Slave to Love

by Julie A. Richman

  I’m out on one of my favorite winding roads that skirts the shores of Lake Travis. Probably not a good idea to be driving here when I’m seething mad, but the feel of the road in the tight wheel of my BMW is total Zen for me. The stiff suspension hugs the curves and I feel powerful behind the wheel, as if I’m refueling the power that Hale tried to steal from me.

  “I think if the guy was sorry, he would have reached out to apologize.”

  “Men are stupid, Sierra. He might be sorry that he offended you. He’s probably sorrier though that you don’t want to pay attention to his dick.”

  Laughing, “You know what, Monica, in another circumstance I’d love to pay attention to his dick. He’s smart, he’s sexy, he’s charismatic. But this is work and I’m not going to throw it all away for some guy who thinks he ‘bought’ me from Kemp, and therefore, can do anything he wants to me.”

  “Are you going to tell Kemp?”

  “I don’t know.” And I don’t.

  “He’d blow his stack,” is Monica’s assessment.

  “I don’t know. He really likes the guy.” Kemp is having a bromance with Hale. It’s like he wants to be Hale when he grows up. Would it be bros before hos? In any other case, I know Kemp would go ape shit over this, but with Hale, it’s kind of like when you tell a friend their boyfriend is cheating, they always end up going back to the boyfriend and you end up without a friend.

  “I do know. You are one of his people and he’s very protective. His testosterone would go into overdrive. He would be pissed as shit and find a way to pull you off this project.”

  “And pull me out of my own event at Universal Studios so that I don’t have to be there with him.” The thought of not being able to attend my team’s event with our hard-earned clients, and not see Hale again, feels painful.

  Why do I want to see Hale again? I ask myself. And I know the answer. I want him to make it right.

  But it’s been over two hours and not a word, so it’s unlikely that he even gives a shit.

  Driving up the hill to my house in Travis Heights, just passing the small renovated Craftsman cottages on my street brings a feeling of solace that only home can do. With my WhatABurger orange and white striped bag in hand, ready for a serious pig-out, because comfort food is the only answer tonight, I get out of my car and head up the front walk to the little pale yellow, with white and cornflower blue trim, cottage that I call home. The serene colors always puts a smile on my face and I’m more than happy to see them tonight.

  Lying across my welcome mat, which bears the message, “If you don’t have wine, GO HOME,” wrapped in pink and white tissue paper, with turquoise and white ribbon, are what looks like two dozen long stem pale pink roses. Opening the door, I bring my WhatABurger and laptop bag into the house, and kick off my shoes, before going back outside to retrieve the giant bundle of flowers.

  Picking them up, I take a moment to bury my nose between the velvety petals and inhale their sweet perfume. A small white card is tucked in.

  I’m an ass.

  “Yes, you are,” I agree aloud.

  Looking at the handwriting, I recognize it is his. He personally filled out the card. Just after I stick my nose back in to steal the scent one more time, I also realize there is no florist delivery information on the card or envelope. Did he drop them at my front door?

  Suddenly self-conscious. He was here. He must’ve found out where I live. Quickly pulling my face from the bouquet, I scamper into the house, closing the door and locking it behind me.

  The text message Yes. You are. in response to my note, “I’m an ass” is all that I’ve heard from Sierra. The next morning I am on a plane for New York. Part of me doesn’t want to go, to be away from where I know she is. I want to try and continue to make amends, not let her out of my sight.

  Yet the logical part of me, which has always been the most dominant, knows it is the best thing in the world to get on that plane; distance myself from the tangled cross wires binding us together. If I don’t get on the plane, I will ruin everything. Just as I always do.

  And when I need to get away, there’s no place better to get lost, and lose myself, than the streets of New York City. I thought running the SkyTrack at my health club, Level 9/NYC, would give me the answers I needed. Approaching mile six, I’m still struggling as to why I hadn’t seen Sierra’s resemblance to Maggie before Noel pointed it out. Is that the source of my attraction to her? Or am I not even really attracted to her and just using her to fill a corporate need, succumbing to board pressure? Whatever is motivating me, I am making a mess of it all. Or am I out of my mind crazy attracted to her with her slightly wild, dirty blonde hair, fresh scrubbed face and Louboutin-perfection legs.

  The only thing I know for sure by the time I’ve completed mile eight, is that I am running through scenarios in my head that will give me reason to contact her. I want to hear her voice. I need to apologize, more significantly than by just leaving flowers at her front door, and I haven’t done that, I have not offered a real apology. With every day that has passed, I know I am making it worse, but have convinced myself that she doesn’t want to hear from me and that I need space from her to examine my motivation.

  Coming out of the locker room after a hot shower, I am surprised to see the owner of Level 9, Schooner Moore, on the premises. He and I have gotten to know each other a bit through a private NYC entrepreneurs group, and I know he is spending less and less time overseeing his vast health and entertainment club empire, and more time on a charitable foundation he’s building for physical therapy rehabilitation in developing nations.

  Across the facility, Schooner is handing something off to a guy in dark glasses and a baseball cap, who looks a lot like Jesse Winslow, lead singer of the band, Winslow. The guy then heads across the complex’s rotunda with a redhead. The beachy waves in the redhead’s hair reminds me of Sierra’s golden waves. Laughing to myself, everything reminds me of Sierra.

  As the guy and the redhead walk away, Schooner turns and I catch his eye, “Hale, good to see you.” Schooner Moore’s hand is outstretched, as he crosses the facility toward me with long-legged strides. “You should have let me know you were coming in.”

  “Last minute decision. No meetings scheduled and I thought a run would do my head some good.”

  “I know that feeling. The track has always been my place to work through things. Either that, or my boat,” he laughs. “Well, let me know if there’s anything my staff or I can get you. Good to see you again.” And with a clap on my back, one of the master entrepreneurs of our time is off.

  Entering my office the next morning, I am immediately accosted by Susan Smith who appears to be lurking in the hallway. She follows me into my office, a terrier traipsing at my heels and takes a seat.

  “From our perspective things seem to be going well working with your team. How would you rate it?” She pressures me for an answer.

  “Feedback from my staff has been good. I haven’t heard anything negative from my directs, but I haven’t been involved in the day-to-day. You should check in with them.”

  “Yes, I’ll do that.” And with less than a breath of air, she launches into, “If you are pleased with my team’s performance, it might add more continuity to handle the project you are running out of Texas with my group at the helm.”

  “Susan, that project is not a staff level project. There’s a reason why management is so intimately involved. Does it really make sense to bring you into Austin when Sierra is based there?”

  Just saying her name brings with it a sense of longing that I’m not expecting.

  “Hale, I’m personally interfacing with many of your departments and personnel, including your direct reports. I clearly have a better working knowledge of your organization. So yes, I think my familiarity with multiple aspects of your organization will bring a more tangible benefit than mere logistics.”

  I sit back and regard Susan. She is cut-throat all right. Cut-throat and competitive. A man in a black
microfiber Hillary Clinton suit. Usually I like people who will do anything to get the job done. But backstabbers are not a favorite.

  “Except that Sierra is doing an exquisite job. Honestly, I don’t know what I’d do without her. She is so talented.” I’m saying this partly because it’s true and partly for Susan’s benefit, to really piss her off and shut her down.

  I look down at my Breitling watch, “If you’ll excuse me now I need to get on a call. If you wouldn’t mind shutting my door on your way out.”

  Susan smiles, attempting to be professional, but she’s ready to blow a gasket. I have visions of her chopping off kittens’ heads.

  Sierra’s going to have a tough time with that one going for her coveted promotion. Susan played her hand. She will do anything it takes to swipe that job right from under Sierra, including sticking a knife in her back and twisting it while she is smiling in her face.

  I often admire some of those qualities, a drive to conquer, but I’m not digging it in Susan. Is that sexist of me, I wonder. Or am I just protective of Sierra, who seems to be going about doing it the right way, even if the right way doesn’t always produce winners.

  And maybe I should want Susan to be the victor in this battle. Sierra will never work for her. She’ll try to micromanage her right out of the company, because she’s threatened by Sierra’s creativity and leadership skills.

  And that would make Sierra Stone a free agent. One already with ties to the management team in my company.

  It’s nearly 6 P.M. when I shut my laptop down. Stretching my legs out in front of me as I turn to look out the window, the city seems so quiet and tame from up here, its fuel line of energy a trickle instead of its normally steady flow. Staring at the rooftops, I take on that sense of calm and quiet, relishing it for a moment at the end of my work day, because I know the minute I step out of the front door of the building, I will be immediately swept up into that energy flow and feel the frenzied current coursing steadily through my veins.

  My sixth sense, well-honed through intensive military training, tells me that I’m no longer alone in my personal sanctuary and as I spin my chair back to my desk, I’m not at all surprised to see Robyn Stiles, even with her stealth approach, posed in my doorway, as if testing positions for a boudoir photo shoot.

  “You look like a man who could use a drink.” She dips her head, looking up at me through lashes that appear to have been recently purchased.

  This is a woman who is used to getting her way with men, her poses have been perfected, her lines well crafted. She gets what she wants and I’m betting her close record is excessively high. She truly is the perfect sales person and her product, I’m sure, coveted by many.

  With her legs long and toned, her walk practiced, as if she were prowling a catwalk, she glides across my office, uninvited, to a chair across the desk from me and slowly crosses her legs. She knows I’m watching and is enjoying giving me a show. It’s impossible not to imagine them wrapped around me and I’ve got the feeling she knows exactly what I’m thinking and figures she’s halfway home.

  “I am really enjoying my work with your company, Hale.” Her pupils are dilated. “I really respect what you’ve built. At some point, I’d love the opportunity to really sit down and get your opinion on what you think would be the best career path for me. I would love to be with an organization as progressive as this.”

  I laugh, “It would be bad form for me to be poaching employees from my vendor.” Although that is exactly what I’d love to do with Sierra.

  “That’s not what I meant at all,” she back-peddles. “I would just really love to have someone as a mentor who understands the technology marketplace and how to successfully position for the future.

  Mentor? Position? Yeah, I know what position she’d like to be in. Flat on her back on my desk.

  This woman is trouble. Camera in purse, blackmailing kind of trouble. Granted, she would make great arm-candy at industry functions, charming the boys’ club left and right as she worked the room. She wouldn’t be dazzling anyone with her superior intelligence, but no one would get past her store-bought rack to notice or care. She is the perfect sales person/account executive until she finds just the right executive to marry her and produce perfect looking children.

  “So, what about that drink?” she presses.

  I’m transfixed on her body language and how aggressive it is. With the slightest of signals or encouragement on my part, she would gracefully end up on my side of the desk or on my desk or against the floor to ceiling windows. And that is exactly what she wants me to be thinking.

  I watch her full fuchsia painted lips move, but all I can hear is Sierra in my head, “I don’t shit where I eat.” And I know that not only is that good advice, it’s the perfect advice for me in this circumstance, because this one is a deceitful master that might be difficult to get rid of. Thanks, Sierra.

  I look down at my Breitling, “Oh wow, I didn’t realize it was so late. Excuse me.” I stand as I slip my laptop into its case. “I don’t want to keep my girlfriend waiting.”

  Grabbing my phone as I get in bed, I do my nightly last email check of the evening. Disconnecting from work doesn’t happen when everyone’s paycheck depends on you. I’m just not the type of personality to be able to flip a switch and turn it off.

  And there it is, an email from Sierra Stone. I can feel my heart beat faster just seeing her name. The subject is ‘Information Needed for Universal Event’. Okay, a business email, that’s safe and a place to start. An entre to rebuilding some sort of rapport. Trust.

  Scanning through the body of the message. It’s very professional. They need my social security number for Secret Service clearance because U.S. Presidents, past and present, will be in attendance. Chuckling as I think, she should only know the level of security clearance I have with the government. She’d be shocked. I’m as equipped to protect a President as the staff that will be guarding them. I just wish she felt safe with me.

  Sierra should wear that turquoise skirt and the Louboutins she was wearing on the night we met, I muse. It would get Bill Clinton’s testosterone revved up, for sure.

  Reaching the end of the message, I realize that although totally professional and appropriate, there is nothing personal about it. Quickly scrolling to the top, I immediately check the distribution.

  Ugh, I groan aloud.

  A bcc: to the entire group of invitees. She lumped me in with all of their other clients. The ultimate in pulling away and letting me know that I was just a client. Keep it professional and impersonal.

  Perturbed, I get out of bed and stand by my windows, overlooking the lights of lower Manhattan and beyond, down the Hudson River to the Narrows.

  I have fucked this up on every level possible. I am so drawn to this girl, and not because she looks like Maggie, as Noel would have me believe, but because she’s smart, and smart-mouthed and fun. She has this girl next door charm with a dash of daring and adventure thrown in. I can see us together. I really can. I know the magazines profiling me as one of the Top 25 Hottest Entrepreneur Bachelors or whatever the hell the title of the month is, would have me paired with a model, a glamour girl, or at the very least, a Robyn Stiles type. But that’s not who I see myself with. I see myself with a woman who can give me a run for my money in the boardroom and wake up next to me in the bedroom and not give a rat’s ass that she has no make-up on and her hair looks like I’ve fucked the crap out of her. And she’s still gorgeous. I see myself with a woman who tells me, ‘I don’t shit where I eat’, and I damn well had better respect that.

  I see myself with Sierra Stone.

  And I know it’s time to get my ass back to Austin and make this right. Somehow.

  He’s really handsome, his pale hazel eyes are incredibly striking and I like the way he holds my eye contact when we speak. His full, beautiful lips expand into what is a breathtaking, captivating smile. And he’s got this sun-bleached hair that is thick and full, and he keeps brushing it out of h
is eyes. By any definition of the word, this guy is hot. Tall, well-educated, eloquent, interesting, career-oriented. And nice. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check. Check.

  And I’m sitting here at the Salty Sow, an ultra-hip gastropub in East Austin that he chose, trying my hardest to stay engaged in the conversation and keep my mind from wandering, from wondering. Is he back in Austin? Has he even thought about me? What does he think of me?

  But the bigger question is – what is wrong with me?

  He’s a narcissistic creep who treats women like shit and I just need to get through the California event at Universal, his Austin event and the planning meetings around them. Get through that and then I’m done with him. His business totally reverts back to Cuntessa’s team. And then hopefully, this totally OCD obsession I have with him will evaporate.

  I haven’t heard a word my date has said to me in the last minute. His name is Tyler and I need to join him at this dinner and come back from wherever la-la Hale Lundström fantasy land I’ve been hiding in. He deserves it and even more so, I deserve it.

  Excusing myself, I go to the ladies room, where my obsessive behavior continues. No phone calls. No texts. No emails. The mirror isn’t confessing any great secrets. I look the same. So why do I feel so damn different? I feel like I’ve lost myself. Sierra is gone. I see her, but she’s gone. And I want her back. Not this pathetic shell who is so obsessed with this douche who doesn’t give a crap about her.

  The Sierra I know would never pine over a man who disrespected her. She’d kick him in the balls and tell him to fuck himself. Not fantasize about him and keep checking her phone every two minutes like a silly teen waiting to be asked out to prom. Who is this pathetic girl? It certainly can’t be Sierra Stone.

  Rejoining Tyler, I’ve brought with me from the ladies room a brand new resolve. Live in the present. The here and now. In my head I’m hearing an old song about loving the one you’re with and wonder if I should make that my theme song.