“When would you like to go out?”

She finally blinks. “Friday night?”

I have a vague recollection of something I’m supposed to do Friday night, but fuck it. It’ll have to wait. “Why don’t you leave your phone number,” I say. “And I’ll call you when I’m on my way over.”

 “Or…why don’t I just meet you somewhere? You pick,” she says.

She’s putting me on the spot. I say the first restaurant that pops into mind. “Electra, then.” It’s a fancy nouvelle cuisine place. The food looks like a work of art instead of an edible meal. I went there with a client a few months ago and spent a ridiculous amount of money on food that was pretty fucking terrible.

“Electra? Sure. That sounds fine. Why don’t I meet you there at seven?”

“Sure. I’ll take care of the reservation.”

“I heard their waiting list’s over a month long.”

“They’ll probably be able to accommodate us.” I’ll make damn sure of it. 

“Thank you, Mr. Callahan,” she says. She picks up the folder and leaves.

I’m not sure how long I stand there for, replaying the scenario in my head, over and over again. Did that just really happen? And, with all the images of ass-play running through my head, did I manage to talk to her without sporting a massive hard-on?

Yeah.

Yes, I most certainly did.

TWELVE

ESSIE

Sometimes an idea just comes to you without you even realizing it. I hadn’t planned on asking Aidan to dinner. I planned on asking him to meet me for coffee, at which point I was going to reveal the paperwork I’ve collected, documenting the highly suspect payments Alex made to several offshore accounts—tens of millions of dollars in transfers. I was going to show him this and then tell him I’d be reporting my findings to the relevant authorities and he could expect his company to be seized, investigated, and, eventually, dissolved.

There are hotlines I could call, authorities I could alert, gossip magazines that would salivate at the chance to publish a scandalous expose involving one of the world’s most eligible bachelors, after all. The avenues for his company’s downfall—for his downfall—were all right in front of me.

But then something changed when I walked into his office. There he was, standing in front of me, looking as handsome and intrigued as any man could, adjusting his collar, smiling warmly at me, and it infuriated me. What right does he have to look so goddamn happy and healthy, anyway? What right does he have to look so goddamn sexy? My brother is dead, and he’s allowed to saunter around the city, smiling at women like that, making them feel things they don’t want to feel? It’s just not right.

And so the tiny voice in the back of my head that had been telling me to run in the elevator started whispering new suggestions in my ear.

Break his fucking heart.

I could do it. I know I could. I knew I could the second he looked at me. Sometimes a man will look at you a certain way and you just know he wants to fuck you. I’m seldom wrong about gauging a man’s intentions towards me. And when I walked into his office, Aidan Callahan was giving me the kind of look normally reserved for someone you’ve already been frighteningly intimate with.

It felt wrong. It felt horrifying. Mostly because of the way my body reacted to that kind of attention from such an incredibly beautiful man. For a microsecond, one minute fraction of a heartbeat, my mind went somewhere it shouldn’t have. I imagined what it would be like to kiss him. I could see him thinking it, too. He glanced at my mouth, and my whole body lit up. I could barely breathe.

Of course he’d expect me to throw myself at him; I’m sure he thinks he can have any woman he wants.

But not me.

He may think he can have me. I may try and convince him that’s the case.

No fucking way.

I’m not going to let that happen.

******

For our dinner date, I decide to wear a low cut, tight-fitting black dress. I rummage through my lingerie before settling on a red lace bra and a pair of matching French lace panties. I don’t wear lingerie every day, but every once in a while it can be a good confidence booster.

I never wear underwear I’ve worn to sleep with a man in again. The red lace I slide over my skin will be going in the trash tomorrow morning, no doubt. Shame, because it’s one of my favorite sets. My little ruse with Aidan is worth it, though.

I have a somewhat complicated relationship with sex and that’s putting it mildly. I’ve never actually been with someone I love. I’ve been quite cut throat about my sexual partners, in fact. If a guy’s hot and my self-esteem is through the floor, I’ll hook up with a potential suitor and kick him out the next morning, not caring if I ever see him again.

I’m always careful. I’m never drunk enough or high enough or sad enough to screw a guy without protection. And yes, I screw them. I’m not a lay-back-and-take-it girl. I know what I want and I go after it when I’m with a guy.

See, if you’re a woman, you can usually expect to command less power than a man. I’ve witnessed that endlessly at work, sure enough. For example, Alicia gets paid seventeen thousand dollars less than Andrew Richter, another junior associate at Mendel, Goldstein & Hofstadter, and they do the same fucking job. They went to equally excellent Ivy League colleges, both achieved equally as well, and each have the same amount of on-the-job experience. And yet Andrew, who also happens to be a grade-A motherfucking sleaze ball, breaks six figures and Alicia doesn’t. Even gets a bigger bonus.

So yeah, I can be dominant in bed, and guys aren’t used to it. Sometimes they don’t like it, don’t like handing over the power. Because sex is power. And if you’re a woman, and you want power, using sex can be one of the best ways to get it. It’s so cliché. I’m probably setting the women’s rights movement back decades somehow, but hell…I can barely fight my own personal battles, let alone the battles of an entire gender.

At the height of climax, a man is vulnerable. You can ask him for anything and he’d say yes. You can arouse him to a certain point and then not let him climax and he’ll be begging for you to keep going.

I remember the years Vaughn and I were in and out of shelters. I remember being terrified to go to sleep at night, even when Vaughn was right next to me, because I didn’t want to leave myself open to any kind of unwanted attention. There were all sorts of people at the shelter. Most were kind, down on their luck, trying to overcome the insurmountable things that life had thrown at them, but there were some who preyed on people, who were in such pain that they wanted to make everyone else around them hurt like they did. One night—I must’ve been fifteen, maybe sixteen—Vaughn had to pull a double shift at the convenience store he was working at, so I went to bed at the shelter by myself. It must have been much later when I awoke, because almost everyone else was asleep. I felt someone next to me, and at first I thought it was Vaughn until I swam up through the levels of consciousness and realized that whoever was next to me had their hand underneath my shirt. The hand hadn’t reached my breasts yet; it was fumbling near my stomach but inching higher and higher. I froze in place. I couldn’t move. It was like one of those awful dreams where you’re fully conscious but your limbs don’t work, your voice doesn’t work. All you can do is feel every single thing that is happening to you, and do nothing about it. I kept my eyes squeezed shut, certain that it would stop. The hand inched higher and cupped my breast. The smell of alcohol was heavy around me, even though no one who stayed at the shelter was supposed to drink. The hand moved from one breast to the next, and still, I couldn’t move. A thousand thoughts ran through my mind—I could’ve screamed, I could’ve jumped up, I could’ve reached out and slapped whoever was touching me—but I did none of those things. It only lasted maybe another minute—the hand stopped suddenly, was gone, and I was alone, lying in my bed again.