by Alice Ward
After eating, I sat on my queen bed — a bed I was very happy I could sleep in any way I liked — and opened up my laptop. I prepped myself for some writing magic, putting my fingers on the keys. Hobbes jumped on the bed, and I stroked his golden fluff.
“I’m very happy being alone,” I told him, saying it like a mantra.
He rolled onto his back and looked at me like, Just pet me, human.
“And I’m talking to a cat who doesn’t even give a shit about me,” I muttered.
Truthfully, the idea of snuggling up with someone, of doing a running commentary on bad reality TV together, debating the meaning of classic books, chilling to Marvin Gaye, having someone other than a cat to talk to… it sounded nice.
And just because I’d had one bad sexual experience in high school didn’t mean that I was doomed to repeat that forever and ever. At least I hoped not. Eventually, I’d have to break that chain. No one had luck that bad.
I rolled over in bed and found my phone and opened a text message to Leah. Taking a deep breath, I typed. So, about that guy you were talking about.
A minute later, she texted me back. Yes! His name is Zach. He’s REALLY cute. You interested?
I tapped a finger on my chin, overthinking all the possible scenarios as usual. Hobbes’ head butted my thigh, giving me a pet me now or I’ll scratch your eyes out look.
Petting my cat with one hand, the thumb of my other hand got to work. Possibly. When can we set something up?
Shit. I couldn’t believe I was going on a blind date.
CHAPTER TWO
Zachary
When my father retired, he left me with a lot of shit to clean up.
I leaned back in my chair at the end of the boardroom table and raked my hands over my tired face. It felt like all I’d been doing since Dad handed me the reins was deflecting bullet after bullet. If I had to hear “But your father…” one more time, I might start throwing punches.
It was a damn good thing my philosophy was this… obstacles were made to be overcome.
Because there were a fucking lot of obstacles in Vaughn Industries’ way right now.
I examined the second-quarter revenue reports again and threw up my hands. My first quarter as CEO of the company my grandfather built from the ground up nearly seventy years ago was one of the bleakest on record. Granted, I’d only been at the reins for two months of it, but it didn’t matter. I was in control now.
We hadn’t done this piss-poor since the recession of 1980. I stared at the numbers, daring to believe that they were a mistake.
“This is totally fucking unacceptable,” I said to the grave faces around the table. I pounded the thick wood like my father would have, enunciating each syllable: “Un. Ac. Cept. A. Ble.”
Ann Baldrick, my marketing director, nodded. “We’re already looking into possible causes.”
I shook my head. “Dammit, Ann. I don’t want to hear about causes. I want solutions. Bring me solutions. I want to know how we plan to get our market share back.”
My father had bred me for this position, as his father had before him. I’d spent every summer since high school learning the ropes, then attended Harvard undergraduate and business school. My father told me I was ready, that I had credentials to steer our company to success. That was exactly what he said during his speech at the company retreat two months earlier when he’d symbolically passed the torch to me.
Funny, I’d sat in on meetings like this for years, and everything was usually so… amicable. We went around to each of the twenty directors, and as each one gave a report, my father usually nodded and said, “Good, good.”
That was when things had been good.
Now, they were shit.
And I wasn’t going to sit there and nod like a fucking monkey when the company was in a steep decline.
Bob Wilson, our vice president of sales, spoke up. “Right away, Zach. We’ll put together a report for, say, the nineteenth?”
I shook my head. “One week,” I told him, holding up a single finger in case he didn’t hear me correctly. “I want a detailed report in one week.”
When my father was busy planning his retirement to a golfing community in Palm Beach, Florida, he hadn’t anticipated that R&D would be dead in the water, bringing nothing new to the table. Or that our recruiting department wouldn’t be able to nab the top individuals we needed to fill our management positions, despite adding value to our benefits package. Or that acquisitions would drop the ball on our merger with TastyMade. Or that the news would be down our throats because the obesity rate in this country had now reached epidemic proportions and they were looking for a scapegoat. Hell, France banned our products for possible cancer-causing ingredients, which was a load of bullshit. The whole packaged food industry seemed to be going to hell, and… lucky me, the company was now all my problem.
It was a good thing I loved problems. Give me the most fucked up knot in the world, and I’d sit there until my fingers fell off, straightening out all the tangled pieces, making it work better than when it was new. I lived for this shit.
Ann clicked on the top of her pen, giving me a wary look. “We may have that report, but your father—”
Fuck it all. “Look. My father did things a certain way. I got it. But I’m not interested in what he did. I want new ideas. Fresh ideas. If we have to go against seventy years of know-how to turn this company around and start bringing the numbers up, I’m not against it. Let’s take some risks.”
They stared at me, wide-eyed. I might as well have just spit on my father. Yes, he was a good leader and could do no wrong in their eyes. When he said to do something, they just followed. Often blindly.
And maybe that was the problem.
I waved them away. “Get out of here and don’t come back until you can bring me some fresh ideas,” I said to them, sick of seeing their faces. Normally, I loved my crew, but not when we were down this far. They’d failed, and I didn’t like it.
If someone failed my company, they failed me. And it was personal.
All of these people were my father’s hires and many had been on the payroll longer than I’d been alive. We’d had a long string of successes, led by the release of our biggest seller, the Heigh-di-Ho, twenty years ago, which were chocolate-wrapped Swiss rolls that the damn queen of England even called, “The tastiest food ever made.” Then came wide distribution, not only to the fifty states but to Canada, Mexico, and Europe. Next, clinching the contract to serve our snack cakes, Heigh-di-Hos, Twinkle Toes, and Color Bombs, with one of the largest vending machine suppliers in the country.
Our newest battle? Getting the cakes in all the public school vending machines across the country. Up until this quarter, it had been inevitable. After all, our frozen food division already served half the school lunches in the city. Now, though, with a bunch of assholes crusading to keep our food out of the schools, we’d taken a step back. We needed a spark to make things happen, but it seemed like none of these people had that fire. They were resting on their past successes instead of paving new ground. They’d grown lazy.
I strode out of the boardroom, pulling out my phone to message Gavin, my partner in crime. We’d talked about getting a late lunch, but I hadn’t thought it’d be this late. I realized he’d texted me an hour ago. I have a hell of a hangover. Lunch?
Gavin having a hangover wasn’t news. He and I loved to party, which was probably why we were best friends. We had this ongoing competition to drink each other under the table. I’d missed last night, though, missed a lot of parties lately because I’d been prepping for this shit meeting. I stabbed in my return message. Lunch, now?
His comeback made me smile. You mean Dinner? I’m up for it.
I checked my watch. It was after three, so yeah, closer to dinner than lunch. It seemed like my meals were always taken later than I expected, or in a rush. A diet soda here, a package of Heigh-di-Hos there. Basically, anything that was handy. Since I’d taken the reins of the company, my carefree
days with Gavin had gone the same way as Vaughn Industries… to shit.
Not that I minded so much. I was thirty-two now, no longer a kid. The drinking to excess, one-night stands, and morning hangovers had started to get a little old.
We had a tacit agreement to meet at Gallagher’s on West 52nd, our go-to place for steak, which was right down the street from my offices and downstairs from his apartment. When I got there, Gavin already had a table and was sucking down his third glass of water.
His dark skin looked a little ashen as he sat slumped in his chair. His baseball cap was on backward, and an oversized sweatshirt and sweatpants hung from his frame. With his too-dark Risky Business sunglasses perched on his nose, he looked more like the Fresh Prince of Bel Air than the billionaire heir to his father’s boutique hotel dynasty, Witt Resorts.
“Wow, man, you look like shit,” I said to him, grinning as I slid into the leather chair and picked up the menu.
He grinned back. “Get this.” He held out his hands in front of him as if trying to frame the picture for me. “Twins. Chanel and Chaely. Both double E with legs…” he whistled, “that went on for miles.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. The lucky son of a bitch always had the most entertaining stories when I wasn’t with him, I had to wonder if he made them up. “And…?”
“You weren’t with me,” he said, leaning back in his chair and removing sunglasses to reveal two horribly bloodshot eyes. “So I had to take them both. At once.” He splayed a hand over his heart. “A tough job, but someone had to do it.”
I shook my head, still grinning at him. “You dog. What’d you do with them after?”
“That’s the best fucking part.” He looked around and leaned in conspiratorially. “They’re still upstairs.”
I scanned the menu, even though I always got the same thing… a gin rickey to drink and the New York sirloin with loaded baked potato. “How is that good? You don’t usually go for repeat engagements.”
He shrugged and gave me a smug smile. This was the main reason my first order of business when I took over the reins at Vaughn was to make him a board member. He could make those excruciatingly long meetings a lot more tolerable. “Yeah, well, getting soft in my old age.”
I smirked as the waiter came, and we placed our usual orders. I supposed only one ménage à trois in a weekend was kind of soft for the man who single-handedly ruled the Manhattan party scene. We were Harvard buddies and had always liked the same things: making money, fucking, and drinking to excess. Over the years, though, the making money thing had started to take over in importance. Sooner or later, you realized that partying each night was like being on a hamster wheel. It didn’t really get you much out of life.
At least, I’d realized that. Mentally, Gavin was still a twenty-one-year-old undergrad.
Not that I didn’t wish I’d been with him last night. It was sad that now it was enough just to live vicariously through my best friend. Because fuck it, I liked sex. And I’d been so nose-to-the-grindstone that… hell, when was the last time I’d been laid?
Shit. If Gavin was going soft, I’d already been reduced to pudding.
As if reading my mind, Gavin quirked an eyebrow at me. “So when the fuck was the last time you were laid, brother?”
I shrugged. “Last week.”
He snorted. “Hell no. Remember? Last week you had that thing for your father in Florida. You’re wound like a fucking top. I can always tell when you’ve been laid because it gets that stick out of your ass. But right now, it’s wedged so far up there we could hang you in a field to scare off crows, man.”
I ignored the verbal barb and let out a breath, scanning my mental calendar for the last time I did have any sort of fun. “Well. Last weekend. I don’t know. The last time we went out. You know. That redhead with the tits?”
It had been a good night. Not a good morning. She was every man’s fantasy when I took her to bed, and when she woke up, and I saw her in the light of day, I realized all the cracks in her façade. She was vacant and fake. Fake tits. Fake lips. Fake ass. A gallon of makeup smeared all over the pillowcase. Not that she needed that much. She was pretty without it, but it was something else that I couldn’t handle sober. Her laugh. She had an annoying laugh, like a buzz saw that sounded with each word I said. I’d politely shown her the door, deflecting when she hinted that she wanted my phone number.
Gavin laughed. “That was the last time? You realize that was three months ago?”
Fuck, was it?
Right. It had been right around when I’d taken over the reins at Vaughn. I thought we’d gone out to celebrate.
My drink came, and I downed half of it in the first gulp. I motioned to the waiter to bring me another because I was going to need it. Just the mention of sex had me horny. Hell, maybe it had been three months.
That was pathetic. I was in the prime of my life.
“Shit. I just don’t have the time these days,” I said ruefully. “I’ll make it up. This weekend.”
I snapped my fingers. This weekend I had a team-building retreat with R&D to oversee, to help them get their heads out of their asses.
“Next weekend,” I corrected.
“You realize you’ve been saying that for three months,” he said, starting on his fourth glass of water. “You need to cut the work shit and get yourself laid, boy. Otherwise, you’re going to end up like your dad.”
I knew it. My dad, always so nose to the grindstone that he’d had a heart attack at fifty, and two more before he hit sixty-five and retired. He had a shitty ticker, yes, but it was always in the back of my mind that I could work myself too hard and end up the same way. After all, I wasn’t a kid anymore.
“Right. But…” I scrubbed my hands over my face, thinking of it. Thinking of the shit I’d have to go through, just to get that lay. “I don’t know. I’m tired of the game.”
“The game?” He stared at me like I had three heads. “Shit, that’s the best part. What are you on?”
“You know. I’m tired of having to play nice with boring-as-shit socialites who only care about their fucking manicures. Taking a woman to bed and then being texted to hell and stalked before she gets the idea that I don’t fucking want a relationship. I just want an easy, no-strings fuck.”
He dropped his jaw for effect and looked around the place as if looking for someone to confirm I’d gone nuts. Gavin was a drama king. He always made his every expression bigger than it needed to be.
“What the hell? You’re Zachary Fucking Vaughn, Snack Cake King and all-around legendary lady killer. I’ve seen you in action. If a man like you has a hard time finding a fuck, then we’re all in trouble.” His voice was rising so loud that people at other tables were starting to look. “Last I heard, you had a cell phone contacts list full of booty calls at your disposal. What about that one girl, Ruth? The one with that ass?”
Yeah, once, I’d had at least a dozen women at the ready. When I’d been hot on the scene, anyway. I had a nice collection of college-aged women who just wanted to hop into bed and didn’t care about commitment. But gradually, they’d moved on. Most of them were married now, some with kids. “Ruth and her ass married a dentist.”
“Shit, really?”
I nodded. “Her wedding was last year. Shockingly, I was not invited to it.”
Our food came. I zeroed in on the steak, smothering it in steak sauce, then dropped the whole tub of butter and sour cream onto my baked potato. I’d double up my reps in the gym later.
Gavin snapped his fingers, making the older woman at the next table jump. “Hire an escort.”
I gave her a sorry look before piercing him with my stare. “What?”
He shrugged. “You have the funds, man. There are places that cater to rich assholes like you. Remember?”
Sure, I remembered. I used an escort service when I first became of age in college, when it was new and shiny. The women had been ridiculously hot. And yes, no-commitment. They were out of my bed with a smil
e as soon as I handed them the envelope with the cash. But these days, I didn’t need to pay for a woman. I had too many women throwing themselves at me to even consider such an idea.
“Well, you want no commitments. They’re no commitments,” Gavin said as if it was the most obvious answer in the world. “And I know this one place. The girls are at least five thousand dollars a night. And worth it in every respect. They. Are. Beautiful. Inhumanly so.”
He made a motion like he was squeezing two tits in front of him, and bit on his lower lip, jutting his tongue out suggestively. The old lady at the table next to us blanched. Seriously, I couldn’t take him anywhere.
“I don’t think so,” I said as I looked over his shoulder and saw two very scantily clad women, almost like identical bookends, bouncing toward us. They were both blonde, tall, and stuck out like very hot sore thumbs. They had every eye in the place on them. So, he hadn’t just made it up. Shit. I grinned. “I think your friends are here.”
He donned his sunglasses again, as if that would help him hide. It didn’t work. He turned around as they surrounded him, their hands running all over his broad shoulders and thick arms.
“Hey, girls,” he said, annoyed. “Can’t a man get some food with a friend in peace?”
“But we want you,” they said in unison, their hands running up and down his chest as they cooed close to his ears. One of them kissed his earlobe, sucking it between her thick pink lips. “Come on. We miss you so much.”
He shrugged and pushed away from the table. “It’s a tough job, but I’m up for it,” he said under his breath.
I mock saluted him. “Be all that you can be.”
The girls looked up at me. “Who’s your friend?” one said, licking her lips.
I shook my head. Orgies weren’t my thing.
He started to let himself be guided away by the bouncing women in their high heels, when he turned and whisper-shouted, “Escort. Get some, man. Do it for me.”
By the time they left the dining room, he already had his hands on their asses, and the old lady was staring daggers at me.