I drop the paper towel on the counter and move past him and to my desk. I steal a piece of paper from the printer and sit down.
drop your pants.
turn around.
let me see you.
*Dress your body in the finest lingerie on Earth.
*Your body is art. Dress it that way. Let it shine. sparkle.
“What are you doing?” His hand rests on the desk, and he leans forward, looking at the page. I watch his hand, the flex of minute muscles, the strong and beautiful lines of his fingers. The bare ring finger, the odd look of his wrist without a watch.
I look back to the page, the idea still gaining momentum in my mind. “I don’t know yet. I think I have an idea for a new ad strategy.”
“We don’t have the money for ads.” He pushes off the table, the words clipped, and I can feel the disappointment radiating off him.
I turn in my chair and watch him walk away. It’s not that difficult of an activity, not when he’s in just underwear, his ass displayed to perfection, the lines of his back lean and strong. He needs to put on more clothes. If Craig’s don’t fit him, he can put the bathrobe back on. Or get under the sheets. I can’t possibly come up with a winning strategy while he saunters around practically naked. “We’ll find the money.”
He doesn’t turn. “You’ve seen the balance sheets. We’re barely making payroll.”
“Borrow it.”
I watch as his hands clench into fists, then relax. “I’m leveraged as much as I can be.”
“Then we’ll wait until we have some profitable quarters. We will be profitable.” I believe the words, and if he can’t hear that in my voice, he’s an idiot. “Don’t worry,” I add. The poor man. Talk about a rough day. I think of Craig, who is most definitely in bed right now, his noise machine on, the sound of crashing waves floating through his seventy-one-degree bedroom.
“I know advertising isn’t my department, but I can design a line around this concept. If—”
“We can discuss it Monday.” There is a clip in his tone that I have heard before, the subject closed, and, for a moment, I don’t see his bare body or the tight fit of the underwear. For a moment, I only see defeat.
* * *
I threaten Trey with eviction, and he finally puts on the robe, balking at the idea of lying down in the makeshift bed. “I’m not having you tuck me in,” he complains. “I’m a grown man.” He sits at the other end of the couch, stretching his legs out, his bare feet against the rug.
“I’m not tucking you in,” I argue. “I’m just trying to get you to be comfortable.”
“I’m not going to be comfortable lying down, covered in blankets, while you do laundry. It feels awkward.”
I pause, mid-fold. Maybe now isn’t the time to fold my towels. Maybe now is the time to excuse myself and let the man sleep. He is right. This should be awkward, only it doesn’t feel that way to me. It feels, for the first time since I’ve met him, natural and relaxed. “I don’t feel awkward,” I say, completing the trifold action and neatly stacking the towel into the basket. “Hasn’t anyone ever taken care of you? Just think of me as—”
“STOP.” He holds up a hand. “You’re about to ruin all of my future fantasies about you.”
“Ha.” I roll my eyes. “Little chance of that.” I frown at him. “Besides, you aren’t supposed to have fantasies about me, or anyone else at Marks. In case you missed the memo, the CEO is a real dick about fraternization.” I smirk at the thought of his last all-company email, one that spanned three pages, all devoted to ensuring that our hands are kept to ourselves, and our minds are clear of the gutter. Which had been humorous, in a way, since the company is all about sex and seduction.
“You’re confusing the rules. I’m allowed to have fantasies; I’m just not allowed to act on them.” He crosses his arms over his chest and rests his head against the back of the couch, his eyes closing, as if he hasn’t just delivered a baby of ridiculous proportions.
That’s the problem with beautiful men. They don’t know their impact; they don’t realize how a casually tossed out thought can be devoured, obsessed over, life-changing. He’s lucky that I’ve known men like him before, I’ve friended them, I understand the careless way they wield their looks, their flirtatious comments that mean nothing. He is on the verge of sleep, and there was less stock in that statement than there is energy in his body.
“Are you happy, Kate?” The question is mumbled, his eyes still closed.
I consider my answer, doing a quiet self-assessment of the key factors (love, health, quality of life = all acceptable). Acceptable. Does acceptability equal happiness? I think it does. I think, for a woman in her mid-thirties, happiness is more about the lack of negatives. And right now, my list of negatives is pretty short. “I am. Are you?”
He doesn’t say anything. A full minute passes, then his hand falls limply from the couch arm, and the muscles in his face go slack.
I finish folding the laundry in silence, my mind still stuck on his question.
Am I happy?
Chapter 8
HIM
The touch on my shoulder is soft, then increasingly incessant—a press that is becoming more annoying than nurturing. It stops, then someone lifts my ankles and pulls slightly. I open my eyes and watch Kate Martin attempt to pull an end table underneath my feet. “What are you doing?” I say, and she jumps slightly, the room dark, most of her in the shadows.
“You need to lie down,” she whispers.
I turn my head and look at the bed she made, the corner of a blanket turned back, ready for me. I move slowly, my feet filled with lead, my neck sore, and roll onto my back, the pillows unbelievably soft. She moves over me, her hair soft against my chest, a faint scent of perfume tickling the edges of my senses. She pulls a blanket over me, and I open my mouth to thank her, but I can’t get the words out before everything fades away.
If this moment was lingerie, it’d be our Shameless Robe, soft and warm to the touch, the sort of thing that you pull on and never take off.
Chapter 9
HER
“Of course you’re happy.” Mom pops pistachios in the seasoned manner of a competitive eater, her hands flying from the bowl to her mouth to the trash, all in perfect harmony. Around her neck, a neck massager purrs. “Why wouldn’t you be happy?”
“You’re not happy,” Jess interjects, sitting in the chair next to Mom, her shoulders shuddering as the massage chair tortures her poor back fat to death. “No one who asks themselves that question is happy.”
“Jess, are you happy?” Mom pauses, a pistachio shell before her lips, and peers at her youngest daughter.
“Meh.” Jess mashes a button on the remote, and her feet slowly lift, her head tilting back. “This, though. This could make me happy. Kate, spend all of that money you’re making and get me this for Christmas.”
“She’s not getting you a massaging chair for Christmas,” Mom intones, her fingers digging into her purse and coming up with a fresh handful of nuts. “She’s got to save her money for the wedding.”
“Actually, I’m not getting you that chair because it’s six thousand dollars,” I say, leaning forward and looking at the black contraption currently surrounding my feet. “Did this thing hurt when you guys did it? I think it’s broken. It’s crushing my toes.”
“That’s normal,” Mom says, with the air of a seasoned Brookstone shopper. “I think it wakes up your blood vessels or something like that.”
“Excuse me?” We all turn to the man, a store employee who clutches a clipboard in one hand. “You can’t eat in here.”
“Sure I can.” Mom defiantly stuffs two nuts past her coral-red lips. “John told me I could.”
He sighs. “No one named John works here.”
Jess meets my eyes, and I look at my feet to hide my smile. Poor guy.
“I didn’t say John!” she says indignantly. “I said Jim. Or was it Jeff?” She waves a hand dismissively and a pistachio escapes,
flying toward a display of drones. “Something like that. A tall guy.” She sniffs. “With glasses.”
“There’s no eating in here,” he repeats. “I’ll have to ask you to leave.”
“I’ve got thirteen minutes left,” Jess pipes up, holding a remote almost the size of my head. “We can’t le-le-leave-ve-ve yet-et-et-et.” The last words of her sentence reverberate out of her, her chin shaking as the chair starts that sort of karate chopping motion that masseuses all love.
“Jacob said I could eat in here!” Mom insists, and I reach down and turn off the foot massager. Beside me, a little girl stops, her finger crawling up her right nostril as she stares at my mother. Move along, little lady. Nothing to see here. My mental urging has little effect. She plops down on the floor, and I meet Jess’s eyes. Let’s go, I mouth.
It is hard to tell, with all the shuddering of her body, but I think she nods.
“Does this make you happy?” Mom stands, and the cord rips out of the neck massager, the soothing purr gone. “Taking food out of little old ladies’ mouths?” The man reaches for her arm, and she snatches it away, her cup full of pistachio shells swinging through the air, a rainfall of white half-moons cascading down.
My eyes catch the little girl’s, and she grins, showing a few missing teeth.
* * *
“So anyway, as of last month, I’m banned from Brookstone.” I reach over and turn on the heated seats, my elbow brushing against Trey’s.
Craig, had I told him this story, which I did not, would have been appalled. Trey merely grins. “Any Brookstone? Or just the one in Fashion Square?”
I pause. “I’m not sure. Maybe just that one.”
“So you’re not fully a bad girl. Just in Westfield.”
“Well… yes.” I smile. “But again, that was all my mother’s fault. I was completely innocent.”
“I’d rather picture you as a rebel.” He reaches forward and starts the navigation, the car informing us that a turn is approaching in fourteen miles. “Remind me again why we didn’t fly to San Francisco.”
“Quality time together,” I say, reaching forward and pulling the water bottle from my bag. “Team building. The chance to see my excellent navigational skills.”
“Money,” he drawls.
“Are we saving money?” I squint, then shrug. “Oh, well. That too.”
I pull off my heels and settle into the seat, tucking one foot underneath my butt. I pick up my cell phone, and look through my texts. According to Trey’s recovered Tesla—in fine condition, minus one side mirror—we’ve got six hours to go, which includes a power charging break. And …. according to my schedule, we’ll be fine on time. Tonight, dinner and drinks with suppliers. Tomorrow morning, I’ve got interviews with two different designers, then we’ll make the trek back. I check for texts from Craig, but there are none. This trip is causing me to miss our second Mensa meeting. He seems as relieved as I am with the timing, one I carefully orchestrated. At our twenty-year anniversary, we’ll laugh about it. But now, the bitch that is Mensa seems like an anchor tied to our relationship, sinking Craig’s viewpoint of me and dragging my tolerance level down along with it.
I look over at Trey, who is relaxed against the seat, his eyes on the road, and flip through the list of questions I had jotted down to discuss during this drive. It had been Jess’s idea, being convinced that—given six hours alone with me—we could become best friends and cement my job security forever. She doesn’t understand fashion, the fickle beast that it is. She doesn’t understand that my job security hinges on my performance, my ability to revitalize the Marks Lingerie brand. I can bond with Trey Marks until I’m blue in the face and it won’t change the fact that his company is dying. I wet my lips. “How did you get into lingerie?”
It’s a story that should be known, should be sprinkled over every article, Wikipedia page, and company bio. But I’ve found nothing online, no breadcrumb trail to explain how this man ended up with the sixth largest lingerie company in the world. Were the rumors right? Had he seduced an old woman out of her riches?
“It’s a long story.” He glances at me. “And fairly boring.”
As if anything about him could be. I set down my phone. “I like boring stories. If it’s really good, maybe you can lull me to sleep and not have to deal with my incessant chatter for the next six hours.”
He gives a short smile—more polite than authentic. “Maybe another time.”
I huff out a protest. “I can’t properly create a vision if I don’t know the bones of the company.”
“Hasn’t seemed to bother you so far.” He shifts in his seat. “Besides, it’s not in my job description.”
“Ha. Funny.” I reach down and dig into my purse. “Do you allow people to eat in your car?”
“Of course.” He glances over, watching as I pull out a bag of M&Ms, ripping open the top and offering it to him. “No thanks.”
“If you’re not going to tell me, I’m just going to invent something scandalous and put it on the website. Poof.” I shrug. “Done.”
“I’m terrified,” he says dryly.
“As you should be. Wait until everyone finds out that you were a homeless street performer, playing a ukulele outside a trim factory. You broke in one night, looking for food, and built a hammock bed out of straps and a ukulele bag out of lace. One day, a wealthy woman saw your ukulele bag and—”
“Please stop.” He smiles, and it is an actual smile, one without sexual pull or cocky undertones. “You’re offending street performers everywhere.”
“That’s not offensive,” I say indignantly. “It’s the start of a ukulele-playing mogul! Look what you became!” I gesture to him, and his smile widens.
“Please stop saying ‘ukulele.”
“I’ll stop saying ‘ukulele,’ if you tell me the real story.”
He rolls his eyes. “Fine.” He puts both hands on the steering wheel. “I started at Bloomingdale’s, in their ED program.”
“How’d you get into that?” I interrupt him despite my best attempt to listen. South Central and Bloomingdale’s … talk about two completely different worlds.
He grins. “When I was thirteen, I was caught at Bloomingdale’s, shoplifting. The loss prevention manager wanted to know what a thirteen-year-old kid wanted with a woman’s blouse.”
“A girlfriend?” I guess.
He scowls. “No. My mother. She had an interview—for a real job, an assistant in a real estate firm—none of her clothes were appropriate.” He falls silent and I remember. The stripper mother.
“That’s sweet.”
He chuckles. “It’s not too sweet. I had lifted a few other items. Things for me, a thong for this girl I was dating. Anyway, the guy offered for me to work off the items in their stock room. I agreed, and we sort of became close.” He glances over at me. “That guy was eventually promoted, to a high enough level that—when college didn’t work out for me—he had the pull to offer me a job.”
I stay quiet, trying to piece together the picture of a young Trey Marks, one who sounds like a street thug … with the polished man who sits beside me.
He shifts in the expensive seat, a bit of his cologne drifting over and teasing my senses. “You know Vicka Neece?”
Vicka Neece … the name is familiar, but takes a moment to place. “Sure. The Creative Director for Victoria’s Secret.” Maybe the rumor mill had it wrong. I lean forward.
“We used to work together at Bloomingdale’s. There was a bit of a connection there.”
A connection. I don’t have to look up Vicka Neece to imagine what she looks like. Victoria’s Secret doesn’t hire ugly women. She and Trey probably just looked at each other and orgasmed. I wrestle out a peanut M&M with a little more aggression than is necessary. “And?” I say brightly, and it doesn’t sound fake at all.
“And then my father died,” he says flatly, and I suddenly regret my mockery.
“I’m sorry,” I say quietly.
“He didn’
t have much to his name, but he had taken out a five-million-dollar policy three months prior to his death. A bunch of Italians came after me for part of that. Vicka Neece was interested in the rest. She pitched me on opening a lingerie brand.” He shrugs. “It wasn’t that hard to talk me into. I was twenty-six. I was stupid.”
His father. Something in my chest, a clog that hates the idea of Trey and an older woman, clears. “How were you stupid? You made it into a real player. I mean, right now we’re struggling, but—”
“I don’t regret opening the company. I regret losing Vicka. We were successful when she was here, when she was in control. And we sailed on her vision for the first few years after she left. But then, everything started to fall to shit.” He glances at me. “I don’t have to tell you that you are the sixth Creative Director we’ve had in five years.”
No, he didn’t have to tell me that. I had all of their files in the cabinet in my office. I had reviewed all of their work, all of their visions. Vicka Neece hadn’t had a file in that stack. Whatever her history with Trey, it had been erased before I got there.
“Did you ever try to get her back?” It’s almost a waste of a question, her job at VS putting her on the top rung of every fashion hierarchy. If I ever got that job, I’d be there until I died, or until I was forcibly carried out.
“No.” He rubs his neck. “We had opened the company as friends. A few months in, we started fucking.”
The words are so rough that I wince. “Just fucking?”
“I don’t know. It got so that I couldn’t tell the company from her, or our relationship from sex. I got jealous, she got jealous. We started fucking less and fighting more. And then she was gone. Packed up her office in the middle of the night and moved back to New York.”
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