Chapter 10
Troy
I opened the heavy door to the restaurant and stepped inside. The hostess greeted me as she always did with a coy smile and a tousle of the hair.
“Mr. Gunner. It’s nice to have you join us again,” she said as she organized menus.
“I thought I told you to call me Troy,” I chided her as I leaned against the hostess stand.
This made her cheeks turn a rosy shade of pink. I was a shameless flirt. There was no denying that. I figured if a woman got pleasure out of it, then what was the harm? Plus, it also meant I would get the best seat in the place.
“Troy…” she said, as if trying out the word on her tongue. “Will anyone be joining you tonight?”
She looked behind me, a hopeful expression on her face to see there was no one with me.
“My sister will be meeting me.” I glanced at my watch. It was just past 7 p.m. “She will probably be fashionably late.”
“In that case, let me get you seated at your usual booth by the window while you wait.” The hostess grabbed two menus and the wine list, and stepped out from behind the hostess stand. She swished her hips through the restaurant, making it difficult to focus on anything else as we weaved around tables.
“Here we are,” she said, gesturing to the booth that had become very familiar to me for business meetings, dates, and dinners with my sister.
“Thank you,” I said, giving her a warm smile as I slid into the booth. “No one does your job quite like you do. Keeps me coming back.”
She bit back a smile before she walked away. The way her teeth dug into her lips only reminded me of Monica. It was like she’d tainted all women for me in a way that brought my thoughts directly back to her. It had been three days since we slept together and it was like I couldn’t get the taste of her out of my mouth.
“Did you get a chance to look at our wine menu?” asked the server who had come up to the table while I was lost in a memory.
“Oh, uh, I’ll do a bottle of the best cab on the menu.”
He nodded and strode away, returning just a few short moments later with a dark glass bottle in his hands with an ornate gold label. He carefully uncorked it and poured a small serving into the wine glass before me, waiting for me to taste it.
I took a sip, and swirled the notes of black cherry and spice around on my tongue before swallowing.
“Perfect,” I said as the warmth of it ran down my throat.
He poured more into my glass and left the bottle at the table before walking away. I took another sip and leaned back against the plush backing of the booth.
“Starting without me?” asked Erica as she approached the table.
“Are you old enough to drink?” I joked.
She gave me the finger as I stood and gave her a hug.
“Hello, big brother,” she said, giving me a squeeze before releasing me and sliding into the booth.
I took a seat opposite her and poured her a generous helping of wine. She was twenty-four, but still my little sister, so I liked to give her a hard time. She could dish it right back.
Erica took a sip of wine and sat back in the booth, her familiar green eyes looking at me as if she already had questions to be answered. We looked so alike. Same dark hair, olive skin, eyes that changed with the lighting.
“What?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I haven’t seen you in the papers since last week…”
“And? That’s a good thing.”
“Yeah, but I also feel like that was my way of keeping up with you. You’re so busy all the time. I even asked some of my journalist friends if they had anything on you.”
“Erica!” I said exasperatedly.
“Only kidding,” she said with a wink.
Erica was a journalist for the New York Times . She mostly wrote about politics. It wasn’t our father’s first choice of career for her. Or second. But she found her passion in college for political science and always had a knack for writing. She was one of the youngest writers for the Times , which was a feat that my father hardly acknowledged. So, I stepped in as the role of cheerleader.
“But really, what’s going on in your life?” she asked, taking a sip of wine.
“Work. Work. Oh, and more work.”
“You sound just like Dad.” She rolled her eyes.
I groaned.
“Any new ladies in your life?” she asked.
I thought about answering truthfully and telling her about Monica, but there was nothing really to tell. We had one night together and now we had to pretend like it never happened. I knew I could trust my sister, but I also knew I would just be getting her hopes up. She was always on me about settling down, but that wasn’t in the cards for me and Monica.
“No.” I shook my head.
She eyed me curiously, as if she didn’t believe me.
“Dad said you hired a new assistant. Maybe fourth time’s a charm?” she suggested with a smirk.
“Oh, shut up.” I shook my head.
We ordered a dinner of steak and lobster, and another bottle of wine. We spent the rest of the evening talking about her job at the paper and my strained relationship with Kathy at the office. It felt good to talk to my sister, who was always a good listener, but also gave me shit when I deserved it.
There were moments where the wine made me want to be loose-lipped and bring up Monica, but I bit my tongue. It was like I was finding any part of the conversation to somehow relate to her, which was ridiculous because I hardly knew the woman. Hell, I had hardly seen her all week. She had been on a wild goose chase of errands that I had sent her on. Maybe I missed her.
After Erica and I hugged goodbye on the sidewalk, I hailed a cab and headed home. I was drowsy from the wine and the savory steak and lobster that filled my stomach. I changed and clambered into bed, drifting off into a deep sleep that felt like it was interrupted too soon by the blare of my alarm.
I sat up slowly in bed and stretched my arms over my head. I just had one more day of trying to avoid Monica, and then it was the weekend. My head would be free of thinking up the minuscule tasks I had to come up with for her to do, and my imagination could stop running wild whenever I glimpsed her in the tight skirts she would wear. A part of me entertained the idea that she wore them for my benefit.
I went into the office on time for the first time that week, after spending my mornings waiting for Monica to leave the office. I figured I should end the week with something good for Kathy to report back to my father. When I arrived, Kathy gave me a simple nod of acknowledgment as I made my way down the hall to my office.
I saw Monica sitting at her desk and typing on her computer. She didn’t greet me as I walked by, either because she was distracted by work or avoiding me. Probably the latter. It gave me the opportunity to take in her dark hair that was pulled up in a high bun and the white blazer that revealed an ample amount of cleavage. Her lips were painted a deep red that I hadn’t seen before. I swallowed hard as I turned and went into my office.
I settled into my desk and reached for the iced coffee that sat on a tile coaster. It was the perfect color, just as it had been all week, since I wrote her that ridiculous email of expectations. I took a sip and savored the taste of the lightly sweetened espresso. Perfect. It was perfect every time.
Just as I swallowed my sip of coffee, there was a knock at my door. I looked up and was surprised to see Monica standing there.
“Er, hello. Monica. Come in,” I said.
She strode inside and I noticed the white skirt that hugged her curves and matched her blazer. She looked incredible. It turned me on and pissed me off at the same time because I couldn’t have her.
“I have that document you asked for me to get signed,” she said, holding up a paper.
I looked at her for a moment as I tried to figure out what she was talking about. There had been so many that I had made up over the past few days that it was hard to narrow down which one she was talking about.
She raised an eyebrow as she watched me rack my brain. Was that a little attitude I sensed?
Then it clicked into place. I had sent her on a wild goose chase yesterday, making her go across town to a made-up client to get a bogus signature. I would have an attitude too. Yet, here she stood with what looked to be a signed document in her hand.
“Oh, yes. Thank you,” I said, waving her over.
She handed me the document and I looked it over as if it had any meaning to me. I felt her eyes on me, probably trying to catch me in a lie, but I did my best to ignore her. I wondered how she had completed this made-up task, but assumed she had just signed it herself.
“Everything looks in order here,” I said as I stacked the paper against my desk and set it into a pile of paperwork. “I will email you a list of things I need you to get done by the end of day.”
She nodded and turned toward the door, balancing perfectly in a pair of nude pumps. My eyes instinctively fell to her backside as she walked the short distance to her desk, only tearing them away as she turned and sat down in her chair.
I spent the next fifteen minutes coming up with tasks that would fill Monica’s day, but were also so mindlessly boring that I wouldn’t be surprised if she quit. I came up with picking up my suits from the dry cleaner, buying a made up birthday gift for my mother when it wasn’t even her birthday, going to the bookstore to find a book by an author that didn’t exist. Really anything to keep her out of the office.
And I knew she would do it. In just three days, she had proven to be the best assistant I had ever had, and that wasn’t just because she was the best sex I had ever had. She was a hard worker who showed up early and left late, and did everything I asked of her, even if some of it was impossible.
I hit the send button on my email and heard the notification bell ding from her computer. I watched as she opened the email and read through her menial tasks for the day. She seemed to sigh as she stood up and grabbed her purse from the back of her chair, ready to take on whatever I had thrown at her.
A big part of me felt bad. I knew I couldn’t do this to her forever. She deserved better. And she had gotten enough of my dry cleaning done where I would be stocked for an entire year. It was time we started working side by side. Just not today. We would start on Monday. I would have all weekend to steel myself for it.