I accept the card she hands me with a polite smile, though I have no intention of using it. I’m not interested in giving up on the boys’ club—I want to sit at their table. When they’re holding men to a different standard than they do women, I want to be the one who tells them no.
I walk away, wondering what the hell I’m going to do here for another two hours. From a distance I see Ben smiling his best glib, square-jawed smile at a woman who is probably the next Miss Universe or Vogue cover. He glances around him, his eyes finding mine for half a second before they return to hers. It shouldn’t bother me as much as it does.
I head toward the bar because only a second glass of wine will persuade me to work any harder at this than I am, then find myself talking—reluctantly—to some wannabe rock star. I hear Keeley in my head saying, “give him a chance”, but that’s because he’s exactly what Keeley wants—hot, under-dressed and over-confident. If she were here, the two of them would already be making plans to escape. She’d know of a better party, or he’d suggest a spontaneous trip to Amsterdam, and she’d be saying, “let me just grab my passport.”
“You want to get out of here?” he asks. “A friend of mine is having a thing at this club in West Hollywood.”
That’s when I see Ben, still across the room, but staring at me and Machine Gun Kelly or whoever this guy is, as if he’s about to kick someone’s ass.
“Sorry, I think I’m probably too boring for you,” I tell him. “But you need to meet my friend Keeley.”
I get his number for her and then cut through the crowd again…and discover I’m heading right toward Tim Webber.
I hate what he got away with. I hate even more that he’s looking at me now with that self-satisfied smile, as if he likes what happened. As if he stole something from me that night. We are, perhaps, twenty feet apart. We are in a public space, but my pulse explodes anyway, as if he’s just cornered me in a dark room. He’s closed the distance between us before I can make my escape.
“Fields told me you’d be here,” he says, which I guess explains why Fields honored me with the invite, because no matter how good I am at my job, Fields still thinks my vagina is my best asset. “I was hoping I’d run into you tonight.”
“Funny,” I reply, “I was hoping the opposite.”
I turn, thinking find Ben, and Webber grabs my arm. His expression is mild, but that hand on my arm is just as unyielding as it was the last time he grabbed me. “Let’s go talk somewhere. I think you’d be very interested in what I have to offer.”
“Let go of me,” I hiss.
“You could at least let me explain,” he says, and then Ben is there, grabbing Webber by the lapels.
“Maybe you can explain why you’re grabbing her like that first,” he growls.
“Who the fuck are you?” Webber asks.
“I’m the guy you answer to when you grab my—” he stumbles over the last word. “—colleague.”
“Colleague?” Webber repeats. “You’re at FMG? Well, Fields and I go way back. He’ll be very interested to hear how you treat a potential client. Security?” he calls, looking past Ben. “Can someone get security over here?”
Ben could probably talk his way out of this just fine, but I’m not sure he will. He’s looking at Webber right now like he can’t decide what to punch first.
“We were leaving,” I announce, linking Ben’s arm with mine and tugging him toward the exit.
He holds still. “We shouldn’t be the ones leaving,” he argues.
“Don’t create problems with Webber,” I snap. “Fields is angry enough with me for messing it up. No reason to make him angry at you too.”
His jaw locks tight, and I’m certain he’s going to continue arguing, but instead he ushers me out, calling the driver to pick us up as we walk.
We reach the curb and he turns to me, pinching the bridge of his nose. “He seemed pretty possessive for a guy you ostensibly met once.”
My eyes drift to the pavement between us. “I met him, we had a difference of opinion about what I was there for, end of story.”
He steps closer. “It was more than that. I heard what he said. About letting him explain. He must have done something.”
I’m about to lie when he touches my arm. “Gemma,” he says softly, waiting for me to look up at him. “Tell me what he did.”
I swallow, and my eyes fall to his chest, which feels safer, more impersonal. “We met, in theory, to discuss what the firm could do for him. When we left he...he shoved my hand between his legs and refused to let go until I forced the issue.”
I wait then, for the doubt and blame I expect to see on any man’s face when an accusation like this is made. I wait for him to say, “are you sure you didn’t misunderstand? Are you sure you didn’t encourage him? Explain it to me in detail so I can tell you where you went wrong.”
But his eyes are black in the light, a muscle flickering in his cheek. “That lunch,” he says, with rage in his voice, “when you kept rubbing your wrist.”
I nod. The car pulls up, but for a moment he just stands there, frozen. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me?” It sounds like an accusation.
“Come on, Ben,” I say, rolling my eyes, which means We aren’t friends. Why would I have told you?
I climb in the car but he simply remains where he was, frozen in place.
“You’re not coming back to the office?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “I’ve got some loose ends to handle real quick.”
I hesitate. “Webber’s not one of them, right?”
He shakes his head. “No. Just a few things I need to deal with.”
There’s a plink of disappointment in my chest. I imagine those things involve some woman he met inside, the potential Miss Universe who is probably texting him lewd propositions even as we speak. But it’s not like I expected him to escort me home. This isn’t a date. “Okay. Well…I’ll see you tomorrow.”
He merely nods, carefully shutting the door, remaining there as the car pulls away.
The driver meets my eye in the rearview mirror. “Back to FMG, ma’am?”
My shoulders sag. I’m tired and alone, and suddenly the idea of going back to the office doesn’t appeal in the least. “Can you just take me home?”
We drive through those same suburban neighborhoods, past Stadler’s building, past Tiffany & Co. It’s only when we reach my apartment that I realize I didn’t think about Kyle once.
21
I walk into the office with measured, precise steps, uncertain what I will find. I don’t know if there will be any backlash from my argument with Webber, and I also don’t know where things stand between Ben and me.
If I’m being honest, it was sort of Hallmark-worthy, the way he intervened when Webber grabbed me. It’s the exact kind of toxic masculine bullshit I’m not supposed to like but thought about for hours last night anyway.
Ben’s office is empty. He must have had a late night, and my heart sinks a little at the idea of why he’d have had a late night.