Maybe Later

by Claudia Burgoa

  “Can we talk?” I ask keeping my voice steady.

  “It’d be best if you lose my number,” she speaks each word with composure and professionalism.

  “We had a fight,” I offer. “There’s obviously something we have to discuss.”

  Like figuring out who you are, Emmeline or Amy?

  “Clearly, it wasn’t just a fight,” she says firmly. “I think it’s best if I walk away tonight.”

  “Do you think it’s easy for me to trust others?” I ask. My tongue feels too thick to form the words, but I ask, “How do I know you’re not playing me?”

  She blinks a couple of times and frowns.

  “Why in the world would I play you?”

  “My ex-wife did for a long time.” I blurt it so loudly that people walking along the sidewalk turn to stare at us.

  “Look, obviously you have some unresolved issues with your wife,” she says. “Who knows what happened between you, since there are always two sides to a story.”

  “We met through mutual friends. She was social, and smart. I was impressed by her beauty. You can’t blame me, I was twenty-five. Life went by, she became convenient,” I say and flinch. “It makes me sound cold, but it was nice not to have to think about dating. Work was absorbing me and, before you know it, she gave me an ultimatum. So, I agreed to marry her.”

  “Romantic,” she says and can’t control the snort.

  “It wasn’t until later that I realized she was using me. Maybe I was using her too. Things ended so badly I moved to Denver to restart my life—privately. Like you, I don’t put myself out there.”

  She narrows her gaze and asks, “Did you ever hit her?”

  I shake my head. “Never, not even when she did this.” I show her the scar Vivian left when she scratched my neck.

  “Why would she do that?”

  Leave it to this woman to want to know all the facts.

  “When the divorce was finalized, she didn’t get a penny out of me, and she was ordered to repay the money she took from me,” I say vaguely. I hoped she wouldn’t ask me about how I lost my first company.

  “She was stealing from you?”

  “Yes,” I answer.

  She shakes her head. “I don’t understand why you’re relating her to what happened in the restaurant.”

  With a loud exhale, she pulls out the keys of her purse and says, “Maybe we should continue this conversation upstairs.”

  I follow her, and right as she shuts the apartment door behind me, she asks: “Do we look alike, me and her?”

  Well, damn it, she cuts right to the chase. I inspect the living room as I try to figure out how to answer. They don’t look alike. Not at all. Vivian was tall, thin, her body was angular, and her face was made up all the time. There was nothing vulnerable about her. She didn’t have the honest eyes or the bright smile that Emmeline gives me every time I’m around her.

  This little apartment is just like Em. Cozy and warm. The antique couches go perfectly with the coffee table she renovated last year. There’s a lot of history in here that she’s accumulated. She doesn’t hide anything but herself between these walls. I just can’t understand why she pretends to be another person while doing her work.

  “Not at all. Look, something triggered the memory of my life with her,” I say. “It was painful. I didn’t have a moment to myself. She exposed our lives from the beginning to the bitter end. We never had a moment of privacy.”

  She holds her head and shakes it.

  “Sounds like a bad relationship and a hell of a divorce,” she says. “You should work through that before you jump into a relationship.”

  I have worked on it, and then, here you are playing me. Are you playing me?

  I study her slumped shoulders and absent look. If she had figured out who I was, this wouldn’t be the conversation. She’d be dancing like a football player after scoring a touchdown. Fucking, Vivian, she did a number on me. I have to give Emmeline the benefit of the doubt.

  “Look, I’d never do anything to hurt you or your company,” I say and mean it. “There’s something special about you.”

  “Let me ask you something.” She sits on the couch, pulls her legs into her torso and hugs them.

  I realize she’s not wearing shoes anymore and I can admire her beautiful feet. Today, her toenails are dark green, and she’s got a ring on her pinkie toe.

  “If you’re still dealing with your divorce, why even date?” she asks. “Being sucks.”

  I pace back and forth before stopping by the couch and taking a seat right next to her.

  “You’re not the rebound,” I protest.

  “When was the last time you dated or hooked up with someone?”

  “I haven’t dated since,” I murmured. “Hooked up with someone the weekend between Christmas and New Year’s Eve.”

  “You’re not over the hurt. I’m nothing like her, so that’s why you’re drawn to me—but—in the long run, it won’t fulfill what you’re looking for.”

  She brushes her hair to the side and crisscrosses her legs.

  “That’s where you’re wrong,” I say, assuming this is the person who I banter with every day. “You can judge what happened earlier, but until you have all the elements, you can’t draw a conclusion.”

  “What are you not telling me?”

  “I’m nine years older than the stupid kid who fell for a shell,” I argue with her. “You can’t compare him to me. If you asked me what I’d have done if we’d met nine years ago, I don’t have an answer for that.”

  And I’m not sure if I’m telling that to Amy Walker or if I’m telling that to Emmeline.

  “Where do we go from here?” she inquires with uncertainty.

  Our eyes lock, and I notice the moisture in hers. She glances toward the window and then back at me.

  “It was great practice,” she says slightly animated. “Hopefully, next time I’ll get it right. It gets harder as I get older.”

  “Get what right?” I ask not understanding what’s happening.

  “Dating, meeting people. You have to know, fucking Tinder, which sucks if you ask me, mirrors real life. Those who you’re interested in don’t reciprocate and … well, you get the idea.”

  “Are you dumping me for Tinder?”

  She shakes her head. “We don’t fit. I thought we had a connection, but clearly, it was just an illusion.”

  I stare at her, confused by her words.

  “Crazy talk,” she continues. “I’m not your average twenty-some-year-old woman. My friends claim that when I want something, I want it to be perfect.”

  I dare to ask, “So you’re looking for the perfect man?” Suddenly, I feel unfit. Divorced, broken and rough around the edges.

  “No, the perfect love, filled with passion. Addictive, maddening, savage. Also tender, and soft with just the right amount of wild. It’s so hard to find a man who I can fall for freely. There’s no way I can explain what I want, but when I find him, I know he’s going to take my breath away, fuse my soul with his, and own every piece of my heart. I want to be with a guy who ignites me just by pressing his mouth against mine. I’ll be his everything, because he’ll be mine. My best friend, my lover, and my soulmate.”

  I observe her fiery eyes, as I absorb the intensity of her words. She wasn’t looking for a date; she was looking for a fairy tale. A love as deep as the ocean and as beautiful as her. In this moment, I don’t care about her name, only her. I don’t want to play it safe. Instead, I want to lose myself in her. I crave the beauty of her soul, and I want to comfort her trembling heart.

  “I want to be reckless with you,” I say bringing my mouth to hers kissing her hard without any restraint.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Jack

  I want to devour her in an all-consuming kiss, and give her what she asked for, but she breaks the kiss, moving away from my hold and says, “As hot and passionate as it would be, I can’t do this.”

  “Excuse me?” I ask tryi
ng to restart my foggy brain.

  “I just explained to you why we aren’t compatible. I wasn’t feeding you a line to get laid.”

  I close my eyes for a second, taking my time to think about her words and focus on her. Either she’s not ready, or she’s dumping me even after I said let’s move past what happened at the restaurant.

  “We had a fight,” I explain.

  “You want to call it a fight?”

  I nod. “You can’t just disregard a relationship because there’s a miscommunication. You talk about it and work through it.”

  “Even if I’m a mess and you’re—” she shrugs, “working through your own shit.”

  I smile at her and nod. “We had a bad night.” I rise from my seat walking around the apartment.

  I finally stop right in front of the double glass doors that guard a home office.

  “Is this your office?” I ask, pointing at the large room.

  She nods.

  “You’re a psychiatrist?” I try to fish for information. Tell me who you are, Amy. “A life coach,” I fake guessing. “One of those personal shoppers.”

  “Neither one of those.” She licks her lips. “Maybe I’m a stripper.”

  She begins to take off her jacket slowly. “You caught me. I usually charge five hundred an hour.” She draws quotation marks up in the air. “You owe me a lot of money just for the couple of dates we’ve had. Add in the text messaging and I think you owe me your car.”

  “But you haven’t even taken off your clothes yet,” I protest, trying to play along with her.

  “What can I say, I was never good at the stripping shit. That’s why I didn’t take the job,” she says thoughtfully.

  “You’re not kidding, are you?”

  She shakes her head. “I did try it once, once upon a time.”

  “Stripping?” I repeat, choking on my own saliva.

  I can’t imagine this innocent woman undressing for a living, although, I can picture her being wild in bed.

  “Desperate times call for desperate measures, or something like that,” she says. “My parents disowned me when I transferred to another college. I just couldn’t continue where I was, but they cut me off financially. My options were limited. But, I’d practiced ballet for years. My legs were strong, and I am flexible.”

  Strong, flexible, and with that fucking body.

  “I got the job, but they wanted more than just dancing.” She swallows hard and gives me a knowing smile.

  “They didn’t!” I roared.

  “It was part of the job,” they claimed. “If I wanted in, I had to be all in. That’s when I decided to work full time even if I couldn’t study full time. I got a job as an assistant.”

  “An assistant?” I ask confused about the shift from stripper to office employee.

  “Yes, and it changed my life,” she says excitedly. “The company that hired me was very high-tech. They needed several assistants, but didn’t have the money to pay more than one.”

  She smiles. “I offered to do it all if they let me multitask and organize my own workflow. What I did was work my class schedule around their schedules. Once I had everything in a blueprint, I was able to handle it all. My grades weren’t straight A’s anymore but who, cared.

  “By the second semester, I had free time to add another client. It was a temporary job, but he recommended me to a friend. By the end of college, I had five clients. Laura, my best friend Alistair and I, all shared an apartment. I had enough money to do an MBA. My roster was growing, and I wanted to know how to manage my own business. During my second year, I established VAES, and a couple of years ago I went global.”

  “Do you still work as an assistant?”

  She smiles and rolls her eyes.

  I look at her and cross my heart. “Nothing you say will leave this room, I swear.”

  “Only for special people,” she says.

  “What does a client have to do to get you?

  “You’re trying to hire me?” she gives me a challenging glare.

  “No, I have the best assistant in the world, but thank you for the offer.”

  She looks around her office, sighs and says, “Only my oldest client knows who I am. The rest think they’ve hired someone else. They would demand more from me if they knew I was the owner.”

  “So, your oldest client is your favorite?”

  “Actually,” she says, “I’m more attached to my newest. He’s not my favorite per say, but we have a bond.”

  She puts a finger to her lips and says, “that’s between us. It’s one of my biggest secrets.”

  She gives me a suspicious glare. “We’re not discussing my company.”

  Amy fucking Walker doesn’t exist. My mind spins with conflicting thoughts. I want to ask her who she really is and, understand why she uses a pseudonym. Does she know who I am? I realize that I’m not ready for those answers because I’m not sure if I can handle the truth. There are too many emotions swirling inside me. Before I can decide to end this or move forward, I need to figure out what I want.

  “I have to go,” I say hesitantly.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Emmeline

  “I want to be reckless with you,” Jack says roughly.

  The last thing I see is the intensity in his eyes before he presses his mouth to mine. He kisses me with reckless abandon. Our bodies crush against each other with enough heat to burn the entire building down. I melt into him. My chest splits in half, my heart fuses with his.

  The kiss is so strong, binding. Jack’s holding me tight, possessing me. I’m afraid this is a dream. Suddenly I’m nervous. Why am I allowing this to happen? It’s because of the kiss, the softness of his lips, the roughness of his hands. He disarms me, breaks down my walls. Suddenly, I don’t want safe. I want passion. The fire of his touch. I want to burn with him.

  My thoughts become blurry as his rough hands begin to undress me. After undoing his button-down shirt, I stop to admire his chest, his sun-kissed skin, the muscles rippling over his torso. My head fills with his scent. I reach for his belt, undoing it fast, but he stops me.

  His stare is dark and intense. His eyes roam my body, burning me with the fire he has inside him. My heart beats fast with anticipation.

  “Come with me,” he orders, taking my hand and leading me to my bedroom.

  When we get to my room, he bows his head toward me and gives me a tentative kiss. His hands slide up my bare arms, over my shoulders, and down my back. He pulls me closer to him. I move my hands behind his neck, sifting my fingers through his soft hair. I have never been kissed this way, as if I’m the only one who matters in the world.

  Hoarsely he whispers, “I don’t know if I’m doing it right, but I want to become him.”

  Those words pull at something inside my heart, even in my soul. His mouth crashes onto mine. He slips his large hands between my legs, brushing his rough fingers right where I’m aching.

  A gasp escapes me as his finger begins to play gently with my clit. He lowers his head down to my breast, his tongue tasting my skin before his mouth touches the tip of one of my breasts.

  My back is arching, my mouth begs for more, and every cell of my body is aware of what is about to happen. I’m burning alive—for him.

  Jack plunges his finger inside me, while nibbling my nipple between his teeth. But he stops and grabs me around the waist, lifting me up and setting me down on my bed. My legs spread. If I felt vulnerable earlier, I’m now completely exposed to this man. Nothing to cover my body or soul. It’s not like me to risk either, but at this point, I don’t care. I only want him to keep looking at me with hunger, need, and admiration. I need his hands—crave his touch.

  He kneels right in front of me, pushing my knees wider.

  “Fuck me,” I order him, staring into his fiery eyes. “Make me yours, Jack.”

  “Are you sure you want this, Em?” he says with a husky voice. “Once I fuck you, you’ll be mine.”

  “Yours,” I repe
at.

  He doesn’t say a word. His cock presses against my entrance. Full, thick, and as hard as a rock. His eyes gleam with an intensity, the likes of which I’ve never before seen. I’m unable to look away as he pushes himself inside, stretching me.

  “Yes,” I gasp as he fills me. “Jackson, fuck me!”

  My eyes open wide, my heart accelerates. What just happened? I’m drenched between my legs, aching for relief but ashamed because I said the wrong name. Confusion pounds my head. I check the time. It’s almost five in the morning. Knowing I won’t be able to go back to sleep, I take a shower, prepare my coffee and go to my computer.

  There are no emails or messages from Jackson Spearman. I’m still not sure what he’s going to do with the information I told him. Jack left ten, maybe fifteen minutes after I stopped us from having wild, animalistic sex.

  God, I can still feel the heat of his skin. My lips are swollen from the possessive kiss he gave me. I wanted him, but I knew it wasn’t the right moment. It’ll happen when we’re both ready, not just to make up after having our first fight.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Jack

  Monday, May 9th, 6:01 a.m.

  I bounce up and down to the steady rhythm of Paris by Magic Man. Listening to one of the playlists Amy created for my workouts only brings the memory of her back. Shit, she’s not even real. It’s Emmeline Lancaster. CEO of VAES, one of the fastest growing companies in America. We haven’t spoken since the night I left her home. The conflicting thoughts keep me awake at night and in a foul mood.

  Things with Amy are strictly professional, and she hasn’t even noticed the change in me. Is it because she knows why I’m angry or because she doesn’t care?

  Sticky sweat soaks my light hoodie. I’ve been running for about an hour. I pant as I wipe my mouth with the sleeve. The chilly air and peaceful streets make missing her less painful. I have this strange sense of loss since I left Emmeline. I can’t shake it. My heart pounds against my chest, and I lengthen my strides, trying to reconcile both women with just one and forget what happened between us.