by Bella Forro
“Brown rice, chicken, peppers, mushrooms, tomatoes. Am I missing anything?”
She made a little face like she was contemplating it. “It all sounds very fancy. Wine?”
“Oh, yes,” I said, moving the spatula through the mass of sizzling vegetables, the oil snapping, before reaching for a bottle from the wine cooler. “Only a white will do for this occasion.” I pulled out a crisp white wine that I knew would go with the sage and rosemary in the chicken and pulled the cork, filling two glasses generously.
Victoria had pulled herself up onto the island and was watching me work. I took an extra moment to run my hand down the length of her leg as I handed her the wine.
“I didn’t know you were into cooking,” she said. “I do believe you left that out of the novel you had me memorize.”
I took her teasing in stride. “I love to cook. I spent hours in the kitchen with my mother. They were some of the best times we ever had together.”
She gave a little sound of acknowledgment and didn’t say anything further like she knew I wasn’t going to be able to say anything else about her. Not with everything that had been going on with my father.
I pulled the chicken out of the broiler and plated two settings. “If you carry the wine, I’ll bring the food to the dining room.”
“Perfect,” she said, slipping off of the island and reaching for the wine glasses. “That sounds like my idea of service.”
The dining room was lit softly, the music I had turned on piping through the speakers and drifting through the room.
“Sit,” I said, placing a plate of food in front of her. “I’m glad you could make it. I’m sorry it was such short notice. I hadn’t thought I’d be able to get away.”
“Of course,” she said, flashing me another grin and reaching for her napkin. “I’ve been dying for the chance to get to see you. I know things have been crazy at work.”
“They have been. But I could use some more time with you as well. So, I was thinking, if you were available, we could take this weekend to go away together.”
I saw her eyes light up as she speared a piece of chicken with her fork.
“Wait,” I said, holding out a hand to stop her from saying whatever it was she had been on the verge of saying. “I’d love to say it would just be the two of us — a nice, romantic little weekend, where we could do nothing but order room service and sleep in.” I could think of a few more things we could do, too. “But, it’s not. My father has planned a weekend for us with some of my friends from grad school.” I hesitated, because I knew she wasn’t going to like the next part and because I wished it weren’t true. I reached across the table to pick her hand up. “He is still having doubts about our relationship, and seems to think spending time with my friends will somehow be the proof he’s looking for that it’s all been contrived.”
She frowned. “I suppose I could be available. Though, to be honest, the being alone with room service thing was significantly more appealing.”
“I agree entirely. Check your schedule and let me know.”
“I’ll put in a call to my secretary ASAP,” she said with a wink.
“Good,” I said, watching her take another sip of her wine.
I was suddenly hungry for something more than the meal on my plate. The shape of her mouth on the glass stemware, the elegant shape of her fingers. It all had me thinking about her, wearing significantly less and moaning my name.
I picked up my empty plate and stood up, reaching for hers as well. “I don’t mean to hurry you along,” I said, bending down toward her until my mouth was close to her ear. “But, I have some pressing business to attend to in my bedroom. And I could use a little assistance.”
“Pressing, you say?” she called from behind me as I walked back into the kitchen, depositing the plates on the counter near the sink. I would take care of them later. I would take care of everything later if it meant getting Victoria in my bedroom now — because, as my mother had always said, ‘it would keep.’ I could hear the scrape of the chair on the floor as she pushed back from the table to trail behind me. “That sounds serious, Mark. Maybe we should get a move on.”
I could hear the laughter in her voice, but when I turned back toward her she was gone, and from where I stood, I could see her disappearing across the room and toward my bedroom.
I didn’t need to be invited twice.
By the time I got to the bedroom, Victoria was unbuttoning her blouse, giving me a tantalizing view of a skin-colored lace bra and the gentle curve of her breasts.
Pressing indeed.
“Where’s this emergency you were telling me about?” she asked coyly, pulling her hair free from its confines, so the long, light strands spilled over her shoulders and obscured that delicious view of her recently unveiled body.
“I’m sure it’s around here somewhere,” I said, moving toward her like I was going to walk right past her. “Oh, wait,” I said, snagging her and pulling her tightly to me, so she could feel how eager I was to have her beneath me. “Here it is.”
I let my mouth come down on hers as I slid her unbuttoned shirt off of her shoulders and let it fall to the floor. Her skin was warm and soft beneath my fingers.
“Oh,” she said, and I loved the sound of the rush of her breath against my skin and the way her lips felt when they found my jawline and when she nipped at my earlobe. “In that case, I’m pretty sure I can help you out.”
“Oh, really?” I let my hands drop to her waist, reaching for the zipper on her skirt and pulling it down until the skirt pooled at her feet next to her shirt.
I toyed with the waistband of her underwear, anxious to have her out of them already and sprawled across my bed.
There were so many things that I had in mind for her, and so little time in the night.
She pushed my hand away and pulled me close, tugging at the bottom of my t-shirt until I abandoned my pursuit of her long enough to pull it over my head.
“Oh, yes,” she breathed. “This is quite the emergency. There’s all of this beautiful man and way, way too many clothes.”
“Is that so?”
“Decidedly,” she said as she reached for the fly of my jeans. I let her pull down the zipper and undo the button, her fingernails pressing into my skin as she pushed them down over my hips.
I was hard and desperate, and as much fun as I was having with her teasing, I didn’t think I could stand another moment of the incredible torture. I stepped out of my jeans and scooped her up into my arms, taking those last few steps across the room and lying her back on the bed.
Her arms were wrapped around my neck, her fingers coming up to run through my hair, her bare leg moving along mine, pulling me more tightly to her.
I left a trail of kisses along her jaw and the column of her throat, down toward her breast, the lace of her bra rough against my tongue.
I drew my hand across her abdomen, loving the little tremor I felt slide through her, and the eager way she moved to let my hand drop easily between her thighs, where she was soft and wet. I let my fingers slide against her, and she moaned, another tremor moving through her.
Victoria rocked against my hand, moving restlessly against me, tugging my mouth back toward hers.
She didn’t seem interested in the foreplay. She was reaching for my hips, pulling me toward her, barely giving me the time I needed to pull off my shorts and slip that scrap of lace down over her shapely thighs. I let myself settle on top of her, press against her until I slipped into her heated depths.
The sigh she made as I filled her echoed my own. This was what I had been waiting for, desperate for when I had been back in my office.
This, I was never going to get tired of.
I buried my hands in her hair and began to move against her, focused on the little sounds she was making and the feel of her body against mine.
Until I couldn’t think of anything at all, and she consumed every bit of me.
Chapter 15
Victoria
I
recrossed my legs and settled more firmly on my bed.
I was supposed to be packing.
And Cassie was supposed to be helping me.
But so far, we’d done nothing but sit on the bed, the empty luggage nearby, clothes haphazardly strewn around the room, no closer to packing than we had been an hour ago.
Cassie had her glasses on, a pair of leggings, and a t-shirt that wouldn’t stop slipping off her shoulder. I was in a pair of cotton shorts and a tank top. Since Mark had come walking into my life, these moments with Cassie seemed few and far between, and I appreciated them in a way I knew I wouldn’t have just a few weeks earlier.
“This whole thing just seems…impossible,” Cassie was saying, wide-eyed, something wistful in her voice.
“I know.”
“Like, all of it. The part where your boss shows up for a meeting with you and then asks you to be his paid girlfriend for a year, and then the part where that boss isn’t just your boss, but The Boss on every magazine ever. And then the part where he doesn’t even want to pay you to be his girlfriend because he just wants you to be his girlfriend. And then you are. And now you’re going away with his friends for the weekend. Probably somewhere amazing. Like on a safari. Or a yacht. It’s all very Pygmalion.”
She dropped dramatically back on my bed, nearly cracking her head on my luggage. Apparently, I was the only one to notice, because she didn’t even bat an eye.
I frowned. “I guess,” I said.
“Well, it’s not a bad thing — ”
I interrupted her because I was pretty sure anyone who had ever seen Audrey Hepburn in My Fair Lady might disagree, at least a little bit. “You mean other than the part where there was basically a bet to change the woman into what they all thought a real lady should be because she wasn’t good enough just the way she was in the first place?”
There was silence. “Well, yeah, other than that part. I am only saying — I would love to have all of that happen to me! So far this week I’ve only had a barista spill coffee all over me. That’s not even close to being in the same strata.”
I studied the three outfits I’d been looking at for the past ten minutes, no closer to deciding what I should take and what I should leave behind, or whether any of it was actually appropriate for the kind of trip Mark’s father had planned. Worst of all, I hadn’t been given any details about it at all, other than that we were going, we were taking an airplane, and Mark and Will would be picking me up. “I suppose some of it does have its perks,” I volunteered finally, reaching for a pair of skinny jeans that were going to have to do.
She snorted. “I’m sure you had to look deep to find those perks, didn’t you?” She hauled herself up off the bed. “Okay, let’s go ahead and get you set up for the weekend. Mark is not going to know what hit him.”
When Mark showed up at my little apartment the following morning, I was surprised to find Will driving a different car from usual. The svelte little Mercedes we’d been taking around was nowhere to be seen.
I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised. I was sure Mark and his father had an entire fleet of cars tucked away somewhere, but even so, I’d gotten used to its classic, boxy shape and I almost felt like I was betraying it.
This one was roomy and, like his usual ride, black. The leather interior was rich and soft, the windows tinted and the body was shining, like it had recently been washed and waxed.
It probably had been.
Will picked up my bags like they weighed nothing at all and put them in the back of the SUV with Mark’s things.
Mark was already in the back, and he leaned over to give me a kiss on the cheek as I settled in beside him.
“Are you ready?” he asked, as Will pulled out into traffic.
“I think so. I don’t know, am I?” I asked, suddenly doubting if I really was ready.
He gave a little chuckle. “You’ll be fine. They’re nice people, really. They might be a little overwhelming at first, and it could take a little bit of time to get used to them, but they do mean well. Really.”
That wasn’t the best endorsement I could think of for a group of people, but I suppose it was better than hearing they were horrible, and there was no way I was ever going to enjoy their company.
The city was speeding by as we made our way to the JFK airport, Will zipping in and out of the traffic. “I’m sure they are,” I said, and even I could hear the doubt in my voice.
“You’re going to have a great time — you did bring your swimsuit, right?”
“I did.” It was three years old and probably too boring for his friends, but it was what I had in my dresser, so it was going to have to do. It wasn’t like he’d given me time to get to the store and pick up anything new. In fact, most of what I had slipped into my suitcase was in that same vein. If Mark was going to keep springing little getaways like this on me, I was going to have to upgrade my wardrobe.
We bypassed the exit I usually took to get to the airport and kept heading straight, turning into the security personnel parking lot.
We kept driving beyond that parking lot, following the road as it wrapped around neatly toward the back of the building, Will pulled over and parked, unloading our belongings directly next to a set of double doors.
It was certainly an entrance I had never seen before. I hadn’t even known it had existed. “Do you always travel like this?”
“Not always,” he said, stepping out of the SUV and smoothing his suit, looking for all the world like this was just another day, that he did this sort of thing all the time. “I try to fly commercial as often as possible. I get enough bad press as it is. I don’t need to add to it by appearing to be a spoiled brat.” He gave a shrug. “But, this is the only way my father travels. So, when he makes the arrangements, this is usually where we end up.”
Someone had rushed out of the airport to collect our things and pull them into the building. “We don’t have to go through security or anything?” I asked as we walked, unescorted, through the doors and beyond a little receiving room to an elevator.
“No. We’ll just head up to the third floor and wait in the club room until it's time for the plane to take off. I’m sure the others are there already. Traveling is usually a full day affair — plenty of time to have a meal and a few drinks.”
“I see,” I said, even though that couldn’t be any more different from my experience as a traveler. When I went to the airport, it was hours of rushing, taking off my shoes, pulling out my laptop, putting back on my shoes. By the time I made it to my gate, I’d have missed breakfast and lunch, and there would be nowhere to eat and nothing to do for the next two hours until it was time to board.
Then, of course, I had to line up like cattle with all the other people and begin the slowest process ever as we boarded the plane.
But this trip promised to be nothing like that.
Mark called the elevator, and we stepped into it, the patterned carpet and gilded mirrors seeming oddly out of place to me.
Or it did, anyway, until the bell chimed and the door opened on the third floor, spilling us into the Green Room of the airport.
The furniture was heavy, leather with nailheads and tufting, the room dim, just like an old Humphrey Bogart movie.
And everyone there had that same old Hollywood feel to it. Every person looked picture perfect, whether they were in sky high heels and full makeup or open polo shirts and boating shoes.
I felt, suddenly, incredibly out of place, with my ponytail and comfortable flats.
Unfortunately, I didn’t get much of a reprieve, because Mark’s friends spotted us right away.
“Mark, my man!” one called from the bar, while another turned to the bartender and gestured for additional drinks.
Mark moved easily through the room like it was just another day in another place that catered to his kind of existence. And I knew it was.
I trailed along behind him.
“Phil,” Mark greeted, clapping the blonde man on the shoulder.
“Great to see you! Victoria, this is Phil Roberts. We went to business school together. We shared an apartment.”
Phil gave me a big smile, showing off an impressively straight set of white teeth, and a wink. “Oh, the fun we had before we were old men.”
The group around them laughed, and I realized the group was flanked by women, one for each of them.
And they were all beautiful. Their hair was blown out and curled, their makeup so perfect I thought they must spend more time on their mascara alone than I did in my entire beauty routine.
And I didn’t even want to think about the exorbitant cost of their wardrobe. I certainly hadn’t packed anything that was on par with what they had on. And I was sure their luggage was filled with even more of it.
“We have our own fun now,” said a dark haired girl with a suggestive grin, putting her hand on Phil’s forearm, her nails long and freshly polished.
Even I could see the heat in his eyes and the way his gaze lingered on her perfect cleavage. “So very true,” he said. Then, turning back to me, he said, “Victoria, this is my wife, Rebecca.”
“Nice to meet you,” I said numbly, sticking my hand out toward her.
She didn’t seem prepared to shake my hand, and there was a long awkward moment before she set down her drink and reached out to let her hand touch mine.
Excellent. I hadn’t even been in the room with these people for five minutes, and I was already doing everything wrong. I couldn’t wait to see how very awful this could get and how quickly it might happen.
“So, tell me,” said a man with short cropped dark hair and skin the color of toffee. “How did you meet Mark?”
“Oh,” I said, not expecting the conversation to turn to me so quickly. I took the drink that was being pressed into my hand. “We met through work.” I wasn’t entirely sure he was interested in the answer at all, or if he was just asking because he thought it was polite. It was always hard to gauge with men how many of those little details they actually cared to be told.
“Yes,” Mark offered, taking some of the pressure off. “Victoria has been working in our marketing department. She knows the business like no one else.” He took the time to slip his arm around my waist and offer me a big smile, which was exactly what I needed. Just having him close by seemed to settle me, seemed to lessen my anxiety and remind me of all the reasons why I had agreed to come on this trip in the first place.
