Page 156 of Theirs to Desire (Club M: Boxed Set)

DIXIE

A ll day, I have difficulty concentrating. I can't stop thinking about Eric.

You don't need to be defensive about your ambition, he'd said to me.

My experience has taught me otherwise. William, my ex-fiancé, hadn't wanted me to go to law school. "I’m going to be a doctor,” he’d said. “I’ll make plenty of money for both of us.” He hadn’t even considered the possibility that I wanted to be more than Dr. Gifford’s wife.

At my last job, the partners—all men, all over sixty—had looked askance at me when I spoke up. I was expected to take notes at meetings, and when I pointed out that I was one of their peers, not their assistant, I wasn’t considered a ‘team player.’

The lead partner, Roy Rollins, even expected me to make coffee. Roy, I could somewhat forgive—he was almost eighty, but the rest of them, not so much.

I should have fought back against the institutional sexism, but it was a difficult time in my life, and I had too many other things to worry about. My mother was dying, and her insurance wouldn't pay for experimental drugs. Even for the treatment they grudgingly covered, the co-pay was a fortune.

My mother had faults—many of them. We didn’t always see eye to eye.

But I loved her. I didn’t want her to spend hours on the phone arguing with her insurance company.

She didn’t have the energy for it, so I took it over, and I took over her care.

My brother was supposed to help, but Michael always talks a big game and rarely delivers.

I’d gone into debt from her medical bills, and I desperately needed to keep my job to stay afloat. Fighting back is a privilege for people with options. I hadn’t had any.

I have no regrets about any of it; I did it for my mom, and I’d do it all over again. But I didn’t realize, until Eric spoke up, that I had such deep scars from working at Rollins, Atterby our competitors are going to walk all over us.”

My reserves of patience disappear down the drain.

“I have an MBA, John. I understand the concept of risk-reward. My assessment stands. I will not okay this contract as written.” I take a breath, unclench my jaw, give him a polite smile, and try to smooth things over.

“If you’d like, I’ll have Leona Miller review the contract as well, to see if she agrees with my assessment. ”

Leona has been with Leforte Enterprises for twenty-five years. She’s the most experienced lawyer on my team. I asked her once why she hadn’t applied for my job, and she’d bluntly retorted that she was happy to avoid the bullshit.

John nods tersely and exits my office without another word. I exhale, annoyed with myself. Leona doesn’t need to review this contract; I already know she will reach the same conclusions as me. I shouldn’t have let John bully me.

Admit it, Dix. It’s because he called you uptight.

Gritting my teeth, I print out a clean copy of the contract and head over to Leona’s desk. The other lawyer, a petite Black woman with short grey hair, is on the phone. I start to leave, and she gestures at me to take a seat. “One minute,” she mouths.

I nod and wait for her to finish up, trying not to eavesdrop on her conversation. She shakes her head when she hangs up. “My niece is trying to decide which college to go to,” she says. “Do you have nieces or nephews, Dixie?”

“My brother Michael has two boys. Five and three.”

“Ah, those are the fun years. Then they become teenagers, and when you try to tell them that they shouldn’t pick the party school, they don’t listen.

” She rolls her eyes. “An out-of-state party school, to add insult to injury. Stacey doesn’t know what she wants to do, and she has no concept of how expensive a four-year degree is. ”

“Maybe she could take a gap year.”

“My brother and his wife won’t entertain the idea. They still act like she’s a child, not a young woman on the cusp of adulthood. But you didn’t come here to listen to my family woes. What can I do for you?”

I hand her the contract. “Can you review this?”

“Sure.” She starts to read it and then frowns. “This is Zephyrus, right? Weren’t you working on it?”

“I’d like to know what you think.”

Leona gives me a puzzled look. “I don’t understand. Why would you want me to review your work? The odds of you missing something significant are pretty much zero.”

At least Leona thinks I can do my job. “I’m being a team player,” I reply, using air quotes around the word ‘team.’

“Was it Kevin Hughes who whined about how Legal is holding him back or was it Stone?”

“Stone.” I get to my feet, and a wave of exhaustion washes over me. “Thank you, Leona. Kevin’s breathing down my neck. Can you review it by Wednesday?”

“Yes, that should be fine.”

I glance at the time as I walk back to my office. My assistant Andie is packing up her belongings. “Is it five already?”

“It’s half past.” She gives me a disapproving look. “You should leave. What time did you get here this morning? Five? Six?”

“Six.” Eric Kane had, unexpectedly, been here too, with an apology and a caramel macchiato.

“Go home, Dixie,” Andie urges. “You don’t see John Stone working these hours, do you?” A sneer fills her face—Andie does not like John. “Take an evening off. You’ve more than earned it.”

I mentally review the outstanding work and realize that there’s nothing so urgent that it needs to be done tonight. Huh. That hasn’t been the case for months. “You know what? I think I’m going to do just that.”

I hit the gym on my way home. The new class schedule is available, and people are standing in line to sign up.

I overhear snippets of their conversation as I swipe in.

“What are you signing up for?” an Asian woman asks her friend.

“There’s a self-defense class I want to take, but it’s at seven in the morning. That’s far too early.”

A stray memory strikes me. I have a black belt in judo. Drop the knife, and step away from the woman, or you are going to be exceedingly sorry.

Ugh. So mortifying.

Hunter had laughed at me, calling me on the lie. Have you found a gym to train at yet? I’m a yodan. Perhaps we could spar sometime.

The kind of sparring I want to do with Hunter isn’t really appropriate at a gym.

I stop dead in my tracks. Where did that errant thought come from? And why?

After a hard workout, I drive home. I stand in the shower for twenty minutes and emerge from the bathroom clad only in my panties, hungry enough to eat a horse.

I cross my living room. My blinds are drawn, but even so, I feel naughty walking around almost naked in my apartment. I enter the kitchen and open the refrigerator door, and a cold blast of air hits my nipples, causing them to pucker.

A shiver runs through me. My imagination conjures up a man trailing an ice cube over them, teasing my nipples while I moan and writhe in response. “Good girl,” he whispers into my ear, his breath a warm caress. “You love this, don’t you?”

Good girls are my personal kryptonite. I want to open them up and see the secret well of depravity inside.

I slam the refrigerator door shut. What in the name of sanity is wrong with me? It’s as if Saturday night has unlocked something hidden inside me, and I will never again be the same.

My stomach rumbles. My refrigerator is bare. Unless I want to make a meal of pickles and possibly expired mayo, I need to order in.

Or you could go out.

Huh. Take myself out to dinner.

I get dressed in a navy-blue wrap dress—Mrs. Grace was a great believer in dressing for dinner—and hop back into my car. There’s a Thai restaurant I drive past every day that I’ve been meaning to try.

It’s a little past eight, late for a Monday night. When I pull into the parking lot, there’s only a handful of cars there. But the restaurant itself is brightly lit and inviting. Yellow light spills from the windows, and I can smell the mouthwatering aromas of curry and fried onions.

I park next to a beautiful, forest-green, vintage Datsun and go inside.

The place isn’t crowded. Only three tables are occupied.

A family is seated against the back wall—mom, dad, their grown kids and spouses, and one young child, a boy who is intently dunking his spring roll in plum sauce and stuffing it in his mouth.

Immediately to the left of the door, a couple is engrossed in each other, lingering over a bottle of wine.

Directly across from me, a dark-haired man is bent over his food.

Then he lifts his head up.

It’s Hunter Driesse.

What are the odds?

Recognition sparks in his eyes. A smile of invitation touches his lips. I move toward him, a puppet tugged by hidden strings.