Her counselor? Or theirs? I can’t exactly ask for clarification right now, so I just keep smiling like an idiot.
“Anyway.” Sheryl reaches out to catch my shoulder and gives it a tight squeeze. The whole time, her smile remains friendly, almost maternal. “Like I said, you did a fantastic job in that interview. I’ve been talking to Lark about how we should get you on more shows like that. The numbers really jumped sky-high afterward, you know. We had so many people searching for the brand, and so many orders pouring in too.”
I know. I’ve kept close track of the numbers myself. It’s been the only thing distracting me from the mess I’ve turned my romantic life into. At least I still have work to fall back on, and work that’s blooming like it never has before. “I’d love that,” I tell her, meaning it, and her smile widens even more.
“Great.” She glances past me at the building, and surreptitiously checks her watch—a watch encrusted with diamonds, that looked like silver to me at first, but which I now guess must be platinum. “I’ve got to run right now, but I’ll have Lark get in touch with you about what media outlets you think would be ideal to have our publicist pitch you to, all right?”
“Oh, I—” I start to say that I’d rather talk to her about it than Lark, but she cuts me off.
“Perfect!” Then, before I can stop her, she grabs my shoulder once more and squeezes tightly, before she breezes past me toward the building. “Have a great one, Cass,” she calls over her shoulder.
Long after the door swing shut behind her, swallowing her up, I continue to stand there frozen in the middle of the parking lot, unable to quell the guilt surging in my gut, trickling through my body like slow poison. Lark told you they’re over, I remind myself. But it doesn’t help.
After everything I’ve been doing to work on my own past here at therapy, I can’t help but relate to the situation Sheryl must be in. She is clearly struggling to improve herself too, despite an ex who she hasn’t gotten over yet. An ex who refuses to even talk about what they went through.
It’s a little too familiar for comfort.
16
Cassidy
The next few days are a blur of work. I get to bury myself in my favorite activity—experimenting in the studio on new color palettes, new formulas to use to add to the growing line of beauty supplies we’ve already launched. Thanks to all the orders and income flooding in, we have more than enough capital to start to reinvest in more products and additional spinoffs of our first line.
Whenever I talk to Becky, she’s quick to warn me about expanding too soon, stretching myself too thin, trying to accomplish everything at once. She’s also constantly trying to convince me to come out with her again, go for another club night. “How will you get over this guy until you get under the next?” is her usual motto.
While I see her point, I just can’t bring myself to do it. Any time I think about it, something always stops me. I tell myself it’s just work.
But really, it’s memories of his hands tracing the lines of my curves, his lips on mine, the white hot look in his eyes whenever he drinks me in, like I’m the only one for him.
So the whole clubbing to get over him thing is out. Which leaves working as the only thing that keeps my mind off of Lark. I throw myself into it with abandon, all too happy to be able to force him to the back of my mind, if only for a little while in the heat of the workday, while I’m buried in projects.
After work, I have to contend with a deluge of messages from him, because Sheryl, true to her word, assigned Lark the job of narrowing down which of the many media outlets we’d like to pitch ourselves to next, where another appearance from me to talk about our makeup would have the biggest impact on sales and word-of-mouth outreach.
I really think you’d do an amazing job presenting on this show, he’ll text, and I’ll ignore his message an hour before I reply with something curt like If you think so. I’m not unprofessional enough to ignore him completely, but I don’t want him reading anything more than a professional business interaction into my replies.
I don’t want him to know how much I’m still thinking about him. Dreaming about him, every night, my traitorous body working up images of him wrapping those thick, strong arms around me. Holding me close.
It doesn’t miss my attention, either, how hard he’s working for my career, in spite of the fact that I’ve basically told him to screw off as many ways as I can count. I have to admit, as much as I believe he’s a bad idea for me personally, he’s there for me when it comes to work.