by Krista Lakes
Boring Kat
“Just know that this is going to require a bottle of wine. And chocolate.”
“You got it,” Cassie promised. “I’ll have a bottle ready for you.”
Kat thought of the way he smiled and those blue eyes. “Better make it two.”
“Done,” Cassie replied. “I’ll see you soon.”
Kat clicked end call and leaned her head against the bathroom door-frame. Her sigh echoed through the bathroom.
“Get a move on, Kat,” she whispered to the empty room. “The job isn’t going to do itself. He’s cute, but he’s not worth your job.”
It took her a moment more before she was ready to actually get going. The unfairness of it all weighed heavily on her shoulders, as she opened the bathroom door and went back into the room with the ridiculously good-looking man she was about to leave.
Fun Kat would have stayed, but Fun Kat didn’t have a job to keep. It was time to let Boring Kat back out.
Kat grabbed a piece of paper off the desk next to the bed. It took her a moment to find a pen, but at least it was a really nice felt-tipped one. This definitely was a nicer room than she was used to. Yet another reason to not want to go.
Dear AJ,
I had an amazing time last night.
I want to see you again.
I wish I could have stayed, but work called with an emergency.
I hope you understand.
Please call me. 555-1368
Yours Truly,
Kat
She carefully placed the small note on the laptop resting on the desk. He was sure to find it there, and hopefully he’d call. She didn’t want to get her hopes up too high. While they had amazing chemistry, this was a wedding fling. A one-night stand.
At least that’s what Kat kept telling herself. This man wasn’t her soulmate and future husband. That only happened in fairy tales. This was just a fun thing, not a future. If, by some strange working of the universe, he was her future husband, then he would understand why she had to leave. But for right now, he was just an incredibly attractive one-night stand.
With a heavy heart, Kat picked up her scattered clothes and things from around the room. She considered putting them on, but her room was just a few floors down. If she borrowed the robe, she wouldn’t have to change twice. She’d just make sure that housekeeping knew the robe came from this room so he wouldn’t be charged.
With her things flowing over her arms, Kat went to the door. She paused one last time to look at the sleeping man. He was still so damn attractive that she very strongly considered dropping everything and climbing back into bed with him.
Maybe just a quickie... she thought for a moment until her phone chirped with a message from Cassie saying she had one of the designers scheduled to meet with them in one hour. She had almost no time if she was going to make it to the office on time.
With a sigh, she opened the door and stepped out barefoot into the hallway to make the quick run to her room.
Hopefully, he’d call.
10
AJ
Warm hands touched AJ’s shoulders, waking him from sleep. A slow smile spread across his face as he remembered that there was a beautiful woman sleeping in the bed next to him. If he was lucky, she was as ready to go for some morning fun as he was.
“Good morning, beautiful,” AJ murmured, keeping his eyes closed as he reached for the woman shaking him.
Except she was wearing a man’s dress shirt. And a tie. And a goatee.
“Sir?”
AJ opened his eyes to find himself staring at his very nervous assistant.
“You are not a beautiful brunette woman, George,” AJ informed him, pushing the other man away. He looked over to see the bed next to him was empty. Slept in, but empty.
“No, sir. I am most certainly not,” George replied, stepping back and straightening his tie.
“What are you doing here?” AJ asked, rubbing sleep from his eyes. He looked at the crumpled bedspread beside him. She had clearly been sleeping there, so at least he knew he wasn’t dreaming. But where could she have gone? He had been looking forward to waking up beside her.
“You canceled all your meetings today, sir,” George explained. He fiddled with his tie for a moment before starting to bustle around the room, opening up the curtains and wearing the slightly worried expression that he always wore. Sometimes AJ wondered if the man was ever not frowning. “Do you have any idea the kind of problems that causes?”
“George, if you don’t relax, you’re going to have a heart attack.” AJ leaned back into his pillow, watching as George went to AJ’s suitcase and began neatly folding the clothes from the floor back into it. He watched him for a moment before looking at the empty bed again.
“Whatever you say, sir.” George didn’t even look up. He just kept picking up clothing and organizing.
“There was a girl here. You didn’t happen to pick her up while you’re hurrying me out of my comfortable room?” AJ asked, looking over at the empty bed. Where could she have gone? He was usually the one bailing on one-night stands, not the other way around.
“Girl?” George looked baffled and then bent over and picked something up from the floor. “That explains this, then.”
He held up a sparkling silver high heel.
“You sure it was a girl?” George asked, examining the shoe. “I think this is the biggest shoe I’ve ever seen.”
“Wondering if they have one in your size?” AJ asked. George chucked it at his employer’s head, but AJ managed to catch it.
It was a size 11.5, which was large but not extreme considering the average US woman wore a 8.5 or a 9. He examined the beautiful shoe a little bit closer. It was a Christian Louboutin Suellena Laser-Cut Peep-Toe Red Sole Pump in Silver, which he recognized as being a top seller from his own store. His date certainly had good taste.
It actually was a rather large shoe, but he hadn’t been paying attention to the size of her feet last night. He had been too caught up by her smile. “You didn’t happen to see a note, have you?”
“A note?” George paused, the line between his dark brows deepening. “Why would I look for a note?”
AJ sighed. The man excelled at his job, but sometimes he was a little too focused on being organized rather than being sensible.
“A note from the girl,” AJ explained, holding up the shoe. “I’d actually like to see her again.”
“With those feet?” George asked, and AJ resisted the urge to throw the shoe back at him. “That’s not you’re usual M.O.”
“Yes, even with these feet. Possibly because of them,” AJ replied. “So, any notes? Lipstick on the mirror? Anything?”
George shuffled his feet. “There might have been one.”
“Might have been?” AJ sat up in the bed, gripping the shoe. “Where is it?”
George shrunk slightly. “Your usual policy is to not respond to one night stands... especially those from a wedding...”
“Where is it, George?”
George licked his lips nervously. “It’s already in the trash. With your usual policy...”
AJ looked over at the waste bin near the bathroom door. It was suspiciously empty. George followed his gaze.
“I gave the trash to the maid so she wouldn’t disturb you,” George said slowly, refusing to look up at AJ.
“George, I want that note.” AJ glared at his assistant. He wasn’t angry at the other man so much as at himself. He should have gotten the woman’s information the moment she smiled at him. “She was amazing.”
“Amazing?” George’s eyes widened. AJ knew he’d never said that about any of the other woman George had found him with.
“Yes. Amazing,” AJ reiterated. “All I have of the girl of my dreams is her shoe. Her very large shoe. I want that note.”
George swallowed audibly. “I’ll go hunt down the trash, sir. I just hope the maid hasn’t put it in the dumpster yet...”
AJ raised his brows at George. The dumpster
was not about to stop him now.
“I’ll find it, I swear,” George promised. “But you have to get dressed.”
“Dressed? I canceled all my meetings.” AJ crossed his arms.
“Yes, you did.” George handed him a suit. “Except the board doesn’t accept your cancellation of their meeting.”
“Oh, shit.” He had forgotten about this meeting. Or rather, he had blocked it out because it was going to be terrible. It was about the lawsuits going on with his company and how he was addressing the current scandal.
“It’s in an hour. You should get going,” George advised.
“Find me that note,” AJ growled, swinging his legs out of bed. The empty side called to him again, reminding him of just how much fun he’d had the night before. How happy he’d been.
He paused before standing, the shoe still in his hands. It sparkled like glass in the sunlight pouring through the windows. Last night had been so wonderful. He’d never felt a connection with another human being like he did last night. It was more than just physical, though the physical had been pretty damn amazing. Being with her, he’d forgotten his worries. He could honestly say that he had been happy last night.
He looked down on the metallic, shimmering shoe still in his hands.
There had to be a note. George had to find it. Last night had been too amazing for it all to just disappear in a puff of smoke and magic.
Doubt settled on his shoulders for a moment. What if she was married? What if she was already seeing someone else? What if last night were just a wild fling for her and it wasn’t the connection he so felt it was? What if she didn’t actually leave a note for him, not because she forgot or George lost it, but because she didn’t want him to find her?
His grip tightened around the shoe.
No, he told himself. It doesn’t matter. I’ll find her anyway.
If she was married, he’d let the whole thing drop and never bother her again. If she couldn’t be his, then he would just remember this as a great one-night stand. But...
If she could be his... If he could feel this way all the time...
AJ closed his eyes, and for a brief moment, let himself hope for happiness.
11
AJ
Two weeks later...
AJ sipped at his morning coffee as he sat down at his office desk and started his day. The leather seat creaked slightly as he leaned forward to turn on his computer and the smell of dark roast filled his nose. It was his third cup but he still felt groggy, like his brain wouldn’t turn on.
He began flipping through his emails absentmindedly, not really reading any of them. He knew the reason had nothing to do with stress or lack of sleep. His mind was on someone.
His mind was on Kat.
AJ leaned back in his chair and stared at the screen, at a long chain of replies about the proposal that he was hearing tomorrow. He had been skimming when his eyes fell on a signature line.
Yours Truly,
E. Ryder
What an odd way to sign off on a business email, he thought. It wasn’t even part of her signature line. She had specifically typed it out. It was so familiar, but then he knew that everything was reminding him of that night two weeks ago.
He closed his eyes and remembered the soft scent of her hair and the way she had smiled at him. One night had been enough to ensnare his heart completely. Unfortunately, the one night was all he had.
George had found the note. The poor man had to dive through two dumpsters to find it, but he did find it. However, by then, water and something that AJ didn’t want to speculate on, had erased half the message. The note was written with a felt-tipped pen, so the liquid he was hoping was water had stripped the note away. Even worse, the next page on the pad showed no indentations. Damn high quality stationary.
He’d even hired a professional to try and salvage the letter. The man had years of experience with police departments around the world and was renowned for being able to make the invisible appear. Unfortunately, due to the quality of the pen and paper, there was no trace of what she had written. The best the professional could do was give him a picture of the unreadable text.
AJ didn’t have to look at the picture on his phone to know what wasn’t readable on there. The professional he had hired to restore the note had done well, but there was nothing that could be done. Only the left side was readable. He had looked at the picture so many times that he could recall it by memory.
Dear AJ,
I had an amazi
I want to see y
I wish I coul
I hope you unde
Please call me. 5
Yours Truly,
Kat
He could figure out what most of the note said, and she had definitely left her phone number. It meant that she wanted him to find her. She had wanted more. The fear that she was married or uninterested evaporated as soon as he saw the note. Unfortunately, he had no way of telling her that since he couldn’t read her phone number.
AJ had asked the bride for a guest list, but that had been a dead end as well. There were three Katys, four Katherines, two Kathys, and two more Katelyns. Given the current media climate, the last thing he wanted to do was contact each of them and find out if they were missing a size 11.5 silver Louboutin heel. It wouldn’t take more than a single speculation as to how he came to acquire the shoe to have the media all over him.
His desire to find her even overrode his ethics. He had taken a peek at the sales of silver Louboutin shoes from his website, but no one in the area had purchased a pair that size. The only pair on record with his company still sat in his warehouse in Atlanta.
He had no way to find her.
12
Kat
The presentation was tomorrow and Kat felt like she needed an IV drip-line of coffee to make it. There was still so much to do, despite having worked her ass off for the last two weeks. Her normal work hours were long over, but she still had to put the final finishing touches on her presentation to the CEO of the company.
If the presentation went as well as she thought it should, she’d be glad she’d done all this work.
“Oh and when you go to Hawaii, you have to try the malasadas,” Renee told her, spinning in her desk chair and oblivious to the concentration Kat was putting in on her computer.
“Mmm hmm...” Kat replied, not really listening. She had started out paying attention, but at the two hour mark of Renee going on about how amazing and expensive her Hawaii vacation was, Kat had zoned out.
“They’re like donuts only better,” Renee said. “I wish we could have stayed longer, but Bob had to get back to work.”
“Is he working right now?” Kat asked, hoping that he wasn’t. Maybe that would mean Renee would go home and leave her alone to finish. Despite being a part of this project, Renee hadn’t been terribly helpful the last few hours.
“He is,” Renee pouted. “He has to work late this week to make up for us being gone. But, that means I get to stay here and help you!”
“Help me, right.” Kat wasn’t sure how Renee telling her three times about malasadas was helping. “Did you finish that spreadsheet I asked you for? I need it for page three of the report.”
“I think so,” Renee replied. She stopped spinning in her chair and focused on her computer for what felt like the first time in ages. “I thought I already sent it to you. I replied to one of your silly emails that you signed ‘Yours Truly, E. Ryder.’”
Kat sighed. “I didn’t get it.”
“Well, it’s around here somewhere. Let me send it to you again.”
Kat took a deep breath. This project was her best idea yet. Shoesy, Inc. was the largest online retailer of designer shoes, handbags, and clothing. The company was booming, yet there was always left over merchandise sitting in the warehouses. Kat’s idea made that idle merchandise profitable.
She wanted to rent out the unused merchandise. For a small fee, a customer could rent a thousand dollar pair of shoes or a dress
. If they wanted to keep their item, they could purchase it. If not, they could return it. She’d even found a system of shoe inserts that made the shoe basically new for each patron, even in strappy heels. She’d done months of research to find out how to rent these items so that every person got “new” items. She had it all together.
And as long as she got to present it tomorrow, she knew Shoesy would only grow in market share. This could even combat the negative press going on with the current sex scandal. It not only utilized the company’s excess warehouse space, it created a new revenue stream and marketing opportunities.
Kat knew the problem with designer shoes was that most people didn’t want to spend thousands of dollars on a pair of shoes. Even with her employee discount, Kat still hated spending that much money on something she only wore occasionally.
This would change that. Women and men could use this and get designer label things at a fraction of the cost, and it would negate some of the warehouse issues the company was currently facing. It was perfect.
Thinking of designer shoes reminded Kat of her silver Louboutins. She was missing one. Her beautiful, perfect shoes were short one. She knew she had to have left it in AJ’s suite, but when she had called to ask if the staff had found it, the room was empty.
The shoe, and the man she had left it with, were gone.
“Oh, did you see that Andrew Jacobson came to the wedding?” Renee asked, pulling her back into reality.
“You mean the CEO of the company?” Kat asked, surprised. “The one I’m meeting with as long as you get me my spreadsheet?”
“I just sent it to you, and yes, that CEO,” Renee said, rolling her eyes as she clicked a button on her computer. “Can you believe it? How many people get to say that a billionaire came to their wedding?”
“Not very many, I imagine,” Kat replied, letting Renee revel in the moment. Renee’s world was all about status. To her, having a billionaire at the wedding was probably as big a highlight as the actual getting married part.