“Seven St. John.”
She clapped her hand over her mouth. “I knew it!”
“You know nothing.” I glared at her. “You posted an ad, Zoe. With the Belize photo.”
“Autumn—”
I spied my phone on the coffee table, near the empty bottle of wine. I grabbed it, brought it to Zoe and pulled up the ad. “Beautiful, successful single woman in search of a wealthy, handsome man to help her get pregnant the old-fashioned way,” I read. “Financial validation a must. Serious inquiries only. DM for more info.”
“Autumn…” she sighed. “You saw how well it worked out for Lizzy.”
“Yeah, great for her. I’m not her.” I needed the anger as a defense. “To help her get pregnant the old-fashioned way, Zoe. That’s what it says. You of all people should know better.”
She held her ground. “Autumn, that was a long time ago. You need help moving on. You’re stuck.”
“And asking random men on the internet to impregnate me is the next logical solution?”
“You don’t have to actually get pregnant. You just have to get out of your rut.”
“That’s false advertising! They’re going to meet me thinking I want them to knock me up.”
“Did Seven St. John think that?”
“I don’t know. We didn’t talk about it.”
She glanced at the coffee pot: it was half full by now, so she poured me a mug, dropped an ice cube into it, added a dollop of heavy cream from my fridge, plunked a spoon into it, and handed it to me. “Drink, then talk.”
I took it to the island counter and sat on the barstool, then stirred and sipped. “He’s enormous. He’s dangerous.” I closed my eyes. “And he’s the sexiest man I’ve ever met in my fucking life.”
“Did you sleep with him?”
I squeezed my eyes shut tighter. “No, and not for lack of trying.”
“Uh-oh.” She sat beside me. “How does that happen? He shot you down?”
“He took me to dinner at a fancy place owned by his friend, Fredrick Lyons.”
“Ooh, I’ve heard amazing things about that place.”
“They’re all true. It’s incredible.” I sipped more coffee, sighed. “Then we went to this place that’s like, one of those secrets, you know? Like, you need a password to get in. Of course, it was Seven so all they needed was to see his face and they let us in. And I had so, so many vodka sodas.”
Zoe groaned, facepalmed herself. “Autumn. You had to know drinking vodka was a terrible idea. You can’t hold your hard liquor for crap.”
“He was ordering. And they didn’t have wine. And…it was fun. He was so interesting, so easy to talk to. Smart, and quick. You know, maybe I’m the asshole for this, but I thought because he’s this big beefcake boxer that he’d be…I don’t know, dull. But he’s not.” I groaned. “He drove me home, and we were flirting so hard. He wanted me. I knew it. And god I wanted him so fucking bad, Zoe. He’s so…primal. God, I don’t even know how to explain it. Just this raw energy, this intense sexuality to him. Even when he wasn’t trying to be sexy or whatever, he was just…intense.”
“Seems like it should have been a shoo-in.”
“You’d think. But the vodka hit me like a freight train on the elevator ride up, and he wouldn’t have sex with me when I was drunk.”
“Were you that far gone?”
I shook my head. “I remember it all perfectly clear. I was tipsy, yes. Maybe even kinda drunk. But I wasn’t blackout and I knew what I was doing. But he just…” I sighed. “I can’t even be mad at him. It was honorable as hell, and I could tell it was hard for him to do.” I closed my eyes, bit my lip. “I threw myself at him, Zoe. Took off my dress, and I was wearing my gray set of lingerie.”
“You look hot in that set.”
“I really do.” I groaned. “I’m so embarrassed. He was nice about it, too. He wasn’t a dick. It’d be easier if he’d been a dick. You’d think a big alpha macho guy like that would just take it when I was offering myself to him on a silver platter.”
She patted me on the shoulder. “Did you get a glimpse at the goods?”
I frowned at her. “Zoe, can we focus on me for a second?”
“It’s Seven St. John, Autumn! He’s the biggest, baddest bad boy on the planet. Did you or did you not get a look at his package?”
“Sort of?” I couldn’t help a grin. “I got his jeans open, and his button down. But he was wearing underwear, so, it wasn’t a good look. Enough to know he’s packing something pretty damn amazing, had I been so lucky.”
“You still may. Did he say he’d call you?”
“Yes.”
“Has he?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t checked my phone.”
“So?” She stared at me expectantly. “Check?”
I realized my phone was in my hand. “Oh. Right.” I laughed ruefully. “I may still be a little iffy. After he left, I was so embarrassed and angry I drank a whole bottle of wine in like, twenty minutes. And I was already pretty far gone to begin with, which is why this morning happened.”
“You’re lucky you have me to cover for you.”
“No kidding. I’m never going to live this down.”
She laughed. “No, you’re not. You had Seven St. John himself in your apartment, and you didn’t get to sleep with him because you were too drunk. And you overslept a showing for a three-million-dollar property.”
I put my face in my hands. “Stop, stop, stop! You make me sound so pathetic!”
“I mean, babe, I love you, but it’s not your finest moment.”
I glared at her. “You’re not helping.” I huffed, bent forward and hugged myself. “I ought to lose my license. That is the most unprofessional thing I can even imagine.”
She bumped me with her shoulder. “Hey, it’s not that bad.” She snickered. “Remember Don Mackey?”
“Ohmygod,” I spluttered. “Who could forget Don Mackey?”
“He literally moved to Mexico after that. And not the nice, beach resorts part of Mexico.”
“I mean, he was caught during an open house doing coke off the bathroom sink.” I burst out laughing, remembering the chaos in the LA real estate world when that story had broken.
Zoe flopped backward on the couch, laughing with me. “While he had his assistant bent over said sink.”
“Actually, one story I heard had him snorting the coke off the assistant herself, while he had her bent over the sink.”
“I heard that too,” Zoe said. “I wonder if it’s true. I mean, that does take a certain coordination.”
“I just wonder about the assistant,” I said, laughter subsiding. “Like, why? Why him? Don Mackey was, like, fifty-four at the time, and, um, not a catch.”
“Not a catch?” She boggled at me. “He was a literal ogre. He had warts with hair growing out of them. On his ears. I’d have fucked Shrek before I slept with Don Mackey.”