Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 97151 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97151 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
When I came to New York, I knew that I needed to get to know everyone who could possibly help me, so I made networking a full-time job. When guys my age were out snorting cocaine and drinking shots, I was taking notes and sipping soda water that I asked for in martini glasses.
And I kept notes.
On everyone.
I learned that it wasn’t just people who were on track for the big time that I needed to know. Partly because you never knew exactly who those people were in New York. No, some of the people who’ve been most useful to me on my journey, have been the ones who’ve given me access to the movers and shakers. It’s the assistants who’ve invited me to parties or gotten me into the calendars of the CEOs. It’s the bag carriers who’ve opened the door for me to take the stairs to the top. It’s a lesson I learned early and have kept with me.
Now, I know the birthday of every assistant of every CEO I work with. And I don’t forget them. I have an assistant of my own whose sole job is to organize cards, notes, and flowers. I call the position my VP of gratitude. Thank yous, happy birthdays, congratulations, and commiserations. Of course, the power players get the flowers as well, but I’m aware that you can’t just focus on the people at the top, because without the people holding them up, everything collapses.
Usually, remembering small details about people’s lives, being connected to the city in the way I am, lights me up. But at the moment, nothing feels quite as bright. “I’m just feeling a little…off.”
“That’s not like you,” Deacon says. “But we all go through different chapters. Look at me.”
There’s no doubt Deacon’s been through different chapters, but since he had his daughter, Willow, and now since he’s been with Aurora, his priorities have shifted, and from the outside, he looks more driven, more satisfied than ever.
I feel the exact opposite. “Maybe I’m sick of the parties,” I say.
Deacon stops chewing. “Has hell frozen over?”
“I don’t know. Maybe I’m just getting old.”
“You’re thirty-four,” he says. “Hardly over the hill.”
I chuckle at the reference to being over the hill, but I think I’m over something. I’m over doing the same old thing. “I guess I just need a new challenge.”
“As long as that challenge isn’t Avril,” he says.
I laugh. He’s right. Maybe I’ve just got meeting Avril somehow mixed up with needing something more. A woman isn’t a cure for this slump I find myself in.
SEVEN
Ben
The last person I expect to see lurking outside my building when I return home from work on Wednesday evening is Avril.
She looks even more gorgeous than when she left my apartment wearing my shirt and boxers. Her hair blows gently in the wind and she’s staring up at the sky like it’s going to give her answers to all the questions she has.
“Hey,” I say as I get closer.
She startles, almost jumping out of her shoes as she sees me. “Hey.”
“Were you not expecting to see me? I mean, you do know this is where I live, right, given you left here on Sunday morning?”
She goes to say something and stops herself. So she can edit what she’s thinking. Who knew?
“Hi,” she says again.
“Are you okay?” I ask her.
“I wanted to say thank you for the dress.”
I grin. “I owed you, given what happened to the last one.”
She blushes, and my dick stirs in my pants. Revealing her like that was such a turn-on.
“And the shoes,” she says. “My shoes escaped your knife skills, and I’m still up three pairs.”
“Given how good they look on you, I thought you needed them in every color.”
She narrows her eyes at me. “What, that’s it?”
“That’s what?”
“You just sent me shoes? You didn’t even put a card in with the dress and shoes. They could have been from anyone.”
Now it’s my turn to be confused. “Do you get Bergdorf’s delivering you clothes and shoes on the regular?”
“No, but how was—”
“You knew it was me. Otherwise, why would you be here?”
She sighs. “I…I just thought it would be polite to thank you.”
“Consider me thanked,” I say, a little irritated. I don’t know why she’s waited outside my building to give me a hard time about not leaving her a note with a gift. “You’re off the hook. Any obligation you thought you had because of the Bergdorf delivery is hereby extinguished.”
She grins at me, her smile the widest I’ve ever seen from her, and she’s so beautiful, so lit up, that it genuinely winds me. “You’re pissed off,” she says.
“And that makes you happy?”
She shrugs. “Kinda. I thought you were some kind of perpetually peppy person. It’s good to know you’re human.”
I roll my eyes.
“So, are you going to invite me up?” she asks.