HAPTER ONE
The party was two weeks ago, but Macy Jacobs had other reasons for not feeling festive.
Walking down the street in Manhattan, she listened to the clacking of her heels on the pavement and counted the beats. Every little clack was like the ticking of a clock, bringing her nearer every second to one of the most life-changing moments she would ever have. Or the most life-changing moment since the one that had already changed her life.
It was a problem she could make go away, if she wanted. But that struck her as wrong because this problem was not hers alone, nor was it only her doing. The dilemma facing Macy was about her and someone else, someone who deserved to know it now rather than perhaps learning of it after the fact, after it was over. Sharing the situation with the other person involved was the right, proper, and responsible thing to do. So, she strode with purpose down the Manhattan street with the bustle of the traffic to her side and the throng of people around her walking towards whatever unknowable purposes that they had, and the skyscrapers looming around and before her. Macy’s destination was the top of one of those monoliths.
She was going to see someone who owned a skyscraper and a penthouse, someone who commanded a piece of the skyline looming up on all sides of her. Someone who embodied everything that New York City stood for in the eyes of the world.
The Bedford Building was just a block away. Its uppermost suites were the home of Bedford Enterprises, a conglomerate that had started as an exercise and fitness empire and spread out into fitness clothing, swimwear, exercise DVDs, a coast-to-coast chain of gyms and health clubs, and ultimately a cable TV channel. Estimates had placed the net worth of the founder at just a billion dollars. A billion dollars could buy an awful lot of things. Looking up at the gleaming summit of the building for which she was headed, however, Macy knew that the solution to the dilemma facing her would not be money alone.
In the lobby, she checked in at the security station. She gave them her name and the name of her company, Macy J. Video, and they logged the time of her arrival and her destination. She stated the purpose of her visit as simply “business.” That was all anyone needed to know. This was a place of business, and that was what brought her here. The nature of the business was between her and the one who doubtless occupied the largest suite on the top floor. Done with security, Macy took herself to the elevator and hit the button for the top floor.
At the top floor, as men and women in various kinds of professional attire milled back and forth about their daily work, Macy checked the directory on the wall opposite the elevator doors and found where she was going. Her heels did not make the same clacking on the carpeted floor up here as they did on the street or in the lobby, but still she felt and half-consciously measured the one-two, one-two beat of her footfalls.
Through a pair of large glass doors was the outer office and the long, neat, but still busy-looking desk of a blonde receptionist. Macy told the young woman her name, and the receptionist checked her computer and said, “I’m sorry, Ms. Jacobs, you don’t seem to have an appointment. Is Mr. Bedford expecting you?”
Macy almost felt like sputtering out laughing at the young woman’s choice of words: “Expecting.” Wasn’t that just perfect—“expecting”? It was all too fitting that she should put it in just that way. Instead of laughing, Macy simply turned up the corner of her mouth and replied, “No, Mr. Bedford isn’t expecting…my visit. I wasn’t even expecting to come here. But I need to see him; it is urgent.”
The blonde said, “Mr. Bedford has a lot of urgent business, Ms. Jacobs. He has meetings all morning…”
“Well, he’s going to have to have one more,” said Macy. “This is important. Very important.”
The receptionist tightened her shoulders, starting to feel a bit nervous at Macy’s tone and expression. “Of course it is, Ms. Jacobs. If you’d like, I can put you in for an appointment.” She glanced at her computer and started hitting keys. “He might have just a few minutes later today—just a few. If we fit you in for this afternoon, we could maybe book you for a longer appointment later, maybe tomorrow…”
“Or,” said Macy, “you could just tell Mr. Bedford I’m here now and I need to talk to him about something that won’t wait.”
The receptionist swiveled her eyes from her computer screen up to Macy, who was practically making herself a statue in front of the desk. “Ms. Jacobs,” she said, “in a few minutes, Mr. Bedford is going to have to leave for a whole morning full of meetings, and he can’t talk to anyone now. I’m really sorry, but I think I can try to get you in to him this afternoon if you’d just…”
Macy leaned her head insistently towards the young woman and said, “This isn’t something to postpone, not to this afternoon or tomorrow or any other time you’d like to mention. This is something I need to discuss with Mr. Bedford right now, and you can just tell him I’m here.”
The blonde exhaled anxiously. “Ms. Jacobs, I can’t do that. Mr. Bedford has a schedule…”
“Yes,” said Macy, “he does. He has more of a ‘schedule’ than he thinks he does, and he needs to know about another item on it that he didn’t plan for. Which is why you’re going to get word in to him that I’m here and I need to speak to him, or I’ll just go on in myself and take the matter off your hands.”
The receptionist blinked, perhaps seeing her job passing before her eyes. “Ms. Jacobs, you can’t do that!”
“I shouldn’t need to do that, dear. Just tell Mr. Bedford I’m here.”
“But you don’t have an appointment!”
“You’d have no way of knowing this, but I do have an appointment. It’s just not on your calendar. Right now, it’s only on mine. So, if you don’t want to help me, I’ll just help myself…”
And Macy began to walk around one side of the receptionist’s desk for the large doors of dark, stained wood behind them that led into the office of the CEO.
“Ms. Jacobs, wait!” called the receptionist, bolting up from her chair.
Macy looked over her shoulder at the young woman and told her, “Like I said, I really just can’t. And when Mr. Bedford hears what I have to tell him, he won’t want to have waited either. So, you can just excuse me…”
The receptionist started after Macy, intending to hurl herself between Macy and the doors to her boss’s suite, if necessary, to stop her. But Macy, in addition to being determined to get where she was going and see whom she had come to see, was just a bit faster than the blonde gatekeeper to the corporate sanctum. The receptionist was just a step behind her when Macy got her hand on the knob of one of the large wooden doors, opened it wide, and strode through it as if she owned the place.
The suite had tall, broad windows occupying the entire far wall and was furnished and decorated as much like a luxury apartment as it was like a place of business—very much the sort of workspace one would expect of a billionaire CEO. There was a coffee table surrounded by leather sofas and chairs in the middle, and here stood three expensively suited gentlemen in their thirties in the company of a fourth such man whose very presence seemed to broadcast his status of the boss of bosses. All four men looked over in surprise at the wide-open door, the woman who stepped purposefully through it, and the very flustered and anxious blonde at her heels.
“Mr. Bedford!” the blonde called, apologetically. “I’m so sorry; I tried to tell the lady that no one could see you without an appointment…”
The obvious boss stepped to one side, separating himself from the other executive types, and raised a hand to cut off his other employee. “That’s all right, Debra,” he said. “This lady doesn’t really need an appointment, though I’m surprised she didn’t call ahead…”
“I tried to stop her just walking in,” said Debra, squirming as Macy shot her a rather indifferent sidelong glance. Aaron silenced her with a gentle raise of his hand.
“Macy,” said Aaron Bedford, as cordial as he was businesslike, “I was going to call you. Your showing up is a welcome surprise. Very welcome.”
Macy looked him up and down. He was still so scrumptious that it was a shame he was all dressed up. It was no wonder that she had allowed to happen what happened a couple of weeks ago. For that much, she had no regrets at all. No one should have any regrets about a thing like that with someone like this. Aaron Bedford was a work of art rendered in male flesh. His perfectly groomed, thick, dark hair rested atop a magnetically, electrically handsome face and piercing dark eyes that said without words, Off with your clothes; we’re doing this. There was never any question that women beyond counting had complied with the unspoken command of his looks. Under that expensive and immaculate suit lay a body that was nothing short of Olympic in its perfection. Macy remembered the pecs and abs that were like continents and islands of muscle, the arms and legs that were like cannon barrels of hard sinew, the butt cheeks that were like massive slabs of fleshy granite. Such a body, no one could forget, and no one ever should. Without fear of contradiction, this billionaire Aaron Bedford had a billion-dollar face and physique.
Retrieving her thoughts from her memories, Macy replied, “We have to talk, Aaron.”
Likewise, Aaron gave Macy a visual checking-out, his eyes starting on the regally beautiful-looking face with the auburn hair falling over her shoulders and traveling down the silk blouse that showed through her open coat to the dark slacks and the boots with the heels neither too short nor too high. When he’d first seen her, she was dressed in a black strapless cocktail dress with a smart little sash at the waist, but even in a less festive wardrobe, she was a sight he appreciated.
“I’ve been anxious to talk to you, Macy,” he said, “but as Debra said, you could have made an appointment. In fact, you could have called ahead instead of just showing up. We exchanged numbers; we texted.” We did a hell of a lot more than text, he thought. “You could have just…”
“I could have,” said Macy, “but for this, I didn’t want to. This isn’t something I wanted to make an appointment for, and it’s not something that I wanted to call or text about. I hate putting things off anyway, but especially what you and I need to discuss.”
“I know we’ve got plenty to talk about,” said Aaron, feeling guilty for putting it that way in front of the others present.
“Yes,” Macy said firmly. “We definitely do.”
Aaron cocked his head and arched an eyebrow at that, with an unspoken response of, Okay… He looked over at his three associates. “Why don’t you gentlemen go on ahead to the meeting; we’ve got the agenda all decided anyway. Tell them you can all start without me; I’ll get up to speed when I get there.”
One of the three men said, “Yes, Mr. Bedford,” and all three of them exited together past Debra, who stood by quietly, awaiting further instructions from her boss.
To his receptionist Aaron said, “This isn’t your fault, Debra; don’t worry about it. Go on back to your desk, and I’ll just see what’s on Ms. Jacobs’s mind.” Like I don’t already know. It’s the same thing on my mind. “You’re not in trouble; just go on back.”
Relieved that her failure to intercept the woman who’d just pushed her way in had not gotten her into trouble, Debra answered, “Yes, sir, Mr. Bedford,” and made a beeline for the door, shutting it behind her.
Now he was alone with Macy, Aaron tugged lightly at the lapel of his jacket, then held out an arm to her. “Come here,” he said in a tone that Macy remembered so well from their hours together.
Her mind flooding with memories of those hours, Macy dearly wanted to fly into his arms and melt there. But she took a breath and steadied herself; she could not afford to give in to those feelings at this moment. “Aaron,” she said with an effort, “no…not now.”
Aaron looked genuinely startled at this, the very opposite of the reaction he had expected. “Macy,” he began, “you know I couldn’t greet you the way I wanted to with my receptionist and my associates in the room. But now…” he beckoned her again, “come here.” He could not have made his intentions plainer without saying the kinds of things he had said to her at his penthouse.
Macy held up a hand between them. “Aaron, no. I can’t. Not until we’ve talked.”
Aaron said, “Macy, if you’re mad at me for not calling, I told you why. I’m just back from that big trip, and I’m just starting to catch up with things. After everything we did that whole weekend, and where we left things…”
Macy cut him off. “It’s as much my fault for not calling as it is yours. But now, we absolutely have to talk.”
Aaron was perplexed now. “What else could we have to talk about besides what we did and what we want to do again? I’m anxious as hell to get back to it after being gone. I’ve never stopped thinking about it. We can…”
“It’s not about that,” Macy said.
Aaron shook his head. “I’m sorry, Macy, I’m not following. If it’s not that, then what else can it be?”
“It’s about…what happens now.”
“What happens now is we both say we’re sorry we haven't had another chance to do it, and how much we want to do it again, and we make time to do it. And you know how good I am for it. I haven’t had it since we were together, I hate not doing it for that long, and as important as the trip was, I still couldn’t get my mind off it…”
“It’s not about that, Aaron. I need you to be quiet and listen.”
Aaron rolled his eyes. “‘It’s not about that?’ Macy, that is what it was. And what it’s going to be again. I don't see what else it can be.”
“Well…now it’s something else.”
Aaron sighed. Macy could tell that he was expecting this to be the kind of conversation he had had with a great many other women about a great many other weekends. And overnights, and mornings, and nooners, and after-dinners… Well, she thought, there’s a twist on this conversation that’s going to be very new to him.
“Okay,” said Aaron. “You have my undivided attention.” He noted the frown on her face and the tension in the way she was standing, and added, “So just tell me what’s on your mind, so we can get back to things we’d rather be paying attention to.”
“Well, this is definitely going to need your undivided attention,” she said.
“Macy,” said Aaron, anticipating again. “I wish you’d just let me hold you again for a minute. Seriously, we had such a good time—after a guy has had a time like that, he doesn’t just forget it. Or at least, I don’t. I’ve been half out of my mind wanting to see you again and…continue. It was fun. We both had fun, and I meant it when I said I didn’t mean it to be just for that weekend. Not as good as that was. It was good.”
“It was,” Macy agreed.
“So, you understand it’s like I said: it wasn't just a toss-off.”
“No. No, it wasn’t.”
Aaron sensed something very odd in her tone when she said that; something odd and unsettling. “Then can you please not be upset with me, and just come to me?”
“Not yet,” said Macy. “Not ‘til after we talk.”
For the first time, a look of worry came over Aaron’s face, and a sound of concern crept into his voice. He was beginning to sense that he was now in a place he had not been with anyone else.
“Macy,” he said in a tone as if to cool her off in anticipation of a blow-up, “I wish you wouldn’t look at me the way you’re looking and sound the way you’re sounding, because it kind of seems like…”
“Like what? Like I’m expecting something more than just a good time with you?”
“Frankly,” said Aaron, “yes, that’s how you seem.”
She took a step towards him, fixing him with a look that made him more than a little nervous. Aaron had ways of defending himself with women who became demanding and aggressive. All men like him had such ways. He just never thought he’d have to call upon them with this particular woman. And besides, at this moment, he really was not dressed for it.
“Well,” said Macy, her eyes drilling into him, “I am expecting something more than just a good time. I’m definitely expecting something more.”
“What?” Aaron asked, ready to back off a step for the one she took, and not at all liking the defensive feeling in which she was putting him.
Macy pursed her lips a moment, pondering exactly what to say and realizing that in a way she had actually already told him. “You know those meetings you’re supposed to be going to this morning?” she asked.
“Yes…”
“You might want to cancel them, or delegate them, or do whatever else you have to do to clear out your schedule. You’re going to want a clear schedule for this.”
Aaron was liking the sound of this less and less by the moment. “For what?” he now demanded, his voice raising slightly.
Macy almost felt sorry for him. Clearly, he was not accustomed to being in the kind of position in which she was now putting him. Granted, he was accustomed to being in certain other kinds of positions. He had been in them enough with her. But nothing in his considerable experience had prepared him for this. No man was ever prepared for what Aaron was now about to hear.
“For this,” Macy replied.
And then, she told him.
Macy knew that Aaron often had occasion to change the color of his skin—the color and the texture. It came naturally to him; it went with what else he was besides the billionaire CEO of a conglomerate that dealt in exercise, fitness, and fitness-related media. But usually when he changed his skin, Aaron took on hues of green, blue, and tan, in scales laid over his muscles. Aaron did not usually turn as pale and porcelain and as clammy as raw poultry, the way he did now. This was a very different sort of change for him.
He actually seemed to stagger ever so slightly upon hearing the news. Then, he cleared his mind just enough to realize that he really did need to clear his schedule. He made a dash for his desk to notify Debra that he would not be going to the meeting to which he had just sent his executives, and to instruct her to pass on his apologies and tell her whom he wanted to conduct this morning’s business in his place. Then, he sat quietly with both hands on his desk to steady himself and looked over at Macy with an air of shock and confusion.
Aaron cocked his head in the direction of one of the comfortable leather chairs on the opposite side of his desk. “Come here and sit down,” he told her numbly.
Macy walked over to one of the chairs, remembering times just a couple of weeks ago when he had told her to do other things, and she had done as he said. And she remembered all the things that Aaron did next.
Which was what brought them to this moment.