Sexiled: an enemies-to-lovers standalone Read online

  “I’ll try my best.”

  “It’s not about best. It’s about honesty.” His voice is earnest. “This isn’t just any hire. I need a right-hand man. Someone I can groom to take over major responsibility. And if I can’t trust you with the answer to this question, well, I can’t trust you at all.”

  My skin prickles. As I stare at Hal, intent on getting this question answered right. His eyes come into focus, and his face seems eerily familiar.

  He says, “If you came across this young woman in a social situation, would you try to sleep with her?”

  My throat dries. “Excuse me, sir?”

  He spins the picture around for me to see.

  My heart about stops when I see who the girl is.

  It’s freaking April. My April from my weekend of bliss, the same one I’m going to text right after this meeting.

  Yep, I was ready for any question...except that.

  I clear my throat, and straighten my tie, feeling my skin flush. “Could you repeat that, sir?” I say, trying to buy some time while I think.

  His eyes are cold and flinty as he glares at me. “This is my daughter April,” he says.

  Daughter, I repeat in my head. Oh boy.

  You really got yourself into a shitshow here, Kennedy. Nice going!

  “Wonderful. She’s beautiful,” I say, my mind racing.

  “So you admit that she’s beautiful.” His jaw hardens and he glares at me.

  I don’t flinch. Admit? “Am I not supposed to think that?”

  Mr. Murphy continues. “Just answer the question. Don’t dodge it with compliments. Would you. Try to. Sleep with her?”

  His jaw clenches, and I see he’s dead serious as he looks me in the eye.

  Well, it’s no wonder no one else has nailed this interview.

  I exhale a deep breath. “Sir, if I saw her in a bar, I’d try to talk to her. Just being honest.”

  His normally amicable face turns into a scowl. Oh shit. Over the line.

  “That’s true, boy? You’re telling me to my face that you’d try to flirt with—and potentially sleep with my daughter? You’re going to tell that to the CEO, and namesake of the company where you’re trying to get hired? Don’t you have any damn respect?”

  Welp, there goes this job interview down the toilet. Nice going, Captain. First you blow out your arm out in game seven of the World Series, and now you shred this golden opportunity.

  I figure, since this interview is now blown anyway, I might as well tell him the full truth.

  “Personally, sir, I’d rather have the balls to tell you the truth right now than nurse some lie, even if it means not getting the job. Your daughter is gorgeous. What am I supposed to do, sit here and lie to you? I do have to add something else, though.”

  “Oh?”

  I look him dead in the eye, and I don’t know how I find the balls to say this to one of the richest men in America, but I do.

  “I wouldn’t just flirt with her. I’d marry her,” I add.

  He clears his throat. “Come again, now?”

  “Or try to, at least. She seems like someone I’d like to get to know.”

  I lean back in my chair, holding eye contact with him.

  Mr. Murphy furrows his brow. “Are you serious, Morgan?”

  “Quite.”

  Oh, he has no idea just how serious I am.

  “Goddammit, Morgan,” he quips, pulling the photo back and putting it on his desk. He slams a palm on his desk that makes me jump.

  “Sir?” I say, feeling confused. This guy reminds me of Christopher Walken in the movie Wedding Crashers.

  For the life of me, I can’t get a read on him. I can’t tell if that was a good goddammit or a bad one. Feeling my throat run drier, I take a sip from my water bottle.

  He leans back, looking fondly at the picture. “I love your enthusiasm. But you’re a little late. My April is engaged to be married.”

  I launch into a choking fit. It’s so bad, Mr. Murphy actually has to get up from his desk and pat me on the back.

  “Kennedy! Everything okay?”

  No, definitely not okay.

  The other night, she was my April. Not yours. Not someone engaged to a fiancé.

  She was lying to me that entire time? Hiding the fact that she was together with someone?

  I stick out a finger, finally able to clear my throat and stop my fit. “The water went down the wrong pipe.” Maybe I was imagining this whole thing, so I decide to clarify since I’m in such disbelief. “I must have heard you wrong. I thought you said she was engaged. Did you mean, like, engaged in some sort of non-profit?”

  “Nope. I mean engaged to be married.” He picks up another picture on his desk and flips it around for me to see. In this picture, there’s a smiling guy right next to her. “She’ll marry her high school sweetheart next year. They’ve been together six years. Isn’t that special? They grow up so damn quick, I tell ya.”

  I want to vomit in my mouth.

  “Absolutely beautiful. Young, loyal love, sir. It’s the best,” I manage to lie, despite the rage I’m feeling between clenched teeth. “She looks like an angel.”

  But apparently, she is the devil.

  I rub my face with my hand. I’m shook. Good thing this interview is almost over.

  After it ends, I head outside into the fresh Chicago spring air, start moving in the direction of the lake, and don’t stop. The people around me are a blur. I loosen my tie, and before I know it, I’m on a bench looking out at Lake Michigan, thinking and processing my current reality.

  A couple walks by holding hands, and I recoil. Any notion that love everywhere might not be a big fat lie fills me with disgust right now.

  April, who for a split second I thought might be in the running to be my future wife, is engaged.

  Her dad is the boss at my dream job.

  This is a dream.

  Or a nightmare.

  April, whom you were buried inside of for hours Sunday morning, is engaged to some sucker.

  I blow out a loud exhale. I’m absolutely dead meat if she ever comes around the office…that is, if I get the job.

  She’s a freaking sophomore in college, I think to myself. Well, junior soon, but still. She’s got two more full years left until she graduates from Greene State.

  By that time, she’ll be married, and I’m sure she’d rather keep me as her dirty little one-time secret than live with the embarrassment of cheating on her fiancé with me.

  One phrase she used in bed jumps up in my mind.

  I’m yours, for the night, at least.

  Now it all makes sense. Yet I’m still blown away.

  She was…just using me?

  She played me?

  I play back some of her one-liners, and all of a sudden things start to strangely line up.

  Her “let’s not talk about our dating lives” rule.

  Instead of having to lie about the fact that she was engaged, she made it so we just wouldn’t even bring that topic up.

  Hey, she put one over on me for the volleyball game, too. I recall a piece of advice my mother imparted to me: If you lie in the little things, you’ll lie in the big things.

  It hurts knowing I was lied to.

  Hurts even worse that I knew I developed feelings for her.

  In one freaking day. I know its cliché to say, but I really thought she was different. I’ve heard stories about people falling in love after one night. I thought it had happened to me.

  An unimaginable tension crops up in my throat.

  Even with all the liars in the world, I’m a romantic at heart. I thought it could be true that we had a special connection, even as quickly as it happened. I do, apparently, have the worst luck of all time when it comes to women.

  How many of those moments we shared were fake? She seemed to be the picture of empathy just in the way she spoke and talked to me about Michael and her own mom. Our conversation felt cathartic and deep, yet in the same breath I was overwhelmed
with attraction for her.

  Now I’m left, head in my hands, questioning what the point of all those conversations were if there was one huge elephant in the room that April refused to acknowledge.

  I curse myself for being foolish, falling for some hot, twenty-year-old sophomore in college. So she cheats on her fiancé, showing up to a guy’s hotel room in a trench coat?

  I was hanging on her every word, every breath.

  Believing her.

  I ignored that voice in my head that kept saying, if something is too good to be true, it usually is.

  I bet she’s done that to every guy she’s been with.

  Still, when I think about the connection I thought I had with April, I can almost feel some part of my heart wither away and die.

  Did I hallucinate those twenty-four hours of bliss?

  “April, I thought you were special,” I say out to the empty blue lake and cloudy sky. To no one. To Michael, the one person I would feel comfortable talking this ridiculous situation over with.

  “I've never been so wrong,” I mutter.

  I decide there is only one sensible thing to do, given my current situation.

  I pull her number up.

  I go into contact details.

  I click delete.

  7

  April

  Seven Months Later - January

  My plane lifts off from Chicago Midway International Airport with a final destination of San Juan, Puerto Rico. The skyscrapers of the city of big shoulders shrink away as we leave it behind.

  Puerto Rico, and my junior year internship for winter term, will be a whole new world, different from anything I’ve ever known or experienced.

  This is a much-needed break for me from Greene State and the Midwest, and I want to take this time to focus on myself and create a new me.

  It’s not that I feel like a failure in college or anything, necessarily. It’s just that no matter what I try to do, I find myself with this vague sense that I’m not becoming who I want to be.

  My dad has always told me that I should study business and marketing, and that I can work at the family company. I’m turning twenty-one in April, and I’ve been wavering when it comes to officially declaring a major, even though everyone else has already chosen theirs.

  If you don’t choose your major, Alex says, your major chooses you. And I’m not entirely sure what to make of that since I have no idea what I want to do.

  The plane crosses the threshold into the clouds. I used to fly with my mom. From the time I turned eight, we’d fly somewhere new every year. Anywhere in the U.S. I wanted to go, she’d take me.

  A wave of emotion courses through my body. In some ways, that cloudiness of not knowing who exactly I want to be is more frustrating than anything. If I only knew what was missing from my life, I could fix it.

  I love my friends—they’re great—but you fall into habits with people, and suddenly, you’re not where—and not who—you really want to be in life. I need to do some exploring on my own, where no one has a preconceived notion of me.

  I fondle my mom’s old Claddagh ring on my left hand, wishing she were here right now. I wonder what words of comfort she might be able to offer me.

  Everywhere I went on campus this fall, my heart would double with anxiety as I’d walk past the freshmen dorm, wondering how long he was two-timing me, and, even worse—how long would he have kept going with it if I hadn’t found him out, purely by accident?

  My eyes catch the sun as it rises up over Lake Michigan, and my mind drifts to another romantic conundrum that I never solved.

  Why didn’t Morgan Kennedy ever call me back?

  On the Monday after our encounter, I felt renewed. I had pep in my step and a secret smile.

  And then he never called.

  A week went by and I figured maybe he was busy.

  Two weeks went by, and I held out hope. I believed in our connection.

  By week three, I followed him on Instagram and sent him an Instagram voice message making sure he didn’t lose my number or anything. The message is left unread to this day.

  I still get a sinking feeling in my gut thinking about him. I should have known after our peach interaction that he was bad news.

  After that whole fiasco, I did try dating and I slept with a couple of guys this fall whom I really liked. Fun guys. Nice guys.

  But the sex felt like watching black and white TV after knowing what a color, high-def flat screen looks like, and I felt the need to walk away from them.

  Damn you, Morgan Kennedy. You ruined me.

  What kind of man does that? What kind of man looks you in the eye, says you’re mine like he means it with his soul, then never calls?

  I never even told Morgan that he took my virginity. Not that I think that act should be a huge deal anymore. I like to think we’re clear of those puritanical times which defined women as being either a virgin or not a virgin in order to determine our value and worth in society.

  The first hour of the flight passes and I return to my current read, Maybe It’s You. I’ve been on a self-development kick lately, and it seemed corny at first, but I really do feel something is off inside me, so I’m exploring to find out what that is.

  Lucky for me, my dad went to Greene State as well as has set up a partnership with the school for one lucky intern and independent study, which, this year, is me.

  Reflection at the beach by day, and I’ll be able to speak Spanish and practice it with native Spanish speakers. I’ll be living in the coach house of a host family in a nice area just outside the capital city, San Juan.

  With the exception of a visit from my college friends during spring break, this winter is one hundred percent about me just getting to know my soon-to-be twenty-one-year-old self.

  And no hookups, I’ve decided. I’m taking them off the table. After the mediocre sex, in part thanks to the ghost of Morgan freaking Kennedy, I figure why bother? I’m going to journal and just think more about what I want out of a relationship.

  Luckily, since the internship is with my dad’s company, a hookup with someone, at least someone I’ll be working with, is far, far away from consideration. Dad was shocked to hear that I broke up with Matt when I told him in June, though I never told him why. Thankfully, he didn’t press me on the matter.

  I turn my nose back into the book and start reading about how to manifest my own destiny. I pulled some strings in the study-abroad office to apply this internship in Puerto Rico as an independent study course, as long as I write a really long paper about some specific, complicated subject I learn while I’m here. But really, it’s a trial run with my dad’s company to see if I would enjoy the day-to-day work of the office. He sees my mom in me, he says, and he knows I’d be just as good at running the company as she was.

  The suited businessman next to me points to my book.

  “Big book,” the man says, pointing to my paperback. “Do you like big things?”

  I sigh, then turn to him. “Is that a pick-up line?”

  “It can be.” He wiggles his eyebrows.

  I frown, and my eyes move to his left hand. “Nice wedding ring, by the way. It’s small, though…which has me wondering if your wife likes little things?”

  He opens his mouth to speak, but then closes it, probably realizing this isn’t a battle he wants to fight.

  I put my headphones on and fall into my own little world for the rest of the flight.

  Stop thinking about him, April. That was seven months ago and he was a one-night stand.

  But I can’t.

  Yes, I can.

  I’m no longer April, I remind myself.

  I’m going to a place they speak Spanish.

  I am Abril.

  Yo soy Abril.

  And I’m coming out of these ten weeks a brand new me.

  “Have a great first day at the office, sweetheart,” my dad says to me over the phone as I ride in a private car to the office for my first morning on the job.

&nbs
p; I’m all moved into my coach house on the property of a family in Condado, essentially a suburb of Viejo San Juan. I get all the benefits of being safely on a family’s property, home-cooked meals, and conversation, but I can also be on my own when I want. Plus, the location is just a few blocks’ walk to the beach. It’s also only a twenty-five-minute drive from my place to San Juan.

  “Dad, what time is it right now? Isn’t it really early in Chicago? It’s six a.m. here.”

  “It’s five here. But I’m not going to let my little girl go to her first day of her internship without telling her how proud I am of her, am I?”

  My heart warms. “I’m actually big now, Dad. I’m almost as tall as you. Remember?”

  “Well, you’ll always be my little girl. But don’t worry, I won’t repeat this stuff in the office. There, you’re just like any employee. You’ll work your way up through hard work, sweat, and your own intelligence.”

  I gaze at the deep blue color of the Atlantic Ocean down the road as my driver turns a corner.

  “Thanks, Dad. But you’re at the Chicago office. You’re not coming to the San Juan office, are you?”

  “Well, I might pop in from time to time,” he says. “Of course, the main office is here, but we’re recruiting a ton of talent who want to work at the Puerto Rico location. That’s the whole reason we’re setting that office up. There’s no income tax if you’re a Puerto Rico resident, and it’s basically any investment banker’s dream. And the man I’ve got working for me starting the office down there, he’s so damn smart. A real go-getter.”

  My car pulls up in front of the office and the driver points.

  “Que tengas un buen dia, Abril,” my driver smiles.

  “Gracias, Renaldo,” I smile as I get out of the car. “You have a good day, too.”

  As I head into the lobby, I ask, “Is this the same person you’ve been raving about all year as ‘the guy’? Like ‘the guy’ you want to maybe take over Murphy Capital?”

  “That’s him. He likes to keep a low profile, but he’s pretty hard-nosed, level-headed, and honest. He’s the perfect man for the job of starting up the office in Puerto Rico and, honestly, April, I think he’ll be able to teach you a lot as your boss. He's hands-on and knowledgeable. Maybe he can mentor you. You know, if you ever decide you might want to work for—and take over the company some day. I’d love to pass it down to you. You know that.”