The Siren
He raised his head, picked up the phone and dialed. After two rings Wesley answered.
“She’s not here, Zach. Want to leave a message?”
“Does she have her mobile on her? Do you know where she is?”
“She’s in your office, Zach.”
Zach looked up and found Nora standing in his office doorway. She knocked twice on the open door and waited.
“Never mind, Wesley. She’s here.” Zach hung up. “How are you, Nora?”
“We need to talk about the blow job.”
Zach stood up and rushed around his desk. He pulled her inside the office and shut the door behind her.
“The blow job scene in my book.” She raised her voice as Zach sat at his desk again.
“You will be the death of me. You realize that, don’t you?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m here to discuss my book with my editor. I still have an editor, don’t I?”
“Of course. I’ve been busy this week.”
“Busy ignoring me.”
“I have responded to everything you’ve sent me.”
“Yes, with notes and polite suggestions. I don’t need polite suggestions. Polite doesn’t help me. How do I know what I’m doing right if you aren’t telling me what I’m doing wrong? I need you to be angry again, not polite. I think I liked it better when you hated me.”
“I never hated you.” Zach forced himself to meet her eyes. He took a deep breath and sat up straighter in his chair. “I never hated you or the book. It’s only…about Saturday night—”
Nora opened her mouth and he raised his hand.
“About Saturday night,” he began again. “I need to apologize.”
Nora looked at him in wide-eyed surprise. “Zach—”
“Please, let me finish. I’m terribly sorry about what happened. I had too much to drink, and I was still reeling from Grace’s last email. That’s no excuse, I realize. I shouldn’t have taken advantage of you in your condition. It was foolish and reckless and I—”
“Zach, seriously. You have to stop,” Nora said and laughed.
Zach stared at her. She shook her head.
“You know why I’m here? I came to apologize to you,” she said.
“Whatever for?”
“I thought I was here to apologize to you for taking advantage of you in your condition, but apparently I’m the victim here. Novel sensation for me, being the victim. Not sure I like it.”
“Nora, I’m your editor.”
“Yes, my gorgeous editor with his poshy British accent and his ice-colored eyes and tennis player arms with the veins running from the wrist to the elbow. Oh, no, please don’t ever force me to go down on you again, Mr. Easton. It’s a fate worse than death.”
“This isn’t a bloody joke.”
“No, it’s not a joke. It’s a blow job.”
“Will you please stop saying that?”
“Fine. I fellated you, sucked you off, gave you an Oscar Wilde. But call it what you will, Zach, I handcuffed you to my desk and blew you back to England. And for some reason you aren’t thrilled that happened. It’s a bit of a, forgive me, blow to the ego, but I’ll survive. What I want to know is why you’re taking it so personally.”
Zach sat back in his chair and counted the days until he was on a plane to California. If he were on a plane to California right now, a plane to anywhere, he wouldn’t be having the most humiliating conversation of his life.
“I take it personally because that night was the first night I’d been intimate with any woman other than my wife in over ten years. That may seem rather bourgeois to you, but I’m afraid I’m terribly bourgeois when it comes to matters of infidelity—”
“She’s moved on.”
Zach ignored the comment.
“Not to mention taking advantage of a woman I have some modicum of power over.”
“Power? You think you have power over me? You wouldn’t know what to do with yourself if you had power over me. You are helping me make my book publishable. You work for me as much as I work for you.”
“I have the power to decide if your book gets published. I alone have the final say.”
Nora stood up and walked around the desk. She sat on the top and crossed her legs. Her knees and thighs were at Zach’s eye level. Zach refused to look at her legs, her sheer stockings and short red skirt and the boots that went up to her knees. He met her eyes and waited.
“If I gagged you right now and put you flat on your back and f**ked you seven ways till Sunday right here on this fine mahogany desk…would you sign my contract?” she asked.
“Absolutely not. And that’s not going to happen.” Zach forced back the flood of images her words conjured in his mind.
Nora slid off the desk and onto her knees next to his chair.
“What if I just gave you my best Oscar Wilde again every day for the next three weeks? Would you sign my contract then?”
“Nora, you can’t buy your contract with sexual favors.” Zach reached down and pulled Nora up off the floor. “I told you I wouldn’t sign it until I’d read the very last page and I meant it.”
“I know you meant it. That’s my point. I probably could buy off a lesser man with sex, a lesser editor. But you and I both know that even if we’d had sex ten times Saturday night, you still wouldn’t sign my contract until the book was perfect. You might think less of me, or yourself more likely, but you’d read the book with the same eyes that see every flaw and the same mind that knows how to fix it. You’re just afraid to be mean to my face because you think I’ll think it was about Saturday night. Be as mean to me as you want, Zach. Trust me.” She leaned forward and met him eye to eye. “I like mean.”