Which suddenly feels accurate, as Ryan and I are left alone.
Chapter 7
Being with Ryan, alone, in an establishment designed to soften people’s sharp edges, is maybe not the best idea. Not when my senses have been heightened by alcohol. Not so soon after I was draped over his body in an enclosed space. Not when I’ve envisioned him using that body in unspeakable ways while pleasuring myself. Not when I as good as outed my attraction to him to Maral and Shanthi, and they clearly left us here together as an ill-conceived setup.
Not when I just found out he doesn’t have a girlfriend.
Yet here we are.
I can do this—I can remain professional and friendly. Professionally friendly. Friendlyly professional. So what if he looks like that? So what if his scent is packed with pheromones specifically calibrated to make my belly feel heavy with want? So what if I keep wondering what it would take to crack the ice that confines him and see just how unrestrained he can get…
I’m just hard up. But I’ve got my little friend back at the hotel, and as soon as we’re back there, I’ll take matters into my own hands.
Alone.
Even if I imagine I’m not.
He’s talking—he’s midsentence, in fact.Get in the game, Ana.
“Hrm?” I ask, real professional-like.
“I said, we sold out of all the books Meredith had shipped to the conference.”
“Excellent,” I say, eating a sesame stick from the bar mix on the table. It’s probably crawling with microorganisms, but the sustenance may help sober me up.
“Maybe we should hire Maral as a consultant.”
“No doubt she’d kill it. I saw a book on climate change in your spring catalog—she’d be an ace at placing that.”
“Right,” he says, “she’s an environmental engineer.”
I nod, licking salt off my bottom lip. Ryan looks away quickly, zeroing in on his beer glass.
“Does she work the kind of long hours you do?” he asks.
I shake my head. “Nobody works the hours I do. Except maybe book publicists.”
“Ha.”
“I’m serious, actually. Meredith and Alison are the quickest email responders I’ve ever met.”
He nods. “There’s a saying: It’s PR, not ER. But I don’t think it’s gotten through to the people who do it.”
“Have you ever considered a less demanding job? You know, to give you more time for your other pursuits. I believe something about the multiverse, and a love story?”
He pins me with his eyes. “I’m kind of…tethered to Woodsworth at the moment.”
“Why?”
“Various commitments,” he says vaguely.
I recall his saying that this job meets his greatest needs. “So what is writing for you if not your greatest need?”
He thinks about it. “Writing is…who I am.”
“Existential,” I say.
“It taps into the part of me that feels the most real,” he qualifies.“There are no airs, no expectations or restrictions. I don’t feel hemmed in—I can just be myself. It’s the only thing I do that’s just for me.”
