Sweet relief. I wanted to jump over the table and hug Max. “That would be wonderful. I will look forward to it.”
“Great. I think we’re done here then.”
Max rose to chat with the other men before they headed out, leaving me face to face with Blake, who was now smirking at me with that gorgeous smug face. I didn’t know whether to smack him or fix his hair. I had a few other things in mind too. Feeling so conflicted about someone in such a short period of time made me question my own sanity.
“You did well,” he said, leaning in closer.
His voice was low and raspy, making my skin tingle.
“Really?” I countered unsteadily.
“Really,” he reassured me. “Can I take you to breakfast?” His eyes softened, as if we hadn’t spent the past twenty minutes at odds with one another.
Confused, I stuffed my notes back into my bag. Blake was beautiful, but he grossly overestimated his assets if he thought I was going to let him pick me up after that show.
“There’s this great little pub across the street. They do a full Irish breakfast.”
I stood and met his gaze, thrilled by the opportunity to serve him up a little slice of rejection. “It’s been a pleasure, Mr. Landon, but some of us have work to do.”
* * *
“He asked you out?” Alli gushed into the phone. New York City hustled and bustled in the background.
“I guess so.” I was still reeling from the morning events.
“Did you wear your power suit? With the teal blouse?”
“Yes, of course,” I said, stripping the very garment off of me and collapsing onto our futon back at the dorm.
“Well, no wonder. You look amazing in that. Was he hot?”
Blake Landon was one of the sexiest men I had ever shared airspace with, but he had no respect for women in business, which put a serious damper on my attraction to him. Unfortunately, he was perilously close to being in my top ten of people I most despised.
“It doesn’t matter, Alli. I’ve never been so humiliated.” I winced, reliving his challenges and the subsequent rejection.
“You’re right. I’m sorry, I wish I could have been there to help.”
“Me too. Anyway, how was the interview?”
Alli paused. “It was good.”
“Yeah?”
“Really good, actually. I don’t want to jinx myself, but it sounds pretty promising.”
“That’s great.” I tried to hide my disappointment, knowing she was excited about this one. She would be working under the marketing director at one of the biggest labels in fashion. I had known for months that Alli would be looking for a full-time gig after graduation, but the thought of running the site without her depressed me. Unless we could afford to hire a new marketing director, I would become the new voice of the company, and networking had never been my forte.
“Nothing is set in stone though. We’ll see.”
“We should celebrate,” I said. Heaven knew I needed some sort of reward for surviving my hellish morning.
“We should celebrate our new best friend, Max!” she squealed.
I laughed, knowing Max was just her type too, if she only knew. She fell apart over three-piece suits. “Hopefully he isn’t just extending his favor to Quinlan by hearing me out for this follow up.”
“People don’t dangle two million dollar carrots in front of people as a favor.”
“True, but I don’t want him to invest unless he’s actually interested.”
“Erica, you’re overanalyzing, as usual.”
I hoped she was right, but I couldn’t help running every possible scenario through my mind in an attempt to plan and prepare for all of them. My brain never stopped.
“I’m getting on the Acela in an hour. I’ll be back before dinner and then we can grab drinks,” she said.
“All right, see you then.” I hung up and forced myself to get up so I could locate my comfy sweat pants, the ones I reserved for breakups and hangovers. Today had drained me beyond belief.
I stopped to appraise myself in the full-length mirror in the room Alli and I shared. I loosened my French twist and my wavy blonde hair fell down my back. I was thinner than usual, thanks to the past few weeks of stress, but my matching bra and panties still clung to my subtle curves.
I ran my hands over the soft lace hugging my hips, wishing someone else’s hands were there to make me forget all about today. I wasn’t expecting to go weak in the knees over some cocky investor at my first boardroom pitch, but my physical reaction to Blake was a serious indicator that I needed to revive my social life. I needed to get out and meet more people. Get away from my computer, at least on Saturday nights. That was usually when we did maintenance on the site because the traffic was slow, but at this rate I wouldn’t have a relationship in my twenties.