Bell
“If you’re taking me to some weird sex den, I’m not going to be happy.”
Chuckling, Chase pulls my hand away from the blindfold he tied around my eyes. “I’m not taking you to some weird sex den.”
“A normal sex den?” I ask, intertwining our fingers.
“Why are you stuck on sex dens? And why do I detect a tone of disappointment that we are not going to one?”
I shrug. “I don’t know. Might be interesting. I’m not wearing the right underwear, though. If I went to a sex den, I’d need Susan to help me find more appropriate panties.”
Chase makes a strangled sound. “It seems you’ve given this some thought.”
“Alice got me hooked on some of her romance novels. There’s this one about a sex club and a voyeur room where—”
He silences me with a kiss. A long and sexy kiss that ends with him pinning me to the backseat of the limo and dry humping me into orgasm.
Just like old times.
“We’re here.”
“Wait, what?” Still a little out of it from our make-out session, I struggle to sit up, reaching for my blindfold.
Chase pushes my hand away. “Not yet.”
“Humph.” I straighten my clothes and hair as best I can without being able to see. “Well now I don’t feel so bad about your blue balls.”
The car door opens, and Chase takes my hand, leading me out the door and wrapping a coat around me. New York’s winter wind whips my hair around.
“What are you up to, Chase Moore?”
“One more sec…” He shuffles me over a few steps, taking care I don’t trip. “There.” He pulls off the blindfold. “Open your eyes.”
I blink against the afternoon light reflecting on the light dusting of snow spread over Central Park.
“The park?” Seems odd he’d want this to be a surprise. We often come to the park for tacos on our lunch break. But looking around, this isn’t where the taco stand is. This section of the park is farther east. Where the residential section is.
“Yes. I just wanted you to see the view from our new place.”
“What are you talking about?”
Placing his hands on my shoulders, he turns me until my back is to the park and I’m facing a row of older, stately mansions.
“Isn’t that Thomas’s house?” I point to the left, down the street, where his new sapphire-blue door stands out against the whitewashed brick.
“Yes.” He moves my outstretched hand to the right, one door over. “And that’s ours.”
I’m not sure if it’s the chill in the air or the lack of tacos, but I’m having trouble understanding him.
“I don’t get it. What do you mean, our place?”
Smiling that charming smile of his, Chase takes my hand and leads me across the street. His other hand dips into his camel cashmere coat, pulling out a brass key hanging from a Texas-shaped key chain.
“What is that?”
Not answering, he climbs up the front stairs and slides the key into the house’s red door.
“You have the key?” My mind is still not catching up to real-time events.
“I do. But this one is yours.” He hands it to me before pushing open the front door and leading me into a large foyer. It’s empty of furniture but for a large crystal chandelier. When he flicks a switch, the soft glow from it reflects off an intricately designed parquet floor and bare white walls.
I look around and then down at the key in my hand. “I don’t understand.”
He leads me up the curling staircase, my shoes clicking on the floors, the sound echoing through the empty house.
Almost-empty house.
Once we’re on the third floor, Chase ushers me into a large, loft-like room. “I thought this might remind you of home.”
A huge wagon-wheel chandelier hangs above a simple desk. Behind it, there’s a Warhol Campbell Soup print. I squint at it. “That… that isn’t real, is it?”
Instead of answering, Chase smiles, looking somewhat embarrassed. “Do you like it?” The uncertainty in his voice shakes me out of my brain fog.
“You bought us a house?”
He nods, cringing slightly, like he’s expecting something unpleasant.
“Next to your brother’s?”
Another nod.
“And you bought me a real soup can?”
Running a hand through his hair, he sighs. “If you don’t like it, I can—”
I throw my arms around his neck, kissing him hard. “I love it. I love you. I can’t believe…” My eye catches on another painting behind me. “Oh. My. God.”
Mike Hunt, artistically rendered in Warhol silkscreen style, gazes down from an oversized canvas hung above the wide doorway. Mike is a technicolor wash of green, blue, and pink.
And he’s licking his balls.
“You immortalized Mike Hunt.” A shocked laugh escapes, and I cover my mouth with my hands when it turns into a strangled sob.
“Whoa, are you okay?” Chase wraps me in his arms.
I breathe deeply into his shoulder, his scent calming me down.
“I can take the picture down.”
“No.” I grab his coat lapels, staring into his eyes. “Don’t you dare change a thing.” I sniff. “It’s perfect.”
Relief washes over him. “Thank God. You scared me there for a minute.”
I look back up at the painting. “How in the world did you manage that?”
“Liz did it.”
“Liz? She’s back?”
He shakes his head. “No. But she started emailing me when I sent her a text about buying a house. We’ve sent a few messages back and forth. When I told her my idea for your office, she sent me this.” He points at the painting of Mike in flagrante.
I hug him tight, knowing how much hearing from Liz must have meant to him. “That’s great, Chase. I knew she just needed time.”
He wraps his arms around me, kissing my cheek. We hug for a while until I turn us so we’re both looking at my new Elizabeth Moore original. “That is the best housewarming present in the history of housewarming presents.”
“It isn’t actually a housewarming present.” Chase runs a hand through his hair, one of his nervous habits.
“It isn’t?”
“Ah, no.” He reaches into his coat pocket, this time pulling out a small box.
A ring box.
“It’s an engagement present.” Stepping back, he gets down on one knee, right under Mike Hunt’s ball sack.
“Oh my God.” My hands fly to my mouth again.
“Campbell Dougherty, I’m pretty sure I loved you at third-degree nipple burn.”
“Oh my God,” I repeat, this time a bit muffled.
“I love your creative genius, your caring nature, and your uncanny ability to see through my shit and love me anyway.” He opens the box, where a beautiful, large, emerald-cut diamond in an Art Deco setting winks at me under the wagon-wheel chandelier lights. “Will you do me the honor of marrying me? For better, or for worse, hairless pussy and all?”
Laughing through the tears I can’t hold back any longer, I nod. “Yes, you crazy man. I’ll marry you.”
“Thank fuck.” Chase gets to his feet, plucking the ring out of the box and sliding it on my finger. Six more baguette diamonds, three on each side, flank the larger center stone. It’s ridiculous. It’s too much.
“It’s beautiful.”
“Thomas helped me pick it out.” He runs a finger over the ring. “Turns out he has great taste.”
“Thomas, huh?” Nothing makes me happier than seeing Chase reconnect with his family. It doesn’t hurt that his family has become mine too. Even Emily and I have lunch at least once a week.
“Yeah, he’s taking his best man duties very seriously.” He frowns. “Too seriously, really. Man needs to lighten up.”
“I think he’s done quite a bit of lightening up since taking you up on your offer to run Moores.”
“Ugh. Don’t get me started on his uptight tendencies. Sharing an office with him while the second is finishing is driving me crazy.” His nostrils flare and his brow pinches together. It’s a new look for him, showing people when he’s annoyed instead of hiding it behind a laugh and a smile.
I’ve found that annoyed Chase is just as handsome as smiling Chase.
“The man has a hissy fit if I so much as toss a pen on the desk, let alone prop my feet on it.”
Rolling my eyes, I ignore him and stare at my ring. I have a feeling I’ll be doing that a lot. The ring staring, that is. Chase is impossible to ignore for long.
“The wedding will loosen him up. A trip to Sin City will do him good.”
It takes a moment for what he said to sink in. A slow smile spreads over my face knowing just how much this man knows and loves me. “Sin City?”
Pulling me close, Chase touches his lips to mine before dragging them across my jaw, down my neck and back up, stopping at my ear. “Viva Las Vegas, baby.”
______________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Bonus Content: Anyone But the Boss
Chapter One
Thomas
I never understood the appeal of a hairless pussy.
‘Here, hold him.’ Chase thrusts said pussy in my direction, holding him out over the massive Persian rug in our father’s office, like baby Simba over Pride Rock.
Except it isn’t a cute and cuddly lion being offered up to the savannah as the heir to the animal kingdom. It’s a bald, wrinkled adolescent cat.
‘Absolutely not.’ My arms remain firmly at my sides.
‘Oh, come on, man.’ He jiggles the cat, like that somehow makes him more appealing. ‘Mikey’s a good guy, you just need to get to know him.’
I watch as two skin folds morph into one as it twists in his owner’s hands. I don’t even bother hiding my disdain. ‘I have no desire to get to know your cat.’
‘Fine.’ Chase huffs a defeated breath and lowers the feline to the floor.
As if knowing he was stoutly rejected, the cat levels me with snide look then begins licking his balls. The visual is an eyesore in and of itself, but the noise… the noise is enough to make my morning protein shake churn in my stomach.
Pointing at the offending animal, I level my stare at my brother. ‘If that stains the carpet, you will reimburse the company from your personal account.’
With a deep, offending sigh, Chase scoops up his cat and deposits it on the upholstered chair in front of my desk.
Like that’s any better.
With the cat moved and the licking over, Chase throws what some female employees at Moore’s refer to as a ‘charming look’ in my direction. ‘Looking forward to cat-sitting while I’m on my honeymoon?’
I do not find my brother charming. In fact, a few months ago I might have said that I disliked my brother. Though that would’ve been a lie.
He leans over the back of the chair to pat his pet, looking like he’s tenderizing a chicken breast.
‘I thought Bell wanted him to come with you.’
He stops patting his pet long enough to look up at me like a kid who dropped his ice cream cone. ‘Bell always wants Mikey with her.’
I’m not the best at social cues, but… ‘Are you jealous of your cat?’ Confused, I point at beady-eyed, loose-skinned beast with more indecent exposure violations than Marylin Manson – and less physical attractiveness. ‘That cat?’
Another shrug. ‘Maybe.’
I’m not surprised often, but I am surprised that he’d admit to such a thing. But then again Chase has always been good about expressing himself. One of the many, many ways we differ.
But in the name of turning over a new leaf, now that our father is in prison and Chase and I have begun mending our fences, I attempt to express myself. ‘I don’t like animals.’
See? Emotional growth. I can change.
Chase’s expression falls.
‘And I especially don’t like ugly animals.’
He clutches his chest like an old lady would her pearls. The cat, as if understanding my words, resumes his licking.
‘Ask Mother.’ I’d rather not pass the buck, or the cat, as it were, but our mother lives in a six-thousand-square-foot mansion complete with a bevy of maids that will cater to Mike’s every catnip desire. And I’m sure, if paid enough, one will even pet the damn thing.
‘Mom’s going on that singles cruise.’
To say that Emily Moore, the matriarch of the Moore fortune, is enjoying divorced life, would be an understatement.
‘And Liz is…’ Chase shrugs.
We don’t actually know where our sister is. It’s a point of contention in our family.
Especially with me. I still require weekly updates from the federal correctional institute in Otisville just to make sure our father is doing exactly what he needs to be doing – nothing.
Which means when Liz skipped town, Chase and I wanted to hire a private detective. I’d had one fully vetted and ready to go when Mother and Bell teamed up to stop us. They think Liz needs time and space to come to terms with the fact that she isn’t the daughter of the man she’d always considered her father.
Personally, I would think knowing that I wasn’t blood related to the man arrested for embezzling her inheritance would be great news. Hell, even if it wasn’t my inheritance that was embezzled, I’d still welcome the news that Stanley Moore – an irresponsible, mentally abusive crook with poor business acumen – and I weren’t related.
But that’s just me.
Chase leans against the built-in bookshelves. ‘Trust me, I tried everyone else. George said he’d quit if I even asked him.’ Seeing as George, Chase’s, and now our, administrative assistant, runs the place, I can understand Chase’s reluctance to push the matter.
He glances over his shoulder at the door, as if worried George heard him talking. Sighing in relief when George’s perfectly quaffed and pomaded low-profile pompadour doesn’t pop into the open door frame, he turns back to pleading his case. ‘Bell even asked Alice, but her building doesn’t allow pets.’
My gaze jerks away from the car crash that is my brother’s pet. ‘Alice?’
‘Yeah, Alice. Your new marketing team’s visual merchandiser.’ He drops his head to one side, assessing me, an annoying smirk on his face. ‘You know, dark-haired, slim and shy?’
‘Yes, I’m aware of who Alice is, thank you.’ Though I wish I wasn’t. Much to my consternation, I am very much aware of Alice Truman.
‘You do, huh?’ The smirk grows.
‘Yes.’ I pick up my fountain pen from the desk and examine the personalized ‘Moore’s’ written across the cap. ‘She’s the one with the unfortunate haircut. Formerly of the shoe department. Great eye for displays.’
Chase’s smirk drops into an open-mouth gape. ‘Dude…’
I quirk a brow at my brother’s obvious reproach. Alice was hired out of the shoe department for her eye-catching and stellar floor displays a few months ago. She’s in her twenties and yet the severely cut bangs she’s currently trying to grow out make her look just out of high school.
Everything I said was true. And yet, it’s obvious from my brother’s reaction, that I was not supposed to say it.
My family likes to inform me that I’m rude. Though the words they use in replace of rude are far more colorful.
I don’t mean to sound that way. I just… do. Why spend time trying to cultivate words and phrases that soothe people’s much too sensitive feelings when the unvarnished truth wastes less time with its lack of ambiguity. I have spent years honing my efficiency.
And if I’m honest with myself, which I try not to be when it comes to feelings, the way I am might also have to do with my upbringing.
Prior to my father’s arrest, if I had mentioned how impressed I was that a shoe salesperson made the leap into marketing on their own merits, or if I noted how rare it is that a person with such an unfortunate haircut could still strike such a favorable appearance, my father would use it against me. Even just acknowledging that I knew a female employee’s name would be cause for my father to feel the need to intervene. And as his intervening would be either to fire them or sleep with them – as if proving to me, his heir, that he still rules the manor – I began honing my poker face early on. Cutting away the superfluous.
Now fixed at forty years of age, my deadened demeanor elicits two outcomes: fear or anger. For my brother, before our reconciliation, it was the latter. While for most everyone else, especially employees, it’s the former.
Alice is the rare exception. For someone as tiny and beneath me in terms of business hierarchy, she does not ingratiate. And to anyone else she’s shy, polite and unfailingly kind. Just not me.
A fact that in itself isn’t particularly noteworthy as I tend to make most people, not just employees, uncomfortable. However, for some reason, I feel the bite of Alice’s cold shoulder and the sting of her sharp words whereas I remain impervious to others’. And even more disturbing than the fact that I note a difference, is how even after becoming aware of this sensitivity, I have yet to control it.
Which is probably why I’m unusually and annoyingly cognizant of her.
No other reason.
* * *
Alice
Thomas Moore – my boss and the most arrogant man in all of New York – is an asshole.
‘Good morning, Mr Moore.’ Chase jumps in surprise as I walk into the office. A glance at Thomas shows no reaction. ‘Mr Moore.’
Typical.
The stiff, rude and prideful Thomas couldn’t be more different than the charming, sweet-talking and socially astute Chase.
I hand Thomas my design proposal for the upcoming front window display.
‘Alice, hi.’ Chase runs a hand through his hair, a guilty look on his face. ‘All ready for Vegas?’
As it isn’t his fault his brother is a snob, I force a smile to my face. ‘Yes. Can’t wait.’
Chase cuts his eyes to his brother, widening them as if begging him to say something.
Thomas opens the folder I gave him, skimming over my display proposal. ‘I’ll make notes and get back to you.’
Chase runs a hand down his face. Mike, who I just noticed peeking his head over the chair, meows with more emotion than Thomas Moore probably has in his heart.
‘Great.’ My smile feels brittle, my words clipped. ‘Thanks.’
I make my exit, walking stiffly down the hall.
George’s eyebrows shoot up over the top of his horned-rimmed glasses as I pass by him standing in the break-room doorway. No doubt shocked that the usually perky and cheerful Alice Truman is seething. Because I am not a seether. I never have been.
I’m perpetually polite. I avoid confrontation. I’m a peacekeeper.
But right now, instead of making peace, I want to punch Thomas Moore in his ridiculously handsome face.
Thankfully, George gets distracted by the whistling and beeping coming from the complex espresso machine that he insisted Chase buy him, enabling me to turn the corner and slip into the office supply closet without explanation.
I need to collect myself. I need to forget Thomas Moore’s dismissive words. And I most definitely need to forget the week I spent going from cologne counter to cologne counter during my lunch break trying to figure out how, in the rare moments that I was in the same room as him, the condescending jerk smelled so delicious.
It took five days and a lot of sneezing but I figured it out – money.
Thomas Moore smells so delicious because he can buy a cologne that costs more than the monthly rent of a three-hundred-and-eighty-foot studio in a kind-of-sketchy but not-so-bad part of town.
The part of town that I live in.
Maybe if I had expensive-cologne-buying money, I could afford a real haircut and not an at-home special where I, regretfully, thought I could copy the curtain bang trend, but somehow ended up with heavy blunt fringe that made me look pre-pubescent.
But while it is not my best look, I resent the hell out of Mr Starched Shirts for pointing it out. Just because he gets his chocolate-colored locks routinely trimmed by the best barber New York City has to offer, not all of us were born with a silver spoon.
Taking a deep breath, I make the most of my hiding spot and rifle through one of the boxes until I find the multicolored packs of Post-it notes. Bell likes to say my office looks like a serial killer’s hang-out. But sticking color-coded Post-it notes and Polaroid pictures on my walls makes it easier for me to organize ongoing projects and social media posting schedules, as well as brainstorm window and floor displays.
I grab more blue ones – the color I use for Moore’s social media posts. I use a lot of those.
Moore’s never had its own marketing team, let alone a visual merchandiser. Instead, they’d hired outside marketing firms for advertising purposes and let floor managers display whichever goods they wanted based on whatever sales numbers they wanted to hit that month.
It was an outdated system that left a lot to be desired both creatively and financially. It wasn’t until the middle Moore sibling, Chase, took over last year that the lack of proper and current marketing strategies was rectified.
I may have come from the shoe department, as Thomas Moore so aptly said, but I’m now Moore’s first hire for their internal marketing department. My official title is lead visual merchandiser and social media coordinator. Basically, when not posting pictures on my phone, I do a lot of dressing and undressing of mannequins.
Not bad for a former shoe salesperson who aged-out of the foster care system.
Cracking the door open, I glance down the hall. Coast clear.
I couldn’t be happier with a job that will allow me to help the people who depend on me, I remind myself as I quick-step toward the elevator.
Well, no, that’s a lie. I definitely could be happier.
When the doors open I jump in and keep pressing the close door button until I’m safely shut inside.
I could not have to deal with Thomas Moore.