ChampagneCravings

by Ava McKnight

  I still didn’t have an answer to Biel’s question about why I’d let Mike into my life after having the rug ripped out from beneath me by Chase and Brandon, especially when I’d put him in the same category as them—a womanizer who would break my heart. How had I come to trust him so much, I’d given him a key to my apartment after only six months of living next door to him? How had I let him insinuate himself into my life when I’d given up on dating and the hopes of finding Mr. Right—because of “guys like him”?

  I knew I had to explore this in order to get to the heart of what I truly felt for Mike—and what I wanted out of our transformed friendship. Unfortunately, I also had a mystery to solve for Mav Linnear at Elan Essentials.

  So I settled at the kitchen table and scoured a stack of transcripts, finding little snippets here and there that painted a bigger picture as I started to segregate them. What I discovered before dinner with Mike was that little tidbits shared over the course of the month to an external source created a whole can of worms to open—which the blogger had intended to do.

  Had I simply performed an electronic search of employee emails, as I typically did when on a case and had also considered doing this time, I wouldn’t have come up with the clues to the puzzle. They were all in code. Little riddles that had to be deciphered, but which revealed the campaign secrets without blatantly saying the obvious or mentioning Biel by name. I’d have missed this if I hadn’t looked at the transcripts in hard copy.

  My next course of action was to find out who the recipient of the information was, because it didn’t match the email address of the blogger, which I’d unearthed immediately following my first conversation with Mav. Most likely, it was merely an alternate email meant to protect the blogger, should anyone catch onto the fact an Elan employee was leaking information to her.

  Pleased with myself, I packed up the evidence in my laptop bag for my trip to Elan in the morning. Then I headed out, having agreed to meet Mike at the Italian restaurant overlooking Central Park that we both loved. I was running late, but he didn’t seem to mind. He smiled sexily at me as I slid into the chair opposite him.

  “Sorry to keep you waiting,” I managed to say, though he stole my breath.

  He’d ordered a bottle of Chianti for us and had poured me a glass. “I figured you were working. I was about to call, but then I got distracted by the pictures you sent.”

  Showing me the screen of his iPhone, he said, “I think this one’s my favorite.”

  I really did look thrilled to the core of my being. I told him, “You’re going to fall out of your chair when I tell you who took those photos.”

  “If you say Biel McKinley, I’m going to have to punch her in the face.”

  I laughed. “As if you would.”

  “So the two of you are best buds now?”

  “Not best,” I said with a pointed look. “Only one person fits into that category.”

  “Nice save,” he told me with a wink. “I’m still jealous.”

  “No, you’re not.” I sipped my wine, then added, “Besides, she’s got it bad for Piper. And this’ll surprise you, but I’m learning more about what’s happening between you and I from the two of them. Did you order?”

  He nodded. “Pasta bolognese for you, pizza for me.”

  “Yum.”

  “I told Maria to wait to put in the ticket until you arrived.”

  She was our favorite server, and co-owner of the place. I experienced that feeling of familiarity again over Mike’s attention to details. He even picked the table I preferred, right in front of the window so we could people-watch. That was generally something I enjoyed, but tonight I literally only had eyes for the super-hunk in front of me.

  After a long sip from his glass, he asked, “So what did you mean about learning things from Biel and Piper?”

  “As it turns out,” I told him, “I have all these feelings trapped inside me that I’m trying to free.”

  He chuckled. “There’s a newsflash.”

  “Hey,” I mockingly chastised, “just because you can so easily speak your mind doesn’t mean others can. It doesn’t come naturally to me, we both know that. But I’m trying.”

  His look softened. “I can see that. And I appreciate it.”

  I would have done that old-fashioned heroine swooning thing again had Maria not suddenly appeared with a basket of bread and a small plate of olive oil with balsamic vinegar pooling in the center of it.

  Biel and I had drank more wine and champagne than we’d eaten hors d’oeuvres, so my stomach growled at the delicious scent wafting from the sourdough bread wrapped in a red-checkered linen napkin.

  “You’re a lifesaver, Maria,” I told our server.

  With a smile, she said, “You two have become our best customers. My husband and I are grateful you’re in here a few times a week.”

  “Best Italian food in New York,” Mike said. We’d know. We’d tried at least two dozen places before we’d found this gem. One would be surprised at how some Italian restaurants in the city served food that tasted as though it came from a can you’d pick up at the corner market.

  Maria ducked into the kitchen. Her husband Anthony was the head chef. They’d opened the joint a year ago, for which Mike and I were grateful.

  I dug into the bread as he said, “So you spent the afternoon with Biel McKinley and her girlfriend?”

  “No, Piper ran off to Hollywood for a makeup gig after she and Biel had an argument the other night. I wanted to hang out with Biel because, aside from really liking her, I have a lot of respect for how she approaches things. It’s enlightening, not jaded.”

  His brow furrowed. “You think you’re jaded?”

  “For sure,” I blurted out, a few crumbs flying from my mouth. “Sorry about that.” I brushed them from the white linen tablecloth. “But I’d really prefer not to be. And, I discovered I wasn’t as torn up over Chase and Brandon as I was pissed off they’d jerked me around. Also, I probably wouldn’t have been so angry about the breakups if I hadn’t convinced myself I could change them. That was dumb.”

  He eyed me curiously, then said, “But maybe you could have changed them. If they’d given you the chance.”

  Maria returned with our food. I toyed with my mouthwatering penne pasta, tossed in the richest, zestiest bolognese sauce known to mankind, as I considered what he’d said. Mike pulled a fragrant slice of meat-and-veggie-laden pizza oozing mozzarella and took a bite, not minding the silence that ensued because he was a chowhound. He’d carry on a conversation once the meal was served, but only if he had to. This gave me time to process what he’d said.

  Had he just told me he’d changed his womanizing ways because I’d allowed him into my life and my apartment over the past three years? Yes, I’d stood my ground all that time by not having sex with him and that had caused us to get to know each other on a personal level that didn’t involve getting naked. I was likely the first woman he’d had that sort of connection with. Was that why he’d recently come around and had stopped screwing everything in a skirt a couple of months ago?

  Had he learned along the way the things I’d started to unravel inside myself today? That what was between us was much more than sizzling chemistry? Was that why he hadn’t fucked me when I’d given him the green light?

  Setting aside my fork, I reached for my wine and took a big gulp.

  Mike had polished off his first slice of pie and was moving in on the second one, but stopped, his hand in midair. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  The man knew all of my expressions, I suddenly realized. Or perhaps I’d known that all along and had conveniently overlooked it.

  Leaning toward him so I could lower my voice, I asked, “Why haven’t we had sex?”

  He laughed. “Exactly what did you and Biel talk about all afternoon?”

  “Answer my question.”

  Pulling his hand back, he said, “If you think I’m not hot for you, think again.”

  “I’m pretty sure I get
that.”

  “Okay.”

  “So, what gives?” I pressed.

  Giving me a serious look, he told me, “Because you still think of it as sex. Or fucking. I don’t. Not with you.”

  I glanced around to see if anyone had heard him, but over the din of the chatty patrons, the arias Maria liked to play for ambience and the general kitchen noise, no one paid us any attention. Except for the women who stole a peek at Mike every now and then. But I was used to that.

  He challenged me further by saying, “I can tell you want to believe in this. In us. I can see it in your eyes and I most definitely saw it in those photos. But the one thing you can keep in your back pocket, the one thing you can hold over me by holding back on, is making love. You want me to fuck you, you said as much. I want intimacy. The kind where we gaze into each other’s eyes as we move together. The kind where words aren’t even necessary because our emotions are conveyed by the way we touch each other and the way we respond to each other. You tried to have that with Chase and Brandon, didn’t you?”

  My mouth gaped. Once again, I looked around to see if we’d finally gained an audience. Luckily, no.

  Biel’s question came back to me in a flash. Not the one about why I’d let Mike into my life when I’d believed he’d been cut from the same cloth as Chase and Brandon when it came to screwing around. No, I thought of the question she’d posed about how I’d feel if he never kissed me again. And I realized I’d already reached an intimacy level with him I’d never before achieved. But I wasn’t allowing that to transcend to sexual intimacy that went far beyond the one-night stand or quick, meaningless romp I’d asked of him Thursday night.

  And as I further internally validated the point that I hadn’t been devastated over losing my two boyfriends as much as I’d felt used by them, I understood what Mike was getting at. Biel and I had both hit upon it this afternoon.

  When you offer a part of yourself to someone, you want them to treat it appropriately. Affectionately. Kindly.

  I pushed aside my dish, my appetite for food vanishing. My appetite for the man sitting across the table from me, however, turned ravenous—because he truly did get me.

  “You constantly blow my mind,” I told him. “Yes, I wanted that with Chase and Brandon. I wanted emotional intimacy as much as I wanted sexual intimacy. But in the end, I was just a piece of ass.”

  We stared at each other for several long, though not uncomfortable, moments. Then Mike said, “I’m the bad guy tonight. I shouldn’t have dated all those women while I was waiting for you to come around. I didn’t treat them the way Chase and Brandon treated you, that’s true. I was very upfront about my intentions and the fact I wasn’t interested in a relationship. And I never cheated.” He shook his head as he added, “In the back of my mind, I’d hoped one of them would replace you, so I wouldn’t continually want you when I couldn’t have you. But that doesn’t excuse my womanizing.”

  “That’s big of you to admit.”

  With a shrug, he said, “How can I push you to come clean if I don’t do it myself?”

  I was at a loss for words. Like Biel, the man was astute.

  Maria stopped at our table, a concerned look on her face. “Did I get your orders wrong?”

  “Absolutely not,” Mike said with his winning smile. “Everything’s perfect.”

  She wandered off and he flashed me his sexy grin.

  Finally finding my voice, I said, “Interestingly enough, it is perfect. Even though it’s still kind of messed up.”

  He laughed. “If we can’t talk about this shit, what’s the point of traveling this road together?”

  “God, I’m good at picking friends. If only I’d kept my eyes and options open before starting up with Chase and Brandon.”

  “On the flipside,” Mike said as he dove back into the pizza. “If you hadn’t moved in with Brandon, I wouldn’t have had an excuse to get you out of that toxic environment and tell you about the apartment next to mine.”

  “That did work out nicely, didn’t it?”

  With a wink, he added, “The shower debacle did too.”

  “Don’t gloat,” I teased. “This is not an all’s well that ends well moment. I still have a few crossed wires in my head, remember?”

  “But you’re making excellent progress.”

  I hoped he was right.

  Needing a reprieve from the intense subject matter, I said, “By the way, I found Elan’s mole.”

  “No kidding?” He looked impressed. “Damn, that was fast.”

  “Sometimes you get lucky and select the correct haystack to pick through right off the bat. This one happened to be email transcripts. I almost skated over the evidence I needed by considering an electronic search, but I rocked it old school and went with transcripts.” I smiled at him.

  Mike said, “You are one kick-ass retro babe.”

  While I reveled in the compliment, something else occurred to me. “You know, reading the way the information was leaked, I felt absolutely no sense of malice. Now I don’t know who Anne Dunley is—our mole—other than what her email signature tells me. She’s the assistant to the VP of marketing and her most recent transcripts show an out-of-office reply, indicating she’s out for two weeks.”

  “Clever timing.”

  “Indeed. She knew the information about the supermassive hush-hush campaign was set to go viral over the weekend and she clearly didn’t want to be in the office come Monday, when everyone would have been in an uproar because of it. Also, she started her vacay last week, according to the timeframe she gave on her auto-response, and that means she might not have known about the change of day in the product launch to Thursday. So she couldn’t alert the blogger who was going to burst the campaign bubble to move up her tell-all.”

  “So what reason would this Anne person have for spilling the beans on a secret campaign?” he asked around a bite of pizza.

  I went back to work on my pasta and, after swallowing a few hearty chunks of penne, told him, “That I don’t know. But I think a visit with the VPs of human resources and marketing might reveal her motives. They’ll know enough about her that we can likely piece together the puzzle.”

  “What troubles you about the absence of malice?”

  Damn, he really was perceptive. “My guess is, someone—maybe the blogger, or a competitor through the blogger—paid Anne for the information. That would make it a simple, cut-and-dried transaction. What happened to Biel at the launch was anything but. In fact, that incident reeks of malice. It felt more like a personal slight. As though someone wanted to get even with Elan. Or Mav.”

  “Mav?” His brow lifted.

  “The CEO.”

  “Ah, okay. You think this sabotage was pulled off by two different entities, with two different MOs?”

  I let this bounce around in my brain while I continued to eat. Finally, my gut instinct assured me I was on the right track. “It was more of a personal humiliation than an attempt to discredit the new makeup line. A competitor wanting to damage Elan’s reputation is too easy and obvious a conclusion to draw—and they’d know that, so it’d be too big a risk to take, because if it backfired, they’d be seriously screwed. No, I think someone wanted egg on Mav’s face. And they had the prime opportunity to use Biel’s face in order to make it happen.”

  With a nod, Mike said, “It was the perfect platform for anyone wanting to get even with him, considering the extravagance of the evening, those in attendance and the coverage it would have received whether or not there’d been a scandal. Any leads?”

  I thought about what my supermodel friend had told me regarding the head of the lab at Elan. I said, “Mav had a fling with someone who definitely had opportunity to replace the waterproof makeup with the non-waterproof variety. Apparently, the relationship was on the up-and-up, nothing scandalous about it. He just couldn’t commit the way she wanted him to, since he was still hung up on his ex.”

  Mike whistled under his breath. “Hell hath no fury and
all that.”

  “Exactly. I mean, I can honestly tell you a million ideas popped into my head about how to kick Brandon in the balls without physically doing him bodily harm. I seriously wanted to take a baseball bat to his ninety-thousand-dollar Jag. I rose above it, of course. But not everyone does.”

  With his signature grin, Mike asked, “So you never minded I broke his nose?”

  I laughed. “Well, it wasn’t the smartest thing to do. He could’ve sued you. But…no. I never minded. He deserved it.”

  “I have Neanderthal tendencies sometimes,” he admitted, as if I didn’t know that.

  “Ya think?”

  We finished the bottle of wine and Maria packed up our leftovers. Mike paid the bill and I offered to treat him to a movie.

  “Do I get to choose?” he asked.

  Remembering how much I’d subjected him to my chick flicks, not to mention all the mushy romantic stuff he was suddenly facing because of our first kiss, I said, “Some blood and gore might help to restore the balance in our universe.”

  He totally got my meaning. “Good point.”

  We dropped the food off at his apartment and then hit the closest theater to our Upper West Side neighborhood.

  He selected an alien movie that had been out for a while and we settled in seats in the very back of the nearly empty room. With his arm draped over my shoulders, I nibbled on popcorn while Mike nibbled on my earlobe.

  “Did I tell you how good you smelled when we were at the restaurant?”

  I laughed softly, so as to not draw any attention to us. “How could you smell me over sinfully delicious Italian food?”

  “It’s a floral scent I’ve inhaled for years, babe. I’d recognize it anywhere.”

  “Lilacs,” I told him.

  He sniffed my neck, then kissed it. “Gets me all hot and bothered.”

  Yes, I did adore how he spoke his mind. I tried to do the same. “Your mouth on my body gets me all hot and bothered.”