No Strings Attached

Chapter One

"She tries to hide it, but you know my wife. Always running around when she shouldn't."

"She's a busy woman. I downloaded her new novel. Haven't been able to read it ,though."

"Well, I'll let her know. She'll be eager to hear your thoughts when you do."

We enter the chestnut-colored doors to my office, and he immediately bee-lines for my minibar. "Drink?" he questions, fetching two glasses.

"I have to be on a plane in a few hours."

"All the more reason to drink."

"A whiskey then, please," I say, hanging my bag on the steel rack beside my coats and umbrellas. When the phone beeps, I walk around the wide desk, staring out over the towering skyscrapers.

I stab the red button on my receiver. "Yes, Bec?"

"The only flight I could get you for tonight leaves in two hours."

"That's fine. Send a key down to my driver, have him pack me a bag for the weekend. He's done it before. He knows what to get, and tell him to be outside a quarter to seven."

"Sure thing."

"Thanks." I release the button just as Norman thrusts me a whiskey.

He tips a salute. "Cheers."

I rarely drink, but when I do, I drink whiskey. It's the only liquor I can stand to smell, having grown up bordered by dangerous mixtures of alcoholic beverages.

"You have two hours. Why don't you take off, get a chance to relax before you fly out?"

"No, I have to edit the website for that leasing company by tonight. They've been getting complaints on the lack of variety."

"Scarlett, someone else with another job title can handle those particulars. You are the vice president. You're going to run yourself into the ground."

"Are you seriously telling me not to work right now?"

He scowls at my sarcasm. "I'm telling you to go home. Get dressed up. Maybe you'll find yourself a date at the airport."

"Norman."

"You haven't dated since Dixon. Don't think I haven't noticed."

The mention of my ex-husband does not fill me with joy. I could tell Norman I've lost faith in men. I could tell him that I don't plan on tying the knot ever again. I could tell him that I'm content going home to a pint of mint-chocolate chip ice cream and a three-year-old vibrator, but instead I stick with the less-complicated, abridged version.

"I don't have time for a relationship."

"Then make time. Your mother would have wrung your neck by now if she knew you'd shut yourself off after one-failed marriage. I've had five. You don't see me throwing in the towel!"

"Because you're an incurable romantic, Norman. That is something I am not."

"You weren't always like this. When you were younger, you loved romances."

"And then I witnessed what happens when the romance fades. It destroys you. It destroyed my mother." I shake my head. "No, I don't need that in my life."

"He was a despicable man, Scarlett, but he is not the whole world."

My fidgeting escalates. To avoid meeting his eye, I glare into my computer screen, pulling up the applications. "I tried to find it, remember? I got Dixon. A replica of my father."

"You can't make yourself believe there isn't someone out there for you."

I'm done talking about this. "If it's meant to happen, it will."