Games We Play

by Cynthia Dane

  The man pulled out a piece of paper from his back pocket and glanced at Leah’s nametag. “I was also told to give this to someone named Leah. That must be you.”

  Leah snatched the piece of paper before anyone else could look at it. “Thanks. Do you know who placed the order? It wasn’t you guys, huh?”

  “Not at all. We received a call from an anonymous donor this morning. She…”

  “She?”

  “Yeah, she… uh, she told us that we had a present waiting for us here around three. A treat for all the hard work we’ve been doing, or something.”

  Leah stole a glance at the handwritten note. It wasn’t Sloan’s handwriting, but it looked like her words. “Thank you for this. I had no idea I was expecting it, but…”

  “Here you are!” Enid arrived with a large box of carefully placed cupcakes. “Be sure to carry them like this to your car and keep them level. Otherwise, that’s it! I hope you enjoy. Leah here personally saw to decorating them.”

  The man peeked into the box and shook his head. “I have no idea what this is about. None of this makes any sense.”

  “Well… enjoy?”

  The man left with his box of donated cupcakes. Leah also left the front of the bakery, intent on holing herself up in the employee bathroom to read the note Sloan sent.

  “Hello, Kitten,” it began. “If you’re receiving this, then the denizens of your gloomy city aren’t as stupid as some of them look. Congrats! Because I have wonderful news for you.

  I know you said that you wanted to spend a whole weekend with me, but unfortunately, my weekends are booked up with bullshit for much too long. Too long to go without seeing you, anyway. I’d much rather bring you to my beautiful city for Valentine’s Day two weeks from now. I know it’s a long time to make you wait, but I thought I’d make up for it by mixing up your work day for you.”

  Leah read the rest of the letter with piquing interest. As soon as she found Enid again, she asked, “Can I have Valentine’s Day off?”

  Her boss cocked her hand on her hip and looked at her as if she had asked for the whole month of February off. “One of the biggest baking days of the year… you want it off?”

  “I, uh… also…” Leah cleared her throat. “I also need the following day off.”

  Yup. She had asked for the impossible. Good thing she had hung around Sloan long enough to pick up some negotiating skills. That, and the need to see her again, after she had gone out of her way to play that cute little game, was powerful enough to make Leah come farther out of her shell and get what she wanted.

  ***

  “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Ayla, who didn’t often butt into Sloan’s affairs like this, asked without hesitation. “Because this could really blow up in your face, and I’ll have to clean it up. As usual.”

  Normally, Sloan enjoyed her personal assistant’s attitude, but she was not in the mood for it Friday morning. They sat in Sloan’s downtown Chicago office, where the views were gorgeous but the air was stale and smelled too much of frankincense spray. Whatever cleaning crew was responsible sorely needed to be replaced.

  “I’m sure. It’s all a part of my plan.”

  “Have you gone over this plan with anyone? Because you haven’t gone over it with me. Or your therapist, I’m betting.”

  “My therapist thinks I’m best served writing letters to everyone I’ve believed has wronged me.” An excellent idea! Until the therapist then told Sloan to burn the letters without sending them. Honestly, she preferred her idea of sending them in the mail – on fire. “I prefer a more direct approach.”

  “Everyone who has wronged you, huh? Remind me not to get on that list.”

  “There’s really only one person on it. By the way, have you been back to the jeweler’s?”

  “I’m due there later this afternoon.” Ayla opened the scheduling app on her iPad. “You’re changing the subject, though. Unless me going to the jeweler’s is phase one in Margaret Sloan’s world domination.”

  “Close. Have you finagled a way for Leah to get those days off yet?”

  Ayla opened her mouth to heave a mighty sigh – and hopefully a few words – but the intercom came to life with the receptionist’s voice.

  “Ms. Sloan, it’s Mr. Giles…”

  The door to the office opened. In came Aaron, dressed in the same cocky outfit Sloan had seen at that morning’s 8am meeting with a Detroit client. Only now he had finally lost the winter coat. The only reason we didn’t lose that client due to a broken heater is because he’s from Michigan. Meanwhile, Sloan had not backed down in nothing but a thin jacket –though her fingers were frigid by the time she reached her office an hour ago.

  “What can I do for you, Aaron?” Sloan leaned back in her chair, one leg swinging over the other. She had worn a short black wig that day, but now she wished she had gone for the frosted blond instead. That always intimidated this guy’s balls off. “Don’t tell me you want to take me to Hooter’s for lunch. Because the last time we went, I took all the attention away from you, remember?”

  “Valentine’s Day,” he said.

  “Good job, Aaron! It’s around the corner!”

  Ayla excused herself before the business owners could get into a row in front of her. She knows when to scram. Besides, didn’t she have a jeweler’s to get to?

  “Do you have plans on Valentine’s Day?”

  Sloan had half a mind to call security and throw him out. He’s not asking me on a romantic date, is he? How many times do I have to tell him I’m gayer than a lesbian bar on ‘80s night? “I do, actually. I’m having dinner with my girlfriend, whom I’m flying in earlier that day.” She absentmindedly checked the time on her watch. “Don’t worry. I’m using my personal money, not the company jet.”

  “Cancel it.”

  “Excuse me?”

  Aaron showed her an alert on his company phone. She wasn’t in a hurry to brush her hand against his, but it was the only way to get his phone so she could see what the hell it said. “This is much more important. Harold Wright is coming into town next week, and we need to put on the Ritz for his old, feeble, conservative ass.” Aaron backed away as Sloan read the email. “That means you need to put on a nice sweater dress and your most demure wig so we can impress him with your domesticated wiles.”

  Sloan slid the phone across her desk, disgusted. “I will do no such thing. If you want to meet with him that morning, fine. I’ll put on my least intimidating pantsuit and go easy on the war paint. I’ll let you lead the meeting, but I will not have dinner with you two.”

  “Don’t be an ass about this, Mags.” Aaron’s voice was gravellier than usual. Either he had started smoking more, or he was invested in intimidation. Not going to work on me. Aaron could start throwing the shit off her desk, and Sloan would still not budge. He’s done it before. I’ve practiced. A lot. “We’re talking about almost twenty-million dollars here. Wright has more invested in our company than you’ve got sticks up your ass. Do you really want him to think we’re a pair of wretched sinners?”

  “Just because the man holds the record for Most Pious Billionaire doesn’t mean I have to go against everything I am to keep him happy. It’s not my fault God made him afraid of powerful women.” Guess I’ll leave my pink pussy hat at home! “He’ll deal with my gay ass like you do every fine day. Or, better, I won’t have dinner with him at all. Or meet with him. How about you and Christie Yearwood take up that mantle on my behalf? Tell him we’re no longer together and she’s your fiancée. He’ll love it. Especially the part where she’s forty years younger than him.”

  “Don’t fuck with me, Maggie.”

  “Why not? You try to do it to me every day.”

  “I’m serious.” He jammed his finger into her desk. Aw, more intimidation tactics at ten in the morning? What a gentleman. “You may not give a shit about what you’re doing to this company, but…”

  “What I’m doing? What, pray fucking tell, am I doing?”

>   “You’re a joke, Maggie.” Aaron turned around in a huff. What’s crawled up his ass and died? One of my sticks? Aaron was more likely to coyly manipulate her, not use overt aggression. Not this early in the morning. “Every fucking day I hear everyone laugh about you going out with hookers and spanking them until they can’t sit down anymore. Now you’re dating some wannabe kinkster from Portland? C’mon. Portland! Couldn’t spring for a local girl or at least one from New York, oh no, she had to be from the God awful Pacific Northwest, where everyone gets called a Liberal Tree-hugging Commie. You really have no shame.”

  “I like to keep my image fresh, you know? Right now I’m trying this monogamy thing. You might like it. I hear you used to be into it, too.”

  “If Harold Wright has caught wind of your lesbian philandering…”

  “That sounds like the title of my future memoir.”

  “Then we can kiss him goodbye. We’ll take such a hit that it could take years to recover! Do you remember what it was like when we started building this company fifteen years ago? Or do you only remember me saying the wrong thing that one time?”

  “So, basically, what I’m getting from you is…” Sloan interlocked her fingers and considered her options. Go for the gay joke? The BDSM angle? No. Those were too easy. She needed to slam her foot into Aaron’s balls. Make sure he was hobbled for the rest of the day – like putting down a rabid dog. “If I bump into Mr. Wright next week, let alone with my girlfriend on my arm, I shouldn’t bring up how many abortions I’ve had.”

  The fire was in his eyes before it spread to her desk. Sloan had exactly two seconds to brace herself for the impact of Aaron’s hands against her place of work.

  The sound wasn’t what almost frightened her, however. It was that visage, the same one he had several years ago, when she realized he would never again be the man she once thought he was.

  The flashback it gave her almost made her flinch. Almost. I would never give him the satisfaction.

  “You’re a cunt, Mags.”

  “Yes,” she sweetly responded. “I know.”

  He opened his mouth to say something else, but stopped himself. Good. If he really wanted to play dirty, she could fling her shit right back at him. It wouldn’t be the first time security had to break up the bosses from destroying each other. Nothing more satisfying than taking out a shit like him. She had done it once. She would willingly do it again.

  “Fuck you.” Aaron ran his hand through his gelled hair and stomped toward her office door. “Fuck you, Maggie, and your low blows.”

  Sloan steepled her fingers and stared at her business partner through the union of her thumbs. “It’s the low blows that nail you in the balls,” she muttered. The door slammed shut, and she was left to her suffering silence.

  Harold Wright, huh? Sloan hated the self-righteous bastard, but he was the man holding the coins to half their business. I remember when I first charmed him ten years ago. Harold was responsible for taking their efforts to the next level. That was the year Aaron and Margaret went from mere multimillionaires to billionaires.

  She had charmed him with her innate nature. The one Aaron had once called the freshest breath of air to ever come into his life. It had inspired him to start this business with her. “Nobody will suspect how brilliant you are, Maggie.” He had said by candlelight. “Let’s use their assumptions about you against them. Get to know these people. Make them swoon, like you make me second guess everything I ever thought about the fairer sex. Let’s take them to the cleaners and make ourselves richer than we ever imagined.”

  Back when she wore demure dresses and sweet, seductive makeup. Back when she knew how to flash a smile and cock her head, letting the mansplainers of the world think they were the smartest fucks to ever tell her how business worked. Back when she had the patience – no, the desire – to indulge them.

  It had been another life. One she barely remembered, until she saw that fire in Aaron’s eyes – and the shadows in her photographs.

  Chapter 21

  Leah didn’t know what magic had conspired to get her three pivotal days of the week off on such short notice. All she knew was that she pulled double shifts to make up for her absence. By the time she boarded her morning flight to Chicago, she was liable to pass out on the tarmac. Jet-lag, here I come.

  To say she lacked in the beauty sleep department was an understatement. She slept the whole First-Class flight to Chicago, but it wasn’t enough to make her look like a member of the living when she deplaned at O’Hare and went straight to the car awaiting her by the curb.

  “Where are we going?” she asked the driver when they drove past one of Sloan’s apartment buildings.

  “I have orders to drop you off at the Dayglow Spa.”

  “Spa?” Leah grinned. “Happy Valentine’s Day to me!”

  How many women were given free trips to Chicago for a day like this? All Leah knew was that she would meet Sloan when she got off work around five. Until then, she met up with a personal stylist at the Dayglow Spa not too far from downtown. Massages, masks, manicures and pedicures… it was happening, and the stylist laughed to hear that Leah might fall asleep during her deep-tissue massage. I am that tired.

  Sloan must have known how hard her girlfriend had worked all week, because the spa did more than wake Leah up. It rejuvenated her. From the moment she stepped out from the sauna and went straight to the manicurist’s, she felt like she had shed her old skin and now emerged the pampered princess she had always hoped to be.

  Sloan was good at making her feel like this. If Leah wasn’t careful, she would catch more feelings for the standoffish businesswoman who acted like she would rather die than fall in love.

  The stylist had spent the past hour drawing up a plan for Leah. Granted, the woman already had a plan based on what she had read in Leah’s profile, but seeing her, speaking with her, and watching her move in her everyday clothes had given the professional a few ideas for the impending shopping trip. She showed Leah a few photos on her tablet while the pampered client had her hair brushed and styled in the salon.

  “I’m thinking a chic black dress for your date tonight.” The stylist showed Leah an off-the-shoulder cocktail dress that was made of nothing but sparkles. “This starry night look will put all the focus on you at the restaurant. Ooorr… if we want to keep with the Valentine’s theme…” She swiped through a few more pictures. “You have the perfect hair and skin tone to pull off baby pink and not look like an adolescent.”

  It looks like my birthday dress! Leah grinned to see the frilly cocktail dress on the model. Lace bedecked her from collar to knee, and the appliques adorning the bust were straight out of Leah’s childhood fantasies. Yet the dress was definitely styled for an adult woman. Nothing said mature yet flirty like those flowy sleeves and a cinched waist dotted with a little diamond belt. Are those real diamonds? No. Way. Leah didn’t care if they were cubic zirconia’s or personally mined by a team of assistants. She wanted that dress.

  The stylist laughed. “I guess this one is the winner, huh? Luckily for you, the boutique isn’t too far from here. I’m told you’re a size ten?”

  Leah nodded. “Does something like that really come in my size?” She had seen the designer’s name stamped on the image. She had always heard that designers like those stopped making dresses after a size six, if people were lucky.

  “Of course we can get it in a size ten. I’ve already put it on hold for us. As soon as we’re done here, we’ll get it. I already know it will be a perfect fit.” The stylist showed the beautician the photo. “Give her a soft pink look. I’m thinking a tinge of magenta on the lips and a bit of a baby pink glow on the eyes. Gold dust her cheeks.”

  Gold dust! On her cheeks!

  Granted, she had to squint at her reflection to see the hint of gold on her skin, but Leah approved. She definitely wasn’t tired when she got back in the car with the stylist and drove ten minutes to the boutique housing her Valentine’s Day dress.

 
“This is already the best day ever,” she texted Sloan. “When do I get to see you?”

  “Soon,” Sloan replied. “Afraid I have to meet you at the restaurant. I had a sudden appointment this afternoon that is sure to run late.”

  That gave Leah time to not only try on her dress, but take her time perusing a selection of shoes and the perfect accessories to go with it. She ended up with not only the diamond belt around her waist, but a pair of pink diamond earrings, a tennis bracelet, and two pink diamond barrettes in her hair. The beautician had stopped fighting Leah’s curls and instead let them fall naturally down her back and over her shoulders. The only thing missing was a fresh pink rose, clipped next to her bangs.

  “I can’t tell if she’s going to the prom or Easter Sunday,” the owner of the boutique whispered to the stylist. “Is this really what the client wants?”

  “Look at her,” the stylist hissed back. “Have you ever seen a woman happier to look like a cupcake?”

  “Well, you did say that she was a baker… if anyone knows about looking like a cupcake, it’s her.”

  They gave her a light jacket to wear over her arms, since night had fallen and it was time to head to the restaurant. Sloan texted her girlfriend to assure her that they would meet there. Unfortunately, that last-minute meeting had really run late.

  Leah took a selfie in the back of the car and sent it to her friends and sister. “Can you believe I look like this right now? Check out this dress!” The only reason she didn’t add a filter and post it to her Instagram was because she didn’t know how public she and Sloan were. Friends were fair game, though, right?

  “Oh my God, you look like the cake I decorated today. #getitgirl” Gina responded.

  “That is SO CUTE!!! OMG! Where did you get it?” Melissa sent more emojis than Leah knew existed. “Wait, don’t tell me. Is it Charlette Russe? That totally looks like a Charlotte dress. I saw one at the Lloyd Center a few weeks ago. I think. Maybe?”

  Karlie did not respond. She was probably still in class.