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Then again, if he knew how long I spent on my hands and knees searching for this thing, he might understand.
Last week, Mom came home unexpectedly, interrupting my middle-of-the-day “alone time,” and I’d tossed it over my shoulder without thinking. When I went back to finish the deed later, I couldn’t find it.
I squeeze the handle like I’m hugging an old friend. Hell, these days, this purple vibrator is the closest I’ve come to having any kind of romantic relationship.
My vibrator identifies as male and his name is Seth. We’ve been happily involved for the last year and a half.
Admittedly, it was more of a friends-with-benefits type situation until eleven months ago when Mom’s routine health checkup came back with a stage two cancer diagnosis that knocked the air right out of both of us.
From that moment on, Seth became my primary source of comfort and stress relief. The last week has been hell without him.
The office door opens and Miss Oxford breezes past me with a cool smile on her face that I interpret as a job interview gone right.
“Miss Barnes,” the receptionist calls, “you’re next.”
Dropping Seth back into the depths of my purse like a hot potato, I slide my bag onto my shoulder and walk through the double doors.
Do it for Mom,says the voice in my head.
Do it to not humiliate yourself,says another.
Close enough.
“Good evening.” I greet the tall, broad-shouldered man standing by the windows with his back to me. Truth be told, I don’t mind. This whole interview might go better for me if he never turns around. “I’m Laila Barnes.”
He turns, somewhat lazily, towards me, and…
Whoa.
It’s disgusting how some people have it all. Arsen Adamov is twenty-eight, obscenely famous, filthy rich… and also, apparently, has bone structure designed by the gods.
Olive-green eyes, bright and perceptive, pass over me in a single, smooth sweep, and I’m positive he knows all of my sins. He raises a hand—a calloused hand, ahugehand—and drags it through his tousled auburn hair in what must be slow motion. When he purses his lips, I just know that somewhere outthere—maybe in several somewheres—there are romance novels dedicated to mouths like his.
Even if this interview is a bust, at least I have a new imaginary face for Seth.
His eyes narrow.
Dammit.I knew he should’ve stayed facing the windows.How can he hate me already?
“You’re buzzing.” His voice is deep, rich, chocolatey. It scrambles my thoughts.
“Excuse me?”
His lip curls. “Silence your phone.”
“Oh.” I’m already digging into my bag for my phone when I realize that the incessant vibration is accompanied by a soft but distinctive whirring sound. A sound I’ve become intimately familiar with over the last eighteen months.
Shit.
“S-sorry,” I stutter, fumbling around in my bag for my noisy mechanical boyfriend. “Let me just?—”
The aged shoulder pads of my jacket are no match for my heavy purse, and the strap slips right down my arm. The contents of my bag spill across the carpet like lava racing down the sides of the volcano.
My phone. Tampons. A dusty breath mint.
But the star of the show is Seth, who is rolling—and still vibrating, I might add…
Straight towards Arsen Adamov’s feet.
