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When we step out of Chris’s Coffee Shop, a sleek black car is waiting for us by the curb. It’s only a short ride to Julian’s building, which is on King Street, a little west of the Financial District. Excellent. Close enough that I’ll be able to walk to work. It would suck if he lived far away, but he’d probably hire a car to drive me to and from work anyway, so it wouldn’t be that much of a hassle.
It’s a very tall building, and we take the elevator up to the top floor.
Because, of course, he lives in the penthouse.
When the elevator doors open, he places his hand on my lower back and guides me into his home, the simple contact drawing all my attention.
Until he flips on the lights and I see his penthouse.
I’ve been in nice houses before, but I’ve never been in anything quite like this. It’s massive and mostly open plan, so I can see a lot of it at once, including the fancy stainless steel appliances in the kitchen and the enormous marble kitchen island. There are two sinks and tons of counter space; even that seems like a luxury to me.
I slip off my shoes and walk around. In the living room, there’s a large white sectional couch, and I sit down with a little bounce. A white couch seems horribly impractical, but I suppose he can afford to hire a cleaner—or, hell, just buy a new couch—if he spills a three-hundred-dollar bottle of red wine on it.
Next to the sectional couch is a black leather recliner, and ooh, it’s the most comfortable thing ever. Across the wall from the chair is an enormous screen.
“How many inches is that?” I ask.
Julian answers, but I don’t properly register his response because the word “inches” has me thinking of something else.
Not happening, Courtney.
There are pieces of art scattered across his penthouse, although I suppose “scattered” isn’t the right word. I’m sure they were carefully placed by his interior decorator—hell, maybe a team of interior decorators.
I wander around and gasp as I approach the window. It faces south, and I can see the lights glittering in the small piece of Toronto between King Street and the water, and then the Toronto Islands and the black expanse of Lake Ontario beyond.
“Oh my God,” I say. “This is incredible.”
I feel embarrassed for gushing over the view, but that’s the sort of thing he wants me to do, isn’t it? He likes the fact that I can appreciate the little things.
Though this is far from a little thing.
“Would you like to see the view to the north?” he asks.
“Yes, please!” I say, like an eager schoolgirl.
He guides me down the hallway and into a bedroom at the far end. The window encompasses one entire wall of the room. The view is incredible, all the lights of a city of millions of people. It makes me feel small and insignificant, but at the same time, I feel blessed that I have the chance to see the world like this.
I glance at Julian, who’s staring out the window.
“I guess it’s pretty incredible,” he says. “But I’m used to it. I see it every day.”
His gaze lands on me, and I feel a shiver down my spine.
“This is your bedroom.” He gestures around the room. “You can see this view every day for the next two weeks.”
The room is nearly as big as my entire apartment, and this is the guest room. I wonder how often he has guests here and whether there are multiple guest rooms.
I wonder what his bedroom looks like.
Don’t go there.
In the middle of my new room is a king-sized bed with a soft grey duvet and a mountain of pillows. This seems too fussy for Julian, but then again, this isn’t his room, and I bet he wasn’t the one who set it up. There are a couple of pen-and-ink drawings on the walls and a comfy-looking black couch on the far side, as well as a television.
Julian hands me a remote. “If you want to watch television in bed, press this button.” When he presses it, a second screen pops down in front of the bed.
I’m afraid I’m going to break something.
There are two doors in the room in addition to the one that leads to the hall. I poke my head in the first one and find a walk-in closet. Now, I’m not one of those women who’s particularly excited by walk-in closets, but I can still appreciate a nice one.
However, it’s nothing compared to what’s behind the other door.
An en suite washroom with a Jacuzzi and a shower I’ve never seen the likes of before. There are multiple shower heads, and... My God, you could have some really great sex in here.
At that thought, I duck my head and turn back toward the bedroom. Unfortunately, I run smack into Julian, and for the first time, I get a sense of what’s under that suit.
Muscle. Definitely lots of muscle.
“Um,” I say, stepping back. “This is all very nice. Lovely. Impressive. But...” God, he’s distracting. It’s hard for me to talk properly right now. “I’ll need to return to my apartment soon to get my stuff—my clothes and other things.”
“Of course. We can do that tomorrow morning. Until then, there are toothbrushes, toothpaste, floss, and other essentials in your washroom.”
“What will I wear to bed?”
As soon as I utter those words, I clamp my hand over my mouth. I don’t need to be thinking about that when he’s in the room with me. I don’t need him to be thinking about that.
I watch his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows.
I wonder if he’s going to make a comment about me sleeping in the nude.
He scratches the back of his neck. “I can lend you one of my T-shirts for the night.”
Strange to think of Julian wearing something as basic as a T-shirt, but of course he doesn’t wear suits 24/7.
I nod briskly. “Great. That works. Now, could you give me a few minutes alone so I can call my sister and tell her where I am?”
He exits the room without another word.
I sit down on the bed and take a moment to catch my breath. God, this is really happening. I’m spending the next two weeks in a luxury penthouse. Two weeks with this incredible view.
I pull out my phone and call Naomi.
She answers on the first ring. “Courtney, what’s wrong?”
“Why do you think something’s wrong?”
“Because you never call—you always text—and it’s ten o’clock at night.”
“Don’t worry. Nothing’s wrong. I’m just spending the night with a guy and thought I should give you his info in case anything happens.” I provide his name and address.
“Julian Fong,” Naomi says. “Why does that name sound familiar?”
“Fong Investments. He’s Charles Fong’s son, and he runs it now.”
“You’re sleeping with a CEO?”
I pull the phone away from my ear. “Could you take your voice down a notch? And we’re not sleeping together.”
“Then why on earth are you spending the night with him?”
“Actually, it’s more than one night...” It takes me five minutes to explain the strange events that have led to this point.
“Right,” Naomi says. “I see. Except I don’t really see.”
“I’m getting five thousand dollars for doing almost nothing. I’ll give the money to you, and you’ll be able to afford our trip to New York City this fall! Isn’t that great?”
“Courtney, you don’t need to get the money for me. If New York is that important to you, I can try to figure something out, okay?”
Nope, not happening. My sister will just put everything on her credit card, and credit card debt is the worst.
“It’s no problem,” I say. “I like Julian. This will be fine. And any money you don’t use for the trip...you can keep it. A rainy-day fund in case you have to fix your car again.”
Sometimes my relationship with my sister feels a little one-sided. Like, she’s always the one helping me, not the other way around.
I really want to go to New York, but I also really want to do this for her.
“I promise,” I say. “It’s not a hardship.”
“If you’re sure... But don’t stay if you ever feel unsafe, okay?”
“Okay.”
“And if you’re not enjoying yourself at all, you should leave, too.” She chuckles. “I just Googled him, and I’ve decided you should definitely be sleeping with him. In fact, I’m looking at a picture of him shirtless—”
“Where is this picture?”
“It’s in a charity calendar of half-dressed businessmen from a few years ago.”
My excitement deflates. “Julian would never do something like that. I know him well enough to say that much.” I pause. “You understand why I can’t sleep with him, don’t you?”
That road leads to inevitable heartbreak, and as I’ve proven in the past, I don’t deal well with heartbreak.
When I was twenty-one, I had a boyfriend. Dane and I had been together for a year and a half, and I thought we’d get married one day. I was in what should have been my final year of undergrad, and I was excited about applying to grad school and figuring out what I wanted to do with my life.
Everything was going great.
Then I got depressed. I slid into this awful world where...I don’t quite know how to describe it. You know frosted glass windows, like you might have in a washroom? It’s like experiencing the entire world through one of those. You can’t see it properly, can’t experience it. My brain felt like it was full of straw, and my body felt like it was being weighed down by a ton of bricks. I could barely function—even getting out of bed and brushing my teeth was a ridiculous amount of effort—and the fact that I could barely function made me feel worse about myself, creating an awful loop of negative self-talk.
It wasn’t my first episode of severe depression. However, it was the first time it had happened when I was legally an adult and not living with my parents, and it was easier to get help. I went to the health services center at the university, where I saw doctors, counselors, and psychologists. I did therapy, I tried a bunch of anti-depressants.
Nothing worked.
Dane was initially supportive, but he couldn’t deal with me when I was depressed, not for long, and so he broke up with me.
Not surprisingly, this didn’t improve my mental health. It got worse. I had to go on leave from university, and I spent a week in the hospital under suicide watch.
In other words, it nearly killed me.
I can’t really blame Dane. If he didn’t want to be with me, he shouldn’t have had to wait until I was healthy to tell me that. But it taught me an important lesson.
In the end, I only have myself, and I can’t count on a man to be there when I need him. I can’t count on a man to put up with me when I’m in that state. Nobody, with the exception of my sister, can cope with me when I’m sick. So I haven’t had a boyfriend since Dane, and that’s not going to change.
“Sure, Julian and I are attracted to each other,” I say, “but I can’t afford to get attached to him, and if we sleep together...”
I’ve tried having sex just for fun. It’s not like I’ve been completely celibate for the past ten years. However, I can’t escape the fact that for me, sex means something. I wish I were different, but I’m not.
“You could end up dating,” Naomi says.
“No. The risks involved in a romantic relationship are too great.” Even if, by some miracle, there’s a man out there who would stay with me when I’m at my lowest, it’s not worth trying, not when failure means a risk of death. Plus, this is the worst possible time, since I know I’m going to slide into depression again soon.
So, I’m just going to spend time with Julian, nothing more. Make five thousand dollars for my sister and enjoy his lavish lifestyle for two weeks.
Naomi sighs. “You’re too pessimistic.”
“I only met the guy a few hours ago,” I say. “It’s too early for you to be matchmaking. Now, about that charity calendar. You were joking, weren’t you?”
“Yeah. Julian isn’t in the calendar, but his brother Vince is.”
After I end the call, I find the photo of a half-dressed Vince Fong online. He’s a good-looking man who isn’t lacking in abs, but he doesn’t do much for me.
There’s a knock at the door and I drop my phone, feeling embarrassed that I’ve been looking at semi-naked pictures of Julian’s brother when I’m in Julian’s penthouse. It feels like cheating, even though there’s nothing going on between us.
“I have a T-shirt for you,” Julian says. “Can I come in?”
“Yep!” I call out, turning the phone over on the bedside table, although I’ve already closed the browser.
He steps into the room and I suck in a breath, willing my heart to stop beating so fast. He hands me a black T-shirt with a V-neck.
Mm. That would look good on him. He could make an entire calendar of himself, wearing jeans and a black T-shirt, and I would buy it.
“Need anything else?” he asks.
“Uh, no,” I say, feeling a little flustered. Thank God he can’t read my mind. “I’m settling in just fine. Nothing else I need. Nope, nothing at all!”
He looks at me like I’m slightly deranged, then says, “What are the plans for tomorrow?”
“Plans? Um...” Then it comes to me. “Your problem is that you always need a plan, always need to know where things are going. You need to learn to be spontaneous.”
“Spontaneous?” He says the word as though it’s utterly distasteful.
“Yeah. You need to learn how to go with the flow and let someone else be in charge for a while. So even though I have some ideas, I’m not going to tell you what they are.”
The truth is, I don’t have any ideas. Hadn’t gotten around to that part yet.
Julian seems to accept my words.
“Have a good night,” he says before closing the door.
I breathe out a sigh and then change into his T-shirt. It’s a little big on me, but only a little. I’m not an adorable petite woman who’d be swimming in her boyfriend’s T-shirt.
Not, of course, that Julian will ever be my boyfriend.
But tonight I’m wearing his T-shirt, and it smells like laundry detergent with just a hint of him.