Because he wouldn’t tell everyone that we had just been outside the office building. His caption would be something like “Daniel McGregor, Caught in an Illicit Office Tryst.” Technically, it wasn’t a lie. I should never have had my arms around the two women; I knew exactly what that looked like. Everyone would assume that we had just been coming home from a club or something like that, and there was me with a woman under each arm; how many times had they seen that in other circumstances?
And if anyone really connected the dots, which any of the people I worked with were bound to do, they would realize that these weren’t just two floozies. No, these were two women from the office, my employees.
I could feel a headache coming on already. I wanted to chase the photographer, to smash his camera to bits and drop his memory card into the river. I wanted to drop him into the river if I was being honest. I wondered if Gerrard had tipped him off to the fact that I was going to be at the office late tonight. One final act of revenge.
I shook my head and my lips pursed sourly. There was no point in trying to cover things up; I had realized that long ago. Nor was there any point in trying to tell my side of the story. No one wanted to hear that. If I didn’t know any better, I would think that everyone just wanted to believe that I was a player and a terrible guy.
It didn’t matter, though. As long as the business flourished, my life was whatever I wanted to make of it.
I headed to my car, a shiny new Maserati I had treated myself to just recently. I still hadn’t had a chance to take her out on the highway and see what she was really made of. I knew that engine would purr no matter what speed I pushed her to. Maybe I’d find some time this weekend to take a little joyride. I had a bit of
work that needed to be finished up by Monday, but I could probably sneak away for an hour or two.
Of course, I wasn’t going to get to fly along the road the way I really wanted to. I knew just what would happen if I got another speeding ticket. The media would be all over that, and it could affect my business. Getting caught with a woman under each arm was one thing. But having to go to court, even traffic court, was another thing; that made me look reckless and irresponsible.
It wouldn’t do for the CEO of McGregor Enterprises to look irresponsible.
I slipped into the car, drumming my fingers along the edge of the steering wheel for a moment. I didn’t really want to go home to my empty house, not just yet. But now that I had a train of photographers following me, I knew there wasn’t really anything else I could do. Sure, the good clubs around the city would keep out the piranhas with cameras. They’d still be waiting outside at the end of the night, though, and they’d be just as happy to write a story on my drunken night out in the club as a story on my supposed threesome with two women from my office.
Because they were still following me, I was sure. The guy who got the earlier picture had run off, but where there was one, there were others. They were like fucking cockroaches, the lot of them. And they somehow seemed to always sense when one of their brethren was about to get the scoop on something that I did. That brought them all out of the woodwork.
No, it was best that I just call it a night and head home.
For the second time that night, I found myself fighting down an unexpected wave of loneliness. Did I want something more to my life than this? Maybe. Damn the paparazzi. Sometimes I wished that they would just leave me the hell alone. But that was an empty prayer, I knew. There was no way to get them to stop. Firing Gerrard might give me a slight reprieve, a chance to go out to clubs without being followed on the way there. But the press would find me anyway. I’d have to be a total hermit to avoid them.
I went home, despising the sour mood I was in and wishing that I could go back to earlier in the office with the younger crowd, chatting easily in the privacy of the secure building and forgetting for a moment about all my responsibilities as a CEO.
But this was my life, and in spite of everything, my pride in what I’d been able to accomplish with my father’s company made it so that I didn’t really wish for anything different. Except for maybe a little worry-free companionship at the end of the night.
I wouldn’t get that now, though. Instead, I grabbed a glass from the cabinet in the kitchen and poured myself a couple fingers of rum. Then, I headed into the spacious living room and stared out over the lights of the city.
Chapter 4
Abby
I WAS GLAD TO HAVE Leanne come along with me to the gym on Tuesday morning, but when I’d let her pick the class that she wanted to go to, I had really been hoping beyond hope that she wouldn’t make me suffer through another hour of hot yoga. It was Leanne’s favorite type of workout, I knew, and she swore that it was the only way that she could ever have lost all that weight after Layla was born. But as for me, I hated hot yoga and would much rather have done, well, any of the other classes that were offered today. Even the spin class with Jeremy, who pushed his clients relentlessly.
Still, I was glad that Leanne was there with me, and I had offered to let her pick the class. It had been a while since I’d had to suffer through one of these classes with her.
It wasn’t so much the heat that bothered me, or an inherent dislike of yoga. No, it was just moments like this: everyone else looked comfortable and strong in their warrior pose, and I was on my back again, not even sure how I had gotten there. As I rolled to my feet and tried to get myself back into position, my flaming face had nothing to do with the temperature of the room.
Balance was just so not my thing.
To be honest, I never would have realized how much balance went into yoga. After all, for this pose, I still had two feet on the ground. I should be able to keep from falling over backward suddenly, shouldn’t I? But then again, I had always been a klutz.
“You okay?” Leanne asked quietly, leaning toward me, a small grin on her face. I knew she wasn’t laughing at me, though.
I envied how relaxed and graceful she looked as we flowed into the next pose. Belatedly, I rushed to catch up to the rest of the class’s movements and found myself having to catch myself with a hand on the floor before I toppled over again.
“I am terrible at yoga,” I announced to Leanne, as though that were any real surprise.
“You’ll get better with time,” Leanne assured me. “When I first started, I wasn’t flexible at all. But it’s gotten a lot easier.”
I resisted the urge to point out the fact that increasing flexibility was a bit different than undoing a lifetime’s worth of clumsiness. I was predisposed toward failure at yoga, as far as I was concerned. I forced myself to concentrate on moving my body into the next pose, though, glancing at the clock and refraining from groaning when I saw that we still had another twenty minutes of this torture to get through.
After yoga, we headed next door for coffee. “I really like that gym,” Leanne gushed as we got our drinks and found a table. “I might actually need to get a membership there. I like doing yoga at home, but that teacher is so great. I haven’t felt this relaxed in ages.”
I grinned and shook my head. “Does that mean you’re going to drag me to hot yoga every week?” I asked.