“There were a lot of reasons. We wanted something that was just ours, you know? Something that we built ourselves. I didn’t want to be handed everything. I wanted to know if I could do it on my own. Donovan also had a problem with some of the ethical choices that our fathers’ firm has made in order to increase profits.”
“Really?” That had been the topic we’d argued about in my class assignment. “The Donovan that I remember had little regard for ethics.”
“He changed his mind about a few things since college for whatever reason.”
Was it vain of me to wonder if I had contributed to his change of mind?
“As for advertising, that was Donovan’s idea. We knew Nate, who was also interested, so he came on board. Then we found Dylan Locke and Cade Warren and we had a team. At first, we planned to all stay in New York, each of us running a different department, but after our first year, we decided to go international. Donovan volunteered to open the Tokyo office with Cade. Dylan went to London, and we’ve been operating like that for the last four years.”
I found my other shoe at the bottom of the bed and slipped it on while I thought about Donovan all the way on the other side of the world. I felt safer, somehow, knowing that that’s where he was. Far away. Far from me.
Yet, even from that distance, I could feel his pull. Did he have that same pull on Weston?
Slipping a foot into my shoe, I studied the man who’d given me an incredible weekend. “It must be hard to be so far from Donovan. You thought of him like a brother back in college.”
Weston bent to his knees by the side of the bed. “It’s not fun. We Skype a lot for work, but I won’t lie. I miss our poker games.” He lifted the bed skirt and looked underneath. “If I brought you on as an employee, he’d be super impressed. So.” He peered up at me. “What do you say?”
I crossed behind him and picked up my earrings from the nightstand. “I can’t tell anymore if you’re being serious or if you’re just trying to get me to give you another blowjob.”
“Can’t the answer be both?”
I fastened my earrings and wondered again if I should be considering his offer. Because there were things that were tempting about it. There were things that were tempting about him.
“Aha!” he exclaimed suddenly. He stood, dangling a pair of black lacy panties from his finger that he’d apparently found under the bed.
“Those aren’t mine,” I said.
He looked at me, looked at the panties, then back at me. The color drained from his face as he realized what I must have been thinking. “I don’t have a girlfriend.”
“I know,” I said, my voice steady. “You have lots of girlfriends.” And that was exactly why I couldn’t take his offer seriously. Because he was always going to have another woman and there was always going to be another offer.
He knew I understood without having to say it.
“I’m sorry,” he said, because Weston King was nothing if not a gentleman.
It wasn’t disappointment I felt—not exactly. But there was something that now felt lost that had almost been found. Like the thread of a thought that can almost be grasped but not quite and then it’s gone.
I let out a small sigh. “I didn’t think this was anything other than what it was, Weston.” That was honest. Too honest, maybe.
Then it was Weston who seemed disappointed. “But what if it’s something else?” His tone was disoriented, but hopeful. He didn’t know if I was the woman he wanted. He was a man taking a chance.
I didn’t want to be a chance. I wanted a man who knew.
“But what if it’s exactly what it is?” I reached my hand out and stroked his cheek. “I’ve had a good time. Can we leave it on that note? And not ruin it?”
He put his hand over mine and brought it to his lips and kissed it. “It’s not ruined already?”
“It’s not. It’s been a special weekend. I needed this. Thank you.”
He kissed me goodbye, and I went my way, leaving behind the what if that I’d carried around all those years and a mauve pair of panties that I never did find.
And whatever thoughts had been stirred up about Donovan, I buried under the thoughts I always had about him. The thoughts that I’d had since college. The thoughts I pretended only had life when I was alone with my nightmares in the dark. If I’d thought Weston might have been the one to chase them away, I’d been wrong. If anything, he was the one to bring them into the light.
Chapter 8
“And another thing...”
I stirred my coffee and nodded while Ashley continued with her rant about inner office politics. Though I was in full agreement, I didn’t need to go over every detail of my indignation.
I raised the back of my hand to my mouth and stifled a yawn. I’d had another one of those nightmare filled nights when I’d woken in a sweat, convinced I’d been pinned down and forced to do things I didn’t want to do by a terrible man. As usual, the only way I’d been able to fall sleep again was to imagine that the man forcing me wasn’t Theodore Sheridan but instead was Donovan Kincaid.
Those dreams had been recurrent over the years since my near rape by Theo in college. They didn’t happen as often as they had in the beginning, but they still happened regularly. It had become so normal that I’d stopped thinking about them in daylight, stopped worrying that the wicked things I fantasized about Donovan had anything to do with the real me. The “awake” me. The me that didn’t have dirty thoughts and didn’t want filthy men.
But since my weekend with Weston, that had changed. For whatever reason, he’d triggered something. It was as though the past, which I’d done so well to hold down, had resurfaced, and now I couldn’t push it back where it belonged. The bad dreams had become more frequent, and barely a day passed when I didn’t sit in my office remembering the naughty things I’d thought about Donovan in the dark the night before, having to press my thighs together because the buzz between them was so great.
What was he doing now? Did he ever wonder about me? Was he ever sorry for how we left things? Was he ever sorry that he saved me?
Ashley stopped pacing my office and plopped down in the chair facing my desk, pulling my attention to her. “I’m not shitting you, Bri, Monahan is on a rampage. He is blaming everyone but sales for everything that’s gone wrong on every campaign this year. It’s a nightmare.”
Interesting choice of words. I could tell her a thing or two about nightmares.
But I was frustrated with our boss too. “I know what you mean about Monahan. He asked me to redo the strategy sheet for Dove. Again. This will be the third time. The strategy sheet was good the first time. There was nothing wrong with it.”
Monahan, our new president, had turned our friendly office into a war zone. He was keen on showing favoritism to teams he’d worked with before he’d been promoted. Lately, it had been hard to find the motivation to keep giving my all, and a few times I’d even considered looking elsewhere for work.
“You know why he’s doing this? Besides the fact that he’s just an asshole, I mean.” Ashley seemed buoyed to have me join her in her complaints. “It’s because he won’t get his promotion bonus if he doesn’t find another ten percent in revenue this quarter. I don’t think it’s possible.”
“I don’t either. I love this job, but if he doesn’t calm the fuck down…” I trailed off.
But though I wasn’t ready to be that bold, Ashley was. “Time to get our resumes ready.”
My phone lit up then. It was the line from my assistant. I pushed the intercom button. “What’s up?”
Kent’s voice filled the room. “There’s a phone call for you from Mr. Weston King on line two. Want to take it?”
My stomach knotted at the mention of Weston’s name. I hadn’t heard from him since our weekend together in May. It was almost August.
“He’s just now calling you?” Ashley whispered loudly. “It’s been three months!”
“Yeah, Kent,” I said, simultaneously glaring a
t Ashley. “I’ll take it. Thanks.”
I clicked the intercom button off and stared for a handful of seconds at my friend. “It can’t be what you think,” I said, finally. Even though I wasn’t exactly sure what she was thinking, I could guess it had romantic notions. “We didn’t leave things like that. We didn’t even start things like that.”
“It has to be something if he’s calling you.” Her giddiness was making me nervous.
I wiped my sweaty palm across my skirt. “Maybe he’s just going to be in town and thought it would be polite to say hello.”
“Or. Maybe he realizes he can’t breathe without you, and he’s finally gotten the guts to do something about it. I told you I’ve only seen him photographed with, like, one girl in the last several weeks. He’s not fooling around like he was. He’s pining.”
Again, I glared. I actually hadn’t put any thought into a future with Weston, but it was nice to be wanted. Did he actually want me? How different would things have been if Donovan had called after we’d been together? Even three months later. Even three years.
“Just answer it!” Ashley squealed impatiently.
I picked up the phone. “This is Sabrina.”
“Sabrina. It’s Weston.” His smile carried over the digital network. I could practically hear his dimple in his tone.
“Hi,” I said, unable to stop grinning myself.
“Hi to you. It’s good to hear your voice. Really good.”
“You too.” I swiveled back and forth in my chair, aware that Ashley was watching me like a hawk.
Listening too. Which meant this couldn’t turn into phone sex. Not that I wanted this to turn into phone sex. Not that I knew what I wanted at all.
I cleared my throat. “I’m surprised you called. This is out of the blue.”
“I know,” Weston said, suddenly seeming more official and less flirty. “I’m sorry. I probably should have made an appointment.”
“No, no. This is fine. Just. It’s unexpected.” I wasn’t sure how I felt about the more official tone. It wasn’t bad. It was different.
“It is unexpected. I’ve had a lot of unexpected things happen in my life lately, actually. And I’m going to shock you again now. Are you ready? Brace yourself.”
My muscles tensed automatically like they did when I was in a car and someone put on the brakes suddenly. “Okay. I’m braced.”
“I want to offer you a job.”
“He isn’t serious.” I’d said it so many times since I’d hung up the phone with Weston that Ashley had to think I’d gone into some state of shock.
I had gone into some state of shock. There was no other word for what this feeling was.
“He’s serious,” Ashley insisted as she stared at my computer screen. “I’m looking at the offer now, Bri. It’s on letterhead. This is serious shit.” Weston had emailed a formal offer over while we’d spoken, and she hadn’t hesitated to swivel my screen toward her so she could examine it in detail.
My eyes had been open too long without blinking. So I blinked. Then did it again. “But why?”
“He obviously followed up, checked out your resume, probably called some references and saw that you do good work. Because you do.” She bent to meet my eyes across the desk. “You deserve this, Bri.”
I held her gaze for several heavy seconds. I did want the job. That wasn’t a question. The pay was phenomenal. The offer even included relocation expenses. The title was exactly the one he’d promised before—turned out his last director of marketing strategy was transferring to London and had been planning to for a while now. Weston had known he might need a replacement when I’d spent the weekend with him. It was essentially the same job that I currently had, but Reach was so much bigger of a firm that it was a huge promotion.
There was absolutely no reason to say no.
Just.
Surely Weston had more qualified employees already on staff, waiting for advancement. If not, there were hundreds of people dying for a job like this. People who already lived in New York. People with much more experience.
“But why me?” I asked as I suddenly stood, pushing my desk chair with enough force that it went rolling toward the wall. I looked after it apologetically. I didn’t mean to seem angry. I wasn’t angry. I was confused. When Weston and I had been wrapped in a haze of lust, the smell of sex still clinging to the air, these kinds of overtures made sense. But now?
“Oh. Ohhhh.” Ashley drew the word out, finally understanding what I was really asking. “Because he wants to have a relationship with you. Obviously. Duh.”
That’s what I had been afraid she’d say. I shook my head. “That can’t possibly be true. It’s not what either of us wanted.” At least, that’s what I’d thought. Had I been wrong?
I didn’t know anymore.
Ashley wouldn’t let that slide. Leaning back in her chair, she crossed her arms over her chest and furrowed her brow. “Why did you even go to bed with him if you didn’t want anything out of it?”
“Is that something I have to actually explain?” I turned away from her and busied myself with straightening my computer screen so it was facing the right way again. It was easier to think without her reading into my every expression.
“Well, I know why I would go to bed with him,” she said to my profile. “He’s hot as fuck and has enough money to buy the whole state of New York, but as long as I’ve known you, you’ve never been as superficial as I am. You’re also not into flings, so yes, you must explain.”
With a sigh, I straightened and considered her question. I knew the answer—I just hadn’t had to put it into words before. “I went to bed with him because of exactly what you said,” I began. “He’s charming and attractive and nearly impossible to resist. But, okay, it was also because he was an unclosed door. I had a huge crush on him once upon a time. He stood for everything I once almost had. It was nice to finally be able to see what things could have been like.”
Also, secretly there was a part of me that had wondered if a night—or a weekend—with Weston could erase what had happened with Donovan.
Instead it had magnified it.
Ashley’s lips curled into a half smile, as if my answer had somehow been a victory for her. “Now that you know, how are you not dying for more?”
“Because it was just a weekend,” I said, crossing to retrieve my chair. “He’s a playboy. He’s moved on.”
“Except he hasn’t moved on. He’s still thinking about you three months later. He’s thinking about you so much that he called you and offered you a freaking amazing job at a freaking amazing firm. How can you be questioning anything about this?”
It was exactly the kind of thing I’d dreamed about when I’d gone to Harvard. The job. The pay. The boy.
I rolled the chair to my desk and paused, my hands still gripping the seat back. “Do you think a yes to the job automatically means a yes to a relationship?”
“Do you not want to say yes to a relationship?” Ashley’s tone said she didn’t understand why anyone wouldn’t want a relationship with Weston King, but she was trying to.
The truth was that I was trying to understand myself too.
I sank into the chair and faced Ashley. “I had fun with him. I really did. But that’s not enough to build a relationship on. I don’t want to get out there and find out that we aren’t compatible and then what if it affects our working together? I’d be alone in a new city with no job, no friends and then what?”
“Sabrina, you need to get out of your head and into your life. Seriously.” She reached across the desk and put her hands over one of mine. “If the relationship doesn’t work out, then fine. You’re both grownups. You can still work together; I know it. If I’m wrong, you’ll find another job. It’s time for you to move on. You’re not happy here right now. You said it yourself just today. And every day for a month before this. I don’t want to lose you, but you’re more important than our friendship, and dammit, this is what you want.”
; It was what I wanted. Not just the job, but Weston. A guy who was charming and sexy and not Donovan.
I shifted my hand out from under Ashley’s so that I could squeeze hers. “You’re right.”
She seemed surprised to have won the battle so easily. “About which part?”
“All of it. Except me being more important than our friendship.” I swallowed past the ball that had suddenly lodged in my throat. “You’re right about all the rest.”
“Damn straight I am.” Ashley slammed her hand on the table—a tactic meant to divert me from noticing her eyes brimming with tears, I suspected. “Now pick up that phone, call the guy back and tell him yes before I do it for you.”
As soon as the decision was made, I knew it was right. It settled everywhere in my body, wrapped around me comfortably like the favorite blanket I burrowed in on cold nights. I’d spent too long yearning for the life I’d been meant for—it was time to go out and get it.
And maybe Weston would fit into my future as more than just a boss.
But Donovan…
He lived across the world, but it was his company too. His name would be on invoices and letterhead. He’d be present in my life from here on out in some way or another. There’d be no escaping him now.
Still, I picked up the phone, called the guy, and when Weston answered, I told him, “Yes.”
Chapter 9
“I can’t believe you’re only two and a half hours away!” my sister exclaimed for the millionth time since I’d first told her about my move to New York. Now, three weeks later, I was finally settled in the city that would be my new home.
I shifted my cell phone to my shoulder so I could dig in my purse for my credit card. I was in a cab, quickly approaching my destination, and I wanted to be ready to pay when we arrived. “I have your bedroom all set up and ready whenever you can get away from school to come visit,” I said to Audrey while searching. “Or I could come there. But you don’t have an extra bed.”
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