Say You Still Love Me(3)

“No, I’m good, thanks. I need to go for a walk soon anyway. I’ll grab lunch then.” Even with all the glass walls and windows, the air turns stifling around here after too long.

“?’Kay. See you in a bit.” Mark nods politely toward David as he passes through to lock up his things.

I don’t even offer that much, pushing through the door and into my office, knowing David will be right on my heels.

My office, much like every executive office on this floor save for my father’s, is all glass—glass walls, glass door, floor-to-ceiling glass windows. It affords plenty of daylight but no privacy. I’ve attempted to create some with a decorative coat tree strategically placed to the right of the door and a six-foot potted palm to the left. A few key pieces chosen by an interior decorator—a mid-century-style writing desk, camel-colored leather wingback chair, and a Persian rug bursting with shades of fuchsia, gold, and navy—add panache to an otherwise bland space.

Entering my small corner of this vast building brings me comfort during the hectic, long days.

Except when David is in it.

“Running out to grab a quickie with his boyfriend again?” he murmurs as soon as the soft click of the door sounds.

I drop my notebook onto my desk with a loud thud. “Mark is not gay. You just want him to be, because you feel threatened by him.”

David snorts, as if the very idea of him feeling threatened by a guy who doesn’t own a Maserati and lives in a rented bachelor pad on the outskirts of the city is preposterous. “Oh, come on, Piper. The guy spends his weekends running around the park in tights. For fun.”

“He’s an actor!” Mark was a theater major in college; not exactly a good fit for CG. When Carla from Human Resources passed along his résumé, she did it in jest, thinking I’d catch on quickly and toss it aside. It was my sheer curiosity that got him through my door for an interview.

“Exactly my point.”

I shake my head. “You’re an idiot. Besides, that Shakespeare in the Park production is renowned. Maybe you should go and see it before you judge. We built the entire place, after all.” A city contract that we bid on and won, along with several awards in the years following. It was the first development project I ever worked on during my summer internship here.

David folds his thick arms across his chest and smiles knowingly at me. “So you’ve seen him perform?”

“I’m going this weekend.”

“What time? I’ll come with you.”

“Shouldn’t you be interviewing some poor fool for your assistant’s position? And, by the way, Mark is not picking up your dry cleaning, so stop asking him to.” David knows I’m lying about going to see the play, that I enjoy theater about as much as I enjoy golf, which is exponentially less than, say, sitting on hold with the tech help desk or waiting for my nail lacquer to dry.

“Not for another hour.” He grabs my apple off my desk and settles into the chair across from me, legs splayed.

“Try not to scare this one into early retirement, too,” I mutter, focusing on my computer screen as I scroll through my calendar and then my emails, opening one up to read.

“Oh, don’t worry. I’ll make sure this one is much younger.” He bites into my apple, and I do my best to ignore his penetrating gaze.

How I fell under the spell of David Worthington, I’ll never understand. I guess it was for the same reason most women fall for him at first: the thick, coiffed blond hair, the playful azure-blue eyes, the square jaw, the straight white teeth, the muscular body that he treats like a temple with daily workouts and zero refined sugar. Physically, he’s an Adonis, and from the first day he strolled through the doors of CG three years ago as the new executive, he had my attention.

Add the fact that he’s Ivy League educated, whip-sharp, charming, born into the right pedigree, and highly successful, and you have a man who always gets what he wants. For a time, that was me. For almost two years, in fact. But then he slipped that gaudy two-carat diamond bauble—that spoke more to his taste than mine—on my finger and the polished veneer gave way to the ugly reality that David is a classic narcissist.

I realized that somewhere between him putting a deposit down on a house he knew I didn’t want, telling me about his “guys’ Vegas weekend” trip while he was already on the way to the airport, and strongly suggesting that our marriage would fare better with only one of us working at CG.

So I set the engagement ring on the dining room table and moved out. It was an easy decision but a tough life lesson, compounded by the fact that I have to see him almost every day. Literally. His office is directly across from mine. I look up from my desk and there he is.

He devours half my apple before I finally snap with irritation. “Seriously, what do you want, David?” His name is a curse upon my lips.

“Any highlights from the meeting?”

“You’ll get the meeting notes by end of day. And why weren’t you there, by the way?”

“I had a call with Drummond.”

“Right.” Our potential anchor tenant for the Waterway project, the draw for other retail space leasing. We need them to commit before our project unveiling next month. “How’d it go?”

“Ninety percent there.” He pauses. “I heard Tripp’s still being a dick.” At least his voice has lost its obnoxious edge.