Jesus!
I put the phone away and close my eyes. There’s no point in reading about his past relationships when I should be banishing him from my mind, memories of great sex and all.
The first step is to stop thinking about him, and I will, starting from tonight.
I try my best, but by the time I finally fall asleep sometime later, I’ve already failed miserably.
I do better the next day, burying myself in work, and writing up a storm. At lunchtime, I walk down to a nearby deli with Chelsea and So
nali Nagra, a cute new Indian intern who speaks with a British accent, grew up on Park Avenue, but insists that her home is in Mumbai, even though she’s been there only once in her life. Her dream is to work at Gilt Style, the most popular of the Gilt magazines, and after that to launch her own couture line. Over lunch, we gossip about office people, and laugh about the more ridiculous articles Chelsea has had to write lately.
“I finally saw Jack Weyland yesterday,” Sonali exclaims at some point, smoothing perfectly manicured fingers through her coal black hair. “He looks even better in person. I swear when I got scorned at Gilt Style, I accepted the position at Traveler just so I could work with him.”
Chelsea looks from Sonali to me, and I shrug, making it clear that I don’t care if we talk about Jack.
“You shouldn’t have taken the position then,” Chelsea says sympathetically. “He never dips his dick in the office ink.”
“Plus he’s engaged now,” I add, chuckling silently at Sonali’s obvious disappointment.
“I’m more worried about his attitude to office relationships than his engagement,” she replies, her eyes serious. “Claudia Sever has broken three engagements in the past two years, everyone knows the person she really wants is Reese Fletcher, the billionaire. They’ve been on and off for ages.”
I wonder if she could be right. When it comes to either gossip or fashion, Sonali always knows what she’s talking about. However, instead of the sick relief I would have felt in the past at the knowledge that Jack might soon be available again, I just feel uninterested.
“Speaking of hot men, I saw Landon Court in the building yesterday,” Chelsea grins. “Now that’s a big girl’s Jack Weyland. I wonder what he was doing there.”
I feign ignorance by keeping silent as they both speculate about the person whose name I’ve already decided to banish from my thoughts.
“I wouldn’t mind the brother,” Sonali says with a sigh. “He’s doing a play on Broadway right now, though it’s still in the preview stage. Some of my friends went, hoping to catch a glimpse of him.” She lowers her voice. “There’s something about guys with tragic stories. My mom says both brothers were in the car with their mother when she had the accident. Landon pulled Aidan out and then had to watch as the car burned with his mother inside.”
“That’s so awful.” I exclaim, unable to imagine how painful it must have been, how painful it must still be for him.
Sonali shakes her head. “Yes, but they were both uninjured. Poor things.”
“Yes poor things,” Chelsea says. “But enough with the sad stories. I still want to know what Landon Court was doing in our building.”
“Maybe he’s planning to take over Gilt,” I quip. “Takeovers are the new conquests.”
“Well, I wouldn’t mind working for him,” she grins. “Or under him, depending on what he prefers.”
It’s an innocent statement, but my reaction to it, a mixture of possessiveness and fierce jealousy, startles me. I shouldn’t care if my beautiful colleague finds Landon attractive. He’s nothing to me.
“I doubt he’s available,” I point out, unable to let it go.
“Yeah,” Chelsea sighs, “but a girl can dream.”
WE walk back, with Sonali doing a running commentary on every hot guy we pass on the street. By the time I get to my office, I’m still laughing a little, but my thoughts soon go back to Landon, and the things Sonali said about his mother’s death.
I do a quick search on my computer, looking for old archived news reports from twenty years ago. It’s not hard to find a report on the accident.
Even before I start to read the article, my heart breaks at the picture of two boys. Both wrapped in blankets, the little one looking confused, while the older one, Landon, has the most heartbreakingly sad expression. Next to that is a picture of a beautiful couple, his parents.
I start to read the article. The car had skidded off the road and somersaulted a couple of times. According to an eyewitness, a teenager who’d stopped his car a few minutes after the accident occurred and called an ambulance, Landon had emerged from the car carrying his little brother, but the car had started to burn immediately after, and by the time the ambulance reached them, it had been too late for Alicia Creighton Court.
Oh Landon. To witness all that! He must have been devastated.
My desk phone starts to ring. Reluctantly, I abandon my perusal of the article and answer the call.
“Hello,”