“Never seen that one.”
“Maybe we could pretend that you’re the doctor and I’m your nurse. What do you need, doctor?”
“Nah, I couldn’t be a doctor. Too many science classes.”
I sighed. “Maybe you’re not so into nurses. Would you rather I was cheerleader? Or an exotic dancer?”
“A nurse is fine.”
I waited, but apparently that was all he was going to say. “So what would you like to talk about?”
“Umm… how long did you go to school?”
“Excuse me?”
“To become a nurse.”
Okay, this was strange, but I could do this. I had acting experience—I knew how to improvise. “Two years. I lived in this dorm with all these other nurses. During the day, we’d study hard, but at night, we’d get together in the lounge in front of the fire, and we’d take off all our clothes and—”
“Was it hard?”
“Was what hard?” Did he want me to insert him into this fantasy as a doctor? But he didn’t seem to want to play that role before.
“Studying medicine. Learning all that stuff.”
“Umm, yeah. That’s why in the evenings, we all needed to let off a little steam. So we’d—”
“What’s your favorite part about being a nurse?” he interrupted.
“It’s helping people feel good,” I purred, trying to get us back on track. “Let’s say you’re in an exam room, and I’m there to help with your checkup. You’re not wearing anything under your hospital gown, and I can’t wait to lift the edge of the gown and bend down and—”
“Stop! Stop, please stop.”
What on earth?
“You don’t have to say that stuff. It’s me, Jason.”
Jason! “Ford’s Jason?”
“Yes.”
“Oh my god.” I’d been talking about naked nurses to Jason? Please, please tell me I’d fallen asleep and this was a bad dream. “But… but… why are you…”
“Ford’s in a meeting. He thought he’d be done, but, ummm, he told me to call if he didn’t finish by five.”
Shit. I had my eyes closed and was cradling my forehead in my hands. Why the hell hadn’t Jason identified himself and explained the situation? It was clear as day he was as mortified as I was. But I shouldn’t be blaming him. No doubt he was just doing what Ford had told him to do. God, I couldn’t believe I’d been saying those sexy words to Jason, the solid wall of a man who thus far hadn’t shown himself to have any mode except for professional.
And aside from Ford, no one I knew in real life knew anything about the fantasy hotline job. I’d have died of embarrassment long ago if they had. And now this! I was going to kill Ford—if Jason didn’t do it first.
After the longest silence yet, he spoke again, hesitantly this time. “Do most callers… like that kind of stuff?”
“Usually,” I said, feeling the heat from my face where it rested on my palms. What on earth could I say? Sorry for talking to you about nude women frolicking in front of a fire place? What I really wanted to do was to hang up and never show my face outside of my apartment again, but even through my mortification, I could see this wasn’t Jason’s fault. I sighed. “You must really like Ford to do something like this for him.”
“He’s a good man.”
Not wanting to insult the guy Jason obviously felt thought highly of, I took a different approach. “Look, if he asks, I’ll say that you called and we had a nice conversation. But I think I’d better let you go now.”
“No, you can’t do that,” he said in alarm.
“But—no offense—we don’t seem to have much to talk about.”
“I’m supposed to stay on the line until he’s done with his meeting.”
What? He didn’t have the right to do that. Literally. Sultry Sirens gave their employees the authority to end any call they wanted, in case the client’s fantasies were too extreme or violent. I could end a call for any reason, even if a call being excruciatingly awkward probably hadn’t been what the company had had in mind when they made that rule. “Ford has no right to interfere with my work like that.”
“He’s not interfering. He pays for the phone calls like any other caller.”
“But he’s not here.”
“Yeah, but I am. I want to talk to you,” he said in the least convincing voice ever.
“About what?”
“I have no idea.”
“Then I’ll see you later, Jason.” Though I hoped not for quite a while. I’m not sure when I’d be able to look him in the eyes again.
“Wait, please. I’ll talk.”
And he did. His words were halting, but he did talk. About his favorite baseball team. About Ford’s five cars, what makes and models they were, and which ones were his favorites. And after a while, I relaxed enough to ask a few questions of my own. I couldn’t claim that the conversation flowed easily, but at least it was happening.
In the midst of telling me about a new sports car he was hoping Ford would buy next year, Jason’s voice cut out. There was some background noise, some words I couldn’t make out, and then a new voice was on the line. “Hello?” It was Ford.
“Don’t you ever do that again.” All the angry thoughts in my head lodged together, and those six words were the ones that escaped first.
“That’s what Jason just told me. Was it really that bad?”
Was he serious? “That was an extremely shitty thing to do. To both of us.”
“So I take it you two didn’t hit it off and become the best of friends.” His light tone made my blood pressure rise even more.
“Go to hell,” I said, and I disconnected the call.
Wishing I had a receiver to slam down, I stood up, and forced myself to stretch the muscles I’d been clenching for the last half hour. I went to the kitchen to get a glass of water. When I got back, the light on the laptop indicated I had another call. Not surprisingly, the client ID was Ford’s.
I sat back down and watched the blinking light on the laptop. I really didn’t want to talk to him, but I was on the clock. It was my job to answer calls. What if someone asked why I’d ignored an incoming call?
I dropped my head back, staring at the ceiling for a moment. Then I tapped my headset connecting the call.
“I’m sorry,” he said immediately.
Really original of him. He probably didn’t even know why I was angry. “For what?”
“For making Jason call.”
“Do you even know why I’m upset?”
There was silence on the other end. I could practically hear his brain struggling with the answer. He had eight years on me, but suddenly, I felt like the older party. “Do you even get that that was the most mortifying call I’ve ever had in my entire life? And believe me, with this job, that’s saying something.”
“Did Jason say something inappropriate?”
“No, I said something inappropriate. Lots of inappropriate things. Because this is a fantasy hotline. When a new client calls and asks selects Naughty Nurse, then that’s what I become.”
“Shit, I forgot he’d have to pick one of those options. But you don’t have anything to be embarrassed about. You were just doing your job.”
“A job I do anonymously. That’s the only way I could do it. Do you think I could talk like that to men if I knew them for real? Or if they knew me? There’s no way I could do this job if that were the case.”
There was another moment of silence. “Are you ashamed of your job?”
“Yes. No. I mean… I’d be ashamed if anyone found out. And now they have.”
“You don’t have anything to be ashamed of.”
“That’s easy for you to say.” He wasn’t the one who said the most outrageous things to strange men on the phone.
“You have every right to be pissed at me, but don’t forget, I’m a customer, too. I’m a man who calls fantasy hotlines. Should I be ashamed of that? Do you look down on the men who call you?”
“
Of course not. They—most of them, they just want some attention. To feel like someone wants them. Someone needs them.” Truthfully, I felt a little sorry for a some of the men who called. But I didn’t look down on them.
“If you don’t judge them for calling a fantasy line, then how can you judge yourself for working there?”
Dammit. I wanted to make him understand how much he’d humiliated me, but I didn’t want to paint the entire company in a bad light. Sultry Sirens had been very good to me. I tried to explain that to him. “I can do the job because it’s anonymous. There are all kinds of safeguards in place to keep my information private. And because I’m playing a role. I become another person: Summer. She can talk dirty to those men. Autumn would never feel comfortable doing that. When you had your friend call, you tore right through that layer of anonymity.”
There was another pause and then I heard him let his breath out with a small sigh. “I’m really sorry, Autumn. I didn’t think this through.”
“What were you thinking?”
“That I really wanted to talk to you, and that I knew I might not be able to get to the phone in time.”
“So? Would it really have been so bad if I took another call before yours?” It hadn’t escaped my notice he’d monopolized every one of my Sultry Sirens shifts since the break-in a week ago. “At some point you’ll have to give me a chance to talk to other clients.”
There was another pause on the other end of the line. “I know.”
“That is the job.”
“I know,” he said again. “But I was eager to talk to you. I wanted to hear all about the new job.”
He knew about that? “But how…? I was going to tell you, as soon as you called, and then the computer said it was a new client…” I trailed off, not wanting to get back on that topic. But I supposed it was good to remember that I had been eager to talk to him too, at least before he pulled this stunt.
“I spoke with Heidi this afternoon,” he said.
Since he seemed to truly understand why I was upset, I felt myself loosening up a fraction. “I was kind of looking forward to telling you that myself. At least I was before.”
He ignored that last part. “Tell me about the interview.”
I supposed to could do that much. I’d already made Cara listen to every detail at least twice. “It was the strangest one I’d ever been to. She had me read all these things aloud, sometimes just from a script, but sometimes I had to try to time my voice to the presentation on the screen. And she made me try speaking in higher and lower pitches, too.”
“I like your voice exactly the way it is.”
This time, I ignored him. “I guess she wanted to know about my range. Anyway, that part went well, but then she talked about other requirements of the job. She showed some of the videos they’d made as well as some accompanying products like handbooks, manuals, and brochures. Then she made me ad-lib a bit. The most bizarre part was when she told me to pick a process, any process, and explain it step by step. So I talked her through knitting a scarf. That’s miles away from what those corporate presentations were about, but it was all I could think of.”
“Well, evidently it worked.”
“I know. She offered me the job at the end of the interview. She said to think about it and call her today. I told Cara all about it this afternoon. I was so excited I talked her ear off.”
“I’m glad you got to share that news with her before I fucked everything up tonight.”
Crap. What did I say to that? He really had been thoughtless, to both me and Jason. But still… he seemed to get it now. And regret it.
Ford continued when I didn’t chime in. “Did you let them know at the diner?”
“Yeah,” I said, grateful for the subject change. I’d hated to give Bea such short notice, but Heidi wanted me to start right away. Apparently, her team had been working on a series of video trainings for a one of their biggest clients, and they were almost ready for the narration. At the end of my shift, I told Bea that I’d gotten another job. It was almost as if she’d been expecting it.
Right off the bat, she’d said, “Does it have something to do with Prince Charming from the other day?”
“Yes, sort of,” I replied, feeling a flush across my face.
“I figured you wouldn’t be here much longer. I could tell by the way he was looking at you. And by the way you were looking at him.”
“I’m not—I mean, we’re not together.”
“But he helped you get a new job.”
“Well—yes.”
“That kind of man knows how to make things happen,” she said, and I nodded, looking at her blue eyes surrounded by gray curly hair. “Just make sure that every once in a while, you stop and think about what you want to happen. There’s no law that says the person with the most money, the best looks, and the most charisma gets to make the rules.”
I nodded, and to both of our surprise, I gave her a quick hug. Despite her saying that my charisma and appearance paled in comparison to Ford’s, I knew she was giving me a heart-felt warning. This was the stern but fair manager who’d never gone out of her way to make friends with the wait-staff. Somehow, that made her warning—and the well-wishes I sensed underneath it—more meaningful.
“Autumn? Are you still there?”
“Yes, I’m here.”
“Was it okay at the diner?”
“Yes. I’m officially not a waitress anymore.”
“Then I’ll officially never ask you to bring me coffee again.”
A small breath of air escaped my lips, maybe the very beginning of a laugh. The thought of him stationed at the sticky booth and carrying out his business softened me a little.
“Does that mean you’re not mad at me anymore?”
“Oh, I’m still mad,” I said, but even I could hear that my tone was less hostile than before.
“But can you forgive me long enough for us to talk about your new position? I hope you know I’m really proud of you. I know Heidi, and she wouldn’t have hired you if she didn’t think you’d be a real asset to her company.”
“Thanks,” I said.
“So am I forgiven?”
“Ford,” I began, but then there was a noise from the living room. For one heart-pounding moment, I thought of the break-in, but then I realized it was a knock. It sounded louder on that new, very solid door. “Someone’s at the door,” I said.
“I can let you go,” Ford said.
“No, whoever it is, they’ll come back.” I didn’t know any of the neighbors here, and Cara and I never got visitors. It was probably someone who’d got the apartment number wrong.
“What if it’s the police? Maybe they have some more questions for you about the break-in.”
It seemed unlikely, but he was right—it was possible.
“Okay, hold on,” I said. I unlocked my bedroom door and went into the living room. The knocking had stopped, so I figured whoever it was had given up. Still, I placed my hand against the sturdy blond wood of the door and looked through the peephole.
My jaw dropped.
Ford was standing in the hallway, his phone pressed against his ear. He had flowers in one hand and an ice bucket with champagne in the other.
17
Ford
Autumn looked stunned.
She stood there, one hand on the door, and the other on the door frame. She still had her headset on with the earpiece nestled under her luscious blonde locks. She was dressed casually, with faded blue jeans and a white tank top that hung low over her chest—a sight that would have sent blood rushing away from my brain under any other circumstances. She even wore absolutely adorable fuzzy pink slippers, but I knew better than to smile at that. I’d already screwed up enough today in her eyes.
I wanted to strangle the fuckheads on the board who just wouldn’t shut up about the quarterly report. Yes, we needed to steer Davenport Industries in a new direction—a point I’d been trying to drill into their wrinkled, gray heads for a year
now—but endlessly rehashing the past three months got us nowhere. And it had made me late calling Autumn. So instead of hearing about her new job, showing up, and celebrating the good news with her, I pissed her off. And Jason, too. But one problem at a time.
“Congratulations,” I said, holding out the flowers.
After a long moment of staring at me, she took them, but she didn’t step aside. “I’m still on the clock,” she said, and I could hear her voice before me and echoing in my earpiece. “I have an hour left on my shift.”
“Then don’t let me stop you,” I said, and I pushed past her into the apartment, heading for the kitchen with the ice bucket in my hand. As I passed through threshold, I looked back at her. She was still standing there with one hand on the open door, as if amazed that I’d gone through it instead of back down the hall.
I set the champagne on the counter and heard the front door close, and the locks engaging. A thought occurred to me. Since she was still technically working, she was supposed to keep talking to the customer on the phone. And that was me. “So who was it?”
“What?” she asked from in the living room.
“Who was at the door?”
There was a pause, and then she spoke again. “Just some guy.”
“What did he want?”
“I think he was selling something, but I’m sure as hell not buying it.”
I chuckled at that. Her making jokes—even insulting ones—was a good sign.
She entered the kitchen, padding across the linoleum in her pink slippers. She kept her back to me as she pulled a vase out from under the sink and filled it with water. Yeah, this was not quite how I’d hoped this evening would go, but I’d work with what I had.
I took a guess and opened the cabinet to the left of the fridge. Glassware, perfect. it was mostly tumblers and juice glasses, but on the top shelf, I found two mismatched wine glasses. They would do. I set them on the counter as Autumn trimmed the ends of the flowers, placing them one by one in the vase. “So, got any big plans for the weekend?”
She turned toward me then, her eyebrow raised. I admit, it wasn’t the most original question in the world, but hey, I was trying. When she continued to stare, I shrugged and tapped my finger against my earpiece. “Just making conversation. You said you still had an hour left on your shift.”
Charming: A Cinderella Billionaire Story Page 10