by Fiona Murphy
It should help she was surprised, as mystified as I am by the instant attraction. It doesn’t. Those big round eyes weren’t simply gray; they were pewter, then quicksilver as they snapped and clung to mine. Shaking my head, I’m up, stalking the length of my office. Now that she’s not in front of me, fucking with my head, I can be objective. She is pretty, not beautiful. Her cheeks are too round; her nose is small and cute, not elegant; her chin gently rounded, not at all sculpted, and her mouth a small cupid’s bow. God her mouth, ripe and sparkling would look perfect around my cock. Fuck.
It doesn’t matter that individually, her features aren’t typically beautiful; they combine perfectly into fucking stunning. As if that weren’t enough, her body—Christ, my cock goes hard all over again. Goddamn, the dress she was wearing should be outlawed. The way it clung and caressed her curves had me wanting to tear it from her body to see what it hid beneath.
Damn it. Chloe Hutchins is not what I need in my life right now. I tried. I fucking tried to get rid of her. I fired her, told her to get out, but goddamn it, she made my cock even harder when she refused to back down. Those eyes weren’t soft anymore, they were sharp and snapping at me and it made me want her even more. Getting involved with Chloe Hutchins would be a disaster of epic proportions. I’m only in for a fuck, it’s all I’m good for. But one look at Chloe, from her pink briefcase to her sensible yet stylish flats, to her long, silky black-like-a-raven’s-wing hair running down her back, screams long-term, babies, marriage. It doesn’t matter that she doesn’t like men; there is no doubt in my mind that deep down, she yearns for a man who will make up for the wrongs of the men who came before him. Anything less would hurt her, putting another nail in the coffin of her resentment of men. There’s also the fact she works for Dante and Che, and they are protective of their people. Dante especially, I have no doubt if he found out I used Chloe for a night or two, he would take a swing at me.
My phone beeps on my desk a second before Pauline comes through, sounding hesitant. “Enzo, everything all right?”
Closing my eyes, I shake my head as a small chuckle without humor leaves me. No, everything is not all right. With a sigh I’m back in my chair. Enough. This is a fluke, an aberration. It’s been a long time since I’ve had an instant attraction to a woman but it’s lust, and it will fade. I have no doubt Chloe is as good as Dante says she is. Thursday she’ll find me the home I want, and this will soon be over. Out of sight, out of mind, and this fever for her will die. As I tell Pauline I’m ready for Katherine, I’m not sure if the idea fills me with relief or regret.
***
Chloe
I’m staring at my computer screen without seeing a thing. For the hundredth time, what happened in Enzo Sabatini’s office plays again in my head. And I’m no closer to understanding it than I was when I was in his office. I have never had such an instant, overwhelming response to a man. I don’t like it. Shaking my head, I push down the thoughts bubbling up. No, stop it. Enzo Sabatini is bad news. I was fascinated, mesmerized by him, that was all. Too bad he’s an asshole, a womanizing, control-freak asshole and it’s not happening. So stop thinking about him like that, stop it.
“Everything okay?” Dante appears out of nowhere. “Chloe?”
I blush; god, I never blush. I admit to what Enzo will no doubt tell him. Nodding, “Yeah, sorry. I screwed up. I’m still feeling the burn from it.”
His eyebrows go up. How do they look so alike, yet so different? “What happened?”
“I assumed, exactly what you told me not to do.” Dante grimaces. “I know, I have absolutely no idea why I did it. I’ve never done it before. Overeager, I guess. It was embarrassing.”
He grins, flashing a dimple as he leans against the open doorway of my office. I’m reminded of what could have been a dimple in Enzo’s left cheek. Enough with Enzo. “You recovered like you always do, though. I haven’t heard from him telling me you wasted his time or to send him someone else.”
“Barely, I get another chance on Thursday. He said to have at least five to show him. Do you think five will be enough?”
“If one of those five is the property he wants it will be. Want to come over for dinner tonight? Me and Bethany can give you everything we think might help, go over some properties together.”
Dante and Cesare are the few people in the company I see outside of work, not because they are my bosses but because I genuinely like them and enjoy spending time with them. I’m an introvert; it’s hard enough putting on a smile with clients. I never go out to the happy hour get-togethers most everyone else in the company goes to. Some people have called me a stuck-up bitch, I’m not. I just prefer being at home with a book to overpaying for drinks and yelling over too-loud music. Normally, I would say yes to Dante without hesitation, only I’m still out of sorts and desperate to hole up. I lie. “I can’t, Russell needs me to stand in tonight for dinner with one of his biggest clients.”
Russell is my gay roommate, and a financial advisor. For conservative clients I’m his go-to for dinner dates, although not nearly as often as I tell people. “Too bad. Let me know if you need anything.”
“Can I run the places I have picked by you tomorrow?”
“Sure, we’ll do lunch.”
“Sounds good, thanks.”
“No problem.”
Once Dante is gone I do my best to push down the memory of what happened in Enzo’s office. Whatever it was, it doesn’t matter, because I have made my peace with the fact I’m not getting involved with anyone ever again. Enzo Sabatini is a migraine I don’t want or need. So what if I was attracted to him? There’s nothing that says I have to act on the attraction, I’m pretty sure Enzo isn’t any more eager than I am. Great, we’re both on the same page, it will make the house hunt easier.
I plug in the parameters of Enzo’s search and sigh, only seven properties come up. This is going to be fun.
***
Enzo
A hand comes down on mine; I blink at the small hand with blood-red fake nails. I slide my hand out from under her touch, she giggles. Rubbing her glistening lips together, she leans toward me. “Enzo, you’re so naughty. I feel like I’m eating all by myself, you’ve been glued to your phone. You know there are thousands of men who want to be where you are right now.”
A chuckle comes out of me as she pouts. She was the one who called me, in town to do promotion on her latest film, the up-and-coming starlet was desperate for free press. I agreed out of boredom, out of a need to keep my mind off Chloe. Too bad Lara Booker has long black hair and a cupid’s bow mouth. She also has a double D chest, only her black hair is dyed and her chest is surgically enhanced. There might be thousands of men who want to be where I am; I’d be happy to trade places with any one of them. Lara hasn’t stopped talking about herself since she got into the limo; from her yoga and Pilates workouts to her keto diet, the woman hasn’t stopped talking to eat. She has taken all of three bites of the steak she ordered.
With a nod I capture the waitress’s attention. The check is set in front of me. I sign off and look up to Lara. “If you’re done, I’ll have my driver see you back to your hotel.”
Her face might have fallen, if it were allowed to move with all the fillers she has in it. “You aren’t going to see me back to my hotel?”
I shake my head. “I’m going back to the office. There are things I need to attend to.” There aren’t. I’m not going back to work, but I don’t think I can stand another five minutes with her. “As you pointed out, I’ve been a bad date. It’s best I not take up any more of your time.”
She stands, her back stiff as I guide her out of the restaurant. With a chilly goodbye she gets into the car.
At home I head to my room. It’s not the master, although all five rooms in the condo have a bathroom attached, this is the first room in the hallway off the living area. After I threw Sheila out, I started sleeping in here. It’s the farthest from the room we shared and she hadn’t gotten around to redecorating it, so
it’s actually a comfortable room to be in. Her favorite colors were white and gold, and half the time the rest of the place gives me a headache. The room is over four hundred square feet with a king bed, a walk-in closet, and a small sitting room where I moved in a television and large leather sofa.
In the walk-in closet I strip out of my suit. At home I prefer to wear my boxers only, unless I’m working out then it’s a T-shirt and sweats for comfort. Normally, within ten minutes of being home I would already be in my home gym. But three weeks ago my shirt didn’t fit, again. I’ve already had to get new suits and shirts made three times over the last two years; one more time wasn’t going to happen. I’m so damn jacked from working out to channel my anger it’s getting ridiculous.
The last few weeks, as hard as it’s been, I’ve limited my hours in the gym to only three times a week without adding any new weight and keeping my reps low. Instead of working out, I spent more time on work, which has brought my working hours close to eighteen a day. Even though my office is across the hall, I don’t bother going into it. I’m not in the mood to focus on anything.
I throw myself on the couch and reach for a bottle of scotch and a glass waiting for me. Leaning down, I pour a few fingers as I contemplate the reason I sent the beautiful Lara Booker back to her hotel. Why I’ve been sending all the women over the last six months home early. And why the fuck even thinking of Chloe Hutchins has my entire body hard as a rock. Why has she inspired lust when I haven’t felt it in months? Is it her curves? My cock jumps; yeah, those aren’t something I come across often. Lust, it’s fucking lust, that’s all this is. I know I’ve felt it before, never this strong, never this fierce, and never so desperately have I craved a woman like I crave air, but that’s all this is. It will fade, eventually. I just have to give it time. Thursday, one day; I can do one day, then out of sight becomes out of mind.
***
Chloe
I bought my two flat, a two story home split from the upstairs and the downstairs into two different apartments, five years ago after saving every penny by working a second job as a translator and eating pasta, eggs, and chicken thighs until I thought I was going to grow feathers. It was a foreclosure in bad shape, the only other person interested in it at the auction wanted to tear it down to build a new house on the lot. I’m proud of all the work I’ve done to it. Putting in a new subfloor, laying down hardwood, installing new windows, even putting up the cabinets and tile. After only seven weeks I was able to rent the three-bedroom, two-bathroom first floor apartment for twenty-six hundred a month, covering the mortgage completely.
The black wrought-iron gate I had installed is elegant against the dark red of the house. I check the wide porch, behind the wicker chairs for packages delivery men leave there, which annoys the hell out of me. A single door opens into a small six-by-five foyer which holds my mailbox and the mailbox for the first floor; the door is almost always unlocked and is where packages are supposed to be left. A door goes directly into the first floor and another door, mine, goes right into a flight of stairs. My tenants of three years are a nice, quiet gay couple who will be moving out at the end of the summer into the suburbs to become foster parents hoping to adopt.
At the top of the stairs is a large living room where I find Russell surrounded by the bags delivered from the department store with the dresses strewn around him. His big brown eyes filled with guilt meet mine. “I just wanted a peek, then everything was so pretty.”
My two Himalayan cats, Peppe and Cetta, are in his lap agreeing with him. I roll my eyes. Peppe and Cetta are such sluts for affection, and Russell gives them all they want. My cats only put up with me because I feed them. Russell was here when I bought the place. He was a roommate of one of the renters and basically refused to leave, and oh yeah, he’s only paying the seven hundred dollars a month he’s always paid. Considering the place was a mess with only sometimes functioning plumbing and electricity, I counted myself lucky someone was willing to pay any rent. I agreed. Although he was annoyed when I moved us upstairs to the smaller place, he relented when I told him it was upstairs or an increase in rent.
Russell is a gay black man who loves women’s clothes. He’s a preacher’s kid from Alabama who at forty-two is still a momma’s boy even though she’s over five hundred miles away. It was only four years ago when he kind-of-sort-of came out to his parents as gay. Kind-of-sort-of as in he told his parents despite living with me, I was not his girlfriend, he was dating a man named David. His mother ended the call. Then they never spoke about it again, and a few months later his mother went back to asking when he was going to meet a nice girl and settle down.
“You better not have tried anything on,”
I’m not sure why exactly he’s one of the few men I genuinely like; maybe it’s because he’s gay, maybe it’s because he makes me laugh. In the last five years, for better or worse we’ve become best friends. We’re the only people we’re completely honest with.
He clicks his tongue. “I would never be so rude.” It doesn’t matter he’s been in Chicago for twelve years, he hasn’t lost his Southern accent. I’m pretty sure he thinks it gives him a certain panache. His head tilts. “What’s up with you? You’re all ruffled feathers. And the dress, loving it by the way.”
I hate how good he’s gotten at reading me. “Nothing, I landed the client from hell, Enzo Sabatini. There were these rumors he was more intimidating than Cesare. I never believed them. If anything, he’s twice as bad.”
Going into my room to change, I don’t bother trying to close my door, Russell doesn’t believe in closed doors. It took a year of abject begging before he would close his bedroom door or the bathroom door when he was using it. I hang up the jacket, I push down the dress then toss it toward my hamper for dry-clean-only clothes. The dress doesn’t make it into the hamper, landing on top of other clothes that also missed the opening. The hamper for regular clothes is on the other side of the room, as once or twice the clothes got mixed up.
At home I’m a little sloppy. I clean every Sunday and I never let food stuff build up, at work I’m ridiculously neat, at home I don’t care if there’s a pile of clothes on the floor or toothpaste in my sink. I’ll clean it on Sunday, then the cleaner Russell and I split the cost of comes in every Monday and does things like mop the kitchen and deep clean the bathroom and do two loads of laundry—one for each of us.
I grab a loose, long, stretchy T-shirt and leggings.
“Mmm mm mm, Enzo Sabatini. You are so lucky. The man is gorgeous. I saw him once from across the room. I couldn’t move, could not speak a word, all I could do was stare. You did better than me if you could speak.”
“Oh, I could speak all right. While I was speaking I said some incredibly stupid shit. I went in there sure I knew what he wanted and determined to give it to him. I was so wrong I wasn’t in the same hemisphere as what he wanted.”
“Ouch, I’ve heard he doesn’t suffer fools or pretty much anything that isn’t perfection. Wine?”
“Yes, please.” I follow him into the kitchen. I’m starving. Taking the glass of pinot noire he offers, I open and scan the refrigerator. “How about the stuffed shells I made on Sunday or the fettucine with shrimp? I’m leaning toward the shells. You?”
“Sounds good to me.”
We sit down at the small two-person table in the kitchen. There isn’t room for a proper dining room table. It’s never bothered me since it’s not like I’m going to invite people over anyway. “So tell me more about the great Enzo Sabatini. Don’t think I didn’t notice you blushing when you talked about him.” Fuck, I’m blushing again. What the fuck? I never blush. “Oh, girl, you need to spill.”
“Nothing, there’s nothing to spill.” I shoo Pepe away from me as he tries to climb up my leg. Russell shakes his head as he grins at me. Fine, maybe he can explain it to me. “Okay, he—I...god, I don’t even know how or why but there’s this...attraction. Which is crazy. It doesn’t make any sense. He’s exactly the kind of man I disli
ke the most, bossy, demanding... I don’t understand.”
“Lust has no reasoning. I want Adam, a racist homophobe. If he were on fire I wouldn’t piss on him to put him out, but if he invited me home for a one-night stand I’d be out the door so fast I’d be a blur. Enzo Sabatini is stunning airbrushed perfection. Duh, you would want to fuck him. You aren’t so bad yourself. The man loves the ladies, so of course he would want to fuck you. Why not go for it? The only downside is he’ll show you what you’ve been missing. Give those vibrators a break, from all the rumors he’s better than any vibrator on the market.” Russell’s eyebrows waggle at me as he giggles. I shake my head, it’s hilarious to hear him giggle. At five nine he’s a little chubby with round cheeks and a soft stomach, because he loves pasta more than he loves the gym.
“No, there are way too many downsides to count. Also, remember I’m done with men and I mean it. Besides, he fucks gorgeous women who don’t even need to be airbrushed they are so hot. What the hell would he want with me?” Russell rolls his eyes. “Yes, okay, I’m not bad.” I love Russell for his blunt honesty. He has given me more confidence than any other man. Before I met him, I was sure any guy I managed to get was slumming. However, Russell listed all my pluses, over and over until I heard him. So now I focus on my pluses and shrug off the minuses. “But I’m like a solid seven when I’m working my ass off for it, and my ass is twice the size of what he usually fucks. There is a huge difference.”
Russell shrugs. “Sometimes people want a little something different. Maybe you’re his something different.”
“Yeah, no, the whole thing would be more trouble than it’s worth. I don’t think he’s really interested either—he fired me.”
“What?” I chuckle at the way his eyes go big.
“I told you I fucked up. He told me I was wasting his time, and I was. When I realized just how completely wrong I was, I pulled some properties out of my ass that I thought he would prefer if he hated the ones I told him he would want. Thankfully, I got it right. He gave me another chance. Maybe I’m wrong, but most people don’t fire the person they want to fuck.”
