“I went to Princeton with Alex Clarke.” Ugh, Ivy Leagues must have required courses in dropping names and looking smug. “You know, the groom? But of course you don’t know him. You’re just staff tonight.”
I set the bottle down harder than necessary. “What do you want?”
He exhaled like I was being difficult. “Just to talk.”
Knowing he wouldn't shut up until he got his way, I caught Uncle Mike’s eye and waved him over to cover the bar, then I flicked my towel down and stalked off to the storage room.
Connor
Theengagementpartyfeltmore relaxed than New York City events—nobody networking or angling for an introduction to Victoria. For the first time in six weeks, someone had asked how I was doing without following it up with a meeting request or a thinly veiled pick-up line.
I’d forgotten what it felt like to just exist. Not as Victoria’s newly promoted Chief Operating Officer, not as one of New York’s “most eligible bachelors”—according to some business magazine in an article Cruz had texted me with three laughing emojis. Just Connor.
“So how’s the fancy new office, Mr. COO?” Cruz asked, nudging my elbow.
“Oooh, new title," Mallory added, waggling her fingers in jazz hands. "Do you have one of those standing desks that costs more than my car?”
“It goes up and down. Very thrilling,” I said, feeling the heat rise in my cheeks. I hadn’t wanted the promotion, hoped that maybe our five-year plan would have taken five years to implement… but when Victoria made a decision, she stuck withit. Now the PR team was hard at work putting the focus on me instead of all the coverage of her singing to Cruz, the buttoned-up CEO breaking down for her rock star boyfriend.
I’d been behind-the-scenes for my entire career, first as a paralegal, then managing Blackstone & Clarke down to ordering the toilet paper refills. Now I’d been thrust into the limelight, and as much as I appreciated Victoria’s unfailing confidence, the attention of being an “eligible bachelor” hadn’t come easy.
Mallory laughed. “Are you actually getting out to enjoy the city, or does Victoria still have you chained to your desk?”
“Retractable leash,” I said. “Much more humane.”
“At least tell me you’re making friends," Mallory teased. "Otherwise Kate and I will have to come down and drag you out, just like we did before.”
I grinned at the memory of Mallory’s intervention to get Victoria and me to stop working—soliciting her best friend Kate to show up after a shitty day with tequila and limes. And after Mallory’s yoga studio moved into the ground floor unit below our third-floor office, she regularly popped upstairs to persuade me to join an evening class, then talked me into after-class tacos… not that it had taken much convincing. I was a native Californian, it was genetically impossible for me to decline Mexican food.
“Made a few new friends,” I said, glancing at the bar where Hannah worked with that focused precision. She’d barely looked at me since that first exchange. Smart. Professional.
Maddening.
I’d thought about her more than I wanted to admit. Wondered if she was still sleeping in my bed. If she thought about that night at all.
“From what I hear, he’s the most eligible bachelor at Sinclair Group. Victoria has to shoo single Realtors out of his office,” Cruz reported, ruffling my hair.
I smoothed it back with practiced annoyance. “They’re just being friendly.”
“They want a ring,” Alex said, coming out of nowhere to sling his arm around my shoulders. “Nothing says husband material like COO. Not to mention the salary and connections to prime real estate.”
I sucked a tooth in annoyance, because he was right. I’d thought, stupidly, that those Realtors were welcoming me to town, suggesting which neighborhoods to try out… because as much as I appreciated the corporate housing included in my relocation package, I didn’t like living alone.
Growing up with a single mom in San Francisco meant I couldn’t afford my own place. In college, I’d lived at home and commuted to San Francisco State, and stayed there even through my first few years working as a paralegal. When I eventually moved out, I always had roommates.
Now I was in one of the busiest cities in the world, the center of the universe according to most native New Yorkers … yet I never felt more alone than cooking for one in my studio apartment.
But the Realtors weren’t just pitching their home buying services. They seemed to hope that if they played their cards right, they’d not only earn the sales commission on my new place, but they could also earn an invitation to move in.
“Tori said one showed up with homemade cookies last week,” Cruz added.
“Snickerdoodles," I confirmed. "I ate them. Didn’t ask her out, though.”
Didn't have time for a girlfriend. And if I did, I wouldn't need to be bribed with cookies.White Russians, though …
My eyes drifted back to Hannah, pouring wine with that instinctive precision.
A man in an expensive suit leaned both elbows on the bar. Even from across the room, I could read the tension in Hannah’sshoulders, the rigid line of her spine. She snapped something at him, flicked her towel onto the bar, and stalked toward the back hallway.
