Love.com (8 page)

Emily entered the office
. She noticed Ian was waiting for her at the door to her office. Her heart began to quicken in her chest in earnest. He was dressed now in an impeccable gray suit. It brought out his incredible eyes. Those blue high beams crinkled at the corners in delight when she drew near.

“Just the lady I need to see
this morning,” he said and smiled warmly down at her, making her stomach do somersaults. “Did you get a chance to look over the artwork I sent you yesterday? Any thoughts? I wanted your professional opinion.”

Emily opened her office
. She set down her stuff. She was guilty of two things at that moment. One, she hadn’t even paid any mind to the artwork. She was too busy looking at him to have time to do her job. And two, she really wanted to get closer to smell the man’s cologne, very close. She wanted to be close enough to stick her nose right into his neck and bask in his overwhelming nearness.

T
win spots of color in her cheeks heightened under his casual regard. She decided lying was the only way out of admitting she hadn’t looked at the artwork at all. “Uh…yeah…I looked at the photos. I wanted to give them a fresh once-over again this morning. Something about them didn’t sit well with me.”

Ian frowned then. “What
was it about them you didn’t like?”

“I don’t know,” Emily hedged, knowing such a vague reply wasn’t what he was looking for. “Can I give you a better assessment later this morning?”

Ian shrugged. “I don’t see why not.”

Emily could see he was disappointed
with her answer. She wondered at it. He looked like she just kicked his puppy as he left her office and returned to his own. She questioned why the artwork for the new ad was so important to him, shaking her head as she turned on her computer.

She had thirty minutes to read her email before the meeting that morning. She was leafing through
all the interoffice stuff when she came across the email from Ian. She opened it eagerly, seeing it had a photo attachment. She waited for whatever it was he uploaded to her. She saw he was sitting at his desk, looking slightly sad by the downward tilt of his mouth.

Emily
stared at the pictures for some time, frowning. These weren’t part of the material she’d been sent initially by Stu. They were really quite good. She looked them over carefully.

They were taken in a
public park; a local one she instantly recognized was near downtown Sacramento. One picture riveted her interest right off, making her question whether this wasn’t the look they were going for with the new client.

It was
a bright and sunny day in the park. An old woman was pushing a redheaded little boy on the swings; the look of joy unmistakable upon her lined visage. The child was ecstatic, happiness etched in his young endearing face. The symbolism of the old pushing ahead the new wasn’t lost on her, or how the pair appeared so in sync with one another. She found it hard to believe they were staged actors in the print work. She looked over at Ian. He was nowhere to be found. She saved the photos to her desktop, wondering where he went.

The meeting was at eight-thirty
. She rose to go to the conference room. She saw Tabitha slinking out of the copy room. The girl was looking around, smoothing her too-tight skirt which looked suspiciously rumpled. It was far too early for Tabitha to be doing any real work. She looked smug as she made her way to the conference room.

Emily
was about to leave her office when she saw Ian leaving the copy room minutes later, looking decidedly less-smug than Tabitha. Her eyes filled with disbelief to see him readjust his zipper to his trousers, unnoticed by any but her.

Pain filled her
to know what the pair had been doing in the copy room. Fierce waves of anger washed over her to know Ian the Unattainable could be had after all. His perfect image ran aground the moment she realized he’d obviously given in to Tabitha.

Emily
fumed to know she was insanely jealous in those seconds that passed, wanting to tackle Tabitha and bitch slap her perfectly made-up face. The hurt she felt was acute and misplaced. Ian was a man, she reasoned, and fought the stabs of disappointment she felt.

Of course he was
screwing Tabitha in the copy room. She could imagine him tossing the girl on the counter for a quickie before the office filled up, disgusted to imagine the pair being bold enough to do such a thing at work, and right under Evan’s nose.

 
Emily was distraught to feel hot tears burn at the back of her eyelids, knowing Ian wasn’t the man she made him into at all. She knew she was being an idiot. Ian didn’t know she was alive. He was entitled to have quickie sex with hot girls. Why did it hurt so much to know he would go there, and with Tabitha? She sniffled and felt dejected, deciding to wait until the last minute before joining the others to get her emotions under control.

~
~ ~

Emily could hardly get through the day
. The morning’s activities made her burn with a need to punish. She knew she had no right to feel as she did. Just because Ian was the man of her dreams didn’t make him hers. She was acting like he cheated on her! She placated her wounded pride in justified self-pity while she poured over her work.

Tabitha was away from her office. The office was quiet
with most out to lunch that day. The desire to achieve some sense of revenge prompted Emily to sneak into Tabitha’s office. She gagged from the cloying scent of Obsession perfume that lingered there.

Self-righteous j
ealous rage filled her eyes as she saw the expensive make-up bag left behind on the desk. She retreated to the janitor’s closet. She smiled as she grabbed a can of Comet cleaner from the shelf and returned to Tabitha’s office.

Emily
refused to feel badly as she mixed the Comet cleanser in with her rival’s expensive face powder. She went further to sabotage her mascara, filling the tube with copy machine ink. She broke all the eyeliner pencils, and upended a bottle of moisturizer within the make-up bag for good measure. She sighed with some satisfaction as she left Tabitha’s office.

Emily decided
snapping all Ian’s pencils on his desk, breaking the key off left behind in his file cabinet, and spilling water on his computer keyboard was enough revenge for one day. She knew she was certifiably nuts at that moment.

She survived until
late in the day. She claimed she was sick. Evan was at a business luncheon. She left word with Janice she was going to work at home the remainder of the day and left, not wanting to face Ian or Tabitha when they got back from lunch and discovered their office had been attacked by a deranged freak.

As
bad luck would have, she ran into her rival at the elevator. Tabitha breezed in looking as lovely and as refreshed as ever, making Emily grind her teeth, thinking she spent the last hour in bed with Ian. Tabitha was returning from shopping during her extended lunch hour, carrying a chic-looking fuchsia bag that she clutched gloatingly as she passed her. Emily ignored her, wanting to snatch every perfectly curled piece of dark hair from her scalp.

“Leaving early, are we?” Tabitha gave her little choice but to answer,
blocking her way and holding the elevator door from closing in her face.

“I’m not feeling well,” Emily lied and couldn’t meet her eyes. “I’m going to finish up at home.”

“Evan expects us to put in the hours for this, Emily,” the girl pointed out with a raised dark eyebrow. “Are you sure you’re even up for this? Nobody would question it if you allowed Stu to run the account.”

Emily was incensed, all caution disappearing. “Oh
, I’m more than up for this, Tabitha. I’m actually qualified for my job, unlike you. I might not spend as much time as you do on your knees, but I’m more than capable of doing my job. Why don’t you go back to convincing everyone here you have a real purpose outside of Evan’s bedroom and get out of my face?”

Tabitha’s
outraged gasp was all the satisfaction Emily needed before the elevator door closed between them. The look in those furious dark eyes said she would pay for such catty remarks, making the pair enemies in an instant. Emily knew telling Tabitha off wasn’t the wisest course of action, but she couldn’t help it. She was devastated to know Ian was fooling around with her.

Emily
felt helpless in her continued affections for Ian the Fucktard, as she now called him, finding the word suited him. She indulged herself with a mental rant on men that would have made her mother proud. She should have felt better. Only she didn’t. She was desolate to know he would sink to Tabitha’s level.

Emily
made it to her car before the plaintive sobs escaped her. She yanked open the car door and got in. She just sat there for a time, crying, unable to stop the torrent of tears. Shaking, she managed to turn on the car and navigate out of the parking garage.

Emily couldn’t recall anything on the ride home except her own pain, ripping through her in waves.
She sat in the driveway, her face streaked with tears. On unsteady legs, she got out.

She found herself on the couch, wrapped in her
fluffy pink robe, watching some horrible soap opera on TV. Figures the bitch in the story was a dead ringer for Tabitha. The same storyline appeared to be playing out. The nice girl ran away in tears after discovering the man she loved was cheating on her with the bitch.

The glaring similarities made
her become glued to the TV after that, seeing it play out before her eyes. The nice girl went back to her former boyfriend for comfort. The pair slept together, further complicating their lives, as Emily howled in protest at their stupidity.

As it turned out,
the bitch was knocked up by the nice girl’s boyfriend and planned on coming between the pair. Emily rolled her eyes. It ended with its drippy music. She was convinced she wasted an hour of her life and too many brain cells watching such crap.

But, she had an idea. It formed on its own, as most bad ideas do
. She was driven to such desperation after her heartbreaking discovery of Ian doing the nasty business with Tabitha.Sure she didn’t have an ex-lover to give her comfort now, but she had her men on Love.com, didn’t she? Excitement filled her to think of throwing herself into dating now, even imagining Ian being jealous when he learned of it. He would learn of it. She was going to make sure everyone heard about her dates.

Emily
turned on the computer and navigated to her profile page on Love.com. She gasped to see she had thirty-seven emails, fifty-three winks, and one hundred and thirty-three likes of her new profile picture.

~
~ ~

Joan eyed her approvingly after their work out. Emily was finding it easier
now, even if she didn’t see much of a result after weeks of sweating her ass off. The scales didn’t lie. She lost sixteen mediocre pounds. She vowed to starve herself into submission until she was back into a size four. It was funny what heartache could achieve, more than exercise ever could. She went home and burned Ian’s tie in her fireplace. She then removed every item from her kitchen that had more than one hundred calories in it; determined to stick to her diet.

Emily
told herself when she was skinny and hot, she would ignore Ian the Unattainable. She would make him burn for her as she had for him. These thoughts soothed her later as she simmered in her bubbly think-tank. The lavender scented water eased her sore muscles and hurt feelings.

Emily cringed to know she was emailing seven men she picked out on Love.com. These were the cr
eam of the crop her emails yielded. They were all handsome, dynamic, and promised future happiness. She pushed all thoughts of Ian away. The hurt she felt was fresh daily, reminding her she brought such pain upon herself. Still, this unrequited attraction doomed her. Even if she hid behind bachelors one through seven, as she numbered them instead of learning their names; she couldn’t ignore the feelings that lingered for Ian. How could she disregard the breathless way she felt every time she saw him? Those tingly, treacherous butterflies encouraged her to believe in something that wasn’t there. The fact she was the only one doing the feeling was never lost on her.

Resentment filled her to know she could never compete with women like Tabitha.
While she was hardly ugly, her face certainly wasn’t one that launched men’s fantasies. She was cute, like the duck she thought of herself, next to the black swan who stole her man. Obviously those types were the women Ian was attracted to. He might be friends with women like her, but he was like any other man in one respect; he was very visual.

Men only saw big boobs and a pretty face
.  Emily looked down, pushing the bubbles aside to expose her naked chest in the water. She might not be of huge Tabitha-like proportions, but she had boobs too. She just needed the right bra to make them stand up and get noticed. That was it! Lord knew she had enough of them! One hundred and thirty-two bras were in her possession at last count. This obsession with underwear could work to her advantage now.

Emily frowned, still upset she lingered on some means to gain Ian’s attention; even after discovering he was the disgusting
pig her mother would have called him. She hated herself for clinging to his perfect image, even after it shattered.