Beautiful Bitch(15)

In the end I’d had to leave Chloe for what amounted to twenty-three minutes of work, which effectively guaranteed my mood tomorrow would be thunderous. I hated having to do someone else’s job. The contract had been mislabeled and—exactly as I had suspected—put into the wrong folder on the server. In fact, a hard copy was sitting faceup on my desk, where someone actually competent might have noticed it and spared me this trip to the office. I forwarded the file to one of my executives in Marketing and made several copies of the document itself, highlighting the parties on the first page and pointedly placing one on the desk of every person involved in the account, before finally leaving the office. It was, in a way, kind of dickish of me to be so precise. But then, this was what they earned when they pulled me away from Chloe.

I knew these small inconveniences got me too worked up, but it was this type of detail that defined a team. Which was exactly why I needed someone on top of their game for New York. I groaned as I dropped back into my car and started the engine, knowing this was just one more thing I needed to accomplish in the next month.

In my current mood, I was in no state to return to Chloe. I’d only be surly and irritable . . . and not really in the fun way.

God, I just wanted to be with her. Why did it have to be so f*cking difficult? I had so few hours with Chloe as it was, and I didn’t want to waste them because I was stressed about work and apartment hunting and finding someone who could just do their f*cking job without being babysat. We’d complained about not seeing enough of each other, of working too hard, why didn’t we just . . . fix it? Go away? I knew Chloe thought the timing was all wrong, but when would it ever be right? Nobody was going to just hand it to us and since when had I ever been the type of person who waited for something to come along anyway?

Fuck that. Fix it.

“Get your shit together, Ben.” My voice rang out in the quiet interior of my car, and after a brief glace to the clock to make sure I wasn’t calling too late, I reached for my phone, scrolling to the correct number before hitting dial. I pulled out of the parking spot and turned onto Michigan Avenue.




After about six rings, Max’s voice boomed from the car speakers. “Oi, Ben!”

I smiled, accelerating away from work and headed toward one of the most familiar places on earth to me. “Max, how are you?”

“Good, mate. Very bloody good. What’s this rumor I hear of you lot moving out to the big city?”

I nodded, answering, “We’ll be there in a little over a month. Getting set up at Fifth and Fiftieth.”

“Close by. Perfect. We’ll have to get together when you get to town . . .” He trailed off.

“Definitely, definitely.” I hesitated, knowing Max was probably wondering why I was calling him at eleven thirty at night on a Tuesday. “Look, Max, I have a bit of a favor to ask.”

“Let’s have it.”

“I’d like to take my girlfriend away for a bit, and—”

“Girlfriend?” His laughter filled my car.

I laughed, too. I was fairly certain I’d never introduced anyone to Max that way. “Chloe, yes. We both work for RMG and have been slammed lately with the Papadakis campaign. It’s rolling quite nicely now, and we maybe have some wiggle room before we move . . .” I hesitated, feeling the words bubble up inside me. “Would I be insane to hire someone to pack up our life here, find us a place in New York, and just . . . leave for a few weeks? Just get the hell out of town?”

“That doesn’t sound mental, Ben. It sounds like the best way to keep yourself sorted.”

“I think so, too. And I know it’s impulsive, but I was thinking of taking Chloe to France. I was wondering if you still had the house in Marseille, and if so, whether we could rent it for a few weeks.”

Max was laughing quietly. “Fuck yeah, it’s still mine. But forget renting it—just have at it. I’ll send you the directions straightaway. I’ll have Inès go by and clean up for you. The place has been empty since I was there over the winter holidays.” He paused. “When were you thinking of heading out?”

The vise that seemed to grip my chest loosened immeasurably as the plan began to solidify in my head. “This weekend?”

“Shit yeah, I’ll get on it. Send me your flight details when you have them. I’ll call her in the morning and make sure she’s there to give you the keys.”

“This is fantastic. Thank you, Max. I owe you.”