Good In Bed

by Bromberg, K

  He was one of the scions of the Crowne Petroleum dynasty, but everyone said it wasn’t the money that got him past all the rules. It was his charm and cunning. Which was really about money because charm and cunning weren’t free.

  I’d never counted on how handsome he was.

  Dressed for a demolition site in boots and jeans, Mitch and I approached a group of people looking at plans on the hood of a truck.

  “Mr. Crowne,” I said over the roar of the yellow bulldozer pushing the detritus of the old house. The structure had been a scrapper from the minute it was listed, but that wasn’t the point. The offense came from what Crowne was trying to replace it with.

  Byron Crowne looked up, and the second his eyes locked on mine, I slowed my stride. Even in the rugged setting, his shirt was crisp and his tie was centered. He towered over the men he spoke with, commanding and confident, copper-highlighted brown hair flicking in the breeze. He was thirty-five, six-three, and broad-shouldered with green eyes that seemed slightly larger than expected. They gave the illusion of sincerity and trustworthiness, contrasted by the snide curve of his mouth. He was a mixed message. A loophole in a rock-solid contract. The coexistence of lies and truths.

  He was terrible. I knew that. But he’d cast a spell over me without saying a word.

  “Yes?” he said, glancing at Mitch, who stood behind me. The woman and two men he was speaking to parted like the Sea of Reeds.

  “My name is Olivia Monroe,” I said. “And I’m from the Environmental Protection Fund.”

  His eyebrows were full and manly, low over his eyes, and when one arched, the jade in his eyes shot from the shadows. His mouth crooked on the left when he smiled.

  “Nice to meet you.” He didn’t mean it.

  “It’s come to our attention that the northwest corner of your proposed structure encroaches on the proposed boundary of the Stone Canyon Creek Preserve.”

  “Creek?” He looked down the hill.

  The drought had left a dry ditch where the creek had been, but he didn’t comment on that. He didn’t need to.

  “Stone Canyon Creek is coming under review for wildlife protection by the Board of Supervisors. You can’t build on it without impact statements. Your permits are illegal.”

  “You’re a lawyer?”

  “Yes, and I—”

  “They’re making them more attractive every year, aren’t they?”

  He was trying to disarm me, and it would have worked on anyone else. I’d been brought up to take a compliment separate from inappropriate context.

  “We’re filing a temporary restraining order on your permits, and we’ll get it,” I said, chin high. “If you stop construction now, revise the footprint, and file the correct impact reports, you can avoid years in court, and you can still pitch it as bordering the preserve.”

  “I’ll have an expedited review through in a week.”

  “And I’ll stop it.”

  He laughed to himself and stepped closer to me. “Olivia Monroe. You’re related to Rhonda Monroe?”

  “She’s my mother.”

  “You have her eyes.”

  My mother had been a model, so the compliment wasn’t lost on me. No. The only thing lost was my senses. They were melting like an ice cube in the July sun, dripping into the well of my pelvis, where he was causing an inexplicable, unwanted arousal.

  “And you have the inappropriate sense of entitlement of every man who ever tried to stop me.”

  “Mister Crowne,” Mitch cut in, “we’re here to give you notice—”

  “Why are you here?” he asked, looking at me.

  The air between us warmed, expanding until it pressed against my chest.

  “To save both of us trouble.”

  “You’re clocking billable hours to protect a creek that doesn’t exist anymore. That flavor of trouble is pretty profitable for you.”

  “I’m not in it for the money, Mr. Crowne.” Somehow, I’d been cornered into defending myself when he was the one who should have been offering apologies and promising to rectify his wrongs.

  “I’m sure,” he said. “File your complaint. We’ll find out who should be issuing warnings.”

  Any response I made would have cemented my position as the underdog. The likely casualty of his dominance. David to his Goliath. I discarded them all and nodded once. “This courtesy won’t be repeated.”

  “‘Courtesy is only a thin veneer on the general selfishness.’” He quoted Balzac, looking me up and down.

  Even though the sun was hot, my skin felt chilled and exposed. People were looking, and I felt as if he’d stripped me bare with a few words.

  “Good day, Mr. Crowne.”

  “Ms. Monroe.”

  How could I walk away when I was locked in place by the way his attention made my mouth dry and my panties wet?

  A pressure on my elbow pulled me out of the moment. Mitch, letting me know it was time to go. I spun on the heel of my boot and walked back to the car. When I opened the door to get in, I saw Byron Crowne standing in the same spot with the sky as a background, watching me go.

  * * *

  “‘Courtesy is only a thin veneer on the general selfishness,’” I said. “Does he even know what that means? And the way he questioned whether I was in it for the money. Ugh.”

  “Guys like him…” Brown coils of hair danced across Emilio’s forehead when he shook his head. He kept his blue eyes on the roux, his thin face turned down, tapered fingers handling the wooden spoon the way a conductor handles his baton. “They can’t understand that some things aren’t about money.”

  We were in his little one-bedroom bungalow in West Hollywood. His family had come from Naples two generations before. They spoke Italian in their house in Long Beach and kept up Catholic traditions. Yet they’d realized he was gay from a young age, embraced his boyfriends, and made no bones about loving him. Their only complaint was his lack of children, and we were working on that.

  “He has more than he can spend,” I said. “It’s about power. Dominance. Leaving his mark on the entire city.”

  The idea of it was ugly. Gross. Animalistic. Shameful.

  Emilio and I had met eight years before, when I was interning for the City of Los Angeles and his first restaurant had come under environmental scrutiny. He’d been more affable about it than Crowne. After he complied, he invited me in for a private dinner. That was when he discovered my special talent. I could taste what was hidden to most people.

  “And what are you in it for?” He scraped the roux into a saucepot.

  “The environment,” I said.

  “You’d do more for the environment if you took the bus to work,” he said.

  He was right. I cared about the environment, but I fought for it because it was where I’d landed and I was good at it. Passion was optional.

  “I recycle.”

  “Alert the media. We have an activist here.”

  “Are we arguing? Because I’m hungry enough to take your balls off.”

  His second restaurant was named after his grandmother, Amelia. It was opening soon. Most nights, he was there, perfecting the menu, and when he wasn’t, he cooked things for me to try. I loved it because my “supertasting” was unrelated to anything else in my life.

  “You need my balls.” He put down the pan and stirred what was in the pot. “Speaking of… how did it go this morning?”

  Emilio’s DNA had been in the syringe Luciana had administered. He was going to be the biological father of my child. Our agreement was cast in legalese and notarizations. He wasn’t interested in fatherhood any more than I was interested in having a partner in parenthood. He’d demanded unclehood, and that was something I could give him.

  “Uncomfortable, but…” I twisted two fingers and held them up. “Fingers crossed.”

  “Fingers crossed he looks like you.”

  “He?”

  “I’m avoiding saying ‘it.’ Can you grab me the cheese?”

  I slid off the b
arstool and got him the bowl of shredded cheese.

  “He thinks he’s unstoppable,” I said.

  “The baby? That’s a good sign, no?”

  “Crowne. The retrofit in Culver City was a joke, and the Board of Supervisors signed off on it like nothing mattered. So, Byron Crowne’s ego is propped up with another win.”

  “Ah,” Emilio said, stirring in the cheese. “It’s the winning.”

  “Yeah. He won because I wasn’t on the other side of the table. Again. It’s a sickening habit I’m going to break.”

  “You sure you’re not punching above your weight?”

  “You really don’t like your balls.”

  “I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

  “You won’t.”

  I’d never lost a case, and I was sure Byron Crowne wouldn’t be any different.

  But at night, under the covers, I let him win.

  In the dim zone between reality and dreams, where no one could see, I let him into a fantasy.

  I sat at a bar in a short silk dress I had in my closet. It was navy blue with cap sleeves and hugged my body just enough to confuse business and pleasure. I wore it to official functions with pearls and my red-soled stilettos, letting one dangle off my toes when I crossed my legs.

  Fantasy Byron sat on the next stool. Boldly, he put his hand on my knee, uncrossed it, and pushed my legs open. The shoe fell off. I tried to close my legs, but he was strong, and when he forced them open anyway, a shot of pleasure ran through my body. I let him push his hand under my skirt to my soaked panties and press his thumb against my clit as he said, “Courtesy once is courtesy enough.”

  Chapter 2

  OLIVIA

  “Hold please,” my legal assistant, Amara, said into the phone as I approached her desk.

  “Good morning, Amara.”

  “Byron Crowne on four.”

  My fingers tingled to pick it up. Almost two weeks after our restraining order was filed, his dirt-moving machines were quiet. Our respective teams had motions flying back and forth. He had no reason to call me.

  “He wouldn’t say what it was about,” Amara added. “Should I tell him to call back?”

  “No. I’ll take it now.”

  I went into my tiny office and closed the door. My hand hovered over the flashing light for line four. I was still gripping my mail in the other hand as I breathed in confidence and exhaled the worry that he’d disarm me again.

  “Stop,” I whispered to myself, forcing the first nonsexual thing I could think of into my mind. The beach. The desk blotter. Cheese sauce. Sperm-filled syringes. I hit the button and picked up the receiver.

  “Ms. Monroe,” he said before I could utter a greeting.

  I’d expected his secretary, and his voice stunned me into silence. Without the background noise of the wind and the bulldozer, the sound of his voice was calibrated to cut right into the more guarded parts of me.

  “Ms. Monroe?”

  “Mr. Crowne,” I said with a tone so icy I sounded angry. I wasn’t. I was situated exactly between excitement and shock, with enough control to suppress both into clipped syllables.

  “I want to meet with you.”

  Not a question. A honey-dipped statement of desire meant to be immediately satisfied.

  “You have lawyers. Talk to them about the motion I just filed. Meeting with opposing counsel is completely inappropriate.”

  “Eight at the M Hotel bar.”

  As if he hadn’t even heard me. Not that I’d denied him. I needed to lead with something more definite. “Meeting you is inappropriate as I’m currently litigating against you.”

  Not to mention having to explain why I was out with such a despicable man. But there was no reason to get personal. Not yet.

  “And you can leave the lackey at the office.” He acted as if I hadn’t refused him.

  “Mitch Rowland?”

  “Whatever his name is.” In my mind, I could see him wave away the detail.

  In four lines, I’d exasperated him. He hadn’t counted on this phone call taking so long. I kind of enjoyed irritating him.

  “We have nothing to discuss in a hotel bar, Mr. Crowne.”

  “Ms. Monroe, you’re thirty-two years old. Now might be a good time to get over yourself.”

  His words snapped me out of the soft, lavender fog he’d led me into where my body tingled and my attention swirled around his voice even as I denied him what he wanted.

  “I’ll work on that.”

  I hung up before he could say another word.

  That felt good. Really good.

  Still standing at my desk, I pulled out the chair to start my day. The intercom beeped.

  “Yes, Amara?”

  “Mr. Crowne’s on three.”

  “Tell him I’m out.”

  “We’re in the conference room at eight thirty.”

  “On it.”

  I gathered my things and left my office before I surrendered to my weakness and picked up Byron Crowne’s call.

  * * *

  “What did he want exactly?” Mitch asked, tapping the eraser side of his pencil on his legal pad. We were early for the meeting, so I’d told him about the call.

  “To meet me at a hotel bar.”

  “You’re joking.”

  “Do I joke?”

  “You do not.” He balanced the eraser on the yellow pad, slid his fingers down the pencil, and pivoted it at the end, then pressed the point to the paper, slid his fingers down the shaft, pivoted, and started the process over.

  “I have no clue what he wanted.”

  “At a hotel bar?” He tossed the pencil. “He wants to seduce you so he can build that monstrosity.”

  “I don’t think he’s that simple.”

  “You’re giving him a lot of credit.”

  “It’s a mistake to underestimate your opponent.”

  He nodded. That had been his handicap as a litigator. Losing his need to fight before he’d won. I fought to the end, never assuming the opposition was dead until I had their beating heart in my hand.

  “I should go with you,” Mitch said.

  “I didn’t say I was going.” I checked my watch. “He’ll tell me what he wants before it gets that far.”

  “You need to tell Kimberly. His attorneys. Everyone.”

  “I will.”

  “You should meet him. Let him make his move.”

  Our other lawyers filed in for the morning meeting. The conversation with Mitch was over for now.

  Entrapping Crowne wasn’t how I wanted to play it. I won by playing fair, and I won with my pride intact. If I met him in a hotel bar, I couldn’t guarantee I’d leave without doing something I’d regret the next morning.

  * * *

  One line, like a pink middle finger in a sea of urine, telling me to fuck off.

  I put the piss stick in the garbage and got off the toilet.

  Dr. Galang would want a blood test, but it didn’t matter. One line was one line. The third time wasn’t the charm. It was just the third failure.

  I knew what I wanted, what I didn’t want, and what I needed.

  Babies had always melted my heart, but it wasn’t until my younger sister, Isabelle, had her first daughter that my confidence that it would happen for me eventually turned into a sense of urgency. I chalked it up to some biological affliction I should ignore, but when Shane and I had broken up, I couldn’t pretend it was just hormones anymore. My boyfriend of three years went off with an older woman, and I didn’t care. Not about him, his companionship, or the mere adequacy of his dick. I wasn’t disappointed that I wouldn’t have to listen to him snore for the rest of my life. I was crushed that I’d have to start over at thirty-one with a shrinking window of fertility.

  I didn’t need a man to love me, and I didn’t want a partner. My mother had done it alone, and I could too. I wanted a baby. Hopefully two. I wanted to love them with everything I had, raise them carefully. Give them tools to build their own lives. I wanted t
o keep them safe for as long as I could, then stand back to watch who they became.

  But. Again. One line.

  I knew this didn’t make me a failure as a woman. I was feminine and strong. Repeating that truth in my head over and over did nothing to shake the feeling that I was broken. Perfectly healthy by all medical measures but somehow malfunctioning in my most delicate places. I’d cast those places in iron to get through law school, through the assumptions that a woman wasn’t the right person to stand up against the powerful, through years of demeaning comments and sexual harassment.

  I’d locked my womanhood away. Now nothing gentle or vulnerable could get through.

  None of that was true, but it was, because when I tried to cry about it, I couldn’t.

  Chapter 3

  OLIVIA

  “I’m sorry I’m late,” Isabelle said when I saw her in the lobby of the Stock Hotel. “Leo couldn’t get Sarah down, and I had to jump in.”

  “It’s not a problem.” Wearing my navy silk dress and black stilettos as if I’d dressed for a fantasy that wouldn’t come true, we entered the elevator.

  “Do I look all right?” She had our father’s thick, dark hair and deep-set brown eyes and our mother’s long limbs. The plain, black dress and heels were fine, but her hair was falling out of her twist. She had on too much eyeshadow and not enough blush, as if she’d lost her sense of what she should look like when she went out.

  “You look great.”

  “It’s nice to get out.”

  “Mom does sponsorship to get you out of the house once a year.”

  The doors opened to the rooftop bar of the Stock Hotel, a showcase of colorful cushions, endangered wood, and conversation-appropriate music. I gave our names to the woman with the clipboard for the Mothers Against Gun Violence event.

  “How is Leo?” I refused a glass of champagne from a waiter’s tray. “Did he take his test yet?”

  Her husband was an interior decorator and studying for his architectural licensure test.