THIRST

by Deborah Bladon

  His head is slowly bobbing up and down when I reach the last pink pearl button. My lingerie is sheer. When I open the dress, he’ll see everything.

  I hesitate briefly, not because I don’t want this man to see my body, but because I know, full well, that other eyes may be on me.

  I scan the building looking for any shadowy figures standing near windows, but I don’t see another soul.

  When my gaze meets his again, I start to open my dress, confident that he’ll want to come over. I’ll agree this time.

  I crave this man’s touch, even if I don’t know anything about him other than what he looks like.

  His expression shifts as the front of my dress parts. I study his every movement, waiting for him to show me, with his body, that he wants me as much as I want him.

  I stop breathing when he glances over his shoulder.

  His head drops, his hand fists against the glass and when he finally looks up at me, I see defeat where I want to see desire.

  He mouths something to me that I can’t make out since I’m too busy wrapping my dress back around me.

  I watch in silence as he moves away from the window and disappears around a corner.

  I take a step back in an effort to retreat from the vulnerability I’m feeling.

  When he appears again, there’s a dark haired woman in a white one-shoulder jumpsuit next to him. Her hands are wrapped around his bicep, her gaze pinned to his handsome face.

  He glances my way briefly, but I move out of view.

  I can’t watch him with another woman. I turn my back to both of them and button up my dress before I grab my keys and purse and head straight out my door.

  Chapter 10

  Rocco

  I curse under my breath as I watch my beautiful neighbor bolt from her apartment.

  I know exactly why she’s headed out into the rain. She made an assumption about the brunette standing next to me.

  There’s no way the woman who was undressing for me could know that my unexpected visitor is my cousin.

  Gina Calvetti has an uncanny ability to show up at my apartment at the worst possible time.

  I’m pissed off, but I fight the urge to express that. Instead, I reach for Gina’s hand and give it a slight squeeze. “I’m going to put on a pair of jeans and a T-shirt.”

  She lets go of my arm. The fact that I’m only wearing a towel didn’t register with Gina when I opened my apartment door. She dove into a one-sided conversation about her ex-boyfriend and his wife as she led me into my living room.

  Gina looks to me for relationship advice. She has yet to realize that I’ve never offered any words of wisdom related to the men she’s been involved with. It’s not that I don’t have an opinion. I do. Gina is like a sister to me, but she never lets me get a word in.

  “Hurry,” she says, tapping her foot against the floor. “Do you want to get something to eat?”

  “Sure.” I’d ask what she’s in the mood for, but our grandmother would see it as a betrayal if we went anywhere but Calvetti’s.

  I have no problem sitting down for a meal at any one of the thousands of other restaurants in Manhattan, but Gina’s loyalty to the family is unwavering.

  Guilt will haunt her if we hit up the French restaurant I recently invested in. I’m a fan of the food and the head chef, Lucien, but Gina won’t make it through the appetizer course before she’s on the phone with Marti confessing her culinary sin.

  “I’ll order an Uber,” she mutters under her breath as I walk toward my bedroom. “I have so much to tell you, Rocco.”

  I’m sure she does. Gina’s never been short of words.

  I’ll sit with her and eat a plate of my grandmother’s pasta while I listen to her complain about her life. The entire time I’ll be thinking about the briefest glimpse of my neighbor’s body that I caught before the promise of more was stolen from me.

  ***

  “Do you know her?”

  I turn back to look at Gina. She’s sitting across the table from me, her hand wrapped around a glass of expensive red wine.

  She knows that Marti will foot the bill for this dinner, so she’s indulging.

  I’ll even the scales by sending a bouquet of pale pink peonies to the restaurant tomorrow afternoon. They’re Marti’s favorite and never fail to bring a smile to her face.

  “Do I know who?” I question.

  Gina rolls her eyes. “You keep looking over your shoulder at that woman with pink hair. Who is she?”

  She’s not who I want her to be.

  I caught a glimpse of her pink-streaked blonde hair when we walked in. As tempting as it was to march over to the table she’s sharing with a guy in a suit, I resisted.

  I greeted Marti with a kiss on her cheek, sat my ass down in a chair next to the table she directed us to and then turned to see if I could get a good look at the woman’s face even though her back is to me.

  It took three glances over my shoulder before I finally caught sight of her profile.

  She’s not my neighbor. This woman isn’t nearly as beautiful as the one who was undressing for me in front of her window earlier.

  “I don’t know her,” I answer truthfully.

  “You want to know her,” Gina counters with a smile.

  I shake my head. “Not her.”

  “Look at you acting all cagey.” She takes a sip of the wine, closing her dark brown eyes to savor the taste.

  I ignore the comment. Most of my time spent with Gina is devoted to watching her put on a brave face in the aftermath of a break-up. She reaches out when her heart has taken a beating.

  “You’re too good for him, Gina.”

  She sets the glass down. “You always say that. It never helps.”

  I heard about her ex and his new bride on the way here. He proposed to the woman he started dating after he dumped my cousin. They walked down the aisle earlier today, which is why Gina showed up at my place.

  “Time helps.” I reach for her hand and squeeze it.” You’ll find the right guy for you.”

  She looks down at our hands. “Do you think you’ll ever find the right girl for you?”

  It’s a topic I’ll skip.

  “I made you both the tortellini.” Marti appears next to the table with a server by her side. Two large white bowls of pasta are in his hands.

  “I ordered the ravioli, Grandma.” Gina smiles up at Marti.

  “You’ll eat the tortellini,” Marti quips as the server places the bowls down in front of us. “I made it myself. Now eat.”

  Chapter 11

  Dexie

  “You’re going to walk out of that meeting this afternoon with a new business partner.” Sophia adjusts the collar of my dress. “I am telling you, Dex. Today is a day that will go down in history.”

  I wouldn’t go that far.

  I know she means well, but spending every evening with Sophia this week has started to wear on me.

  Her help with preparing my pitch for the potential investors has been vital. I’ll never be able to repay her for the time she’s devoted to this.

  I’ve stolen moments away from her husband, Nicholas, and her daughter, Winter. I had dinner with all of them the past three nights. Sophia insisted so that we could get to work as soon as she finished reading Winter her bedtime stories.

  I turned her down when she offered her spare bedroom to me. She didn’t want me going home late every night. In her mind, I’d be safer tucked in the bed down the hall from her.

  I admit I was tempted, and not just because the bed is a dream to sleep in. I didn’t want to get home and look out my window to see the man I’ve been fantasizing about with someone else.

  I was disappointed when I saw the beautiful dark-haired woman with my half-naked neighbor. I had no right to be since I’ve never met the man and we don’t share anything but a direct view into each other’s apartments.

  I went to a movie the night I saw them together. By the time I got home, his apartment was dark. I have no idea
if that meant he’d left or if he was rolling around in bed with her behind a closed door.

  I was too tired to care.

  I crawled between the sheets in my bed, fell fast asleep and woke up with a text invitation to brunch with Sophia.

  Since then, my life has been split between my work at Matiz and preparing for the meeting this afternoon with the trio of potential backers for my business.

  “You look amazing.” Sophia picks a piece of lint from the front of the black dress she designed for me.

  It’s elegant and understated. A vertical line of white buttons dots the front of the dress, leading up to a white collar.

  It’s cinched at my waist with a thin white leather belt. The strappy high-heeled black sandals on my feet are new. I bought them after work yesterday, even though I have a pair of red heels that I think would complement the dress perfectly.

  When I ran my footwear choice by Sophia, she insisted that I tone it down.

  “Let the bags shine, Dex.”

  Those were her words. I took them to heart, which is why my pinky toes feel like they’re about to be pinched right off my feet by the hard leather straps.

  I brush a strand of wayward hair back from my face.

  The soft sigh that escapes Sophia says more than any words ever could.

  She’s been trying to persuade me for days to dye the pink streaks in my hair blonde. She even went so far as to book me an appointment with her hair stylist after work yesterday. I canceled it and assured her that I’d smooth into a bun for the meeting.

  She balked, but when I told her that it was my hair, and the pink wasn’t going anywhere, she shrugged her shoulders and muttered under her breath that she hoped it wouldn’t ruin my chances of landing a deal.

  It’s pinned on top of my head in a messy bun at the moment, and that’s the way it will stay.

  “You have everything you need, right?” She asks expectantly, her gaze dropping to the designer rolling suitcase by my side.

  It belongs to her. The six handbags that I’m bringing to the pitch are tucked in there, along with my red shoes. I slid those in for back up before Sophia arrived at my apartment this morning.

  I was up before dawn broke, sitting on my windowsill with a cup of coffee in my hand and a stomach filled with butterflies.

  “I’m ready,” I say semi-confidently. “I should leave soon.”

  Lenore Halston called me yesterday to confirm the place and time. I told her I’d be there early. Unless I leave now, I’ll have to eat those words.

  “Be yourself.” Sophia stands back and looks me over from head to foot. “I’m proud of you, Dex.”

  They’re words that I’ve rarely heard in my life, so they shoot straight to my heart. I blow out a breath to keep myself from getting overly emotional.

  “I’ll call you as soon as the meeting is over,” I promise as I reach for the handle of the suitcase. “Are you going to work now?”

  “Not a chance.” She laughs, brushing a hand over the front of her yellow sundress. “I followed your lead. I took the day off. A late lunch at Nova is the only thing on my calendar for the afternoon.”

  The significance of that isn’t lost on me.

  Nova is our go-to restaurant for celebrating anything and everything. We only eat there when something monumental has happened to one of us. Her confidence in me is humbling.

  “This is it.” I reach for the doorknob, glancing back at the windows that overlook the building next door.

  As much as I wish the mystery man would appear, my future is on the line and I have to stay focused. I’m on a mission to secure a partner for my business and nothing is more important than that.

  Chapter 12

  Rocco

  I’m a lucky bastard.

  I know it. The two people seated on either side of me know it too.

  I just locked down a potential deal with the owner of a dog-grooming product.

  Pets aren’t part of my day-to-day life. I can’t keep a plant alive in my apartment, so I have no place taking on the care of a dog, cat or even a goldfish.

  Benefitting from the devotion others have to their pets is my place. I fought hard with Rhoda to land the deal, but ultimately my offer to take the product to a contact that is the purchasing manager of a nationwide pet store tipped the scales in my direction.

  “How many more?” Glenn whispers under his breath.

  Lenore glances at the closed door before her gaze drops to a sheet of paper in her hands.

  We generally do this at Glenn’s office, but today is an exception.

  Lenore invited more than twenty people to attend this session.

  That’s why we’re in a rented space on Park Avenue with a waiting room that’s three times the size of this conference room.

  “He was the seventeenth, so only three more,” Lenore says. “You have a five-minute potty break if you need it.”

  I don’t need it, but I could use a leg stretch.

  I push back from the table, adjusting the buckle of the black belt I’m wearing. I put on gray slacks and a white button-down shirt this morning. I rolled the sleeves of the shirt up to my elbows two hours ago.

  Whenever we head into the homestretch of these sessions, I get restless.

  Most of my days are spent on the move, visiting the offices and businesses of the people I’ve partnered with. Being in one place for endless hours isn’t interesting to me.

  I’m ready to call it a day and leave Glenn and Rhoda to consider the next three pitches on their own, but I’ll kick my own ass if I miss out on something promising.

  “Where do you think you’re going, handsome?” Rhoda’s hand lands on my arm.

  I pat her fingers gently. “Not far. I need to take a walk.”

  “I’ll come.” She stands in a rush. “I don’t want you influencing the people who are still waiting with your charm and good looks.”

  I laugh aloud. “I promise I’ll keep my eyes on you, Rhoda, if you do the same.”

  She gives me the once over. “That’s a promise I’ll gladly keep.”

  “I’m coming too,” Glenn pipes up. “I don’t want anyone having an advantage over me when it comes to the last three pitches.”

  ***

  I kept up my end of the bargain when we left the conference room. I only glanced briefly at the people preparing to present their proposals to us.

  Lenore said there were only three pitches left, but the waiting room was packed with a group of at least two dozen men and women wearing bright orange T-shirts.

  Rhoda stopped to talk to someone she recognized, but I kept my head down. I hit the coffee room to grab a bottle of water before I circled back and headed straight into the conference room.

  Lenore tried to convince me to eat one of the sandwiches she had brought in hours earlier, but I passed.

  I’ll finish this out and then drop by Calvetti’s to see Marti. A plate of pasta will be in front of me ten minutes after I arrive there.

  I watch as the group wearing the eye-searing neon orange shirts file in. They’re carrying camping equipment which means Rhoda is the only one who is going to find this interesting. Her connection to the leader of the pack, a guy in his early twenties with bright blue eyes and a grin from ear-to-ear, guarantees that they have a good shot of leaving here with her on board.

  Rhoda invests from the heart. If a pitch sparks emotion in her, she’ll pursue a deal even if they don’t always work out once her financial advisor has had a chance to look at the numbers.

  I try to zone out the long-winded pitch about a new brand of camping gear designed to fit in the back of a compact car.

  I keep my eyes trained on the blond-haired guy who is enthusiastically listing off the benefits of getting into the great outdoors and out of the confines of Manhattan.

  “The buildings in this city are so close together you can practically touch your neighbors,” he spouts to a chorus of laughter from his colleagues.

  My mind wanders to the other
night and the beauty that lives in the apartment across from mine. I haven’t spotted her since, although much of my time this week has been focused on getting a deal locked in with Silas.

  The bar around the corner from his office is where he prefers to conduct business, so I met him there two nights ago and again last night. He tried to convince me to accept a smaller equity percentage in Word Wize in exchange for a higher share in the new app idea he’s already working on.

  It was a hard pass.

  I kept my eye on my watch the entire time I was with him. I wanted out of the bar so I could get home to my window and the woman next door.

  I rake my fingers through my hair. Just thinking about my beautiful neighbor’s body sets off a firestorm inside of me.

  If she’s there when I get home tonight, I’m going to make it clear to her that I want our exchanges to progress from searing gazes through glass to my hands on her body.

  “I’m in,” Rhoda announces in the middle of the guy’s pitch. “I love it. I’ll give you exactly what you’re asking.”

  I hear the audible sigh of relief from Glenn as I breathe out one of my own.

  Two more presentations to sit through and I’ll be free.

  Chapter 13

  Dexie

  Last.

  I’m the very last person to enter that conference room.

  I’ve been sitting in this waiting room for hours watching person after person walk through that door to face the trio of investors on the other side.

  Some exited with smiles on their faces, a few were in tears. It was obvious that there was no joy attached to those.

  The large group of people who went in thirty minutes ago came out high-fiving each other. They got a deal.

  Right now, a woman a few years older than me is behind the closed door trying to convince at least one of the people with the big bank accounts to partner with her in an organic soap business.

  I listened while she rehearsed her pitch.

  It was good, so good.

  She obviously took hours to polish her presentation.

  I did too, but the lump in my throat is telling me that I should have invested more time into preparing for this.