Page 59 of Man Vs. Woman
Serena
Five.
That’s how many weeks Colt and I have been together. Thirty-five days after I finally admitted—more to myself than to him—that I had fallen in love.
It’s funny but, in a lot of different ways, I feel just like a teenage girl with her first boyfriend. Sure, I’ve been around, and I’ve dated a fair share of men during my college years...and, of course, there was Hoyt as well. Who could forget about that asshole mutant?
But I’ve never felt what I now feel with Colt.
Love...it’s such an easy word to say, isn’t it? But, at the same time, it’s probably the hardest to understand.
What a thing, huh? For love to show up on my doorstep, right when the rest of my life seems to be crumbling around me.
Twelve.
It’s kinda crazy to say it, but that’s how many millions I’ve lost in revenue during this past month. Twelve freaking millions. Can you even imagine it? Yeah, despite how happy I’ve been these past few weeks, there’s no running away from the facts—I can’t afford to have the spa closed. And, really, there’s no other way around it...I need the site at Clarendon Tower, or else I’ll be utterly and completely screwed.
If I don’t open up for business soon enough, my accounts will dry up in no time. And if that happens, how the hell am I going to keep my apartment? And, sorry to say, I refuse to go somewhere else that’s not Clarendon Tower.
Call me spoiled, call me whatever you want, but despite its flaws...that damn building is the best place to live anywhere in the world. Yeah, sure, it’s crazy at times—asshole board presidents, tenants fighting over who gets to keep an apartment, paintings being stolen, food fights...but hey, that’s kind the charm of it, don’t you think?
I mean, sure, I could live someplace else in New York, a building equally fancy and with all the amenities a millionaire woman in her twenties might need. But where would the fun in that be? Even Trump Tower, will all those Secret Service guys messing up the traffic and news reporters circling the place like vultures, pales in comparison with Clarendon Tower.
There’s no place quite like Clarendon Tower.
Four.
That’s how many days are left until Clarendon Tower Board reconvenes. And that’ll be the moment of truth, won’t it? God, just thinking of it is enough to make me nervous. It’s almost as if that damn thing won’t be a meeting, but a fight to the death. I wouldn’t be surprised if, instead of finding the place packed with chairs, I found an MMA cage right in the middle of the meeting room.
Not to mention that the whole thing doesn’t even feel that fair to begin with it. Hiram has loaded his dice, with his talk of jobs opportunities and whatnot, and the guy feels so damn oily that I have no idea how we’re going to beat him. It’s as if he’s impossible to take down.
More than that, Hiram seems...dangerous, in a sense. We’ve looked at all the paperwork we could get on him, trying to look for dirt, and although you can’t really tie his name to something specific, there’s always a shadow here and there whenever a company he owns or works with is mentioned.
We haven’t found the fire, but we sure as hell have spotted all the smoke.
Zero.
That’s how many hours I truly devoted to worrying about Hiram.
Kinda contradictory, right? I know I just told you I worry about him but, truth be told, being with Colt made it all easy for me. Somehow, I haven’t been stressing out. I know, probably not the best thing to say when my whole business and livelihood depends on it, but what can I say? Between the dating, the hot sex, and trying to shape up my bid for the site into something great and worthy of the residents’ votes, it’s not like I had enough time to worry about what slimy asshole is planning to do.
Sure, I worry a bit, I won’t lie. It’s not like the asshole never crosses my mind. I do wonder about what Hiram is doing from time to time...I simply don’t dwell on it, you know? And now that Colt and I have teamed up for good, I’m no longer afraid of what the future might bring.
Together, we can do anything.
Seven.
That’s how many dates I’ve been with Colt. And when I say dates, I meanproperdates.
We went out for dinner, we went out to the movies...we even went out to a little flea market in the Lower East Side, where we walked side by side, hand in hand, through the bustling sea of New Yorkers around us.
Like a team.
Like a couple.
Funny how a man like Colt, a billionaire entrepreneur whose whole being has been tailored to fit the expensive high-life of New York, seems so at ease in the regular world. Not that I can point fingers at him, anyway. Since I made my first million with the spa and relocated to Clarendon Tower, that I turned my back on the simple things in life. With the long hours I was working, I barely had enough time to breathe, let alone do something as simple as take a walk.
But with Colt...the simple things seem fresh again.
