I woke up in bed with Langdon. His fingers were gently combing through my hair. I looked up from his chest to see him smiling at me, an expression both serene and devilish.

“Mornin’.”

“Good morning,” I answered. My body felt like it had never felt, both exhausted and refreshed, stiff and strained yet somehow loose, flexible. But I knew instantly why I felt different, and he was lying right next to me.

“So… your first orgasm, eh?” I broke out in self-conscious little gasp, but I knew we’d come too far to be worried about such petty little things. There was nothing to hide from him now and no reason to hide anything. I just nodded, burying my face in his chest out of sheer childish embarrassment.

He gently raised my face from his chest, fingers under my chin so our eyes could meet. In a voice very low and growly, he said, “You mustn’t think it had anything to do with you.”

I couldn’t help but say, “I guess I know that now.”

Langdon lay back and chuckled, shaking his head. “American men, think they’re the cock of the walk.”

“It wasn’t their fault,” I had to say. “They just weren’t… well, they just weren’t you.”

We lay together in a long, sultry silence, Langdon gently stroking my head. I didn’t want to ask, but I knew I had to. “So… what now?”

He gave it a little thought. “Shower, maybe.”

“No, I mean… I don’t just fall into bed like this.”

“I know that, Sheryl. I knew it from the first time I set eyes on ya.”

A sad silence hovered between us, threatening me with a truth I didn’t want to know.

“But you still got what you wanted. And I guess I did too.”

“So… no worries, yeah?” I wanted to feel the same way, and I determined there and then that no matter what happened I wouldn’t let the outside world destroy that moment, that night we’d shared, or the memory.

I knew it was pretty likely that memories would be all I’d wind up with in the end.

Langdon asked me, “When is my meeting with the bossman?”

“You meet with Mr. Alister day after tomorrow, noon.”

Langdon considered, scratching his chin as his brown eyes juddered around the room before finding my own baby blues. “Alright, tell you what: You’ve got some things to do, I imagine, and I have one or two things to look into myself. Why don’t we part ways for now, take that meeting, see how things go?”

My stomach sank. See how things go. I knew what that meant.

***

I knew Langdon was right, and as much as I wanted to stay with him, I had to get back to the items on John’s list. I found the mink coat John wanted me to pick up for his wife, and a few other items, and then I went straight back to my apartment to stow the stuff away until the holiday just a week or so later.

Ricardo wasn’t there when I got home. I was a little disappointed. Ricardo was not only my roommate and my best friend in New York, he was super-fun to gossip with, just like one of the girls. And I knew he’d have a special appreciation for the juicier parts of the story.

But I was content with some silence in the meantime, knowing he’d be home soon enough and our girlish giggles would probably fill the rest of the afternoon. A knock on the door startled me. Buzzer must be out again, I reasoned. Can’t wait to get out of this crummy old building.

I walked up to the locked door. “Who is it?”

“Margaret Alister.” My stomach turned with quick nausea, but I knew there was nothing I could do. I had nowhere to run and no place to hide. “Let me in, Sheryl.”

Even on the other side of the door, she was intimidating. I unlocked the door and forced a smile. “Mrs. Alister, hi.” I stepped back. “Come in, please.” Margaret did step into the apartment, looking around with a disgust and disdain she didn’t even bother to hide. Her perfume instantly filled the room, the cracks in her makeup becoming apparent at such close proximity.

“I can’t stay,” Margaret said, muttering, “thank God.”

“Well, that’s okay,” I said, keeping a light tone against my every impulse. “Can I get you something, lemonade?”

“Have any Scotch?”

“Um, no, I don’t think so.”

“Then nothing.” Margaret’s eyes scanned the room, then found me as I approached her. “Let me get right to the point, Sheryl.”

“First, if I may… you know where I live? And wasn’t there a doorman on duty?”

“I know everything about everyone who works for my husband, darling. And your doorman had a hundred-dollar cup of coffee to go pick up at the local Starbucks. Really, if you’re going to survive in business, you’re going to have to learn how to play the game, darling.”

I could only shake my head. “What’s your game, then?”

“Oh, sweetie, that’s just what I’m here to ask you.” I didn’t have time to ask her to clarify. “Come on, Sheryl, let’s drop the act. You’re out shopping at Tiffany’s… for your mother? I know what my husband pays you, so I know your story is full of shit.”

“Mrs. Alister, I—”

“You’re out there with my husband’s credit card, buying yourself the Christmas gifts he can’t be seen buying for you. Don’t deny it. I can tell a liar when I see one.”

It was true that I was lying, so it was going to be hard for me to contest her on that.  But this was not the truth I was trying to cover up.

“Really, Mrs. Alister—”

“I know he’s been sleeping with someone for weeks now, Sheryl, and I know you’ve been harboring a crush on him since he hired you last year.” She was right on both counts, but once again neither of these things added up to me sleeping with her husband. I wondered how much she knew about Lisa Ling.  Could that be the affair she’s talking about?  I certainly can’t speak to that, I gave John my word!  As much as I tried to reason things out, Margaret didn’t give me a chance to rebut her. She jammed an angry index finger in my face. I was sorely tempted to snap it into halves, but I knew I had a responsibility to John to protect his secrets, all of them, and that was more important than my own ego.

Lips pulled tight over her yellowing teeth, Margaret said, “Just stay away from my husband, you little slut! Or I will gut you like a fish, you got that?”

Stunned into silence, I could only stand and nod slightly while Margaret stomped past me and out the door, passing Ricardo as he entered. She hissed, “Get outta my way, Tinkerbelle,” before disappearing down the hall.

Ricardo looked at her, then at me, closing and locking the door. “Wasn’t that—?”

“Alister’s wife, yeah. She thinks I’m sleeping with him.”

Ricardo’s eyes went wide. “Are you?”

“No, Ricardo, of course not.”

“Then why does she—? Oh, the list?”

“Partly, I guess.”

Ricardo shook his head. “You better watch out, girlfriend. When the wife don’t like you, you’re on the chopping block. It’s just a matter of when.” I knew Ricardo was right, that my opportunities at Alister Fashions were about to hit a dead end. We stood in a nervous silence, and then Ricardo set down his camera bag. “Glass of wine?”

“Bottle.”

We cracked the chardonnay and started talking; about Ricardo’s latest photo shoot, about Margaret Alister, and of course about Langdon Cane. Ricardo sat wide-eyed as I shared the details… all of them.

“Alleluia! Praise God and pass the Vaseline!”

“Ricardo, come on!”

“What? That’s something worth celebrating! I was beginning to think you were going to live your whole life without the big O. And honey, I don’t call that livin’!”

We shared a lusty little chuckle. I breathed a sigh of relief. “Yeah, it was pretty amazing. Can’t wait to do it again.”

“Really? When’s that gonna happen? Can I watch?”

“Ricardo!”

“I’ll hide in the closet. He’ll never know!”

Through my chuckles, I said, “C’mon, Ricardo, seriously, knock it off.”

“Let’s compromise… you knock it off, I’ll rub one out!” The laughter kept coming. But after it trickled away, Ricardo’s eyes fixed on my expression. “Uh-oh.”

“What?”

“You’re already in love with him, aren’t you?”

“What? No, Ricardo, I… I like him… a lot… and I can’t wait to see him again—”

“Because you’re in love with him. Don’t feel badly about it, Sheryl, be glad! Celebrate it, shout it from the rooftops!”

“You know I can’t do that, Ricardo. That’s not the kind of person I am.”

Ricardo shrugged and took a sip from his glass. “Keep trying. But be careful, baby girl.”

“You think he’ll break my heart?”

“I think that Alister bitch is gonna bust your balls! She finds out you’re in bed with the competition?”

“But he’s not the competition in this case, Ricardo. He’s in town to make some kind of deal with John Alister, a joint venture.”

Ricardo tilted his head forward, glaring at me from under his skeptical eyebrows. “Are you sure?”

***

Langdon extended his hand as I led him across John’s corner office. There was an instant tension between the two men, each an alpha male in his own world.  They weren’t meeting for the first time, but it seemed like their first professional clash. I knew that neither was going to come out with swords clashing.

“How ah ya, J.A?”

They shook hands.

“Very well, Langdon, very well indeed. Thank you for coming.”

“No worries.” Langdon looked around at the spacious office, the floor-to-ceiling windows with views of Fifth Avenue, Central Park, and points beyond. “Nice place, cozy.”

John smiled, absorbing the backhanded compliment with every bit of grace he could muster. I just sat there quietly, watching every move each man made. I knew there was more going on between them than met the eye. Neither man was so guileless that they’d put what they wanted right up front without disguising their true intentions. But it was the truth of those intentions that interested me—and frightened me more than a little bit.

Langdon sat down at the opposite side of John’s big walnut desk and I took a seat at one end, precisely between the two men. They stared each other down with dry smiles which lacked humor, civility which lacked warmth. The tension was so thick you could have eaten it with a fork.

“Thanks for sending me such a… a competent steward as Miss Francis here,” Langdon said.

“She took good care of you, I trust?”

I looked down, just a little bashful and hoping to hide my blushing cheeks. “She certainly did,” was all Langdon said—and all he needed to say.

John nodded, glancing at me and then back at Langdon. “Very good. But of course I brought you here for more than that. Langdon, we’ve been competitors too long. I know you agree.”

“Always better to make a friend of an enemy, an ally of an adversary.”

John’s eyebrows rose a bit. “You know your Sun Tzu?”

Langdon smiled. “Fahthah read it t’me in the cradle, that and Mahchiaveeeelli.”

John chuckled. “Sounds like a man after my own heart.”

“Ours too, me and mum.” Langdon stared off in an uncharacteristically somber moment, his smile melting away.

John and I shared a quick glance before John said to Langdon, “Anyway, what I propose is that we keep our companies as is. Even let the world think we’re still rivals. But we set up a third company, one to compete against us both.”

Langdon didn’t have to give it much thought. “Join up and become our own competition.”

“Exactly,” John said with a single clap of his hands. “Niche marketing.”

“But J.A., we’re in different markets as it is. AussieGarb specializes in sportswear, Alister Fashions is more of that high-end snooty garbage.”

“There’s a lot of money in that high-end snooty garbage, and I know you’ve been rooting around for a way into that market. Meanwhile, your sweat socks and sports bras move a lot of material, and that’s a market I want a part of.”

“And you think a third company can produce a line that satisfies both markets at once?”

John leaned forward, his eyes fixed on Langdon’s. “I do, Langdon. I know it sounds crazy, but if any two people are in a position to make it happen, we’re those two people.”

Langdon nodded as John leaned back, adding, “And if we can pull it off, the profits could be in the hundreds of millions, even billions, not to mention what it’ll do for both of our individual empires.”

“What if we wind up running ourselves out of business?”

“Won’t happen, Langdon. You know any market can support at least two major players. At the very worst, Alister Fashions and AussieGarb each pull up a strong second to the company we own together.”

Langdon leaned back, eyes shrewd as he looked John over. He even shot me a skeptical glance before responding, “We’d be cornering the market, eh?”

“That’s right.”

Langdon scratched his chin. “That legal? I know you got regulations out here—”

John smiled and raised his hands to his sides, as if indicating that the office around us, and everything it was predicated on, was a violation of some regulation or another. “Regulations, please, against big business? Those antitrust laws won’t mean shit by this time next month, if they still mean anything at all now. And if anybody gets it in their head to come after us, we buy ‘em out or shut ‘em down.” This time it was Langdon’s turn to glance at me, a quick shot at reading my mind before returning his attention to his counterpart.

“I like what I’m hearin’, but I’ll need a little time, yeah?”

Langdon stood, John and I both following suit. “Yeah,” John repeated, “of course. You’ll probably have some ideas of your own.”

“Oh, you can count on that, J.A.” Langdon shot a little wink my way, and I looked away just an instant too late. To John, he said, “Meantime, your Miss Francis here was kind enough to take me on a little sightseeing tour. Think I can steal her away from you for another few days?”

John looked at me, one eyebrow raised. “Of course, Langdon, whatever you’d like.”

The meeting broke up, and John moved on to some private business he had to tend to. I didn’t ask and didn’t even want to know. But I had at least two hours of mail to sort through which I’d missed while in Langdon’s company, so I dropped the big stack onto the desk of my little side office and started separating the bills from the bullshit, the professional communications from the crap.

“There she is.” I turned at the familiar voice to see Flynn sticking his head into my office. His red hair had recently been cut and—it looked like—even styled up just a bit. “The angel of the hallway.”

“Flynn,” I said with a little smile. “How’s everything on the east side of the wing?”

“Quiet. Where you been? I was worried.”

“Just taking care of some things outside the office, Flynn.”

He nodded. “Oh, cool. Hey, did you hear?”

I’d heard a lot more than just one thing, so I wasn’t sure how to respond. “Watch out for office gossip, Flynn. It’s ruined better careers than either of ours.”

Flynn stepped in and closed the door behind him. His voice soft and low but still enthusiastic, he said, “This isn’t gossip. Turns out the bossman’s having an affair.”

“Flynn, that’s none of our business—”

“With a black chick, in Harlem! That’s where he keeps disappearing to.”

“Enough, Flynn,” I snapped at him, as angry and impatient with his subject as with his general persistence. I also knew that if he was gossiping about our boss, it wouldn’t be long before he’d be gossiping about me—and I’d just given the whole world plenty to gossip about. “First of all, whatever John Alister does in his free time is none of our business.”

“No, you’re… you’re absolutely right—”

I stood up to face him. “Secondly, gossiping about him like that could not only get you fired, but it could be considered slander, and that’s actionable, Flynn! Actionable! I thought you told me you’d learned your lesson about this kind of thing.”

“And I thought you told me you were a decent, honest person, not some corporate shark just cutting her teeth.”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

Flynn stood there, fear turning to confusion and then into skepticism. “I see what this is. Maybe it’s not some black chick in Harlem he’s fucking after all.”

“That’s it, Flynn, pack your things.”

“You can’t fire me! You’re just Alister’s gofer girl! Just because you’re fucking him doesn’t mean you can screw me!”

I couldn’t help it. My hand leapt out from my side as if of its own volition, so angry that it sought to stand up for me, to repel this obnoxious aggressor once and for all.

Slap!

Flynn’s face snapped to the side and we both stood in the shocked silence after the echo dissipated. Flynn looked at me, white cheek reddening, green eyes wide. “Okay, this is how you want it? You got it, you fucking little slut!” he screamed before pulling the door open and adding, “You fucking got it!”. Then he stomped out into the hall and slammed the door behind him.