The Invitation by Vi Keeland
CHAPTER 11
Stella
I might’ve been a bit overeager the next morning.
Olivia had told me to meet her in the office at 8AM so we could start working with her team on the Signature Scent marketing plan. Yet the sun was barely up when I arrived at the offices of Rothschild Investments. Since I was so early, I went a few doors down to a twenty-four-hour deli and figured I’d get a cup of coffee and a muffin. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who’d gotten a head start on today. The line was ten deep with suit-clad men and women, every one of them with their noses buried in their phones as they waited.
When I finally arrived at the register, a kid who looked like he should be getting ready for high school instead of working took my order.
“What can I get you?” As he spoke, he took out his phone and stared down at it. I thought perhaps he had to type my order in for someone else to make it in the back.
“I’ll have a coffee, light and sweet, and one of those crumb-cake muffins, please.”
He held up one finger and texted into his phone. When he was done, he punched something into the register. “One coffee, light and sweet, and one blueberry muffin. That’ll be six seventy-five. What’s your name?”
“Well, my name is Stella, but I wanted a crumb-cake muffin, not a blueberry muffin.”
The kid frowned as if I were annoying him. He hit some more buttons on the register, but then his phone buzzed, so his attention shifted there again. I took a ten out of my wallet and extended it to him, but he ignored my waiting hand. When a solid two minutes had passed and he still hadn’t looked up from his phone, I leaned in and peered over at what he was doing.
Texting.
The kid wasn’t putting my order in on his phone, he was texting someone named Kiara.
I flicked my wrist in an attempt to catch his eye. “Umm… Here you go.”
Again, he held up a finger.
Unbelievable.
Eventually, he plucked the bill out of my hand and gave me change. Then he picked up a tall coffee cup, opened a marker, and scribbled a name on it. Simone.
My brows drew together. “Is that supposed to be mine?”
He huffed. “It’s got your name on it, doesn’t it?”
Rather than argue, I smiled. “Sure. You have a wonderful day.”
“Next!”
I assumed that was his way of asking me to step aside so he could take the next customer.
A few people were milling around at the other end of the counter, so I went to join them and proceeded to do what everyone else was doing: look down at my cell phone. Fisher had texted a few minutes ago.
Fisher: Good luck working on the marketing today. I know that’s your favorite part!
I texted back.
Stella: Thank you! I’m nervous but excited.
He then sent me a picture of a man from the newest dating site he’d joined. The guy wore only a pair of tight, gray boxers. His smile was nice, and he had good hair. But when I panned down to the rest of him, my eyes bulged. Now I knew why he’d sent it to me. Another text arrived underneath.
Fisher: You told me to stop picking men by their abs and look for a genuine smile. That thing is definitely smiling. ;)
Stella: That can’t be real…
I lifted my phone closer and zoomed in on the bulge. No way was that all him. The guy had to have a banana stuffed in there somewhere. No, forget that, it was definitely a zucchini. Did penises even come in that size? Surely none that I’d ever seen.
A deep voice over my shoulder startled me.
“And to think I start my morning off by browsing The Wall Street Journal…”
I jumped, and my cell phone tumbled from my hands, hitting the floor. I bent to scoop it up and scowled. “Oh my God, why would you sneak up on me like that?”
Hudson chuckled. “How could I pass up interrupting when you’re watching porn?”
“I’m not watching porn.” I felt my face redden. “My friend sent me a picture of a guy from a dating site.”
He looked skeptical. “Uh-huh.”
Embarrassed, I tried to convince him it was the truth by holding up the phone to show him—only to realize I’d been zooming in on the guy’s dick. “No, really…”
Hudson held up his hand to block the view. “I’ll take your word for it. Thanks. But I’m glad to see you and your friend are both focusing on the important qualities in a man.”
I shook my head. Awesome. I kept making one good impression after another with this guy. I sighed in defeat.
“Simone!” the barista yelled.
I heard him, but it didn’t click at first.
“Simone!”
Shoot—that was me. I stepped up to the counter and retrieved my coffee and muffin. Hudson was shaking his head when I returned to where he stood.
“What?” I asked.
“A new alias?”
“The kid who took my order wasn’t listening when I said my name.”
Hudson gave a skeptical nod. “Right.”
“No, really.”
He shrugged. “What reason would I have to not believe you?”
I rolled my eyes.
“Hudson!” The barista yelled.
Hudson smirked. “He seems capable of getting my name right.” After he grabbed his coffee, he nodded toward the door. “You heading to the office?”
“Yeah.”
We walked out of the store and down the street side by side.
“Your daughter is absolutely adorable,” I said. “She cracked me up without even trying yesterday.”
Hudson shook his head. “Thank you. She’s six going on twenty-six and has no filter.”
“She sings beautifully, too.”
“Let me guess, Dolly while sitting on the toilet?”
I laughed. “‘Jolene’. I take it this is a frequent occurrence?”
“The toilet and the bathtub are her preferred performance venues.”
“Ah,” I said. “That’s probably because of the great clue sticks.”
Hudson smiled unguardedly. “Indeed.”
A homeless woman sat in front of the building next to ours. She had a shopping cart full of cans and bottles and was rolling change from a plastic cup into paper coin wrappers. At our building, Hudson opened the door for me.
“Can you…” I dug into my purse. “Hang on one second.”
I left Hudson holding the door open and walked back to the woman. Extending my hand with what I could offer, I said, “I’m sort of broke, too. But I want you to have this.”
She smiled. “Thank you.”
When I returned to Hudson, his forehead was wrinkled. “Did you give her money?”
I shook my head. “I gave her my Hershey bar.”
He looked at me funny, but nodded before pushing the button for the elevator.
“So are you a big country-music fan?” I asked. “Is that where your daughter gets her love of Dolly?”
“Nope. And neither is my ex-wife or anyone else we know. She just heard one of Dolly’s songs on the radio in the car once and liked it. She started singing the parts she could remember at home and then took it upon herself to ask her singing teacher to teach her the full song. Now it’s the only artist she sings. She knows a dozen Dolly songs by heart.”
“That’s awesome.”
“Last year for Halloween, when all the other little girls wanted to be Disney princesses, Charlie wanted her mother to stuff socks in her shirt and buy her a platinum wig.”
“Wow, going platinum and stuffing. It’s like she’s thirteen already.”
Hudson groaned. “I don’t even want to think about that.”
We got into the elevator together to ride up to the offices. The minute the doors slid closed, a familiar smell invaded my nose. Instinctively, I leaned toward him to get a better whiff.
Hudson raised a single brow. “What are you doing?”
“You have a smell on you that isn’t cologne, body wash, or shampoo. I’m trying to identify it.” Sniff. Sniff. “I know it. I just can’t place it.”
“I’m guessing you’re the type of person who has an incessant need to know the answer to a problem. Will it drive you crazy if you don’t?”
I sniffed again. “It absolutely will.”
The elevator dinged, indicating our arrival on the fourteenth floor. Hudson held out his hand for me to exit first and then unlocked the door to the office. Once we were inside, he walked around the empty reception desk and flicked a bunch of switches to turn the lights on.
I waited on the other side. “So what’s the smell? Some kind of a lotion, maybe?”
Hudson smirked. “Nope.” He turned and began walking into the back with long strides.
“Wait… Where are you going?”
He spoke without turning. “To my office to work. You should try doing the same.”
“But you didn’t tell me what the smell is.”
I heard him chuckle as he continued to walk. “Have a good day, Simone.”
***
Olivia and I spent the morning going over some initial advertising plans, but her marketing manager really wanted to see how things worked in action. So I took them over to the lab that would be producing the perfumes and brought along a sample kit to show them the process each order would go through. I loved how excited they were to learn more about the product.
After we’d finished, Olivia had to go to a meeting, and the marketing manager was heading to meet a friend for a late lunch, so I stuck around the lab for a while before grabbing a train back to the office.
Hudson’s door was open as I passed, so I knocked.
He looked up from a stack of papers, and I held up a box. “More of the perfume your grandmother liked.”
Hudson tossed his pen on the desk. “Thank you. Are you sticking around late again tonight?”
I nodded. “I have a lot to do. Your team is full speed ahead, and they’ve given me a ton to review already.”
“I’ve been going over your inventory and suppliers and have some ideas I’d like to run by you.”
“Sure. That’d be great. When do you want to do it?”
He motioned to the piles of papers on his desk. “I need a little time to finish up. How about six?”
“Sounds good.”
“Stella?” Hudson called as I turned to go.
“Yes?”
He motioned with his chin toward the box in my hand. “You forgot to give me the perfume.”
I smiled. “Oh. No, I didn’t. You’ll get it when you tell me what the smell was this morning.”
He shook his head with a smile. “Bring it to the conference room at six.”
A little after five, Hudson’s assistant called to ask if I liked Chinese food. Apparently Hudson and I were having a working dinner. I was definitely intrigued about spending some time alone with him. This would be my chance to correct my first—and second and third—impression and show him I wasn’t actually flighty.
At six on the nose, I went into the conference room, armed with a giant file of inventory data, a notebook, and the perfume I’d made. Hudson was already inside with papers spread out, and cartons of Chinese food sat in the middle of the table, along with plates and utensils.
“You ordered garlic chicken, huh?”
Hudson shook his head. “How the hell do you do that? I haven’t even opened the container.”
I smiled. “Cardboard can’t contain garlic.”
Hudson was seated at the head of the table, so I settled into a chair on his left. “Plus, I was going back and forth between garlic chicken and what I ordered, so I had garlic chicken on my mind.”
“What did you order?”
“Shrimp with broccoli.”
“We can share if you want.”
“Okay. Are we eating first or after?”
“Definitely first,” he said. “I didn’t eat lunch, so I’m starving.”
Hudson and I dished food onto our plates. He lifted his chin to the perfume box and said, “Baseball glove oil. Now pass that over, smartass.”
I smiled. “You play baseball at six in the morning?”
“No, but Charlie wants to join a peewee softball team. She only wanted the one purple glove they had at the store. Of course it’s a piece of crap. So I’ve been trying to make it softer by massaging oil into it so she can at least open the damn thing with her little hand.”
“Ah.” I nodded and pushed the box of perfume over to him. “Lanolin. I don’t know how I didn’t identify it.”
“Perhaps you should stick to gin.”
Hudson winked, and I felt a little flutter in my belly. God, I was pathetic. Why couldn’t a simple wink from Ben get me all hot and bothered? We’d had two dates and…nothing yet.
I popped a shrimp into my mouth. “Can I ask you something?”
“Would it stop you if I said no?”
I smiled. “Probably not.”
He chuckled. “No wonder you and my sister get along so well. What’s your question?”
“When exactly did you figure out I wasn’t who I said I was at Olivia’s wedding?”
“When you told me your last name was Whitley. Evelyn Whitley and my sister had been friends since high school. She was also close to my ex-wife for a while. The three of them travel in the same social circle. I suppose there could’ve been two women named Evelyn Whitley, but once you told me you’d worked at Rothschild Investments, it obviously confirmed my suspicions.”
I nibbled on my bottom lip. “So before that…when we danced that first time, you had no idea?”
Hudson shook his head. “No clue.”
“Yet you asked me to dance?”
A hint of a smile threatened at the corner of his lips. “I did indeed.”
My heart sped up. “Why?”
“Why did I ask you to dance?”
I nodded.
Hudson’s eyes dropped to my lips and lingered for a few seconds. “Because I thought you were interesting.”
“Oh…okay.”
He leaned close and lowered his voice. “And beautiful. I thought you were interesting and a knockout.”
My cheeks flushed. “Thank you.”
Hudson kept staring at me. I’d practically dragged the compliments out of the man, yet my face was beaming red.
He drummed his fingers on the table. “Anything else?”
“No.”
He grinned. “You’re sure?”
I nodded. But once again, after a minute of mulling things over, I changed my mind. “Actually…”
“Let me guess. One more question?”
“When I came to your office to pick up my cell, you asked me out to dinner, but I sort of got this weird feeling you were pissed off at yourself that you asked.”
He tilted his head. “You’re very perceptive.”
I bit my lip, debating my next question. But I really wanted to know the answer.
“Would we have gone out if I hadn’t accidentally given you the wrong number?”
The corner of Hudson’s lip twitched again. “I called, didn’t I?”
“Oh…yeah. Well, I guess everything worked out for the best anyway. We’ll be working closely together and wouldn’t want to muddy the waters.”
Hudson’s eyes flickered down to my lips again. “So if I asked you out right now, you would say no this time—because muddy water and all?”
Every part of my body wanted to go out with this man…except the part of my brain that had invested five years in my business. I just couldn’t do it.
I frowned. “I almost didn’t go forward with Signature Scent because of the mess I made with my last business partner.”
“You mentioned during your presentation that you had a partner but you bought them out.”
I nodded. “Yeah, it didn’t work out.”
Hudson seemed to be waiting for further explanation.
Sighing, I said, “My fiancé was my partner. When he became my ex-fiancé, I bought him out.”
Hudson nodded. “Is he a perfume chemist, too?”
I scoffed. “Definitely not. Aiden is a poet. At least that’s what he tells people. His paid occupation is teaching English at a community college.”
“A poet? That doesn’t sound like a very helpful business partner.”
“He wasn’t. He didn’t help with the development at all, but he contributed to the start-up funds.”
“What came first? The broken business partnership or the broken relationship?” Hudson forked a piece of shrimp and ate it.
“Hmmm... I guess what came first was him having sex with someone who wasn’t me.”
Hudson started to choke.
“Shit. Are you okay?”
He held out a hand and spoke with a strained voice. “Yes.” He grabbed his bottle of water and washed the food down. “Just give me a minute.”
Once his eyes stopped watering and he had an open airway again, Hudson shook his head. “Your fiancé was sleeping around?”
I smiled sadly. “Yeah, but everything turned out for the best—for my business anyway.”
“How so?”
“Well, I don’t know that I ever would have made it this far if Aiden and I hadn’t split up.”
“Why is that? Didn’t buying out your partner cause the initial strain on your finances?”
“It did. Aiden had contributed a hundred-and-twenty-five-thousand dollars over the years. So the money I had saved for the rest of the start-up inventory went to buy him out. But I’m not sure I would have ever made it to launch, even if I still had all of that money. Aiden and I were young when we first got together. Back then, he was very encouraging, and we slowly started banking funds together in a joint savings account. At first it wasn’t a lot, but as the years went by, the money started to add up. And by then, Aiden had gotten interested in using it to buy investment property. It probably should’ve been a red flag that he wasn’t interested in using it to buy a house for us to live in together, even though we’d dated for years and still didn’t share an apartment. But anyway, he said investment property was less risky than my business idea. He suggested we buy one property and then start saving for Signature Scent after that.”
Hudson frowned. “Your ex sounds like a real dick.”
I smiled. “He is. But I often let him sway me when I shouldn’t have. A few months before we split up, we had started looking at rental properties. My dream wasn’t his dream, and I was about to give up on mine and accept his. I had a good job, and he made me feel like I was selfish for wanting even more.” I paused. “Our breakup was awful for many reasons, but the one good thing that came out of it was that I decided to take back my future.”
Hudson contemplated me for a moment. Eventually, he nodded. “Good for you.”
“I think so.”
“Though I think there’s more than one good thing that came out of your breakup.”
My brows dipped together. “What else is there?”
“You’re not marrying an asshole.”
I laughed. “Yeah, I guess there’s that, too.”
My cell phone started to ring from its spot on the table, and Ben’s name flashed on the screen. I reached for it and hit Ignore, but not before Hudson also read the name of the caller.
“If you need to take that…” he said.
“No. It’s fine. I’ll call him back later.”
He waited a few seconds, and when I didn’t offer more, he tilted his head. “Ben. Is that the guy you were with at the wedding?”
I shook my head. “That was Fisher.”
“Right.” He nodded. “Fisher.”
Again awkward silence filled the air. Eventually he raised a curious brow. “Brother?”
“Nope. Don’t have any. It’s just me and one sister.”
When I yet again offered nothing more, Hudson chuckled.
“You’re going to make me ask, aren’t you?”
I smiled innocently. “It’s…new.”
Hudson held my eyes for a few heartbeats before clearing his throat. “Why don’t we get started? I can walk you through some of the things I wanted to discuss while you finish eating.”
Hudson seemed ready to flip a switch and move on to business, but my head was too jumbled now. He started spouting off numbers and dates, and while I nodded and pretended I was following, everything seemed to go in one ear and out the other. I didn’t even realize he had stopped to ask me something until I looked up and found him waiting for me.
“I’m sorry. What did you ask?”
His eyes narrowed. “Did you even hear anything I said?”
I jabbed my fork into a shrimp and shoved it in my mouth, pointing at my lips to show I was now unable to respond. I thought I was being cute and avoiding his question, but it only made Hudson zone in on my lips. It looked like he was hungry, only not for Chinese food.
Oh boy. My belly felt a familiar flutter, and when Hudson licked his lips, that flutter dropped lower.
I finished chewing and swallowed, clearing my throat. “Do you think you could repeat the question?”
That little twitch at the corner of his mouth was back. If I didn’t know better, I might think he had a facial tic.
I was relieved when Hudson nodded and began to repeat what he’d been saying. This time around, I was able to focus on most of it. And I was blown away by how much he’d gotten done in such a short time. He’d had his buying team get multiple quotes on all of my sample materials and was able to save at least five cents per piece on the majority of items. It didn’t sound like much, but with each box getting twenty different samples, and the freight discounts his buying power got on top of that, the total wound up being pretty significant.
“Wow.” I sat back in my chair and smirked. “You’re definitely better than Aiden.”
His eyes gleamed. “I’m not going to touch that one with a ten-foot pole.”
I laughed. “Probably a good idea. But really, the savings you’ve come up with will almost cover the cost of having a partner in year one already. I don’t know what to say. And here I thought I’d done such a good job negotiating.”
“You did. A lot of these savings are from prepaying and buying in bulk, which you weren’t able to do before with your cash-flow restraints.”
Hudson’s phone buzzed a reminder. The word Charlie flashed on the screen, and he looked at his watch as if to double-check that the time was right on his phone. “I didn’t realize it had gotten so late. Can you excuse me for a moment? I need to call my daughter to say goodnight.”
“Of course. I need to run to the ladies’ room anyway.”
After I hit the bathroom, I went back to the conference room. Because Hudson was quiet, I didn’t immediately realize he was still on the phone. When I did, I motioned that I’d wait outside, but he waved me in. So I took a seat and listened to one side of his conversation.
“I was only kidding when I said that. You shouldn’t have repeated it to your aunt, Charlie.”
A pause, and then he closed his eyes. “You told your whole class about it?”
This had me intrigued.
“Okay, well, I’m sure the teacher understood it was a joke, even if Mommy and Aunt Rachel didn’t.”
Hudson looked up at me. “Actually, tell your mom I don’t have a minute right now. I’m still at work. I’ll speak to her when I call tomorrow night.”
Pause.
“Love you, too.”
After he swiped his phone off, he shook his head. “I have to remember that a six-year-old won’t always get my sense of humor.”
I smiled. “What happened?”
“My ex-sister-in-law is pregnant. She’s about to pop. Rachel makes my ex-wife seem like a ball of fun. Neither has a sense of humor. The other night, Charlie asked me what I thought might be a good name for her soon-to-be cousin. I have no idea why, but I told her Aunt Rachel was going to name the baby Homeslice, and then spent five minutes convincing her it was the truth when she doubted me.”
My brows jumped. “Homeslice? As in the singular for my homies?”
He grinned. “I was obviously teasing, but then the food delivery interrupted our discussion, and I guess I failed to circle back and tell her I hadn’t been serious.”
“And she repeated it to her mother? I take it that didn’t go over too well.”
Hudson shook his head. “It gets worse. A few months ago, I was arguing with my ex-wife. She’d told me not to give Charlie ice cream anymore because her sister said being lactose intolerant was hereditary. I wasn’t sure if that was true or not, but Charlie is most definitely not lactose intolerant—she eats enough ice cream that we’d know if she was. We got into words about her sister butting her nose in again, and I called Rachel laughtose intolerant. After the argument, I didn’t even remember saying it until Charlie mentioned it again. I’d had no idea she was listening. But she was.” He took a breath. “Today it was Charlie’s turn for show and tell in class, and she brought in a picture of the last sonogram of her aunt’s baby. She told everyone her new cousin was going to be named Homeslice, and when the teacher said whoever told her that might’ve been joking around, Charlie said her aunt didn’t tell jokes because she’s laughtose intolerant.”
I covered my mouth. “Oh my God. That’s freaking hysterical.”
Hudson grinned. “It is, isn’t it?”
I nodded.
“Too bad my ex-wife lost her sense of humor a long time ago.”
“Well, if it helps any, I think it’s funny as hell. Most kids definitely overshare. In the ten minutes I sat with Charlie the other day, I learned you went to the beach last week, she once got a bellyache from an ice cream shop, and you write her notes on the fruit in her lunchbox. By the way, I think it’s very sweet that you do that.”
“When she first started kindergarten, she got really anxious at lunch because she wasn’t sure who to sit with. I wrote her the notes to help her relax while she unpacked her food. It sort of stuck.”
“I love that.”
He smiled. “It’s getting late. Why don’t we call it a day, and we can pick up here tomorrow? I’d like the marketing department to be involved when we get to the next topics anyway.”
“Oh, okay… Sure.”
We went back to our respective offices. A few minutes later, Hudson walked by on his way out and stopped.
“Plans with Ben tonight?”
I smiled. “No.”
“Good.” He rapped his knuckles against the doorjamb. “Don’t stay too late. You’re the last one here, and the cleaning people already came and went, so I’ll lock the door behind me when I leave.”
“Okay, thank you. I just have a few more things I want to finish up before I head out, too.”
He nodded and turned to leave, but then took a step back. “By the way, I heard you loud and clear earlier, so I won’t be asking you out again.”
The smile on my face wilted. “Oh…okay.”
He winked. “I’ll wait for you to ask me this time. Goodnight, Stella.”
***
When Hudson left, my concentration went with him. But I needed to get some work done before I could head home. There’d be plenty of time for overanalyzing every word the man said later—maybe while I was naked in a hot bath or while I de-stressed with the vibrator I kept in my nightstand. Right now I needed to work on the spreadsheet I’d been procrastinating about finishing all day. I wanted to have everything ready to go over with the team first thing in the morning.
But Excel wasn’t my jam to begin with, and it was getting late. So after I opened the spreadsheet, I just stared at the numbers. Unable to focus, I decided to dig my earbuds out of my purse. Classical music always helped me get into a zone. But as I worked, the office started to get really warm. The air conditioning must’ve been on a timer. Since I would use just about any excuse to take a break from working on a spreadsheet, I decided I needed to get some cold water from the lunchroom down the hall.
Vivaldi’s “The Four Seasons” came on while I filled my big cup with crushed ice from the refrigerator door, and I couldn’t help myself. Each and every time I heard it, I pretended to be the conductor. No one was around, so what the hell? I set my cup down on the counter, closed my eyes, and let the intensity of the music guide my arms as they waved around in the air. Nothing eased my mind like leading an orchestra. I got so into the moment that I became lost.
Until…
I felt someone grab me from behind. Startled, I spun around. Acting purely on instinct and adrenaline, I balled up my fist, leaned back, and swung with all my might.
I connected with what felt like a brick wall, though I couldn’t be sure since my eyes were squeezed tightly shut.
But then I heard a voice over the music.
“Fuck,” it growled.
And my stomach dropped.
No.
Just no.
I couldn’t have.
Please, dear Lord, let it be anyone but him.
My eyes flashed open to confirm what I already knew.
God hadn’t been listening.
Because I’d just landed a punch square on the nose…
of Hudson.
