40
Emma
Over the next week, I do my best to pry some answers out of Kendall, but in a very un-Kendall-like fashion, she stonewalls me, claiming that she just thinks Ashton is an entitled ass. “I know his type,” she says with more than a trace of bitterness. “He’s a complete and total manwhore, a pretty boy who’s never had to work for anything in his life. Everything’s been handed to him on a silver platter, all the women always falling at his feet. Well, I see right through his bullshit, and I’m not buying that fake-charm act.”
And no matter how much I try to pin her down on the reason for that opinion, she doesn’t tell me more. Marcus doesn’t get anywhere with Ashton either, though the guy does let slip something along the lines of “a gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell,” confirming my impression that they’d already met… and possibly done more than talking.
The mystery with our friends aside, my second week of living with Marcus is everything I could’ve hoped for and more. Though on the surface we’re completely different, we mesh together seamlessly, as if all along we’d been two pieces of one whole.
After the brunch on Saturday, we spend the rest of the weekend by ourselves, doing a mix of fun activities and work. We view some modern art at MOMA, then brave the chilly weather to take a long walk in Central Park. When we get hungry, I buy us tacos from a food truck, and we eat them while strolling along Park Avenue, where Marcus shows me his office building. In the evening, we relax at home with a rented movie, then do a little work, sitting with our laptops on the couch side by side—that is, until a certain someone decides that my pajama tank top is a sexual provocation and drags me off to bed.
On Sunday, another icy storm blankets the city, so we don’t go anywhere, staying warm and cozy inside the penthouse with my cats. Marcus does his usual hardcore gym workout after breakfast, and because I have nothing better to do, I let him teach me how to properly lift weights. Afterward, we swim in the pool and eat lunch, then Skype for an hour with my grandparents. In the afternoon, we again do some work, and I covertly write another chapter of my secret project.
I now have five thousand words, and I’m getting seriously excited.
On the weekdays, we repeat the routine from last week, except Marcus convinces me to swim with him in the evenings. At first, I’m reluctant—I’ve always been too tired for exercise when I get home from work—but the pool is so convenient and refreshing that by the middle of the week, I find myself looking forward to the activity. Not that I’m a skilled swimmer or anything—I do something between a dog paddle and leisurely frog style—but it’s enough for my sluggish muscles because by Tuesday, I’m seriously sore. Of course, it could also be from the weightlifting on Sunday; it was the first time I’d stepped foot inside a gym in years.
“Poor kitten. Let me see if I can help,” Marcus croons sympathetically when I complain that I hurt all over. Then he lays me face down on our bed and goes to work, massaging each aching muscle until I’m overcooked spaghetti in seventh heaven—at which point he turns me over and makes me sore in an entirely different way.
It’s all so perfect it frightens me. If things go south now, it won’t just break my heart—it will completely devastate me. With each day that passes, I fall deeper under Marcus’s spell, grow ever more addicted to his vital presence and the way he makes me feel like I’m the only woman in the world. When we’re together, his focus on me is so absolute I feel like he notices every blink of my lashes, every subtle shift in my mood. Even when we’re both working on our laptops, a change in my breathing is all it takes for those cool blue eyes to home in on me… and fill with familiar dark heat.
He’s so intense about me sometimes it should be a relief when we’re apart, but it’s not—because I start missing him within the first ten seconds.
“Stop being such a scaredy cat. Why would things go south?” Kendall says when I confide in her during my lunch hour on Wednesday. “You two are perfect for each other. I’ve never seen a couple so in love.”
“That’s the thing.” I prop up my phone so I have my hands free to unwrap my sandwich—another fancy concoction of prosciutto on thinly sliced rye with arugula and fig jam. “You see, I love Marcus, but I have no idea if he loves me.”
Kendall snorts. “Yeah, okay, please. That man worships the cat-hair carpet you walk on. Case in point: he’s carved out an evening for you two to go to dinner with Janie and Mr. Suck-Up.”