by Lexi Whitlow
“Eat a dick,” I mouth back.
“Hey, Ben,” Sarah’s voice comes in clear and vibrant at the other end of the line. I feel uneasy, and that cold feeling at the pit of my stomach grows. But this is casual, isn’t it?
“Hi there,” I say, and I feel a smile come to my face. Darryl Lawrence can wait. I watch as Darryl and his team eye me from his office. They look frustrated. They should be. I’ll keep them on their toes.
“I’ve been thinking about you,” she says. She says it plainly, honestly. Most women in this city aren’t that way—especially not with me.
“I’m flattered.” I’d like to say more. I’d like to tell her that she hasn’t been far from my mind since the moment we met. But Nathan is sitting right in front of me, watching me like a hawk, and there are three increasingly angry people waiting for me just outside my all-glass office door.
“You should be. I don’t think about much besides my company. I also occasionally think about food, and about my friends. Today, I’ve been thinking about all of those things at the same time.” I hear her take a deep breath. “I’d really like to take you to lunch today to meet them. My friends. The women who started PinkBook with me.”
I pause—for probably ten seconds too long. I’m thinking about the acquisition. I’m thinking about the fact that Sarah thinks I’m unemployed and free for lunch. And I’m thinking that for the very first time in my life, things don’t feel as balanced as they normally do.
“I can’t,” I say simply. My words come out in the cool tone I usually reserve for one-night-stands. And at this point, Sarah isn’t that. Not quite. I haven’t even slept with her yet. I stumble over my next words. “I mean, I’m busy today… with an interview.”
Nathan groans, and I hope that Sarah can’t hear him.
“Oh, well. It was spur-of-the-moment.” There’s disappointment in her voice, and I hear a hint of that Amish country accent in her vowels.
Something clenches tight in my chest. I want to backpedal. I want to offer something else. But I’m tied up for the next several days with this business deal. And if I meet her friends—I might just get exposed for the fraud I am.
“I’m so sorry. Just not today,” I say.
“Maybe tomorrow?”
“I have another interview tomorrow,” I say quickly.
“Dinner?” Sarah’s voice is starting to sound more annoyed that hopeful.
“I doubt I can make that. Not for the next two days. Maybe you and I can get together on the weekend, just the two of us.”
There’s a long silence at the other end of the line. For a moment, I think she’s hung up, but I hear the faint, rhythmic sound of her breathing. She’s still there. Processing, thinking.
“Okay,” she says. “I’d like to make a plan for you to meet them. Or maybe I’ve been misinterpreting what’s been going on between us.”
“You haven’t been misinterpreting anything,” I say quickly. Nathan shakes his head. I see him in my peripheral vision.
“I don’t have time in my life for foolish men.”
“I know. I’m not one of them.” I know this isn’t true the moment I say it. I’m digging myself deeper with every word I say.
“I do want to see you. I want more between us. But I also want a man who’s honest with me.”
“I’ll see you this weekend? Your place?”
“Yeah, okay. That’s… just fine.” Her voice is hesitant, and I know that I’ve made her feel the same as any of the other women I’ve dated. And it’s not what I intended.
“See you then.” There’s a click at the other end of the line, and I walk into the lobby for the acquisition proceedings. My mood is dark and sullen now, and the entire lobby feels gray and cold.
Nathan slaps me on the back and whispers in my ear as he follows me out to meet Darryl Lawrence. “Ya done fucked up, buddy. Big time. Better get 1-800 Flowers on speed dial.”
I sigh and give him what I hope is a withering look.
Sarah and I were supposed to be fun. If she were any other girl pulling shit like this, I would have told her to bark up another tree.
But she’s Sarah Bauer.
And I’m beginning to realize that she’s not any other girl.
And that I done fucked up, from the very beginning.
9
Sarah
I wake up to Ben’s steely gray eyes. I let my eyes luxuriate on his body, on the faint two-day stubble on his chin. He is a perfect specimen of a man, the kind of guy you wouldn’t be surprised to see on the cover of People Magazine’s sexiest people edition.
He leans in to kiss me, and I let him. He stayed in my apartment last night. It was just the two of us, like he said. I felt like I was giving something up to even let him in. But when I looked at him, it was impossible to turn him away.
The taste of him is warm and rich. The arousal rises from deep within my core, spreading to the reaches of my sex. I feel the slickness start to rise as he cups one breast and then the other. His cock is hard, and my mouth waters for it.
My body feels awake, ready, lithe, and supple. And I’ve never felt that way before, not with any man. That’s why I let him come in.
In the deepest part of me, I want nothing more than to sleep with him. No, that’s too mundane a way to say it—I want to fuck him. Ride him. Take him inside of me and feel him there until he comes, warm and rich and pulsing.
I’ve never wanted anything in my life as much as I want that—not even my own freedom.
He kisses down the side of my jawline to my collarbone, tracing his tongue there. His mouth finds one breast and then the other, his tongue exploring my skin. I let out a sigh somewhere from deep inside of me.
“You want to go again?”
No. I shouldn’t. He needs to be honest with you. He hasn’t even mentioned a single friend of his. He’s never had you back to his place.
But the wet heat of my sex is greedy, needful. Now that I’ve had his fingers and his tongue, I need more. Like a drug.
He shifts his body and pushes me down on the bed, spreading my thighs apart with an expert hand. His fingers hover there, waiting, and I can feel the heat of his closeness.
“Yes,” I moan. “Again.”
“Good,” he says, kissing his way over the plane of my stomach and down toward the mound between my thighs, “because I need to taste you.”
He drops his gaze and moves his mouth toward my sex, his tongue exploring my delicate outer folds and carefully avoiding my clit. I feel his tongue dart inside of me, spreading me ever so slightly apart, and then he moves down to my ass. I spread wider, welcoming the warm waves of pleasure that roll up my spine as he licks my ass. I writhe, hands moving instinctively to his hair, pulling it as he dips his tongue inside of me. He moves upward again, pulling my clit between his teeth. He starts working, lapping and rolling just the way I like. My moans become louder, and my body quakes.
He slips one finger, and then a second, inside of me, thrusting them in and out of my pussy as he brings me closer and closer to orgasm.
No one has ever made me feel this way. Not once.
This is why people go insane over someone they let into their bed. This is what drives men and women crazy.
As my brain tips into oblivion, I moan, loud and long, not caring if everyone in my apartment complex can hear me.
I come hard as he works his magic, every doubtful thought banished from my head. He doesn’t come up for air until I’ve come once more.
By then, my legs are shaking and my body is utterly spent.
“Let’s go to that little Chinese restaurant down by the water.”
“We went there last week, Ben,” I say cautiously. “It’s in a weird location. No one goes there.”
“I like it,” he says. He has his shirt halfway buttoned up, and his sleeves rolled up on each arm. I keep looking at the contours of his muscles and imagining him close to me again. I try to push the thought out of my mind. I’m a businesswoman, from a long line
of plain people, good people. And nothing about Ben feels right unless we’re in bed together.
I might not be as savvy about the world as some people are, but I know when I’m being swindled.
“What about Cafe Europa? I like their chocolate pie.” I pour Ben a cup of coffee and put it next to him. He’s scrolling through The Wall Street Journal on his phone.
“That’s downtown,” he says absently. “Loud. Noisy. Lots of people.”
“You live in New York. That sort of goes with the territory.” I pause. “Or do you? I wouldn’t know. We haven’t been back to your place.”
He raises his eyes and looks at me. “It’s not as nice as your place. It’s a bachelor pad.”
He has a response for everything, doesn’t he? He has since day one.
“Do you have roaches crawling in your couch or something?” I ask.
He frowns. “Of course not. I’m not an animal.”
Except in the bedroom. My bedroom, every time.
“So why haven’t I ever been there? I don’t care if it’s small, or in a bad neighborhood. It’s your place, which means I want to see it. To be there with you.”
He looks at me but says nothing. I can practically hear the gears whirring in his head as he tries to come up with another story, and I’m reminded of what he told me: You’re not like anyone I’ve ever met before. At the time, it made my heart flutter; now it makes my stomach sink as I realize it was just another line. Who knows how many other women he’s used it on?
“Is it because I’ll find someone else’s toothbrush on the bathroom counter?” I ask quietly.
His eyes widen. “No! It’s not like that at all!”
“Then tell me what it is like, Ben! Why haven’t I met any of your friends? And why do you always make an excuse not to meet mine? I know we said we were just keeping it casual, but this is starting to seem more like an affair.” I fix him with a look. “What is it you’re trying so hard to hide, Ben?”
He breaks away from my gaze and pulls on his shoes. The cup of coffee is still untouched on the table.
“Look, I’ve just got a lot going on right now,” he says. “There’s a lot of stuff I’m not proud of. And I don’t want you to see that stuff. Not yet.”
His eyes are pleading when he finally looks at me again, but I simply cross my arms over my chest. I didn’t let my guard down for him just to have him turn around and throw up walls around himself. This was a mistake, and I knew it from the start. A few trembling orgasms aren’t enough compensation for being strung along like a fish on a line. I did not work so hard and so long to get where I am just to turn around and have myself brought low by a guy and his cock.
His big, beautiful cock. And those rough hands running all over me. And that magical tongue—
Stop it! Focus, Sarah!
I take a deep breath as I follow him to the door. This isn’t where I wanted to go, but deep down, didn’t I suspect that this was going to happen right from the beginning? I might as well just rip off the bandage and get on with my life.
“This isn’t working for me, Ben,” I sigh. “I don’t think you should call me anymore.”
His eyes are saucers now, and the lost puppy look he gives me is like an icicle in my chest. My mind immediately goes to his stories about his childhood, and how he never had any stability in his life. But I have to stay strong—if he’s not willing to be honest with me, this thing is never going to go anywhere.
I know that in my head, and that’s what I have to listen to now. I didn’t get to where I am today by following my hormones.
“Sarah,” he pleads. “I can… I mean, it’s … look, it’s just going to take some time, that’s all—”
Time. Sure. And he’ll probably tell me the same thing when I ask him again six months from now. I hold up my hand to stop him. If I let him keep going, I’ll cave, I know it.
“Please just go,” I say. “There’s nothing you can tell me that will change my mind right now. Maybe I’ll call you sometime, but for now, we need to not be together.”
I watch his Adam’s apple bob as it works through a hard swallow, but he doesn’t reply. My own stomach is in knots as he crosses the threshold of the door and turns to face me. His hand reaches out and brushes my cheek, and suddenly me knees are water.
As soon as he takes his hand away, I close the door on him, still staring at me. When I’m sure he’s gone, I finally slump to the floor and start sobbing harder than I ever have since that day when I left my family to begin my new life on my own.
Except this time, there’s no excitement to help balance it out. This time, there’s only sadness.
I stare hard at the latest numbers on the sheet in my hand in the vain hope that it will somehow force them to make sense, or even better, change into different numbers. Beside me, Jenna looks like she’s at a funeral.
“Please tell me these were accidentally reversed,” I say, taking a seat behind my desk. Suddenly I’m having a hard time standing.
“I wish,” she sighs, sitting across from me. “Those are the real numbers.”
I’m stunned by how quickly things have managed to go off the rails. Business in the online world, especially one as tied to media as PinkBook, is far more vulnerable to the fluctuations of public opinion than other ventures. When it takes off, it takes off quickly and with a steep trajectory. And when it drops, it drops the same way.
“I honestly didn’t think the media would do such a hatchet job on the data breach,” says Jenna. “But wow, some of the female bloggers have been extra vicious. They were PinkBook’s biggest fans when we were building ourselves up, and then one mistake and pow! They’re coming after us with the long knives. We might have been able to divert them over to the new content we’ve commissioned, but we don’t have anything to show them yet.”
“I hate to admit this, but’s not their fault,” I say wearily. “PinkBook is a powerful brand among women. We knew that—hell, that was our goal from Day 1, to be the choice for women who wanted substance instead of just window dressing. And we allowed subscriber data to be stolen. That’s a cardinal sin in the online world. Those bloggers expected better from us, and we let them down.”
“You make it sound like we opened the door for the hackers!” she protests. “It wasn’t our fault.”
“It doesn’t matter; the buck stops with us.”
My father and I may not get along, but there’s no denying he taught me some of the basic beliefs that make me who I am, and that’s one of them.
Jenna sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose. “This all makes me feel like I did when I was a kid, and my mom would give me that look and tell me she was disappointed in me. I think that was worse than getting yelled at.”
“I wouldn’t know,” I say with a humorless chuckle. “My mother was always disappointed in me; it was her default position, and it only got worse as I got older.”
Jenna reaches across the desk and puts a hand on top of mine, and suddenly a wave of emotion up courses up inside me that brings me to the verge of tears. Plus my break-up with Ben is still raw enough that it’s tickling me behind the eyes as well.
This is a shitty, shitty day. But I’ll be damned if I let it show. I swallow back the pain and steel myself for what’s to come.
“We’re gonna get through this,” Jenna says, obviously reading my face. “We’ve come too far and worked too hard to let this stop us.”
I smile and take her hand in both of mine. Trust me, I realize how lucky I am; not many people can honestly say their business partner is also their best friend.
“I know,” I say, “but it’s going to get worse before it gets better.”
She gives me a knowing look. “We’re emailing them the agenda packages this afternoon. I guess we’ll find out if any of the board members actually reads them beforehand; they’ll be the ones who come in with scowls on their faces.”
“I’m pretty sure all of them will read it, given the rumors that’ve been stirred up by the
media coverage. But we’ll deal with them. We always do.”
“That reminds me,” she says. “Tyler mentioned that Darryl Lawrence asked for a last-minute addition to the agenda.”
Tyler Hart is PinkBook’s board liaison, which is a nice way of saying he’s their gopher, in addition to his other admin duties. He’s usually a pretty good buffer between them and those of us who actually run the company.
I sigh. “Darryl knows he’s supposed to run those by me before he goes to Tyler. What’s it about?”
“He just asked for time to speak; he didn’t say about what.”
Part of me wants to call Darryl and tell him to do things the right way, make him wait until the next board meeting, but I just don’t have the energy to fight right now.
“Fine,” I say, and I have to stop myself from adding “whatever.” Again, my father’s unseen presence still having an influence on me. I still don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing,
I should have called him. I should have just put on my big girl panties and headed this off at the pass while I had the chance. If I’d been listening to my father’s voice in my head like I was earlier, that’s what I would have done.
But I didn’t, and now I’m having a staring contest across the table with Darryl Lawrence, while the rest of the board watches us closely. It’s all I can do to keep from grabbing my pen and pitching it right at his exposed jugular, like a ninja throwing dart.
Okay, that’s an exaggeration. But not much of one.
“You’re suing,” I say evenly, without blinking. “For a larger share of PinkBook. Of my company.”
I cringe inwardly as soon as I hear the words come out of my mouth. I want to take them back—it was a terrible choice of words—but it’s too late. And Darryl knows it. I can see it in his eyes.
“Correction,” he says. A smug grin creeps across his face as he sweeps a hand at the rest of the board members. “It’s our company.”
“Of course,” I say, trying to recover. “I didn’t mean to imply—”
“It doesn’t matter what you’re implying, Sarah. What matters is the company, and its future. First of all, I think I deserve more of the company, considering the fact it wouldn’t be here if not for me—”
