Chapter 20
CHAPTER 20
CHARLOTTE
I’m in bed, face washed and mind exhausted, when I see the notification on my phone.
Unknown number
Hey. It’s Aiden from Red Rock Resort. Had a great time that night. Sorry it took me a while to text, your fours look kind of like nines. Hope that corporate guy in LA you went to work for isn’t too much of a dick.
I read it again, the shock settling into a dull sense of panic.
He had tried to call. But he must have gotten someone else or a number that wasn’t in service.
He had tried to call!
Had he thought I brushed him off? Given him a fake number?
I think back to our interaction over the tacos lunch. Are you asking for my number? he’d said in a low voice, almost sarcastic. I thought he was being an asshole. Reminding me of our previous interaction and how he asked for mine, only to never call. Never text.
Until now.
Your fours look kind of like nines.
They don’t.
Well, maybe a little. Especially if I’m writing quickly and looping my numbers together.
I turn onto my side and scan the message again.
This changes everything, and it changes absolutely nothing. I feel like I’m on needles. Energy sparks through me and makes my stomach clench.
That night we shared… It can never happen again. We both know that, and I know it more than him. He runs Titan Media, and knowingly or not, his family company orchestrated the destruction of my life. I’m never sleeping with Aiden again.
Even if the attraction is still there. I try to bury it with professionalism, covering it with shovels of distance. It certainly helps that he’s a master of being annoying. But it’s still there. At moments when his eyes spark or we’re arguing, I might as well be back in that resort restaurant.
Who’s the real Aiden?
The scruffy one next to the fireplace, with a leather jacket and a beard. Or the five-o’clock shadowed man in a suit who argues like it’s his job because it is.
My fingers type out a shaky response. I shouldn’t. I should delete his text and pretend it never arrived, pretend it didn’t reach me.
But we’re in this boat together. This memoir needs to be great, and there’s only a month and a half left.
He is a bit of a dick, I’m afraid. Don’t worry. I’m persevering. He has this giant house I get to stay at, so that’s a plus. Fabulous pool.
I hit send and let the phone fall from my hand, disappearing among the pillows and the fluffy comforter on this comfortable bed. The space smells faintly like citrus from a built-in scent diffuser, and even though I’m bone-tired, I lie awake waiting for the buzz of my phone.
It only takes a few minutes.
And now you’re writing a memoir to inflate his ego even further? Doesn’t sound like a good idea, Chaos. You should get out of the big city. Being in the outback looked really good on you.
It takes only a second before another message appears beneath.
I tried calling several times.
Oh.
My heart pounds, and my fingers fly over the phone.
Funny, a big ego is something else you have in common with the corporate dick I’m working with. I’ve told him off about it before, but he just seems to laugh it off.
Maybe I just want you to tell me off more often. Maybe I enjoy it.
Enjoying conflict feels like such a masculine thing.
Conflict? We’re not fighting, Chaos. We’re arguing. Consider it foreplay.
It’s absolutely not foreplay.
No, I suppose it’s not, considering I didn’t contact you until after we started working together. That’s a shame.
It’s for the best. It’s not like we’re each other’s types, anyway.
What is your type?
I’ll tell you my type if you tell me yours.
I hit send before considering my decision. The room is perfectly quiet, save for the soft sound of a working AC; the only light is the soft bluish shine of my phone screen.
I wonder if Aiden’s in his bed, too. Just down the hall. Or maybe he’s working. Laptop open, always available.
The first time I was in LA, it was for Titan Media’s premier party for The Gamble . This time, I’m with Titan Media’s CEO.
The irony is not lost on me.
My type? Smart, funny, ambitious. Doesn’t matter if she’s a hiker out in Utah or a bestselling author.
A woman’s career is unimportant to you?
That’s not what I said. As long as she’s passionate about it, I can get on board. So. Your type?
I dig my teeth into my lower lip. This entire conversation feels too close to flirting and yet… He’s giving me something. I haven’t asked him about his dating habits yet, but it’s a key puzzle piece to explain the man himself. And, I know I’ll need to broach the subject eventually.
He’s giving me a way in.
But for every nugget of information I get, I’ll have to volunteer something personal in exchange.
I don’t really have a type. But yeah, I like men with unusual jobs or passions. It’s attractive if they work with their hands. Most of all, they have to be interesting.
Course they do. You like puzzles. And you wouldn’t respect a pushover.
I close my eyes and take a deep breath. This is what he does. He gets under my skin, perceives all the things I don’t say out loud and rarely even think about. I know it’s wrong to not like the good guys. The kind guys. The ones with soft voices and softer touches.
But in the decade since Blake, since my humiliation and losing my virginity in a public spectacle, I’ve only been on a few first dates with the good guys. Those with the kind eyes that speak of a long-term relationship and commitment and safety.
And none of them got a second date.
I’m a moth, and I’ve been drawn to all kinds of flames in the last few years. Most of those have burned me, eventually.
I have no doubt he will too.
I think you’re talking about yourself, Hartman. Maybe it’s a good thing I was the one hired to write your memoir. Anyone else, and you would have driven them out the door during week one.
Also, did you just imply that you are a puzzle?
Aren’t I?
You really are insufferable sometimes.
Can’t be boring, or you’ll lose interest.
I stare at the seven little words lighting up my screen. Or you’ll lose interest. The realization that we were only a slanted digit off from spending another night together in Utah, from whatever that may have resulted in…
It hangs over the entire conversation.
Who says I’m interested in the first place?
I hit send and then turn over in bed, closing my eyes and welcoming the blackness behind the lids. It doesn’t stop my mind from spinning. I don’t know if anything can.
I shouldn’t have sent that.
Shouldn’t have responded to his first message tonight, but here I am—I have, and I don’t think it will be the last time we’ll engage like this.
For the book, I remind myself. Writing compelling stories about a person is always easier when I actually know the subject. Just like the would-be pilots need flight hours to get their wings, I need interaction hours with whoever’s story I’m meant to tell.
That’s all this is.
It’s interaction. Another data point. Lord knows I have enough to fill a chapter just on his personality.
Tenacious. Persistent. Charming. Well-spoken. Determined. Unwilling to take no for an answer. Really fucking annoying.
There’s a low buzz from my phone. I should turn it off, hit airplane mode, throw it across the room.
I look at it instead.
You might be studying me, Chaos, but I’m studying you in return.
Would you have picked up? If my call had gone through?
My hand is shaking when I type the response.
You’re not supposed to ask me that.
I can’t help myself, Chaos. I never can around you.
I turn my phone off and push it to the edge of the mattress. It hits the carpeted floor with a dull thud, and I blink up at the dark ceiling.
He’s still my subject for this memoir and my ticket to a new contract with my publisher. He is still the CEO and the heir of a company that I dislike with a burning passion.
My parents would hate that I’m doing this job. My best friend back home, my cousins, my grandmother. They would all question my sanity.
But he had tried to call me after Utah.
And I hate that that matters to me.
Like a moth, I think.