My feet had never had any attention paid to them.
“So what are you guys saying? I should only put myself out there with men who have no problem with smart women? You might have wanted to mention that before you got me all gung ho on the idea of a fantasy room.”
Erin hung her head and quietly said, “In my defense, I never realized you were going for your boss. I just thought you’d have a good time and shed some of your inhibitions. I never would have told you to risk your job.”
And there it was, the real problem. I hadn’t even thought of that before. I’d been spending all my time nursing my bruised ego when I should have been concerned about losing my job. Fanfuckingtastic.
Josie stopped her pacing across the room and pointed at Erin and me. “Oh, don’t even go there. I will get you the finest sexual harassment attorney on the East coast and when he’s done with the March brothers, you’ll be the owner of Club X. I hear one peep about you losing your job, I’ll be on this like white on rice.”
I lifted my hand to calm her down. “Relax. Nobody’s losing anything. The only harm here is to my ego. I never even let on that I knew it was him.”
Erin narrowed her eyes. “Are you saying you never let him know you knew, Liv?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“What does it matter?” Josie interjected impatiently as she made her pass by us.
Turning to face Josie as she walked toward the window, Erin said, “It matters because the male ego is fragile. What man wants to think a woman can’t even recognize his voice as he’s standing there seducing her?”
“He must have known she knew, Erin. The man’s not an idiot.”
“But Josie, can’t you see? He shows up week after week and she never even lets on that she knows the man there with her is the very man she works with every day. That’s got to bug him.”
“It doesn’t matter anyway, guys. He proved he wasn’t interested, and that’s that.”
“I disagree, Liv. I don’t think that proves anything.”
I looked in amazement at Erin. “Are you suggesting this is my fault?”
“No, not really. What I’m saying is that you may not be seeing the real picture. What if all the guy was looking for was some recognition that he was the one getting you all hot and bothered and all you made it look like was you were into some stranger whose voice you didn’t even recognize? I’m just thinking we should try to put ourselves in his place.”
Josie began arguing the case against Cash in her usual dogged fashion and pacing even more determinedly, but as Erin’s words sunk in, I began to think I’d played this thing with Cash all wrong.
“I never considered that. At first, I didn’t show him I knew who he was because I was so surprised, but then as it kept going, I didn’t know how to bring it up. My fear of rejection mixed with my insecurity over the whole thing added up to me just never saying anything.”
“Liv, I say give him one more chance and let him know you know. Reserve another room and see what happens. If after you show him you know it’s him he’s still not into you, then fine. His loss. But I think you have to give him a chance.”
Erin’s suggestion sounded like the scariest thing I’d ever heard. Give him another chance to reject me? Was I a masochist now?
“I don’t know. I don’t think I can handle him knowing I know and still not wanting me,” I said quietly as her idea settled into my brain.
“I agree,” Josie chimed in as she took her seat on the couch. “Why give him another opportunity to be a dick? I say walk away.”
“But you were the one who told me to take the chance with him. Now I’m just supposed to give up?”
Neither of my friends said anything for a long time, but finally Josie answered, “I just don’t want to see you get hurt, Liv. What if he’s playing some kind of game?”
I looked over at Erin, hoping for some counterbalance to Josie’s natural suspicious nature. “Nothing to add?”
She shook her head. “I still stand by my hopeful suggestion. Give him one more chance and let him know, but I will add this. If you like him, I think you have to take the chance. The question is, do you like him?”
Looking away, I avoided their gazes as I admitted the truth. “I do like him. It’s been a long time since anyone has made me want them as much as Cash. I liked how I felt when we were in the fantasy room. I’d like to see if we can be that outside Club X.”
“Then there’s your answer. I think even our resident cynic here would agree. Go for it!”
Josie scowled at being called a cynic, but Erin was right about her and my situation. “Okay, I’ll give him one more chance, but I’m not waiting until next Friday. I’m sure Kane tells him when I reserve a room, so I’m going to get one for Monday night. Olivia Version 2.0 might be braver, but she’s impatient.”
“Now that makes me happy,” Josie said as she elbowed Erin. “At least if she’s going to do it, she’s going to do it on her timetable.”
I reached over to grab my laptop and logged into my work email. Typing an email to Kane, I let him know I wanted to reserve a gold level fantasy room with the same man at midnight on Monday. Then I clicked Send, and that was that. Now the ball was in Cash’s court or soon would be.
Looking up at my friends, I pressed a smile onto my lips even as my insides began to shake from the real fear that Cash really wasn’t that into me. “There. It’s done.”
Josie steepled her fingers and cocked one perfect eyebrow. “Now we wait.”
“Thanks for the evil villain thing there,” I joked.
“How long does it usually take for Kane to confirm a reservation?” Erin asked.
I looked down at my work email and clicked refresh, sure that he wasn’t even awake at that time on a Saturday. “Not long, but he keeps much later hours than I do. He probably just got to bed a couple hours ago.”
“Sounds sexy. I need to find a man like that instead of the workaholics I keep dating,” Josie said. “He’s the scary brother, right? I could handle scary, don’t you think?”
“I’d be more worried about him,” I said with a chuckle. “All joking aside, now that he doesn’t scare the hell out of me every time I see him, I sort of can see what someone would find attractive about Kane. He’s got a dark thing about him.”