Chapter 17
Emma
For Thanksgiving,I flew to Chicago to see my parents. I stayed in my old bedroom—now renovated—in the house I grew up in. I ate my mother’s roasted peanuts-and-pretzel snack and her buttered baked sweet potatoes. Samantha and Aidan came for a day, and that night all five of us—Mom, Dad, Sam, Aidan, and me—played Monopoly. Not surprisingly, except for Mom and Dad, it was a cutthroat game. I would have won except I went to jail too many times, and Sam lucked into a few sweet hotels and beat the rest of us.
Late Saturday night, I sat on top of the covers on my bed. Sam and Aidan had flown back to New York, and Mom and Dad were asleep. As I always did when I was home with my parents—and as I tried not to do, every time—I thought about who my real parents might be, and why they had abandoned Samantha and me. I wondered if they were even alive, if they thought about us at all. Who was I, really?
I found myself wiping tears from my cheeks. What the hell was wrong with me?
Get it together, Emma.
I picked up my phone, but instead of calling Noah like I wanted to, I called Catharine Knowles.
She picked up on the second ring. “Hello, Emma.”
“I’m sorry to call you so late on a holiday weekend,” I said, realizing at the last minute what I was doing. “Were you busy?”
“Actually, I’m working,” Catharine said. “I don’t have any family, and there’s too much to do. Especially since you haven’t found me an assistant yet.”
She was scolding me, and I deserved it. For someone who claimed to be the best recruiter in the business, I had done a terrible job. “Actually, I’ve found you someone, if you agree to it,” I said.
“Oh? You’ve been recruiting over a holiday weekend? I’d love to hear who you’re suggesting.”
“Me.”
There was a beat of silence on the other end of the line. “Emma. Are you joking?”
“No.” I wiped the last tear away and sat up straighter. “I’m offering to come to L.A. and work as your executive assistant while I recruit someone local. When we’ve picked someone, I’ll train her myself. That way we both know it’ll be done right.”
“I see.” Catharine paused again. “You don’t think you’re needed to run your company in New York?”
“I have excellent help who can take over. And I won’t work for you permanently. It will be for a few weeks while I put the new assistant in place. Then I’ll go back to my usual job.” I took a breath. “I know it’s unusual. But you know I can do the job. I can assure you I’m immune to movie stars. I never even watch movies, so I don’t know who any of them are. And I think—I think a change would be good for me.”
“Is that so?” Her voice was polite, but Catharine was no dummy. I was calling her late at night on a holiday weekend, nearly begging to come to L.A. I just hoped she hadn’t caught on to quite how desperate I was.
Because suddenly, I was desperate. I didn’t want to go back to my silent apartment, to my office, to my usual routine. I didn’t want to go back to Tinder or any of the strange men I’d meet there. I wanted to do something different. Impulsive. Something that would shake everything up.
Something that brought me to Noah.
Maybe he’d forgotten about me, but I didn’t think so. He wasn’t that kind of man. And if he didn’t want me, well, I’d just have to convince him. He’d seduced me when we first met. I was pretty sure that, given the chance, I could seduce him back.
“You’ll have to take a pay cut,” Catharine, ever the hard negotiator, said. “I’m not paying CEO salary.”
“That’s fine.”
“Then I accept your offer. I am not quite sure why you made it, but I know better than to talk you out of a deal this good. When can you start?”
I calculated. I could change my flight to leave for New York early tomorrow morning. Then I could pack my bags and get back on a plane for California. “Monday,” I said.
“If you say so, Emma. I’ll see you at nine o’clock Monday morning.”
I started out on autopilot.I said goodbye to my confused parents and flew to New York. In my silent apartment, I packed my biggest suitcase, because I was expecting to be gone for at least a few weeks.
When everything was packed and I had zipped my suitcase up, when my flight to L.A. was confirmed, I stared at the suitcase, trying yet again to get my shit together.
I’m doing this. I’m really doing this.
I called Natalie. She was surprised to hear from me on Thanksgiving Sunday, but she only let on a little bit. She was even more surprised when I told her she was going to be in charge until I came back from the west coast.
“What’s going on?” she asked when she had ascertained that I wasn’t joking.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that for you to do this, Emma, it means something’s happening. Something strange.”
“It can’t be that strange. This whole thing was your idea, remember? You told me that I’m the only one qualified and trustworthy enough to work for Catharine.”
“I didn’t think you’d actually do it.”
“What’s wrong with it?”
“Well, for starters, you’re handing the reins of the company over to me.”
“Are you saying you can’t do it? Because you’ve been asking for more responsibility for months. You’ve said you want to move up. This is your chance, so you may as well take it.” I was being a little hard on her, maybe, but it was helping to stave off my panic. “Besides, I’m not handing over everything to you. I’m still the CEO. You’ll just handle the day-to-day stuff for a few weeks. Which you’ll get paid for, of course. If you think you can’t do it, speak up.”
“I can do it.” There were voices in the background, and then they faded away, as if she had moved into another room. I was probably interrupting time with her family—another thing I didn’t care about while I spiraled out right now. “I’ll take the promotion, of course I will. I just want to make sure that you’re okay.”
I wasn’t okay. I felt weirdly shaky, like I was walking a tightrope in a high wind. My business wasn’t just a business to me—it was my life. It was what I’d built my self-worth on for the past ten years.
And that, itself, was the problem. Executive Ranks had become a crutch. It was the only thing I had, the only thing I did, the only thing I thought about. Because thinking about Executive Ranks meant I didn’t have to think about the hard things buried in my life.
There are no cracks,I’d insisted to Catharine the day we’d met. But there were cracks, and even then, I’d known it. Cracks in my business, and cracks in my life. In me.
And somehow, since the day I’d met Noah, they had started spreading, splitting everything apart without my noticing.
None of which had to do with Natalie. She was a colleague, an employee. She wasn’t a friend. And yet here we were, talking on the phone as her family talked in the other room and my life fell apart. She was asking me if I was okay. Right now, she was the closest thing to a friend I had.
So I gave her a piece the truth. “I need a break,” I said. “Badly. Desperately, maybe. I haven’t had a vacation in ten years. I’ve never had a steady relationship. I don’t have hobbies. I don’t even have a dog. And right now, I don’t think I can stand it anymore. Honestly, Natalie, I need to go get a life.”
“Uh huh,” she said, as if she heard this every day. “And you think you can go get it in L.A.”
“I think it’s a start, yes.”
“And it has nothing to do with that man’s fine ass being in L.A. already.”
It had everything to do with Noah’s fine ass, but I said, “That’s a side benefit. If it’s in the cards.”
“Oh, it’s in the cards.” She sounded like she thought I was a bit dense. “He was undressing you with his eyes. He was so intent on it, I could have sworn he’d seen you naked already.”
I could confide in Natalie, but I wasn’t about to go that far. “So how’s your love life?” I asked her. “Anyone new?”
She laughed. Natalie didn’t laugh often, at least at work—she was too serious, like me. Maybe it wasn’t good for her, either. “Okay, go to L.A. Get a real life. Everything will be fine here. I’ll keep everyone whipped into shape until you get back.”
I wokeup as the plane touched down. With my early flight from Chicago, and now the time change from east to west, this was the longest day of my life.
I picked up my rental car at LAX and hauled my heavy suitcase into the trunk. It was warmer in L.A. than in New York, and though it wasn’t exactly a tropical heat at this time of year, I was still overdressed in leggings, a long tee, and a sweater, with boots on my feet. I pulled the sweater off over my head and dumped it on the passenger seat. Then I pulled down the mirror on the driver’s visor and looked at my tired, travel-worn face.
I was wearing no makeup, and my hair was in a ponytail, messed up now because of my sweater. I tried to tidy it, failed, and pulled the elastic from my hair, finger-combing the tangles before giving up. I popped a couple of breath mints. I looked washed-out and exhausted, and the merciless sunshine made it worse.
I glanced out the window to see a woman who could easily have been Jennifer Aniston twenty years ago jump into the car next to me and drive away, aviators covering half of her smooth face, her body tan and beautiful and perfectly fit, her boobs perfect D’s. Welcome to California.
I started the car. It was seven o’clock at night, and I didn’t have a hotel booked. I’d never even looked for one. I’d booked a flight and that was it.
The display on the dashboard came to life, and I tapped the GPS icon. A search bar appeared, with the question: “Where would you like to go?”
My finger hovered over the screen for only a second. It was now or never. He had come across the country to see me; now I was returning the favor.
I typed in Noah Pearson’s address, and then I pulled out of the lot.
It tookan hour to get to Noah’s place, because all of those people who make jokes about L.A. traffic aren’t lying. Noah’s BMW was in the driveway, but the house was dark and quiet. There was a single light on somewhere deep inside.
I stepped out of the car. I could hear freeway traffic in the distance, someone playing loud music a few houses away. The bark of a dog. Everything looked different here than it did in New York, smelled different. The night air had a different tinge to it, unfamiliar. Unfamiliar was what I wanted.
I walked up to Noah’s door and poked the doorbell, and then I panicked. I hadn’t called him or talked to him since he’d left my office the day after he slept with me. He wouldn’t be happy to see me, I was suddenly sure of it. He would frown and ask what I was doing here. He’d be awkward or distant. It was Thanksgiving weekend; he might have friends over, or he might not even be home.
Or, the worst possibility: He had a woman over, and I was interrupting.
I was suddenly sure that was what was going on.
I took a step back. Noah was naked with another woman right now, and I’d just rung the doorbell. I’d come all this way, across the country, for the most painfully humiliating experience of my life.
I was about to flee when the door swung open. Light spilled onto the dusky porch. Noah stood there, wearing cotton sleep pants and a white T-shirt. He froze for a second in surprise. Then he crossed his arms and leaned on the doorframe, blocking me from coming in.
“You didn’t call me,” he said.
Was he angry? Cold? I had no idea. Just the sight of him was hitting me hard, like I’d been punched in the chest. That dark blond hair and trim beard. The easy line of his body as he leaned on the doorframe. The sight of his biceps as he crossed his arms. I was a few feet away, but I thought I could smell his skin. Or maybe that was just my memory.
“I know,” blurted. “I’ve thought about it every day.” I couldn’t see anything past his shoulders, and I wondered if his state of undress was because of the woman I imagined in his bedroom behind him. “I’m sorry I didn’t call,” I said, the words spilling out. “I was too scared. That’s the only reason. I could make up others, but that’s the only one. I thought…” I shook my head. What was I doing? I was a mess. He must be confused, because the woman he knew—the sexy, ballsy, Boss Bitch—wasn’t this woman. It was exhausting sometimes, being her, and I couldn’t summon her right now. “I’m sorry,” I said again. “This was stupid. I’ll go.”
I had barely turned when his hand shot out and grabbed my wrist. The contact was an electric shock between us. My breath stopped.
“You’re not going anywhere, Emma,” Noah said. “Come inside.”