Mel
Present day
My sister Caterina eyes the offer letter I've placed on the table between us and then looks up at me. Her eyes are bottle green today—courtesy of colored contacts—and her hair is a deep reddish-brown. I almost didn’t recognize her when I walked in. Caterina works in the makeup and costume department of one of Broadway’s bigger theater companies. She changes her look every six weeks like clockwork.
“You’re really going to do it, then?” Her expression is doubtful. “You're really going to quit your job?”
“I am. It’s a really good offer.” It still feels unreal, and I keep wanting to pinch myself. Even saying it out loud doesn't make it feel like it’s really going to happen. I've worked at Fontaine and Yarrow—first at the Sedona resort and then at the corporate office—since I was eighteen. At one point, I believed I would work there for the rest of my life.
“Have you told them yet?”
She doesn't need to elaborate on who she’s talking about. Cat knows all about that night. She’s heard more about West and Rob than she probably wants to.
I shake my head. “No.”
“Why not?”
There's a clear demarcation in my life. Before that night in Paris, I thought of Rob and West as my bosses and nothing more. Sure, they were gorgeous, but while I appreciated their good looks, I never lost sleep over them.
And then Pierre Gilbert screwed up, and West, Rob, and I had ended up in a bar off Boulevard Saint-Germain.
Nothing happened that night. We didn’t have sex; we didn’t even kiss. You know that special stillness in the air that precedes a kiss? We hadn’t even got to that point.
But I’d wanted to, and that made all the difference.
I don’t know if West and Rob knew I was tempted or if their thoughts ran in the same direction as mine. They’ve never talked about it. But in the year since Paris, I can finally admit it to myself. Had my father not called me that night, I might have thrown myself at West and Rob.
Yes, both of them.
I am aware of how ridiculous I sound. How irresponsible and flighty and shameless.
Then my father called because my mother had a heart attack. I flew back home that night, and for the next couple of weeks, I couldn't think about West and Rob. All my attention, all my focus, had been on my family. My mom needed major heart surgery. Her recovery had been slow, and my dad needed help. Caterina took some time off too, but her job was less flexible than mine, and the brunt of my mother’s care had fallen on me.
West told me to take as much time off as I needed. He ordered me to. “Your mother is more important than work,” he said. “Your job is safe.”
I’d taken six weeks. Eventually, though, I went back to New York. I walked into the office on the second of January.
That’s when I realized I had developed an inconvenient attraction for my bosses. My rich, gorgeous, unattainable bosses.
Kill me.
I spent the last twelve months trying to get over this stupid crush. And I am not succeeding. Six months ago, West started seeing a woman named Donna. They only dated for two months, but for those eight weeks, I put on five pounds stress eating my way through pint after pint of Ben and Jerry’s.
And then there’s Rob. He’s been dating one beautiful stage actress after another. Rob is allergic to commitment, and I probably don’t have to worry that he’ll fall in love. Still, the last woman he went out with was Zahara York. She is, apart from being an incredibly talented actress, also beautiful enough to be a super-model.
I tried. I really did. I asked Cat to set me up with her theater friends and went on a bunch of dates to forget about West and Rob. It had been a dismal failure. The guys she set me up with were nice, but there was nothing there. No chemistry, no connection.
I thought the passage of time would make my crush fade, but it hasn't. It seems to have done the opposite.
This brings me to the Tremaine job offer. The job offer I accepted. Harriet Tremaine owns a mass-market resort chain. The Tremaine Group runs a hundred and fifty all-inclusive resorts worldwide. In three weeks, I’ll be the Director of Hotel Operations in the Americas.
I’m going to be extremely busy, at least until I find my feet. I’ll be on the road for most of the next six months. That’s got to help, right? If I don't see Rob and West every single day, maybe I can start recovering from this sickness that has taken over my brain and turned me into a pining, melodramatic character from the telenovelas my father secretly watches.
“Earth to Mel. Come in, please.”
I corral my wandering thoughts and offer Cat an apologetic smile. “Sorry. What were you saying?”
“Why haven’t you told the hot bosses that you’re quitting yet? You think they’re going to be pissed off?”