Checkmate (2 page)

“Why are you leaving?” H
e asked, a little surprised.

I could barely hold back a sarcastic laugh. “Isn’t it what you expected from this night: a quickie and
au revoir, ma belle
?”

He looked at me with a furrow brow, but sai
d nothing. Now, he was sitting on his bed with his arms crossed, and I couldn’t but notice how damn good he looked; like the most tempting of dreams coming true. Too bad, I didn’t remember a thing of our small adventure.

Fucking Margarita
s…

“Don’t worry, I’ll find my own way out
,” I said, slipping into my shoes. My head was spinning a little, but it wasn’t the best time to think about it; I needed to get out of wherever I was now, and the sooner the better.

“It was nice to meet you,
ma Belle de nuit.”

I turned around and saw a slow grin curving the corners
of the most gorgeous and luscious lips I had ever seen.

“
Pareillement,”
I said in French.
Likewise.

“We are two hours away from the city. You sure you don’t need a ride?”

You’ve got to be kidding me…

“Two hours? That’s about 125 miles away from New York!”

He shrugged as if the distance didn’t mean a thing.

“Are you out of your freaking mind?”

“Why are you so angry?”

"You brought me here without even asking if I wanted to be taken over an hour outside of the city."

“You didn’t seem to mind,” he replied calmly.

What a pig…

“Great.” I smiled ironically and opened the bedroom door, mentally calling him every name in the book. Then I slammed it shut behind me and walked to the main doors that opened right into the chilly night. Cursing for what felt like a hundredth time in a row, I didn’t even bother to look back at the house where I spent… God, I didn’t even know what time it was!

I looked up at the sky full of shining stars
, and something painfully familiar crept under my skin.
Disappointment
. And I hated the feeling. Especially if I was disappointed in myself…

One of the best New York publicists and a hopeless perfectionist, I hated it when things didn’t go well. I could work non-stop; my work had been my only love for
a very long
time. However, I never cared about the absence of what people called
personal life.
Until today…

Somehow, watching Jillian dancing and laughing only a few hours after the end of another failed romance made me realize how miserable my life had been. I was only twenty-five, but unlike other girls my age, I successfully missed the biggest part of my youth, working and trying my best to meet my parents’ expectations.

My best friend was such a charming and always on-a-positive-wave
kind of person; sometimes I felt like an alien, breaking into her perfect world where everything, including a break-up, could be turned into a never-ending celebration. Maybe that was the main reason for my sudden love for Margaritas, which I was sure, I would never drink again.

I shook my head, running my hands through the messy locks and realized that the surroundings didn’t seem so scary anymore. The first rays of sun broke through the clouds, adding more light to everything I could see, including my tumbled dress and my ruined shoes. Eventually, I thought it would be much easier to walk without them, so I took them off and kept walking, welcoming the cool ground touching my bare feet.

I don’t know how much time passed before I heard a car, slowing down behind me, and a man’s voice saying, “Do you take cash, Sweetheart?”

“Excuse me?” I turned around, ready to smack whoever was sitting behind the wheel,
when my eyebrows rose in surprise, and I almost gasped, recognizing the driver.

“
Jeremy?”

“Scarlett? Oh, God… Sorry, I didn’t know it was you.” He laughed quietly, waving thr
ough the opened window. “Get in!”

“What are you doing out here at
such an early hour?” I asked, fastening the seat belt. As far as I remembered, Jeremy lived a few blocks away from me.

“
Actually, I was going to ask you the same question,” he said, slowly moving his eyes from my face and down to my dress and bare feet.

“It’s a long story.” I shook my head, as if it would help m
e get rid of the memories from last night. “Can you take me home please? I need a shower and at least three cups of very strong coffee.”

“Okay.” He looked at me again, but said nothing.

Jeremy was one of Jill’s ex-boyfriends, but unlike her, I never thought he was a douche. I was actually sure he was a good guy, sure he enjoyed boobs and curves. What man didn’t enjoy boobs and curves? But it didn’t mean he
wasn’t still nice and well-educated.

“Don’t
you need to be at work today?” He asked after a few silent moments.

“I do. Why?”

“It’s six thirty,” he replied, pointing to the dash panel. “I thought you had to be in the office by eight.”

“Oh, no!
” I groaned, closing my eyes. “Do Mondays always have to suck?”

Obviously, I didn’t have time to go home.
I asked Jeremy to take me to the office, where I kept an emergency set of clothes and shoes that I was more than happy to get changed into.

Being a head of the PR department of
Wilson’s Publicity
, I had a stand-alone office and even a secretary whose everyday job was driving me up the walls. Not that I didn’t like Stevie, but she could be a real pain in the ass.

Stevie was
an all-knowing lady in her late fifties who somehow was sure that she was here not only to make my schedule, but also to give advice about every step I took. I didn’t mind her honesty when it came to my work, but I always tried to ignore the rest of her
life lectures.
Sometimes I simply excused myself and left the office, saying I needed some fresh air, because even hiding
in
the office couldn’t save me from whatever speech she had prepared for today. 

I looked at my reflection in the mirror and grimaced.
I saw my normally blue eyes darkened from the late night. I am slim, with just enough curves to show off the fact that my body is female. But today, even a very expensive ivory skirt with a matching jacket couldn’t hide the traces of my awful night. My blond locks looked as if I had been dragged by my hair from a truck through Queens, and my grimace returned at the thought of the scenario that actually happened. I could still smell the tequila from the Margaritas and Frenchie’s cologne on my skin. I felt awful.

How the hell was it
possible that I didn’t remember any of what happened after I passed out in the damn limo? What if the French jerk took pictures of me? Or worse — made a video of whatever we did in his bed together? What if he posted it to one of those video websites where any loser who had a cell phone with a camera could post videos? Oh, God…

“This is not h
appening, this is not happening!” I kept repeating to myself, trying to relax my face, and hopefully, make it look at least a little better.

“Good morning, Miss Wilson!”

Jeez, I almost jumped out of my skin, hearing Stevie’s greeting.

“Morning!” I replied from behind the closed door.

“Is everything okay?” She asked worriedly, letting herself in without a knock. As always, she looked wonderful, wearing a dark-green dress with a thin gold belt, outlining her small waist. Despite her age, the woman obviously knew how to stay in a good shape.

“Yeah, just was caught in the rain,” I replied, combing my hair.

She looked skeptically out of the window and smiled slightly. “I see. Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“That would be great. Thanks.” I forced a smile and sat at the desk, trying to remember what plans I had for the day. However, Stevie was still standing there, with that irritating expression
, saying I was missing something.

“What?” I asked, hoping I didn’t have any mascara under my eyes.

“You have… something… right here,” she said, pointing to my neck. I went back to the mirror and removed my hair to see what she was talking about.

And there it was, a bright red hickey that I somehow missed trying to make myself up.
Damn you, Frenchie…

“
Must be an allergy,” I said, trying to seem calm, even though my blood was starting to boil, and the only thing I badly wanted to do now, was to punch something, or better
someone.

“Didn’t know you
had allergies,” Stevie said, still smiling cunningly. “To what?”

“Chocolate,” I said, pretending to be reading a paper.

“Right.” She waited for a few more seconds, but I didn’t want this conversation to proceed, and she obviously got my unspoken message, and left, closing the door quietly behind her.

I leaned back agai
nst the chair and shouted mentally at myself for being so unbelievably stupid. There was only one person able to make me come back to my senses, so I pushed the red button on my phone and said, “Stevie, have you seen Jillian?” She worked as my father’s secretary, so even at work, I had my best friend to talk to.

“Yes. Miss Murano arrived about an hour ago.”

“Why so early?”

“She has a new boss to meet today, remember?”

“Oh, right. Thank you.”

My father was about to head a new blanch of our company in LA, so he had to find someone to take his place here. Unfortunately, I wasn’t an option, since he and my mom still thought that I was too young to do the job. It was a little offending, but I loved my work a lot, and I was sure I still had a whole life to give orders and chew people for not following them.
I found a light-blue handkerchief, put it around my neck and went to see Jill.

As always, my friend was busy working. She had a ton of papers spread all over her desk, and her phone was ringing off the hook.

Also, as always, Jill looked amazing, even after a night at the club, partying and drinking, with her dark hair falling down her back in perfect curls that you would think she spent hours on, when she probably actually fluffed and hair-sprayed them and ran out the door. She has dark-brown eyes that are almost always smiling outside of right now, when she is frustrated with the ringing telephone. Jill
was always a scrawny little thing growing up. But now, she has blossomed into a beautiful woman with curves that belong on the cover of a Victoria’s Secret catalog.

“Bad morning?” I asked, taking a seat across from her.

“That doesn’t even begin to fucking cover it,” she replied, dropping a stack of files to the floor. “Shoot! If I am still alive by the end of the day, I swear, I will start going to the church again.”

I chuckled, knowing how much my friend hated church. Her parents were
devoted Catholics, and when she was a kid, they made her go through all the stages of becoming a real Catholic, starting from Sunday school and to the daily prayers that they all gathered to read in the evenings.

“Living alone has many advantages, right?” I said, looking absently
through the papers on her desk.

“Damn true.” She sighed and sank into her chair, rubbing her eyes. “I didn’t get
even a wink of sleep last night.”

“I
already figured that much.”

Finally, she looked at me and frowned, watching me intently. “Emergency clothes, hair
is a mess, last-night make-up. What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Make-up is fresh.”

“Whatever.” She crossed her arms, chuckling. “Did it finally happen?”

“What?”

“Did you fuck someone?”

I rolled my eyes. “No.”

“Okay. Did someone fuck you?”

I burst out laughing. “Why do you always have to be so damn spadish?”

“Answer the question, Scar!”

My laughter died the moment the memories of
last night flashed in my mind. “I don’t know.”

Her jaw dropped as if she didn’t know what to say, and that was probably
the first time I ever saw Jillian speechless.

“What the hell?” S
he asked slowly, still drilling me with her dark-brown gaze. “What do you mean
you don’t know
? Was it too fast? Too slow? Was his dragon too short? Or was it too dark in the room and you didn’t manage to realize that you were f-”

“Uh, please, Jill. Stop it!
” I cut her off and took a piece of paper from her table, and started drawing invisible circles on it, trying to come up with a more or less intelligible explanation of the things that, to be frank, I didn’t know how to explain.

“I’m just trying to understand w
hat is going on here,” she said, spreading her arms.

“That makes two of us
,” I said quietly and lowered my eyes to avoid meeting her piercing stare.

“Okay. Let’s start from the very beginning. I remember leaving you at the bar, and then I saw you talking to some dark-haired guy. What happened next?”

“He kissed me.”

“Wow
! That was fast.”

“Look who’s talking
!”

“Okay, never mind. And?”

“And then I said I wanted him.” I felt my cheeks reddening. Not that I was a virgin of course, but it still felt like that after almost an eternity and a half of nothing but work-and-home days, with no love life to speak of.

“Holy shit! I can’t believe you
said that! You sure you weren’t drunk?”

“That’s the thing. I
was
drunk. Maybe even
dead-drunk
, because I don’t remember anything of what happened after we got into his limo.”

“Oh, no, Baby. That is
not good.”

“I know.”

“Are you on a birth control?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, at least you couldn’t get pregnant,” she said, sounding genuinely relieved for me.

“You are not helping, you know? What if he took pictures, or made a video
of what I can’t even remember?” I said frantically, recalling my earlier concerns about videos and the Internet.

“What’s his name?”

“Don’t know.”

Jill’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Well,
‘no-names’ sex happens. But still… Do you know where he lives?”

“I think I could fin
d the directions, but the memories of the place are vague. And please, don’t look at me as if things like this have never happened to you.” Her nose was scrunched and her forehead was creased, it made me feel… Well, slutty.

“Never.”

“Are you serious? You remember everyone you slept with?” I said with a doubt.

“
Actually, I do. I even have their addresses and cell phone numbers,” she said, looking smug.

“What for?”

“Well, who knows? Maybe one day I will start missing one of them?” She laughed.

“You are hopeless.”

“Not as hopeless as you are. Look at you! You’ve spent almost seven years living like a nun, and now, I find out that you spent a night with a guy whose face you don’t even remember.”

“
Actually, I do remember his face.” It was hard not to. No matter how much I hated the guy, I had to admit that he looked like a candy. 

“Good. Which means you won’t fall for his charm if you ever see him again.”

Jill’s phone rang and I rose to my feet to let her get back to her work, when something caught my eye.

“No, he’s still not
here,” she said into the phone. “Yes, I will let you know when he arrives.”

“Who’s
Dominique Altier
?” I asked as soon as she finished the conversation. The name was written in French and my heart missed a beat at the view of it. I always knew that karma was a bitch, but I never thought she would do her best to complicate my life so much.

“My new boss,” Jill said, pointing to my father’s old office.

“I didn’t know he wanted a foreigner to take his place.”

Something felt so wrong about the name.

“Dominick is not just a foreigner. He’s the shark of the sharks in the publicity business. I thought you knew him. He was here last year, at the presentation of a new project that we made for
Cartier
.”

“I was in LA at the time.”

“Oh, right. Well, you will see him in about-” she looked at her watch, “half an hour.”

“Can’t wait,” I mumbled
absently, as I put the paper with the name back on the table.

“Hey, you okay?” M
y friend asked, worried. “Maybe you should go home and sleep for a while?”

“No, I’m fine. It’s just that I didn’t know I would have to work side by side with another French
ie.”

“Another French
ie?”

“Never mind. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Okay.” Jill nodded and went back to her desk.

The smell of coffee made my mouth water. The moment I entered my office, I saw a big cup of a steaming mug that I was dying to have since the very moment I woke up in the damn stranger’s bed.

“I thought you needed a big one,”
Stevie said, nodding to the mug.

“You were right, as always.” I took the cup and inhaled deeply, saying, “God bless the discoverers of coffee.” Then I took a sip and my body welcomed the burning liquid,
washing down every woe from my morning.

“
Magnifique
,” I said almost in a whisper, remembering the word heard last night. It awakened that weird sensation in my belly that I thought I would never feel again. And again, I thought about how much I was sorry that the things with the stranger didn’t go well. A part of me still craved him…

I shut my eyes firmly, hoping to make the images of him kissing me so passionately go away. Uh, if only the power
of my persuasion wasn’t so weak.