Julian's Pursuit

by Lovell, Haleigh

  “Ah.” I waved her words aside. “But there’s always a chance you might say yes.”

  “All right.” A beguiling smile slowly eased up one corner of her mouth. “You want to know what the chances are that I might say yes?”

  I found myself nodding in response.

  “Look out the window,” she said demurely and like a fool, I did. “Now look up at the sky and count the stars. That’s how much of a chance you have.”

  “But it’s noon.” I frowned. “I can’t see a single star.”

  “Exactly,” she said without expression. “And thank you for pointing that out, Captain Obvious.”

  I was three times a fool. “You’re welcome, Sergeant Sarcasm.”

  As Sadie turned to leave, I said, “Hang on a sec.” Not to be outdone, I squinted in the pallid glare of the afternoon sun. “With a telescope or a powerful pair of binoculars, I’m pretty sure I could see a million stars in the sky, even in broad daylight. So I’d say the chances of you saying yes are pretty darn high.”

  She groaned in exasperation, the sound raspy and appealing in a way it shouldn’t have been. “Please stop talking.”

  “Okay.” The corners of my mouth quirked in a lopsided grin. “Whatever Miss Sadie wants Miss Sadie gets.”

  “You’re still talking,” she said with a slight inflection in her voice that indicated she might have in fact enjoyed our playful banter.

  Chapter Five

  “Are you going to the office holiday party?” Julian asked as he passed me in the hallway.

  I blinked. “When is it again?”

  “This Saturday.” He paused, then pointed out. “Tomorrow.”

  I thought briefly, then nodded. The firm’s holiday parties were held right after Thanksgiving, almost three weeks before Christmas.

  At Hall and Heinrich, they liked to ring in the celebrations early.

  “So are you going?” he asked again.

  “Of course,” I said with false cheer. “Miss an opportunity to watch my coworkers get drunk and act like total asshats? Not a chance.”

  Julian flashed me a grin that could only be described as morose. “I’m looking forward to suffering through the indignity of forced merriment.”

  Forced merriment. Hah. I liked that. Office holiday parties had a way of living in infamy. Every business has its own culture, but advertising seems to attract a slightly more, shall I say, progressive type of person than others.

  Last year, Hall and Heinrich threw a party on a yacht that was so scandalous the firm was banned from the cruise line.

  So this year, I heard the firm had rented out a banquet hall in downtown San Francisco.

  Truth be told, I usually showed up out of a sense of obligation, and it was an excuse for me to wear a pretty dress.

  “Will you save me a dance?” he asked, his sea-green eyes intent upon my face.

  I bit back a laugh. “It isn’t prom night.”

  “Will you?” He continued to hold my gaze steadily.

  God. He melted my insides when he looked at me like that.

  “Maybe.” My body tensed with sexual awareness. I forced my voice to lightness, determined to hide my own traitorous emotions.

  “Maybe?” He pantomimed a knife to his chest. “Is that a polite no?”

  Smiling at his theatrics, I slowed to a halt when I reached my office and paused with my hand on the door. “Ask me again tomorrow night and you’ll know.”

  I could have gone with the slightly more conservative black dress, but something inside me rebelled and I went with the long red dress with a low, plunging back and a side slit that ran to my upper thigh. It showed an indecent amount of leg.

  The silky material was so soft and fluid it melted against my curves, fitting over my body like a snake’s skin.

  It was bold and ballsy and it gave my confidence a much-needed boost.

  Before I left my room, I stood in front of the mirror to check myself. After a quick deliberation, I removed the long onyx necklace dangling from my neck.

  Taking off at least one piece of jewelry before I left the house was a habit instilled by my mom. Mom had always embraced Chanelism—a hallmark of the fashion designer Coco Chanel. I didn’t know if Chanelism was even a word, but Mom had always insisted it was. And according to her, Coco Chanel once famously said, “Before you leave the house, look in the mirror and remove one accessory.”

  This rule always ensured that I didn’t overdo it. Less is more, so to speak.

  By the time I was ready to leave, the doorbell rang and it was Brianna, my babysitter.

  “Evan’s already in bed,” I told her. “And my mom will probably be home sometime tonight. I’ll only be gone for a few hours, but call me if you need anything. My number is on the fridge.”

  “Okay.” She flopped down on the sofa, reached for the remote, and turned on the TV.

  As I stood in the foyer, slipping on my strappy heels, Brianna’s lilting voice drifted over from the sofa. “You look sic in that dress! Are you ready to get turn’t up at the party?”

  I was down with her slang, her lingo. “Turn’t up? Is that turn up to the highest degree?”

  “Yeah.” Brianna nodded coolly. “You know, get wild, get loose! Get turn’t up at the party.”

  I just smiled and shook my head.

  Teenagers these days, I thought. I felt like the old lady in the room. It seemed to me like some teens nowadays were too concerned about being turn’t up. What they really needed to turn up was respect, intelligence, and making something of themselves.

  Good gravy! I thought. I must be getting old. I sound just like my Grandma Constance.

  Of course I shared none of this with Brianna. If I did, she’d probably never turn up to babysit.

  Because I didn’t leave my house until after Evan was tucked in bed, it was close to nine thirty by the time I arrived at the party. The lights were low, the drinks were flowing, and the music was bumping. I deposited my Secret Santa gift under the twenty-foot Christmas tree and cast a glance around the ballroom. Everyone was in a good mood, laughing, chatting, drinking, and dancing.

  As I grabbed a glass of champagne from a passing waiter, I caught sight of Rochelle.

  She waved at me from across the room, motioning for me to come join her.

  Tough as nails, warm like the Portuguese sun—that was Rochelle Bendal in a nutshell. She drank, smoked, swore too much, and scared almost everyone she met.

  But Rochelle didn’t intimidate me in the least because she and I went way back. When I’d first started out at Hall and Heinrich six years ago, I was hired as her assistant.

  Rochelle, an account manager at the time, had seen the steel in my eyes, my spitfire ambition. And while I’d worked efficiently, was highly motivated, and wore many hats, all my hard work never got me anywhere in the company.

  The Mad Men era of advertising might have been over at the time, but sexual equality in the industry had yet to be reached. Women didn’t match their male peers in the management ranks. Rochelle knew how difficult it was for women in advertising, and she’d been determined to help a fellow sister out.

  When I’d ask her why, she simply replied that she believed in women empowering one another rather than competing with each other.

  Rochelle had started out at the bottom, too, covering the phones for receptionists on bathroom breaks. She fought hard to rise through the ranks, and she succeeded. And she wanted to see me succeed, too. And she did. Like a true mentor, she took me under her wings, showed me the ropes, supported me, stood by me, and I eventually rose to the rank of senior account executive.

  “Sadie.” Rochelle smiled and leaned in to give me two air-kisses. “It’s so good to see you, darling.”

  “You, too,” I said warmly. “It’s been a while.”

  “I know,” she said ruefully. “It has, hasn’t it? Too long, I must say.”

  Three years ago, Rochelle was sent to New York to help spearhead Hall and Heinrich’s new office.

&
nbsp; “How have you been?” I asked. “How’s New York?”

  “Oh, I love New York,” she gushed theatrically. “Love it! Over there, you’re allowed to be an asshole only if you’re interesting. You have to actually earn the privilege of being a dick. Over here, on the other hand…” She waved her champagne glass in the air, making a vague gesture in the direction of Tim Pulaski’s table. “You can just be a dick. No personality needed.”

  Meanwhile, Tim was doing little to prove her wrong. He and the men at his table were rating the women on a scale of one to ten.

  It wasn’t exactly hard to overhear their conversation since Tim was as deaf as a post and often spoke at full volume. “Natalie’s a four,” he remarked. “With her big ass, she looks like Barney in that purple dress.”

  “Barneys New York?” Alan sounded perplexed. “The department store?”

  Tim made a dismissive snort. “Barney the fucking dinosaur, you idiot.”

  Rochelle grimaced with distaste. “Pulaski hasn’t changed one bit, has he?”

  “Nope.” I took a sip of champagne. “Not one iota.”

  “Fucking prick. And his voice!” Rochelle barely contained a shudder. “Christ, he sounds like an old Italian frog passing gas.”

  A bubble of laughter escaped me. “He does, doesn’t he?”

  “You know what?” Rochelle said dryly. “We should rate the men, too.”

  “We should,” I agreed, my voice matching hers for dryness. “Let’s start with Pulaski.” I let my critical gaze rest on his outfit, taking in his dress shirt that was buttoned all the way up his neck, even with the top button done up, and he wasn’t wearing a tie.

  “A dress shirt fully buttoned but without a tie.” Rochelle made the same observation. “He looks uncomfortable and ridiculous, if you ask me.”

  “It does frame his chin perfectly, though,” I said wryly.

  “Obviously, he’s going for the street wear hipster vibe, but that isn’t even a sixties mod shirt. It’s an ugly-ass dress shirt. Ugh, no.” Rochelle shook her head. “Just—no. He looks like an Iranian government official.”

  I bit back a laugh. “I was thinking more along the lines of a portly Saddam.”

  “Mm. Do you think we’re being too kind?” Rochelle asked and then promptly answered her own question. “I think we’re being too kind. So I’ll go ahead and just say it. He looks like a fucking primate. I mean, we all sprang from apes, but clearly, Tim didn’t spring far enough.”

  I let a smile curve my lips before raising my glass and sipping the sparkling liquid. “Oh, how I’ve missed you, Rochelle.”

  “And you know what I find absurd?” She went on. “Tim Pulaski. With his liver lips and a face that could use a lot of plastic surgery—like witness protection amounts of plastic surgery—he rates us, but he doesn’t seem to take into account his own attractiveness and personality.”

  “Girl, preach.” I almost hugged Rochelle for giving voice to the thoughts in my head.

  “Tim just needs to go play a nice game of hide and go fuck himself.” Rochelle flashed me a smile, clinking her glass against mine.

  Toasting to that, I drained my glass in one gulp. “I’d tell him to go fuck himself, but I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.”

  “True.” Rochelle nodded thoughtfully. “He just needs to go squat in a cactus patch.”

  Meanwhile, things were getting even louder at Tim’s table, and the men were still rating women using the binary scale.

  A chill danced down my spine when I heard my own name thrown into the mix. “Sadie’s a ten in that dress,” someone commented.

  “In that dress?” Tim snorted. “That bitch is definitely asking for it.”

  “Get the fuck outta here! Pulaski again?” Rochelle glared in his direction. “Who the fuck let him out of douche prison?”

  Squaring my shoulder blades, I sent Tim a death stare. If looks could kill, he’d be in a body bag. I wasn’t going to apologize for having a female body and dressing to that.

  A muscle ticked in Tim’s jaw and he kept his gaze averted from me.

  Coward.

  At some point, the DJ started playing Shake It Off, and Rochelle nudged me in the ribs, as if chiding me to quit standing around. “C’mon,” she said, catching my arm when she realized I wasn’t budging. “Let’s get it turn’t up in here.”

  Clearly, Rochelle had teenage kids, and just hearing a grown-ass woman say turn’t up made my heart light up with humor. Laughing, I allowed myself to be led onto the floor where I proceeded to shake my ass off, dancing like nobody was watching.

  Only someone was watching. The entire time, I was aware of Julian’s presence across the room, drawing my attention like a moth to a flame.

  Whenever I snuck a glance at him, it seemed he was looking at me, his hot stare following me, as palpable as a warm caress.

  “Who are you looking at?” Rochelle demanded. There was a twinkle of amusement in her eyes as she stared at me.

  “No one,” I said too quickly.

  “Bullshit.” Rochelle did a quick scan of the ballroom. “Oh, I see him. That sexy Marlboro man in the corner, staring at you.” She winked at me. “He’s an American treasure.”

  I just shook my head and forced myself to let go, losing myself in the catchy beats with my signature dance moves. They went sort of like this: Here’s my shoulder. Let me roll it forward as I twist my left hip. Oh, here’s my other shoulder. Let me roll it forward as I twist my right hip. And repeat.

  Dorky, I know. And even though Rochelle gave me a wide berth, I moved like I was dancing in a confined space. It was all part of my “routine,” so to speak.

  By the time the song ended, I was out of breath and gasping for air, feeling like my lungs were on fire.

  Good Lawdy Lawd. I felt atrociously out of shape.

  Then the DJ switched tempos and played a love song reserved for slow dancing, prompting the couples on the floor to put their arms around each other and shuffle their two left feet.

  Rochelle said, “I’m outta here.” And then she was gone like the wind.

  The relaxed acoustic guitar sounds of Thinking Out Loud filled the entire ballroom. It was a beautiful love song about a couple growing old together and loving each other as if it were the first day they met.

  Not a song I was planning on dancing to all by myself. I started walking off the dance floor, when I felt a warm hand on my waist. “Dance with me.”

  I whirled around and there was Julian, tall and broad shouldered in an exquisite suit that fit his frame perfectly. The shirt was crisp and the tie a mix of lilac and lavender.

  To his credit, he managed to make a feminine tie look very masculine.

  The man rocks paisley, I thought.

  There was a hint of laughter in his eyes as a sexy grin tilted his lips.

  I found myself reluctantly smiling back. “What?” I asked. “What’s so funny?”

  “Nothing.” One of his arms slid around my back, the other held my hand out to the side, and he swept me up into the music before I could protest. When he spoke again, there was a thread of amusement in his voice. “By the way, I enjoyed watching you shake your ass off on the dance floor.”

  I felt my temples flush hot and prayed he couldn’t see it in the dim light. “I guess I couldn’t help it.” I shrugged. “That song just makes me wanna dance. And I like Taylor Swift.”

  He skewed me a glance that was both charming and cheeky. “No, you don’t.”

  “Yes, I do,” I insisted.

  Expertly, he guided me across the dance floor, his grip strong and firm, his fingers burning through the fabric of my dress. “You look stunning tonight,” he said, looking at me with such intensity that I grew a little flustered again.

  “Thank you.”

  His steady gaze traveled down my face to rest on my dress. “Red is your color.”

  “It is?” I said demurely. “Why, thank you again. This dress was dyed using the blood of the innocents.”

  A rich, d
eep laugh escaped him. “You can’t fool me. You’re an angel.”

  “Yep, that’s me.” I suppressed a snort. “An angel. I probably need to lose some demons first.”

  He said nothing, only smiled. And as we continued to sway to the romantic ballad, it felt as if everyone else were far away and we were the only ones on the floor.

  “Speaking of the innocents…” Julian twirled me out and then in again, grinning as a laugh escaped me. “How’s Evan doing?”

  Interesting segue. “He’s good,” I said.

  “What do you have planned for his birthday?” He studied me with a thoughtful expression. “It’s in two weeks, right?”

  “It is. Yes,” I said, surprised he recalled our conversation in such detail. “I’m planning a Lego-themed party for him.”

  “Lego?” His face lit up. “Legos were the building blocks of my childhood.”

  “Mine, too.”

  “So…” He twirled me again and then dipped me. “Can I come to the party?”

  “No.”

  He pulled me out of the dip. “I’ll bring all the Legos.”

  “Hmm.” I tilted my head to the side, considering. “Were you the kind of kid who built things according to the instructions?”

  “Of course not.” He scoffed. “I built whatever the hell I wanted.”

  “Wrong answer.”

  “Aw, c’mon. I would’ve helped you clean up all the Lego bricks after the party. Now you’re gonna regret it when you step on a piece of Lego. Barefoot.”

  “I’ll be wearing shoes,” I informed him. Then another laugh escaped me as he spun me out and then in again.

  The conversations flowed smoothly and effortlessly, and the more we talked, the more I found myself enjoying my time with him.

  Julian was an exceptional partner. Sexy. Certain of himself. Confident.

  He knew how to lead, yet he allowed me to move freely.

  Our arms were joined, forearm to elbow, resembling the bow of a ship.

  And he was my anchor.