by Bec Linder
“I’ll make sure someone waters my houseplants,” I said. It would be fine. Elliott and I were both professionals. I wasn’t going to suddenly lose my mind and try to make out with him in public.
Probably.
* * *
Boston was freezing.
There was half a foot of snow on the ground, and as we exited South Station, I turned up the collar of my coat against the chill. It was mid-afternoon, and already growing dark.
I hated winter.
Elliott glanced at me and said, “We’re staying at the Ritz-Carlton. It’s about half a mile from here. Do you mind walking? I’ll hail a cab if you’re too cold.”
“I think I can handle a mile,” I said, because I was determined to be cheerful and a good sport, even though I would have really, really liked to take a cab. As we set off, I asked, “The Ritz-Carlton?”
He grimaced. “I know. Money begets money. I’m having dinner with the investors in the hotel restaurant, and the Best Western wouldn’t have the same effect. It’s all about keeping up appearances.”
“That’s stupid,” I said. “You’re asking them for money. If you already have Ritz-Carlton money, why do you need their money?”
He shrugged. “We’re talking about potentially millions of dollars, Sadie. They need to have confidence in me, and part of that comes from signaling that I’m their equal. If they think I’m just like them, they’ll feel safer investing their money with me.”
“It’s just a good old boys club,” I said, a little disgusted.
“In a way,” he said. “I won’t claim it’s fair. But this is how the world works.”
“The world sucks,” I said.
He smiled at me. “I agree,” he said. “That’s why I’m trying to change it.”
I mulled that over as we walked through the narrow streets. Boston, with its dense tangle of haphazard streets, was so different from New York’s orderly grid. I liked it. It felt old, like how I imagined Europe must be. It had history.
Maybe Elliott would rustle up some investors in Brussels, and I would get a free trip to Europe.
My nose was a frozen chunk of cartilage by the time Elliott came to a stop in front of a large building and said, “We’re here.” He looked down at me and tucked his hands in his coat pockets. His nose was red, and he was wearing a slouchy blue beanie that clashed with his Important Businessman overcoat and dress shoes. “I want you to know. I reserved separate rooms.”
God, how awkward. I had been a little worried, of course, but I didn’t expect him to actually say anything. “Good,” I said, “because I snore.”
He pursed his lips. “I’m afraid I can’t employ anyone who snores. We’ll have to put you on the next train back to New York.”
I stared at him, feeling my eyes widen. It took me a second longer than it should have to realize that he was teasing me. “You’re a monster,” I said.
He grinned. “Shall we?”
The lobby was—well. I was too conscious of my own dignity to ever gawk like an awestruck tourist, but I definitely felt the impulse. Everything was so shiny. The walls were paneled in wood the same warm golden color as the floor, and it all glowed like a lantern. Elliott checked in while I loitered off to one side, trying to look inconspicuous. I wished I had worn a nicer coat. I wished I owned a nicer coat.
Elliott came over after a few minutes and handed me a key card. “We’re on the third floor,” he said. He headed for the elevators, and I followed him, clutching my overnight bag. As we waited for the elevator, he said, “I’m meeting the investors for dinner at 6:00. You can do whatever you’d like this evening. There are some good restaurants nearby, or—do you shop?”
What a strange question. Shop for what? He probably had a vague idea that women enjoyed shopping and had never stopped to think what we might be shopping for. “I think I’m just going to do some work and go to bed early,” I said.
The elevator doors slid open, and we stepped inside. “We’re meeting the MIT kid tomorrow morning at 9,” he said. “We’ll take a cab. It isn’t far. We can have breakfast first.”
“Are you going to refer to him as the MIT kid to his face?” I asked. “He might object.”
“I’ll try to behave myself,” Elliott said, and the doors opened again on the third floor.
As we left the elevator, I felt his hand settle, briefly and lightly, at the small of my back. It was the sort of polite touch that well-mannered men allowed themselves, a sort of old-fashioned chivalry: careful, helpful, guiding me on my way. I was sure he didn’t mean anything by it. He had been raised in the upper echelons of New York society. Good manners had been hammered into him since birth.
But the weight and warmth of his hand set me on fire nonetheless.
God, I was so screwed.
I was in room 306. He walked me to the door and said, “Let’s meet in the lobby tomorrow morning at 8.” He glanced down at the key card envelope he was holding, and said, “Apparently I’m right next door if you need anything.”
“I don’t think I will,” I said. “Good luck with dinner.”
He made a wry face. “Thanks,” he said. “I’ll need it.”
If the lobby had been over-the-top luxurious, my room was more along the lines of your run-of-the-mill hotel room: bed, table, armchair, television. Not that I was complaining. The bed was enormous, and looked comfortable as shit. I was going to sleep like a—well, not like a baby. Babies cried a lot and woke up every two hours.
I checked the time. It was only 4:00: too early to eat. I settled down with my laptop and got to work. We only two and a half weeks left until the conference, and I was starting to feel the pressure. I worked until my stomach growled so loudly that I decided I couldn’t ignore it anymore, and then I ordered room service, took a hot bath, and climbed into bed to watch trashy television until I was ready to go to sleep.
The bed was even more comfortable than it looked.
After flipping channels for a while, I settled on a reality show about women with more money than sense. As far as I could tell, the point of the show was to film the women being catty about each other. One of them was shopping at Saks and pitched a fit when the salesgirl brought her the wrong size dress. It was horrible and amazing at the same time. America: where people got famous for being idiots.
I was completely engrossed.
A little after 10, I heard a knock at the door.
I got up and went to answer, retying the belt of my complimentary bathrobe more firmly around my waist. My mother didn’t raise any fools, and I checked the peephole before I let some serial killer into my room.
It was Elliott, of course.
I drew in a deep breath and exhaled through my nose. I didn’t want to let him in. There I was, naked beneath my bathrobe, face washed clean, braids hanging loose around my shoulders. I hadn’t been expecting to see him again tonight, and I felt far too stripped bare and exposed to have a conversation with him.
But there was also a small, greedy part of me that wanted him to see me like this. It would be a forced intimacy, but intimacy nonetheless, the two of us in my hotel room, with my bed right there, and my skin prickling already with the thought of him touching me. The reasonable Sadie said this was a terrible idea, but the hot, burning heart of me wanted nothing more than to let Elliott in.
And so I did it. I opened the door and pulled it open and looked at him without saying anything.
He flushed. His cheeks turned bright red, and I was sure he had spent most of his life, and certainly all of his adolescence, cursing his fair skin. I loved it. He was so inscrutable that it was a rare gift to have any insight into what he was thinking.
I wondered if he was thinking about tugging open the knot in my belt and sliding the robe from my shoulders.
I thought he probably was. I hoped he was.
“Uh, sorry,” he said. “I thought you would still be up. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“It’s fine,” I said. Well, not me, but the naughty Sad
ie, the one who wanted to untie her robe and let him look his fill. “I was just watching TV. Come on in.” I stepped back, making room, and I hoped he was too polite and well-trained to refuse an obvious invitation.
And he was. He came in, still red-faced, and stood just a few inches too close to me as he looked around my hotel room. I saw his gaze linger on the rumpled bed, and it scared me—I wasn’t ready—and delighted me all the same.
“Here, sit down,” I said, motioning to the table. I wanted that space between us like a shield. “You can enjoy my executive workstation.”
He laughed and took a seat. “Is that what they call it?”
“I read the information binder,” I said, sitting across from him. This was familiar ground, our easy back-and-forth, and far easier on my nerves than him standing too close and looking down at me with that bright heat in his eyes. “How was the meeting?”
He sighed and ran one hand through his hair, ruining his carefully arranged hairstyle. Blond strands fell to either side of his face, softening his appearance. He looked younger, and a little bewildered. I wanted to kiss him until he smiled again. “I think it went okay. They seemed interested. No firm commitments, of course, but they said I would hear from them within the next week.”
“Were they just being polite, or do you think they meant it?” I asked.
“It’s impossible to say,” he said. “I hope the latter.”
I looked at him, the lines bracketing his mouth, the fine lattice of lines beside his eyes. He looked tired. “You’re running out of money, aren’t you?” I asked. “You don’t have enough to keep the company going for much longer.”
He rubbed one palm against his chin. I imagined the fine hairs scraping against the ridged skin of his hand. “Yes.”
I had already suspected, but hearing him admit it made my stomach drop like a stone in a well. “You shouldn’t have hired me,” I said.
“Hmm,” he said. “Shouldn’t I have? I don’t regret it. The branding work you’re doing for me isn’t exactly optional. We’ll get funding or we won’t, and if we don’t I’ll just go back to Uganda. And you, my dear, will land on your feet either way.”
My dear. The words sent a slow wave of pleasure curling its way up my spine. I wanted him to say it to me again, but this time whispered into my ear while we lay together in bed, nothing between us but air.
Lord. That glass of wine I’d had with dinner was really messing me up.
“Someone will give you money,” I said firmly. “I’m sure of it.”
“Your faith warms my black heart, but I’m afraid there are no guarantees,” he said. “We’ll have to wait and see.” He sighed and picked up the paperweight resting on the table, turning it in his long fingers. “Tell me something, Sadie.”
My heartbeat kicked into high gear. “What?”
“I don’t know. Anything. I’m tired of worrying about money. Tell me a ridiculous story from your childhood.”
“I don’t have any,” I said, which was a lie, of course. I chewed on my lip for a second, and then said, “I’ve been watching—if you want, I’m watching this ridiculous show about rich housewives, or something, and they keep talking trash about each other on camera. It’s really lowbrow, but—”
“It sounds like exactly what I need right now,” he said.
And so that was how I ended up watching trashy reality television with my boss, sitting on my bed with him a safe two feet away on the other side of the mattress, leaning forward and laughing as two of the women got into a screaming match on a street corner. It sort of weirded me out that he was so into it, but I also found it charming. I didn’t get the feeling that Elliott watched a whole lot of reality TV.
Sitting there, I had one of those out-of-body experiences where you consider your situation from an outside perspective and decide that what you’re doing is incredibly fucking stupid. It wasn’t like I was surprised that I was attracted to Elliott. He was an incredibly good-looking man, and he was also smart and interesting and unexpectedly charming. But I wasn’t ready for a relationship—I wasn’t even ready to date, and as much as my body wanted sex, I wasn’t sure I was ready for that, either—and he was also my boss, and totally out of my league in more ways than one.
And yet there I was, in bed with him—well, on bed, which was almost as bad—and so tempted to turn to him and kiss his whiskered cheek and his mouth that it was a physical urge.
I fought it. I dug my fingernails into my palms and told myself that he was my boss and that I would only end up hurting both of us.
Finally, the show ended, and he stretched his arms over his head, something in his back making a loud cracking noise, and said, “I’d better get some sleep. We’ve got a full day tomorrow.”
“Right,” I said. I climbed off the bed after him and walked with him to the door. “You said 8 in the lobby, right?”
“That’s right,” he said. “I’ll buy you breakfast.” He smiled at me, warm and open, like he had never had a dirty thought in his entire life. “Sleep well, Sadie.”
“You too,” I said, and watched him walk down the hallway, and that was the moment I knew I was well and truly fucked.
TWELVE
Sadie
In the morning, we took a cab across the river to Cambridge. It was a bright morning, and bitterly cold, and Elliott had wrapped a scarf around his neck in a way that I found disarmingly adorable.
Should I have been thinking that he was adorable? I wanted to fuck him.
But I wasn’t supposed to want to fuck him. Maybe it was safer to think he was adorable.
The cab dropped us off in front of a nondescript brick-and-glass building, and then we walked for a few minutes across an open quad. It was Thursday, and students were out walking to classes, toting coffee cups and backpacks. A small group of boys shouted cheerfully and tossed snowballs at each other. Okay, not boys: they were men, technically, but they looked like babies to me. I had graduated from college less than a decade ago, but it felt like a thousand years.
I wasn’t young anymore. I was an adult.
It was weird to think about.
“I think that’s him,” Elliott said, and I looked where he was pointing, to a man standing on the steps of a nearby building. He wore a huge down coat unzipped to reveal a plaid shirt, and his dark hair radiated from his head in a wiry halo—what my mom would admiringly call a Jewfro, and then look around to make sure nobody had heard her and was offended. She was always impressed when a white person could grow that much hair.
As we drew closer, the man came down the steps, hand extended, and said, “Are you Elliott Sloane?”
“That’s me,” Elliott said, shaking the proffered hand, and then turned to me and said, “This is Sadie Bayliss, my graphic designer.”
If the man was surprised that Elliott had brought his designer on a business trip, he didn’t show it. He shook my hand with a firm grip and said, “I’m Jim. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”
“Likewise,” I said, smiling at him. I’d always thought geeks were supposed to be socially awkward weirdos, but Jim seemed relatively hygienic and normal. I sort of hoped that Elliott would hire him. He had an air about him—some light in his eyes, some curl of his mouth—that made me think he had a wicked sense of humor, and would be happy to help me play pranks on Elliott, or get beers after work and shoot the shit. I missed having co-workers I wasn’t busy lusting after.
Jim led us into the building and down a long corridor lit with buzzing fluorescent lights and lined with filing cabinets. The interior looked like it hadn’t been updated since the 1960s: linoleum floors, white cinder block walls, and all the charm of a Soviet prison bloc. Every door we passed had a square of frosted glass set into it, and I wished I could peek inside at whatever mysterious experiments were taking place.
The corridor turned to the right, and Jim fished his keys out of his huge coat and stopped in front of a door with a sign on it that said: WARNING: GENIUS AT WORK.
I bit my ton
gue and, through a truly heroic effort, managed not to say anything.
Jim caught my look, though, and he grinned at me and said, “It’s my labmate’s. He thinks he’s going to be the next Chomsky.”
“I wasn’t aware that Chomsky dabbled in ceramics,” Elliott said.
Jim stared at him for a second, clearly nonplussed, and then laughed. “He’s funny,” he said to me. “Is he being funny?”
“I think he’s trying to be funny,” I said.
“I’ll fire you,” Elliott said, and I smirked up at him, because it was an empty threat and we both knew it.
Jim’s lab was cluttered with—I didn’t even know what. Machinery. Stacks of what looked like oversized coasters. I perched on a stool and tried not to touch anything. Elliott and Jim wandered around the lab and gesticulated at each other and used words I didn’t understand. I still wasn’t sure why Elliott thought it was important for me to be here, but I didn’t mind sitting and watching Elliott be businesslike and efficient, his brow furrowed as he explained something, his big hands tracing abstract shapes in midair.
I liked him.
Finally, after much longer than I would have thought possible, they stopped talking about ceramics and started talking about business. I perked up. Elliott was giving him the hard sell: salary, benefits, opportunities for glory.
“Yeah, I don’t know,” Jim said, running one hand through his hair and making it stick up even more than it already was. “My advisor’s a little… I’m supposed to be finishing soon, and I don’t think she’ll be too happy if I like, decamp to New York and start working on something that is very clearly not my dissertation.”
“Are you done with your research?” Elliott asked.
“Well, mostly,” Jim said. “I mean, there’s always more—but yeah, okay, I guess I’m pretty much done.”
“I’m happy to be flexible with your schedule,” Elliott said. “If you need to take a few hours a day to work on your dissertation, that can be arranged. And I won’t need you to start for another month or two anyway.”
What a persuasive, smooth-talking son of a bitch. Jim was going to crack: I could see it in his eyes. He was already halfway in love with Elliott, or maybe just with the silent promise Elliott made with his nice suit and his stylish hair. Everything about him said I’m rich, and I’ll make you rich, too.
