subject: Wow
In case you heard a clanging sound from the south, that was my jaw hitting the floor. You look spectacular.
from: [email protected]
date: June 10, 8:59 PM
subject: Equal Opportunity
Send me a picture of you.
from: [email protected]
date: June 10, 9:03 PM
subject: Now?
I’m just wearing a shirt and a tie. Nothing special. But I’m about to have a meeting with my COO about New Zealand. It would look weird for me to send a selfie.
from: [email protected]
date: June 10, 9:04 PM
subject: Later then.
I’d hate for you to look . . . weird . . . *shudders.*
So send one before you go to bed.
from: [email protected]
date: June 10, 9:07 PM
subject: Later it is.
I promise.
* * *
She waited an hour. Then another one. Sure, she had emails to answer, and product details to approve, and plans from Nelle to review. Through that all, she kept checking her phone as she worked in bed on a hot Friday night with the windows open. She twisted her hair on top of her head and stabbed a pen through it to get it off her neck. Why did she even want Nate to send her a picture? Hell, she knew what he looked like. She didn’t need a photo before she fell asleep.
But he’d said he’d send one, and he was a man of his word. Now it was eleven. Okay fine, a meeting could last long. Very long. So long in fact that when she finally fell asleep after midnight he must still have been with his COO, and maybe even at two a.m. too when she woke up in the middle of the night to pee. Because there was no picture.
When she returned to bed, she checked once more. Still nothing.
Maybe he wasn’t meeting with his COO. Or maybe he had met with him, and they’d gone to a club, and danced with some women, and one of those women was all over Nate, her long nails trailing along his strong arms, her hair falling against his chest, and her breasts in his hands.
She burned inside at the pictures that flashed before her eyes, but the reel wouldn’t stop. It ran faster, and unspooled more scenes as she saw him pushing the elevator button, stepping into it with a beautiful brunette, pressing her up against the wall, and kissing the stranger the way he’d kissed her. Squeezing her eyes shut, she tried to block out the foul images, but they didn’t end until she was seeing him in a dark and sexy room, stripping off his belt, undoing his shirt, and fucking this nameless, faceless woman who was surely with him tonight.
Finally, she fell back asleep, the pit in her stomach eating away at her.
When she woke up to the sun streaming through her window, she found a new message. From Grant Abbott.
It was a beautiful day in Hong Kong. It was made even lovelier by the executed copies of our partnership. Little pleases me more than a well-done deal. (Well, perhaps a FEW things do please me more.) In any case, I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again—I am delighted to be in business with you. This partnership will be fantastic for both our companies.
My best,
Grant
She breathed deeply as she pulled on workout clothes. It was a good thing that Grant had written to her. It was the necessary reminder of why she was spending more time than usual with Nate. So she could have a better chance of becoming the woman that the Grant Abbotts and Scott Nixons of the world would want. A woman who’d learned to rein in her controlling tendencies, her alpha female-ness.
Fine, even if Grant wasn’t writing to her about her, who cared? Either way, she was a woman on a mission. She was in hot pursuit of the big love, and the only way to get there would be to excise the parts of herself that had held her back from truly having it all. That was what Nate was helping her with.
Only that.
She contemplated heading to her gym for a swim. She’d been on the swim team in high school and still loved the water. But right now, she craved speed. Riding a bike in New York City required a determined sort of focus that would help clear her head. Heading to the basement of her building, she retrieved her wheels from the bike storage area, strapped on a helmet, and attacked the West Side Highway Bike Path, burning off the final remains of the waste of energy she’d let consume her last night. Jealousy was such a stupid, worthless emotion and there was no need for her to be envious whatsoever of Nate’s after-hours activities. She had no claim to him, and besides, he knew the score. He was merely training her to hand her off to someone else.
For a new start.
And a new start called for a new dress. Whether for Grant, or the next man who was suited for her.
After her workout, she’d go shopping. That would pass the time until the baseball game. She’d see Nate tonight, and she’d smile, having forgotten completely about the fact that he’d promised a photo. What photo? Who cared? Not her.
* * *
The emerald-green dress hugged her in all the right places, and her friend Jane agreed.
“That is a rocking dress,” Jane said, nodding appreciatively as Casey stepped out of the dressing room of the boutique on Christopher Street. “It’s sexy, but it’s not over the top.”
“So I should get it? Is it first date material? Would you wear it if you were on a first date again with Matthew?”
Jane laughed, practically doubling over, then shook her head, her wild curly brown hair framing her face.
“Then why are you telling me to get it?” Casey asked, parking her hands on her hips.
“That’s not what I’m laughing at. I’m laughing because it’s been more than three years since I had a first date with Matthew, and we didn’t even technically date. We went from him interviewing me for a story about my music to sleeping together,” her friend said. Jane was a rock star. Literally. She’d won a Grammy three years ago for a hit album, and had continued churning out top-notch, and top-selling tunes.
“You’re no help then,” Casey said, teasing, as she checked out her reflection in the store’s mirror. The dress hit her above the knees, and had a soft flare to the skirt. It was suggestive, but not inappropriate, and that’s what she liked about it.