by Cynthia Dane
She glances at me before looking at the mirror paneling. She’s very business. Heavy coat, minimal makeup, and that silky blond hair pulled into her French twist. When she wears her hair like that, it makes her neck look longer, especially when there’s no jewelry there.
I briefly remember kissing that throat three days ago. How warm she had been beneath her skin. Her heart beating furiously as I rubbed her slit and parted it for my cock.
Great.
It’s eight in the morning, I haven’t been properly caffeinated yet, and I’m already getting hard standing next to this woman. Please put me out of my misery.
“The weekend was fine,” she says. “I hear you had quite the garden party at your estate.”
The numbers tick away the floors as we pass them by. “Let me guess who told you that.”
“Not your mother. I haven’t seen her in a while.”
The idea of Kathryn and my mother conspiring about something makes me want to vomit. “The party was fine. You and your father’s absence was noticed.”
“We had a meeting earlier that day. Sorry.”
Why is she sorry? Not like I missed her this weekend.
We arrive at our floor. The doors open, and I see Valerie my assistant waiting to ride down to get that coffee I asked for. Good mornings are exchanged. Kathryn walks ahead and hails her mousy assistant who cowers at her boss’s feet. If Kathryn Alison swung that way, I would assume she was in a BDSM relationship with that poor girl. (Or would it be lucky girl?)
Reaching the office space is a mistake… because right there, mocking me, is Lana Andrews dressed in her tight red skirt and chiffon black blouse.
She’s stunning. She knows it. She smiles at me.
Fuck.
“Ian.” Her sweet voice chaffs my ear. “I’m glad you’re here. There’s someone I want you and Kathryn to meet.”
The woman of the moment is behind me, and even though we face the woman standing between us and our project, I still tense at Kathryn’s presence. Apparently, fucking her only made certain things worse. Who knew?
“And to what do we owe this pleasure, Lana?” I ask. “I thought that everything that needed to be said was exchanged yesterday?”
A woman I’ve never met turns around and stands in the office doorway. Tall. Self-assured. Older than my mother. She extends her hand with a fake smile. “Colleen Woodrow,” she introduces herself. “You must be Ian Mathers.”
The way she looks at me says she damn well knows me. Probably from tabloid trash.
We shake hands. Kathryn introduces herself next, and Colleen Woodrow is as inexplicably cool to her.
The same registers in my head. After what Lana said yesterday, I went home and did research on the council. I was going to have to do it anyway, but that was a perfect impetus.
Colleen Woodrow is the co-chair of the council. A big deal when you consider she had to be voted into the position. One of those positions you never think about because you’re too busy deciding on who you want to be mayor or governor. But no, at some point in my life I probably checked the box saying that I voted for Mrs. Woodrow. And now I’m probably going to regret it.
“Mrs. Woodrow had a few ideas about the presentation that I would like you to hear.” Lana gestures to the office, and Kathryn and I can’t help but give each other a look.
This is going to be hell.
Sure enough, our impromptu meeting at nine in the morning has everything to do with Friday’s proposal. As one of the council leaders, Mrs. Woodrow wants to make sure we know what to expect and what we should do to prepare. I can handle that. Kathryn’s twitching, her dominant personality at complete odds with this woman. So is mine, but I’m better at covering it up. Kathryn looks like she’s about to slap the woman.
I’m not sure I would stop her.
The rub comes about twenty minutes into this farce of a meeting. A farce because it’s keeping us from getting to our real work.
“As it is, Ms. Alison and Mr. Mathers…” Colleen primps as if we’re her mirror. “The double proposition is a good one, but I’m afraid both the community and the council will not be in the mood to approve both ventures at the same time.” When she’s met with our bemusement, she explains, “Either the museum or the functioning remodeled hotel will have to come first. I’m afraid that asking for both at the same time will put people… on edge. As it is, we think both are fantastic ideas if done tastefully, and we look forward to seeing both of your presentations.”
“But?”
“But only one will be selected, if either of them is to be at all.”
“So let me get this straight,” I interject, putting my hand in the middle of the table. “You want us to continue with our presentations… but only one of us will be ‘selected’ to continue forward as planned?”
“If either is selected at all.”
“Oh, well then.”
This is bullshit, and we all know it. I don’t know whose rad idea this is, but either Kathryn or I are going to be in big, big trouble with our fathers. Either my father is going to come down hard on me for not securing us the money-making hotel, or Kathryn is going to be further humiliated because her family doesn’t get their museum.
It’s not fair, and we all know it.
This business isn’t fair. We all make our peace with it, but sometimes you come up against something that is so stupid and arbitrary that even this hardened heart is amazed by it. This is one of those instances. Does she seriously expect me to believe that the community is too sensitive to having both a renovated hotel and a new museum at the same time?
“We know that neither of you want to hear something like this,” Lana says, patting Colleen’s shoulder. They look like bosom buddies, all right. “But I’m afraid it’s how it has to be. If the community decides to accept a renovation, it can only be one or the other for now. The other can come later once it’s been proven that the first is a success.”
Kathryn shakes her head as if she’s ridding her brain of an evil spirit. “So Ian and I are essentially competing against each other.”
“Don’t think of it that way,” Lana says with that ridiculous air of superiority. “Unless of course it makes you work harder!”
Her laugh is enough to make me curl my first and for Kathryn to sneer into the back of her hand.
Long after they leave, we’re left sitting here in the office, our spirits fucked. Not even our bubbly assistants can bring us back from the dead. There isn’t even time or energy to think about what happened Friday night. The only good to come out of this is that I no longer want to think about nothing but having sex with Kathryn.
Apparently she’s my rival now.
We’ve gone from being partners in this endeavor to vying for different things. Kathryn wants to prove herself, and I want to not fuck up my father’s investment. Before, that fueled our teamwork, or what there was of it. It probably fueled the whole sex thing too, but that’s neither here nor there.
Now we’re competing. I don’t care how they spin it. We’ve gone from either all in or all out, to only one can survive.
This is going to be great for our relationship.
Chapter 15
KATHRYN
Do you know what it’s like to be grounded? Because that’s how I feel right now. Trapped in a shitty situation where there is no real winner.
I am so fucked. My level of “fucked’ is that of a porn star’s. Minus a good dicking and getting paid for it.
You see, I cannot win in this farce of a situation. No matter what happens, I am boned.
Let’s look at the first possible outcome. Ian gets the initial deal for remodeling The Grand. Great. That shuts me out, and once again I look like a dumb girl who can’t keep her shit together. Sure, I may have held my own and was able to overcome my previous fuckup, but I still fucked up! Yay!
Now let’s look at the second possible outcome. I “win.” Except not really, because what good d
oes it do everyone if we’re only building a museum? Will the Mathers even want to buy the hotel then? Sure, they can make some revenue off museum admission and a gift shop, but their bread and butter is going to come from the hotel itself. That is their main line of business.
You see? It’s an impossible situation, and I’m the one who suffers the most from it.
I don’t think Ian sees it that way, though. He’s plugging ahead as if someone named Colleen Woodrow hasn’t turned our lives upside down. Well, of course. He doesn’t have as much to lose as me.
Isn’t that how it always goes? I’ve been feeling this ever since I was old enough to realize that being a girl puts me at a huge disadvantage. Every day there’s some new reason for a man – or other woman – to put me down and make me feel like shit, all because the doctor said I had a vagina when I was born.
I felt it when I was a little girl who barely understood the world. You see, I was my parents’ only chance at a kid. They tried for years, and then finally had me. The pregnancy was so hard on my mother that the doctor told her that trying to have another would probably kill her, or at least kill the baby. Both of my parents wanted a son for all the reasons we rich people want a bunch of sons. Proof of fertility, passing on the family name, knowing that the fortune will “stay in the family” and a bunch of other asinine bullshit that doesn’t mean anything these days.
Still, even though my parents loved me, I knew they would’ve felt better having a son. They discussed adoption, but by that point their relationship was strained. They’ve never divorced, but I wasn’t surprised when my mother peaced out and moved to Europe.
Then I felt that shit at school. Boys harassed me. Teachers let the boys harass me because “boys will be boys.” I hated myself for having crushes on boys because I already knew how toxic they could be. It wasn’t until I was in high school that I realized I could control some of my destiny. Back then, that only meant sexually. I was a bit wild. New boyfriend every month for about two years. Would’ve been more, but I lived in such an insular world that I had to be careful who I boned while sowing my wild teenage oats.
Dealing with doctors and birth control. Being told that my goal in life was to be some guy’s blond trophy wife and have his kids. Everyone expected me to go to college, but nobody expected me to do anything with a degree. Bit of a shock when I decided to follow the family business. My father went along with it – I think he was relieved, actually. I know he’s often worried about what’s going to happen to his holdings when he goes. If his daughter is there to take over, he feels a lot better. What he thinks I’m going to do with my life on the other hand…
My family is the least of my problems. It’s the rest of the world. Nobody takes me seriously. When I fuck up, I’m rarely given a real second chance like men are. Nobody thinks I can really make it.
When I get hung up on these thoughts, I also get pretty down. I need alcohol. I need my friends. I need a man to kiss my boots and let me whack on his ego for a change.
So now I sit here, in this office on a Wednesday evening, looking at Ian across from me and wondering what the fuck I was thinking when I grabbed his dick and begged him to fuck me.
Ian’s not going to solve my problems. He’s going to exacerbate them. Even though he’ll never say anything about me or to me, he is going to stay silent on the other issues. He’ll hold up the status quo around me. He’ll never treat me as his real equal in the bedroom. At some point, he’ll break – and ask me to break for him.
As much as I hate being alone, it’s better than throwing myself at the feet of a Dom.
“You holding up over there?” He doesn’t look at me. He flips papers over, laptop lit up with spreadsheets. We’ve reached the point in the day where he whips out his reading glasses, a thick-rimmed pair that would look ridiculous on any other man, but not Ian. They’re square and sit nicely on his nose, framing those hazel eyes that I sometimes can’t help but stare at.
His sleeves are rolled up. His top two buttons are loose. This is how he looks by five every damn day, and every damn day I think about how nice it would be to finish undressing and lie on top of him. My bed is really comfortable. If only I had someone like him to share it with.
Shit, I’m pathetic.
“I’m fine,” I lie. My notes are a train wreck. Even I can barely read my handwriting.
He looks at me again. If he didn’t look so young, I would think he looks like a father, or a professor. The kind of man who judges you with one glare.
Ian whips off his glasses. “You wanna go downstairs and get a drink?”
I snort. “On a Wednesday?”
“We’re not coming in tomorrow. And tonight’s as good a night as any since we have to be ready on Friday morning to sell our souls. Let’s relax with a drink. My…” He stops. “My treat” doesn’t mean anything when the woman you’re talking to is almost as rich as you in her own right. “The bar in this building is pretty good. The stock is everything my father likes, but about half his tastes passed down to me, so…”
Sighing, I close my laptop lid and shove my notes back into their respective folders. ‘Sure. But no wine. We know what happened last time.”
A dry laugh fills the room. “I don’t think that was necessarily the wine.”
That’s all he says on the subject. Honestly, it’s all he has to say, because I know what he means. All the wine did was give us an excuse to relax and loosen up.
We pack up our things. This will be one of the last times I’m here, so I make sure that Anita is able to come in tomorrow morning and grab everything neatly before bringing them over to my place. After that, we grab our coats and jackets before hopping into the elevator and enjoying the long ride down in silence.
The bar is one of those abodes that works for either relaxing with a date or shooting the breeze with coworkers after work. I like those types of places because you don’t feel like you owe anyone anything. Hell, I would probably feel fine bringing work in here so I can have an Old Fashioned while finishing up the last of my projects for the night. Sure enough, I see a couple of middle-management guys with their tablets out. They could be reading a book or surfing the web, but it’s more likely that they’re putting in a final hour of work before heading home. Only one wears a wedding ring.
Ian and I sit right at the bar. People must recognize us, because they give us plenty of room, deciding to sit closer to strangers than anywhere near us at the bar. It feels weird at first, but then I come to thank them because I really need some room to breathe.
I order my Old Fashioned while Ian makes room for straight bourbon. “I like a woman who can appreciate whiskey,” he says to me. My drink is served first, and he eyes it with a bit of jealousy. Since getting a drink was his idea, I can only assume that it’s been on his mind all day. Can’t blame him. I have more to lose, but he’s frazzled as well. He’s also a lot like me in the sense that he would probably love to get laid to take the edge off. Too bad I’m not making myself available tonight.
We’ve crossed that bridge. We don’t need to go back over it.
“What can I say?” I sip my drink. Damn, it’s delicious. Smooth, too. Ian’s father must love whiskey too, because this is the good stuff. “My father raised me to appreciate the finer things in life. Like what you’re drinking.”
The glass appears before him, right on cue. “You want a sip?” He slides it in my direction. “Go ahead. I don’t mind the backwash.”
“Har har.” I pick up his glass and sample a taste. It’s almost as good as my drink. Almost. “You’ve had plenty of my backwash already.”
“Indeed.” Ian takes his glass back and has his fill in one gulp. Yup. The man wanted a drink. “Nothing sacred now.”
A part of me is relieved that we can joke about it. Another part of me wonders why we keep bringing it up. Haha, what am I talking about? We keep bringing it up because it’s the only thing we have in common right now… besides work.
&nb
sp; And besides the fact we’re both drinking like fish.
I only intended to have one drink. But then Ian chugs his back and orders another. Then I chug mine and order another. You ever have two whisky drinks back to back? Oh ho ho. I’m in hell. Sweet, tipsy hell.
The world is warm and my body is warmer. Ian’s body ain’t so bad either. He lets me slap my hand on his arm after he tells me a joke about a nun and a CEO. Fuck all if I’ll remember it later. Right now I’m on my third drink and I’m not doing a great job holding it in. Ian holds his liquor better than me. No surprises there. The worst that’s happening is a few yawns and some talk about going home and going to bed. It’s not a bad idea.
I think about collapsing into bed with him. Maybe not for sex, although I’m sure we could drunkenly paw at each other and maybe get off a little. Mostly I’m imagining curling up against his firm body and inhaling the scent of his skin as I drift off into blissful sleep. My hand lingers too long on his arm. He looks at it until I yank it away.
“You know what?” I say, giggling as I lean against the bar and half-ass hailing the bartender for one last round. “We had fun last Friday, didn’t we?”
“Fucking hell.” Ian continues to mumble as I sit here giggling like an idiot. “Yes. Fun.”
“I’m glad you think so, because you have a great cock.”
I’m patting his leg, and he’s looking at me as if I’m five steps away from falling on my face and puking all over the floor. Hardly!
“Thanks.”
“You think about doing me again?”
I don’t know where the question comes from. Neither does Ian, gauging the way he looks at me. “Every day.” I feel better knowing that his speech is slurring almost as much as mine.
“Oh my God. We should have sex again.” It’s a great idea! Me, Ian, a big fat bed that squeaks every time we thrust against each other. I’m sweating like a virgin over here. “You want a blowjob? Because I have it on good authority that I’m awesome.”