Mogul (Manhattan #2)(23)

I quickly grab my bag and head out, praying that he doesn’t come after me. He didn’t after the first time we had sex, so I’m sure this time it will be no different.

I’m probably just his way of getting over another woman.

I’m trembling on the ride back to Nolita, feeling him on my skin. On my taste buds. In my sex. In my stupid heart. No matter how much of a cynic busy city life makes a girl, I guess there’s always that tiny little romantic inside of us that survives.

Well, survived. Past tense. Courtesy of Ian Ford, who just confirmed what everyone knows. If it’s too good to be true, it probably is.

Hot. Hardworking. Interested. And available?

Oh yeah, I was dreaming for sure.



*



I find Bryn awake when I arrive at our Nolita apartment, and I don’t even know what to do with myself, I’m so confused and restless.

“What happened? Did the whole city get lost last night?” Bryn rants, pacing the living room when I shut the door behind me. She looks at me expectantly, and I can read the question in her eyes clearly.

She wants to know if I found my one-night-stand guy. I jump into the shortest explanation I can, because I can’t bear to talk about this out loud.

“We got a hotel room. We fucked, okay? End of story. He’s gone again.”

I can’t bear to give her the details, but Ian is definitely gone from my life now. Unless I’m a masochist, which I suppose is a possibility. But nope. Not today. I’m fixing my life, remember?

“Sara!” Bryn says in excitement as I stomp determinedly to my room. She sounds hyped about me having found him. “You have his name now: Ian Ford.”

“Yes. And I couldn’t resist him, but it’s done with.”

Trying my best to push him out of my mind, I stop at the threshold of my room and regard Bryn more closely. She’s dressed for clubbing, or at least a fancy dinner, and yet there are circles under her eyes as if she either didn’t go or spent all night there. “What happened to you?” A frown pinches my forehead, and something about this feels odd. Didn’t she have a date last night?

“I got… I got stood up.” Her smile fades and she almost chokes on the words. “God, I can’t believe he stood me up.” Bryn is distraught, more than I’ve ever seen her affected by anything before. “Something is wrong. I can feel it.” She whispers her concern and clutches her stomach.

“You’re just paranoid. He’ll call,” I softly assure her. I know that a guy doesn’t pursue a girl the way Christos has pursued Bryn just to drop off the face of the earth in a second.

Or do they?

Fuck all of this. Why does love and romance need to be so damn complicated? I walk into my room and slide back in bed only to punch my pillow into submission, the only thing that apparently goes my way.



*



The next day, things don’t improve. Bryn heads off to see Christos while I head to work, and when she comes to the office, her eyes are red and she won’t talk to me for about half an hour. No matter how much I demand she tell me what happened.

She tries to focus on work and to check the latest designs, but when I say, gently, “Bryn. Talk to me,” she whirls around, clutches me tight, and bawls her eyes out. “We broke up.”

Fifteen minutes later, after she’s had a good cry, we’re both in her office, sitting morosely at the edge of the desk.

“How are you?” she says as she tries to turn her concern toward me. “When I saw the way you two looked at each other in Central Park, I just knew you’d found your guy.”

“Found. Past tense. I’m not keeping him. I can’t.” I sigh and try to arrange the design folders scattered on Bryn’s desk.

She reaches out to take my hand and stop me. “While we were waiting for him, Mrs. Ford started telling me all about her grandson and how he was going through an ugly divorce. She basically implied his ex is a total bitch. He gave her his place on West End Avenue.”

“No wonder he stays at the hotel.” I squeeze her hand, then continue fixing the papers before I store them in her drawer and rub my temples.

“She dotes on him,” Bryn says.

She’s not the only one. But I can’t let myself know him. He didn’t even say that he wanted more from me. Though he looked frustrated when I left, I can’t be sure if he wants me for me or he just wants someone to take out his frustrations on.

Suddenly I feel the hickey on my neck. My hot Dirty Workaholic’s hands somehow lingering over me.

“Enough about Ian,” I whisper, reaching out to take her hand. “Want to take work home instead of being here so close to…” I don’t even want to mention his name.

Bryn’s eyes water again. “It’s really over.” She pushes the heels of her palms to her eyes for a second before dropping them. “I walked into his office, asking why he stood me up last night without a fucking word, and he broke up with me. His ex is pregnant.”

“Bah! I could just…” I shake my head, too shocked to say anything else.





WORKING GIRLS


Sara



“You’ll get through this, Mom,” I insist as I talk to her on the phone that evening. “It’s not because of you. It was that fucking strumpet.”