Hard Work

by K. M. Scott

  It would take more charm to get what I wanted, so I turned it on full tilt. Flashing her a smile, I said, “You aren’t wrong. I can definitely see that. Becca is lucky to have a good person like you who looks out for her best interests working for her. Hell, I could be some crazy man out to find her to take her kidney or something. What was your name again?”

  The woman responded to my compliment with a broad smile. “I’m Amy. I don’t want you to think I’m rude or anything, but it just isn’t smart to give people’s home addresses out to strangers.”

  Leaning on the edge of her desk, I got down to the receptionist’s level so we were eye-to-eye. “I understand. I do. Here’s the thing, Amy. I need to see Becca, and I didn’t drive all the way down from Vermont to end up this close and not see her. It’s very important to me that I see her today. It is hands down the most important thing to me in the world right now, and it needs to happen, come hell or high water.”

  Amy nodded and appeared to be warming up to me, so I continued. “I can’t leave this city without seeing Becca, and if that means I have to sit outside this office until tomorrow morning, I will, but it would probably be a whole hell of a lot more romantic if I showed up at her doorstep. So I’m begging you, will you please give me Becca’s address? Please?”

  She stared at me like she was considering what I said, and I silently prayed to God that my speech had worked. Little did she know, I had meant every word of it. Well, I would have probably gotten myself a hotel room instead of sitting outside the office all night like some kind of madman, but still, I meant everything else.

  “Vermont, huh? That’s quite a drive. You must really want to see her.”

  I sensed at any minute she’d relent and give me what I wanted, so I went in for the kill. “It is, and I wouldn’t make it for just anyone. But you know Becca isn’t just anyone.”

  Success!

  Amy took out a pen and wrote down the address on a sheet of paper. As she handed it to me, she kept her fingers on one edge, holding it tight between us and narrowing her eyes to a very unfriendly squint.

  “I feel like I should tell you that my family knows a lot of people, if you know what I mean. If you go to Becca’s house and do anything that isn’t incredibly nice and makes her unhappy in the tiniest bit, I’m going to tell my Uncle Tony, and I’m his favorite niece, so he’s going to do what I ask him to. You catch my drift, loverboy?”

  I stared at her in disbelief, and then out of the corner of my eye I saw her nameplate read Amy Bianchi. Had this woman just threatened to send the mob after me if I did anything to make Becca unhappy?

  It was one of those moments where I was glad no one, especially the woman in front of me, could read my mind. I smiled and looked her in the eye as I took the paper from her. “I swear I have no plans to do anything she won’t love. The next time you see her, you’ll see I did nothing wrong. I swear.”

  Amy just smiled up at me from her desk and shrugged. “You know what will happen if you don’t treat her right. Can’t say you didn’t have fair warning.”

  I nodded and left in a hurry, afraid if I didn’t that she’d start threatening me with concrete shoes and swimming with the fishes. I put the address in my phone and started heading towards the Upper West Side. Not one block away, however, I encountered the worst bumper to bumper traffic jam I’d ever seen.

  Finally, after a grueling hour stuck behind a garbage truck and a school bus, I pulled up in front of her townhouse. The red brick façade made the place look like every Upper West Side of Manhattan townhouse in the movies. It showed the effects of a recent rough winter, but overall, it looked classy and very Becca.

  Cream curtains blocked my vision through the front window, but I saw a light and a shadow moving telling me Becca was home. I bounded up the stairs and mentally kicked myself for not thinking to bring some flowers or candy. I needed to start planning ahead better if I ever wanted to successfully woo this woman. I hoped the fact that I was there would be enough as I rang the bell and waited.

  A few short seconds later, Becca opened the red front door and stared out at me with a look of shock on her face. “Zane? What…what are you doing here? How did you know where I live? I don’t recall giving you my home address at any point,” she said hesitantly, not immediately asking me in.

  “I went to your job and met a woman named Amy who was nice enough to give it to me after she threatened me with her apparent mob connections if I made you unhappy in any way. Did you know your assistant is some mob boss’s niece or something? I know this is New York, but damn, I didn’t think everyone was connected like that,” I said, beginning to ramble just a bit.

  Becca chuckled for a moment before catching herself and pressing her lips together tightly. I liked hearing that from her again and for the moment she smiled, I thought we might be okay.

  “Zane, I don’t think she is. Well, actually, who knows? Maybe she is connected,” she said, her smile fading, along with my hopes that maybe my stupid antics hadn’t ruined everything.

  “So now that you know that I’m not here to do anything that might endanger my life, can I come in?”

  As soon as the words left my mouth, her expression grew dark. “Why? If you’re fine with the campaign I have planned, I can begin working on it.”

  I leaned against the door frame and forced a smile, even as the situation grew worse by the second. “I called you a bunch of times.”

  She avoided my gaze and looked down the street. “I know.”

  “Why didn’t you call back?” It was a bold thing to ask, and when she snapped her head around to look at me, I saw she knew it too.

  I expected to get chewed out right there on her doorstep but Becca, ever the classy one, simply said, “I didn’t want to interrupt you and your long-time friend.”

  Shaking my head, I leaned in toward her. “You wouldn’t have interrupted anything. Please, can I come in, Becca?”

  “I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Zane. Whatever you came here for you could have found out through email. If you have any questions about the campaign, send them to the email address on my business card. I think it would be best if we communicated that way from now on.”

  Becca stepped back and began to close the door in my face. With every inch it came toward me, I knew my chances to win her over were slipping away. I stuffed my foot in next to the doorjamb, abruptly stopping the door, and took the last opportunity I might ever have to show her I could be the man she thought I was before I made the mistake of letting Stacey come around.

  “Just give me a few minutes. That’s all I ask. I just want to talk to you.”

  She pushed on the door to close it, crushing my foot. Failing to push me out, she looked up at me with hurt in her dark eyes and shook her head. “No, Zane. You disappointed me one too many times in this life. You don’t get another chance. Goodbye.”

  My heart slammed against my chest at the sound of that word coming from her. Goodbye. No! I couldn’t let her get away this time. I’d blown it years ago when I was too young and too stupid to deserve her. But now I’d grown up and become a different man.

  A better man because of her. I had to make her see that.

  Pressing my face into the crack, I began to plead my case. “I’m sorry. I screwed up. Stacey never meant anything to me. The person I was with her doesn’t exist anymore. I’ve changed, and it’s all because of you. You made me want to be a better man. Don’t let what we can be slip away because I’m an ass. Please, just give me another chance.”

  Her eyes filled with something I couldn’t place. It wasn’t hurt anymore, but it certainly wasn’t happiness at what she heard from me. I waited for her to say something and braced for another push on the door that would crush my foot.

  But she didn’t push me away.

  Instead, she simply walked into her house, leaving me standing there in the front doorway to her townhouse. Had I succeeded in convincing her to give me another chance?

  Or maybe she’d just g
iven up and hoped I’d leave her alone forever.

  I couldn’t do that, though, so I followed her inside and found her standing in the middle of the hallway with her arms crossed and a look on her face icier than any I’d ever gotten from another human being.

  Definitely not the expression of a woman who wanted to hear another word from me.

  It didn’t matter. All that mattered was I had gotten her to let me in and now she’d have to listen to me. Well, that or the cops would be arriving any minute and I’d be escorted out by New York’s finest.

  And then she spoke and I knew even if the cops didn’t come, I would be facing some punishment for what I’d done.

  “So you’re going with the better man routine, huh? I made you want to be a better man. What better man would that be, Zane? Is he better than the man who left me high and dry all those years ago after an incredible day at the pier thinking that something wonderful was happening between us? Is he better than the selfish and thoughtless man who made everyone at the inn hate him? Or is he better than the man who showed up in the dining room of the inn with some bleach blonde bimbo with bought and paid for boobs when he knew I’d be there especially to see him, particularly since I’d just fucking slept with him just seven days before that?”

  With every word that left her mouth, her voice grew angrier until she practically spat them out at me. I knew I deserved everything she wanted to throw at me, but to have my bad deeds laid out like that still left me stunned for a moment.

  My ego battered, I forced myself to show her that I knew what I’d done and wanted forgiveness for it. “I’ve been a real fuck, Becca. I don’t deny that. But I’m different now.”

  “Different from the asshole who did what he did just a few days ago with that old friend of yours? What was your goal there, Zane? Did you want me to feel insignificant and ugly compared to Miss Barbie Come To Life? Was that it? Was your male ego too fragile to handle a woman who had more going for her than tits, ass, and the space between her legs?”

  The usually sweet natured Becca glared at me as she hurled her accusations. Something inside my head made me want to defend myself, and before I knew it, the words had left my lips.

  “If I remember correctly, you made me feel pretty shitty after we slept together. You barely spoke to me that morning, and you left like even looking at me made you sick. Not exactly the response a guy expects after sleeping with a woman.”

  Her eyes opened wide with rage, and as regret settled into me, I wondered for a brief moment if I’d be seeing Uncle Tony in the next few days.

  “Are you kidding me? If I’m skittish about letting you see how I felt about you, it’s only because our past includes you leaving me without even a goodbye after a summer that included the two of us doing things I’ve only read in books and me sharing things I’ve never shared with any other person on the planet, Zane. And then you showed me I was right for being afraid to believe that you could ever be anything other than the thoughtless dick you’ve always been.”

  Most of what she said didn’t seem to offer me much of a chance to win her back, so I seized on the few that could. Stepping toward her, I reached out and touched her on the arm. “You shared things with me that you never did with anyone else? Not even your husband?”

  She yanked her arm away and shook her head. “No way! I’m not letting you do this to me, Zane Gilford. Go back to your fuck toy of a friend you’ve known a long time and leave me alone.”

  “I don’t care about her, Becca. I care about you. She’s nothing compared to you. I know I made a mistake parading her in front of you like that, but I see now that she never meant anything to me. I need you to believe that.”

  Her mouth dropped open for a moment, and she stared at me in disbelief through narrowed eyes. “It’s always about you, isn’t it? You need. What do you think I needed?”

  I searched for the right words to explain to her what I thought she needed from me, but none of them sounded very convincing. They all made me seem like the same selfish, egotistical asshole she saw me as.

  With anger seething from her, she snapped, “See? You’ve never even given what I needed a single moment’s thought. Why would you, right? All you can ever see is what you need.”

  She spun on her heels and began to walk away from me, but I grabbed her by the wrist to keep her there. If I didn’t say the words now, I might never get the chance, so I didn’t hold back.

  As she stared up at me in shock that I wouldn’t let her go, I said what a man fighting to keep the woman he loved with him would say. “You needed to believe in me, and I fucked up. There it is. The whole truth. You needed to believe that I could be a good man who gave even two shits about the people around me. You wanted me to not be the person who left you that summer day, tossing his things into the back of his car and driving out of town without even saying goodbye. You wanted me to be the person you spent all those days and nights with that summer, that guy who let himself feel for you before he got scared and ran away.”

  Becca lowered her head and quietly said with a sob, “Don’t. Don’t stand here and make me think there’s someone decent inside you. I won’t let you make a fool of me again. I won’t.”

  I stepped forward and tilted her head up to see tears filling her eyes. How many times had she cried because of me? I had to make her see I could be the man she wanted.

  The man she needed.

  “It’s not foolish to believe in someone. If anyone’s the fool, it’s me. I’ve been nothing but a jackass to you every time you got close. That’s all my fault, Becca. But I’m here because I want you to know I am that person you believed I was.”

  As a tear streamed down her cheek, she asked a question that made my heart skip a beat. “How can I believe you? You’ve shown me who you are time and again. How could I ever believe you, Zane?”

  I had no answer for that. No matter what I said, she could point to my actions that always spoke louder than my words. She wasn’t wrong. I was that asshole who had broken her heart.

  And there was not a damn thing I could do to change that.

  “You can’t.”

  I turned and walked toward the door, exhausted from the realization that everything I’d done up to that moment meant more than the words I could use to promise her I could be the man she wanted. I’d spent my life being a selfish asshole, and for the first time, I saw how much it hurt everyone around me.

  From behind me, I felt Becca touch my hand. I turned around and saw the true effect of my behavior on the woman I loved. She stared up at me with red-rimmed eyes from crying and a frown that made me hate myself because I’d put that there.

  I’d made that beautiful face of hers look that way.

  “Don’t leave.”

  “Why would you want me to stay, knowing all the mistakes I’ve made?”

  “Because I’m a fool. I can’t help believing in you, Zane,” she said quietly, squeezing my hand.

  I cradled her face in my hands and kissed her long and deep like I’d wanted to for so long. She wasn’t the fool. I was.

  But I could change.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Becca

  Right there, in the middle of my front hallway, he lifted me in his arms and carried me up the stairs. When we reached the top, he looked around and smiled.

  “I just realized I have no idea where I’m taking you. Point me in the direction of your bedroom, or accept that I might choose the guest room where you have the bad mattress.”

  I chuckled and stuck my arm out toward the room at the front of the house. “How did you know I do that with the mattresses?”

  He began walking again and laughed at my confession. “Because everyone does. You’re not going to keep the bad mattress for yourself, are you?”

  Burying my head in the space between his jaw and his shoulder, I nodded. “True. But I never said that.”

  As he pushed my bedroom door open with his foot, he kissed my cheek. “Don’t worry. I’m not planning on re
membering that part of this anyway.”

  Either was I. All I wanted to remember was how this man made me feel when he did things to my body that no other man had ever come close to.

  He sat me down on the bed and knelt before me to remove my knee-high black leather boots I’d worn to work that morning. With his eyes locked on mine, he slowly lowered the zipper, his fingers caressing my calf as he moved toward the bottom. Then he carefully lifted my foot out and moved to the other leg to do exactly the same thing. When he finished, he ran his hands up my legs until they rested on my thighs and smiled.

  “I love and hate those boots.”

  “Why?” I asked, confused since I thought the world of them.

  “Well, I’m all about stiletto heeled, black leather boots, but if you’re wearing them, you’re hiding one of your best parts. Or two of your best parts, depending on how you think of it.”

  I rolled my eyes at his brand of compliment, secretly loving it more than he could ever know. “Well, they’re off now.”

  Zane pushed his hands up higher underneath my skirt to where my legs met my body and sighed. “Your legs were the first things I noticed on you that night at the party. You were wearing those white sandals that made your legs look incredible.”

  My memory of that night included nothing about what shoes I wore. All I remembered of that night was sex with Zane.

  “And as soon as I saw the rest of you, I had to talk to you before some other guy beat me to it,” he said in a husky voice as he stood up and pulled his shirt up over his head.

  I gazed up at him and my core clenched at how much I wanted him. Reaching up, I clamped my hand onto the waist of his pants to pull him down on top of me. He let me take him down and kissed me long and deep, sending a jolt of electricity straight to my pussy.

  Moving his hand up my thigh, he touched my tender clit and rubbed in tiny circles for a moment before sliding a finger into me. I loved the feel of it, but I wanted something else more.