Emerson
“I need to see the samples for the flooring in the main lobby of the West Shore location.” I look down at the planner in my hands as I go over all the items on the agenda for the day. “Also, I’d like you to follow up with Mr. Ellis on the progress of the new heating system in the Michigan Avenue location. Our deadline is fast approaching, and I’m concerned with the progress, or lack thereof I should say.”
I look up from my planner and face the boardroom full of people surrounding me. Each of them is looking at me for direction, waiting for their next task. Being the daughter of Hector Mansfield, CEO and founder of Emerald Suites and Hotels comes with expectations. Vast, scary, and overwhelming expectations that I wish I could run far, far away from. It was a persona I found harder and harder to uphold every single day. I was twenty-four but most of the time I felt fifty. My days were full of nothing but meetings and demands and my nights were nothing but bad television and a lonely bed.
Relationships for me were hard. Men my age were looking for a woman who could go out, be wild and crazy, and shake things up in the bedroom. Me, I was boring. I worked long hours, and as for the bedroom…well, let's say I wasn’t that experienced. I didn’t have time to be the woman all the men my age seemed to be looking for. Or maybe I was too busy being the daughter my parents wanted me to be. Bred to be the perfect daughter and the heiress of Emerald was my life. Everything I said and did was subjected to constant ridicule from my father who believed everything should be straight and narrow. There was never room for error in his eyes; he wasn’t happy unless he was in full control—of everything.
With the exception of Gianna, my best friend, everything was so redundant and clean in my life.
Gianna was wild, and that wasn’t a bad thing. She just knew what she wanted out of life and wasn’t afraid to go after it. My father felt Gia wasn’t a valuable influence on me, but she was the one thing I refused to give up. She kept me sane in my life of perfection. She was my saving grace when I felt like Hector Mansfield was drowning me. She knew the kind of man he was, and it helped that she wasn’t fearful of his power or his intimidating manners.
“Okay, that's it for now.” I direct my attention back to the room of people who are still staring at me awaiting my assignments. “I want that information I’ve requested back to me within an hour.” I hear a few “Yes, ma’am’s” which only make me cringe. Most of the people in this room are twice my age and they are calling me ma’am. A lot of them were with my father and Emerald long before I was even out of high school. It all felt wrong. I’m the first to admit that. I should be working beneath them learning the ropes, not demanding the same things my father requires from me.
Walking down the hall toward my office, I check my planner once more to ensure my afternoon was clear. Arriving at my office, I push open the door and don’t even take the time to look up as I step inside.
“It’s about damn time.”
My body jerks in surprise at the sound of Gianna’s voice as it echoes throughout my office. She’s sitting in my desk chair with her feet propped up on my desk like she owns the place.
“I was just about to shrivel up and die of boredom. Or worse, be forced to do something productive.” She allowed her eyes to widen just enough to emphasize what extremes she had reached.
Her blonde hair was long and flowing with green and blue highlights throughout. There wasn’t so much color that it overtook the natural blonde of her hair, but a small touch that was perfect for her bright personality. Flashy radiant colors looked terrific on her. She could pull off just about anything crazy and still look beautiful. She’d always had that natural glow that made those around her turn as she walked by. It helps that she owns her own salon and has the world of beauty at her fingertips. Even without that luxury, I still think she’d be gorgeous.
I am just the opposite of Gianna. My hair is rarely down, but usually swept up in some updo that she says is such a shame. I have the hair most stylists would love to get their hands on. Reddish brown, natural flowing waves, but I hide it away in a teacher’s bun as Gianna likes to call it. The style is practical and for me, it works. It saves me so much time in the mornings, leaving more time to work and prepare for my day.
“You look like a nun.” My gaze connects with hers once again, and I find her looking over my attire with her nose wrinkled in a displeased manner. “I take that back, I think even a nun has more style than you at the moment.”
“And you look like a child that got trapped in a room with a case of hair chalk and too much time on their hands.”
“You’re just jealous.” She smiles wide. “You wish you had the nerve to be spontaneous like me.” I roll my eyes, trying my very best to act like she is just utterly ridiculous, but Gianna knows me too well. I do wish I had the nerve to let go and have fun for a change. I always found myself overanalyzing every move, then deciding the outcome wasn’t even worth the risk of being caught trying to live my own life as I see fit. Hector would find out and chastise me for my actions, calling them childish, immature, and an embarrassment to our name. I call him Hector because Dad feels too intimate and he was never really the loving, doting father he pretended to be. It was all a mask to those around us, part of the fantasy he liked to create. He also insisted upon it, as Father wasn’t right for business.
“Anyway,” Gianna lowers her feet and stands from my chair, “you about done for the day?”
“I have a few emails to send and some loose ends to tie up before I can slip out. Why?”
“Because it’s the weekend.” She hurries around the side of my desk and steps in front of it. “I’ve made plans for us.” She crosses her arms and leans back against the desk, like she knew what my reaction would be.
“I was planning on staying home tonight and catching up on the work I’ve let go this week,” I say, knowing she’s rolling her eyes at me as I move around her, ignoring her poisoned stare. “I’m not really in the mood to go out and drink.”
“Who said we’re going out to drink?”
I laugh. “Because Gianna, a night out with you always leaves me hungover the next day. Then I spend the remainder of my weekend attempting to recover.”
“I’ll have you know I bought two tickets to a charity auction.” She pulls them out of her back pocket and holds them up. I can only see the backs of the tickets and the words “Breast Cancer Awareness” printed in a bright pink color against the cream paper. “It’s for a good cause and there are hundreds of women attending this event.”
I know there is a catch; there is always a catch. Gianna is a sweet girl, one with a fantastic heart, but I know she wouldn’t be willing to spend her Friday night at a charitable event if there wasn’t an upside. She would send a large donation and avoid the hassle of the actual event itself.
“What’s the catch?”
She gasps and has the nerve to look offended by my words, which only makes my smile shine brighter because she is so transparent to me. “Are you saying that I couldn’t just be willingly going to this auction out of the goodness of my heart?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying.” I don’t even hesitate to respond. “What are they auctioning off anyway?”
That’s when I see it, that shift in her stance. The nervous twitch that she usually hides so well from everyone else. But she can’t hide it from me. “Gorgeous artifacts.” She shrugs and looks away just as a smirk tugs at her lips.
“Gorgeous artifacts, huh?”
She nods and moves toward the large windows that overlook Chicago. The Gianna avoidance phase begins. If she isn’t looking directly at you, it is so much easier for her to hide the fact that she is leaving things out.
“Show me the tickets, Gia.” She ignores me as she pretends to look out at the streets below. “Gia,” I say louder and see her shoulders vibrate with laughter.
Instead of waiting for her to acknowledge me, I move in and pull the tickets from her hand. She attempts to grab them back, but doesn’t even come close as I move away quickly, putting a wide space between us.
They are for a charitable event to raise money for breast cancer, but what is being auctioned isn’t artifacts. “Men,” I say, looking up at her, “they’re auctioning off men?”
There is a long pause as she watches me, her mouth opening and closing like a fish. She is at a loss for words. That is something of a total rarity for her. I know she was waiting for my freak out and I could feel it bubbling inside.
“As in real live men,” I add, looking back down at the tickets. A boy toy auction to raise money for breast cancer in a city full of horny, lonely woman. Genius or plain stupid, I couldn’t decide. They are tossing these men to the wolves.
“It’s a night with a man.”
“So they are prostituting these guys out?”
She laughs. “Well, they aren’t selling their dicks, Emerson.” I find her smiling wide as her shoulders continue to shake with ongoing laughter. “Nowhere does it advertise a night of freaky, dirty, no holds barred sex. It’s the company of a gorgeous man.”
“Please.” I roll my eyes and hand the tickets back to her. “Just because they aren’t advertising sex doesn’t mean that isn’t what they’re selling.”
“Well, someone has her mind in the gutter.” She looks at me accusingly, doing this strange little wobble of her head from side to side. She was so mocking me, I just knew it.
“I’ll pass.” I choose to ignore her accusations. I can see it now—Hector getting wind of me going to such an event, then me having to suffer through his lectures later. It was always the same one too. “You have people that are judging your every move, Emerson.” The fact was he was the one analyzing my every step.
“You’re not passing,” she corrects me. “You’re going, and you’re gonna have fun. You’re getting boring, Emerson, and pretty soon you’re going to wake up and realize that you have wasted the best years of your life. Things are gonna start to sag, you’re gonna have wrinkles around your eyes, and you’re gonna be married to some executive named Walter who thinks the idea of living it up is drinking red wine before five in the evening.” I wrinkle my nose at the horrid description she just gave. “I know.” She reaches out and places her hand on my shoulder. “It’s awful, babe. That is exactly why you are going tonight.”
When I attempt to argue once more, she lifts her hand and presses her finger to my lips. In turn, I raise my brows, making her laugh.
“I’ll pick you up at five, we need to get to the salon right away. I’m doing your hair and we have to be there by seven.” She quickly moves toward the door, whistling the whole way and ensuring this is not up for debate. “No need to pick out something to wear, I already have that covered too. Becca and Milly will meet us there. They’re going earlier to grab a table in front. Something tells me we wanna be up front, close and personal with all the steamy treasures.” She winks and juts out her hip, doing some strange little kick of her heel thing.
Then she was gone, and I was left speechless.