by Nikki Chase
“If you're talking about the contract with McAdams, we’re still waiting to hear from them,” Jeff says from his desk two floors below me.
“Damn it.”
Before I can hang up, Jeff speaks up. “I have heard from Melanie, though. She's willing to take less if—”
“I don't care what she wants,” I cut Jeff off. “She's not getting another cent from me.”
“Heath, be reasonable. It's going to cost less money and take less time if you just accept your ex-wife's offer, or at least, negotiate.”
“I told you, Jeff, I don't care what it costs. She's not getting another cent from me,” I repeat.
“Okay,” Jeff says, in a tone that says he disapproves.
I fume quietly as I hang up.
He's really not in a position to judge, seeing as he's just my lawyer and I didn't ask him for his personal opinion. It annoys me sometimes that I need to disclose details of my personal life to keep everything running smoothly, but I guess that’s just one of the little inconveniences of being rich. Nobody's going to feel sorry for me for that.
My smartphone beeps.
Only my parents and a handful of important contacts know this number, so it’s probably important. As I read the text message, blood drains from my body.
I quickly grab my keys and walk out of my office.
“Heath, where are you going?” Kat gets up from her desk and follows me, scurrying to meet my pace. “Mr. Mikhailov is almost here.”
“Reschedule it,” I say, mashing the elevator button.
“I can't. He’s flying to Australia tonight,” Kat says.
“Cancel it.”
Kat
“Maybe I should just give up.” I throw my head against the back of the sofa and stare at our popcorn ceiling.
“No,” Jane quips quickly as she moves to the couch beside me. “I like the way you write. The descriptions, the conversations, the settings… Come on, Kat, you’ve got what it takes.”
“I know I’m not a horrible writer, Jane. But I don’t know if I have what it takes. I mean, after working on this manuscript for two years, I’m still not done yet.”
“I think what you have now is great,” Jane says. “You’re just too much of a perfectionist to see it. You go crazy overthinking the tiny little details, but I think the book is perfect. You just need to finish it and publish it.”
“I don’t know… Those rejection letters from publishers have shredded my youthful optimism. I’m old and jaded now.” I let out a big, exhausted sigh. “Or maybe I just suck.”
“No, you don’t,” Jane insists. “And you’re only twenty-one. You're too young to be jaded.”
She’s my biggest cheerleader. My only one, actually. And not for the first time, I wonder if she’s wrong about my writing.
“After all my hard work, the only people who have read it are me, you… and my boss,” I say. “Open your eyes, Jane. Maybe the publishers are right and I just suck.”
“Hey, I’m just trying to help here. You said you’ve always wanted to be a romance author.”
“I haaave…” I whine. “But I suck.” I let out a big, heavy sigh. “Plenty of people want to be Hollywood stars, but they just end up waiting tables their whole lives. Maybe I’m like one of those people. I just need to make peace with the fact that I’m probably going to be a corporate assistant my whole life.”
“No, you’re not,” Jane says.
“I know you’re trying to cheer me up, but maybe I don’t have what it takes to make it as a romance author.”
“You can… what do they call it… publish without a publisher…?”
“Self-publish.” I pour wine into a fresh glass. I’m feeling lonely, getting drunk on my own. I shove the glass of wine into Jane’s hand. “Between work and babysitting my step-brother, I barely have much time left to write. According to my research self-publishers have to spend a lot of time on marketing and promotion to succeed. Oh, and spend money on those things, too. I don't have time or money.”
“Could you maybe do less babysitting?”
Oh boy, here we go again.
“You say it like it’s the easiest thing in the world.” Imitating her, I say, “Oh, just do less babysitting.” I give Jane a flat stare. “Geez, that didn’t occur to me, Jane. Thanks.”
Jane laughs. “Make it your challenge-of-the-day thing to stop babysitting for Vera.”
“Don’t make fun of my challenge of the day. It's gotten me through some difficult times.” I’ve been coming up with daily challenges for myself as a way to avoid feeling overwhelmed with the many responsibilities on my shoulder. It helps me focus my energy on just one thing, so even if I drop all the other balls, the important thing gets done.
“I wouldn't even dream of bashing your weird productivity trick. I’m serious. I don’t know why you keep doing that. Vera has been nothing but mean and ungrateful.”
“I don’t know either.” I pause. “Okay, maybe I do. It's mostly because of she makes me feel guilty if I don't help her out. And I feel bad for her son. He's the one who's going to suffer if I drop Vera. So that's out of the question.”
“Oh.” Jane looks like she still has more things to say. She probably only bites her tongue because we’ve been through this too many times before and I’ve never listened to her.
My whole life, my step-mom, Vera, has always put me down. And even though I’ve moved out, she hasn’t let me go completely. She still hounds me on the phone all the time, asking me for money or free babysitting for her eight-year-old brat.
I’ll show the mean old hag. I’ll write a book as successful as 50 Shades of Grey. Once the movie based on my novel comes out, she won’t be able to call me a failure anymore.
“Okay, so… Try again until you get a publishing deal, I guess,” Jane says. “I know that’s nothing new and probably not the advice you want to hear, but I don’t see any other way.”
“But how?” I ask. “I’ve sent out my manuscript to a bunch of publishers. I tweak it every time I get the tiniest hint of feedback from those people. And you know most of them have only sent me form emails from some rejection template. I don’t know what else to try.”
Jane doesn’t say anything, but I can tell from the look on her face that she’s thinking of something.
“What is it?” I ask.
“What?”
“Whatever you’re thinking about.”
Jane hesitates, but she knows I’m not letting this go now. She takes a deep breath. “Okay. Don’t freak out. It’s just an idea… Okay?”
“What is it? Just tell me,” I say, getting impatient.
“Okay. So… Heath Anders told you he’ll help you, right?”
“Where is this going?” I narrow my eyes at my best friend. “You’re saying I should just give up, right? Even my boss, the stock investor, thinks my sex scenes are shit. He came up with better ideas than I did, Jane, can you believe it?”
“I can,” she says without missing a beat. “Because if the financial papers are to be believed, Heath Anders is a miracle worker.”
I groan.
Jane and I met in college, but while I was a bohemian arts student, she was a sensible finance major. Considering many of her friends are fanboys and fangirls of Heath Anders, she’s not an anomaly.
I like Jane’s friends. Finance majors are cool. They helped me get this personal assistant job.
But Jane’s crazy if she thinks I’m going to take erotic writing lessons from my boss.
“You know what I think you should do?” Jane asks, swishing her glass of wine around in her excitement. If she’s not careful, she’s going to spill it on our fabric couch.
“Yes.” I’m dying to hear this.
“You should totally let Heath Anders do all the things he told you he’d do, and write about those. That would be so hot.”
Oh, wait, she’s not telling me to learn to write from my boss. She’s freaking telling me to sleep with my boss. She’s crazier than I thought. S
he’s completely lost her mind.
“You know what I think you should not do?” I ask. “Give advice when you’re drunk.”
“No, no, I’m serious,” Jane says, tucking her golden-brown hair behind her ears. “He was totally flirting with you. He said he’d do this and that to his assistant, right?”
I recall the conversation in Heath’s office. “Yeah…”
“He’s totally into you,” Jane decides. “You should sleep with him. Maybe you can, I don’t know, get close to him and learn a lesson or two about business. And maybe get him to introduce you to some publishers. With the kind of network he has, I’m sure he knows a person or two who can help you out.”
“Jane, I’m not going to sleep with my boss.” I scrunch up my nose. “How sleazy is that? Just yesterday you were complaining about your colleague who, in your own words, ‘slept her way to the top.’”
“That’s different. Her boss is old and gross. Your boss—” Jane takes a moment to pause and sigh “—your boss is Heath Anders. I mean, just the things that he said to you in his office… God, they were hot.”
I pause. “You think so? You’d read something like that?”
“Definitely,” she answers enthusiastically. “I think you should write down his ideas, and I think you should include what happened today in your novel.”
“No way,” I react instinctively. “He might read it.”
“So what? He’s already read the rest.” Jane levels her gaze at me and gives me a serious stare. “Most importantly, I think you should sleep with him.”
“God, I shouldn’t have given you the wine. Give me back my sane friend,” I protest. “We want sane Jane. We want sane Jane. We want—”
“Kat. This is seriously the sanest idea I’ve ever had.” Jane puts her wine glass down on the coffee table. Her hands can’t stay still. They gesture wildly as she speaks. “Listen to me. It makes sense. You’ll get to sleep with Heath fucking Anders—that’s going to impress a lot of people at a lot of parties for the rest of your life. And you’ll write better. Hell, your description of today's conversation in his office? That was way hotter than all the sex scenes you’ve ever written, combined.”
“Are you serious?” I ask suspiciously.
“Dead serious.” Mimicking the voiceovers in bank ads, Jane says, “Sleep with Heath Anders. It's the kind of investment that will keep on paying dividends for the rest of your life.”
I’m used to Jane’s tendency to insert financial jargon into our conversations. But even after years of friendship, I still can’t parse her words sometimes. All I know is, she’s saying that sleeping with Heath is a good thing.
I eye her suspiciously. “If this is a prank, you’ve got me. If you want to tell me you were just kidding and laugh at me, this is the time.”
Jane continues to stare at me with a serious expression. “You. Should. Sleep. With. Heath. Fucking. Anders,” she repeats slowly.
“But how is that different from the people who sleep their way through their career?” I ask. “It just feels so demeaning.”
“No, it’s totally different,” Jane says. “You see, you won’t be sleeping with him to get a promotion or something like that. You’ll be doing it to do the research you need for your work. You're just an artist who's willing to suffer for your art—although, considering we're talking about Heath Anders, I’m not sure ‘suffer’ is the right word to use here.”
I stare blankly at the wall as Jane’s words sink in.
Maybe the alcohol is getting to me, but she’s starting to make sense.
To be perfectly honest…
I’ve never told anyone—not even Jane—but Heath makes my body thrum with a foreign thrill. I’d never felt anything like that before him.
The tingles between my legs. The wetness leaking onto my panties. The spark of desire when his fingers brush against my skin…
Despite my knee-jerk objections to Jane’s idea, and despite my attempts to keep things professional at the workplace… I do find my boss attractive. He’s not just a random person I base my character on. I write about him because he inspires me.
But if this goes wrong and I lose my job, what am I going to do?
Even though this is not my dream job, it pays well enough to cover all my expenses. Late nights are rare, so I have enough time to write, even with my Vera-related obligations. And it’s not physically taxing, so I don’t crash as soon as I get home after work.
But if I were to lose this job, I could end up with a more demanding one. Or a lower-paying one, which could force me to get a second job, which would eat up my writing time.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
This plan is way too crazy… right?
I can’t just sleep with my boss, not even in the name of research, or even a book deal… can I?
…
But damn… a book deal would literally change my life.
“Jane, do you really think what Heath said about helping me with my book… You think he really meant he’d sleep with me?”
I hear no reply.
I twist to look at Jane, expecting to see her grinning at me, mocking my gullibility.
But she’s not even listening. She’s passed out. Her hair covers her face as she slowly slides down the back of the couch.
Of course that was just drunk talk. It didn’t mean anything. Jane didn’t mean any of it.
I’m not actually going to sleep with Heath Anders.
To my surprise, disappointment pangs in my chest.
Obviously, I’m way too drunk to think clearly.
Ugh. I’ll sleep on it and think again in the morning. This will be my challenge for tomorrow. I’ve never failed to complete my challenges, so I’m sure I’ll reach a decision by the end of the day.
Heath
I never cancel meetings with my biggest clients. Never. My clients know they can reach me or one of my top men whenever they need me. That's why I only take on a limited number of clients. My company specializes in high-net-worth individuals who appreciate the personalized customer service we provide.
But when I find out Dad has collapsed and is already in an ambulance, there’s no other option. Mr. Mikhailov can always fly here again if he really needs to see me. I have to rush to the hospital.
When I enter the hospital room, Mom’s crying and Dad’s lying unconscious on the bed. A machine is beeping and a clear IV tube is jabbed into his forearm. While the doctors run their tests, Mom keeps a tight clasp around Dad’s hand, as if she’s trying to guide him back with her touch.
The doctors come back not long after Dad wakes up. They tell us something we already know: the surgery Dad had a few months ago wasn’t successful.
But they tell us something else—something we don’t already know: he only has one year to live.
I leave the room to ask the doctors about drug trials. There’s only a minuscule chance of them working and they cost a fortune, so I’m worried my parents are going to balk at the price if they hear the conversation.
But I have a fortune. And there’s only so much I can spend.
After buying a big penthouse in Manhattan, a few investment properties, and a private jet, I can’t really think of any more expensive toys I want. So why not spend my money on my family?
After a long talk with the doctors about his options, I slip back into Dad’s hospital room.
“How is he?” I take a seat beside my mom and put my arm around her shoulders, which are still shaking.
Mom tears her gaze away from Dad, who’s fallen asleep. “He’s okay. Just tired. He’s resting now,” she says, her cheeks wet with tears.
“Mom, this doesn’t have to be a…” I almost say “death sentence,” but I stop myself before the words come out of my mouth. My direct communication style, which works well in business meetings, doesn’t quite fit this setting. “This doesn’t have to be the end of the road,” I say finally. “Dad has other options.”
“You mean drug trials?” Mom as
ks softly with wariness in her tired eyes. “I know they’re a last resort, Heath.”
“It’s another chance to fight.”
“I’m tired of fighting. Your dad is tired of fighting,” Mom says.
“We’ll talk to Dad about it and see what he decides.” I know I’ll have a better chance of getting Dad to agree to my plan.
She knows it’s unlikely that Dad would heal, so Mom wants to ease his suffering and let him enjoy his last days. It hasn’t been easy on either one of them, this fight against Dad’s progressing illness.
But I know Dad would fight, knowing how much losing him would hurt Mom. They share a beautiful partnership filled with love and empathy.
I envy them. I once thought I’d grow up to find what they have, but it turns out that kind of love just doesn’t exist in this time, this age, and especially this place.
New York City makes you fall in love with its promise of something even better, just beyond your reach.
Having climbed up to the top, I realize it’s an empty promise, but I can’t stop. It doesn’t make any sense. What use is getting more, when I already have more than enough?
Yet, it’s like a compulsion at this point. The yardstick is no longer just my needs and wants—I have way more money than I’ll ever spend in my lifetime—but how well my peers are doing.
It’s a competition. It’s a dick-measuring contest. And it’s fucking addictive. There’s nothing like the feeling of winning.
That’s great for my success. But at the same time, my success also means that I’m surrounded by women who think like me, who live for the satisfaction of gaining victory over their competitors. Except instead of money, they’re after men with money.
A relationship with a woman like that can get expensive, and I’m speaking from experience.
“How much does it cost, Heath?” Mom asks.
“Huh?” I almost ask her if she’s talking about the women, then I realize she can’t read my thoughts. I should probably get some sleep soon. Just to make sure, I ask, “The drug trial?”
