“If you rip this shirt, I swear to god…”
I kiss her breast through the pink cotton.
“I’m serious. Dates are off the table with me. I can’t do a relationship of any kind.”
I kiss her shoulder. Her neck.
“I’m off guys,” she says.
“You don’t seem like you’re off guys. In fact, you were quite recently on a guy, if memory serves.” I kiss her again. “And around a guy.”
“And I’m moving in three weeks.”
I still. “Three weeks?”
“I’m moving back to Fargo.”
You can’t, I’m about to say. I just found you. I won’t let you.
I bite my tongue. If there’s one thing I know about Seven, it’s that she doesn’t like to be pushed.
But I can’t let her leave. We have something special. “Why move?”
“To get back on my feet. Financially.”
Finances.
Finances are nothing. Finances can be solved. I go back to kissing her. “It’s just breakfast. And you know you can’t resist me.”
Her chest rises and falls as I strip off her shirt. “And I don’t do relationships.”
“Forget relationships. This is nothing but proximity to food supply,” I say. “Satisfying my animal needs. Using you for your smoking-hot body. Do you have a problem with that?”
She still looks unsure. I have my hands all over her. I can’t get enough of her. I can’t think of anything but to find a way to keep this going.
“No commitment. No expectations,” I add.
She hesitates.
I prefer to go into business deals not needing a yes. The fastest way to a yes is not needing it.
But for the first time in my life, I need a yes from a woman. Need it like air.
I tell myself it’s because she’s so elusive. Nothing like scarcity to make a person desperate. But that’s a lie.
I need her. End of story.
“You’re just my wake-up-call girl.”
She puts a hand on my chest, holding me off. She looks serious.
“Everybody needs to eat.” I slide a knuckle down her arm. I may not be able to talk her into what I want, but one touch and her skin comes alive; I can see it in her eyes. “Everybody needs to fuck. And you know I’m the best you’ve had.”
“Jay-zuss,” she says, but I know she thinks it, and she knows I think it, too. Something real happened last night.
“And you haven’t gotten your spanking you so richly deserve.”
Her eyes widen, just a fraction. Other people might not see it, but I do. The tides are turning my way. I kiss her neck in the spot she most likes. “Fuck buddies only. Three-week fuck buddies. Nothing to lose with a hard stop like that.”
“I don’t know, Drummond,” she whispers. Which tells me she’s thinking about it.
I slide my hand between her legs and watch her eyes go fuzzy. “Theo,” I say. “Say it.” I press on the spot she loves, stoking her pleasure.
“You’re playing dirty.”
“I know.”
She grabs my wrist. “Three-week fuck buddies,” she says. “And you won’t try to control me or get involved in my business in any way. You don’t meddle in my life. And no more home visits like this.”
I kiss my favorite freckle—the dark one at the very edge of her cheekbone. Who tried to control her? Who meddled in her business affairs? Was it that Mason West guy? Is he the one who ruined her? Has anybody made him sorry?
“I’ll stay away from your business.” I kiss her other cheekbone, for purposes of symmetry. Then I kiss her rosy lips.
I put my hands back on her. Maybe it’s not fair that I’m seducing her while we make this deal, but I’ll use every advantage I have.
“Just sex,” she says.
“Pure animal need,” I say, ignoring the little voice in the back of my head that points out what an utter lie that is.
The little voice whispering that this doesn’t qualify as animal need.
An animal in need of food will eat anything. An animal lost in the desert will drink almost any liquid. An animal in heat will fuck anything.
My animal need is for her and her alone.
I have to find a way to make her stay. That’s what I decide as I bury myself in the most perfect pussy on the planet.
Twenty-Eight
Lizzie
* * *
Mr. Drummond—Theo—makes a phone call, and a few minutes later, a town car is waiting outside my building. He directs his driver, Derek, to a place called Reena’s, which turns out to be one of those secret East Side restaurant gems that only beautiful, wealthy people seem to know about. It’s airy and bright and everything is local and organic. We sit in a corner booth and order coffees and eggy things.
“This place opens at five in the morning,” I say. “Is this where you go? After you get your obnoxiously early wake-up call?”
“No, I work out.”
“At 4:30? Like it can’t wait until a human hour?”
“Nope,” he says, eyes sparkling.
I’m starting to get that he’s even more of a hard-ass toward himself than he is toward his employees. More extreme, more demanding.
A waiter brings the coffees and a little sugar dish of something brown. “What is this?” I ask. The waiter gives me a long explanation that basically means not sugar. “Do you have sugar?”
“I’m sorry, no,” he says.
I thank him and eye the little dish of sugar’s un-fun cousin. “You go to a place that doesn’t serve sugar.”
“Sugar’s bad for you,” Theo says.
“Sugar is part of the circle of life.”
He looks at me like, does not compute.
I settle for coffee with cream. The cream is actually really rich and delicious and probably farm fresh. It almost makes up for the lack of sugar. Almost.
“So, then you come here? After your workout?”
“No. This is special for you. But don’t worry, it’s not a relationship.”
I sip my coffee really wanting sugar. I’m thinking about this little basement grocer we passed on our way in here. Two doors up the street. They would have sugar.
“I want you to know, you really can have your job back,” he says. “Or if you don’t want to work at Vossameer, I could help you get a job elsewhere. I have connections…”
“That’s okay. I’m going to find some catering work while I get ready to move. I have a lot of catering friends. To be honest, I was going to quit after my bonus came through.”
“You were using us for the bonus?”
“I earned it,” I say. “My engagement numbers blew away your targets. I set you guys up with a great program. Of course it was an impressive bonus.” I sit back with my coffee. “Far more than I expected.”
“I like my employees satisfied.”
“I like a boss who delivers,” I say, finding his foot under the table. And suddenly I want to fuck again.
“The Instagram strategy. All those reports. Tell me.” He looks serious. “It was yours, wasn’t it? Everything that Sasha took credit for?”
“Not all of it. She did all those whitepapers. Like a demon.”
He looks away, angry. I wouldn’t want to be Sasha.
“Dude, people take credit for underlings’ work at Vossameer all the time. It’s a grim and competitive atmosphere. It’s not good.”
“The people who are attracted to Vossameer are competitive. They’re the best of the best.”
“I have a perspective from the bottom rung. I’m telling you. People are uptight and unhappy. They admire you in a kind of frightened way, and it keeps them from being relaxed and creative.”
He seems surprised. “You think they’re unhappy?”
Has nobody ever told him anything like that? “I know they are. You ban decorations, and even microwave popcorn. People love microwave popcorn!”
“Microwave popcorn is a ridiculous food. It has zero nutritional value and ba
rely even any taste. It’s like eating smell. And it distracts everyone else.”
“Yeah, well people love it. Why not let them have it?”
“I’m not running a circus.”
“Isn’t a scientist supposed to be open to new evidence?” I ask. “You need to do something to help people feel more loose and easy. I don’t know, praise them more. Let them have treats. Find ways to encourage them to be creative. Show they’re appreciated, make them feel more secure so they don’t have to work so late. You could make it so much better to work there.”
He seems to be thinking about it.
“And while you’re at it, get some color in there. Let people make it homey. Let them put pictures up.” I stop. “I’m coloring outside the fuck buddy lines. I think it’s the lack of sugar. It’s amazing coffee, too, but so sad without sugar.”
He’s just watching me. I can’t read his expression.
“But that microwave popcorn ban?” I continue, because apparently I can’t help it. “No. If I were you, I’d supply them with awesome treats.” I look down. “This coffee is a crime.”
“We could go somewhere else.”
“No, just…” I’m thinking about that corner store. It’s like I can feel the sugar straining through the walls, trying to get at my coffee. “Excuse me for one second.”
“Where are you going?”
“BRB.” I go out onto the street and pop into the store. They only have sugar in two-pound bags. I buy it and bring it back and plop it down on the table.
“What the hell is that?” he growls.
“You know what it is.” I rip open the corner, trying not to grin. I pour a long stream of it into my coffee as he watches sternly. I pour and pour, possibly a little more than usual. I stir. I taste. “Heaven.”
He narrows his eyes.
“Want some?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Is your body a temple?”
“I think I showed you the answer to that this morning,” he rumbles.
I nearly snort out my coffee. I take a pen from my purse and I write my new phone number on the sugar. “You should bring this home with you. I think you need it.”
“You’re really moving to Fargo? Are you sure that’s…what you want?”
“No, it’s not what I want. Certain events caused my financial ruination, and it’s hard to dig out of something like that in Manhattan. I’m only going for eighteen months. I’ll help my parents with the pizzeria, and I’ll do catering through one graduation season and two holiday seasons.”
“So you have it all figured out.”
“Yeah. I can work like a devil there, and I’ll make bank with no overhead. I know exactly how much I can make. I’ll restructure my debt and come back with seed money to open a bakery here. Like I had before, but better. It’s not like anyone is going to rent a good space to me, what with my credit now.”
“What if they do? What if the most amazing space falls into your lap?”
“That doesn’t happen in New York. If it’s cheap, there’s something wrong with it.” I stir my coffee, feeling sad. “It’s just reality. I’ll miss it here, though. I’ll miss my friends.”
“An ironic and dorky occasion cookie bakery,” he says.
I smile. That’s the description on my blog. Or maybe he saw my Instagram. “Somebody did their homework.”
“I always do my homework,” he says. “Did you ever think about looking for an investor?”
“No,” I say. “I need it to be mine. It’ll be all mine, and it’ll be amazing.”
He asks where I got the idea for my ironic cookies, and I tell him the whole long story, which involves a bet with a friend about the existence of Bathtub Party Day, and me rubbing it in through creative baking. Theo doesn’t believe Bathtub Party Day is a real holiday, either, so I make him Google it. He finds it. Of course, he’s disgusted. He’s delightful when he’s disgusted.
I tell him about Compliment Day and Donut Day and High Five Day. He thinks I’m making all of them up, and it’s funny every time he discovers they’re real, and we’re laughing about it when a shadow appears over our table. “Excuse me. I’m sorry to interrupt.”
It’s a man with a pinkish complexion and a ball cap.
“I recognized you from the Trib article and I wanted to thank you,” he says to Theo. He tells us a story about his son falling off a ladder. Without Vossameer, his son would’ve died—apparently, the EMTs told him so.
Theo nods. He thanks the man politely, even tries to divert the conversation to the medical personnel’s hard work, but the man is having none of it. He shows us three pictures of his kid playing in the park before he lets us get back to breakfast.
When the man is gone, Theo huffs out an exasperated breath. “Where were we?”
“Dude. Was that just an annoyance to you? Your product that you invented saved his boy. Doesn’t that make you feel good?”
“It’s a product.”
“That saves lives.”
“I think there were EMTs involved in saving his boy’s life. Medical professionals who knew how to deploy it. I think that’s what he needs to focus on.”
“It doesn’t make you feel good? Not at all?”
“I made millions selling blood coagulant. Does that make me feel good? Every time I look out my penthouse window at Central Park.”
I watch his eyes, not buying it. And suddenly I’m thinking about his whole weird antihero thing. “I think you’re full of shit right now.”
“Oh, yeah?”
I shove at his leg with my foot. “I think you care.”
Suddenly he has my foot. “You sure? Last I checked, I was the asshole of the century.”
I shove at his thigh again. He starts working off my shoe.
“I’m going to need that shoe.”
He has his dirty-sex look. “Not where I’m taking you.”
“Fuck. The fuck. Off.”
“You’re a bad wake-up-call girl.” He lowers his voice. “You’ve been nothing but trouble.”
“If you think we’re fucking in that bathroom, you are so wrong.”
Theo lets go of my shoe when the waiter comes to pour more coffee while giving my giant bag of sugar the side-eye. Theo just gives me a sexy-eye. This guy. He melts me.
“Your family owns a pizzeria?” he asks when we’re alone again. “That’s where you’ll work out of in Fargo?”
“It’s not as glam as it sounds,” I joke.
But there’s this silence where that’s not the issue. The issue is about ending whatever is between us that isn’t supposed to be anything.
“You’ll have to access an alternate food supply for your savagery,” I say, trying to remind us what we are. Just two people who want no-strings sex. “To tear through and devour.”
“Why not get loans or…”
“With my credit?”
“And you just rule out investors? Do you have any millionaire friends? Let me think…”
Himself, he means.
I give him a hard look. Now entering full Mason flashback territory.
“Sorry,” he says. “No involvement in your business whatsoever.”
I twirl my fork by one tine, like a music box ballerina, impressed at how well he can read my expressions.
Theo isn’t oblivious at all. Or it’s more like he’s totally oblivious to everything on the planet except the things he’s passionate about, and those things get the full force of his brilliance, the full spotlight of his passion.
And when that spotlight shines on you, it’s beautiful. It’s nearly blinding. Could it be dangerous?
“I want you to understand something. My ex, Mason, loved taking part in the business. He took over control little by little, and I let him. It’s on me that I allowed it. I got lazy, I guess. Just wanted to believe a fairy tale. Anyway, he’s the reason it crashed. He’s down in the Caribbean or somewhere. With more money than I thought it was possible to squeeze out of me.”
Theo’s g
rim look is back. “The loan sharks were his doing.”
“And I had no idea. I was so shocked when Lenny’s guy showed up. Armed.”
He grits his teeth, like he’s angry on my behalf. “It wouldn’t be that hard to hunt down your ex and try to get some of that back.”
The dark pull of him feels so strong. Am I being a fool? “He probably hid it. Anyway, we don’t know for sure that he’s in the Caribbean.”
“Yes, we do,” he says.
“How?”
“Well…my PI tracked him as far as St. Thomas.”
Alarm bells start going off. “Your PI? An investigator? You had me investigated?”
“I background everybody I deal with. And you were so elusive for so long...”
“So of course you had to dig into my background.”
“It’s not like that. Not in a sinister way.”
He always does his homework. He always gets what he wants. Am I playing with fire? My Mason flashbacks are going full-tilt now.
I stand and grab my purse, feeling upset.
“It’s just a routine thing. Nothing to be upset about.”
“Routine to you, maybe, but think about it. You offered to invest in my company after I asked you not to get involved. And you had me investigated.” I hug my purse, still wanting him so bad it hurts. “And here you are telling me I shouldn’t be upset.”
I wait. Say something different, I think. Say something better.
Finally, he says, “It’s new for me not to be in the driver’s seat. I’m not good at it.” He looks back up, and I want to die in the beauty of his eyes.
My pulse races. “I need you to be good at it.” I don’t want to go, but it’s time. I turn and leave.
Twenty-Nine
Lizzie
* * *
I spend the morning networking until I find a caterer who needs a temporary baker. A friend of a friend. I go out to meet him at his place in Little Italy. His kitchen is cramped, but usable.
I get out of there feeling like I’m starting at the foot of the mountain, rolling the boulder upward, doing the kinds of jobs I did out of culinary school. I’m a better, faster baker, and a better businessperson than I was all those years ago, but in some ways, it’s all actually worse, because I see the steps. I know what a long road it is.
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