Insatiable (10 page)

Maybe then she’d let her hair down again. Literally and figuratively.

“Vaughn.”

There was a beautiful woman standing on my stoop. Glossy black hair and full lips, and I knew the swimsuit model body beneath her dress well. I stopped, my hand balling around my keys in my pocket. The pointy metal teeth bit into my palm.

“Alisha,” I said, “What are you doing here?”

Just seeing her brought back a flood of memories.

“I heard you were in town and I needed to come and see you,” she said, “I couldn’t stop thinking about you. Don’t tell me you never think about it.”

“I don’t,” I said, starting up the steps. I intended on walking past and her getting into my house before she could get into my head.

But now I couldn’t help it. It had been two years ago. Right before Stacey, now that I thought about it. Alisha had done some modeling promos for some piece of software I released and I’d met her at the after party for the shoot.

Things got hot and heavy fast. Then, like usual, they stopped dead.

I pulled my keys out and found the one for the door lock. Alisha put her hand on my wrist, stopping me. I looked down at her fingers. They were slender and pretty.

“This isn’t a good idea, Alisha,” I said.

“I just want to talk,” she replied, her hand not moving. This close, I could smell that  perfume she knew I liked so much. I used to find it intoxicating. Now it just reminded me of something I’d rather forget.

“Talk about what?”

“Us,” she said.

I recoiled. “There isn’t any ‘us,’ and there hasn’t been for a long time. Do us both a favor and stay away.”

She got a stubborn cast in her eye. I recognized it. It had been one of the things that attracted me to her in the beginning. Now I knew it meant trouble. Trouble for me.

“You’ll let me say my piece or I’ll stand out here until you do.”

I considered testing that challenge. I didn’t want to deal with this sort of thing right now. But if I did leave her outside, I knew it would get out somehow. It always did. I checked my watch, reminding myself that there was still plenty of time before Quinn would be over.

However, I also knew that I’d hurt her when I slammed the brakes on that relationship. And she had left so quickly, like Stacey, that I never had the chance to try and explain myself, to offer an apology for being such a shoddy person.

I figured I owed her that much. My guilt demanded that much of me. I knew on the exterior I looked like the sort of person who didn’t experience things like guilt. I did, though.

“You’ll say your piece and then you’ll go?” I said.

The hard, stubborn glint in her eyes softened and she smiled. “Yes, of course.”

I slid the key into the lock and pushed the door open, then stepped back and waved her forward. “After you.”

Even as I did it, it felt like a mistake. I put that down to how petty I could be.
Just tell her the truth and send her on her way.
I wanted to check my watch again, even though I just did it.

Hours. I have hours before Quinn gets here. Alisha will be gone by then.

Q
UINN

Once again I found myself standing at the door to Vaughn Ward’s brownstone. Like before, I gave it a disapproving look. How could a five star hotel not be good enough?

And the hotel had still charged C&M for Ward’s entire stay, despite his checking out early. If he pulled his account, I was certain the blame for that extra bill would fall on my head, too.

And now I had other associations with this place. I could see the third floor window. There was a light on up there. I’d looked out of that window just moments before Ward had kissed me.

My lips tingled at the memory. It was a good kiss. And his hands had applied the right amount of pressure, holding me steady without hurting, showing the urgency of his desire.

It disturbed me how easily I recalled something I considered a mistake.

Will he try that again?
I wondered. He might, even though I’d told him not to.
Come on, get this over with.
I thought. I tugged at my jacket, the USB stick in my pocket pushing against my palm.

Then I checked myself quickly in my reflection in the door. I kept my hair up. I had a nice, determined, no-BS look in my eyes. I needed to act before that expression cracked.

And hey, maybe I didn’t look so bad. I examined my reflection further, trying to catch a glimpse of what Ward seemed to see.

I suppose if I pretended my nose was a little smaller and narrower, if my cheekbones were higher and more pronounced, I could be considered pretty. Maybe if I had my hair down, too...

My fingers twitched with the desire to reach up and pull these fresh pins out of my hair and let it tumble back to my shoulders. I stopped myself.
It doesn’t matter. If I didn’t have to do this for my job, I wouldn’t be here right now.

And that was also why I had forced Ward to leave before Trish might see him and get her claws into him. Yeah, that was why.

I reached for the doorbell but hesitated.
Why am I nervous?
It was true. Nervous wings fluttered around in my stomach, and I kept glancing at my reflection.

It’s because I’m worried he might try something again
, I told myself. But what if it was something else? What if it wasn’t worry that he would try something, but rather excitement and anticipation of him trying again?
Preposterous
, I thought.

Is it? Is it really?
I shook my head, trying to clear it. Then I forced myself to push the doorbell.

I thought he might answer right away. He was expecting me, after all. But he didn’t. Then I remembered how he seemed to rejoice in frustrating my expectations of his behavior.

I hit the doorbell again, resolving to give him another 30 seconds before catching a taxi back to my condo.

“What is the holdup?” I muttered. I took a step back so that I could look up at that third floor window again. There was definitely a light on up there. Someone was home.

Though that wasn't necessarily true. Ward definitely had the money to leave a light on at home while he went out.

I turned and looked at the car parked by the curb in front of the brownstone’s stoop. I wasn’t really a car person. It looked expensive and sporty. And I think it had been parked there when I’d come here before. It was his.

I put it down to not wanting to take a taxi through the city at rush hour, but I went and tried his door.

It wasn’t locked. It swung back and revealed that warm entrance hall I remembered.

Odd.
I thought. This was a nice neighborhood and all, but people still locked their doors. Especially if they were out.

I went inside, closing the door behind me. “Ward? Are you here?”

Those wings in my stomach fluttered up a storm. This wasn’t like me, going into someone’s home uninvited. I didn’t even like being in stores close to closing time. I always felt guilty, like the employees were trying to tell me to get the hell out with their polite smiles.

Still, it was such a nice house. I stood in the entryway, looking around at the retro wood paneling and those bits of modern abstract pieces Ward had chosen to set everything off.

I imagined what it might be like to live in a place like this. I knew if I made junior partner, senior partner wasn’t that far behind. Mr. Callaghan was an old man. Mr. Montblanc was on vacation more often than not. I could get a place like this if I made the kind of money they made.

Unfortunately, Vaughn Ward stood watch at that particular gate. If this didn’t go well, I could kiss all this goodbye.

Should I just leave the USB on a table somewhere with a note?
That would serve me in two ways. It would show him that I’d been working on his account, for one. And that I’d fulfilled my part of the bargain and come back to his house despite my misgivings.

I started my search for paper when I heard something from upstairs. I took the stairs, sliding my hand along the rail. I walked quietly.

The higher I went, the clearer the sounds became. Voices. I recognized Ward’s voice, but the other was unfamiliar and female.

My hackles started rising, that jealousy sparking in my chest. Totally irrational, I knew, but also totally unstoppable.

“You should leave,” Vaughn said.

“Why?” the woman said, “Do you have another woman coming over?”

I knew that I should just continue on up. Tell Ward that his door was open and that I let myself in and hey, here’s your USB stick. See ya. But I didn’t. I paused on the stairs, holding my breath so that I could hear what they said better.

I shouldn’t care that he had a woman up there with him.
Probably a hot one, too. An actress or a model or something
. It also shouldn’t surprise me. From that whiff of perfume I got the night before, I knew he’d had a woman there before me.

If anything, this was good. It meant he was getting over me. Maybe he’d stop pressing me and let me do my work in peace.

It was what I wanted, wasn’t it?

“The why of it is my business, not yours, Alisha,” Vaughn replied.

“It is another woman. I can tell. Who is she?” Alisha said.

Alisha?
I thought. I never liked that name. There’d been a girl named Alisha I went to high school with. A popular girl, pretty, all that. She’d called me Freckle-Face once in gym class at the beginning of senior year and the name had stuck.

Just thinking about it made my cheeks heat up in anger. I tried to not think about how my freckles showed up darker when I flushed like that.

Oh, so many years of insecurity from one little high school joke.

I didn’t like this woman Vaughn had up there with him already.

“She’s none of your concern, that’s who she is,” Vaughn said. I heard a leather creak and figured that he had just stood up from a couch or chair.

“I don’t think any woman is a concern of yours, Vaughn. Not for long, anyway. I can see that this was a waste of time.”

“I’m glad we both agree on something.”

Another leather creak. Alisha standing up as well, probably. “You know what? I feel sorry for her, whoever she is. Sorry she’ll have to discover just who you really are.”

“I’ve explained myself to you about as much I feel like,” Vaughn said, an edge in his voice, “I know things didn’t end well between us, and I regret that. But I can’t say I’ll be sorry to see you leave. Here, I’ll even show you where the door is in case you’ve forgotten.”

Ouch,
I thought. I kind of wished I could see the expression on Alisha’s face.

“You’re a wreck, Vaughn. Always have been, always will be,” Alisha said.

“Tell me something I don’t know. Now get out before I throw you out.”

I felt the urge to defend Ward, to go up there and tell Alisha she should go mind her own business. Even though I knew I should be on her side, telling him where to shove it.

“Have a nice life, Vaughn,” Alisha said. I heard her footsteps start towards the stairs.

The stairs, where I stood listening in on their private conversation.

I acted on impulse. “Ward, are you up there?” I said, pulling myself up the stairs. I reached the top, entering the third floor. Ward stood near the window. Alisha was closer. As I suspected, she was gorgeous.

She gave me a look that reminded me of the one I’d gotten from Stacey back at the hotel.

“Oh,” I said, “I’m sorry, am I interrupting something? It’s just that you wanted me to meet you here and I rang the bell a couple times. The door was open, and then I thought I heard voices...” I wondered if that sounded convincing. It was pretty close to the truth, anyway.

“You’re not interrupting anything,” Ward said, looking first at Alisha and then at me. It was a worried look.

Alisha shook her head at that. “Yeah, don’t worry. That interruption happened a long time ago. You’re tastes have changed, Vaughn.” She let her eyes appraise me. I felt embarrassed in my own skin.

“I can give you this,” I said, pulling the USB stick from my pocket and holding it up. “That way I can leave you two alone.”

I looked at Alisha again and realized that I recognized her. She looked different with so much clothes on, but I remember admiring that glossy black mane of hers in various ad spreads.

That spark of jealousy burst into open flame.
How am I supposed to compete with
that?
I’m not competing, remember?
I wasn’t certain that I’d convinced myself.

“Oh, don’t worry, I was leaving,” Alisha said. She winked at Vaughn and then walked to the stairs. When she started down them, she paused beside me and leaned closer. “Take it from me, sweetie, he’s damaged goods.”

She laughed a light, mirthless laugh as she continued down. I looked back at her, then to Ward.
Damaged goods? Who isn’t?
I thought, knowing that I carried around my own fair share of baggage and hang-ups.

Not that I was looking for someone. Especially not someone like Vaughn Ward.

Ward wiped the worry from his expression and replaced it with his usual swagger. “This didn’t go like I planned.”

“So you’re saying you don’t normally have your ex-girlfriends over often?”

“She is my ex, yes. She won’t be around anymore, though.”

“Should I expect more to come out of the woodwork? Because if you have so many personal matters to deal with, I’m sure it will cause delays. We can’t go ahead with this material without your say so, remember,” I said. I loved seeing him uncomfortable for once.

“Ah, no on the woodwork bit. At least, I hope not,” he said. “You came, and I knew you would.”

“Because you wouldn’t leave my office,” I said.

“Well, there’s that, yeah. But I don’t think that’s the only reason you’re back here.”

From where I stood on the top stair, I could easily pick out the spot where we’d kissed. It was close. My skin tingled at the memory, pebbling with gooseflesh. “You’re right. I came to show you some alterations I’ve made. I think they’re good. But marketing is just like retail in that the customer is always right.”