The women at the club.
The nervousness in the elevator when he boards.
Him wearing whatever he wants, he’s the boss not the mailman! He’s like a hero and a god at Carma and we are the worshipers.
I was too blind because I liked the idea of him being a mailman or some outside consultant or something.
I preferred thinking he was just a sexy mailman because that is something I could have.
The CEO, best friend to my brother, and my boss’s boss, nope, wildly not happening and it’s a little sad because I just had the best sex, the best night, of my life with him. From the moment I met him, I’ve wondered about him endlessly—hell, I’ve almost taken up smoking just to have an excuse to talk to him! And now. God.
Okay, so the man delivers—but not the mail.
It’s been two hours since he left and I’ve changed my sheets and made my bed and am still smelling his cologne in my nostrils. Now I’m staring at my laptop but all I can think of is how the hell I’m going to bear going back to work on Monday. My brain cannot wrap itself around the fact that all this time I’ve already met the notorious Callan Carmichael. I’ve been spilling my guts out to him.
We fucked.
Well and good.
I groan, hating how much I want him to go back to being just Hot Smoker Guy.
He made me come so hard my body is still tingling, and then in the middle of the night, we had sleepy sex, and he made me come again, just as hard or even more because I was all dazed and relaxed and over-sensitized already.
Pushing him out of my mind, I grit my teeth and start reading all the investment sites, reminding myself of the reason I’m in Chicago.
I spend all morning studying companies and trying to come up with a proposal of my own to show Mr. Lincoln.
It feels like I was driving 100 miles per hour on the career front, very determined, but now, now it’s like I’m ready to go at 1,000 miles per hour, full speed ahead. The takeover king took me over last night and I am ready to show him that sex is not all I’m good at. If he even liked it like I did.
Well shit, now I wonder if he did!
Forget about it. Focus on the plan. Learn from the master. Work the next few years. Save companies: win/win.
So I work for hours nonstop, all while Bloomberg plays on TV.
I take a break to halfheartedly munch on a sandwich and stare out the window at the sunny skies. But all I’m seeing is the saliva gland-stimulating sight of Callan lying in my bed, taunting me to come get it.
Suddenly I need to get out of this apartment before I lose my mind.
I change into jeans and a long-sleeved top and am wondering where to go when I get a text from Tahoe.
What are you up to?
I’m planning to go sightseeing in a bit
With?
Me.
Where you off to?
Maybe Art Institute?
I’ll meet you there.
Really?
Really. I want to talk.
I don’t know what he wants to talk about but my stomach won’t stop twisting when I arrive at the Art Institute of Chicago to find my brother leaning by the entrance. He asks me what I want to see and we head in the direction of The New Contemporary exhibit.
I’ve enjoyed contemporary art ever since the time he invited me to New York, where he bid on a huge collection for his new apartment. He bought mostly Impressionist works and the best Van Gogh on the block, but we lingered in Manhattan for a few days, and I ended up falling in love with the contemporary art auction most of all.
I love new artists, so bold, trekking where no one has trekked before. I wonder when we look back on our generation, what we will see. Not just technology.
We head into the spacious gallery. It’s peppered with masterpieces spaced strategically apart, giving the viewers the perfect space to contemplate one artwork at a time. “How’s work?” he asks me.
I avoid making eye contact. “Good.”
“You’re with Henry Lincoln, right?”
I stare at a painting. I refuse to think of him, our talks and our cigarettes and our night of mind-blowing sex.
“Carmichael told me he’d check in on you this week.”
I scowl. “I don’t want him to, remember? I don’t want special treatment.” Especially when I already got some. Oh god.
I stare at a Warhol work—a self-portrait.
We start discussing some of the pieces as we go along, but I only seem to be agreeing and I’m frustrated that I don’t even seem to have any personal input to offer.
“Livvy,” he finally says, drawing me over to a nearby bench.
“Yeah?”
I can’t breathe. Guilt does that. Everything seems to be about “it,” that thing you did that you never, ever should have.
“I’m proposing to Regina.”
It takes me a moment to register his words, and then they hit me like a truck at full speed. “What? Tahoe!”
“Keep it down.” He’s grinning ear to ear—the fool—as he draws me back to my feet and into the next gallery. And when I cannot talk, when I cannot say a thing, he says, “You’re going to cry, aren’t you?”
“No.”
“You sound like it.”
“Well I’m not. It’s such a big deal! Shit. Well. Maybe I am going to cry, but I’m not going to do it here. God—is that the ring?”
He opens a velvet pouch and lets the ring slip into my palm. I just blink. He lifts it and shows it to me up close. A huge, brilliant round diamond set in a sleek platinum Tiffany band, mesmerizing, classic and timeless, the quality better than I’ve ever seen in my life.
“You picked it yourself?”
“That’s right.”