“We can’t have that.” Nate looks up from his computer monitor. Then he pushes back his chair and puts his feet up on his new desk, which Rebecca chose for him during the renovation. “How long am I going to be away?”
“Ten days, accounting for travel. And we’re not scheduling anything on your first day back, so you can catch up.”
He winces.
“It’s over Labor Day, though. The timing is perfect.”
“Yeah. Okay.” He cracks his knuckles. Nate is a certified workaholic. Her emails from him come at all hours of the night. She isn’t expected to answer them until morning, of course. But the man’s big brain never seems to power down. “What’s next on my schedule?”
“The weekend? Remember those?”
He looks blank.
“Your personal calendar says something like dinner with Bart.”
“Does it really?” He makes a face like a little boy who doesn’t want to eat his broccoli.
“I’m pretty sure,” Rebecca hedges. Dinner with Bart isn’t her problem. Nate handles his own social stuff. Or Juliet does, maybe. “Who’s Bart, anyway?”
“Some friend of Juliet’s from her new gym. A jock who never shuts up about nutrition and his competitive edge. But Juliet is a CrossFit disciple now, so she finds it more interesting than I do.”
“Oh.” Rebecca bites her tongue, because it isn’t her place to weigh in on the boss’s social life. And also because she doesn’t ever want her opinion of Juliet to slip out of her mouth.
Becca has never liked Nate’s college sweetheart, but she’s always had trouble putting a finger on why. Juliet is nice enough to Rebecca. It’s just that they have nothing in common. Case in point—Juliet has lately become obsessed with the gym. A while ago, for the sake of her wedding photos, Nate’s fiancée began working out like an Olympic hopeful. She’s shed twenty pounds and began tanning, too.
In contrast, Rebecca’s idea of exercising is walking to meet her friends for drinks, instead of hailing a cab. And Rebecca has secretly begun to regard Juliet as a traitor to the curvy sisterhood. The girl in Nate’s desk photos has a round face and a silly grin. But the lithe monster who lately turns up for dinner dates looks like the newest member of the Swedish volleyball team—all blond highlights and midriff-baring confidence.
It’s really hard not to hate the future Mrs. Kattenberger on sight.
“Maybe I’ll leave early,” Nate says suddenly, rising to his feet.
“Early?” Rebecca gasps, clutching her chest in mock astonishment. “That’s possible? How does it work, exactly?”
He smirks, flashing those dimples. It shouldn’t look good on a man, but Nate isn’t like other people. “I’m starving. And I need a beer. Maybe I can get Juliet to get a couple drinks with me before dinner. And appetizers. Bart is the kind of tool who will make us eat at a vegan restaurant.”
Nate and Rebecca both shudder at the same time.
“…And I don’t think he drinks.” Nate stuffs his keys and his phone into his pockets.
“Lager, sir, is regal,” Rebecca quips. It’s a popular palindrome around the office.
The smirk becomes a real smile. “You could sneak out early, too, I suppose.”
“Moi?” She gasps. “No way. I’ll sit quietly at my desk and meditate on your accomplishments until six o’clock comes.”
“You kiss-ass. Have a great weekend, Bec.” He grabs his jacket off the sofa against the wall. His new office has real, grown-up furniture.
Then he’s gone.
* * *
Rebecca actually does stay in the office for another hour, but only because she has plans to get drinks in the meatpacking district with friends who can’t leave work early. When Becca does finally leave the office, she only makes it three blocks before realizing she’s left her phone in the drawer of her desk.
The only thing to do is return for it. A whole weekend without her phone? Impossible.
Back she goes.
When she uses her keys to reopen the office suite door, there’s a Ping-Pong game going on in the bullpen area. That’s not unusual. Few of the employees of KTech work normal hours. But when she gets to Nate’s office door, there’s a light on inside. The blinds are down on the windows, too.
That’s odd. Ten minutes ago that office was dark.
Rebecca taps on the door. “Nate? Are you in there?”
Silence.
The hair stands up on the back of her neck, and visions of corporate espionage float through her head. Is someone rooting through Nate’s office, unauthorized? Rebecca grasps the door handle and turns. It’s unlocked. Her gaze shoots to the desk chair, but it’s empty.
But there’s Nate—planted on the love seat. He’s crouched forward, his elbows on his knees, his chin propped onto his folded hands. He stares at the rug, oblivious.
“Nate?” she whispers. “Is something wrong?”
He clears his throat, but doesn’t look up. “I never go home early.”
“I know,” she agrees, confused. She opens her mouth to ask a clarifying question, but then it hits her. He went home early. And saw something there he wasn’t supposed to see.
Nate’s gaze lifts for a split second, and she sees misery in those light brown eyes.
Stunned, Rebecca turns slowly around and goes back to her desk. She sits down and pulls out her lost phone, tucking it into her pocket.
A man having a personal crisis doesn’t necessarily want any company. He’s probably back at the office only because he has nowhere else to be alone. Nate and Juliet share an apartment.
Shit.
It doesn’t feel right to just walk away and go out for Friday night funzies, knowing he’s here and miserable.
Rebecca unlocks her phone and cancels her plans with friends. Then she leaves the office building and walks over to twenty-eighth street, buying a sack of hot empanadas from a food cart and a fifth of tequila from the neighborhood’s only liquor store.
The bodega on the corner has limes, too.
When she goes back upstairs, Nate is still seated, immobile as a statue, staring at the floor. Her heart breaks for him right there in the doorway to his office.
She puts the sack of empanadas and the bottle on the coffee table. “You said you were starved,” she says, her voice practically booming in the too-quiet space.
He looks up at her like he’s never heard of food before.
She opens the bag herself. “Chicken or cheese?”
“Thank you,” he mumbles, taking an empanada without looking at it.
She sits down beside him, and they eat the first round in silence. Then she cuts the lime with the penknife on her keychain and opens the bottle. “One shot just for a warm-up. Then we find you a hotel room before we’re too drunk to Google the phone number.”
He glances at her with grateful eyes, and when he speaks, his voice is rough. “Bec, it’s official.” Nate wipes his hands on a napkin she’s handed him. “You are the employee of the fucking decade.”
He holds her gaze for another long beat, and her heart swells with gratitude and more than a little platonic love for her favorite nerd. Once upon a time, Nate rescued her from a tight spot, and she’s been trying to return the favor for a year.
“Drink up, sailor,” she says. “I’m going to get you a room at the Soho Grand.”
He uncaps the bottle. “Cheers.”
They each do a shot. Then she nudges the bag of food closer to him. “So. Cat tacos?”
“Cat…?” His eyes widen as he realizes she’d just hit him with a new palindrome. “Have you been saving that one?”
“For weeks. There aren’t any tacos in this neighborhood. So I finally just decided that empanadas were close enough.”
He laughs until his eyes get wet. Then he eats another empanada.
6
Nate
In midtown, I slog through meetings and conference calls. My brain still hasn’t adjusted to the idea that Lauren is covering Becca’s job in Brooklyn. Twi
ce I catch myself yelling Lauren’s name from my desk chair, only to have one of her startled minions appear in the doorway instead.
They must think I’m an idiot, but I really just have a lot on my mind.
It’s seven o’clock before I make it back to Brooklyn. As the ferry bumps against the dock, I’m on my feet, eager for the ferry worker to let us off the boat. And when he finally does, I set off through Brooklyn Bridge Park toward home at a fast clip.
Rebecca may or may not be waiting at my house.
Inviting her to stay with me was a crazy thing to do. I know this. Since I’ve spent the last couple years wishing I could undress her with my teeth, knowing she’s down the hall in my home is going to be fucking torture.
But watching her struggle earlier today had a gut-wrenching effect on me. I don’t really understand it. God knows I’ve been fighting an attraction to her forever. But this was something else. And I just couldn’t claw it back. Ignoring her—my usual solution to my unhealthy Becca addiction—just won’t cut it this time.
Maybe she didn’t even take me up on my offer. Becca is the most fiercely independent person I know. She probably walked out seconds after I left today.
I have to know.
It’s usually a twelve-minute walk from the ferry terminal to Pierrepont Place, but today I make it in ten. How long has it been since there was a woman (not counting the lovely Mrs. Gray) waiting at home for me when I returned?
It’s been years—since Juliet, my cheating ex-fiancée. Now there’s a shitty memory.
I wasn’t even twenty when Juliet and I became a couple in college. She was the smiling girl who liked Dr. Who and dorky jokes. We studied together in the library, then went home for dorm-room sex.
Moving in together after graduation was an easy decision. Eighteen months later I proposed to her one weeknight in our crappy little one-bedroom in the East Village.
“Oh Nate. You make me so happy,” she’d said from the other side of our rickety kitchen table.
It didn’t last, though. Months later I caught her having sex on the same kitchen table, with that meathead she’d met at the gym.
Biggest shock of my life.
That weekend she left tearful voice messages on my phone. At her urging, I met her Monday morning at a coffee shop to talk. Even then, I still didn’t understand that everything had just changed forever.
“It only happened a couple of times,” she’d wept, as if that made it less humiliating. “But you’re at work all the time. It isn’t fun being a tech widow.”
“Because I’m trying to clear my calendar for our honeymoon!” Even then, I wasn’t quite ready to throw it all away. My analytical brain was still trying to glue the pieces back together.
Then Juliet said, “I went to that gym because I felt bad about my belly fat. But it changed the way I look at myself.”
“You were just as beautiful before,” I argued. And I meant it. If Juliet 2.0 was a cheater, it was not an upgrade.
“But I never thought a guy like Bart would look twice at me,” she said, as if that made a lick of sense.
“A guy like Bart,” I’d repeated slowly. And finally, finally, self-preservation kicked in. A guy like Bart. I didn’t ask why she thought muscly Bart was so special. I didn’t want to know whether it was his bench-press stats or his backward baseball cap or his too-loud laugh.
Or the kitchen table sex.
Before that moment, I’d never understood what people meant when they said “we grew apart.” And suddenly I did. “Take care of yourself,” I’d said, rising to my feet. “I’ll get my clothes on Sunday night while you’re at the gym. Everything else you can keep.”
“Wait! Nate! It won’t happen again.”
But no. That was that. When a girl tells you that your lifestyle is a drag and she thinks a tool like Bart is some kind of prize, there isn’t any more to say.
That was six years ago, and I’ve been single ever since. Stewie hassles me about it sometimes. “It’s time to get back out there. You know that ‘married to your job’ is just a saying, right?”
Except it isn’t. Juliet was right. Being Nate Kattenberger is a full-time occupation. I travel a hundred days a year, and that’s before I count time spent with my hockey team. The more distance I get from the Juliet fiasco, the more sympathy I have for her choice. Maybe I don’t have anyone to share my life, but I’m not making a woman miserable, either.
It is what it is.
Here’s a funny thing—people make jokes all the time about how the women must swarm around me. “A single, rich guy like you? There must be a line of women around the block.”
They’re right. Sort of. Lots of women want to share my bed. But it’s really tough to sort through the talent pool. Whenever I meet a woman I have to wonder—is she laughing at my jokes because she’s actually interested? Or is she just in it for the money?
If the lady moans into my kiss, does she want my dick or my private jet?
The year after Juliet left, I tried pretty hard to fuck her right out of my system. But that got old really fast. Especially after I noticed one morning that my latest conquest was texting a friend. I banged a multimillionaire.
That was before I’d made it to billionaire. And the more money I make, the fewer women are granted bragging rights.
I’m practically a monk at this point. Even if I wanted to whore it up, my lifestyle makes casual sex tricky. I can’t invite strange women back to my home. At any moment there are probably three different trade secrets strewn around the house. Anyone who made it as far as my bedroom would have to sign a nondisclosure agreement—and not because of sexual proclivities. After you’re done fucking Nate, do not photograph any prototype devices you spot in the residence, record any phone calls, or read emails over his shoulder.
Sexy.
So I’m a lonely guy, possibly by choice. And I don’t dwell on it, because I lead a very full life. I have literally all the money I could ever spend and the respect of my peers. I travel widely. I have friends, even if most of them are on my payroll.
Though nobody is ever waiting at home for me—except people who are paid to be there.
When I finally reach my front door, I tap the security code into the keypad. It’s not until I push open the door and step inside that I can hear voices coming from the kitchen.
It stops me—this unfamiliar sound of other people in my home. I seriously get chills at the sound of Becca’s sudden laughter.
Jesus. What the hell is wrong with me?
As I walk through the parlor toward her, the sound of her conversation with Mrs. Gray carries.
“My Christian isn’t a fan of Mexican food,” my housekeeper is saying. “He doesn’t have a taste for spices.”
“Wait a minute,” Becca says. “Your husband’s name is…Christian Gray?”
“That’s right.”
“But…” Rebecca pauses. “There are books about a guy named Christian Gray—”
“I know, dear! I read the first one aloud to my husband.”
“Really?” Rebecca giggles, and the sound of it does weird things to my insides.
“Absolutely! When I showed him the lad’s name in the book, he was curious. And when I got to the saucy bits he insisted I keep reading. ‘Can’t let a pretend fellow have all the fun,’ he said.”
Rebecca laughs again, and I find myself smiling like a lunatic.
When I walk into the kitchen, there they are, sitting at the table together. Rebecca is eating a plate of Mrs. Gray’s enchiladas, and my housekeeper is having a cup of tea.
This is the liveliest my kitchen has been in ages. “Mrs. Gray, you didn’t have to stay late.”
“I had a nice chat with the lovely Rebecca, while my Christian is bowling tonight with the boys,” she says, rising to open the oven. “He’s always in a frowsy mood after some pints with his mates. I’d better hurry home.”
Her back is turned, and Rebecca and I share a furtive glance of amusement. She and I have always
been on the same humor wavelength. Where my assistant Lauren is chilly, Becca is warm. Her eyes dance when she hears something funny, and her cheeks pink up when she laughs.
Not that I have any business noticing.
Mrs. Gray puts a plate down on the table for me. “Here’s your portion, Nate,” she says. “Now I must run, too. Toodles!”
A moment later she disappears out the back door, and Rebecca and I are alone together. God help me.
“Mrs. Gray is something else,” Rebecca says. Then she pushes her plate away. “I couldn’t eat another bite.”
“You look better than you did this morning,” I say. Then I play the sentence back in my head and realize that it sounds sort of offensive. Nobody ever accused me of having too much charm.
“I should hope so.” Rebecca gives me a little smile. “Sleeping for five hours ought to have some benefit.”
“Five? Wow. Rebecca Van Winkle.” I pick up my fork and dig into Mrs. Gray’s enchiladas. The woman really can cook. Although I won’t say I told you so to Rebecca, it’s true that a good night’s sleep cures almost everything.
“You know…” Becca’s cheeks are a distracting rosy shade. “I didn’t know I was so tired. And it is really quiet here. You were right.”
“Mmm,” I say, taking another bite. I want her to stay. I want to look after her. But I won’t be pushy. “Did your luggage arrive?”
“Hey,” Rebecca gives me a pointed look. “The luggage thing was a little heavy-handed. My sister left me text messages asking if I’d been kidnapped.”
“Oh, please.” I’d sent my driver to Becca’s apartment with empty suitcases for her sister to pack. “Ramesh said she was all too happy to help. In fact, Missy asked him to move the crib into your room to give her a little more space.”
“Of course she did.” Becca sighs. “Nate, this is silly. I can just go home. I’m better rested already. If you’ve reconsidered your invitation, I won’t be offended.”
As if. Without meeting her gaze, I reach across the table and cover her hand with mine. “Stay, Bec. I’m off to DC in the morning, anyway. Get a couple of decent nights’ sleep. It’s good medicine.”
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