More Than One Night. Heatherly Bell

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СКАЧАТЬ talk about this to her two best friends in the world, who could she talk to?

      “Remember the Chris sighting three years ago in San Francisco?” Jill said.

      “How could I forget?” Carly took a sugar packet away from Grace. “You talked about it for weeks.”

      “That was the last Chris sighting until Levi came around,” Zoey said.

      On one particularly long and boring afternoon at The Drip when they all still worked together, after their three o’clock dance off, Jill had devised a complicated scale for rating men. It was called the Chris Scale because the mean was based on all the well-known Chrises: Pratt, Evans, Pine, Hemsworth. For a man to rate high on the scale meant he’d passed the mean. This was a big deal, naturally, as the mean was already high. Not that she thought all men had to offer were their looks, far from it. But the Chris Scale was, to this date, the only way she liked doing math.

      “I have a confession to make.” Jill moved the sugar packets away from Grace. Her reach was getting long.

      “Oh, this should be interesting,” Carly said.

      “I may have done more than simply rate this ‘Chris.’ I may have spent some time with him.”

      “How much time?” Zoey narrowed her eyes.

      Jill inspected her fingernails. She needed a good manicure. “Um, all night?”

      Zoey slapped the table. “Dude! You said you’d never done that before. A one-night stand?”

      “Well, it was just this once. I figured... I needed it. Deserved it.”

      “Right on.” Carly laughed.

      “Look, I’m the one who’s been celibate for three years. That night has had to last me a long time. Three years!”

      “It’s been even longer for me,” Zoey protested. “I’m not even going to say how long.”

      “Aw,” Jill said, hugging Zoey.

      Jill and Zoey both turned to Carly.

      “This morning, before Grace woke up.”

      “You’re not even supposed to be able to have morning sex when you have a baby!” Jill said.

      “I know, right?” Carly kissed Grace’s plump cheek. “She’s possibly the best baby ever.”

      Zoey glanced lovingly to Grace, then outside to Boo. “I don’t see why you can bring her in here and I can’t bring Boo in. He’d behave.”

      Carly wrinkled her nose, but apparently chose to ignore the comparison of her stepdaughter to a well-trained Great Dane.

      “So what are the men like who showed up today?” Carly said. “Anyone to help you, um, get over that dry spell?”

      “Funny you should mention that,” Jill said. “Because Chris? He’s one of my guys. Except his name is Sam.”

      “Get out! Chris is here?” Carly squealed.

      “His name is Sam.”

      “Sam, Chris, what’s the difference if he’s hot?” Zoey said.

      “You forget,” Jill said with great patience. “I’m now his boss. As in, he’s my employee. As in lawsuit waiting to happen.”

      Carly snorted. “Technically, Levi was my boss for a while when I was Grace’s nanny.”

      “But you and Levi fell in love. Maybe I don’t want to get sued.”

      Both of her friends looked at her expectantly. She’d never been one to doubt equality, both in the workplace and the bedroom. But now... Well, it was a little icky to come on to her employee. And there was the whole ethical/legal dilemma. She couldn’t ignore that issue even if she wanted to. If her investors were to find out they might think her less than professional.

      Besides, she’d be twenty-eight this year. Even if she’d never had a one-night stand before Sam, she had a past filled with go-nowhere relationships with Class A commitment-phobes. And for the first time, she wondered what that said about her. Why did she always wind up with men who were in some fashion or another unavailable? While her mother might have something to say about that, Jill was sure she didn’t want to hear it. Point being, she had to learn to want a man who was available to her, and that certainly wasn’t her employee.

      And that night in San Francisco, it hadn’t been Jill in Sam’s arms. It had been her alter ego, Angelina. That Angelina was a wild woman. She was fearless.

      “It was one night.” One wild and crazy night she allowed herself. A little fun for once with no strings. “He wasn’t supposed to be a part of my daily life.”

      “Well, now he is,” Carly said.

      “Thanks for the 411,” Jill deadpanned.

      “Oh my God, you’re not going to fire him, are you?” Zoey looked on the verge of tears. “He might need this job.”

      Jill patted bleeding-heart Zoey’s hands. “No, of course not. I’ll just make it work. Take a hands-off approach. Lay down the law and all that.”

      “You’re so good at that,” Zoey said.

      “But wait,” Carly said. “Maybe there’s something you’re not telling us.”

      “Right.” Zoey turned to Carly. “Like...what?”

      “Like he wasn’t any good.” Carly set Grace back in her stroller and handed her a set of plastic keys. “Looks aren’t everything. Maybe he was high on the Chris Scale, but um, you know, was ‘lacking’ in other vital ways.”

      That would have been nice. Or rather convenient. Not then, but now.

      “No.” She cleared her throat. “Not lacking. At all. In any way.”

      Carly grinned. “I see.”

      Wrong though it seemed for someone she’d met once, Sam had been the best she’d ever had. And if it was going to be difficult to work with him, day in, day out, watching him all sweaty, challenging himself physically, working hard... Well, she was up to the task. She would look but not touch. A woman had to get her kicks somewhere.

      Hers was a tough job, but hey, someone had to do it.

       Chapter Three

      Later that evening, Jill went back to the office trailer as she often did, this time to work on the bookkeeping she’d been avoiding. She had stacks of receipts to enter into a spreadsheet so the accountant could put together the next financial report for their board of investors. The board already wanted her to hire a general manager to report directly to them. They really needed a receptionist and scheduler since lately the phone had been ringing off the hook for bookings. Now that they were a month away from opening, all their advertising was coming to fruition СКАЧАТЬ