First Time: Ian's Story (First Time (Ian) Book 1) (14 page)

“
That it does.” So, she
hadn’t made the same declaration of exclusivity as I had. I
wouldn’t let myself get obsessed over the idea I might be in
competition with someone else.

She lifted her bottle to her lips and took a
drink as she turned her gaze toward Manhattan. I watched the long
line of her throat flex as she swallowed, and my mouth went
dry.

“
Hey, Doll,” I said, and
this time, the endearment wasn’t an accident. “Come
here?”

She set her beer down and stood to walk
toward me. She slid her hands in her back pockets and stopped at
the end of the chaise. “I’m not interested in seeing anyone else,
right now, either. I’m kind of concentrating on, like, one
guy.”

My confidence roared back to me. The match
wasn’t over, yet. “Well, he’s a lucky bastard, isn’t he?”

“
Yeah.” She leaned down and
brushed her lips against mine. I felt her smile. “He
is.”

She was fucking right about that.

Chapter Eight

I was going over
corrections made to a schematic I’d redlined the fuck out of the
week before when my cell rang. It was Penny, calling me during work
hours on a Wednesday afternoon. It wasn’t my first choice of time
to receive a personal call, but for her, I could make an
exception.

I hit the green phone on the screen. “Do you
know what else might be fun on Saturday? Bowling. There is a great
bowling alley by my place. We could have dinner, wear rented shoes…
What’s more romantic than foot powder?”

She giggled. God, I loved that sound. “Okay,
but that’s not why I called. What are you doing for lunch
today?”

I glanced at the clock. “I should be working
through it, but I have a feeling I’m about to get a much better
offer.”

“
Yes, you are. Deja gave me
an extra half hour today, since I worked over last night, and I
thought, what the hell? Maybe Ian would want to grab
lunch?”

“
Ian would love to grab
lunch. Ian will be working late if he does, but Ian is willing to
make that sacrifice.”

“
Okay, well as long as Ian
doesn’t refer to himself in the third person the whole
time.”

My assistant, Trish, knocked on the window
beside my office door. I held up one finger. “Does Penny have a
time and place she wants to meet?”

“
I don’t really know where
you are, so why don’t you pick?”

“
Hmm. Well, I’m in Midtown,
and that seems a bit unfair to you. Do you want to meet halfway?” I
frowned in annoyance at a repeated tap on the glass. Trish held up
two fingers, to coordinate with the flashing light on the multiline
phone. “I am getting a frantic signal from one of my employees, at
the moment. Why don’t you find us a place to meet, and I’ll call
you back?”

“
Sure,” she said brightly.
“I’ll talk to you in a minute?”

“
Can’t wait.” We said
goodbye and hung up, and I reached for the phone on the desk as an
interoffice message from Trish popped up on my computer
reading,
Carrie Glynn.

I grabbed the handset and hit the button. “I
haven’t seen you in ages.”

“
I was hiding from an
obnoxious Scotsman.” Carrie’s laugh hadn’t changed a bit since the
last time I’d heard it. Her voice, however, had; it was dark and
throaty now, likely due to the gin and cigars she’d loved back when
we’d first worked together. Our industry was a boys’ club if ever
one existed, and she’d always striven to fit in. She went on, “How
have you been?”

“
I’ve done pretty well for
myself. Started up a firm with a partner. Landed a few high-profile
projects.” I never downplayed my success with someone else in the
business. You never knew when someone would be looking to hire you.
Networking was key. “How about you? I hear you’re not drawing
screws and brackets anymore.”

“
Production purgatory. Don’t
remind me,” she said with a noise of discontent. “I’m not designing
anything, anymore. The only time I pick up a pen is to sign checks
to poor bastards like you after you’ve done all the
work.”

“
So, I’ve heard. Property
management, is it?”

“
The second largest chain of
resorts in the Caribbean. Looking to become number one.”

I imagined her leaning back in her chair,
full of that Carrie confidence all us interns had envied thirty
years ago. She’d had a Princess Diana haircut back then, and an
ample supply of cocaine at the ready. She’d always been destined to
be a mogul. She could have gone into teaching high school English
and wound up the head of a multimillion-dollar textbook empire.

“
I’d flatter myself that
this was a call to catch up, but no one calls me from Madrid just
to chat,” I said, cutting right to the chase. If Carrie now was
anything like Carrie then, she wouldn’t be offended at the change
in direction. “What can I do for you?”

“
You can design me a hotel,”
she said, just as eager to get to business as I’d expected. “Our
chain is undergoing a drastic remodel. They were all starting to
look the same, and with our new vacation club—”

Time share,
I mentally translated from marketing
speak.

“—
our guests are looking for
a more unique experience at each property. We’re moving in Nassau,
right now, and our main competition is really that behemoth
dolphins-and-swans outfit.” The disdain in her voice was almost
comical. “Is this something you’d be interested in working
on?”

Was it interesting? Yes. Could I do it? That
remained to be seen. “You know, I’m flattered, but our firm doesn’t
do entertainment properties. We’ve got a few hotels on our roster,
but something on a resort scale—”

“
I wasn’t asking about your
firm. I was asking about you,” she said bluntly. “Obviously, I’d be
paying your firm. And it would be a handsome payment.”

“
Oh, I don’t doubt that,” I
interjected.

“
I’m not flying blind here
based on fondness for a guy I spent a few satisfactory nights
with,” she laughed.

Satisfactory?
Ouch. I wasn’t sure if she meant to flatter my
mid-twenties prowess or knock me down a few rungs so I’d be more
malleable in our current negotiation.

“
I would never accuse you of
making that mistake.” I reached for a pen on my desk, just to have
something to do with my hands. “I don’t want a figure—”

“
mid-eight sound all right?”
she asked.

“
I said I didn’t want one.”
I had to work to disguise my irritation. If I’d wanted to be rich,
I wouldn’t have gone into architecture. I was amazed at my
financial success already. There was no reason to get bogged down
in a project I was going to fail at because I was seduced by a
one-time payment.

Even if that one-time payment would make a
huge difference for the firm. The employee bonuses alone…

“
Why don’t I send you some
information on the project and the property? You can look it over,
and if you had any ideas or came up with a spec…”

The problem wasn’t coming up with ideas. The
problem was coming up with too many ideas. I was already imagining
something old world, with columns and arches and palm trees…

“
What kind of timeline are
we looking at?” I asked, sliding some post-its across the desk and
starting an absent-minded doodle.

“
We want to open in time for
Christmas, 2019,” she said confidently, as though what she’d just
said hadn’t been on par with, “I’d like to drive to the
moon.”

“
That’s a tight schedule,” I
said cautiously. “When are you looking to break ground?”

“
February of 2017,” she
said, the equivalent of adding, “in a Conestoga wagon,” to the
previous absurd moon statement. But her confidence never faltered.
“When I want to do something, I want to get it done. And I can pull
the strings to make it happen. We would need the design polished by
this May, and you in Nassau no later than July to file for
permits.”

“
This is a lot to consider.”
As if she hadn’t already thought of that. “All right, Carrie.
You’ve pressured me into it. I’ll take a look. But I’m not
committing to anything.”

I’d hate myself the whole time, but I would
take a look. I owed that much to Burt; he was probably already
planning what he would name his boat.

We made the requisite polite small talk for
another minute then hung up. I reached for my phone to call
Penny.

Penny.
She would be a complication in my decision, wouldn’t she?
After all, Burt had mentioned I would have to relocate for eighteen
months. Would Penny even be interested in an eighteen-month long
separation? She wanted to start her life and family
now
. I couldn’t imagine
putting a relationship that was less than a year old on hold for
nearly two.

It wasn’t anything I should worry about, at
the moment, I decided. I didn’t know if Penny and I would still be
dating in July—though I hoped very much that we would be—and I
hadn’t accepted the job yet, anyway. I hit Penny’s number in my
contacts.

Worry, much like my decision, could wait for
another day.

* * * *

I checked my
phone, again, in case Penny had sent another text. Then I paced
into the bathroom and checked my reflection one last time. I’d put
on jeans and a black button-down, and I’d rolled the sleeves back.
I didn’t want to look stuffy, like a funeral director, as she had
accused me of before, but I didn’t want to look like I was trying
to be young. I didn’t want another incident like the one at the
park.

Penny thought we were going bowling, so I
had to look casual, anyway. When she found out what we were
actually going to do, I hoped she would freak out, but if she’d
known ahead of time, she probably would have worn a ball gown.

I grabbed my phone and opened my email,
going over the instructions inside. We would be met at the staff
entrance of the New York Aquarium by either a man named Jim or a
woman named Vivian, and they would take us to the main
attraction.

The buzzer sounded. I told Penny I would be
right down, hit the lights, and got into the elevator.

Penny stood on the sidewalk in what had to
be the tightest pair of jeans acceptable by law, and a low cut
purple T-shirt that showcased the tops of her flawless breasts and
the valley of cleavage between them.

And I had been staring right at them, far
too obviously. I leaned in and hooked an arm around her waist to
draw her closer and kiss her cheek. “You look lovely, as ever.”

“
Thanks,” she said brightly.
“I’m digging this scruffy thing you’ve got going on.”

I combed my fingers through my hair.
“Scruffy?” God, did I look like one of those newly divorced men
taking style tips from boy bands?

Her eyes grew wide, as if she feared
offending me. “Not in a bad way. In a perfect-for-bowling way.”

“
Ah, yes, bowling. About
that.” She’d given me just the right opening to spring my
masterfully romantic plan on her.

Well, perhaps not romantic to many women,
but I was almost positive she would view it as such.

I couldn’t help the giddy glee showing on my
face. “There’s been a change of plans.”

“
I’m listening,” she said
warily.

We started toward the car. “How do you feel
about aquariums?”

“
Um. Like they’re awesome.”
She said it in a tone that suggested I was a fool for expecting a
different answer. She paused. “But also like they’re not open at
eight o’clock on a Saturday night.”

“
You’re right. They usually
aren’t. But interestingly enough, I know someone who is a major
donor to the New York Aquarium.” Burt was more than a
major
donor. He’d pledged
his estate to the place, so when it had come up in conversation
that the woman I was seeing loved octopods, he’d offered to do me a
huge favor. “And they have recently acquired a new Pacific
octopus.”

She waited in hopeful silence, then asked,
“And?”

“
And I thought you might
like to meet him.” I shrugged, teasing her, “I mean, we could
always go bowling—”

“
No!” she shrieked. “I
can’t… I mean, do I look all right?”

“
Do you think an octopus is
going to care what you’re wearing?” I couldn’t help but laugh, I
was so charmed by her oddness. I stepped in front of her and held
her with my hands on her upper arms. It was meant to come off as a
pep talk stance, but really, I just wanted to touch her skin below
the short sleeves of her shirt. “If octopods are attracted to
people, and who knows, they very well might be, I’m sure he’ll find
you just as sexy as I do.”

Maybe that was an aggressive choice of
words. All week, I’d kept reliving our trespassing excursion to the
pool. Every time my mind had an unoccupied moment, it would
immediately be filled with the memory of her wet skin against mine,
the taste of her mouth, the weight of her legs wrapped around my
hips.

And every time, I’d say an Our Father,
because a Hail Mary seemed extremely inappropriate.

If calling Penny “sexy” had been a
transgression, it didn’t show in her reaction. She rubbed her palms
against her thighs. “Okay. Let’s do it. Let’s go meet the
octopus.”

She may as well have been meeting the
president, as tense as she was on the ride there. We spent a half
hour mutually pretending she wanted to talk about anything other
than the octopus. Oh, she told me what had been happening at her
job, and asked about mine, and she’d seemed genuinely interested in
my responses, but there was a current running through her I could
feel from the driver’s seat. I almost told her it was all right,
she had permission to be excited about meeting her favorite
animal.