Cory awoke the next morning to the sounds of a painful and irritating banging in her head. She only had three sour apple martinis last night and now she was paying for it. She wandered to the kitchen to get water for an aspirin and still didn’t see anyone around. Looked like she would have the house all to herself for a while. Oh, how she missed living alone.
Her father had probably gone to the supermarket. Her brother, Christian, on the other hand, she hadn’t a clue. She didn’t know if he still lived in this house or not, actually. Cory had no idea where he was at any given day. What else could you really expect from an eighteen-year-old? She remembered the things she’d done when she was Christian’s age. She had started university and was finally away from her parents’ clutches.
She took the pill and made a steaming cup of coffee. Back in her bedroom, she thought of Adrian, since the aspirin was taking rather long to kick in. If anything else could ease her pain, she knew it would be thoughts of him. She grabbed her cell phone to call him. The call went straight to voicemail and she was in no mood to leave a message.
Her brain madly drifted in all different directions, making her head pound even more. She was right. She knew his type. The tall, gorgeous, charming, player type. The smiling, sweet-talking until he got what he wanted type. The only wanted to pull down your panties type. This reminded her of an e-mail she’d received from Gabby the other day, “Wherever there’s a good-looking, sweet, single man, there’s some woman who’s tired of his bullshit.”
For her sake, Cory wanted something to be definitely wrong with Adrian before she made a fool of herself … again. Please God, let him be married or have a child or two baby mamas somewhere, a STD, six toes, hell something … anything. Anything to stop these crazy thoughts from surfacing in her head.
Only Adrian never once showed any signs of any of those things last night. No, it didn’t matter anyway. Adrian Mendez definitely wasn’t her type. Well, at least that was what she kept telling herself over the entire weekend. So why then are you always responding like that to his every touch?
The rest of the weekend flew by quickly as she checked the classifieds for an apartment rental. It was about time she got her freak on again. Cory saw only a few places that interested her. They met her requirements of being in the suburbs around the capital city, close to her job to cut back on her work commute, two bedrooms, furnished, and pretty much close to everything. Of course the rental price was an entirely different issue altogether as prices in and around the city were astronomical compared to other areas on the island.
Before she knew it, it was Monday morning again and back to the grind. Getting up before the crack of dawn and having to brace the early morning rush hour traffic to get to her office and then again having to face it back home on evenings was torture.
Then there was work and more work to get done at the office. Javier needed to get everything now. Not to mention the added pressure he put on her probably just because he could. He ran the department as if the islanders were still ruled by the colonial government under Her Majesty of Spain. At least, that was what she told him once. Javier made it his job to irritate the hell out of her every day after that.
Cory was busy putting the finishing touches on a speech she’d prepared for him to give at a cocktail reception being held by the Spanish ambassador on the island. She had been behind all morning because he just had to make a million and one changes to it. Probably just to spite or irritate her. The man was killing the Amazon forest, the amount of paper she’d used for this speech already.
It was about one in the afternoon and Cory hadn’t even eaten any lunch yet when she received a call from the receptionist downstairs.
“Just tell him he’ll get it in five minutes, okay,” Cory snapped.
“What? Tell who they’ll get what?” Rachel, the receptionist, asked.
“Oh, sorry, Rachel. Sorry for snapping at you. Javier is up my ass again.”
“I see,” Rachel laughed. “Anyway, you have to come downstairs immediately.”
“Why? I can’t right now. I have to finish his stupid speech.” Even though she was now an assistant manager, Cory was still functioning in the capacity of Javier’s executive assistant. Since the world recession hit and the oil price fell drastically, the company was cutting back on almost everything in order to trim costs to survive this economic downturn.
Besides working under this very disgusting Spanish expat manager, handling two separate job portfolios, working ten-hour days and being severely overworked in the process, it was amazing how Cory still managed to love her job. At least she was afforded every other Friday off as a perk. And at least she and Jay had jobs to complain about during lunch.
“Look, just come down right this minute,” Rachel demanded. She still didn’t give Cory a reason but she sounded excited. “It’ll be worth your while, I promise.”
“Okay, fine.”
Cory hung up the phone and took the elevator down. She hoped whatever it was wouldn’t be a waste of her precious, limited time. Cory entered the reception lobby and the first thing she saw was a huge floral bouquet.
“These are for you,” Rachel beamed, presenting the flowers to her like she’d just won the first prize in a beauty pageant. There were beautiful orange lilies, yellow and white orchids, and tall birds of paradise flowers with other greens filled in between. Cory loved flowers and this beautiful vase touched her.
“You’re so lucky, Cory. And to think it’s not even Valentine’s Day yet,” Rachel went all romantic-sounding on her. “So … who are they from? You must share.”
Cory inhaled the divine scent of the lilies. Receiving flowers at the office was nothing new to her but when she opened the card she gasped. It simply read, Cory, thanks for making me laugh. I had a great time the other night. Adrian. So it was Adrian who sent her these gorgeous flowers?
All the while Rachel was busy cooing away. “Ooh, how sweet. Cory, this guy must really like you.”
“Nah, it’s nothing like that,” she responded. She didn’t bother to tell Rachel the details and that it was she who had asked Adrian out in the first place.
As soon as she put the huge arrangement down on her desk and reached for her cell phone, Jay came waltzing in and comfortably plunked himself down on her visitor’s chair.
“So who’s the lucky, pussy-whipped fella?” he asked, grinning from ear to ear.
“He isn’t pussy-whipped. Yet.”
“But let me make a wild guess. It’s from your ass-admiring soldier, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Jay. Now could you get back to your office and do some work. I’m very busy.”
Ignoring Cory, Jay began rubbing his hands together. “Just think, Cory, if soldier boy plays his cards right, I’ll finally be free.”
“You’re such an idiot. Get out, please,” Cory demanded.
As soon as Jay left, she dialed Adrian’s number. Javier would just have to wait a few minutes more. She was feeling a bit apprehensive but still waited, listening as the phone rang. A handsome low voice with an American accent answered this time. Cory sighed in relief. It was the same familiar voice she heard in her head every night since she first met him. It was the same sensations she felt every time it rained and every time her heart beat quickened. This voice warmed her all over.
“Hello, gorgeous,” Adrian answered.
“Hi, I just called to say thank you for the beautiful flowers.”
“Oh, but what makes you think that I had anything to do with that?” he joked.
“Maybe because you signed your name at the end of the card.”
“Damn girl, somebody must have forged my signature.”
“So what’re you doing right now?” Cory asked.
“Working like you.”
“Chasing car thieves?” she joked. It was Adrian’s turn to laugh now. They spoke some more and after wishing her a beautiful afternoon, he ended the call. Cory had the broadest smile on her face when she hung up the phone. The rest of her day went incredibly great. Neither Javier’s rants of her tardiness could spoil it for her nor his other million changes to the speech that afternoon.