The crowd murmured. The reporters in the room furiously typed into their smartphones. They were probably tweeting about Easter Island already.
Dick smiled at me. In his eyes, I’d played right into his hands. “Maybe you can be a champion, but I doubt it. I guess we’ll be seeing you on Easter…Island?”
His brow furrowed.
I knew why I chose Easter Island, a small volcanic island not far from Chile. But he didn’t. In that I had the upper hand.
“That’s what I fucking said. Grab your panties and put your apartments on Airbnb, or whatever the fuck you reporters do to pay for the flight. Because I’m challenging El Toro, and his fuck face mouth piece Dick over here, to a fight on Easter Island, and it’s going to be the fight of the century.”
I saw Crystal facepalm in the corner.
It wouldn’t be the last time I’d see her do that.
2 - Crystal
It took one day. One little, itty bitty day on the job covering Connor McGrath before I decided something.
There was not enough money on God’s green earth to make me go through with this assignment.
It hadn’t even been a full day, just a handful of hours, and I’d had quite enough.
I made a list after the Sunday night press conference and presented it to my boss first thing in the morning.
"I am absolutely, positively, not going to Easter Island for thirty days. Not in this lifetime. No way. That man is an absolute barbarian, and for safety concerns, I cannot go." I spoke in a polite but firm manner.
Vikki Wilkerson had been my boss for several years at JW Style Consulting Inc. When I’d arrived in Chicago with a fashion degree from a no-name college, she’d given me a chance. With her guidance, I’d elevated to my current position: fashion consultant to the stars. I’d helped dress Vince LaRosa, and his girlfriend Kelly MacNamara. With them in the ‘win’ column, Vikki had thought I’d be able to handle Connor.
I don’t think anyone sane could handle the Irish hothead.
Vikki sat across from me in a lambskin leather office chair, and behind a credit card thin desk. It showed her off to perfection, and created a powerful illusion of power and wealth that I secretly coveted. She was heiress and queen behind her glass and chrome throne, bedecked in a five-thousand-dollar maternity dress, and with a pair of Christian Louboutin’s that hadn’t been offered to the public yet. She’d had an in on all the style houses, and enough clout that I sometimes wondered why she chose Chicago as her base of operations, and not LA, New York, or even Milan.
Her short bob had an Anna Wintour vibe as her silky brown hair gleamed in the morning light. She nodded and considered my comment, and then flashed me an apologetic smile. "He said sixty days, not thirty.”
I choked on my coffee and coughed hard. “Sixty days?” Thirty had been bad enough. Sixty was lunacy. “No. Not with that mad man. I'm certain Connor has been hit in the head one too many times. Did you see it? He just made that up in the middle of a press conference. He wants to go to Easter Island? Is that even a real place? I think he might be insane, for real, and I believe my list communicates all of the reasons this job is not for me."
I sat with the impeccable posture my mother had taught me all those years ago. We hadn’t grown up rich, but that didn’t mean we need to exhibit bad manners, she’d always said.
Connor McGrath, on the other hand, was a poster child for bad manners. I couldn’t shake the image of him jumping up and just tearing his shirt open like a barbarian. He’d thumped his chest and beat on it as if he’d watched Tarzan one too many times. If I was mistaken, and when it came to fashion I never was, that shirt had been Givenchy.
Vikki leaned back in her chair and propped my list on her baby bump. Despite being considerably pregnant, she looked effortlessly chic in her maternity dress. Though she wasn’t forced to wear items with cutesy bows and ribbons many pregnant women suffered with. No, her outfit was couture motherhood.
She took a deep breath, the material bunched tightly over her distended body, and then exhaled. “Crystal, can I ask you a question?”
My eyes darted from the list in her baby bump to Vikki’s eyes. “Yes, of course.”
“How long have you worked here?”
Something about the path this type of questioning could lead down made me nervous. Vikki never asked me if she could ask me a question. She asked, and I answered. She was the boss, and I was her grateful employee. And that in and of itself was a question, so I never really liked that phrase. Still, I answered. “Three years. I came here after I was in Los Angeles for a year, and I’ve never left. Why?”
“And you’ve dealt with some of the biggest clients we have here.”
I nodded. “Yes, that’s true.”
“And they all love you.”
I swallowed, trying to alleviate the dryness in my throat. My espresso cup sat on a small table beside me, but I couldn’t stomach another sip of coffee. “Some do, some don’t.”
“Oh please, Crystal. Now is not the time to be humble. You won over Vince goddamn LaRosa for goodness sake. What a piece of work that man is. You should be proud of your work. You’ve excelled here.” It wasn’t often she threw out compliments, and I basked beneath the impromptu praise.
I liked Vikki. She’d been my boss for a long time. Sometimes, though, she tried to instill in me these life lessons that seemed to go nowhere.
“I see why you’re hesitant, and I can see why you wouldn’t want to go to a place so far away. This is a challenge. So what? I guess I just don’t understand. Did something else happen in the meeting?”
I swallowed, keeping my cool, and breathing deeply. I locked my knees together so she didn’t see me squirm. That would be an obvious sign that something had happened, though I would never, ever admit it.
As big of an asshole as Connor was, he had a magnetic presence about him. I was not about to admit that before I’d even been assigned to him, he’d been the subject of multiple late night fantasies. My pussy, and my mouth, knew his name with an intimacy I should be ashamed of.
I knew his reputation. Everyone did. He melted panties all over the world. There were girls in multiple continents lusting after him. Until this rather serendipitous job, I would never have believed I would meet Connor, let alone work with him. Yet now I was in his path, and my body hadn’t gotten the memo that he was only a fantasy, and not a man I could--or should--pursue. And I would never admit that, for a brief second during the leadup to his conference, I’d forgotten myself when I felt how hard his body was beneath my hands. I wanted to run my palms all over him, peel his shirt off, and gaze at that ripped body which was plastered all over posters, calendars, lunchboxes, and my television. Honestly, I’d had heart palpitations when he tore his shirt off.
I couldn’t do it. Not if I wanted to emerge with my sanity and reputation intact. No way was I spending sixty days on a remote Island with a lady-killing asshole who had no qualms about voraciously hitting on anything and everything. It would just kill me watching him hook up with the ring-bunnies that would find their way to the island.
“Nothing happened. He was just his usual asshole self.” I kept Connor’s smirking gaze and hot-eyed appreciation to myself. I didn’t need to mention how he’d eye-fucked my breasts, or that just brushing his bicep had sent a tingle of electricity through me. It was unprofessional.
He was unprofessional.
“He’s a big personality. But I really…oof.” She trailed off and braced her stomach with both hands. She was at least eight months pregnant, and looked like she was ready to pop at any time. “Baby’s kicking again. Geez Louise this guy has some power in him.”
“Oh, that’s adorable. Maybe you have a fledgling fighter in there.” I smiled, hoping it covered up some of my unease. Babies weren’t my thing. When I first arrived at JW I’d seen myself in her, albeit in a decade or so. I hadn’t ever envisioned Vikki as a mother. I don’t know how she was going to handle motherhood and the workload her company required.
/>
Vikki had built JW from the ground up, working for ten years to make it one of the most successful style consulting businesses nationally. Connor’s Agent, Jeff Faber, had come to us requesting only the best. Someone who could make Connor the kind of guy who got multimillion, multiyear deals from the big brands.
She adjusted, and refocused, looking me in the eye. There was steel behind it. “Look I’ll be honest. You’re young, Crystal. You’re twenty-six. But you’ve got maturity. You’re the best employee I’ve worked with here, period. Since I’ve built JW, I haven’t met anyone else who understands how we can use little details about a person’s image and persona to market them on a macro scale. That’s why I personally selected you to be on Connor’s case.”
My adrenaline surged and I jolted. I hadn’t realized she’d handpicked me for this assignment.
“You did?” I murmured.
“Yes. And maybe Easter Island is crazy, and maybe Connor McGrath should be tied up in a strait jacket, but there’s no one else I can send. And if you pull this off--if Connor runs this sixty days of tournaments he’s planning, with the big fight against El Toro at the end, do you have any idea how much money he could make? You would be working with the media company, consulting with them on how Connor is performing in the 18-35 age bracket, and advising changes. You would be the face of his ascension, and the face of this company. There is a ridiculous amount of money on the table for this.”
I bit my bottom lip. “And there’s no one else to go, is there?” My hope had deflated with every syllable she spoke.
Vikki shook her head. “If I weren’t about to pop out a newborn, I’d be going myself on this one. This is a huge account, and I can’t trust anyone else right now. Jonathon would have been the perfect candidate, but as you know he just put in his two weeks to take his around-the-world trip with his boyfriend. Lizzie’s got the Freemen account so she’s traveling heavy to the east coast right now. I ran the numbers on what this crazy sixty day, every day is pay-per-view day fight bonanza. Do you want to guess what our commission is based on the contract we just signed with Jeff?”
I stifled a groan. “I’m guessing it’s high.”
She folded her hands on her desk. “Zoreto Shoe Company has reached out to Jeff regarding a one hundred-million-dollar endorsement.”
I felt faint, and my jaw dropped. Surely, I’d misheard her. “Did you just say one million?”
“No. One. Hundred. Million.” Vikki enunciated the words so there was no mistaking the staggering number. “For just one year. We are talking about a worldwide contract. They want to put Connor’s face everywhere. He’s got one of the largest audiences in the world. He’s the perfect marketing lure. Every guy wants to be him, every girl wants to have him.”
Just as I had been thinking. The man dropped panties everywhere.
I straightened up. If I was stuck in this hell, I needed to make the most of it. My mind leapt ahead and focused on how I could use this job to elevate myself. “At ten percent commission, that’s…” The figure sat on my tongue. Ten million. Holy fuck. Uttering it would make it real, and making it real would mean I wouldn’t be able to not do this job.
Vikki knew she had me. Her face was serene without a hint of guilt that she was throwing me to the wolf. “Bigger than any single deal we’ve ever done, yeah. Remember back in the days where we had to fight just to get Vince LaRosa to buy a twenty-thousand-dollar suit through us? Those days are over.”
“If we get this,” I reminded her. I’d learned early in my life that you never counted on something until you had the money in your hand.
“Right.”
I took a deep breath and glanced around the room. Vikki’s fingers clacked on the small wireless keyboard. “Easter Island actually looks like a cool place. They have those weird statues out there--those huge ones that no one knows how they moved across the island. Ohh, maybe there’s magic!”
I almost rolled my eyes at my boss. I stopped myself just in time. She was trying to get me off topic, get me all wound up about the island itself, but I wasn’t about to have it. I took a page from my brother’s book, who was one of the fiercest negotiators I’d ever met. “If I do this, I want to be an equity partner in JW.”
Vikki’s face froze, and her eyes turned hawk-like. Begrudging respect and no small amount of surprise gleamed within. “Wow.”
I smiled softly and gazed back. Hey, she was right. I was on my way up. If we got this sponsorship account my net worth would skyrocket. My work didn’t come free, and she was in no position to negotiate. If she wanted me on that island, well, she would have to make sure that whatever harebrained ideas Connor popped up with, there would be enough incentive to not just leave him there or drown him in the Pacific.
“What percent?”
“I want ten percent.”
Vikki’s mouth tightened revealing a hint of wrinkles. “Five.”
“I’m not moving from this number. Ten,” I shot back.
She pursed her lips.
“Vikki, if I reel this big fish in, it’s going to triple our revenue for the next year. That’s not worth one tenth of the company?”
She pressed her thumb against the wrinkles forming between her brows as she considered and calculated what I said. Finally, she lifted her head. “I can’t believe I’m doing this, but I accept. Ten percent of the company if you reel in the Zoreto deal. Hey, if you drive as hard of a bargain on them as you did on me, you’re going to crush it.”
My heart raced as the reality of the trip set in. Did I just agree to sixty days on an Island three thousand miles off the coast of South America? Panic washed over me, but I pushed it down. This was the next logical step in my career. I should be proud.
But the fact was that I was on the brink of backing out before Vikki spoke again. Sure, money was a great motivator, but she hadn’t been the one Connor had been eye-fucking and degrading at the conference. How would I be able to reel in the contract if I killed him?
“Well then. With that all settled, Connor is training at his gym right now. Since you didn’t really meet him yesterday, I need you to head down there right now. You know, get a feel for what he’s really like in person.”
“Of course.” I stood up and smoothed my dress down. It had a flirty lace hemline that added a flourish to the pencil skirt.
“I’ll have legal draw the papers up for us both to sign.” Her voice demanded my attention. “Oh, and Crystal.”
I turned towards her. “Yeah?”
Vikki flashed me a knowing smile, as if she’d been aware of every lurid thought I had about Connor. “You know the rule about relationships with clients.”
“Of course. There is none,” I croaked. I was ten-million shades of red.
“Right. I know you know, but I just had to make sure I said it.” She shook her head whimsically. “I am happily married, but I wouldn’t mind eating breakfast off that man’s abs once or twice. Just don’t get distracted by him. Focus on the task at hand.”
Heat piled into my cheeks and I nodded. “Of course.”
Somehow, I knew that would be easier said than done.
I took the L-Train down to Connor’s gym on the south side of the city. The sign on the outside of the door read, “Closed on Mondays.”
“Dang,” I muttered aloud, allowing only a slip of my Southern accent to sugar my words. Why would he want me to come if it was closed?
An extremely loud, strange noise came from in the gym. I pushed on the door and found it was unlocked, though the lights inside were dim. I stepped inside. The click of my Jimmy Choos heralded my entrance better than any knock could.
The moment the door was open it was evident what the noise was. Two tribal drums beat in unison. The noise was so deafeningly loud I half wanted to plug my ears. Their beat was slow and steady, like a metronome.
I approached slowly, tentatively. I wondered what weird ritual Connor could be indulging in, provided he was the one running the show on the day when his gym was cl
osed. And I had a feeling he was the one.
I walked toward the ring in the middle of the gym, where I saw Connor dancing around the ring.
When I reached the side of the ring, I realized he was literally dancing to the beat of the drums, and he had his eyes closed. He’d scoot left, then right, then duck. He wasn’t throwing any punches.
His drummers sped up the pace, and Connor moved faster to match it. The man was one hundred seventy-five pounds of solid muscle, and he moved like the well-paid, well-oiled machine he was. He was all professional. How he was so light on his feet for such a thick hunk of muscle was beyond me.
I posted up ringside and enjoyed the show. Whereas last night he’d been in a suit, now he was shirtless in short boxing shorts. I could see just about every muscle rippling through his body as he moved. Vikki’s warning ran through my mind.
Stay focused.
I shook it off. I was all business right now. But still, that didn’t mean I would interrupt his training session. And unfortunately, that meant staring at his toned back and sculpted abs as he kept moving around the ring, eyes closed.
The drums quickened once more, and Connor moved around the ring so quick it became hard to keep track of his movements. Finally, the beat came to a crescendo and ceased. Connor backed his way up toward me. I still wasn’t sure if he knew anyone was here, he had been so in the zone during his tribal drum training round.
“Hello, Crystal.” His voice was a low, breathy murmur. After he spoke he turned around and looked at me.
My heart sank in my stomach. “How did you know it was me?” I managed to croak. At no point had he opened his eyes.
He cocked his head and made an expression that wasn’t quite a smile. “You’re not curious what I was doing with these tribal drums?”
“I am, but how the hell did you know I was here?”
He paced back and forth around the ring. The tribal drummers, a couple of guys in their mid-thirties who looked like they might be good fighters followed our interaction.
Fantasy Island Page 2
