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Three years had passed, and my life had changed. I grew up, no longer a novice or a sex-starved idiot.
A year into my master’s program, Joshua texted me, implying he needed a vacation away from Montana. When I didn’t answer, he e-mailed me, begging for a tour of Manhattan, promising that he would only stay a week. My whole life had been sucked up with school and life, and I needed a break too.
Joshua received a raise and the position of general manager of Blackstone Lodges and Hotels; I guessed he felt he had to celebrate. I met him at LaGuardia airport on a Friday evening, and a cab took us to Brooklyn to my apartment. After he settled in and looked around, he appeared pleased, because it was neat and clean. However, he found the apartment a little too small for his taste, but he was getting use to the idea and the people.
He walked into my room at eight o’clock the next morning and sat on a bench at the foot of my bed.
“Do you always sleep that late?”
“No, but today is Saturday, and I don’t plan to get up until eleven.” Out of the clear blue sky he dropped this on me.
“Two days after you left, Blackstone came looking for you.”
My heart raced as Joshua took his time torturing me. “He asked me questions about you, but I didn’t tell him where you were. He tried giving me the position I have now, just so I would tell him where you had gone, but I told him I had no idea. Alex, when he didn’t find you, he looked lost, and he sat in the bar for hours alone, just drinking.”
“Not too lost. The next week I read an online San Francisco newspaper of his engagement to a debutante. I see he likes them young and stupid.” I peered at Joshua with my heart broken, and not wanting an answer to the next question. “Did he marry her?”
“Why are you doing this to yourself? I thought that you never wanted to see him again?”
“Just answer my question, Josh.” I looked in his face begging him to lie to me. Tell me any lie I could stand. Tell me he didn’t marry that silly girl. Tell me he would never marry until he found me, and that he said he could not breathe until he laid eyes on me, and when he found me he would go on his knees and beg me for my hand in marriage.
Joshua only said, “No, he didn’t marry her, but...”
“But what?” I said, exasperated with the way Joshua would tell a story. He would draw everything out and then pause, keeping me on edge.
“Now he’s seeing this woman, she’s about his age. Thirty-two, very rich in her own right.”
“He’s nothing but trouble, Alex.”
I knew he was trouble, but then so was I. My life is a series of troubling relationships with my parents and the disappointments, I thought, staring at my hands.
“Then why did you go to bed with him? You’re sensible. You’re the most sensible girl I know,” Joshua said, looking up from behind his Saturday New York Times.
“I couldn’t resist his devilish smile, and I couldn’t resist him, and besides, I fell in love with him... I have something else to tell you. I’m going to work in his office in San Francisco,” I said, breaking the news.
“What? When?” Joshua said, stunned. “Do you know what you’re doing? You’re leaving New York to go to San Francisco, to languish in that dull climate where the Golden Gate Bridge is the only place to commit suicide. So, when he uses you the way he wants, and discards your ass after he has plundered it, then you have no choice but to end it all.”
“No, I don’t know what I’m doing.” My gaze searched outside the picture window, settling on cars traveling down Ocean Avenue, eventually meeting Joshua’s gaze. “He doesn’t know what he has unleashed by his actions. He doesn’t know who I am. There was an ad, and I answered it. His office in Manhattan hired me just like that. I changed my name to protect the innocent and the rest is history.”
“I don’t know who you are.” We locked eyes. “Why are you doing this?”
I thought a minute. “For revenge. Revenge is a dish best served cold,” I said, getting to my feet.
“You’re in school; you need to give yourself a chance. You’re too smart for what I see happening to you,” Joshua said as he lifted himself from his usual position in front of his computer, taking a few minutes to get a cup of coffee. As he strolled by, he placed a soft tap on my forehead with the sports section of the paper. “You have never had a boyfriend, and Mr. Black and Freddie don’t count,” he continued, as if reading my mind and filling in the blank spaces.
“This is a treacherous job market. Just read the business section of the Times.” I passed Joshua, who by now was enjoying his second cup of Green Mountain Coffee, minus sugar, snatching the paper from his hand, trying to get his attention. “And Freddie does count.”
“You know nothing about that company. You know nothing about Mr. Black. What’s their business model?”
“Blackstone Enterprises owns hotels. I have a job, and that’s all I care about.”
“You have always been a level-headed girl, and now you tell me that you are going halfway across the country, to work in a business that you don’t have a notion of what they do. Well, then what are your duties?”
“I’ll find out when I get there. I was told that I would be one of Mr. Blackstone’s assistants, and I know enough about Mr. Black. He’s a man who has a weakness for virgins.”
“To which you are no longer a member of that club.”
“Fuck you, Joshua.”
“When? I’ve been waiting for you.”
“Try getting serious.” I continued my analysis of Mr. Black. “His strengths are his weakness. He finds a virgin and then he is on to something else. Look at his dating card, debutantes and young girls. I wonder what else is lurking in his past.”
“Look here. I’ve just googled him.” Joshua smiled.
I rushed over leaning over Joshua’s shoulder, reading the headlines: “Maximilian Blackstone one of the most eligible bachelors in the U. S. or the world, and I bet he will stay a bachelor,” I said adding commentary. “He’s worth billions with money from banking, hotels, minerals, oil, and inheritances. That’s his weakness—all that money, he’s young and hot, and I bet he gets up every morning with a hard dick.”
Joshua’s brow furrowed, “Who are you?”
“Mr. Black’s worst nightmare—a scorned young woman, who will exact my revenge from his beautiful ass.” Sinking next to Joshua, staring into oblivion, I shook my head, having second thoughts. “What have I got myself into? Do you think I can do this?” I whispered.
“Didn’t I just ask the same thing, remember?” Joshua said with a sarcastic smile and a tilt of his head.
Opening my Dell to check my e-mail, there was a reminder in my inbox.
Re: Work Schedule at Blackstone Enterprises
Greetings, Ms. Bishop,
Mr. Blackstone expects you on Monday, in his office on time, and dressed appropriate for your first day. If you have a problem reaching your destination, a jet and limo have been made available for your convenience. Contact Blackstone Leer Jets at: 212- 3840478 and reserve your seat from New York to San Francisco. Mr. Blackstone is looking forward to having you as part of our family.
Speechless, I motioned to Joshua, waving my hand feverishly in the air. I couldn’t believe what I had just read.
“I’m impressed,” Joshua said.
“Is that all you can say?”
“How do you plan on pulling this off?”
Giving Joshua a light smirk, I walked into my tiny closet, taking out a box with a blonde wig, then pulling it over my auburn hair, and slipping on my brown contacts. “What do you think?”
“Do you think that’s going to fool him?” Joshua questioned.
“I don’t think he even remembers what I look like.”
“Why don’t you come back to Montana and marry me. I make a good living.” Joshua grabbed my hand, but I stole it back.
“But I don’t love you. But I do... but not the way you want, Joshua.”
“Yes, I want you to fuck me like you fucked Mr. Black, and then trail across the country to get even with me.”
“Shut up.” I got up from the chair and swatted Jacob across his forehead head with the business section of the Times.
“Today is Saturday, and you have to be in San Francisco by Monday, and get an apartment.”
“Oh, shit,” I said, raising my hand to my mouth. “I forgot about that. I can’t pay for an apartment just like that in San Francisco. It’s like living in Manhattan, the rent is outrageous. What am I going to do? What was I thinking?”
“Don’t ask me.”
“I have to get the hell out of Brooklyn before I lose my mind, Joshua. Now, help me pack. I didn’t realize that I had to be there that soon. I guess I was so excited about the job that I forgot. I have too much on my mind,” I said, pulling at my hair and biting my fingernails, which had turn into nubs, because of school and life. “I hate reading the small print.”
I walked to my bed in the corner of my studio apartment. Under the bed, I had my belongings in a box—my degree, greeting cards from friends, some photos, a watch with an inscription from my father, and a pearl ring that belonged to my mother.
After pulling a shoe box out, sitting on the bed and rummaging through it, I found a folded paper with several pages. It looked like a contract. It was a contract. This was the first time I had taken a good look at it.
After reading a few lines, I looked up. “Do you believe this?”
“What? What?” Joshua said, lifting his head from his computer.
“I can’t believe I signed this and didn’t read it.”
“And you want to be a lawyer? What’s in it?” Joshua said, studying my changing expressions, wrestling the paper from my hands.
We both read it aloud.
Ms. Johns agrees to perform duties as designated by Mr. Blackstone, to be decided and expressed on each day that she is employed at his company. If she agrees and signs this contract, then she is bound by the stipulations. Once she has signed the contract, she cannot be released from it without penalty of law.
“Well, that was short and sweet. He’s a man of few words, and you didn’t take time to read this? What’s on the next pages?” Joshua turned to the next page. There was a picture of the uniform. It was a picture of a black suit and a white shirt.
“Well, I have that.”
“Well, I bet you don’t. Can’t you see that’s a Versace suit, and a white Carolina Herrera shirt. The shirt alone costs a thousand dollars. If you have time to shop, which you don’t, and if you have money to buy it, which you don’t...”
“Shut the fuck up, Joshua, you are so negative. I’ll buy a knockoff.”
“You don’t have money even for a knockoff. Look, sweetheart, I’m being realistic. You’re in way over your head.”
“I need this job. I have no choice. All I have is a college degree, college debt, and you.” I laid my head on his shoulder, and he laid his head on mine. “I’ll fake it,” I said.
“All I have is you, and you are leaving me.” Tears welled in our eyes. There was a ding coming from Joshua’s computer. He had an e-mail.
“Oh no... I’m going to San Francisco with you to open up this new hotel.”
We were dancing around in circles. “Now I can keep my eye on you.”
“I don’t need a babysitter,” I shot back.
“You need something.”
“Yes, some money.”
“I have a little. You know there’s a rider attached to this contract. Do you want me to read it?”
“No. I don’t want to be depressed, and I don’t want to hear what you have to say today. I’ll read it later. I’ve committed myself already. Knowing more will only make me upset.”
“You will never read this until you have to,” Joshua said, staring me down. “Oh, well.” He threw the contract back in my shoe box, saying, “Procrastinator.”