Val
I was a little light-headed as I sat behind my desk. The first thing I did when I opened my laptop was to look up Carter online. I felt giddy, as if I was doing something I wasn’t supposed to. His law firm was three-years-young, but that was still impressive, considering he was thirty-five. The lawyers I knew who’d set up their own practices had done so later in their career.
I googled him a bit, and it was apparent he was a very successful litigation lawyer.
I was dying to know more about him, but I reluctantly went back to the to-do list I’d written yesterday evening, cross-checking it with some of the more urgent emails in my inbox. I usually didn’t have trouble concentrating in the morning, but I caught my thoughts wandering more than once and had to make a conscious effort to whip them back into line. When the screen of my phone lit up with an incoming message, I reached for it, even though I avoided answering messages during the day. Too distracting.
Carter: Are you free for lunch?
I’d given him my phone number during our first lunch, right before we parted ways.
Val: Nope. We have some deadlines coming up, and I’m eating in my office.
Carter: Any restaurant recommendations?
I smiled as I typed the names of a few restaurants.
I tried to push him out of my thoughts for the rest of the day, but it proved to be a challenge. That sinful smile and those hypnotizing eyes kept popping up in my mind.
In the afternoon, he texted again.
Carter: Want to grab a coffee?
Val: Do you ever work?
Carter: ;-) in between breaks.
Carter: Can I tempt you with a coffee?
My heart rate picked up. I tried to ignore it.
Val: No can do. Plus, you can’t keep hijacking my working time. I have a no-messaging policy, and usually only check my phone during short breaks (which I spend here).
Carter: When exactly do you take your breaks?
Val: At 11a.m. and 4p.m.
It was now 3:09 p.m. I hadn’t thought Carter would stop texting, but I hadn’t expected his reply either.
Carter: Perfect. I look forward to hijacking your time during your breaks.
I laughed. And now I had even more trouble focusing, counting down the minutes to four o’clock, wondering if he’d start his hijacking campaign today or tomorrow.
Shaking my head, I concentrated on the email I was composing. I wanted to run three focus groups for the upcoming Goddess campaign for one of our fragrance lines. We’d already had one, but I hadn’t overseen it. It turned out to be the wrong thing to delegate. The moderator hadn’t explored all facets, hadn’t asked all the right questions. I could do better, and I wanted to. It wasn’t easy to run focus groups for fragrances. They were luxuries—an aspiration, but since they didn’t serve a specific purpose the way antiaging creams did, it was hard to build a unique selling proposition. It was why the majority of the industry was banking on sexy and sensual ads to sell them. But fragrances meant something more to me than making me feel sexy. They were memories in a bottle, and dreams too, and somehow I could only convey that to focus groups if I was there in person.
After firing off the instructions to my marketing director, I discovered an email from Hailey. My sister respected my no-messaging policy... but only because she’d found the email loophole.
I smirked. Hailey was much like Carter in this regard.
Subject: URGENT
Discovered that the brother of a coworker is a CATCH. Maybe even has potential to be “the one.” Want me to introduce you to him?
I sighed, shaking my head. This was urgent? I could punish Hailey with silence, but knowing my sister, she’d get overexcited and set things in motion without waiting for my reply.
Val: Nope. Hold your horses.
The one. She was spitting one of my favorite phrases back at me. Sometimes I felt foolish for using the expression. Over the years, I’d dated a lot and had had a few relationships. Some had been longer, some just for fun—especially right after Jace and Hailey moved away from home. But I had a tendency to romanticize relationships. I couldn’t deny it. It was one of my faults.