act I don’t even commit with the closest of acquaintances. I guess I don’t have to worry about you kidnapping me and making a pair of underwear out of my hair.”
“That is completely disgusting. Also, something Pato might do.”
“Pato?”
“He’s a...modern artist.”
She raised her brows. “Okay.”
“Coming in?”
“Sure,” she said, stepping grandly over the threshold. “Now where is my phone?”
“It’s on my bed. I haven’t touched it since I got out of the cab. I’m not in the mood to deal with...well, anything. And I can order fried chicken and pornography from the comfort of my own bed so...”
“Charming.”
“I’m not trying to be,” he said. Except he sort of wished he could be. So that he could...seduce her, maybe. But he was pretty sure he’d forgotten how to seduce a woman.
Like schmoozing at gallery openings, maybe?
Well, that he could do. For very short periods of time. Because Marsha had threatened to get a shock collar for him if he didn’t learn to mind his manners.
“Clearly. Phone?”
“On my bed.” He started walking back toward the bedroom, then stopped. “How did you know where I was staying?”
“I tracked my phone.”
“Damn, you can do that with these?”
“It’s an app. It’s really simple. I can...show you or...or not. I have to...I don’t have anywhere to be.”
“Why is that?” he asked, crossing his arms across his chest.
“Because my boss the...jerk...relieved me of the only client I had left in the day after tearing me a new one because of a client complaining about me. Never mind said client was only complaining because I did not flutter my lashes at him when he made it clear he wanted to get into my pencil skirt.”
“What?”
“The client I was meeting with, right before I got in the cab. He made a pass at me, I politely rebuffed him. He called my boss because I am, apparently, cold and unfriendly. My boss doesn’t care about my side of things. He only cares that I pissed off a client and I am now being punished for not offering a side of sex with my financial advice.”
“He can’t do that,” Zack said. “Your boss.”
“Sure he can, because it’s the client’s word against mine. Because all he has to know is that I dissatisfied a client and the what and why don’t matter.”
“Did you tell him that the guy was being a douche?”
She bit her lip. “Not as such.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means no.”
“Well, why the hell not?”
“Because!” she said. “It’s hard to be a woman in this business. And people treat you like...like you’re there for them, and if you dare complain you’re humorless and mean. And if you call them on their crap you’re shrill. And if you say someone hit on you and it creeped you out they say you’re imagining things, and making mountains out of molehills and I’ve watched, for the past eight years, people being driven out of the more high-profile offices, because it gets to be too much. So I just figured if I worked harder, if I did the right things, I would be rewarded for it, but now I’m in trouble because some guy...I just...it’s not supposed to be like this.”
“No. It’s not,” he said. And all this made him feel like an ass because he’d been about to...thinking about her. And she’d been objectified enough today.
Naturally, he couldn’t just have a simple fantasy. No. That would have been too damn kind of life. Life just didn’t do kind for him.
Kind of a funny thought, up in a suite that overlooked Central Park, but hey, there were more important things in life than a room with a view.
He’d rather go back to living poor, on a ranch in Pine Ridge Falls, with the people he loved most, than be here alone. But that was another lifetime. Another man. He wasn’t even going to think about it.
“Then why is it?” she asked.
“Hell if I know. Life never seems to be the way it’s supposed to be,” he said. “All you can do is enjoy the little things. Which is why I was thinking porn and chicken.”
“I have no little things I enjoy,” she said. “I enjoy nothing. And I think I hate everything.” She was breathing hard, her eyes wide.
“Everything?”
“I don’t even have a life. I don’t even think I have any friends left. I work at this job, and I go back to my apartment and order takeout and I watch DVR’d TV shows. I don’t date I don’t...I don’t...” Her eyes clashed with his, a hard sock of heat hitting his gut.
“What else?” he asked.
She looked away. “If I don’t date I think it’s pretty obvious what else I’m not doing.”
Oh, yes, he was well familiar with that problem. He hadn’t gotten laid in so long he was afraid his long uprooted virginity was starting to grow back. If such a thing was possible. He hadn’t seen sex since his twenties, and sitting where he was at thirty-five that seemed damn sad.
He’d had a lot more than getting some on his mind, though, but now...now it seemed like maybe he needed to do something about it. Maybe it was time to let another person touch him. Not a handshake or anything, but hands on naked skin. On skin that was normally covered by clothes.
He hadn’t been tempted to connect in so long. He’d been avoiding it. He’d been too raw. But everything had scarred over now. Had come out tougher than he’d started. It would never heal, but he wasn’t vulnerable anymore. He doubted he possessed the ability to be hurt at this point, to feel loss.
He’d maxed out that garbage a while ago.
“Yeah,” he said, his voice rough. Affected. “Obvious.”
“I guess maybe not because some people just...I can’t believe I’m having this conversation with you. You officially know more of my baggage than my best friend, who I haven’t talked to in four months because I’m an unhappy, terrible workaholic, and she’s just as bad.”
“Well, you’re in my hotel room, I’m half-dressed.... It seems logical really.”
“My phone?” she asked.
“Oh, yeah.” That was why she was here. Her phone. The one on his bed. He’d completely forgotten. It hadn’t seemed to matter.
“Yeah,” she said, her eyes wide. “I kind of forgot. About my
