FOURTEEN
ESSIE
I’m leaving my apartment when I hear someone calling my name. It’s a guy, and for a second I think it’s Aidan. I think that he’s somehow found out where I lived and come to pick me up, but when I turn I see Matt Campbell hurrying toward me.
“Fuck.”
“Essie!” He looks excited. Relieved. “Thank god I caught you. Why haven’t you been returning my calls or texts? Did you get them?” He looks me up and down. “You look amazing. Big plans?”
“Something like that. What are you doing here?”
He takes a step closer. “Ahh, come on now, sweetheart. I had to see you. I’ve missed you. Haven’t you missed me?”
I take a deep breath. “No.” Matt flinches. “I haven’t.”
He shakes his head, like he really can’t comprehend what I’m saying right now. “Why not? Why are you being so pissy?”
“I haven’t missed you because you’re a mediocre lay, Matt. Oh, and my pissy mood might have something to do with the fact that your wife paid me a visit actually. You know, the wife you told me you were separated from?”
His face blanches. Yeeeaahhhhh, this is what a guy looks like when he’s been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. “Okay. You’re right,” he admits. “I should never have told you I was separated. But I’m unhappily married,” he says, as though this makes any difference. “If I were happily married—if my wife were giving it up the way you do—I wouldn’t need to do this. I wouldn’t have strayed.”
“So you’re blaming her?”
“I’m not blaming her, I just—” He sighs, as though I’m being difficult by somehow not understanding why he’s been cheating on his wife. “There’s no way that the sex Ellen and I have will ever be as hot as the sex you and me have. No fucking way.”
“I get it. I really do. But it’s not happening again, Matt, I thought I’d made myself clear on that front. Now I’m late. I don’t have time to be standing around having this argument with you.”
His expression darkens, turning angry. “You really mean that, don’t you?”
“It’s nothing personal. Just…talk to your wife, Matt. Take her out for dinner. Jesus. I’ve got my own dinner that I’m already late for. I’ve gotta go.” I start to walk away.
He grabs my arm. “Please,” he says. “Just once more? For old time’s sake. Can you do that for me? Call it closure.” He smiles a lop-sided smile, his voice taking on a bargaining tone. “I’ll stop phoning you. I’ll stop texting, I’ll stop all contact. You have my word. I just need to be inside you one last time. I’ve been thinking about you for weeks. I can’t get you out of my head. Please.”
I actually consider it for a moment. I don’t do charity fucks, though, and I can’t let myself get sidetracked right now. Aidan is my goal. Getting to Aidan is the only thing that matters. I stare up at the man standing in front of me, still holding onto my arm, and I scowl.
“No, Matt. No. Now, please… get your hands off me before I break every single last one of your fingers.”
******
I’m pretty late by the time I get to the restaurant. Late enough that it wouldn’t surprise me if Aidan is already gone. The hostess greets me with a smile until I tell her who I’m here to see.
“Right this way,” she says, an icy tone in her voice. Her look clearly indicates she can’t believe that I’m the person Aidan has been sitting around waiting for. Clearly, she was expecting someone…more. “You’re very late. Mr. Callahan has been waiting quite some time.”
“I’m sure he’s not used to that.”
She shoots me a look but doesn’t say anything.
He’s sitting there at the table, nursing what appears to be a glass of water. His expression is hard to read, though it could be one of irritation or complete boredom. I sit down.
“You’re late,” he says.
“I am late. I had an unexpected visitor.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Is that so.”
“Yes. But I’m here now. Did you order yet?”
“Of course not. A gentleman doesn’t order before his companion arrives.”
I open the menu and look at the list of entrees. The prices are staggering. “So…what do you recommend?”
I look at the menu for a few more seconds before I realize his menu is just lying there and he’s staring at me. “What?” I ask.
“I’m just trying to figure out what’s going on here,” he says. “I mean—what’s your deal? You email me about paperwork. That I can understand. But then you ask me to go out to dinner. I agree, and you show up almost an hour late. Without even bothering to let me know.”
“I don’t have your phone number.”
“The restaurant has a phone.”
“And I told you I had an unexpected visitor. I was all ready to go. I would’ve been here on time if he hadn’t dropped by. He didn’t want to leave. It took some serious negotiating on my part to get him to go.”
“Are you trying to be cute?”
“No, not particularly. Why? Is the idea of me having an uninvited male guest over cute to you?”
For a second, I think that I’ve pushed it too far. That he’s going to get up and walk out of the place and never look back. Inwardly, I reprimand myself. I’m going to have to take it down a notch. I’m going to have to tread a little more carefully here. His expression is certainly hard to read, but it’s easy to tell that he’s annoyed right now, and me talking about my uninvited male visitor is not making things any better.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “We’ve kind of gotten off to a rough start. That wasn’t my intention. I really do want to have a nice dinner. I swear I didn’t mean to be late. Thank you for waiting. I appreciate it, really, I do.”
Aidan holds my gaze for another few seconds, but then something close to a smile starts to form on his lips.
“You are something else,” he says. I can’t tell if he means that as a compliment or an accusation. Eventually, our waitress comes to take our order. He gets swordfish. I get veal medallions, even though I’ve never actually had veal before. When the waitress leaves, we both sit there in silence. I’m not sure what I want to say. He’s taking a sip of his drink and not looking at me, but as I watch his face, I realize he’s feeling uncomfortable. Ha! Well, isn’t that a turn up for the books. The great Aidan Callahan’s not quite as perfect or confident as Chicago’s elite has made him out to be.
When he glances up at me over the rim of his glass, I feel like my throat is swelling shut, though. It feels like a punch straight to the gut. There’s pain in his eyes. Just the faintest shadow of it. Most people would likely miss it, but not me. I recognize it, because I see the same shadow lurking in my own eyes every morning when I look at myself in the mirror.
Aidan clears his throat, then puts down his glass. “You know veal’s baby cow, right?” he asks.
“What?”
“Veal is made from baby cows. I know plenty of women who’ll eat a steak but most of them seem to have a problem eating a five month old doe-eyed creature that lived in a barn and never saw the light of day.”
I puff out my cheeks, slowly letting the air out. “No, I didn’t know that. And now I feel like an asshole. Maybe you could have told me when the waiter was taking our order.”
“Maybe you could have turned up to our date on time.”
I give him half a smile, staring him down. He’s ballsy, but he waited for me. He’s not afraid to give me shit, but he’s patient enough to have stuck around when I told him I had a guy in my apartment less than twenty minutes ago. “I think I need wine,” I tell him.
“Absolutely. Order whatever you like.”
I flag the waitress down, already knowing I’m not ordering wine. The blonde-haired, blue-eyed supermodel that comes over to the table fumbles her pen when she sees who I’m sitting with.
“Oh…Mr. Callahan. I didn’t know you were dining with us this evening. I’m sorry,” she stammers, stooping to collect her pen at his feet. I’m sure Aidan gets an awesome view of her considerable cleavage. I get a rather less exciting view of her back, even though I was the one who called her over. “Is there anything I can get for you?” the waitress asks Aidan.
“My friend would like to order a drink,” he says flatly, gesturing to me. The girl spins around, her cheeks flushed a pretty shade of pink. Her lips are all pouty and bee stung. Ugh. “I’ll have a martini, please,” I inform her. “Just a dash of Vermouth.”
Aidan nods his head as though he approves. “You know what? Give me one, too, please. But make mine dirty.”
I arch an eyebrow at him, allowing my amusement to show on my face. “A dirty martini drinker, huh? Well, well.”
Aidan mirrors my entertained expression. God, he’s good looking. I hate that I notice. His dark hair is swept back out of his face, but it’s obvious he hasn’t used any product in it. It’s just naturally wild. His eyes are ice blue, startlingly vivid. “Ms. Floyd, you’ll find I generally like most things in life to be a little dirty.”
Beside us, the waitress wheezes; it sounds like she’s choking on her own tongue. Aidan looks up at her and smiles blandly. “I think that’s everything for now.”
The waitress gets the hint and leaves.
“That was cruel,” I tell him.
“What was?”
“Teasing her like that. You saw how stunned she was by you.”
“I wasn’t teasing her, Essie.” Aidan laughs, and the sound reverberates around the small alcove we’re sitting in, sinking into my bones. It’s a wonderful laugh. The kind actors probably work on for years.
Our martinis arrive moments later, thank god. While I wouldn’t go so far to say as the drink clears my head, it does help me remember what my purpose is here tonight, and that I need to focus. I need to focus on being charming. I need to focus on being sexy, and I need to focus on making sure Aidan is interested in me. We didn’t get off to the smoothest start. I’ve got to make sure I’m on my A-game for the rest of the night.
“Do you enjoy working at the law firm?” Aidan asks as I take a sip of my drink.
I shrug. “Sure, it’s all right.”
He arches an eyebrow at me. “Only all right? That’s not exactly high praise.”
I should keep my mouth shut but that’s never really been my strong suit. “Yeah, well. Mendel, Goldstein & Hofstadter are the best there are in this city. I like working for people who are excellent at their trade. Unfortunately, because they’re the best, that’s also made them the most expensive lawyers in the city, too. Only someone like you would be able to afford a decent attorney. The system panders to the wealthy. If you’re not wealthy, the deck is immediately stacked against you.”
“Interesting that you’re still working there, then. Don’t you want to be a lawyer?”
“No.” I take another sip of my drink, realizing that there’s nothing left in the bottom of the glass. So much for taking it slow. “I have no desire to go to law school, wrack up the debt that comes with it, and then feel that I have to turn around and charge my clients three hundred dollars an hour just so I can pay off that debt.”
“Why don’t you do something that you’re really interested in, then? Why spend all this time working somewhere that you resent?”
Good question. I can’t tell you that if I work somewhere else, I can’t spy on you, now, can I? “I don’t know; it’s a job. It pays the bills. It might be my own personal history that makes me a little more sensitive to the money issues—I’d have a hell of a hard time paying for a lawyer now if I needed one, but I’d be able to do it. Five, six years ago there’d be no way I’d be able to.”
From out of nowhere another martini appears, the empty glass vanished, and all evidence of my nervous drinking is gone. How did I not notice the waitress come over and put a fresh drink?
“We probably shouldn’t spend the whole night talking about work,” I say. “I mean, do you love what you do?”
He gives me a wry smile. “I certainly wouldn’t call it love. Running a global logistics company isn’t really something I think anyone could love.”
“I’m sure being a billionaire is.”
“It has certain benefits. But plenty of drawbacks, too.”
“How so? Never worrying about money again…doesn’t seem there could possibly be a downside.”
“You know, if I’d been born into it, it might not be as big a deal. Or as noticeable.”
“What do you mean—if you were born into it? You were born into it.”
“Right, but it was my family’s money, not mine. Not that my parents didn’t take care of me, but I didn’t want this life. I went out and explored, started earning my own money. Ha!” He grins, smoothing his hands over the tablecloth in front of him. “I don’t know whether I should be offended that you look so surprised right now.”
“I just…I didn’t know that about you. I thought you’d been a part of this world forever.”
“Hardly.” He looks away, his gaze growing distant, like he’s remembering something. It seems to make him equally briefly sad and happy at the same time. “Anyway, it didn’t really matter what I wanted when it came down to it. I still ended up back here, head of this company, with a net worth and employees to support. Contracts and acquisitions and a whole bunch of other shit to worry about. The corporate life isn’t one I naturally came to, nor is it one I feel totally comfortable in. And then you’ve got people coming out of the woodwork once they realize you’ve come into money and they could use a loan or a vacation to Ibiza. The first year or so I was back in Chicago, I had more old friends look me up than I even remember having. It was crazy. I’m sure some of them genuinely wanted to get back in touch, but a lot of it was just people wanting money. They wanted something and suddenly I had it. Simple.”
“Seems like a rather small trade off, if that means you’re financially secure for the rest of your life.”
He shrugs. “It is what it is. I don’t really hold it against them. I mean, I actually like to help people out when I can. I’m really interested in living as simple a life as possible.”
He seems so earnest about this detachment he claims to have from his money. I find myself believing he really couldn’t give a shit if he had none at all. But then he goes and says that thing about helping people, and I remember having to accept his offer to pay for Vaughn’s funeral. Bile rises up in the back of my throat. Time to dig the knife in deep. Time to twist it real fucking hard.
“Tell me about your family,” I say. “I don’t really know anything about them. I mean, of course I know you’re the last remaining Callahan. I’d have to have been dead and buried to miss that. But what’s that like? The Callahan name is a prestigious one. There must be a lot of pressure on you to continue your family’s legacy, right?”
Maybe the dead and buried comment was a little too much. Aidan stares at me with those pale blue eyes of his, his hands still on the table either side of his cutlery. His whole body is still, in fact, like he just suddenly turned to marble. Eventually, he says, “Yeah. I was under a lot of pressure for a very long time. And then my brother and my parents died and the pressure grew even further. That’s basically all that needs to be said about that.”
“The swordfish for you, Mr. Callahan.” I look up and the waiter standing at the table beside us is carrying two large plates in his hands. Aidan leans back so the guy can place his meal in front of him, but his eyes never leave me. I can feel them burning into my skin.
Once my meal is put down in front of me and the waiter has left, I poke and prod a little more. “So you had a brother. What was he like?” My stomach feels like it’s boiling, filled with acid as I ask this question. But I need to hear it. I need to hear Aidan defend that motherfucker. I need to hear him say how much he loved him, and how much he misses him still. Then, when I’ve heard that, I’ll truly be able to hate him. This softening I’ve felt since I sat down at the table has got to go. I can’t afford any sympathy toward him. It’s a weakness.
“My brother was an asshole,” Aidan says softly. “He was a bully. He loved the idea of me playing second fiddle to him for the rest of our lives. In our work, in our relationships with our parents. With girls. He hated me because I could never understand him. He hated me, because, unlike all of his high school and college friends, I didn’t want to be him.”
I’d wanted to cause him hurt, to make him feel like shit because he misses his brother, but instead I’m the one who’s in pain. My mouth feels like it’s filled with sawdust and ash. This wasn’t what was meant to happen. He was meant to fall apart when I asked him about Alex. That question was my ace in the hole.
“So…you didn’t see eye to eye?”
“That’s putting it mildly.” Aidan picks up his martini glass and drinks deep from it. “Anyway. Maybe we should find another topic of conversation. What do you say, Ms. Floyd? Unless, of course, you’d like to tell me about your family?” There’s a strange gleam in his eye when he asks this. I know without a doubt all of a sudden that he knows exactly who I am and what I’m doing here. This is not what I was expecting at all.
“No,” I whisper. “Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps work and family should be left for other times.” I finish my second martini, my hand shaking slightly as I pinch the stem of the glass between my fingers.
You’re an idiot, I chide myself. A complete fucking moron. Should have just stuck with the plan. Should have shown him the files, shown him what that bastard of a brother of his was up to. Witnessed the look on his face when he realized that it’s all about to end. No more highlife. No more ridiculously priced, fancy meals. No more drivers, or house cleaners, or waitresses ready to drop to their knees and blow you at a moment’s notice. But instead you’re…you’re listening to him. You’re believing him. This is not right.
“If you could be anywhere, doing anything right now, Essie, where would you be?” Aidan’s question comes out of nowhere. It has me on the back foot, my heart trying to skip out of my damn chest.
“I’d be with…” I pause, holding my tongue. I can’t tell him the truth. If I do, then the whole ruse, pathetic though it is, will be up. I think perhaps he knows everything, but at the same time it feels as though I can just ignore that fact so long as neither of us bring up the past that haunts me. And, if I’m not greatly mistaken, haunts him, too. “I’d be with my best friend Julie, hiking in the Matthiessen National Park. It’s beautiful there. We went last summer and spent a week exploring. It’s one of my favorite places on earth.” This is a lie. Julie and I were meant to go to the Matthiessen National Park last summer, but I’d dropped out at the last minute because I wanted to sneak into the office after hours when everybody had left for the day, in my mission to find the incriminating piece of information that would destroy the man sitting across the table from me.
Aidan smiles, his eyes warm, despite the cool, sharp coloring of his irises. “That sounds great,” he says. “I love Matthiessen.”
“You went there with your family?”
“No.” He places a forkful of swordfish in his mouth and chews slowly. When he’s done, he tells me, “I went with an ex.”
“Ah.”
“Mmm.” He laughs, but there’s no humor to it. There’s obviously some sort of story there. A painful one by the looks of things.
“And what about you?” I ask. “Where would you be if you could be anywhere in the world right now?”
A shiver runs through me when he smiles at me. “I’d be here with you, having this conversation, Essie.”
What the actual fuck? How can he be so damn charming? How can he look at me like that and, for the tiniest of split seconds, make me not hate him?
“I don’t believe it,” I say. “There are so many far more exciting places than here with me. Come on. Tell the truth.” To my horror, I find myself nudging him with my foot under the table like some flirting school girl. Aidan ducks his head briefly, eyes on his plate in front of him.
His face has taken on an odd glow when he looks up at me. “Fair enough. I stand by my first response, but if I had to choose again, I’d be back on a beach in Hawaii, out surfing, giving lessons. I think that was the happiest I’ve ever been in my life. When I had no money and often no roof over my head. Just my Jeep and the surf. I never needed anything else.”
I raise an eyebrow. I’ve only ever seen him in the button down shirts and the pressed pants. I try to imagine him on a beach, shirtless, wearing board shorts, sand in his hair, and I can’t. Is he making all this up? Trying to make himself relatable?
“That’s what I was doing before all this. I was happy. My parents didn’t understand it, and neither did my brother. They thought it was a phase I was going to outgrow. That I’d eventually realize I wanted to work for the family business and not live out an endless summer on a beach. I didn’t have a ton of money, but I sure as shit didn’t wake up every morning and put on a white-collared shirt.”
“You’re not happy now?”
“It’s all relative, I guess. We’re conditioned to use money as a measure of success, so when you suddenly find yourself as one of the world’s richest men, it’s hard not to feel that you’ve succeeded on some level, even if you didn’t do much to get the money to begin with. I mean, I didn’t build this business. I didn’t amass the contacts and the employees. It just all sort of fell on me, because that’s what it said in my dad’s will. But you want to know something?” He leans forward a little. I find myself doing the same thing. “I was going to sell it all to the highest bidder. Or just let it crumble into ash, one of the two. I was just going to cut and run. But then…I realized I had people I needed to take care of here.”
Everything he’s said tonight is a surprise, but this even more so. He thought about leaving it all behind? He really didn’t care? That makes me nervous. After all this time and effort and nights spent awake, dreaming of how crushed he’s going to be when I take every last red cent he owns away from him…after all of that, he’s not even going to care if he loses it? At this stage, it sounds like he might even thank me. I’m going to be giving him exactly what he wanted all those years ago.
It’s okay, though. I have other plans now. Losing the business will sting, but it won’t finish him. No, it’ll be falling for me that does that.
A third martini appears. This time I catch the waitress; she brings it over when she clears our plates. My face is starting to feel warm, my mouth drawing into the ghost of a smile, despite the fact that none of this is funny. Not really.
I stretch my legs out and feel Aidan’s leg with my foot. Instead of pulling back, I leave it where it is. I look him right in the eye as I move my foot up his leg, to let him know that I’m absolutely doing this on purpose.
Would I be doing this without the alcohol? Probably. Would I be feeling as good about it? Probably not. All I know is Aidan Callahan needs to invite me home with him tonight. And I’m going to make it happen.