The Virgin Society Collection

8. Definitely Mostly The Line

8

DEFINITELY MOSTLY THE LINE

Bridger

Back in high school, when I hunkered down devouring books in my local library, I never imagined that more than a decade later, I’d be inking a deal for pretty perfume.

But I suppose it makes a strange sort of sense.

As a teenager, I loved books. Now, perfume may help sell a love story.

Lately, my life revolves around stories and scents.

On a Friday morning, I’m reviewing the terms of a partnership with a perfume company in Paris. Their eau de toilette will feature in an Afternoon Delight episode, and then the perfumer will release an Afternoon Delight -branded scent.

Smells like spice and seduction , the company has said.

After one last read, I send the contract to legal, then there’s a rap on my door.

Probably Ian, since we have a meeting in ten minutes, but as I set my reading glasses on my desk, Jules, my new admin, walks in. She started as an intern and moved her way up, and she’s packed with precision.

“Good morning, Bridger,” she says quickly. She’s never called me Mr. James.

“How’s it going, Jules?” I ask, but she has nearly less patience for small talk than I do.

“I have the research you asked for on Anti-Heroes Unleashed . And some questions about Parisian locations for Afternoon Delight ,” she says, since the show is set there. “I sent them to your reading folder.”

“Great. I’ll look at them shortly.” I glance at the clock. “Once I finish the meeting with Ian.”

She nods crisply. “I also sent you coverage of Plays Well With Others , a novel by Hazel Valentine. I read it last night.”

“And?”

“The love story starts right away.” With that, she gives me a small smile. By now she knows what I want.

“Excellent.”

“You get some football, some lessons in seduction, an interesting take on fake dating. It’s definitely worth a look,” she says.

“Good elevator pitch.”

“It’s sexy and sharp,” she finishes, then nods again, like a cadet ready to turn on a West Point heel and go.

I hear a throat clearing in the hall, then a warm, English voice saying, “Did someone say sexy and sharp?”

Ian strides into my office and beams at Jules, who repeats the succinct pitch for him. “Sounds promising,” he says.

She sees herself out, and once she’s down the hall, he points at her. “She’s a good admin.”

I narrow my eyes. “Hands off, Ian.” What he does after hours is his business. I just don’t want his business interfering with ours.

He scoffs. “Please.” He settles on my couch grandly, spreading out and setting his feet on the low coffee table. I wish he wouldn’t do that. He knows that. It’s not a table for feet. “I’m practically married already. You don’t have to worry about me.” He taps his fingers on the back of the gray cushion, like he’s prepping to make a point. “As a matter of fact, Vivian and I are scouting for wedding venues this weekend in Connecticut. Checking out little inns and such.”

That has to be pure Vivian. Ian would never get married at an inn when there are Yale Clubs, and posh hotels, and Michelin restaurants that host nuptials. “A B&B, Ian? That’s not your style,” I say, then add drily, “You must really like her.”

He beams. “She’s the one,” he says.

“Glad to hear,” I say, meaning it. I hope his new romance is everything he truly needs.

Vivian was wrong for me, but apparently, she’s the woman of his dreams. Or so Ian tells me. I’ve heard that from him a few times before. Heard it about Joan. I heard it about Mariana, his fourth wife. I heard it retrospectively about Felicity too, from him, years later. How her death after a brief and unexpected battle with illness nearly destroyed him. How close he was after that to the edge of…well, life.

But I didn’t know Ian in the aftermath. I met him a few years after he’d started to pick up the pieces again. I think he mostly did.

Mostly.

Definitely mostly .

Either way, his affairs are absolutely not my business.

But his shoes are, and I can’t stand looking at the bottoms of them. I’m about to ask him to get his feet off the table, when he says, “But I don’t leave till tomorrow.” Then he smiles, a little conspiratorially. “Which is good, because I want to give Harlow a present before I go.”

In no time, the clip of my heart increases.

I try to breathe normally. I fight off the images of Harlow that flick before my eyes. From his engagement party. The way she looked at me when she realized I’d remembered her favorite flowers. The way my chest fluttered annoyingly.

But what did I expect? I gave her flowers, and my blood went hot.

I shouldn’t bother him about shoes when I’m thinking of his daughter like this.

“Oh yeah?” I ask, as nonchalant as I’ve ever sounded in my life.

“I got her a fantastic gift,” he says, and I don’t even need to ask him what it is. He proceeds to tell me.

My eyes pop. “Wow. That’s extravagant.”

He shrugs, but his smile’s too big to hide his excitement. “Well, fine. It’s really from Felicity,” he says, but as if that detail hardly matters—that the big gift comes from his dead wife’s books. Then he blinks, staring at his shoes. “Bollocks. Sorry, mate,” he says, swinging his feet off the table. “Forgot.”

He sounds genuinely contrite.

“It’s fine,” I mumble.

“Anyway, at least Harlow still likes me. Hunter, on the other hand,” he says, shaking his head, frustrated perhaps that his son used to work on our show, then quit recently. “But girls are easier.”

I would have no idea. And certainly, I have no comment on his parenting. I just have no comment.

No thoughts. No feelings. Nothing.

Ian’s knee bounces. “I’ll give it to her when I take her out to sushi tonight. She’s going out with her friends tomorrow night for her official big day. Of course .”

He says it like she couldn't do anything else for her twenty-first birthday. Like kids today .

My jaw tics. Images of her dancing, laughing, flirting taunt me. She’ll be out on the town with people her age, looking beautiful and young and tempting. Her hair swishing, her lips bee-stung, her eyes inviting.

A pang of jealousy stabs me in the chest.

I should really take up yoga.

Something. Anything.

Maybe learning to let go of my no feet on tables rule would be a start.

“I’m sure she’ll have fun,” I say, vaguely, distantly, because I should not—I really should not—have an opinion, let alone a visceral reaction about Harlow’s birthday plans.

Jules knocks on the door again, pokes her head in, her brown eyes all business. “Your daughter’s here,” she says to Ian.

I flinch. I must have heard that wrong.

But Ian is beaming. “Fantastic. Send her in,” he says. Then he turns to me as he rises. “That’s a surprise. I didn’t think I’d see her till tonight.”

Yeah, it really fucking is a surprise. I push back in my chair. “I’ll let you two—” but of course he’s in my office.

And seconds later, so is Harlow. She’s dressed in trim, black pants. Tight, but fashionable and still businesslike. Short black heels. A steel gray blouse—tough but feminine at the same time. Her lush chestnut hair is cinched tightly in a clip.

Her long, graceful neck is dangerous to my pulse. I want to touch the I on her chain, the skin beneath it.

I clench my fists.

“Sweetheart,” he says, then brings her in for an embrace.

“Hi, Daddy,” she says.

That’s odd. Something about the way she just said hi, Daddy sounds a little…intentionally sweet.

And yet still sexy. Too sexy for my own good. I sit up higher in the chair, adjusting.

She holds up a white paper bag with pink lettering. Piece of Cake. “I picked up a cake. I thought we could all celebrate.”

We. She wants us to celebrate?

I’m stuck at my desk. I don’t dare move. My throat is dry. My body is hot. I wish he were gone. I wish I didn’t want that. I close my eyes momentarily, then open them.

Ian smiles. “You know I can’t resist sweets, darling. You got your sweet tooth from me.”

“I did, Daddy,” she says, and that’s different too. It’s like she’s playing up their connection right now.

What the hell is she up to?

She sits down next to him on the couch—across from me.

My desk and a table form a blockade between us yet I’m still off-kilter.

“So it’s good you’re both here,” she continues, her green eyes twinkling and eager.

“Why is that, love?” he asks, patting her hand, the indulgent dad today.

“Because I have something to ask the both of you,” she says, brightly.

Then she meets my gaze, and the utter innocence of her smile is chased with complete mischief.

Like how she looks at me on the bike path. Like how she talked about Ask Me Next Year. Like how she murmured over the flowers.

I’ve no clue what’s coming but I am dead certain that this moment is about to become a dividing line in my life:

Before she asks.

After she asks.