“He didn’t give me much choice.”
“I know you wanted that promotion, but going to his competitor seems extreme.” Taking a sip of her old-fashioned, she pins me with the kind of sorry smile that makes me certain I’m making the best decision for me.
“Dad picked Marsh over me. He picked my fiancé over me—his daughter. His flesh and blood.”
“I know that sucks, babe. And believe me, I’m fucking livid for you, but it all feels like so much. You’re walking away from Monroe Pub and Marsh…”
The espresso martini I’m sucking down burns a little more with the anger blazing in the pit of my stomach. “I’m not walking away from Monroe. I am a Monroe—it’s impossible to walk away from my name. I have a plan, and in the end, I’ll be sitting right where I should be…heading my family’s company.”
“And Marsh?”
“Marsh can go to hell. He should never have accepted that promotion. He knew what it meant to me…what it means…and he still took it.” Yeah, the asshole can rot when I’m done. “He betrayed me.”
Raising her hand at one of the waiters, she indicates for him to bring us another round of drinks. “Is CPM going to make you happy again?”
I think of my new job at Coldwell Press & Media, and I smile. “Yes, it’s going to make me happier because in spite of all this, I am happy.”
“You’re always happy.”
“Silver linings, Lace,” I remind her with a chuckle.
The waiter returns with his shirt half-unbuttoned so that his washboard abs are on show, and damn, he’s hot. The kind of hot that’s pleasant to look at but that invariably makes you feel self-conscious.
“Thanks,” she croons at the besotted guy, batting her golden eyes while she brushes through her copper curls.
“Can I get you anything else?”
“No, this will be all…for now.”
After the waiter walks away, she holds up her drink and sings, “Here’s to kicking ass and getting laid.”
“Getting laid?” I almost spit my martini.
It’s only been a few weeks since I threw my thirty-three-carat engagement ring at my fiancé’s smug face, and even if he is an asshole, I haven’t thought about moving on.
“Babe, this is the best time to get out there and make the most out of life. You’re twenty-nine, Ava, have some fun. Fuck and live a little.”
“Fuck and live a little?”
“Cheers to that!” Lacie touches her glass to mine and without ceremony finishes her drink.
We chat about everything and nothing while she keeps a lookout. The waiter comes back a few times with fresh drinks. We’re finishing up the last round when her phone starts going crazy.
“I’ll go get another round,” I tell her as she answers it.
“I won’t be long.”
“It’s okay,” I assure her while I readjust my dress. It’s a pointless task because as I stand, the low back cowls lower, and I feel the AC flutter the golden ivory silk over my ass.
It’s one of Lacie’s good-time dresses—the ones she wears after a breakup and she wants to forget the asshole.
Shouldering my miniature Chanel purse, I head for the bar, trying not to flash my goods. This dress is indecently short and barely covers my boobs.
“Don’t forget the shooters,” she calls behind me.
Pulling up to the bar behind a group of women, I check my own phone. There’s nothing. No surprise given I’ve upset my family. It’s the only remorse I hold over my decision.
It takes the group a while to decide on what they’re drinking. The straight vodka shots they shoot back have them making a choky, giggling scene.
Who even shoots vodka outside of college?
“God help us all.” I look up toward the low, rumbling voice and pause.
Dark eyes peer down on me with a chiseled, dark stubble-framed pout. Heat flares high on my cheeks, and all I can hear over the heavy suggestive beat of the music is my speeding heart.
“Yeah,” I manage to croak with a shake of my head.
What is wrong with me?
The party girls move along with their fruity concoctions waving in the air. I’m not sure what to do. Do I let him go ahead of me? Do I push forward?
Before I can decide, a large, warm hand hovers over the base of my spine. The radiating heat causes goose bumps to prickle up my back, setting the roots of my hair ablaze with awareness.
Without touching me the handsome stranger guides me forward. There’s enough space for him to stand beside me at the bar, but he stays angled behind me so his elbow perches on the bar as he leans forward, his shoulder touching my shoulder blade.
At five foot nine, I’m tall, but he is taller. And when he crouches to my level, his thigh tucks to the back of mine, below my ass, like he’s ready to catch me if my legs give.
“What are you drinking?” Fire licks at my insides at the cool gravel of his voice.
I’m in a mute stupor when a bartender stops in front of us. “Same again?” he asks, looking between the two of us before he settles on the man beside me.
Readjusting himself, Mr. Dark and Handsome skims his body across mine so that he’s leaning on the bar sideways. Taller and broader, he looks down on me.
“Uhhh, yes—” I take a deep breath. “—please. Umm…an espresso martini, an old-fashioned and…” I sigh, embarrassed after his remark at the other women. “And six tequilas. Orange instead of lime, please.”
I don’t even have to look to know that Mr. D and H is assessing my order.
“Celebrating?”
Turning to him, I stagger back a little, bumping into the guy on my other side.
“Sorry,” I apologize over my shoulder before stepping forward again. My cheeks are burning so red that my vision is blurred around the edges.
Dark eyes crinkle at the corners which is odd because he doesn’t look much older than me. But yet, there’s something about him that makes me feel small and young and like he could wolf me down without even having to chew.
With his eyes smoldering into mine, I’m entirely transfixed. I have to force myself to look the other way. Lacie’s pacing with her phone to her ear, her free hand waving about like she’s schooling some poor bastard. When she finds me, she nods at the stranger beside me and wiggles on the spot.
I can’t ask him to dance.
“Do it!” she mouths before carrying on with her phone call.
A low, rumbling laugh has me turning back to the man giving me his attention.
“We’ll have an espresso martini.” Mr. D and H gestures at the bartender, who’s only just pouring the tequilas. “Glenfiddich 50—no ice—and two tequilas: one orange and one lime.”
Gaze narrowing on mine, he comes closer and asks, “Would you like anything else? Water maybe?”
With his proximity all I can see is his mouth. My fingers itch to scratch at his thick stubble, and when he breathes out, I devour his expelled breath greedily—almost choking on the smoked oaky air.
“That’s all.”
A moment goes by where I take him in. I roam my sight over the sharp contours of his face, sculpted lips, and perfect Roman nose. There’s a kind of familiar kindling in my mind, but I don’t know if it’s the alcohol or the dim lights…I can’t put my finger what it is.
“Have we met before?”
Chuckling, he hands me one of the tequila shooters. The orange slice sits on the thickly salt-crusted rim.
“It’s New York—there’s no such thing as strangers. You’ve either been face-to-face or in the same room as a person a handful of times before you actually meet them.” Raising his own shot, he chinks it to mine, watching while I lick across the rim of my glass. He does the same, and we both shoot the warming tart liquid.
Sucking the remainder of the salt and lime from his lips, he hums before he says, “Nice to meet you…”
“Lacie,” I blurt.
I’m not sure why I lie, but I do, and I don’t feel in the least terrible ab
out it. In fact, the thought of spending time with this man without him knowing who I am thrills me. Maybe it’s the aftereffect of the tequila, but my insides fizz and my core pulses with the quirk of his brow.
Reaching across the narrowing space between us, he swipes his thumb down the fullest part of my lip to my chin. Without removing his heated gaze from mine, he takes it to his mouth and sucks the side of it.
“Henry.” Handing me the espresso martini, he takes his own drink, and then just as he guided me to the bar before, he sweeps me across the busy bar to a glass-ensconced corner.
The view is spectacular. Overlooking a dark Central Park, the lights on the other side appear like fairy lights suspended from the black sky. And still, it’s not enough to hold my attention. I just want to look at Henry.
Henry.
Something about the name doesn’t seem right. Like it doesn’t fit him. Wrong almost, but then the old regality of it makes sense. Everything about him is majestic—even the prurient actions. Like licking his thumb after touching me. Or the way his body molds mine without physically touching me.
“What’s your story, Lacie?” The lull of my friend’s name on his lips makes me regret not giving him mine. I’m jealous of the way the two syllables drip with sex and seduction.
I’m not sure whether he truly is trying to seduce me, but if he is, it’s working. I’m primed and ready.
Ask him to dance.
Blinking back at him, I swallow down the request for a dance, and instead I ask, “My story?”
“Why is a woman like you drinking in a bar filled with girls chasing fame and money?” The luring depth of his onyx stare traps me in a speechless second.
“Celebrating.”
“Let me guess…” he breathes, coming closer. “A promotion?”
There’s a cryptic tilt to his crooked grin that’s wicked. Almost like he already knows all the shit that’s happened the last month and his question is but a way to keep me talking.
“Actually, no. Not a promotion. My asshole fiancé stole that from me.”
Henry takes my drink and sits it on the high table along with his. “He’s a sack of shit, and you probably deserve better.”
“Probably?” Pressing closer to him, I rock back on my heels so I can see his full face. And again, that bolt of familiarity shoots straight through me. Twisting my insides, lighting my senses until every single one of my pores burns and the urge to touch him is impossible to resist.
I push my bloodred manicured finger into his chest, swallowing down the gasp that bubbles up my throat from the smallest of touches.
“If I knew you better, I would say he’s not only an asshole—”
“And a sack of shit.” I sway a little with the way my legs turn to Jell-O when his hands bracket my hips.
“And a sack of shit, but he’s clearly stupid. Now, Lacie.” He licks his lips like the name on them makes him hungry. “You don’t strike me as a stupid woman, or a woman who humors stupidity. So, I’d say he did you a favor.”
“He did,” I utter when he pulls me flush to him.
Beneath his black shirt and jeans, his body is hard, and I really want to become acquainted with it in a way that I have never really wanted before. Not even with Marsh.
Our chests press together with every breath, rubbing and squeezing until my nipples are furled so tight that the friction between us aches.
“You can have better,” he says, looking down on me, his focus sweeping from my face to my boobs. The shadows of his face darken, and at the same time as his hands round to the top my ass, I roll onto my toes.
“Are you better, Henry?” Tilting my face to within a breath from his, I melt into him.
Henry swipes his tongue along his bottom lip with a smirk, and the humid heat of it clings to the contours of my mouth like static pulling us together.
“Are you going to ask me to dance?”
“You look like the kind of man that likes to control the situation.”
“Actually, I couldn’t give a fuck about control.” I’m momentarily thrown back by his remark, and my stare darts from his glistening lips to his eyes. Maybe he’s telling the truth, but the way his eyes bore into mine…it doesn’t add up.
I’d ask, but the thrill is in the mystery and the knowledge that after tonight and whatever this is, I may never see him again. He’ll never know who I am. This will be a fun blip in my otherwise tame life.
Turning in his arms, I press my back to his front, tilting my head on his shoulder so that my lips graze the line of his jaw as I tell him, “Let’s dance.”
Chapter Two
AVA
The traffic is a disaster. It’s my first day, and I can’t be tardy.
“This cannot be happening,” I grit out, taking out enough cash to cover the cab fare and tip. I can see the office tower a couple of blocks away, and it would take me less time to rush in my heels than sit here agonizing over my first impression.
“I’ll walk from here,” I tell the driver, handing him the money before I get out.
It takes all of seven minutes, groaning lungs and a sore shoulder from running into every possible person. Pulling my security card out, I freeze as a familiar scent throws me back to last night. Amber and freshly chopped wood. Like sap, the scent sticks to my senses. I’m looking around, but apart from the throbbing ache between my thighs…there’s nothing.
Get your shit together! I tell myself as I go through the barriers and straight to the elevators. I keep telling it to myself in the one of the elevator’s packed corners. Just when I think we’re done and the doors are about to close, two guys press inside. Everyone shuffles closer together as one walks in backward, laughing at whatever the other has said.
That deep laugh…
“I hope you know what you’re doing.” The one facing me looks up, and his eyes narrow before he smiles.
“Sometimes if you want the job done right, you got to do it yourself.”
That voice…
“I bet it was a hardship.” The guy smiling at me cocks his head to the side like he’s trying to see me through the crowd or over them. “A real hardship.”
The elevator fails to stop at all the floors people have requested, shooting right to the top where the two men get out. Luckily, I’m only two floors down and next to get out.
Claude, the HR woman I’ve been dealing with since signing my contract, is waiting for me at the front desk. With the exception of the glass walls and floor-to-ceiling windows, the place is a polished concrete box. Hard and cold with the letters CPM frosted over most of the partitioning glass and Coldwell Press emblazoned across the front desk in a luminous orange hue that is the only focus of the large space.
“Miss Monroe!” The older woman holds out her hand, already walking ahead before I shake it.
“Please, call me Ava.”
“We’re running a little behind this morning. We had an issue with the servers, and it caused havoc. I wanted to show you around properly, but I won’t have time. So, it will be this floor for now, and when we have the weekly meeting later, I’ll show you around the meeting rooms and executive floor.”
I keep following and absorbing the things she points out around the floor.
“Don’t worry, it’s a debrief of what’s on the agenda. The management like to know the pipeline.”
I’m not worried. I’m more than prepared.
“Makes sense.”
Claude introduces me to the other editors—all men, of course—and to the team of assistants that keep this floor running. Before I know it, the entire day has flown by with IT taking up a good portion of my morning and lunch.
It’s so quiet here compared to the bustle at Monroe where the editors aren’t on a floor of their own.
Shuffling the papers and files around my desk, I try to ignore the tight squeeze of my heart. Leaving Monroe wasn’t easy. I miss it terribly, but I needed to make this move. Even if to merely prove to myself that in spite of what happened, I�
��m as good as I believe myself to be.
“Knock, knock!” I look up to find one of the other editors leaning into my open doorway. “Owen…in case you’ve forgotten.”
“Hi, Owen.”
“So, you ready for the meeting?” He leans on the edge of the glass wall. “Even if you have shit, you always take something, or Coldwell will chew your ass.”
“I have something.” I gather the files I worked on over the last couple of weeks. I knew I wouldn’t be able to walk through the door empty-handed.
“Ooooh,” he croons with a high-pitched whistle as I round my desk and start for the elevators. “And here I thought you were the token female of the floor.” Owen shoulders me. His hand wraps around me, and oddly I don’t find it too much too soon.
“Token female?”
“Yeah, they have me—the token queer—and they used to have Marcella—the token female slash exec slut.”
We head up to the top floor.
“Rumor has it she was banging one of the gods and it went sour.” Shrugging, he exits the elevator, and I follow him past the front desk of this floor. It’s identical to ours, except all the glass is frosted with the company logo etched in orange.
“Rumor has…” He nods me forward with him as he walks through the floor like it’s ours. “Rumor has it that you jumped ship because Monroe is sinking.”
What?
“I’m not judging,” he adds. “I would too.”
“I didn’t jump ship; I made a career decision…for me.” I add that last bit because rumors are worse than boils on the ass…or herpes. “And Monroe is doing fine.”
“Transparency is the foundation here, Ava.”
“You realize I’ve had my interview and got the job, right?”
“Yeah, but I don’t get why you’d leave your house for ours if it is fine.”
“I left because I’d capped out and I want more.”
We sit on one side of the long boardroom. While Owen goes about spreading his stack of manuscripts and files, I leave mine closed in front of me with my sheet of notes sitting on top.
Forbidden: A Romance Anthology Page 28