Fatshionista (17 page)

Oh, I’m sorry. I
thought I was done earlier, but now I was really done, like burned to a crisp,
going up in flames of my own making and not giving a crap, done. Geez, Louise.

I closed my eyes
as he lowered his head to kiss me. Damn, this man could kiss. He knew just what
to do with those lips—when to be hard, when to be soft, and when to slide
that sweet tongue of his deep into my mouth. The spicy scent of him overwhelmed
me; it was all I could sense, all I could taste, all I could smell; hell, it
even felt as if the spicy essence of who he was lingered underneath my
fingertips as I slid my hands down his back. I was so in love with this man and
what he could do to my body.

So in love…so in
love…so in love.

When I opened my
eyes, I was back in my dark bedroom, alone, and wearing some hideously
unattractive pajamas. I could still smell him in the air and on my skin. I was
so rattled by the depth of the dream and how well he seemed to know every
thought in my head that I couldn’t help but roll over, grab my phone, and type
out a text to him.

“What are you
doing?”

Crap. How clichéd
was that. What are you doing? It was 3:00 in the morning. He was either asleep
or doing something that was not conducive to texting.

I tossed the
phone back on the nightstand and pulled the covers up to my chin. I was
determined to go back to sleep and forget about the dream, forget about the
lingering arousal, and forget about Daniel Singh.

The vibrating of
my phone jerked me back up. I grabbed it and sat up to read the message.

“I was sleeping;
are you okay?”

Good, at least he
wasn’t hitting a homerun with some hot male model or something. Not that it
would matter. The man was entitled to his private life, the same way I was
entitled to my inappropriate dreams that he would never know about.

“Yes, I am fine.
Just had a crazy dream and wanted to check on you.”

I hit the send
button before I realized that by connecting the two he would figure out that
the dream was about him. Maybe he was too sleepy, maybe he had already drifted
back…

Buzz.

“I’m fine. I
assume I was in the dream, hence your worry? Hopefully I was well dressed.
J
”

Daniel, Daniel,
Daniel. You were wearing the best outfit I had ever seen you in. Of course I
couldn’t actually text that because then he would ask for a description, and I
was horrible at lying.

“You looked
wonderful, as always. Go back to sleep; I’m sorry I bothered you. Goodnight.”

I reached out to
lay the phone back on the table, sure he would recognize my ending the
conversation when he read the “goodnight,” but as soon as my head hit the
pillow, the phone buzzed again.

I reached over
and looked at it with one eye, the other one now buried into the pillow.

“Funny that I was
in your dream; you were in mine as well, and this time you weren’t wearing any
stains on your shirt.
J
”

“Well, good, at
least I am clean in your dreams” was what I was in the middle of texting when I
got his next text.

“Actually you
weren’t wearing anything at all, hence the lack of stains. See you later,
goodnight.”

I knew a
conversation-ending text when I saw one, and as much as I wanted to dial his
number and find out just what the hell I was doing naked in his dream, I knew
that nothing good would come out of it. Gay, straight—it didn’t matter.
There was nothing between us but work, a budding friendship, and an amazing
amount of sexual frustration, at least on my part. I punched my pillow and
rolled back over to try and get at least a little rest before I had to face
Scarlett and Marta on Monday.

Sunday came and
went with no Daniel. He sent me a text saying he had a friend in from out of
town. I was insanely jealous of this unknown friend, but I managed to put it on
the backburner and concentrate on my bigger problem: Scarlett.

On Monday
morning, I avoided everyone except Lizzie when I got to the office. She was
always in early, but I kept our conversation to just a “hello” and “how was the
weekend.” She didn’t act strange, so whatever was going on, I didn’t think
Lizzie knew anything about it.

I settled into my
chair and set my laptop up while continuing the career discussion I had been
having with myself ever since I got on the subway this morning. On the one hand,
I had offers coming in all the time from other companies to work for them. The
only downside was that these were all much larger organizations and I would be
one of many assistant producers. I also didn’t get the impression that I would
work as closely with the designers as I did here at Marta’s, and with so many
producers on staff, I wouldn’t get to pick my clients; I would take whomever was
assigned to me.

I toyed with the
idea of chucking this side of the career altogether and making the leap into
writing full time. My goal had always been to become a full-time writer, and
the success of the blog put me much closer to that goal. The problem with that
was the only thing I had professionally written about was fashion. And if I
were no longer employed in the industry, it would make it very difficult to get
first crack at the big stories. If I lost that competitive edge, then
advertisers might back out and I might lose readers, all of which would affect
the money I made from the blog.

Writing a novel had
always been a dream of mine. I had enough stories in my head and from the blog
to put together something that would have an audience and intrigue some editor
at a publishing house. I had several acquaintances who were in the publishing
industry, some who even commented from time to time about loving the blog; they
just had no idea they were complimenting the author when they shared that with
me. One of the challenges of authoring the blog anonymously was that I limited
my ability to network; I couldn’t use it as my calling card. It was a
double-edged sword; with the anonymity, I was able to scoop the big stories,
but I couldn’t brag about it or put it on a résumé.

I was still
mulling over all my choices while I pulled up my email to see if anything major
had happened over the weekend or if there had been any word from Marta about
when she would be back in the office.

Aha! An email
from Marta sent late Sunday evening saying she was back in town and wanted to
see me in her office on Tuesday. She said she had something to discuss with me
before the weekly staff meeting on Thursday. Well, great. Now I had to sit and
stew for a whole day about what it could be. I hated anticipating conversations
that might suck.

I tried to turn
my attention to the last details I had been putting together for Daniel’s show.
I was due in his workroom this afternoon to go over the final proposal and get
his blessing on everything before I started ordering the supplies and
organizing the crew. At least his warning about Scarlett and Marta kept me from
continuing to think about the super-sexy dream or the one he apparently had
about me—naked me, to be exact. I hoped it wasn’t one of those dreams
where people you knew were naked in it, but they were doing regular things,
like having coffee or riding bikes (eeew, yuck). I hoped that naked me in his
dream was having as much fun as naked me in my dream. Yes…this was a nice break
from all the worrying and hand-wringing. I would think about naked Daniel and
his super soft hair for just a…

“There you are! I
was hoping to catch you first thing this morning and have a little chat with
you before the week took off. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’ve been
running around here like a madwoman lately. I am single-handedly bringing in so
many clients; I don’t think Marta was prepared to have this many designers
lining up for our services.” And with that, Scarlett effectively ruined my
little mental naked interlude.

“Good morning, Scarlett.
I can’t say that I noticed how busy you’ve been lately. I am usually in and out
so much with my own work that I’m in the office first thing in the morning or
late at night, and I don’t think those are times that you’re normally around.”
Read: You work 8 to 5 and then go out and party, so no, I haven’t seen you do
any actual work around here.

“Well, you know
so much of what I do is promote the company at the many social events I’m
required to attend in support of my father and his various enterprises and
charities. I myself am actively involved in so many charities I can barely keep
up with them. I can’t say that it makes for a quiet life, but it certainly
makes it interesting, if you know what I mean.” Her look conveyed very clearly
that she was most assured that I could not possibly conceive of the challenges
associated with a full social calendar. She wiggled her way through the stacks
blocking the door and perched on the edge of the chair. 

Make yourself
at home, you hateful hag.

“Was there
something you needed this morning, Scarlett? I was just about to finish up,
then head out for a client meeting.” I started to pile up some papers on my
desk and shut down my laptop. I wasn’t suppose to meet Daniel until two, but
now that I knew Marta wouldn’t be around and I needed to escape Scarlett, I
figured I could just pack up and go finish what I was working on at Starbucks.

“As a matter of
fact, yes, there is something I need. Marta has asked that I spend some time
shadowing you, watching you work with our clients, see how you approach your
duties. She feels like with business expanding, thanks to my new leads, we will
need another producer on staff, and I told her I would love the opportunity to
learn the hands-on side of the business. I had IT give me access to your
calendar so I could see what you had and work my schedule around it. I saw you
have a two with Daniel Singh this afternoon; is it at his workroom? I didn’t
see the location listed on the invite.” She smiled sweetly and sat back,
crossing her legs. She gave every appearance of being willing to sit back and
quietly wait while all the various bombs she had just dropped went off.

Okay, so lots of
information just shared. The hag was after my job, the hag had access to my
calendar, and the hag wanted to come along and watch me work. So much wrong with
all that, I didn’t know where to start.

“First, Scarlett,
I don’t think it’s appropriate that you have access to my calendar. If you need
to know my schedule, just ask me. As far as my appointment this afternoon, you
are more than welcome to accompany me; I only ask that you come as a silent
observer. I know that might be a stretch for you, but I don’t have time to
answer the inevitable questions you will have and also give my undivided
attention to my client. If you are agreeable to that, then you are more than
welcome to come with me.”
If not, don’t let the door hit your tight, perky
ass on the way out of my office, Hagatha.

Scarlett smiled
that sickeningly sweet smile again. I swore at times she reminded me of
Christian Bale in
American Psycho
. She could easily be a serial killer,
as she had all the tendencies. Maybe I should be worried about more than her
stealing my job…

“You are welcome
to take your concerns to Marta; I saw a need, and I satisfied it. I needed to
know your schedule. You’re never here and you have no assistant, so I bridged
the gap on my own. You will find the more you get to know me that I refuse to
be limited by other people; so if there is a way to get what I need without
having to get everyone’s buy-in, then I do it. Besides, there is no expectation
of privacy in a work environment anyway.” Snarky, snarky, snarky. She was such
a little… “Oh, and you said you were leaving right now to meet a client; who
would that be? There was nothing on your calendar this morning. That was why I
came down—I knew you were free until lunch.”

“This is last
minute, so there’s nothing on my calendar. I was asked to take a meeting with a
designer who might be interested in joining our company.” Grrr.
Let me get
out of here and get to the Starbucks.
It was like suddenly she was a CIA
agent and I was the one with the secret code. Too bad I couldn’t pull a Jason
Bourne and mow her down while jumping out the window. Ahhh, a girl could dream.

“That’s certainly
something I don’t need to observe. My God, it’s what I’ve been doing for the
last four weeks. Welcome to my life, right? Hahahaha.” Why in the world she thought
she was the only person at this company who had ever had to go out and schmooze
to hustle business was completely beyond my realm of understanding. There were
no words; I had no words to describe her. Thankfully I had the laptop packed
up, the paper sufficiently shuffled, and I was already standing up and moving
around the desk toward the door.

“Yes, well, I’ll
see you at two then. Do you know where the workroom is? I know you recently had
dinner with him; I didn’t know if during that conversation he had mentioned
where he had set up shop?” I said sweetly with a smile.
Yes, that’s right,
Scarlett. Just so you know, I know about your little dinner conversation. Stew
on that. And if he told me that you all had dinner, maybe he told me WHY you
all had dinner. Betcha never thought of that, hmmm?

Scarlett was in
the middle of standing when I made the comment about dinner with Daniel. She
paused mid-stand, her smile frozen in place, but she quickly recovered. “Yes,
he did mention where the workroom was located. I’ll see you this afternoon
then.” And finally she left my office.