Page 3 of New Girl in the City
Chapter Two
The meeting had gone well. I was emailing about my victory to our CEO. I’d scored big with the endearing French mumbling American card and had charmed the head of Arington. Jean Recard was an older man with salt and pepper hair and a warm smile that could make a woman’s mind wander. There was a definite sparkle in the older man’s eyes that may or may not have made me blush, but I kept my head in the game and firmly focused on business. I knew what mixing the two could get you—a reason I did neither. Not with my history.
I’d just graduated from college. Most of my college friends had scattered to the winds, even Aurora had left that summer to be with Dylan. I’d found myself alone for what felt like the first time in forever. The feeling was a lot like now, and I tried not to lean into that or dwell too much on the choices I’d made all those years ago.
I was a different woman now.
One that would make better choices. Not the one that may, or may not, have caught the eye of an executive during my very first round of post-graduate work. He’d been a hard man to resist and well, I’d been young and dumb. It hadn’t ended well. Those sorts of things never seem to do, and I’d had to rebuild from the ground up. One of the reasons I had found my way to Colorado. My name had been tarnished to hell on the West Coast, after he’d been done with me.
It had made it far easier that none of my friends had been around to watch that nuclear fallout...not that I didn’t still bear scars from it. My fingers flexed again, and I nearly sent off the half-formed email to my boss.
“Get it together,” I whispered, shaking my head and forcing my thoughts away remembering long lunches, rose hued California days that had inevitably gone stormy. Sparkle or no sparkle, Jean Ricard was business only. I stabbed the send button on my email as confirmation, but the thought of Jean had me thinking about how long it had been since I’d had a proper date.
I was hard up and thirsting over sparkle eyes because it had been almost six months since I’d enjoyed the company of a man. Even longer than that since I’d felt anything remotely past lust for the opposite sex. My throat went tight again, because it hadn’t been since that stormy season so long ago when I’d been swayed for softer feelings. Anyone who knew me, Aurora included, would find that odd, maybe even unbelievable about the Melinda they knew and loved.
To them I was a woman forever seeking out love and flirtation. A woman with no shortage of bed partners, or men with sparkly eyes. But they didn’t know that none of them ever took. That the ones that might take, had no interest for me.
I was a one and done woman.Hehad made me like that.
And it was aheno one but me knew about, which didn’t exactly make it easy to explain to those closest to me. No, it was better to leave that, him, and all of it out of the matter entirely…. except…
I squeezed my eyes shut and rubbed at my temples. Except that now it was getting harder to ignore, to be honest about all of it. When the loneliness crept in and I felt adrift all it made me want to do was pick up the phone and tell someone. Anyone.
But I didn’t.
Pushing away from the table, I stood and smoothed my hands over my skirt and made towards the door. No one needed to know about him.
No one needed to know about the last time I lost my head over a man. You know that one time I got married and divorced. I winced even just thinking about it, the memory feeling like a punch to the chest in the quiet of my office.
I’d had a secret marriage. What the hell? Okay, it wasn’t an absolute secret because Claudia Sanchez knew, my closest friend in the city. She had just walked away from her own marriage, a messy divorce that still had her twisted up. I had confessed my own secret to her in a show of solidarity. It had helped her to know she wasn’t alone, and if I was honest it was nice to have someone knowthatabout me. Hiding something as big as a secret marriage and divorce wasn’t normal after all, and I liked that I had a friend that knew about it.
I mean, it’s not like I lived a soap opera life, but there it was. A marriage and divorce all neatly handled over the course of a summer.Martin Delacroix.Another French man, and another reason I needed to never think of Jean Recard in any way but friendly. I’d never heard from Martin again, not directly anyways. Not after we had divorced, which had amounted to me tearfully fleeing my lawyer’s office after the final papers had been signed. I had wanted to scream and shout and maybe even yank his expensive tie off his neck and burn it or, I don’t know...wrinkle the silk of it because I knew he hated that shit.
But I hadn’t.
I’d run as fast I could to the nearest dive bar and drank and drank...and drank.I’d loved Martin with all the passion and fire a first love can muster. I’d only ever lovedhimafter all. Never loved anyone before or after. It was a hard thing to think of even after all these years. Martin had been a predator. I knew that now.
Fifteen years my senior and armed with a prenup while I was still sipping that first glass of dry red he'd brought to our table. I had been love bombed to hell. Wrapped around his finger until the only answer I could think of was yes.
Yes,I would marry him.
And I had. I’d given him everything and for those three months we had been happy. Then it had all changed and just like that Martin no longer cared to spend time, to listen or plan for the future. He’d wanted a divorce and he always got what he wanted. I’d tried to work it out, but it was kind of hard to do when your husband was already in bed with the next woman he claimed to be in love with.
I hope she hadn’t signed the prenup. I hoped she was just a little smarter than me, but she probably wasn’t. Martin had a type. Young, naive, bright-eyed.
I was no longer those things.
I reached the office door and stopped, my eyes lighting on the reflection in the high sheen polish of the dark wood. I looked tired, which I was. Television binging came at a price, and at my age, thirty-five, I felt longer nights more acutely than before. I tilted my head to the side watching my dark hair slide over my shoulder. I was an attractive woman. Dark eyes, dramatic eyes, I’d heard more than once, a heart-shaped face, and full lips. A cascade of dark brown hair that went wavy when it was humid, but otherwise lay in thick full locks over my shoulders. I had full hips and ass, maybe a little fuller with my recent anxiety snacking, but ask me to pick between abs and Takis and we were going to have an easy decision.
Takis.
Always Takis.
I was tall at 5’10. Taller in heels. I loved it because it made it easier to find the weaker men and push them aside. Anyone intimidated by a tall woman had no business taking up my time, even if it was only for a night. I sighed, my fingers tightening on the door handle to the point of near pain. I was tired of just one night. I needed...needed...I don’t know what I needed. I figured it looked a lot like what Aurora had found in her mountain man, and less like what I was used to entertaining, and even a lot less like what Martin had given me.
I shoved the door open with a click and set off down the hallway. I didn’t have time to think about that. About him. That had been a lifetime ago, over ten years ago. More than an entire decade was between me and that fateful summer when I was twenty-three. I was thirty-five and a grown mature woman in charge of my feelings. I was the captain of my story. Not Martin. And certainly not the decisions of a younger and easily manipulated me.
I rounded the corner feeling a little more grounded at that and was just reaching for a pastry when a hand waved close to my face. I jerked back, hand still outstretched towards the muffin basket.
