Tempted

Hailee

I’m going to be late. Now, this usually isn’t the end of the world. I work in New York, after all. Being late is an unavoidable part of life, as much as my boss would love to disagree.

The subway floods. Your cabbie gets into a road rage incident. A rat unties your shoelaces because they remind it of dumpster spaghetti.

Contrary to some popular belief, being late in New York is rarely because the street in front of your apartment is closed for filming a rom-com. Nor have I ever been tardy because I ran into Meryl Streep the night after watching Sophie’s Choice and we had a good cry.

I fantasize about such things happening, but the times I’ve come into work late, I’ve never had a story, just an excuse.

Maybe it’s because I’m not from here but I’ve always been exposed to the grit of the big city more than its glamor. Which is really saying something, since I work for one of its billionaires.

Alex Blackwell is my boss. The same one they like putting on the cover of Forbes . You’ve seen it: Thumb resting on chin. Brown hair quaffed. Blue eyes firmly on the camera lens. He takes the pose of a powerful man in the middle of making an important decision.

I know the cover well because I was there for the photoshoot. I decided on the pose myself. I directed those blue eyes and rough thumb to their places better than the black turtleneck and beret the firm hired to do the shoot.

It wasn’t my job exactly. I’m not a photographer in the least, but I am responsible for the public image of the company.

I’m the Sustainability Specialist for The Blackwell Mining Corporation. But I’ll be honest, that’s my LinkedIn title. I don’t have a corner office or an intern. Most people at the company would describe me as an assistant. A lot of the work I do is on the public relations side.

I know. I know. I work for a mining company. A corporation that has equipment that literally looks like it eats the earth. They tear down trees and destroy habitat. But this job is a steppingstone to something bigger. An industry that is actually sustainable and not just a company that has a department of two people stamped with that name to clean up its messes while it plunders the earth for riches.

It pays well enough for me to have my own studio in the Lower East Side, but after rent and groceries, I’d have to sell my plasma if I wanted to start saving.

That’s the trap of New York. I’m not able to save much for the future. The future is a distant, unaffordable dream anyway.

So I do indeed order the proverbial $20 mojito and then complain about my rent. It’s a rite of passage. A lot of my neighbors who were born more well-to-do love to talk about living in the moment. How the present is all we have. I’d argue it’s much easier to be a Confucian when you have a trust fund.

But enough about my financial literacy.

Shit. I’m going to be late.

Not a little “five minutes late so that you wipe your brow, smile, and pretend no one noticed” but where on earth have you been? late. It wouldn’t be a problem if I didn’t make a living by being on time. There’s a press conference on Wall Street, and I’m thirty blocks north. Every cab, Uber, and town car has passed me by.

When this happens, it’s best to assume you’re visibly bleeding and check yourself for knife wounds or a poorly placed pad.

But I was bloodless, damn it, and car after car, lights on and lights off, swished by on the wet street. It’s August. Five in the afternoon. The clouds to the west are jet black and swirling with the threat of storm after a little rain had already sprinkled down. I can’t walk. The event would be halfway over by the time I got there.

Traffic slows at a red light. I take the opportunity to interrogate a cabbie with his window down.

“Excuse me? I need to get to the Financial District.”

“Sorry, sweetheart.” He says in a thick Bronx accent. “Dispatch says there’s a bomb threat and they got 50 th shut down. No one’s going south.”

“Can you take me through Brooklyn?”

“Trust me, you’d be betta off walkin’. The Subway is a mess cuz of this, too.”

I nod and step back onto the sidewalk. I’d be better off pushing a teenager off his Citi Bike and making a break for it.

Why don’t I have that app? It feels too late to download and upload a license and credit card now. Someone who is rarely late in NYC needs to have every possible form of transportation at their fingertips. I’ve always hated those bikes and scooters, and now I’m paying for it. Note to self: it seldom pays to be a hater.

I can run. Speed walk. Yes, in two-inch heels and wide-legged pants, I’d look like the workaholic Yuppie. I’m sure the farther south I got, the more Yuppies I’d meet.

We’d join forces on foot. Jogging without a word spoken to each other. To common, pointless jobs. Afternoon business analysts on their way to the desks, and marketing VPs on their way to networking happy hours.

Men and women have already appeared on the blocks around me. They shake their heads at their phones, slap their briefcases on their thighs, and curse at the clouds.

Seeing people as frustrated as I am makes me feel a bit ridiculous. They’re like mirrors. It seems silly to be upset that Tuesday night’s business has been derailed by a bomb threat.

So what? We should all just order takeout and try again tomorrow.

But then I purse my lips and grit my teeth. A bitter part of getting older is that dull understanding why the greasy, sleazy gears of the world keep turning.

I’m upset, and the yuppies across the street are upset, because for every one of our jobs, there were thousands of applicants.

Someone is always waiting in the wings in this city. Someone who would roll up their Armani trouser cuffs and wade through bomb threats and thunderstorms to make it to happy hour, all while showing the widest, fakest smile when they get through the door.

All the better if they show up wet and holding their own severed leg in their hand.

Maybe it’s the storm clouds that are making me so existential. Or the heat from these dog days of summer. Or my job for a mining conglomerate.

I’m worn. I’m tired. And work… is starting to feel like work. I got the Sunday spookies so bad the other night that I slept on the couch because my bed became an emblem of tomorrow.

I’m burnt out, and I’m letting myself realize this here, on the hot pavement. What am I doing with my life? I didn’t dream of being a corporate drone as a girl, yet here I am. And I’m a single one at that.

I want a man in my apartment when I come home at the end of the day. I want a partner to experience the world with. And to rock mine.

My dating life for the past four years has felt like dumpster diving, and just when I thought I found a good man…

Ford. The jerk. I know what you’re thinking: Honey, what did you expect, trusting a man named Ford?

Fair point.

I should think about work again. That’s why I’m in this situation. Standing on a curb, about to get soaked and annoyed at a bomb threat that may or may not be serious. I stop dwelling on the negatives of my life.

The press event I’m late for is the result of a recent article published in the New York Times .

Blackwell Mining is being accused of money laundering, to put it simply. Dark-money dealings with questionable governments in South America and Eastern Europe. The company has already lost one contract because of it, and Alex Blackwell has not been pleased.

He wants names. Journalist sources uncovered.

I’m just lucky he’s not knocking on my door wanting answers. I’m still invisible.

My job used to be centered around our renewable energy commitments. Miners’ rights and the reduction of our carbon footprint. Now I’m in full-blown damage control about a money-laundering scheme I know nothing about.

I’m twenty-six and in over my head. It’s the kind of corporate career crisis that makes you think about raising chickens in the country.

I only got the job because Alex knows my brother, Lucas. They’re old besties from MIT. Their connection is partly how I got the job, yet all I’ve gotten in my two years at the company from Alex is a curt nod of acknowledgement every few months.

It's probably Lucas’s doing. He’s always so protective. I wouldn’t be surprised if one of his conditions for me being hired was that Alex never so much as looked at me.

It can’t be easy letting your little sister work for a known ladies’ man, even if he is one of the best coattails to ride to riches in this city.

But all my thinking is getting me absolutely nowhere. I haven’t moved an inch towards the press conference while the second hand on my watch has already done several rotations around the dial.

I’m thinking of going up to my apartment and booking a flight to Vermont, when my phone vibrates in my hand. I look at the screen. It’s Melissa, my boss.

I answer. “Hey Melissa, there’s some kind of bomb—”

“I know, I know, I know. We need you there, though. Are you hoofing it already? You don’t sound winded,” she says accusingly.

Didn’t sound winded is going into my employee notes.

“I just tried to barter with a cab—”

“Cab’s not getting you there. Are you at your apartment still?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. You’re not alone. Half the firm is stranded around Manhattan. We’ve got a car coming to pick you up. They can be there in five.”

“I’ll be out front.”

“Perf. Be ready to bring your A-game. You’re answering a few questions at the briefing.”

I freeze. That can’t be right. If I’m answering questions, I would’ve been given prepared answers. “Melissa, what questions?”

“Don’t worry about it. You’ll do great. I’ll see you under the lights.”

Melissa hangs up, and I leave my hand pressed against my ear as if I’m holding on to not just the phone, but some hope that this is a joke. But Melissa doesn’t care for humor.

The line is dead, and I’m listening to cabs honk and sirens shriek in the distance.

I’m not even ready to be in front of a camera. My hair. My shirt. My pants. They’re all wrong. I’m dressed like an assistant, not an authority.

I look over my shoulder up to my apartment window.

Five minutes.

I hop to the front door and take the stairs to the fourth floor. In another minute, I’ve got my makeup bag in my fist and an armful of clothes from the closet. I toss both on the bed and sort through the clothes. Everything’s too wrinkled. I bring a blouse up to my nose. Too smelly. Even my underwear feels wrong for this. They’re white and patterned with bunny rabbits. Not a purchase of taste per se—I got them from a value pack at Target.

I try to calm myself. No one’s going to be seeing my underwear. I’m overthinking everything.

I go back to the closet and grab a different armful of clothes from the formal side of the rack. No time to sort, just hope.

My phone is vibrating on the bed, but I don’t bother to look at the caller ID. I know what it means: the car must be out front, and I’m not.

My arms are full as I clomp back down the stairs, passing others with an awkward smile. Did I lock my door? I don’t think I locked my door. I’ll text my neighbor about it and decide to not look back.

I’m going through the list of what there is inside my apartment of value. Nothing.

No one steals TVs out of a walkup. I’ve got my laptop. There’s a flash drive with nudes on it, but it’s hidden in a jar of rice. I don’t trust the cloud.

But I’ve been wondering if such images being leaked would even hurt my reputation in 2024. They’re good nudes, after all. That’s why I kept them. At least the people could see I had taste.

I dodge my neighbor from the fourth floor on the way outside. She’s got a bag of groceries in her arms so big that I don’t even see her face. I just recognize her wide bob of gray hair and waft of patchouli.

“Hey! Lisa, I’m in a rush. Can you make sure my door is locked? I’m not sure I…” My words trail off. There’s a black Mercedes pulled halfway onto the sidewalk to let traffic pass.

“No problem, ,” says my neighbor.

“Thank you so much,” I say, but my gaze is fixed on the car. The back door opens, and a man in a suit gets out. A tall man. Tan, his skin contrasting beautifully against a perfectly tailored navy suit.

His eyes add another layer of blue to the portrait.

It’s Alex.

His hair on either side of his forehead hangs down longer in a middle part, something it tends to do on humid and stressful days. I like it.

His hair being affected by stress and the weather might be the only reminder in his appearance that Alex Blackwell is indeed human and not from Mount Olympia.

I look him over for far too long. Alex has high, sharp cheeks. A chin that he could rent out as a chisel, and right now it’s lightly darkened with the beginnings of a beard. Usually he’s clean shaven, but this look is dangerous—the perfect amount of savage to match his tailored suit.

“We don’t have room,” he says in his deep voice and nods at my arms.

I’ve found myself distracted, staring at the veins that spider the back of his large hands.

“What?” I stutter breathlessly. “Melissa said…”

“I mean for all your shit.” He points briefly at the clothes in my arms and makeup bag. “It’s a tight fit as is.”

I’m not one to argue with my boss’s boss and not one to argue with a man that’s trending on the cover of New York’s hottest magazines, but I’m so afraid of being frumpy in front of the camera that I roll the dice. “What about the trunk?”

“Occupied!”

I frown as I hear a man’s muffled voice yell from the trunk of the Mercedes.

Alex smacks his teeth and opens one side of his mouth like he’s disappointed. “I’m afraid the trunk is for enemies only. Now come on.”

My stomach knots immediately. It was only a joke, but when made by a man that looks and is as dangerous as Alex, it’s hard to tell if he’s being entirely satirical.

I don’t have time to bring my stuff back upstairs, and I’m about to set it on the sidewalk, when Lisa gently touches my shoulder. “Leave it all in the entryway, hon. I’ll come back down and get it. And don’t argue. I need the steps anyway.” She walks in before I have the chance to politely try to decline.

Lisa is smart. She didn’t want me to feel like I had a choice.

I put my things inside and try to flatten my wrinkled clothes as I walk towards Alex. I keep my head slightly down out of respect, but my eyes are on his.

He looks so good, it’s infuriating. America has public nudity laws. I can’t go out and about in my best lingerie, but here Alex Blackwell can wear his finest threads and look cool as hell doing it.

“I don’t want you in the middle,” Alex says as he ducks to get back inside the car.

My brow twitches in surprise as I glance in. The divider between the two back seats has been put up, and two other people are already crowding the back.

There’s Jackie Lane, black-haired, round-faced, executive Vice President of Blackwell Mining in the middle seat, and Richard Dodger, a thin man with a pencil-mustache sitting by the far window.

The passenger and driver’s seat are both taken up by large men with buzz cuts.

Security.

“Come on.” Alex pats the sliver of the seat next to his thigh with a sigh, as if this whole situation is ridiculous, but nobody here has a choice. “We’re all late.”

“Oh, we should just cancel. This is ridiculous. There’s a bomb threat anyway,” says Jackie. “Perfectly adequate excuse to cancel.”

“An empty podium is not the picture you want to come out of a press conference,” Alex says and looks back to me. His brow is knit, and he’s clearly frustrated with my hesitance. “Get in,” he says slowly.

I scooch in and press against his side. There’s hardly enough room to get the door latched shut, but I do.

Everybody is silent and acting somewhat awkwardly, the way adults get when they’re in a childish situation. Alex seems to mind the least. He’s pulled out his phone and is texting furiously.

This is about business to him.

Everything always is. I’m practically in his lap, and he’s acting like this is all perfectly normal. I can smell the light tinge of cologne on his neck. It doesn’t have the sharp sting of alcohol that a lot of aftershaves do. It smells like pine and spice. It’s tasteful, like everything about Alex Blackwell.

From the quantity he used, to the scent. My heart is pounding from just how embarrassing this is, and then I remember the questions I’ll have to answer. The tension. The bomb threat.

Alex suddenly stops texting and looks over at me. “Try to relax.”

“I am relaxed,” I say, somewhat offended.

Alex is thirty-six, ten years older than me, and I don’t want to be treated like the nervous kid. But my tone gives away that I’m far from cool.

“You’re answering some questions about your brother’s company today. Just one or two.”

Lucas works for a bank that’s also been caught up in the money-laundering news that’s threatening to sink us. It’s a smaller outfit with just several dozen employees.

“And what are the questions?”

“They don’t like the conflict of interest you have because of your brother.”

“But I’m not high up.”

“I know. If it comes up, just address the basics. You don’t work for him. You work for me. They’re not hardball questions. They just need to be addressed if you’re sticking with us through this PR shitshow.”

“Of course I am.”

“Good. It’ll be easy, then.”

“How do you want me to answer?”

“Be as plain as humanly possible. I don’t want a headline from this.”

“Okay.”

Alex looks towards the driver. “Clyde.”

“Yes sir?”

“Take 29 th to 8 th Avenue. I’ve spoken with Benny in the NYPD. They’re going to let us through at the checkpoint there.”

“Yes, sir.”

I hear the turn signal click as we switch lanes. If only Manhattan traffic was so easy for me. Then again, I’m not a billionaire.