to choose Keith. I wanted to tell him I’d gladly chuck the plastic into the trash and be his. But the way he was glaring at me, so determined, I could see it—he was seriously ready to throw me aside over something so stupid. And that’s when I changed my mind. If he was ready to dump me over something so silly, then he couldn’t have cared for me as much as I’d thought he had.” She pulled her shoulders up sharply and gripped the ledge, clamping her eyelids together to hold back the senseless tears that sprang forward. “So I told him to take a hike. And I’m better now, steadier. I really am.”

  “But you still choose double-A over real men.”

  She opened one eye and looked at him. “Because real men will always choose their egos over me.” She opened the other eye and reached unsteadily across the water to toast, but Hayden didn’t return the gesture, so she pulled her bottle back and sucked down half of what was left.

  “You said he has a name.”

  “What?”

  “Andre. You said he, it, has an actual name.”

  “He does.”

  Hayden had lifted his bottle and now held it to the
side of his mouth, keeping his gaze steady on her as he tilted a healthy dose of beer into his mouth.

  “Vibrizzio. His name’s Vibrizzio.”

  “Because he—”

  “Vibrates. Yes. Not the cleverest of names, I know, but there it is.”

  “And he’s also Italian, apparently.” She could see that Hayden made a genuine effort to not laugh, but he didn’t succeed.

  “Hey!” she shouted, kicking her foot out and lobbing a deluge of water onto him. “I didn’t laugh at your bared soul.”

  “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, you’re right.” He held his free hand out to her. “You’re right. I’m sorry.” He started laughing again, and his outstretched hand sank below the surface.

  Giving up, she pulled her heels all the way back against the wall of the tub, failing to keep a smile from rising to her own lips as she tried to scowl at him.

  He eventually recovered, apologizing again, and said, “I guess we’re both fucked up in our own way.”

  “Yeah,” Lyssa said, lifting her bottle and saying before she poured, “But your fuckeder.” She made the mistake of laughing at her own joke a few seconds too late. Beer bubbles rushed up her nose and out, stinging her membranes and sending her into a sputtering cough.

  “Yeah, baby!” Hayden howled. “That is sooo sexy.”

  Lyssa threw her hands to her face, letting her pain and embarrassment calm before muttering, “Shut it.”

  They exchanged teasing splashes, and Hayden announced that he was pruning. He rose from the water, and this time, Lyssa let herself enjoy the view while he toweled off and walked across the room. With the towel wrapped around his tight waist and two bottles in hand, he returned and sat next to Lyssa, dropping his feet and calves back into the water. While he twisted off the beer caps, he said, “Here’s where we are now—where do you see yourself in five years?”

  Pinching the bridge of her nose, Lyssa said, “Still hurts too much to talk. You go first.”

  “Okay. In five years, I hope to be managing portfolios with an investment firm.”

  “Sounds doable.”

  “Yep. And it almost happened far earlier than expected.” He lifted his bottle to his lips, giving Lyssa a sneaky sideways glance. She responded with a questioning look. Lowering his drink, he explained, “When Carlo called from Boston that day, it wasn’t just to tell me that the Bell Funds team had split. He offered me a job.”

  Lyssa’s eyes opened wide, and her mouth fell open.

  “Yeah, that was kind of my reaction, too. The position he offered was as an analyst with the intention of moving me up to portfolio manager within two years. My dream job, essentially.”

  “Why didn’t you take it?”

  “The sting of betrayal. Loyalty to DH. Not wanting to screw my bright, young protégée out of the chance to learn from me.” He winked, and she leaned her shoulder into him for a teasing nudge.

  “What about personally?” Lyssa asked. “How many women do you suppose will be in your harem in five years?”

  He narrowed his eyes at her. “Hard to say. But you seem to be perfectly able to talk now, so your turn.”

  Lyssa twisted her lips and watched her toes, considering the question. She wasn’t one to make long-term career goals, just worked hard and took opportunities when she saw them. “I wouldn’t mind still being in consulting, I guess. As an associate, of course. But investment management could be interesting, too.”

  “Flexibility. That’s good. But you know, having an MBA will help you along no matter which route you take.” When her only response was an eye roll, he asked, “What about personally?”

  “In five years, I don’t know. But in ten I might want to be married, have a couple kids.”

  “That’s going to be difficult to do without a man, isn’t it?”

  She shrugged. “All I need him for is fertilization and financial support so that I can stay home with the kids while they’re little. Maybe I’ll find me a nice airline pilot—he’ll come with the added bonuses of being gone all the time and free flight benefits.”

  “Nice. That’s all women need men for? Sperm, a paycheck, and free flights?”

  She turned to him, her lips spread wide. “Yep.”

  “You don’t believe that.”

  She sat her bottle in her lap and picked at the corner of the label. “You’re right—I don’t need the free flight benefits. I’m racking up enough frequent flyer miles on my own.”

  He pulled his eyebrows together and frowned.

  “Oh, knock it off,” she said. “What do you care about my stance on men, anyhow?”

  He tilted his head and lifted one shoulder. “You’re a good catch, and I think it’d be a shame if no guy ever got to enjoy that.”

  She blew out a laugh. “And I suppose it’s because I’m such a good catch that you were adamantly ‘not interested’ on our first trip together?”

  “That was only because we work together.”

  Tucking her chin, she raised her eyelids to give him a puh-lease look. “Um, Sabine?”

  “That’s different. You and I are partners. I hardly ever see her at work.”

  “What about before we became partners?” she challenged. “Did you ever even look at me twice?” He’d certainly won her notice whenever they’d crossed paths in the hallways.

  “We worked in different departments,” he said. “I never even saw you until Beecher introduced us that day.”

  The temperature of the water didn’t change, but to Lyssa it felt as if it iced over. Why couldn’t she have left it a “good catch?” Why did she have to push for confirmation that his compliments were empty? She pulled her feet from the water and stood, reaching down for her towels. “Well, I saw you plenty, and I rest my case—no man on this earth is going to lose any sleep because Lyssa Bates is off the market. They won’t even notice.” She turned away from him so she wouldn’t have to see what she was sure would be a pitying look and walked toward the exit.

  “Bates, stop.”

  She didn’t. There was nothing he could say to change the facts, and she was suddenly very tired. “G’night, Hayden.”

  Chapter 16

  FOR THE NEXT COUPLE OF WEEKS, Hayden stayed fully clothed in front of Lyssa, and the two of them continued as usual, understanding each other a little bit better. On a Tuesday morning, they sat in DH’s Chicago office for a video conference with Shep and the senior managers at Zinnia Management, Roni’s firm. The company had an “exciting announcement” and was informing its largest clients before sending out a press release.

  The connections were made, greetings exchanged, and then Richard Zinnia got down to business. “In this increasingly global world, it’s become vital to keep a constant eye on the international operations of the companies we invest in. As you know, we’ve stepped up our foreign visits in recent years, and we’ve learned how important it is to understand varying cultures as well as business operations, so we’ve taken a big step and opened up a brand new office in Malaysia.”

  A graphic popped onto Richard’s screen with images and bullet-point bios of the five professionals comprising Team Malaysia. Roni Wexman was the team leader. Lyssa tilted her head just enough to slide her eyes toward Hayden. She expected him to be looking back with a smug twist to his lips—he had to have known from Roni that something like this was in the works. But his eyes stayed focused on the piece of paper in front of him as he scrawled notes. His expression was stone, giving no hint of a reaction.

  Out on the sidewalk after the meeting, Lyssa stood back and watched as he reached his arm out to hail a cab. Two had already passed, occupied. When it happened a third time, Hayden swore and stalked back to the sidewalk. “Let’s try around the corner.”

  Without waiting for a response, he took long strides in that direction. Lyssa hurried to catch up. On the adjacent block, Hayden again focused intently on cab hailing.

  Lyssa’s curiosity couldn’t wait, so she stepped up behind him. “Why didn’t you say anything about
the new office? Did Roni have you sworn to secrecy?”

  He took a half step farther into the street and waved more vigorously as a cab approached with its roof light on. “I didn’t know.” The taxi rolled to a stop, and he held the back door open for Lyssa.

  As she scooted across the seat to the other side, she gave the taxi driver the address of F&K’s office building. Barely waiting for Hayden to sit and slam his door shut, she said, “You didn’t know the details, but surely you knew something was up before today.”

  He settled his briefcase on the seat, leaving it standing upright like a wall between them. “I didn’t.”

  “Then why did you think she was moving to Kuala Lumpur?”

  He exhaled roughly. “Like I said—I didn’t.”

  “You didn’t know she was moving out of the country?”

  “No.” He angled his face toward the window, a sign that he wanted her to drop it, but Lyssa was too incredulous to pick up on his cue.

  “Well, I mean, I get that you two don’t talk much between trysts, but she had to have known something like this was coming when you saw her in December. An office in Malaysia doesn’t get set up in a matter of weeks. She must’ve at least given you a hint.”

  “The woman is ice; she didn’t give a clue. What’s so hard to understand about that?” He swiveled his head to face her, his eyes fierce, like electric blue lasers cutting into her.

  “I’m sorry.” Lyssa backed off, literally. She eased toward her door, her spine curving as her shoulders slumped. She hadn’t considered that Hayden might feel stung by the news. Blown off by two women in less than a month. Ouch.

  Lyssa’s phone rang. She swiped on her second coat of mascara before taking the call. “Hey.”

  “Hey.” It was Trish, sounding uncharacteristically doleful.

  “What’s up?”

  “I re-signed my lease.”

  “Oh. Congratulations? Does this mean—”

  “Kurt and I broke up.”

  “What? Why?”