Manwhore +1 (6 page)

“Report’s on your desk, sir.”

“Good.”

He finishes scanning the notes, and when I catch one of his assistants blatantly checking me out in these clothes, I start rethinking everything.

Oh god. I want to turn around, go back down to the lobby, go home, and change.

Instead I stand here as, now, two of his assistants eye me. Thoroughly. Head to toe.

I feel a touch of nerves when he gives one last command to Catherine and then he opens the door to his spacious office and a muscle flexes in the back of his jaw before he speaks to me. “Come in, Rachel.”

If I thought I could keep my shit together when I saw him today, I was so very, very wrong. All my systems are faltering as I walk forward. His eyes are on me. Straight on me, and oh so green.

“Um, thank you.”

Survival instincts beg me not to touch his body as I pass through.

He secludes us inside and we head to his desk. He signals to the two chairs across from his desk. “Take your pick.”

I waver between both options, tense.

He sounds like such a . . .
businessman.

I choose the chair on the right, closest to where his own is aimed; I watch as he removes his jacket and drapes it over the back of his chair. I feel a rather big kick in my heart at the sight of that torso—which I know is hard and cut and beautiful—shrouded in his crisp white shirt.

He takes his seat and leans back as the stock tickers continue shifting and Chicago surrounds us through the windows.

Saint’s office is huge, but the center of its axis is where
he
is. I tell myself that the man he was with me is still there, under the intimidating businessman and under those cool green eyes. But he looks so much like the ruthless, ambitious Malcolm Saint right now. How can a girl find her courage like this?

“Anything to drink, Mr. Saint? Miss Livingston?” Catherine asks, coming through the door.

He waits for me to answer. I shake my head, and he adds without looking at her, “I’m set. Hold all calls.”

She leaves, but the static between Saint and me remains.

And where do I even start to apologize?

“How are you?” he asks.

I start when he speaks. It’s only three words and such a normal question. But that he cares to ask makes the arteries in my heart tie around like a pretzel.

“I’m okay. I’m trying to distract myself with work and my friends.”

“Distract yourself from what?”

“Well,” I shrug. “You know.”

Silence.

“What about you? How are you?”

“Good. Staying busy too.”

“Busy getting the moon?” My lips quirk.

His lips quirk back. “Always.”

My smile quickly fades because I don’t like him across a desk. I don’t like him to look at me as if he’s seeing me for the first time, because he’s seen me so many others. The only guy who truly sees me when he stares.

“Are you still doing those campouts?” he asks me, leaning back in his chair.

“Of course. I take everything but the tent.”

He laughs softly. “You can pretend you didn’t like the tent, but it shielded you from the elements.”

I remember.

I remember that there was no rain or earth or wind, only him.

Suddenly, the now-familiar ache in my chest branches out from my heart, reaching all my extremities.

“You must hate me. Why do you want me here, really?”

“That you’re good isn’t enough?”

I blush. “I’m not that good.” I tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. “Saint . . .” I peer up at him. “Why are you still protecting me from . . . the elements?”
Or your enemies?

He leans forward, his expression confused again. “Because I need to. See, I really need to. And you need to let me, Rachel.”

“I can’t,” I choke out.

“Yes, you can.”

I want to tell him that I would say yes to anything, anything he asked, except
this.

I cross my legs—inhaling, slowly—and try to look proper and calm when I finally speak. “I can’t take the job. It’s a dream job, with a dream salary, except that . . . I don’t want to work for you.”

“And I want you to work for me. Very much,” he says quietly.

God, this man. He’s a Bermuda Triangle of my life and I got lost there, never to be found. Why is he doing this to me?

“I don’t want the job,” I repeat, laughing lightly over his stubbornness. Then I add, a pleading whisper, “I want you, Malcolm. Just you. Like before.”

The calm in his eyes fades, replaced by something wild and stormy that makes me feel as if the entire room is shuddering.

“When we talked for the last time on the phone and I told you how I felt about you . . .” I start.

I’m knotted up inside as I force myself to look into those eyes, eyes that are carving into me with anger now.

“I wanted to tell you, but I never got the chance before you returned. You see, I have ambitions too. I wanted . . . well,
want
to give my mom a bit of financial security so she can focus on painting and won’t have to be stuck at a job she doesn’t love. She’s on Medicaid but it’s not that reliable. I guess . . . Saint, I just wanted to feel secure knowing I could take care of her. I wanted to save my magazine because it’s all I’ve known. I wanted a story but after I started, I just wanted to spend more time with you.”

My heart is pounding so hard in my ears, I can hardly hear my own words.

“When I took the assignment, I never imagined that you’d be the way you are, Malcolm.” I shake my head a little, full of shame. “I was supposed to find out why you had an affinity . . . to number four. And it was supposed to be an article, four things about you . . .”

My eyes well with unshed tears.

“How to stop at four? You know? I never expected . . . I never expected you to be the way you are . . .”

The heat is stealing into my face and I can’t bear having his eyes on me. It makes me anxious that I can’t read them so I stare at his throat, at his beautiful, perfect tie.

“I wasn’t going to write the article anymore. I told my boss I wouldn’t, except Victoria—I told you about her. Remember? She’s . . . she’s the one who always seems to do better than me. She released her article and I was desperate for you to hear my side.”

I inhale shakily, my eyes still on fire.

“I can’t bear to think what you think of me but I need you to please believe me when I say not one moment with you was a lie. Not one.”

With a slow, deliberate move that makes me breathless, he stands from his chair and walks to the window, giving me his back.

Oh god, what must he think of me! How he must hate me. Think I used him. Lied to him.

I stand and take a few steps but I stop when I hear him take four deep breaths, and just like that, I crumble, and a tear rolls down my cheek.

“Malcolm, I am
so
sorry,” I say.

I quickly wipe the tear away before he can see it. He’s still facing the window as he mutters
fuck me
under his breath and shoves his hands into his pants pockets, his anger like an incoming hurricane in the room. It seems to be costing him everything to keep that simmering energy of his on a leash. I have never seen him like this. Not ever. He’s under control, but there’s a storm inside him and I can
feel
it.

Finally, he speaks, and his voice is so low and controlled that I’m afraid of the force of the anger it conceals. “You could’ve talked to me. When you kissed me. When you told me about Victoria. When you needed my comfort, Rachel. When your neighbor died. When you couldn’t see eye to eye with your family and friends. You came to me when you needed me. You came to me when
I
needed you . . . you could have talked to fucking me, trusted fucking
me
.” He turns and leaves me breathless when I feel the full force of his flashing green eyes on me. “I could’ve made this go away so fast.” He snaps his finger. “Like
that.
With one call.”

“I was afraid of losing you if you knew!”

A flash of bleak disappointment crosses his face, and as he stares me down, his green eyes could melt steel. “So you kept on lying instead.”

I wince and stare at his throat.

An eternity passes.

“There’s nothing more here for you, Rachel. Except a job. Take it.” He goes back to his chair and drops into his seat.

I can hardly speak. “There’s you here. Don’t shut me out because I made a mistake.”

As I walk back, it’s the first time I feel his eyes run over me, evaluating what I’m wearing. They were supposed to make me feel powerful and good, these clothes, and I feel tender and naked and fake. So fake. Thinking any clothes would make him see me differently. Thinking something so superficial could hide the real me—the flawed me.

I’m blushing when I sit again, and Saint doesn’t say anything at all. He’s stroking his thumb slowly over his lower lip, the only part of his body moving now.

“Consider my job offer,” he says.

I shake my head. “I don’t want you as my boss.”

“I’m a fair boss, Rachel.”

“I don’t want you as a boss.”

I wait a moment. His gaze smolders with frustration.

“You shouldn’t want me here,” I blurt out. “I am not a good journalist, Malcolm. If you want to know the truth, I lost the heart for it. I’m worthless to you. I’m not someone you will probably ever trust again.”

He cocks his head with a slight frown, as if curious over this development. “Take a week to think this through. In fact, take two.” He watches me as I struggle for words.

“I don’t want to hold you up—”

“You’re not.”

The way he studies my features causes a thousand tiny pinpricks of awareness inside of me. I know this stare. It’s a stare that makes my heart race because I can tell he’s trying to get a read on me.

“What’s so wrong about working with me?” He narrows his eyes.

I shake my head with a soft laugh. Would I even know where to begin?

I think of his assistants, half in love with him or worse. I don’t want this to be me. I don’t want to be forty, in love with a man I can never have. At least when I had my career goals, ambitious as they were, I always imagined I’d be able to attain them someday. But him? He’s already as unreachable to me as all of the sixty-seven Jupiter moons.

“Even if I dared leave
Edge
, which I won’t, but even if I did, I’d never accept a job I was unsure I could even do.”

“You can do it,” he says, firm and calm.

“I’m telling you, I can’t.” I laugh a little and lower my face.

When he speaks, his voice is soberly low. “I’ll stop asking you to work for me when you prove to me you can’t write anymore.”

“How am I supposed to do that? Write you something bad?” I scowl in confusion.

He seems to ponder that for a moment. “Write one of my speeches. Write the one for tomorrow. You’re familiar with Interface, its business model, objectives, cultural footprint.”

I narrow my eyes.

“If it’s as bad as you say, I’ll back off,” he adds with the kind of lazy indulgence only people who hold all the cards emit.

He sits behind his desk with a familiar little twinkle in his eye, so powerful and tanned and dark-haired and green-eyed and toe-curlingly masculine, challenging me to rise to his bait. The temptation is so strong, I have to fight it.

“I can make it bad enough you’ll stop asking me to work for you.”

“But you won’t.” His eyes gleam, and his lips form a smile that causes all kinds of visceral tugs inside me. “I know you won’t.”

I sit here, struggling.

I want to see him. I want to have an excuse to see him.

“This wouldn’t mean I’m working for you. You won’t pay me for this. It’s just so you can see that writing is . . . hard. I’m not who you need at M4, Malcolm.”

I’m feeling tingles in my stomach from the smile he wears. “I’ll be the judge of that.”

“When do you need it by?”

“Tomorrow morning.”

“And the event is at noon?”

He nods slowly, eyes glimmering in challenge. “Get it to me by ten.”

“Mr. Saint, your two thirty is here,” a female voice says from the door.

I come to my feet when Malcolm uncoils from his seat. He eases his arms into his crisp black jacket. “Ask Catherine for the guidelines the other speechwriters were working with.” He buttons up, and pauses. “I’ll expect to see your email.”

“Malcolm,” I start, but then stop. After a moment, I whisper, surprising myself, “You will.”

As I watch him head to the door, adrenaline courses through me, every part of me shaking except my determination.

When I get back to
Edge
, I walk to my seat like a horse with blinders, avoiding everyone. I print out some stuff for the speech and then head home. I haven’t told Gina I met with him, or my mom, or Wynn, or Helen. He’s my secret, somehow, too precious for me to share, my hope too raw and too tiny to survive the questioning of anyone else.

I don’t want to hear if what I’m doing is dangerous. Wrong. Or right. I’m doing it because I have to—I
need
to—because he asked me to, and this is the only way I can be close to him for now.
Yes,
I could accept his job offer and be closer for longer—but I’d define myself as his employee for possibly forever. That’s not what I want to be to him.