Chapter 32
Nate
New York, two weeks later…
I tugged at my tie, wishing I could yank the damn thing off, and shed the whole jacket and suit too, just wear shorts and a T-shirt to my board meeting.
I headed up Lexington Avenue as the sticky July heat pelted the sidewalks and the city sweltered under the weight of the sun’s punishment.
I pushed my sunglasses up the bridge of my nose, and walked quickly around a group of teenagers sucking on iced drinks.
Glancing at my watch, I ran a quick review of the day’s agenda in my head.
In a word: packed. I’d just gotten off the phone with Jack, thanking him for making the necessary European intros that I had asked for at the rehearsal dinner.
I’d need to make some final calls on that front next.
Then, I had a board meeting all day, a Zoom call scheduled with my Las Vegas property manager, and finally I’d get to see Casey.
That was my reward, and what I longed for most. I’d just returned late last night from a four-day trip to New Zealand, and couldn’t wait to have her in my arms again.
But first, I’d promised Ethan we’d grab a cup of coffee.
The man had called that morning and said he desperately needed to run an idea past me.
He’d sounded worn thin. Ethan said he was catching up on emails at a diner so I had told him I’d stop by for a few minutes.
It was on my way to the meeting, and I figured it was the least I could do for the guy.
He’d been busting his ass. He’d always been a hard worker.
Pushing open the door to Sunnyside Diner, I scanned quickly for Ethan, spotting him in a booth at the back. He had his laptop open, and papers spread across the table.
As I slid into the orange upholstered booth on the other side, Ethan did a quick sweep of the papers, grabbing everything as best he could and piling it on top of his computer. “Sorry. I’ve been working here all morning. I kind of took over the space.”
“No worries. You setting up a new office?” I joked.
Ethan scoffed, then shot me a sad smile. “You never know, right?”
Odd response. I was about to ask what was up, but the waitress stopped by. “What can I get for you?”
“Just a coffee. Black, please,” I said, and she nodded crisply and left. “So what’s the story? How can I help?”
Ethan shook his head, and blew out a long stream of air as he shoved a hand through his hair.
Damn, this man was the very definition of frayed.
“Fucking boss,” he muttered. “The guy is relentless and is constantly on me to come up with new ideas, then he shoots them all down. And everything I’ve brought to him has fallen apart too.
Like this deal I had with Joy Delivered.
It was all signed and ready to go, and then wham,” Ethan said, miming an explosion.
I narrowed my eyes, trying to process what Ethan had just said.
How on earth would Ethan have a deal with Casey’s company?
“She pulled it out from under me to go to The Pierson,” he added, mentioning the name of another hotel chain.
I furrowed my brow. The details didn’t quite add up. The Luxe had a deal with Joy Delivered. We were ready to roll out the marketing for the LolaRing. The product had been kept under wraps, along with the specifics of the partnership. The exclusive partnership.
“What do you mean?” I asked carefully as my spine pricked with an oddly familiar feeling. I almost couldn’t put my finger on it. It had been a while since I’d experienced this, but the déjà vu running through my mind was intense.
“She came to me last month to roll out some new product. Said the other hotel chain she’d planned to work with wasn’t going to cut it. Not classy enough, she said. But then she yanked it from me a few days ago to go with The Pierson. Hasn’t told anyone yet,” Ethan said, shaking his head.
My spidey senses tingled. What was he up to? I wasn’t sure, but I decided to trust my gut. The waitress appeared with a mug and a pot of coffee and poured a cup for me. She turned to Ethan. “More for you?”
“That’d be great,” he said, pushing his white ceramic mug closer to the waitress, and knocking some papers around in the process.
“Look at me. I’m a fucking mess,” he said to me with a self-deprecating chuckle as he grabbed some of the papers and tried to organize them, then stopped. “Screw it. I just need more coffee.”
I tried to clear my head as Ethan took a long drink from his mug.
I’d believed in this guy. Befriended him, looked out for him.
But something was off. He set down his cup.
“Can’t get too upset about it, I suppose.
Even though she promised me the deal. Hell, it was my idea.
I brought it to her way back before she gave it away to The Pierson,” he said, stabbing his finger against a piece of paper in his stack.
My eyes followed Ethan’s moves, and I flinched when I saw the words in black blaring at me.
An email from Casey to Ethan from nearly a month ago, with only a line or two visible since the paper was partially covered up by the computer.
Love the concept! Looking forward to exploring possibilities with you!
For a flicker of a second, it was like being shot back in time. Discovering an email I wasn’t meant to see, full of words that subverted me, words that revealed how I’d been played like a fool again.
But that was the past. I wasn’t that guy anymore. I trusted Casey. But more so, I trusted myself. This guy though? Ethan? I was pretty sure he was trying to fuck with me. Because Casey would never play me like a fool.
I had a feeling though that Ethan was trying to fuck with both of us and that didn’t fly with me. I wasn’t going to let on that I was onto him yet. Without revealing my hand, I said, “She was doing this deal with you first? It was your idea?”
Ethan nodded. “Yup. She yanked it out from under me though. So much for playing the respectful card. And hey, I guess I can’t blame The Pierson for taking it, right? I hear this toy is supposed to be pretty intense. She told me it feels like being licked and fucked at the same time.”
Casey’s words, for sure. And somehow this asshole was trying to use them to fuck us over. Fuck him.
Casey
I peered at the address on my phone one last time, then glanced up at the street sign. I didn’t spend much time in Chinatown, and the streets had names instead of numbers. Baxter Street. This was the one. I turned right, hunting for my destination.
The stores along the block were tiny, wedged next to each other, and addresses on the front of the buildings could be hard to spot.
I readjusted my ponytail, so it was high on my head, keeping my hair off my neck.
I tugged at my silky, short-sleeved blouse, wishing for the thousandth time that New York and hot summers played nicely together.
But they didn’t and never would. I still loved this city though, loved the hustle and bustle, and loved the fact that I could track down anything I wanted in mere hours, as I’d done today.
That was the reason I found myself walking past Chinese grocery stores peddling fruit, teahouses and dim sum purveyors, sardine-sized shops that specialized in embroidered robes and dresses.
I checked the numbers of all of them, and soon I found the X that marked the spot.
The Fortune Cookie Factory. It was a small storefront, stuffed from floor to ceiling with boxes. The door was open, and the interior was dimly lit. I walked in. No one manned the front counter. I tapped the bell lightly.
Soon, a sturdy woman with short black hair and tired eyes walked to the counter.
“I’m picking up an order,” I said.
The woman nodded. “What is your name?”
I gave her the name, and a minute later the woman handed me a small takeout-food carton with fortune cookies in it.
I returned to the blanket of heat in the New York mid-morning, ready to jet back to the office and focus on work before I could give this small little gift to Nate tonight.
I hadn’t seen him in four days, and was so ready to let him know how much I’d missed him.
When I reached Canal Street, I raised my hand to hail a cab, but two minutes later I was still standing there, peering down the long stretch of street at occupied cab after occupied cab.
I sighed heavily, shrugged, and hoofed it to the nearby subway.
As I walked down the steps to the uptown platform my phone rang. Nate’s name flashed across the screen.
Ethan
Something dark and nasty gnawed at my gut. It was that thing—that creature inside me—that told me to keep going. Somewhere inside, I knew I was pushing things too far. But that voice of reason wasn’t speaking loudly enough for me to hear.
Maybe it was because of my boss. Maybe it was because I wanted things that I didn’t have.
Or maybe it was just because I was still pissed.
I didn’t usually resort to these sorts of tactics to get what I wanted, but I was backed into a corner at work, and if I could convince Harper that Casey had fucked us both, perhaps I could swoop in and steal the deal back that was mine in the first place.
Be the knight in shining armor for her. She’d have no choice but to work with me, as she should have in the first place.
A long shot, but it was the only shot I had. I wouldn’t have operated like this a few years ago, but a few years ago I was still on the rise. Now I was on the downhill, and men on the downhill had to fight dirty to climb their way up the summit again.
“Look,” I said, “I was totally shocked. I never expected she’d pull the deal out from under me like that.”
Nate knit his brow together and stared at me as if he didn’t understand. The silence worried me so I kept talking.
“She’s got a good rep,” I said, words spilling out quickly.
“She does,” he said evenly.