Page 8 of Unless It's You
My phone buzzes on the table and I flip it over. It’s just Gemma checking to make sure I got back to London okay. This is all her fault. She’s the one who introduced me to Ethan and Ben during her birthday week.
Gemma’s my best friend in London, and we met during our MBA program, where I saved her ass in our Advanced Marketing Strategy class, and she saved mine in Advanced Corporate Finance. I still think I owe her a lot more than she owes me. And ever since we graduated five years ago, Gemma’s bugged me to come out and meet her friends from university. That night, a year and a half ago, it finally happened.
Ethan and Ben.
“Ethan Fraser hates me.” I shouldn’t admit that to my direct report, but I let the words slip out. I suppose Ethanreallyhates me because I asked him to keep our night together a secret from Ben.
That conversation had been a disaster. It had been like talking to an angry dog, as I’d said the words—can we not tell Ben what happened between us?—and was met with a snarl. That was six months into dating Ben, and as far as I know, Ethan never told him.
Even worse, there was a second incident with Ethan.
Not long after I asked for secrecy, I was out on a Friday night with Ben and a couple of his coworkers and their girlfriends, trying to be social. Everyone was getting drunk. I think the girls and I were on our second or third bottle of wine. Ethan showed up. I remember dramatically rolling my eyes at him when he glared at me across the room. Ben was trying to get everyone to go to a club, and I’m not the clubbing type. Before I knew it, I was at the pub by myself after telling Ben I would call an Uber.
But Iwasn’tby myself. Ethan was still there, too.
I have a horrifying memory of actually hissing at Ethan when he approached me, like a cornered feral cat, then him helping me stand—turns out, I was absolutely trashed—and getting into an Uber with me. I woke up the next day in a t-shirt and pajama pants in my bed, alone, with memories of laying against Ethan’s broad shoulder in the car, potentially rambling about how much I hated him and should never have kissed him.
I’ll go to the grave with that story.
“Oooo, that sounds soooo dramatic! What happened?? How do you know him?” Chloe leans forward, elbows on the table, and plops her chin in her hands, waiting for some kind of amazing story that I’m absolutely not going to tell her.
And this is why the girl is going to ruin her life, as per the Unless Game. She shouldn’t be excited about the new client hating her boss. She shouldn’t be excited about drama at work. Unless she’s determined to ruin her career by doing something stupid, like hooking up with one of the cameramen on the last London-based shoot we were on. Luckily, we’d kept the gossip down on that one, but it could’ve been much worse.
“It’s not dramatic at all.” Objectively, it is. I keep my face clear of emotions. “We have, um, mutual friends. He doesn’t hate me. Well, not really. We just don’t particularly get along.”
I detest drama with men. Ever since Hunter.
He was a client at the ad agency I worked for out of college in New York City. A decade older than me, Hunter had a spectacular city apartment with stunning views of the Hudson, which I first saw after an agency Christmas party in Manhattan. He blew me away with how together he was. The job, the apartment... He was so different from every other boy I’d dated. Because he wasn’t a boy. He was an adult. A man. I fell hard for Hunter, and when he asked me to move in a mere month later, I left my tiny shared apartment in Brooklyn and loaded three suitcases in the car he sent to bring me home to his place. It was a fairy tale, with a cleaner twice a week, prepared meals delivered every night, and enthusiastic sex.
Then, one Tuesday night, he came home extremely late and informed me he was getting back together with his estranged wife. Wife! They would try to work it out, and she was pregnant. Pregnant! I mean, what? I hadn’t known he was seeing anyone else, let alone a wife I didn’t know he had. I’d let myself fall for him, opening myself wide, without setting up any protections for my heart.
Devastated, I found an even crappier apartment with a microscopic room and shlepped my stuff back to Brooklyn.
Then Evelyn had showed up at my new place. Already in her early eighties, she took the train into the city and banged on my door, fully dressed up in a gold silk dress with her hair freshly done, announcing we would be going to see a Broadway show. She reminded me I didn’t need a man, and that I could live a full, happy life all on my own. When I tried to resist, she merely saidpishposh!,then pulled out the fanciest dress in my closet.
I can still hear her voice in my head. My stomach clenches.I miss her.
And Ethan? He totally detests me. Like, he’d shove me into the Thames to get rid of me if he had the chance.
“Sounds like the start of an enemies-to-lovers romance.” Chloe twirls a chunk of her hair.
Enemies-to-lovers is my favorite romance trope, but only to read about, not to live through. It’s not a real-life thing that happens.
“It’s one hundred percentnotan enemies-to-lovers romance, or any kind of romance at all.” I ignore the queasy feeling in my belly. Jet lag is really catching up to me. “Let’s focus on the actual work—I have an entire brief to create based on very little information. I’ll catch up with you later about the meeting schedule.” I stand and roll my neck.
“Bye!” Chloe calls when I slide out the door of the conference room. “Can’t wait to hear more!”
“You won’t,” I mutter to myself as I stride down the hallway to my cubicle, clutching my laptop to my chest like a teenage girl grasping her folders in a high school hallway.
Fine. I admit it. Kissing Ethan wasn’t torture. But it was a mistake. There was alcohol involved. A lot of alcohol. My heels pad quietly along the carpeted floor, and I concentrate on moving along, each step closer to the end of the day and the bed in my flat.
I have bigger problems to deal with than an ancient, ill-fated kiss.
5
STELLA
My phone buzzes with multiple incoming messages, jolting me out of my mini desk-nap. I sit up straight and arch my back, then rub my eyes, probably smearing mascara and winged eyeliner. My computer is snoozing, and before looking at my phone, I click my mouse to wake it up.
