Honestly, I could get used to this. I rub my hand down her back and Tess looks sideways at me, an affectionate smile on her face.
“I believe the similarities between Japan and Manhattan give any marketer the edge when it comes to formulating their commonalities.” Tess places the tips of her fingers at the base of her sake cup, holding it delicately with the other hand before tilting the rice wine down her throat, then continues when Mr. Ishida asks her to explain. “Space is at a premium in both Japan’s Tokyo and Manhattan; it’s not infinite. High-end stores can showcase their exclusivity by prioritizing minimalist decor. With top prices paid per square footage in both locations, foot traffic can identify high-end commerce by this method. It’s entrenched in the consumer’s brain in both major cities.”
I have to challenge her on this. “Not many people shop in-store anymore, Tess. So what’s the point of minimalist window displays and a few items neatly folded on the shelves or hanging from the racks?” She acknowledges my challenge with a sparkle in her eye. “The minimalist aesthetic translates to websites too. Open any high-end jewelry or clothing website and you’ll see a clean layout with well-spaced, neat word content. No Comic Sans allowed.” She turns to the side where Mr. Ishida is sitting on his stool. “Ishida-san, in Japan do the wealthy elite prefer to live in the countryside where there is more space or do they prefer city living?”
There’s laughter all around as Mr. Ishida tells us they will have to carry him out of his Tokyo apartment when he dies because he loves living in the city so much.
A light tea is brought out and drunk down. “Ah! The perfect end to the perfect meal,” Mr. Ishida sighs, patting his stomach, “I am looking forward to repeating this in the future.” One of Ishida’s underlings appears at his boss’s elbow, tablet in hand. They look at Tess and me expectantly, and Tess looks over at me. “We’re free over the long weekend,” I immediately jump in to say. “Please, do me the honor of having lunch on my yacht on Saturday, Ishida-san.” I stand up and bow. That’s what I love about sake, you can drink so much of the stuff and it never makes you drunk. It’s the ultimate business lubricant.
“I look forward to hearing your views on American and Japanese marketing again, Miss Jolliffe.” More bowing and sayonaras. We leave. I tell George to drive Tess and me to the St. Regis. I don’t want the night to end. We sit at the bar and chat over drinks: mine’s a whiskey and soda, Tess has a spiced rum. “I think my ass has fallen asleep,” she jokes. “We’ve been sitting on wooden stools for hours.” That makes me laugh. “Did you know all the desks at Bridges have been automated so they can change from seated to standing?” She shakes her head. “No way. Really? I’m not sure I like that. I would have to wear my street shoes at a standing desk and they don’t really match my outfit!”
More laughter. She tells me I must have buns of steel to be able to sit at conference tables all day without it hurting. I lean over and ask her to test them. She slides her hand over my thigh and reaches behind me, her eyes are sparkling. “Oh my.” She giggles. “So hard. How do you do it?” I shake my head, “Uh-huh, if you think I want a fiancée with a hard ass, you are way off base!” Laughter. She takes my hand and places it on her rounded behind saying, “Come on, don’t you think I need it just a little?” I pull her toward me and try to kiss her, but she turns her head, and I end up kissing her fragrant cheek instead. I don’t care about what the King Cole Bar staff think about me. I’ve never acted like this before—trying to make out at the counter as if Tess is my high school sweetheart—but I am more than aroused: I feel as if I’m coming out of a deep sleep.
More laughter and chat, but she’s so hard to read and ever so slightly elusive when I try to find out where the night is heading. “At least, come and see the RB1 interior architecture I was telling you about,” I’ve never had to beg this hard for anything in my life before. “Okay,” Tess says, “but only because I might not ever get a chance to see it again.”
CHAPTER6
TESS
When I wake up, I don’t recognize where I am for one moment. I jump out of bed and run to the blackout lined drapes across the window and pull them back. It’s daylight, and I can tell from the position of the sun in the sky it’s not too late in the morning. I run a mental check for headaches or pain, but besides a little roughness and redness on my chin, I’m none the worse for the sake I drank last night. Oh yeah, and the spiced rum at the St. Regis. As the memories from last night slowly filter back, I realize Roscoe and I must have made out a little bit in the back of the car. I think doing that might have gotten his hopes up, but he read the signs perfectly once we were outside the elevator. All I wanted to do when we got up to the penthouse floor was to collapse onto the guest room bed. He left me alone to sleep it off, and I hate that part of myself that wished he hadn’t. Sleeping with the boss on a first date is not a good look for anyone; sleeping with anyone when drunk is even worse!
When I get out of the shower, I realize the man’s face and body haunted my ever-so-slightly drunk dreams all night. As I use the hairdryer to dry my panties, I can’t help but wonder if they were wet before I threw them into the shower…I can’t think of a more disturbing way to spend the night than imagining my hot billionaire boss’s rough hands stroking all over my body.
I pad barefoot back into the master bedroom, my feet sink into the deep wool carpets, a cloud of steam follows me out of the guest bathroom. I can’t help peeking into the master bedroom. Roscoe Bridges is still asleep; he’s turned onto his back, one arm lying on the pillow, face angled away from the window, and he’s kicked the sheet down. The building’s thermostat is set to ambient and already I want to let my towel drop to the floor.
I’m torn. Should I stay or should I go before he wakes up? I try to remember what he said to Melissa Makings at Sergio’s about what he likes to do in the mornings and how he likes to do it alone, but I can’t. I move closer to the bed and reach out a hand to touch his hair. It’s dark enough to pass for black from far away, but up close I can see tints of dark chestnut red running through it. I like the way he doesn’t conform to the standard straight back and sides image I see everywhere in the Financial District; his hair falls a little past his collar and the sides are long enough for him to have to brush it to one side occasionally when his hair falls over his eyes. The drapes are open and the sun is pouring in. He looks like a fallen statue lying in the natural light beaming in straight lines across the floor and bed. He’s tanned, so my eyes are drawn to the pale band of skin below his lower abs. Together with the slanting V-shape of the oblique muscles, my eyes never stood a chance. I am so tempted to pull the sheet down, but he was so respectful to me last night that I don’t want to ruin the understanding we have.
I grab the white shirt he left on the bedroom bench at the foot of his bed and put it on. It fits me like a vintage Halston shirt dress only with the shoulder seams falling halfway down my arms; all I need is a belt. Now that I’m dressed, I can go for a walk around Roscoe’s penthouse. I’ve never been in one before. My parents are comfortably well off, but they have a large house in the suburbs.Penthouses are not for people like us, my mom always likes to say.
The wall of his home office is a bookworm’s delight. Ranging from coffee table heavyweights to hardcover bestsellers to antique tomes printed in the eighteenth century.
I heft My Secret Garden to the living room, and see a comfortable Eames chair with its back facing the kitchen. I sit down and start reading. It’s a very peaceful home. The sunlight pours in through the patio windows and warms me slightly. I haven’t gotten far with my reading—I’m at the fantasy where the couple are painting a room together and then start covering each other’s bodies with paint before fucking. Apparently, the paint stings their skin with a stimulating buzz—when hunger strikes me hard. I pad off the thick wool carpet and onto the kitchen tiles in search of food.
“Good morning, Tess Jolliffe.” I turn around and Roscoe is standing in the living area, stretching like a panther, smothering a yawn. He’s pulled on the smart black pants he was wearing last night, but he has left off the belt and jacket. When he stretches his arms, I see his tanned lower abdominal muscles tighten and stretch too. “Coffee and breakfast?” he wants to know. “I can’t find the coffee…” I start to say, but he holds out his hand to stop me. “Sweet or savory breakfast?” I don’t know what he prefers, so I shrug, “Both?”
He’s already talking into his phone, a smile tilting the corners of his mouth. “It’s on its way,” he tells me, and saunters over to the patio doors, pulling them open. I wish he'd put on some clothes because his perfect torso is very distracting. I head outside to join him, but he’s not in the patio garden. I look around and see him climbing up a spiral staircase. He looks down, his face in shadow, “Do you swim?”
What the hell, I might as well. I’m wearing the tiny scrap of black lace panties I took the trouble of drying after the shower and I know the chlorine will ruin them, but the idea of a swim is too tempting for me to turn down. By the time I get up to the patio pool, he’s already knifing through the blue water. When he breaks above the surface after doing twenty or thirty laps, I’m already in the deep end. Literally and figuratively. He swims over to me, grins and flings his wet hair back. “You look about twelve years old without makeup, you know that?” He snakes his arm around my waist and pulls me closer. His skin smells like chlorine and fresh linen sheets. Suddenly, I’m shy. The fun we had together last night seems like a long time ago. This morning, Roscoe Bridges is back to being my billionaire boss, and I’m just me. I disentangle myself from his arms and stroke my arms to swim out of reach.
“I don’t wear makeup, Roscoe, just mascara. Honestly, I think I look a fright without my mascara, but I couldn’t find any inside your bathrooms.” As if to prove a point, I duck under the water and come up again. He doesn’t suspect anything, and I can’t resist doing what I’m about to do.
I squirt Roscoe Bridges, billionaire, in the face with the pool water I have in my mouth. I used to do it all the time to my family at home when I was a kid, and for some reason I prefer not to dwell upon, I have to do it to him now. I want to break this tension, the kind of feelings people have when they are unsure what to say to one another after a night of fun turns into sleeping in separate beds.
It catches him right on the face, and the surprise of it all has him laughing uncontrollably. “I was wrong. Youaretwelve years old!” He keeps laughing, and pretends to duck me down by holding my shoulder, but stops before my eyes go under. We horseplay around for a while, but what we’re doing reminds me of one of Nancy Friday’s fantasies from her book. Every time he touches me, my heart jumps into my mouth because I’m almost naked under the piercing blue of the pool water.
Saved by the bell, or in this case by Roscoe’s phone’s trills. He pulls me over to the steps by my hands, laughing and telling me I look like a mermaid as I paddle my legs. He allows me to climb out first, and fortunately, I left the shirt close to the pool edge so I’m able to grab it before climbing the steps. I’m a bit shy because the thin cotton fabric sticks to my wet body.
I wrap his shirt around me, leaving it unbuttoned, holding the opening together with one hand, and walk into the living area. No one is there, but a hostess trolley is parked just inside the front entrance. The aromas wafting up from it are amazing. Cinnamon buns, bacon, orange juice, and pancake syrup. If last night’s date with Roscoe was heaven, breakfast with him sure is paradise.
CHAPTER7
ROSCOE
I’m bowled over, out for the count, KOed. She’s a dream girl, and last night, she was all mine in my dreams. What I wouldn’t do to have that become a reality…
I watch Tess eating breakfast, trying to be unobtrusive about it. I’ve turned my phone to vibrate mode so it doesn’t ruin the mood. I don’t want her thinking I’m a creep. Tess is a very normal young woman and that’s what I love. No hang ups or grudges. No insecurities and bitterness. She has a goal set in the future, she has good memories of her childhood; she lives in the moment, not for it. Now I want to get under the hood and dig a little deeper.
“Can we go have coffee in bed?” I ask her. “Charlie isn’t worried that you didn’t come back home last night, is she?” Tess shakes her head, brushes the shirt she’s wearing in case there are crumbs. It gapes open slightly and gives me a glimpse of her full breasts. I experience a flashback to the dream I had the previous night, how I licked those pink nipples until they hardened into tight peaks.