Because He Torments Me (6 page)

I was going to see him again, already, and here
I was, wearing one of the outfits he’d sent to me.
 
It would have been much better if he’d
seen me wearing something of my own, or better yet, something amazing and
perfect and beautiful, just as nice as the things he’d gotten me only purchased
on my own.

Get it together, Adriana.
 
You need to keep things professional.
 
Stop thinking about
him.

I had to get to human resources, and then find
someone called Betty to show me how to stuff prize packs, which seemed like
something they’d give a college intern, not a publicity assistant.

I turned and hurried down the hall, back toward
human resources.

Job:
 
One

Adriana:
 
Zero.

**

The anticipation of seeing Callum consumed my
thoughts, causing a physical response that made it almost impossible to
concentrate.

Of course, it wasn’t like I had much to
concentrate on.

Filling out forms in human resources was
mindless, as was addressing the prize packs, which literally meant writing
addresses on envelopes, slipping a book inside of them, and fastening them shut
before tossing them into a bin that would be sent to the mailroom.

I ate a quick lunch in the Archway cafeteria with
Betty, the publicity receptionist who’d shown me how to do the prize packs, not
that there was much to show.
 
She
was a nice woman, Betty, but she was in her sixties, and there wasn’t much to
talk about.

When I got back from lunch, I hovered outside
Kiersten’s office.

The prize packs were done, at least the ones on
the long list that Betty had given me, and I was hoping they weren’t going to
give me another list to start working on.

“Kiersten?” I said.
 
“I’m done with the prize packs.”

“Have you had lunch?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”
 
She leaned back in her chair and slid a pair of glasses onto her face,
one of those trendy chic pairs with Ralph Lauren frames.
 
She slid a packet of papers across the
desk to me.
 
“This is the info for
the Callum Wilder book tour.”

I picked it up and ran my eyes over the top
sheet.

“He’ll be going from city to city, reading and
signing.
 
In certain cities we’ll
have a twitter giveaway for a chance to join Callum for dinner.
 
Of course he’ll be promising to talk
about his business secrets, but it will mostly be young women who enter.”
 
She sighed. “Women cannot get enough of
Callum.
  
You’ll be in charge
of a lot of that, picking winners, vetting them, that sort of thing.”

Wonderful.
 
I pictured myself looking through entries from young, beautiful women,
all of them desperate to win a dinner date with the sexy and enigmatic Callum
Wilder.

“Do you think you can handle that, Adriana?”
 
Kiersten barked.

“Yes,” I said.
 
“Yes, I can.”

The phone buzzed and Betty’s voice came over
the speaker.
 
“Callum Wilder is
here,” Patty said.
 
“Shall I show
him to the… oh, wait, sir, no, you can’t just -
-
 
um
, Kiersten, he’s coming back,
I’m sorry, I couldn’t – ”

The rest of her voice faded away because
suddenly, there he was, standing in front of us.
 

Callum.

He was dressed in one of his signature black
suits, and today his shirt was grey, his tie grey and black striped.
 
He looked as if he’d gotten a haircut
since I saw him yesterday, the hair on the back of his neck shorter than it
usually was, his sideburns neatly trimmed, his face clean shaven.

And those eyes.

Blazing blue, as always.

“Callum,” Kiersten said, giving him a smile and
rising from her seat to shake his head.
 
“How are you?”

“Good, thank you.
 
And yourself?”

“I’m good, I’m good.”
 
She turned to me.
 
“And you know Adriana.”

“Yes, of course,” Callum said smoothly, not
showing any trace of knowing me as anything more than a work relationship.
 
He gave me a curt nod, but didn’t make a
move to shake my hand.

I nodded back at him, hoping I was as good as
he was at keeping my emotions in check.

Callum glanced at his watch.
 
“I have another meeting at three.”

“Oh, this won’t take long,” Kiersten assured
him.
 
“Let’s move to the conference
room, shall we?”

We shuffled out of the office and started down
the hall toward the conference room. The two of them walked ahead of me,
chattering about publication dates and galleys, and I followed them like a lost
puppy.

When we got to the conference room, Kiersten
asked Callum if he wanted a drink.

“Water with lemon,” he said.

“Of course.
 
I’ll be right back,” she said and turned
to leave.

 
“I
can get it,” I said, panicked at the thought of being left alone with him, even
if only for a moment.
 

“No, it’s okay,”
Kiersten
said.
 
“I got it.”
 
She left the room, obviously trying to
prove to Callum that he was such an important client that she was willing to
fetch him beverages.

Not like he needed to be made to feel as if he
were important – he was already arrogant enough.
 

He sat down at the head of the table, and I involuntarily
scoffed.

“Do you have something to say, Adriana?” he
asked.

I sat down on his left side, making sure to
slide my chair over so that there was a fair amount of distance between
us.
 
Although at this point I could
have been in New Jersey and there wouldn’t have been enough distance between
the two of us.

“No,” I said.

“Are you sure?
 
You seem like you want to say
something.”

“No.
 
I don’t.”

He shrugged, then reached into his briefcase
and pulled out a copy of the Wall Street Journal and began reading.

“Kiersten will probably be back any second,” I
said.

“So?”

“So you might want to put your newspaper away.”

“Show me a man who knows how to multi-task, and
I will show you a man who is successful.”
 
His eyes never left the page and it made me furious, the
way he was sitting there, acting so cold and distant.

I thought about how he had another meeting at
three, how he had other things to be caught up in, important deals and
appointments.
 
And how even though I
had this new job, he still occupied my every thought.
 
It made me so angry I could hardly stand
it.

“Stop jittering,” he commanded.

I hadn’t noticed, but my leg was moving under
the table.
 
He reached out and put
his hand on it, to stop me from shaking, and I cursed myself for not moving even
further away from him.
 

I looked up at him, and he looked up from his
paper, and his eyes locked on mine.
 
A tiny smirk moved over his lips, the side of them curling up
arrogantly.

“You look very pretty today, Adriana,” he said
huskily.
 
“That’s a nice outfit.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome.”

I swallowed as he kept his hand on my knee for
a beat longer, and I held my breath, hoping he would move it higher, hoping he would
try to touch me, kiss me, or say something that would let me know he was just
as effected by me as I was by him.
 
But instead, he pulled his hand away from my leg, leaving me almost
gasping for air.

Kiersten returned then, holding a glass filled with
crushed ice, water, and lemon, which she sat down on a coaster in front of
Callum.
 
A thin bead of condensation
ran down the side of the glass and pooled on the coaster.
 
It reminded me of Callum getting out of
the pool, the droplets of water that slid down his torso and clung to his chest
hair.
 

I averted my eyes, my hand tightening around
the pencil I was holding.

“So!” Kiersten said.
 
“I thought we could start with the dates
we have planned for your tour, and hope that you don’t have any
conflicts.”
 
She pulled a sheet of
paper out of a manila folder and slid it across the table to him, then placed
an identical page in front of me.

Callum picked it up and glanced at it.
 
“I’ll have my assistant go over my
calendar,” he said, offering no more information.
 
“I trust you have hotel and car for
every venue?”

“Yes, of course,” Kiersten said.
 
“You’ll have a car to take you from the
airport, flights will of course be – ”

“I’ll take my jet,” Callum said.

“Oh,” Kiersten said, looking slightly taken
aback.
 
“Yes, of course.”
 
She made a note on her pad.

“I’ll need a tour assistant,” Callum said.
 
“To travel with me.”

“Yes,” Kiersten said.
 
“Adriana can go with you.”

My eyes widened and my heart jumped into my
throat.
 
Adriana can go with you
?
 
This was the first I’d heard of such an
arrangement.
 
I looked down at the
printed out page in front of me, running my eyes over the cities –
Philadelphia, LA, Seattle, Boston.
 
I was supposed to travel with Callum?
 
On his jet, the one where he’d slid his
fingers inside of me before whisking me off to Tampa to fuck me until I
couldn’t remember my own name?

That was impossible.
 
I couldn’t do that.

I would have to figure out a way out of it, I
would have to say that –

“No.”
 
Callum’s voice was cold, unwavering.

“What?” Kiersten asked, seemingly startled.

“No.
 
Someone else can accompany me.”

Kiersten frowned slightly, but recovered
quickly.
 
“Okay,” she said.
 
“No problem.
 
I’m sure we can ask one of the other
assistants to do it.”

Callum nodded, as if the matter was settled, and
my body burned with fiery rage.
 
How
dare he say that to my boss, that he didn’t want me going on tour with him?
 
What did he think?
 
That I was going to get attached to him
if I had to go on the road with him?
 
That I even cared about him at all?

“Don’t forget the dinners,” I blurted, and the
two of them looked at me.

“What?” Kiersten asked.

“The giveaways.
 
The dinners.
 
With the girls.”
 
I jutted my chin in the air.
 

“What dinners?” Callum asked.

“It’s very exciting,” I said, infusing my voice
with false cheer so that he would see just how totally unaffected by him he
was.
 
“We have a plan to raffle off
a date with you in every city you’re in.
 
One night.
 
With you.
 
Doesn’t that sound just perfect?”
 
My voice was falsely cheerful, but I made sure to emphasize certain
words, like
‘one night.’

I saw his jaw set and a vein throb in his neck.

Good.
 
Cocky bastard.
 
It was about
time someone rattled his seemingly unshakeable exterior.

“No, it’s not like that,” Kiersten said,
shooting me a look that could kill.
 
“We’ll be doing a twitter giveaway in select cities where people who
retweet information about your book may be chosen for a dinner with you, where
they’ll have the opportunity to ask questions about business.”

“No,” Callum said.
 
He took a sip of his water and leaned
back in his chair, right back to being an arrogant ass.

“But it’s a wonderful opportunity,” I
said.
 
“For you to get to know your
readers, see the kinds of things they’re interested in, the kinds of things
they want from you.”

A tight smile passed over his face, but I saw
his fingers grip the arm of his chair so tightly that his knuckles began to
turn white.