Chapter 3
CHAPTER
THREE
MYLES
“This isn’t going to work,” I tell Jean-Baptiste. It’s almost seven and I’m still in the office. Everybody else has left, including the bane of my existence.
“Of course it is. You’re the only one I trust to tell me what to do with the Charleston branch,” Jean-Baptiste says. I hear noises in the background. No doubt he’s out at a restaurant with a client or investor. He lives to schmooze and he’s very good at it. Unlike me.
My brother tells me I have a resting asshole face. That whenever anybody looks at me they assume they’ve pissed me off.
“Most of the branch won’t talk to me. And anyway, Ava’s back from vacation. She should be the one running the branch in Richard’s absence. She can report to you instead.”
“No.” Jean-Baptiste’s tone is firm. “I don’t trust her. Remember how they went behind our back with Naomi Acres?”
Yes, I do. And to be fair it was pretty spectacular. Jean-Baptiste was pissed for months.
“How long exactly do you want me to stay?” Sure I can handle juggling two jobs. But this isn’t a long term solution. I want to go back to New York, where I don’t have to walk into an office full of people glaring at me.
Especially Ava Quinn.
“As long as it takes. I’m still thinking through our options.”
Ah yes, our options. Either we close Smith and Carson down completely, and risk losing Naomi and Dandy, or we recruit a new chief editor and look into ways to save money. Either one of them is going to piss off the employees here. And I know exactly who’ll have to give them the news.
“Do you at least have some candidates for the chief editor job?” I ask.
“HR is working on it.”
“Good.”
“And in the meantime, stick close to Ava,” Jean-Baptiste tells me. “If she talks to Naomi I want to know. I’m not going to be taken by surprise this time,” Jean-Baptiste warns. His voice sounds strange, as though he’s eating and talking.
“Of course.” My stomach rumbles, reminding me I haven’t eaten since breakfast. I haven’t had time. In between Ava’s return kicking up a fuss and the rest of the staff going silent whenever I come out of my office, I’ve been trying to write this damn report for options going forward.
“Great. I’ll speak to you later,” Jean-Baptiste says. “Have a good evening.”
He disconnects and I glance at my laptop, closing the lid but not shutting it down. I’ll go out and grab something from the takeout place down the road then get back to work.
Because the sooner we figure out how to make this place run on a profit, the sooner I can get out of here.
AVA
“Seriously, he just comes out and shouts at people, like he expects them to drop everything as soon as he opens his mouth,” I tell my friends as we sit in the juice bar outside of the yoga studio.
Sophie surreptitiously twists the lid off of the flask she’s smuggled in and pours a healthy measure of vodka into each of our glasses.
We haven’t showered because the plumbing in this old building is unreliable at best. We’ll all shower in our own homes where we can luxuriate in hot water and not have to compare ourselves to the model-perfect yoga aficionados who think nothing of parading around the changing rooms butt naked for what seems like hours.
So we’re sitting here sweaty with our workout gear still on, breaking the rules of the studio.
This is why everybody else in the class avoids us. They’re here to get fit and healthy and we’re here to…
I don’t know. Drink vodka-infused grass juices, I guess.
“Hmm,” Lauren says, scrolling through her phone. “Myles Salinger. Alumni of Stern Business School. Seven years’ experience in high finance. Ten years in publishing.”
“You’re looking at his LinkedIn profile?” I ask, alarmed. “Stop it. People can see when you’re stalking them on there. All he has to do is click on your profile and he’ll know you’re connected to me.”
“I’m in incognito mode,” Lauren says, ignoring my panic. “I check out everybody on there. Especially potential dates.”
“Why?” Sophie asks, interested.
“How many guys do you know who post statuses on Insta or Facebook?” Lauren asks.
Sophie shakes her head. “None?”
“Exactly,” Lauren says. “So you have to be sneaky to find out about them. A guy’s LinkedIn profile can tell you a lot. His commitment level for one.”
“How does it tell you that?” I question.
“If he flits from one job to another or has big gaps in his resume, you should avoid him,” Lauren says, sounding sure of herself. “But if he’s had a few jobs, where he stayed at them long term, he’s probably a good bet.”
“Seriously?” Sophie says. “You think that?”
“It hasn’t done me wrong so far,” Lauren says smugly.
“You’re single.” I point out the obvious.
“Yeah, because the guys I swipe right on have terrible career records. There’s more,” she tells us, and we lean in to listen. “If he replies to comments, he’ll probably reply to your texts. If he doesn’t reply or like anything, avoid him.”
“The Lauren Daniels Guide to Dating,” Sophie says. “It’s a whole new world.”
“You know what’s interesting about Myles?” Lauren says, still scrolling. “He left an amazing job in finance for children’s publishing.”
“I already knew that.”
“You knew that he left something that paid him around a million a year for a job that probably pays a tenth of that?”
I blink. Even a tenth of a million is more than I earn. “He used to earn millions?”
“With bonuses and commission, almost certainly,” Lauren says. “I wonder why he left?”
“They probably couldn’t put up with his grouchiness,” I tell her.
“Holy hell,” Sophie says, leaning over Lauren’s phone. “Is that him?”
“Does he look like Satan?” I ask them.
Lauren and Sophie exchange glances. They’re not used to me being so annoyed. Nothing and nobody usually ruins my Zen.
“Myles Rupert Salinger,” Lauren reads out, presumably on his Wiki page now.
“Born November Twenty-Second Nineteen seventy-eight. That makes him, what?” She frowns and runs her finger over her chin.
She can make a perfect batch of a hundred brioches without having to measure anything out but give her a simple math problem and she’s stumped.
“Forty-three,” Sophie says.
“Graduated from Stern Business School. Went straight to work as a venture capitalist. No wives, no kids.” Lauren looks up at me. “This guy is a unicorn.”
“He probably has no time for wives,” I mutter.
“Or he’s stashed all their bodies in a dungeon somewhere.
Can we talk about something other than work?
” I ask, because really, I’ve had enough of it.
Even an hour of yoga hasn’t been enough to relax me.
I’m considering taking Sophie’s flask and downing some neat vodka.
“What shall we…” Lauren’s eyes widened. “Oh my God, in all this excitement I forgot to ask. Did you make a decision?”
Sophie leans forward, her eyes wide. “Did you?” she asks me, breathless.
I nod. “I did. And I’m going for it.”
“Yes!” Lauren claps her hands. “I’m so excited.”
Sophie snatches my half-drunk juice out of my hand. “You can’t drink this,” she mutters. “It has alcohol in it.”
“She’s not pregnant yet, dummy,” Lauren says.
This was one of the main reasons I went on vacation for two weeks. Not just because I hadn’t had time off in two years, nor because I’d always dreamed of seeing Spain. But because I had a lot to think about.
I’m thirty-six years old. My gynecologist has told me that the clock isn’t just ticking, it’s racing, and if I want to have a baby I need to do it sooner rather than later.
So I’m going to do it alone.
“I’ve made an appointment at the clinic,” I tell them. “To confirm what I want to do and how to go about it.”
“But you don’t want to freeze your eggs, right?”
“No.” The fertility specialist said it would take more than one cycle to freeze them. And honestly, if I freeze them, what am I freezing them for? To wait for Mr. Right to ride in on his white steed?
We all know that’s a fairytale.
I don’t want to base my life choices around the possibility of a man coming into my life at the right time.
I’m financially independent, I have a stable home and a lot of friends – like Sophie and Lauren – who will help.
I have guy friends who are willing to provide the male role model any child would need.
And I don’t want to wait anymore. I feel like it’s the right time.
Or it was when I made the decision last week on vacation.
Now there’s this little blip of Richard retiring and Myles Salinger scowling his way around the office, but he won’t stay here forever.
Mediatech will recruit a new chief editor and Myles will go back to New York where he belongs and life will go on.
“I’m so proud of you,” Sophie says, her eyes watery. “You’ll make such a great mom.”
“Have you told your mom yet?” Lauren asks me.
I grimace. “No. I’m not telling her anything unless it works.
” My mom is a very… interesting person. I love her to death and I’d do anything for her, but she’s also very enthusiastic about everything.
The weird thing is, she wouldn’t disapprove at all.
She’s been a huge proponent of women’s rights ever since I can remember.
But I’m still getting used to this decision. She can stay on a need-to-know basis for now.
“She’ll probably be planning your birth ritual,” Lauren says, grinning. “I can picture it now. You naked in her yard, surrounded by all the women from the village.”
“Your body painted with war stripes,” Sophie joins in. They’ve both known my mom since we roomed together during college. Like me, they adore her and also fear her madcap plans.
When we finish our vodka and wheatgrass cocktails, we grab our bags and leave the studio.
It’s gotten dark since we came in here, but the air outside is still warm.
I don’t bother to put on my hoodie because it’s a short walk to my townhouse.
Lauren and Sophie both parked their cars outside the old brownstone building so they can walk me home, even though this neighborhood is perfectly safe.
“Can you smell that?” Lauren asks. “Don’t those lotus trees smell beautiful?”
They do. Fragrant and lovely and so spring-like it makes me smile.
“Better than the Callery Pear trees,” Sophie agrees.
“Hey, that’s the closest some of us have come to male bodily fluid in a long time,” Lauren protests. “Although I guess Ava will be coming into contact with some real soon. Just without the guy.”
I wrinkle my nose because I don’t want to talk about disembodied semen right now.
Especially as we’re walking past my office.
The lights in the building are mostly out, though there are still a few shining brightly on the fourth floor.
I frown as I look up because everybody knows how I feel about wasting energy.
Then I slam into a brick wall and the air is forced out of my lungs.
“Fuck.” Two hands circle my waist, palms directly against my skin because there’s a gap between my crop top and workout shorts.
And there are those eyes again. Piercing blue, angry, and staring right at my still sweaty, red face, and pulled back hair. I gasp for air and his big, warm hands practically lift my feet off the sidewalk and over to the wall of the Smith and Carson building so I have something to lean on.
“Ava, are you okay?” Myles asks. If he was human, I’d swear there was concern in his gaze, mixed with that constant unending fury.
“What are you made of?” I manage to mutter. “Titanium?”
He ignores me. “Can you breathe? I didn’t see you coming. I was on my phone.” I look down at the sidewalk, sure enough, there’s his phone and a paper bag that almost certainly contains takeout. He must have put them down when he decided to go all hero on me.
“I can breathe.” Or I will be able to, just as soon as he stops touching me. “Sorry, I’d been looking up. I was wondering who left the lights on.”
His lips twitch. “That would be me. I’m still working.”
“You okay, sweetie?” Sophie asks. Her voice sounds weird. Too sugary. I look over at her and Lauren and realize they’re simpering like Victorian maids at a summer ball. Lauren is patting her hair and smiling at Myles.
He doesn’t smile back. I get a grim sense of satisfaction from that. If he was nice to everybody but me I’d take it personally, but he seems to hate the world and that’s okay.
Slowly he releases his hold on my waist and a rush of cold air hits my skin. He glances at my clothes, and I realize just how much I look like Julia Roberts at the beginning of Pretty Woman. Before she gets the glow up.
“What are you wearing?” he asks. There’s a grittiness to his voice that makes my body do weird things. Like clenching my thigh muscles and feeling a deep need inside of me.
“Maybe you should look where you’re going,” I say, ignoring his question.
“Maybe I should.” He scans me again with those all-seeing eyes. “Or maybe you should think twice about walking through the city in underwear.”
I hate the way this man gets my hackles up.
“Come on, honey,” Lauren urges. “Let’s get you home. I’ll make you some sweet tea to get over the shock.”
“Good idea.” Myles nods, his jaw tight. “I’ll see you in the morning, Ava.”
“If she’s gotten over her concussion,” Sophie adds, helpfully.
He doesn’t say another word. Just picks up his phone and bag of takeout before walking toward the office door. Sophie and Lauren walk over to stand by my side, and I swear I hear them both sigh.
“Wow,” Sophie says. “I think my ovaries just exploded.”
“You have to work with him?” Lauren says. “I swear I’d combust in my office chair every time he came into the room.”
“You wouldn’t need to combust,” I mutter. “He can incinerate you with one icy stare.”
It’s only when he pauses for a moment before pushing the door open that I realize he can hear us. Shit.
“Come on,” I sigh. “Let’s go home.”