Page 19 of Shopping for a CEO's Fiancee
Emotional realities, though—going into new territory is rare.
With Amanda, it’s become the rule. I don’t know how to be in a relationship with her and not explore new layers of love with her. Holding back from that journey feels unfair. False. Fake.
If I wanted fake, I’d date Jessica Coffin again.
I want real.
I close my eyes, remembering the moment she walked into the boardroom as Dad, Declan and I conferred before Greg and his staff appeared for the mystery shopping account meeting. More than two years ago. A lifetime. An eternity.
A blip.
“The day we met, you were wearing a long, gray pencil skirt that hugged your hips like a treasure map for my palms. The slit up the back was a portal into another world. Red silk shirt under a black blazer, and your lips matched the silk. I wondered if you were wearing a red lace bra underneath.”
She’s spellbound, eyes watching me as if my words hypnotize her. “I was,” she rasps.
I knew it. “You were the epitome of ‘fuckable secretary’ from every fevered fantasy I’ve ever had.”
“You really are a pervert.”
I shrug.
“Hey, if we’re telling the truth...” I pause. “But I don’t have those fantasies about my secretaries.”
“Right.” She’s skeptical.
“I haven’t. Not since the day we met.”
“Really?”
“Yes. You’ve ruined masturbation for me. I can’t even cheat in my mind.”
“You’re such a romantic.”
“I quoted Dickinson to you on our first date!”
She makes a gesture of concession. “Go on.”
“Red silk shell and black blazer. With the black hair and red lips, you had the look down. That day I looked up, expecting to just glance at the client’s staff, shake hands, and sit down for the boring but necessary details before signing the deal. That’s not what happened, though. I did a double take.”
“My breasts made you do that,” she says with a soft laugh.
“No.” I reach for her chin and lift it up until she can’t look away from me. “You did that. You.”
She sighs and smiles, nice and wide.
“Your breasts were just the closer,” I add, flinching, ready for the punch that I know follows.
The kiss surprises me, a welcome substitute for the punch I deserve.
“Why?” she asks, talking against my mouth. “Why did you wait so long? Why did you steal kisses and make me live with ambiguity?” I can tell she needs to know, and my own murkiness makes me feel inadequate. I owe her the truth, but what do you do when you don’t even know your own truth?
“Because I didn’t know how not to live with ambiguity. It’s all I knew.”
“What changed?”
What changed?
“I tortured myself for those few days before Dec and Shannon’s wedding. Got Vince to take me out for some more desensitizing sessions.”
“De-what?”
“Never mind. I’ll explain later. It’s not important.”
“Every part of this is important.”
“You are important.”
“We are important.”
And our future, too.
You aren’t supposed to know, with great certainty, that an idea is true. High school and college philosophy teach that absolute truth is impossible, a sign of weakness, a warning bell that someone is rigging the system in an effort to meet some non-truth goal. Certainty is an illusion, ever-morphing, and in the absence of absolute truth, all you can do is work to be as anti-fragile as possible. Flexibility and pivoting are hallmarks of a resilient mind.
But the heart is different.
Absolute love is real.
Ask me how I know.
“What if I told you I don’t have words to explain it?”
“Andrew James McCormick, if you tell me I have to live with ambiguity, I am going to rip your nipples off and turn them into human jerky.”
I stare at her. “Are you related to a guy named Vince Retigliano, by any chance?”
“What?”
“Nothing.” I blow out a puff of air, buying time. Willing my shoulders to relax, I try to go blank, so I can find some space for my emotions to line up and make sense.
Fat chance.
Instead, they all dance and hoot and holler like they’re at a Mardi Gras parade, flashing boobies and beads and everything.
Emotions Gone Wild.
“I am a walking paradox. My life is about reducing uncertainty. Carefully crafted procedures weed out as much fragility and exposure to risk as possible. In business, I can go on gut instinct. In life? No.”
She just watches me, carefully silent. Some part of her knows I need space. Lots of space. If she talks, the space fills, and then there’s no room for my heart to roam and find its way to the end game.
In space, no one can hear you scream.
But they sure can watch you fumble for homeostasis.
Bzzzzz.
“Damn,” I hiss, all the bravado leaking out of me.
The spell is broken. Amanda stands, straightening herself, and gives me a hard-to-read look.
“I have to get back to my office. Greg’s going nuts with all the procedures involved in selling the company to you. By the way, what’s going to happen to the cars?”
“Cars?” The topic change has me reeling, but I harden. Go with it. Don’t show any weakness. She’s probably weirded out by me already. I don’t understand how I can manage a nine-figure deal but can’t get a single conversation about love to make sense.
“The promotional cars?”
My mind goes blank.
“Turdmobile?”
“Ugh. What about it?”
“The contract for the cars lasts for nine more months. Greg has a marketing contract for—”
“Anterdec sure as hell doesn’t want them!” I say dismissively. If I don’t look at her, I can pretend she’s just another worker.
One eyebrow twitches. “That’s a hard no?”
Our eyes meet. I can’t help it. “A hard no?” I repeat, my voice turning up in a question, but my jaw’s clenched tighter than my dad’s tennis grip. Great. I’m turning into an angry Gina.
Her gaze locks with mine for seconds, then minutes, an eternity passing between us in the blink of an eye. I keep my eyes hooded and impartial, steely and protected.
“A hard no. I’ll act accordingly.” She repeats my words in the declarative, turning away, leaving the faintest scent in her wake, and the firm no that feels like a stone slab across my chest.
No.
Ridiculous.
Chapter Eleven
Six days after returning from Vegas, I’m no longer wearing a wedding ring, the Sultan has agreed to an in-person meeting with me in Dubai, and I am surrounded by Subaru Outbacks with roof racks and COEXIST bumper stickers.
Still better than Amanda’s Turdmobile.
My brother Terry lives in Jamaica Plain now, where Dad claims young hippies go to turn into parodies. He owns a duplex I’ve been to exactly once before, and that was a few years ago, when he insisted I come up and see some painting he did in Mom’s honor. He travels a lot, a guy in his mid-thirties who looks like he was the first hipster ever. For years, he rented out both apartments in his building, but he’s returned to the city recently. Dad doesn’t do big family holidays, and as we’ve gotten older, we’ve just drifted.
We’re not exactly close.
He was in college when Mom died, and never came back.
With Declan gone, and Vince out of town on some fitness boot camp retreat thing, I have two choices for hanging out with friends.
My chauffeur, and my biggest brother.
If I were dating again, I’d just have Gina arrange a business meeting with some local female executive I could charm into bed.
But I’m not dating.
At least, I don’t think I’m dating. I’m with Amanda, but the definition of with is as slippery as Bill Clinton’s is.
Damn it. I need to talk to Declan.
And the fact that I need to talk to him makes me seethe.
Seeing Terry in Vegas was a reminder, a nagging pull. Amanda set up that crazy hotel scenario two years ago to get Declan and Shannon back together. She barged into my office to demand compliance and walked out of it with my heart. I just didn’t know it.
Terry was part of the scheme, and thinking back, I didn’t question his presence. Amanda may damn well have been the first person other than Grace to get me, Dad, Declan and Terry to do something together.
Another reason she’s amazing.
Terry never answers his cell phone. I know he has one—has had the same phone number since the late 1990s. He’s called me a handful of times over the years, but he never answers when I call. Same for Dad and Dec. It dumps to voicemail. I don’t understand my biggest brother, but I’m about to turn to him.
I knock on his front door. All of my limos are SUVs now, to be less conspicuous, and Gerald’s waiting in the road. The duplex is pretty shabby, but my sense of “nice” in a neighborhood like this is skewed. Who chooses to live in a condo without a doorman and an indoor pool?
I knock again. I know Terry.
I call again, and this time, a deep bass answers the phone, like someone plucked a string on an electric instrument. “Hello?”
“Terry. It’s Andrew.”
“I’ll be right down.”
The phone disconnects and I hear thump thump thump. I don’t even know if he lives upstairs or downstairs, or how this building works.
I know so little about him.
