His Town

by Ellie Danes

  I almost scoffed at that realization. I’d seen that intense kind of eyes before—on pretty much every single undergraduate male I’d ever met. Those were the eyes of a player on the game.

  Somehow, I’d become prey, or a ball, or some other stupid thing in my own ridiculous metaphor.

  “I’m glad I saw you as I was heading out. I’m actually not late for work today, and my asshole company VP isn’t around this morning, waiting to pounce.” His smirk could tell stories, and probably melt panties. It was beyond obvious that he was used to using it to his advantage. I had to wonder, though—if the Vice President of the company was harassing him, just how far up he was in his company.

  Not that I really cared, but it was interesting considering how young he was.

  “So, why have I never seen you before?” he asked, just before unbuttoning his suit jacket, and sitting down in the chair just in front of me.

  I looked at him in confusion. Why was he asking that? “Well,” I said, trying not to sound snotty, “probably because there are over eight million people in this crowded city.”

  “No, I mean, I’m here every day, and I’ve never seen you before.”

  “A lot of people come here. You can’t possibly know every single person who does.” I grinned. “Or maybe you’ve just alienated everyone else by sitting at their tables without asking.”

  He grinned back. “Oh, you think this is your table? You own this Starbucks?” He looked over his shoulder, and then all around, just before looking back to me. “Color me impressed.”

  Maybe he was an asshole — but I could also truthfully say that I didn’t mind it. He was probably an asshole in the best way possible.

  “Maybe I should color you not at my table,” I said, pulling up my newspaper to create a barrier between us. I wondered what he’d do with that—walk away in a huff, or continue the game.

  He lifted the bottom of my paper and peered up at me from beneath it. I fought back a smile.

  “But, Mrs. Starbucks,” he said, “I would have known if you had been here at the same time as me.”

  Color me impressed, I thought. He knew how to work his way through a conversation, and he didn’t mind goofing around. I glanced over to the large window facing the street so that I could take a peek at my reflection. I could only hope he wouldn’t notice as I checked for any errant whipped cream mustache. All clear. I quickly smoothed my hair before looking back at him.

  “How would you have known I was here at the same time?” I asked.

  “I saw you today, didn’t I?”

  “But you didn’t yesterday.”

  He laughed. “That’s just because you saw me first.”

  “You looked right at me and didn’t notice me.” I narrowed my eyes at him. I was sure, by his confident demeanor, that a challenge was something he wasn’t used to, but I wasn’t one to back down — especially to someone not used to a challenge.

  “Touché. But—”

  “I don’t come regularly,” I interrupted. Then I blushed. I hadn’t meant the sexual innuendo. Shit. He probably hadn’t even heard the sexual innuendo until I started blushing. I hated how my pale skin betrayed my every thought.

  He fought not to grin, but a dimple still appeared on his left cheek.

  I didn’t even want to open the innuendo up for discussion. Besides, he had work soon. My blathering was probably the last thing he needed, and I wanted to talk for however long he had. “I just got out of a Master’s program, and I lived closer to campus. Now I live with my dad, a couple of blocks from here.”

  “So there’s no Mr. Starbucks?” His smile was broad. He was confident, and a little cocky. Why shouldn’t he be? He was too damn gorgeous not to be full of himself.

  “If you don’t count my dad, then no.”

  He smiled, and just as he opened his mouth to speak, his phone started going off in his breast pocket. “Damn,” he muttered, grabbing the device.

  “I really have to go,” he sighed, swiping his finger across the screen. “I’m glad I got to see you. It gives me the chance to ask if I can buy you a coffee sometime to thank you for yesterday.”

  “Your thanks is plenty,” I smiled. I knew he was trying to make a date out of it. I wasn’t horribly displeased by the idea or anything, but I wasn’t sure, either. I couldn’t help but wonder about him.

  He seemed far too smooth to not be a player. Plus, with those looks mixed in, there was no way in hell he wasn’t used to approaching women.

  “Will you be here again tomorrow?”

  “Maybe,” I said. “But maybe not.” I was definitely flirting. If anyone saw him, they wouldn’t be able to blame me. But I didn’t want to commit to anything, not until I knew more about him. I’d seen the corporate type before. They all donned the same look. Slick, well put-together, in desperate need of caffeine several times per day, and their cell phones glued to their ears. But in my experience, those sort of men were usually good at being players, and they rarely made time for real relationships, preferring, instead, quick hook-ups to satisfy their needs before they moved on to the next meaningless fling.

  I didn’t want to be a fling, not anymore.

  I’d been cheated on before. I’d been left to feel like nothing if not a fling. Even if I had been with him for years.

  At eighteen, I was foolish. A fresh high school graduate, headstrong, the whole world at my feet, bowing down to my greatness. I’d thought I was invincible. And he thought the same. That was why we were so perfect for each other.

  I’d met him in one of our business administration courses, and after we were forced into a group project together, we had grown close. First as friends, and then something much, much more.

  I was lost the moment he first smiled at me, in all honesty. Lost in the fantasy of what it was like to be an adult — in an adult relationship. To have a boyfriend as a grown woman, free in the world on her own.

  I couldn’t help but laugh, thinking about it now. I was so ridiculously stupid.

  But he’d had me.

  He’d definitely had me. I thought, no matter how completely ridiculous I was, in the beginning, I did grow to actually love the idiot. I’d loved him so much that I could hardly breathe when I found out the terrible truth about him. I’d loved him so much that the last words I’d said to him had to be ripped out of my throat, with a pain that I couldn’t even describe.

  I’d been such a mess, I could have probably dropped to my knees and screamed out in pain, complete with cued rain pouring down, just like a cliché romance movie. I could have been the damn icon for angsty romantic tragedy.

  It happened one day when I got out of class early and decided to swing by his apartment. I’d known something was strange as soon as I’d arrived. He was shirtless, his hair a mess, barefoot, and the buttons of his jeans were undone. They were even unzipped.

  He said he was only just napping, and I stupidly shrugged it off as nothing. I even went as far as ignoring the fresh scratches I saw on his back and chest as we walked through the living room, past his roommates, and to his bedroom.

  “I’ve been wrestling with Jared’s cat all day,” he said as if he felt my eyes scan his entire back. Jared was his roommate. A cat lover. And although a part of me wanted to believe what he was saying was true, I couldn’t. Especially when I sat down on his bed.

  It was then, that I knew for sure, that he was cheating.

  I could smell it. I could smell whoever she was all over his sheets. I wasn’t some crazy sniffing dog or anything. I didn’t have an impeccable sense of smell. But it was blatant. She was all over it. The smell of her perfume, the musky smell of sex, it was all there.

  I remembered the way my heart fluttered when I finally made sense of it, and I remembered what it was like after it all ended. I remembered being sad, sure, but more than anything I remembered almost forgetting that he was a cheating scumbag and that we’d even broken up at all. I remembered expecting him to come over one Friday, like he always had, only to reali
ze later that he’d never be there on another Friday again.

  I even remembered going to bed one night, clad in an oversized sweatshirt that I’d bought freshman year so he could wear something comfy when he forgot his clothes — like he always did. I remembered how sad it made me, picturing him in it. I even remembered how I breathed in, deeply, trying to take in its scent, expecting it to still smell like him, only to realize that I’d already washed it. And there was no more chance of it ever smelling like him again.

  I remembered how long and drawn out and completely pathetic it all had been. And it was something I was determined never to go through again. So I hardened my heart, forced away any feeling of softness towards the man I was leaving behind, and decided to live for me.

  I promised myself that I’d never let myself feel like a fling again. That I would stay away from those types of men. And here I was, with a man I wasn’t completely sure of — but one that I almost couldn’t help wanting to get to know.

  “Well,” Ian said, smiling, knocking me out of my thoughts. He stood up and buttoned his suit jacket. “I hope to see you tomorrow.”

  I could tell, though, by his tone, that he thought — and would swear that he knew — I’d be here, waiting for him. I could tell he thought he had me. And part of me really wanted to show him up, but another part of me really did want to come back and take him up on his offer.

  Without another word, he set off toward the door — but then suddenly stopped just a couple of steps away.

  “Oh!” he exclaimed, just before turning himself on the ball of his foot, whipping back in my direction. “I almost forgot to ask your name!”

  I wanted to make a joke about how I’d wanted to tell him yesterday, but I didn’t want to hold him up any longer.

  “Kate.”

  He smiled at me. “Well, it’s nice to finally meet you, Kate!”

  “And you’re Ian, right?”

  He grinned. “Yeah.” He tilted his head as if to contemplate whether he had already told me and I realized I had given up the secret that I had been listening for his name yesterday. “Well, I’ll see you tomorrow, Kate.”

  He spun on his heel, and I couldn’t help but watch him jog toward the door.

  He looked good. He looked damn good. Once again.

  As he gathered his coat closer and walked outside, I watched as his shoulders flexed. I wondered what that gorgeous back looked like bare. How smooth his skin could be, stretched taut over those dreamy muscles.

  I shivered as a tingle ran over my spine. Wow. I couldn’t believe I had just literally daydreamed like that. And I really couldn’t believe how foolish I sounded….

  Dreamy muscles?

  What was this guy doing to me?

  I’d be back tomorrow. I was too fascinated to play hard-to-get. I needed to know more about him, about what kind of man he really was. Corporate player? Or someone with perhaps a little more substance?

  Regardless, I was a little afraid. I wouldn’t allow a man to hurt me again, and I wouldn’t be a fling.

  Chapter 5

  Ian

  Seeing Kate that morning had been a great start to the day, but I didn’t know that it was going to wind up being the highlight of my entire day.

  As soon as I walked out of the elevator and onto the top floor, Janice stopped me. I could tell by her smile that once again something was wrong.

  “Just tell me, dammit,” I groaned.

  “You have a meeting with BioResearch this afternoon. I fit it into your schedule after your mid-afternoon meeting.”

  I shook my head, wondering if I should have just let her continue smiling at me like an idiot.

  The knowledge of the stupid BioResearch meeting weighed on me pretty much the entire day. I didn’t know if it was because I was sick of them and their lawyers or if I was just tired. All I knew was that I wanted to skip it.

  It wasn’t enough that they had called yesterday, attempting to convince me to drop the lawsuit. Now I had to sit through a meeting and listen to them argue the point ad nauseam.

  I pecked away at my keyboard, going through pages and pages of documents. I took a few conference calls. Then there were still more documents.

  Sales projections for the next quarter.

  Sales had been down. Our stock prices had been going down. All because of this fucking lawsuit. Customers and shareholders weren’t going to hedge their bets on who would win, even though I knew it.

  I clicked through a few more pages of the document. I was like a programmed drone, doing the same repetitive things — killing time until that bullshit meeting.

  The numbers just looked like blurs at this point. After this lawsuit was over, projections wouldn’t matter. Everything would have to be done again anyway. If we lost, well, we were fucked. If we won, we stood to gain a lot of money and likely a flood of new customers and sales.

  The afternoon meeting time arrived, and I walked toward the all-glass conference room. There they were, only it wasn’t a room full of people like I’d expected.

  Ben stood proudly, his hands behind his back, bouncing on his heels. His goofy smile was aimed right at me like he was either hoping to befriend me, or pull the wool over my eyes. I wasn’t sure, but neither was likely in today’s meeting.

  Truthfully, Ben was probably a great guy in his own way. He seemed to be a nice enough dude, anyway. He was always calm, collected — he even seemed to have what a lot of us in this world didn’t have: a heart. Hell, if he hadn’t been in the career field that he was in, it might have even been a heart of gold. Because even with all the animosity between our companies, he seemed to hold out a little faith that we could all just end things, settle, and become friendly rivals once again.

  I wasn’t sure, though, if that was a pro or a con with his character.

  Some people might have thought he wasn’t really cut out for the business world. I mean, he wasn’t his father. That man was a total douchebag. Ben wasn’t. Not as far as I could tell, and I was pretty good at reading people.

  I wasn’t a whole lot like my old man, either, but I did know one thing: the business world was a cut-throat world.

  Ben didn’t seem like he believed that quite yet. He seemed to think that everything could be solved with words and conversation, no paperwork or lawyers necessary.

  I wasn’t raised to believe that, though, and I sure as hell wasn’t trained like that.

  In this world, there was a law. It was nature’s law, only a little skewed and a whole hell of a lot twisted. It was dog eat dog. There was no sweetness. No kindness. There were piss-your-pants-intimidating-lawyers, and contracts—lots and lots of contracts. Behind those contracts were big beastly CEOs with their trained lawyers ready to take you for everything that you had.

  He hadn’t quite been jaded by the business world, though. Truth be told, I was envious of him for that. I wished I could have gone back to a time before the world’s negativity won out. Older people always seemed to be saying that young people were “too young to be cynical,” and what they meant by that was to give it time, because eventually, the world was going to bite you square on the ass.

  In the corporate world, you had to be ready to bite it back.

  And hard.

  Ben definitely had a bite — I had seen it before. He was a hard-ass when he wanted to be. I mean, after all, his father’s blood did run through his veins. The problem for Ben was that he rarely ever felt the need to be a total asshole. And when someone who was genuinely nice, with only just a slight hard-ass streak, stood next to a stone-cold alpha with a sharp bite and no regard for asking questions before he struck, he was going to look like a newborn pup…a big weeny.

  If it hadn’t been for the feud between our companies — and families — we probably could have actually been friends or at the very least close acquaintances. Hell, we maybe could have even played a game or two of racquetball.

  At least he was here, and not his rock-solid ass of an old man. Because compared to him, Ben was a
fucking dream to work with.

  I felt the load fall squarely on my shoulders as I laughed to myself. Speaking of the asshat, there he stood, in all his glory, just behind his son.

  Michael-Fuckin’-Murphy. The man who ran the whole shit show at Bio-Research Labs.

  The large, stocky man shoved past his son’s shoulder and extended his hand out to me.

  I really wanted to forgo the pleasantries and just get to work, but business was business and professionalism was professionalism. I had to smile and bear it, grin and grit those teeth and suck down whatever shitty remark I actually wanted to say.

  “Always a pleasure, Ian,” Murphy said behind a fake smile.

  I smirked. He definitely knew the game. He had obviously been a player for a long fucking time.

  I’d like to think that I wasn’t intimidated often, but Michael Murphy could intimidate pretty much anyone. Not that I’d ever show it, and not that it ever stood in the way.

  The man stood proudly, and his handshake was firm. He was the type of man who had shaken a lot of hands. He looked at me, his green eyes piercing into mine, and I figured that he was trying to intimidate me. I’d never give him the satisfaction.

  He was getting older, and he was starting to look much older than he actually was. He couldn’t have been more than sixty years old, but his head was full of white-gray hair. Wrinkles and bags sagged beneath his eyes.

  Doubtless, it was stress. I was starting to realize just how stressful the position of CEO really was. It could weigh anyone down. It sure as hell was weighing me down.

  Although Murphy might have looked aged, he still looked sharp. His hair was slicked back with pomade, and he wore a striking navy suit. It was the kind of suit that I could just tell was expensive. It wasn’t any surprise to me that he had spent the big bucks on it. He was a lot like my old man in that regard.

  “We came to discuss this lawsuit, Ian.” His voice sounded strong and rehearsed — almost like he had been watching too many legal shows.

  “Without lawyers?” My tone was light, but inside I was screaming. I knew what they were doing, and I didn’t like it. I hated how much they were trying to push me into letting it all go.