A slow grin spreads across his stupidly perfect mouth. “Let’s just say all my boo boos got kissed, sucked, or fucked away.”
“Charming.” I roll my eyes because someone must maintain standards in this elevator, and it is clearly not him.
He shrugs. “I try.”
“You really do not.” A laugh slips out before I can stop it.
He laughs too. Deep and low, the elevator begins its descent. His laugh holds a kind of sound that probably ruins mentally stable women on a weekly basis.
The doors slide open, and the air outside the Bridgeview is crisp. My driver, James, has already pulled up. I step out, and Aleks falls into stride beside me.
“They are going to think we were together, you know,” he says casually.
“As if.” I scoff, tossing my hair instead of acknowledging the tiny spark in my stomach at the idea.
He parrots me, right on my heels as I walk toward the car. “As if.”
The way he says it. Mocking but warm and standing far too close. Like he was figuratively tapping the exact nerve that set my internal spiral over… nothing.
I slide into the backseat and shut the door harder than necessary.
After sliding into the driver's seat, James gives me a quick, polite glance in the mirror before he pulls away from the curb.
I stare out the window at the skyline, trying to shake the feeling of Aleks' voice —that deep bravado with his rich Russian accent that’s seriously so damn hot— chasing me all the way to Midtown. It is ridiculous. Infuriatingly so. And I hate that it lingers like it is. Like static beneath my skin. Like something humming at a frequency I do not want to admit I can feel.
I want to pretend I do not know why it unsettles me, but that would be a lie I tell myself, and I do not make it a habit to do that.
You need to go on a date, try to at very least pretend you have time to date so that you can feel that… spark, or if not a spark, at least a flutter, not brought on by your ‘special little friend’ who lives in your nightstand.
I do not have the luxury of thinking about this shit, let alone actually acting on it.
So, I don’t; I turn it off with two taps to my knee and focus on what’s going on outside my head.
The Wednesday before Thanksgiving is frenzied everywhere in New York City.
People sprinting through Midtown with half-zipped coats, latte foam on their gloves, and that desperate energy of humans who realize they still have not bought cranberries.
At Fairfax Media? It is a festive disarray with corporate money behind it.
What does that mean?
The lobby looks like a luxury hotel that tried to cosplay autumn. Towering vases of burnt orange hydrangeas and wheat stalks line the marble floor. Every receptionist desk has a bowl of cinnamon-wrapped chocolates someone ordered from a chocolatier who probably has a six-month waitlist. A soft playlist of “tasteful Thanksgiving jazz” drifts through the speakers because someone in Marketing thought it would “elevate morale.”
Employees scurry everywhere, but in expensive coats and coordinated neutrals that make the chaos look intentional. Assistants with clipboards weave between executives carrying artisan pies from bakeries with names like Hearth and Table. PR interns lug boxes of branded fall candles that cost more than a semester's worth of textbooks.
Half the staff is trying to get three days of work done in three hours. The other half is pretending to work while checking flight delays at JFK every three minutes. Someone always cries in the stairwell. Someone always asks me if I am heading out early, and I always smile politely instead of saying that the company is only functioning because I haven’t left early for nearly two years. The energy is frantic, but the aesthetic is curated. It is chaos, but make it a designer one. A very Fairfax combination.
And I know this even before I walk through the revolving doors at nine a.m. sharp.
Security waves me through without a pause, and Will calls out, “Happy almost Thanksgiving, Miss Fairfax.”
I offer a polite smile. “You too, Will.”
The elevator brings me to the executive floors, where, gasp, I was right.
Carina greets me as I head to Dad’s office,my office. “Good morning. Everything is on theme today.”
“I can see that,” I say, looking at a peppermint diffuser someone violated a fire code to plug in.
