by Cora Brent
“What do you think?” I asked Leah a minute later as we walked around the Espo 2 kitchen. Meanwhile I could hear snippets of the conversation Melanie and Tara were having in the next room.
“I’m actually going out for once,” Melanie was saying. “When I’m not killing myself at work, I’ve become far too comfortable sitting on my couch in my flannels and talking to my cats. So tonight I’m trying something different.”
“Ooh, hot date?” Tara teased.
Melanie giggled. “Close enough. Braxton’s a former colleague.”
“Good for you,” Tara said. “Hold on, Gio’s texting me.”
Tara had her face in her phone when I stepped out of the kitchen, but Melanie looked my way. Maybe she was admiring Leah, because she stared for a long handful of seconds. Then she smiled and turned her head.
A few minutes later Tara announced that she had to get back to the East Valley for some kind of Mommy and Me playgroup. I gave Leah one more kiss on her plump little cheek and handed her over to her mother. Once they were gone, I noticed Melanie was watching me with a confused expression.
“What?” I said.
She grinned. “I just never saw that side of you before.”
“What side?”
“The one that lights up like a Christmas tree over a baby.”
“Only that baby.” I paused. “So you’ve got plans tonight?”
She looked surprised. “Yes. Rare, but it does happen. Why?”
“Just making conversation.” I picked up some scattered papers and pretended to study a supplies contract. The idea of Melanie out with some guy shouldn’t have gotten me all bent out of shape. She didn’t belong to me. Still, I kept trying to picture the kind of man who would attract Melanie. This Braxton character was probably some big shot executive who drove an eighty-thousand-dollar car and habitually manscaped all the visible parts of his body. I pictured him laughing with Melanie over a bottle of wine as his dick hardened in his designer suit. I kind of hated him a little.
“Dominic?” Melanie said. “Are you okay?”
Sure, I was fine. Some unknown douchebag named Braxton was going to be drooling over Melanie in a few hours. That was no reason for me to feel like growling like a rabid dog.
“Yeah,” I told her. “I just, ah, bit my tongue.”
She was still staring at me.
A change of subject was overdue. “You get all those interviews set up?” I asked.
Melanie nodded. “A few. Still waiting for some calls back.”
“I think a little hustle is in order,” I said, a little more harshly than I meant to. “Our doors will be opening before we know it.”
She frowned. “I know that. You have nothing to worry about. I promise I will assemble the most competent serving staff in the state.”
“Good.”
I hoped that was the end of it, but Melanie lingered. I didn’t look up even as she stepped closer. She cleared her throat to get my attention. I shuffled the papers in my hands.
Her face was full of curiosity as she looked up at me. I was glad she’d covered that tank top up.
“Is something bothering you?” she asked.
I shrugged. “Nothing in particular, but I’ve got a million and one things on my mind. There are a lot of essential pieces that need to fall into place. Like liquor licenses. And staff.”
She looked a little hurt. “Dominic, you can trust that I’m on top of the staffing issue. I promise.”
“Good to know.”
Melanie sighed. “So we understand each other?”
“I think so.”
“Is there another reason why you’re aggravated?”
I tossed the papers onto the counter. “Why the hell are you so worried about my state of mind, Melanie?”
Her eyes narrowed, and she took a step backward. “I’m not,” she said, and began stalking back to the office. “By the way,” she called over her shoulder, “there are two interviews set up this afternoon in case you want to participate. One at two o’clock and the other at three.”
“Won’t make it,” I called back. “I’ve got to stop at the lawyer’s place and sign some paperwork. I’ll email you some questions to cover.”
“Yes, sir,” she mumbled and then closed the office door behind her. She didn’t slam it, but I got the picture.
I sat there for a few minutes, just staring at nothing and wishing like hell that the wine closet was already stocked. When my phone buzzed, I ignored it the first time, but then it rang. I smirked when I saw who the caller was, and answered.
“What’s up, Jay?”
“Texted you three times.”
“Didn’t see it yet. Care to summarize?”
Jay dove right into his story, talking rapidly. He often lunched at this place in Scottsdale called Hot Tips where the waitresses were all busty, blonde, and barely covered. He’d been flirting with this one girl for a few weeks and asked her today if she wanted to make plans after hours. Well, it turned out he put his foot in his mouth, because the waitress was brand-new. The girl he’d been flirting with, the one he thought he’d been making a play for, was actually her twin sister. Turns out this sort of thing happened to them all the time, and they had a sense of humor about it.
“Dude,” I interrupted him, “I don’t believe a word of this shit.”
“Be quiet, Dominic,” he scolded. “I’m getting to the best part.”
“Is it going to make me nauseated?”
Jay made a disgusted noise. “Not unless you’ve really and truly gone off the deep end.”
“Have at it then,” I said.
“A situation like this doesn’t exactly come along every day—”
“In porn it does.”
“Dominic!” he roared, and I chuckled.
Jason took a breath and continued. “When I mentioned that I had a buddy who was a high-profile restaurant owner, the girls were all kinds of interested. They are ready and willing to meet up tonight. You get what I’m saying?”
“Twins. Ready and willing. I get it.”
“So you’re in?”
For some reason I swiveled in my chair and glanced down the hall. I couldn’t see the office, but I knew the door was still closed.
“I’m in,” I said.
CHAPTER NINE
MELANIE
Braxton Porter was the recreation director at Desert Princess Resort and Spa. He’d been in London at an international resort conference when I was fired. I hadn’t seen him since. Braxton and I had always had a pleasantly professional relationship. Thirty years old, he was also charming, good-looking, and about a year ago, his fiancée left him for a guy who hosted a home-improvement reality television show.
Since the great wedding debacle, he’d texted me a few times, just benign How are you doing? messages, but I was doing my best to avoid any reminders of my humiliating dismissal. When I finally texted him back, he asked if I wanted to have dinner. I hesitated for few minutes, staring at the message, before taking the plunge and accepting. I’d been working a lot, and once the new restaurant opened, I might not get too many evenings off for a while.
But then as I fussed with my hair, waiting for the doorbell to ring, I was starting to regret agreeing to this date. Braxton and I had worked well together, but there’d never been a shred of romantic tension between us. Unlike the unseen currents of electric attraction that filled the air whenever my current boss and I were in the same room together.
Speaking of Dominic, he’d been in one of his moods today. There were times when I saw the tension coiling in his broad, muscled shoulders, and all I wanted to do was massage it away, but he always kept his burdens to himself. As hard as I worked, he always worked ten times harder. The inner force that drove him was both admirable and intimidating. Sometimes it seemed that Esposito’s Pizzeria was actually his lover and life partner. How could anyone compete with that?
Checking my watch, I wandered into my bedroom with both cats right on my heels and sat on the e
dge of the bed. I opened the plastic bag containing five Esposito’s T-shirts that Gio had given me when he stopped by today. After refolding the shirts and setting them in a neat pile, I reached into the large brown shopping bag I’d dropped on the floor earlier. On my way home I’d stopped at the mall and purchased four pairs of comfortable jeans, because my denim inventory was rather lackluster. I slowly ran my hand over the fabric. I hadn’t regularly worn jeans to work since my college job at an arts and crafts store, but hell, I wasn’t a corporate big shot any longer. It seemed like I ought to at least consider making a more practical transition to fit my new reality.
I stashed the clothes in a dresser drawer and returned to the living room.
Braxton arrived fifteen minutes late. I already had my purse on my shoulder and stepped out the door quickly.
“You look fantastic, Melanie,” he said as he gave me a friendly hug.
“Thanks,” I told him. “So do you.”
I wasn’t being insincere. Braxton wore dark-gray pants and a light-blue shirt with sleeves rolled above the elbows. I remembered that most days he would arrive at work ninety minutes early to use the state-of-the-art resort gym. It showed. Blond guys had never really been my thing, but I could still appreciate that Braxton was pretty easy on the eyes.
He led me to his black Acura and held the door as I climbed in. I wondered how long I should wait before mentioning Melanie’s Spectacular Screw Up aka The Semicelebrity Wedding from Hell. Ever since I got fired, I’d desperately avoided the social media gossip, the Internet memes, the YouTube video comments. That was a black hole I couldn’t afford to get sucked into when I was trying to move on and find a new job. Things like this always passed when the next tabloid nugget was served up.
But now, seated beside my former coworker as he drove out of my apartment complex, I suddenly, passionately wanted to know what the people I used to work with thought of me.
“I bet you want to know what the staff has been saying about you,” Braxton said as we paused at a red light.
“What? No.” I shook my head, blushing. “I wasn’t thinking that.”
Braxton gave me a sympathetic smile. “It’s okay, Mel. That’s what I’d be wondering if I were you. No one blames you, you know.”
“Hence the abrupt termination of my employment,” I said, a little bitterly.
Braxton turned onto the freeway. “Management needed a scapegoat, that’s all. But the word among the staff is that you never should have been put in that position in the first place. The basic consensus is that you were overtasked and got a shit deal. By the way, I agree with the consensus.”
I exhaled deeply, releasing a worry I hadn’t realized had been weighing on me so much. It was nice to know that my former colleagues didn’t see me as a bubble-brained failure.
Braxton took me to a new Italian restaurant in Scottsdale. He was surprised to hear that I was working for a small family-owned pizzeria and offered to make some calls if I was interested in moving on. Since I felt committed to my role at Esposito’s, I politely refused the offer.
He was decent company—smiled often, occasionally said something funny, and appeared to listen carefully whenever I spoke. Still, something was missing. Call it attraction or excitement or whatever. I had to stifle a few yawns by the time the main course was served.
When Braxton paid for our meal like a gentleman, I felt like kind of a bitch for being vaguely bored with him already. What the hell was I expecting? Maybe I’d just read one too many romance novels during my long drought. In real life not every man possessed smoldering eyes, a square jaw, and a body that induced projectile drooling.
But some of them did.
No, I wouldn’t think about Dominic tonight. I did enough of that during the daylight hours, and I deserved some time off.
As we lingered over our drinks, Braxton asked if I wanted to stop in at a new club on Shea Boulevard.
“Sounds good,” I said a little absently, because in spite of my best efforts, I still had Dominic on the brain. I looked down at the table. I picked up my water glass. Then as I raised it to my lips, I happened to check out the other side of the restaurant.
And immediately wished I hadn’t.
“Melanie?” Braxton ventured.
“Hmm?”
“Are you okay?”
“Sure. Why do you ask?”
“Because you just gulped about eight ounces of water in three seconds.”
“Oh.” I set the water glass down. Then I smiled. “It’s hot. I was thirsty.”
Braxton nodded, looking unconvinced. “I see. You want to get out of here?”
I practically jumped out of my chair. “Yes, I would like to get out of here.”
As Braxton escorted me out the doors of the swank Italian eatery, I tried to avoid glancing back one more time. I failed.
I knew that Dominic Esposito had the right to eat out anywhere he pleased. He also had the right to go out with whomever he chose, even the platinum-haired lingerie model who was sitting very closely beside him at Casa Rienti. The two of them were accompanied by another couple, and I recognized the man. It was Jason, Dominic’s friend. I remembered thinking at the time that his absurd good looks would have caught my attention if I hadn’t been so distracted by the presence of my boss.
Braxton was holding the door open for me, so I had no choice but to walk through it. It was actually kind of a relief because I’d be spared another glimpse of Dominic and his big-breasted plaything. Even so, I wondered who she was. Tara had once laughingly declared that Dominic Esposito never had time for relationships. In fact she was convinced he slept curled up on the floor beside the brick ovens at the pizzeria. Judging by how affectionate Dominic and his date appeared, it seemed Tara was wrong.
“You sure you’re okay?” Braxton asked once we were outside. He was looking at me a little oddly.
“Yup,” I said and forced a grin before we headed to his car.
Even before we entered the crowded club, I regretted coming. This had never been my scene, not even in college. Braxton continued to be Mr. Super Nice Guy and introduced me to the club’s owner, who was an old frat brother of his. Since it seemed like the two of them wanted to talk for a few minutes, I excused myself to go to the ladies’ room. I closed myself in a stall and just hung out for a few minutes, trying to sort out my thoughts, which were still in disarray over the Dominic sighting. I had no good reason to be disturbed by the sight of him out on a date. Hell, I was sort of on a date myself. If he wanted to let some chick rub her nipples all over him, then I had nothing to say about it.
I frowned, flushed the unused toilet, washed my hands, and left a tip for the attendant.
“There you are,” Braxton greeted me as I made my way back to the noisy bar. His friend was nowhere in sight. Braxton leaned close to my ear, draped his arm around my shoulder. “Let’s head upstairs. There’s a VIP lounge. It’ll be much quieter.”
I didn’t want to go upstairs. Braxton was okay, but there wasn’t going to be a romantic connection between us, and all the VIP lounges in the world couldn’t change my mind about that.
“Actually,” I said, “I’m not feeling so great. You think you could take me home?”
Braxton’s brilliant white smile wavered a little, but he nodded. “Sure. We’re out of here.”
Twenty minutes later I changed my mind about Braxton being a nice guy when he tried to inhale my tonsils in front of my apartment. I told him he didn’t have to walk me to the door, but he insisted, saying he considered it good manners. I’d turned to him, expecting a handshake or maybe a chaste hug, but he grabbed my face and shoved his rubbery tongue between my lips.
“Aah!” he howled when I bit down in reflex. He held a hand to his face and glared at me.
“What the hell?” I yelled.
Braxton pulled his hand away from his face and examined it. There was no blood, but he still wore the expression of a wounded dog. “You bit me,” he complained. “You actually fucking bi
t me.”
I crossed my arms and looked around, hoping we weren’t attracting any neighborly interest. “Oh, just barely,” I hissed. “I wasn’t expecting that. You didn’t exactly ease in there romantically.”
Braxton’s lips spread into a slow smile. He grabbed me by the waist a little too hard.
“Is this more romantic?” he whispered. His breath was sour, and he pushed himself against me, shoving me into the wall. When I tried to break free, he kept me pinned and started grinding his hips until I could feel every repulsive centimeter of his boner.
“Braxton!” I shouted. “Let go of me or I’m going to scream until your eardrums bleed!”
He dropped his hands and backed off. A guilty redness crept across his cheeks. “I’m sorry,” he mumbled. “I had a few shots with my buddy while you were in the ladies’ room, and I’m a little fucked up. You know me, Mel. You know I don’t usually act like this.”
I put my hand on my doorknob. “No, dude. Apparently I don’t know you at all. Just fucking leave. Now!”
Braxton nodded, turned around, and started to trudge back to the parking lot. Suddenly he stopped and turned around with a beseeching expression.
“Look, Melanie, I misread the signals. I’m really sorry.”
I was disgusted. “You’re sorry that you’re a first-class creep with grabby hands?”
He winced and hung his head. “Yeah.”
“You’re a real piece of work,” I said through clenched teeth as I silently cheered Braxton’s fiancée for having the good sense to leave him for the reality television home-improvement guy. “Goodbye, Braxton.”
I didn’t breathe freely until I was on the other side of my apartment door.
“What the fuck?” I muttered. Even though I’d sent Braxton packing pretty easily, it was never fun to fend off a near sexual assault. The overall crappiness of the night had just escalated. It was depressing to realize that a man I used to work with turned into a slimy predator after dark. What was worse, I couldn’t get Dominic out of my mind.
