I watched the softness in his eyes, the way he licked his lips and studied mine. He wanted me. I didn’t shirk from showing him I knew. But the answer was still no. Sure, I could cajole him, have a good time, make myself believe I could convince him with my sexual prowess, and he’d pretend he hadn’t lost all respect for me, just like he’d lost any respect for any other woman to take advantage that way. And he’d hate himself too. And me.
It would be easy with him, because he was attractive and he wasn’t begging, just leaving the door open. But I wanted more than that. I wanted the chance to earn something I knew I could earn. I wanted to prove to myself, to the part of Em that still lingered all around me, that I was ready to step into the real world. I could sing at the top of my lungs, a full-on opera singer who had hidden her talent.
It was time to take the gloves off.
“Then it’s a yes. God help me, Shannon, but I believe in you. If it doesn’t work out, then can we have that drink?” He winked at me, standing a little too close.
“Ask me when it’s over, Jared. Don’t ask me now.”
“Okay, then. I’ll make some calls and see if I can get you an interview. Go make me be the discoverer of brilliant talent, Shannon. Make me proud. Take that brass ring all the way to the bank. I’ll cover where I can, if I’m needed.”
“Thank you.” I could have kissed him easily.
I gave him a flirtatious smile instead, and slipped out of his office and back into the bullpen where I could breathe at last.
All the way home, my body was buzzing. I listened to country music, then switched it to New Age, then classical. I held my head high and imagined the “To Do” list I’d stay up half the night to complete. I wanted to list all the questions I’d ask her. I wouldn’t mention Marco. I’d wait for her to do it, and then I’d ask for more information.
By the time I reached my bungalow, a worry had slipped into my head. What would I do if Marco saw the interview, and remembered me? What would he think about me stalking him in Boston and inserting myself in his affairs in Tampa? If he sought me out, would I even be able to answer that question?
“I don’t know,” I said out loud.
But then storm clouds began to lift. I was standing on the beach all of a sudden, long after sunset, feeling the glow of what once was. The sky began to clear and all that was left was the heat generating from a full moon at my back. I didn’t even remember locking my car, unlocking my house, slipping on my sweats and flip flops and making it outside to the fresh air and the beach. It was almost like I’d floated here.
It felt like a crossroads, a point of no return.
Was Em behind all this, weaving a tale and cinching me down with those golden cords of hers? Was this her way of living inside my body somehow while he pleasured me? It was ridiculous for me to consider.
It was even more ridiculous to doubt that there wasn’t some sentient being out there making it all happen.
Maybe I better start going back to church.
Chapter 7
Marco
My administrative team was readied for the big meeting in D.C. that was to come in just two days. I informed who would be accompanying me to the Pink Pasha, the sultan’s palace on his private island, and we discussed logistics and security issues. Ryan would travel over to inspect the Sikorsky, which hadn’t been flown in thirty days, and would need to be re-checked. He’d remain there until our mission details were finalized.
Our online call, which began at 4 AM due to where my team was stationed all over the world, was productive and we covered a lot of ground. I managed to cross nearly everything off my agenda list, which always brightened my day.
I created a flurry of phone calls, mostly leaving voicemails that would be answered when people arrived at their desks in the US, setting into motion new restructuring plans and reviewing contracts coming up, procedures and strategies for the next several months. I needed a breather, so took a break and went for a run.
I always think best while moving, so used this thinking time to get acquainted with the downtown and Harbor areas in Boston. My run through the city was still in the early morning hours before the commute started—my favorite time of day. I returned to my suite, took a shower and dug into more paperwork and answered phone calls.
Later, I took a late lunch and frequented a couple of favorite haunts I’d been told about and swept through several modern art galleries on my way back to the Towers. I found stimulation in the colorful abstract artwork, my favorite being Italian fusion art glass.
I wanted to plunk down my platinum card, prepared to purchase every piece in that little gallery, since my bare walls at the Towers were driving me crazy, but I hesitated, purchasing just one large abstract instead. It reminded me of a woman’s nude torso, a sensuous view from the rear. I had a perfect spot for it—right over my bed.
It was everything I could do to stop from having the gallery concierge throw in half a dozen other matching pieces and a bronze I liked to fondle. Being sensitive about my funding dilemma was pissing me off, but I stuffed it, planned to use it as fuel for the bonfire I was planning on building under Rebecca’s reputation and comfortable lifestyle.
Did that make me a dangerous man?
I hoped so.
One of my Manhattan bankers asked me to stop in at a local Eastern Bank & Trust to review and sign papers, authorizing a transfer of funds which usually happened later in the month. I decided to set it up so that in the future these could happen automatically up to certain limits, but I did wonder why this was coming so soon in the month.
The Bank & Trust office was sterile just like I found most banks. I remembered the first time I went in to get a loan as a newbie frog. They turned me down, and not nicely, either. Funny thing how banks don’t like a lax attitude toward making car payments. That first red Mustang I bought had burned a hole in my credit as fast as it gobbled gas driving up the California coastline in those days.
The next time, a year later, I walked in with Rebecca on my arm. Maybe she was the magic sauce that made it all happen but that day we walked out with the promise of being able to buy something in Coronado. It was to be our forever house, until kids.
And that never happened either.
I still owned that house—paid it off in record time, and oddly enough was something she left behind in the divorce settlement, almost as if she’d forgotten about it. Since most of my operations were on the East Coast, I didn’t use it very often, and instead had someone run a VRBO, which made some cash that I had stashed in a savings account for a rainy day. Selling that house would net me a cool several million, as If that would solve all my financial problems. Otherwise, I’d liquidate it in a heartbeat since the place meant nothing to me.
It was a lush little corner lot with a beach access trail, but no water views. I’d expunged all my memories of how it made me feel to own my first home—to plant palm trees and things in the yard I could go back to in fifty years as an old man and see them standing tall and invincible—just like how I felt at the time.
A little tweak of regret stabbed my stomach as I thought about those days of being drunk on sex and running around being a Boy Scout with my buddies on the Teams, when the whole world was my theater, doing things no one would ever believe, having more fun than I had a right to and having a woman to come home to who liked to screw hard and was just as intense as I was. I was a God then, a force for good.