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)
I wonder if she’s as feisty in bed as she is out of it.
I know I’m ignoring everyone else at the table, and I know that’s rude, but all I want to do is talk to Avril. The more she tells me, the more she surprises me, and I feel like I need to get to the bottom of whoever she is. I feel like I’m digging for gold and I don’t want to stop until I’ve found it.
“So are you always this slick and charming?” she asks.
“You see, I told you you’d find me charming after getting to know me.”
She pauses. “I misspoke. You give off vibes like you’re trying to be charming. I’m not falling for it.”
It’s like she’s sucker punched me in the gut and left a big gaping hole right through the center of me. Not because she’s not falling for my charms—I’m already very clear about that—but because she sees the effort in my interactions. I’ve worked really hard to make everything about the way I handle myself look natural. I need to appear relaxed and unflappable because it inspires confidence, and if I’m not confident, my clients won’t be. But no one has ever seen that the facade takes effort.
And honestly? It feels like it takes more effort at the moment than usual.
“What scares you most in the world?” I ask her on instinct. Normally any question I ask of anyone is carefully thought out. I don’t ever want anyone to feel uncomfortable because of me, and I want people to associate me with positive things, so I wouldn’t want anyone to think I’m deliberately prying. I’m usually way more subtle and considered. But there’s something about her that makes me want to shake things up.
“Never succeeding on my own,” she says on a sigh. “I dropped out of Columbia, which might not have been my smartest decision if I want to be independently successful. My brother owns this building. Without him, I wouldn’t have a job.” There’s no defensiveness or deflection. She’s not trying to say something cute or flirtatious. It’s just an honest answer.
“No one succeeds without help,” I say.
She smiles at me and it hits me right in the chest. If I were standing up, I might have lost my balance. “No one except you? Is that what you were going to say?”
She doesn’t know me at all if she thinks I’m the kind of guy who likes to boast. I joke about her finding me charming eventually, but that’s really an acknowledgement that she doesn’t currently. I’m not a boaster. My clients need to feel like the smartest people in the room.
“Not at all.”
“So what scares you most in the world?” she asks.
An image of being huddled up in our family car that first night after being thrown out of our apartment comes into my head, but I push it away.
“Not enjoying my job anymore,” I say, and then immediately wish I hadn’t.
Luckily, before she can ask me for more details, we’re interrupted by the speeches, and in what feels like seconds, the evening is wrapping up.
I’m not ready for it to be over.
“So what’s the plan now? Are people heading to a bar?” I ask Avril. All I want to know is what she’s doing now.
“I’m not,” she says. “Neither are you.”
My stomach flips. Does she have other plans for us both?
She folds her napkin and places it on the table. “You’re taking me back to your place and we’re going to have sex.”
I cover my shocked chuckle with a cough. I don’t think any woman has been so…direct. Certainly no woman I’ve ever been interested in has ever been this direct. No woman who’s ever given me her martini and divulged her deepest fear. No woman who’s ever guessed I lived in a car. And definitely no woman who finds me less than charming has told me that we’re going back to my place to have sex. But Avril’s proposition sounds like an after-party I can get behind.
TWO
Ben
A woman with a smart mouth always gives me a hard-on. But honestly, it’s been a while since a woman as beautiful as Avril did anything but smile, flirt, and be nice to me. Granted, a lot of the women I meet these days are wives and girlfriends of my friends and business partners. Though that doesn’t stop them flirting. Avril’s barrage of insults tonight took me a little aback. She was so obviously exasperated by me—or men like me.
Being able to read people has been key to my success, but Avril is still murky to me. She’s young, but already world-weary. She’s confident but shows real vulnerability at times. I like to be able to figure someone out in the first five minutes of meeting them, but Avril and I have spent the evening talking and she’s still surprising me.