Chapter 2: Manwhore +1: Chapter 2

“I couldn’t get a read on him. I just couldn’t. I was too overwhelmed just by seeing him and having all these things to say and knowing that he must hate me and didn’t really mean to talk to me at all.” I glance away, inhaling.

“Rachel.”

That seems to be all that Gina can say. She falls morgue-quiet after that.

A few minutes ago, I finally asked the cab driver to drop me off at a Starbucks simply because I didn’t want to go home. Gina immediately caught up with me, and now we’re at a table in the back, in our own little world.

“I am so sad, Gina.” I hide my eyes behind one hand for a minute, my elbow propped on the table. “It’s really over now.”

“Fuck this.” Gina purses her lips. She’s scowling as usual. “Does he even care that you fell in love regardless of him being a player—a manwhore and whatnot?”

“Gina!” I scowl.

She scowls back.

I shouldn’t even be talking to her about this. Gina warned me a thousand times that this would happen. She’d said Don’t get involved with him until she tired of it. Because Saint has a record and I was on assignment. But could I have stopped myself from being swept away?

He’s a cyclone and I walked straight into the eye of it when I agreed to write that exposé.

Falling hadn’t been in the plans. Falling for a guy had never even been in my life plan. Gina and I were supposed to be single and happy forever—workaholics, best friends for life, and tight with our families. She’d gotten her heart broken before and she’d passed on all the tidbits to me so that I didn’t have to go through that too. And like that I had protected myself. I was never as interested in men as I was in furthering my career. But Saint is not just any man. He didn’t seduce me in just any way. And what we shared wasn’t just . . . anything.

I’m a columnist and I should have a concise word to describe him, but I have nothing other than “Sin.”

Exhilarating, addictive, he is a player who plays it right, a billionaire who is used to being asked for things from people—and in the end, I hate that he must have felt that I was just like everyone else in his life, wanting to get something from him.

No, Rachel, you’re not like everyone else. You’re worse.

He sleeps with one groupie for four nights, or four groupies for one. He gives them nothing of himself. Maybe he gives them a check for the charities they ask for, as I once heard one ask him, but this doesn’t put a dent in his account. He lets them feed him grapes in his yacht, if they want to; he’s too spoiled by women to stop them. But he doesn’t give them another passing glance when they leave. But with you, Rachel? He let you in. He fed you a grape in his yacht. He came to your campout not because he likes sleeping outdoors but because he knew you would be there. He told you about four, his lucky number. The number that symbolizes him going above and beyond the norm. Oh god, I have never been so aware of how deep he’d let me in until I stood before him today, completely cast out of what had become my own personal paradise.

“I would’ve said so many things to him if his man hadn’t been there discussing a position for me.” I pull out the papers and pass them over. “I could hardly concentrate on this with Saint in the room. Even his man was affected.”

She reads under her breath. “An offer of employment for Rachel Livingston . . .” She lowers the paper and stares at me with those sultry dark eyes that are now as puzzled as I feel.

“Interface is expanding into news,” I explain.

She stares down at the papers. “If you don’t want this, I do.”

I kick her under the table. “Be serious.”

“I need more sugar.” She goes to the condiment table, returns, and settles back down with a little packet of sugar she adds to her coffee and stirs.

“What’s a man like him, the CEO, doing in a meeting like that?” She frowns. “Saint is too smart, Rachel. He wanted to make sure you showed up. He fucking wants you there. He is offering health insurance for your next of kin. Your mom. Do you realize what this means for you on the work front?”

My mom is my weakness.

Yes, I do realize.

Saint is offering me . . . the world.

But a world without him is nothing now.

“Rachel, though Edge has been getting good press attention since . . .” She throws me an apologetic look because she knows I don’t like remembering the article, then adds, “But how long will that attention last? Edge is still hanging by threads.” She sips her coffee. “And Interface is Interface. It’s not going anywhere but up. M4, Rachel, it’s like . . . huge. None of us have ever dreamed of working there. It hires, like, geniuses from all over the country.”

“I know,” I whisper.

So why does Saint want me on board? He can get anyone he wants. In any capacity.

“I bet Wynn would say for you to take it. We need her advice; she’s the only one in a relationship.”

“Gina, I said I love you to a guy for the first time in my life. I would never, as long as I live, choose for him to be my boss.” I add, pained, “And Saint doesn’t get involved with his employees.”

Her eyes cloud over with worry. “And you want him more than the job.”

I’m so ashamed of saying yes, because I don’t deserve it. Not even to want it. But I duck my head and nod.

I have a hole in me. So huge and empty, every pleasure in my life feels like nothing without him.

Gina rereads the letter, shakes her head, folds it, and hands it back to me. And all the while I’m still at M4. At the top floor, inside that marble, chrome, and glass office. And I can still smell him in my nose. My brain synapses won’t quit firing off, replaying the scene in his office. Every word he said. Every word I had hoped he’d say that he did not say. Every shade of green that I’ve seen in his eyes lost to me—except for this new cold shade of green that I had never seen.

I remember his gaze on my profile as Merrick interviewed me. I remember his voice. I remember what it feels like to stand close to him.

I remember how he exhaled when I left, as if he’d just engaged in some sort of physical battle.

And how his eyes latched on to me after that. Roping me in.

As Gina and I walk back home, I am so grateful I didn’t tell my mother I was seeing him today. She’d have raised her hopes on my behalf and I’d hate to dash them now. I tuck the papers back into my bag, and when we finally walk into our small but cozy two-bedroom apartment, I go to my room, shut the door, drop onto the bed and pull out the papers again.

It’s just your regular offer. I scan every page now and it lists the benefits, a salary that I do not deserve and is usually what much more experienced, award-winning columnists make . . . but then I hit a spot that really affects me.

Saint’s signature, on the bottom of the contract.

I hold my breath and stroke his signature a little bit. There’s an energy on it, like a stamp, somehow making the document feel heavy.

Crawling under my bed, I pull out my shoebox where I keep little things I treasure. A gold R necklace my mother gave me. On impulse I put on the necklace to remind myself of who I am. Daughter, woman, girl, human. I shift some of the birthday cards from Wynn and Gina aside. And find a note. The note that was once attached to the most beautiful flower arrangement that arrived in my office.

I take the ivory-colored card and open it . . . and read.

It was the first time I saw his handwriting. He signed the message, A friend who thinks of you, M.

Still dressed, I curl up on my bed and stare at it.

My friend.

No. My assignment, the story that I thought I’d wanted, the city’s playboy who became my friend who became my lover who became my love.

Now he wants to be my boss, and I want him more than ever.