ARROGANT PLAYBOY (4 page)

BECKHAM

“There you are, you naughty
minx.” I lean back in my chair and face the window, watching the blonde in the
office across the way saunter around her office and pretend like she doesn’t
know I’m watching. We play this game all the time. She bends, fusses with her
hair, unbuttons her blouse and nibbles on her finger before crossing and
uncrossing her legs. It’s a win-win exchange: she enjoys the attention and I
enjoy the view.

After a good six or seven
minutes, the blonde leaves her office. The show is over. Back to work.

My inbox is what I like to call
organized chaos. I should have Julie do something about it, but she’s already
swamped doing all the other things I don’t have time to do.

An hour from now, I’m supposed
to report to Peterson Corporation to discuss a partnership with one of the country’s
largest fast-food franchisees. David Peterson wants to make his four-hundred
plus burger joints run on solar panel energy over the next ten years. He could
be a huge client of ours, our biggest yet, and Dane would murder me if I screw
it up.

Lucky for him, I’ve got this.

I spent most of this week
researching Peterson Corporation and assembling reports and estimates and
timelines. I’ve spoken to vendors and ensured supplies are stocked and ready to
go should David want to pull the trigger on this today.

I keep an eye on the time as I
glance over my notes one last time. A text comes through fifteen minutes later
from my driver downstairs. Within the hour, I’m sitting at the head of a
fifty-foot conference table on the forty-fourth floor of some downtown high
rise. David sits to my left along with three of his associates. They’re all cut
from the same cloth: silver hair, black and gray suits, blue and red ties.
Frown lines. Pot bellies. They reek of new money and excess, not giving a damn
about the fact that their wealth was built on the backs of eight dollar-an-hour
burger flippers.

But I’m not here to judge. I’m
here to sell the hell out of solar panels.

“Beckham, I’m not sure if
you’ve met my partners.” David clears his throat. “Mark Whitaker is our CFO.
Daniel Davis is our COO. And Harris Cleveland is our Vice President of
Marketing.”

“Good to meet you, gentlemen.”
I nod, smoothing my tie flat across my chest, ensuring it’s straight as an
arrow. Nothing worse than talking business while looking like a slob. “Shall we
start?”

I remove a stack of handouts
from my briefcase and pass them down.

“Now, just a minute, son. We’re
still waiting on our Chief Administrative Officer.” David chuckles. “She was
caught on a phone call a bit ago. Should be waltzing in here any second.”

“Of course.” I sit back in my
seat and offer a professional smile to the three crusty bastards with permanent
frown lines. Clock ticks fill the silent conference room until the coffee
machine in the corner begins to percolate. Mark wastes little time rising to
top off his mug, and Harris scrolls through his phone while Daniel stares out
the window.

“Here she comes,” David
announces.

I rotate my chair, turning to
greet the late CAO and try to force some color back into my face when I realize
whom she is.

Son of a—

“Beckham King, I’d like you to
meet my daughter, Abigail Peterson,” Daniel says.

Too bad I already have.

“Nice to meet you, Abigail,” I
say, extending my hand. We shake, our palms gliding together professionally, a
stark contrast to the way they explored each other’s bodies three or four weeks
ago.

A raucous Saturday night
between the sheets with a drunken Abigail led to breakfast in bed the following
morning and the proverbial exchanging of numbers. She texted me four days after
that, likely when her impatience got the best of her, but I never replied.

Abigail doesn’t flush or fidget
or fling herself into her chair. She’s poised. A picture of grace. But what I’m
sure her father doesn’t see from his end of the table is the fire in her hazel
eyes, the one that says she’s going to eat me alive while the suited bastards
watch.

I tap my fingers against the
polished table and smile, refusing to let her shake me. This could get messy,
but it’s nothing I can’t handle.

“Here you are, Abigail.” I
slide a handout toward her and begin my presentation, speaking for a solid
fifteen minutes before Abigail interrupts me.

“Mr. King, I’m looking at your
estimate here.” She sits up, but the sharp pitch of her voice tells me she’s
aimed at me, seconds away from firing. “It feels a little high. Is this the
best you can do?”

David gives his daughter a
reassuring nod. He’s proud of her. And he should be. Four gruff, middle-aged
men hadn’t had the balls to question me yet, and she’s wasting no time.

“I can assure you, we’re the
most reasonable in the industry,” I say. “My brother, Dane, and I have worked
tirelessly in reducing manufacturing costs and lead times. We have an exclusive
contract with a manufacturer based out of Iowa. Their central location allows
them to reduce shipping costs, thus reducing the final cost of the product. We
pass that savings along to our clients.”

“So you wouldn’t mind if I did
a little shopping around before we sign anything?” Abigail bats her lashes.

“By all means.” I call her
bluff. “If you can find someone lower than us with the same superior product,
please let me know. We’ll match their price and give you an additional five
percent discount.”

“What makes your product
superior?” Harris asks.

“Workmanship. Warranty.
Rigorous testing,” I fire back. “And at the customer service level, you’ll be
working closely with myself and my brother. We’re always a phone call away. A
client contract this size ensures you won’t be working with any lower level
employees who have to play phone tag to get answers for you when you need them.
Our biggest competitors can’t offer that, and with a project this size, ten
years is a long time to be communicating via middlemen.”

The four of them scan the
handouts again, flipping pages and nodding and pursing their lips.

“If you turn to the last page,”
I say, “You’ll see where I’ve broken down the ROI. Per my calculations, your
project will pay for itself within the first ten to twelve years. And I’m sure
we can all agree that it’s a sound investment, especially when we figure that
fast-food is an evolutionary business model that won’t be going away anytime
soon.”

“That’s exactly what I said the
other day, didn’t I, Abigail?” David says to his daughter. “Almost word for
word.”

“Great minds.” Her voice is
flat, she looks my way.

“This is rather convincing,”
David says. “I hope you don’t mind if I have my daughter put together a few
more estimates? And then we’ll meet again with our board and take a vote.”

“By all means.” I rise.
“Gentlemen. Abigail. Thank you for your time today.”

“I’ll walk you out.” Abigail
gathers her things and follows me to the door.

She says nothing as we amble
out of the conference room and head down the hall toward the elevators.

“You’re going to give us one
hell of a deal.” There’s sugar in her tone but poison in her words.

“If this is an attempt to
extort my company because I didn’t call you back the other week then…”

“This isn’t extortion, Beckham.
This is karma.”

“Resentment isn’t a good look
on you.” Dane would kill me for speaking this way to a prospective client, but
I’ve got this. “You’re a beautiful woman, Abigail. You have no business wasting
your time with someone like me.”

Her face softens for a second,
her eyes dragging from my eyes to my mouth before she sighs and stares at the
gray wall behind me.

“I don’t commit. I have fun. I
thought I made myself clear when we met?”

The thought of settling down
and becoming a family man makes my cock shrivel and wilt. It’s not going to
happen. In fact, I’m so sure it’s not going to happen that I’ve taken permanent
measures to ensure it.

I wouldn’t know the first thing
about being a cookie-cutter husband and soccer-coaching father. I may have
entertained the idea once.

Like an imbecile.

But never since and never
again.

Her hazel eyes roll, and she
tucks a strand of her sandy blonde hair behind her ear. “You did, but I just
thought we had fun. I thought–”

“I would love to have a
professional relationship with you,” I say. “You’re clearly a successful woman
who knows how to handle herself in the boardroom. I admire that about you.”

My words are scripted and my
fingers crossed that she doesn’t notice.

“It’s rude not to text someone
back.” She won’t give up.

“You can’t take that
personally. It had nothing to do with you and everything to do with me. I’m not
sure how I can make myself more clear here?”

Her mouth hardens.

“I’m sorry.” I say, running my
hand along the side of her arm. “I would be a lousy boyfriend. I don’t deserve
someone like you.”

It’s the truth. No self-respecting
woman deserves me as a boyfriend, but that’s something I’m absolutely okay
with.

Her breath suspends until my
hand falls. The elevator behind me dings, and I step on. She clutches the
handouts across her chest, watching until the doors slam shut.

A week from now, she’ll be
calling to finalize the deal on behalf of her impossibly busy father.

And…

That’s how it’s done.

ODESSA

I lock up my temporary office
and head outside. Beckham never returned from his afternoon meeting, but I
spent the last half of the day setting up social media accounts. Tomorrow I’ll
be working with Devin to brainstorm ideas for the new website. I have a few I
need to run by Beckham and Dane, but by the end of next week, we should have
our concept nailed down and a test site to explore.

By the time I turn the corner
on the sidewalk, Beckham is barreling toward the building, head tucked and on
his phone. He doesn’t see me at first, locked in a heated conversation, but once
he does, he mutters something and ends his call.

“Cutting out early?” he asks.

“Early? It’s five. On a Friday,”
I say. “I’ll be back first thing Monday morning. We’ll go over everything I did
today, and we can discuss the website.”

We’re blocking the sidewalk
like a couple of assholes, throngs of five o’clockers rushing past, bumping us
with shoulders and bags. I’m not sure what else to say to him, so I give him a
quick wave and tighten the strap of my bag over my shoulder before heading
home.

I peek around my shoulder when
I get around the next block, making sure he isn’t chasing after me again or
following me home like some crazy stalker.

He’s nowhere to be seen.

I’ll think about being nicer to
him tomorrow.

***

My key sticks in the lock to my
apartment. Jeremiah used to call the landlord about it every other week, but
all she’d do was spray WD-40 into it and call it good. He was going to fix it
himself. Two weeks ago. The day before he left.

I twist the key so hard the
metal leaves indentations in my fingers, but the lock eventually pops and my
door swings open.

“Jeremiah.”

I drop my bag on the kitchen
counter and stand frozen. He’s sitting in his favorite chair, dressed in jeans
and a t-shirt. His spray tan is faded, and his hair appears to be product-free.

“Hey, Sam.” He moves toward me
with careful steps, a stark contrast from the days when he’d lunge toward me,
slip an arm around my waist and lift me up. I was weightless then, lucky in
love.

“What are you doing here?”

“Came to check on you. Haven’t
heard from you in a while. Was getting worried.” His hands grip the arms of his
chair as he pushes himself into a standing position. “Had a few days off from shooting.”

It’s not the answer I expected.
Was hoping for something along the lines of, “
I came back because I realized how crazy I am for doubting us
.”

“How are you holding up?” His
clear blue eyes squint. “You’re all dressed up. You start a new job?”

“I’m doing some consulting.”

“Good, good. You’re staying busy.”

Our small talk is painful and
trite. I’d give anything to dive right into one of our old heart to hearts
where nothing’s off the table and brutal honesty is the name of the game.

Who knew we could lose all that
in just two weeks?

“How are
you
doing?” I ask, praying for a hint that these last fourteen days
have been just as brutal for him as they’ve been for me.

“Doin’ real good, Sam.”

My heart breaks with one little
word: good.

“That’s nice.” I force a smile,
inhaling a lungful of tension and uneasiness. The floor beneath my feet
wobbles, though I’m sure it’s my imagination. I need to sit.

It’s easier to be strong when
he’s not around, when I can funnel my anger into grit and determination. But
seeing him now, standing within arm’s reach and untouchable? Sensing that we’re
no better off now than we were two weeks ago?

It changes things.

“Sam, you okay?” Jeremiah
rushes toward me, taking my arm and leading me to the sofa we’d spent many
Friday nights binge watching The Walking Dead and eating massive quantities of
Chinese takeout after intense weeks of blogging.

I collapse into the cushy
pillows. He takes the spot next to me, still holding my arm.

Jeremiah’s baby blues used to
comfort me. Absent is their cozy familiarity. He stares at me like he has no
idea what he should do when he should know. That man knows me better than
anyone.
 

“I don’t like this.” I draw my
legs in, leaning away. “This gray area. Not knowing what we’re doing.”

“I don’t like it either.”

Then end it.

“How much longer do you need?”
I barely have the strength to meet his gaze. “Have you done any thinking about
us in these last two weeks or have you been busy working this whole time?”

It’s not right for him to leave
me hanging. If he only came here to check on me and not to discuss what’s going
on between us, I’ll be livid.

“Both,” he says. “And I don’t
know how much longer I’ll need. I don’t want to give you the wrong answer.”

“Either you still love me and
still want to spend your life with me,” I say. “Or you don’t. It’s pretty
simple.”

“It’s not simple at all,
Samantha.” After all these years, I still love the way he drawls my name out,
his accent dragging each syllable a millisecond too long. “A year ago? Six
months ago? Yeah. I thought I knew exactly what I wanted.”

“Which was?”

“You,” he says. “You as my
wife. A couple kids. A house in the suburbs. Maybe Connecticut. A simple life.”

“What changed?”

“What do you mean what changed?
Everything changed.” His hand pulls from my arm, resting on his knee as he
stares ahead at the coffee table. “They’re saying I’m going to be huge,
Samantha. They’re talking huge endorsement contracts, restaurants, a cookware
line. They’re calling me the next Rachael Ray or Paula Deen, only the
attractive, guy version.”

He laughs. The old Jeremiah
never would’ve called himself attractive despite the fact that he inarguably
was.

“This is all so surreal,” he
says. “There’s so much going on my head is spinning, and I don’t have the time
to dedicate to you – to our relationship. It’s not fair to you.”

“Fine,” I say. “You want to
take over the world. Great. I don’t understand why I can’t be a part of that?
I’ve been by your side all along. We always said we were going to take over the
world together.”

 
“I want that, Samantha.” His voice
breaks. “I can’t imagine going through all of that without you. But on the
other hand, I know I wouldn’t make our marriage a priority, especially while my
empire’s getting off the ground. How could I do that to you?”

He turns to me, taking my hand
and squeezing it. My heart clings to his. I want to kiss him, lay in his arms.
Convince him that we’ll be fine no matter what.

Instead, I freeze. Because now
I don’t know.

“Plenty of celebrity chefs have
spouses,” I say.

“They’re not us,” he says. “We
can’t do it just because they do.”

Jeremiah lifts the top of my
hand to his mouth, before pulling me into his arms. My cheek falls slowly
against his chest, breathing in his familiar, spicy scent.

“I still love you, Jer,” I
sigh, wrapping my arms under his and listening to the steady thrum of his
heart. “I love you for who you are. Not because you’re suddenly somebody. No
one else knows you like I do.”

“I love you too, Sam.” He
squeezes me. “Everything’ll work out.”

His words give me little hope
and comfort.

“I miss you. Bed gets cold at
night,” I say.

“Are you eating?” He glances
down at me and back up, his fingers running against my rib cage. “You’re smaller.”

“Stop.” I laugh.

“Let me cook you dinner
tonight.”

“Aren’t you tired of cooking?
How many episodes did you shoot this week?”

He stands up, and for a second
it feels like we’re headed in the right direction. I can’t help but grin.

“The cool thing about filming a
show like that is I’ve got a whole team of interns and assistants who make the
food ahead of time and prep everything and clean up, so my part is mostly
pretending and keeping the show fun.”

Jeremiah is a natural born
entertainer. His mother is the head of the theater department at his hometown
high school, and his father is a radio disc jockey for a major radio station in
Atlanta. Commanding audiences, in person or over the airwaves, is in his DNA.

I wrap myself in a blanket and
get cozy as I observe him picking through what little ingredients remain in the
fridge and cupboards. Haven’t gone to the store in forever, and when I do go
it’s cereal, milk, and frozen dinners for me.

“I’m going to have to run down to
the market,” he says, running his hand through his messy blond hair. “But I’ll
make you a nice dinner, Sam. We’ll hang out tonight like old times, okay?”

I nod and give him a closed-mouth
smile, silently mourning the old times. They’re gone. Never coming back.

All we have is ambiguity and a
distance between us that grows further each day.