The Ego(maniac): A Romantic Comedy, page 1
THE EGO(MANIAC)
PENELOPE BLOOM
CONTENTS
1. Travis
2. Elizabeth
3. Travis
4. Elizabeth
5. Travis
6. Elizabeth
7. Travis
8. Travis
9. Elizabeth
10. Travis
11. Elizabeth
12. Travis
13. Elizabeth
14. Travis
15. Elizabeth
16. Travis
17. Elizabeth
18. Travis
19. Elizabeth
20. Travis
21. Elizabeth
22. Travis
23. Travis
24. Elizabeth
25. Travis
26. Elizabeth
27. Elizabeth
28. Travis
29. Elizabeth
30. Travis
31. Travis
32. Elizabeth
33. Travis
34. Elizabeth
35. Caroline Glass
36. Travis
37. Elizabeth
38. Epilogue - Travis
39. Epilogue - Elizabeth
40. Don’t Forget To Review!
41. The Boss(hole): Sneak Peak - Juliette
42. Adrian
43. Juliette
44. Suggested Reading Order
1
TRAVIS
Who ever said owning a healthy assortment of exotic pets was a problem? Apparently, my downstairs neighbor did.
A noise complaint? I looked around my penthouse apartment for the most likely suspects. Rat, my giant monitor lizard, dragged his scaly belly across the ground as he passed by. He was molting, so it sounded a bit like furniture scraping across sandpaper. Then there was my parrot, Windbag. He squawked and flapped his wings by the window. A moment later, Mr. Meatball, one of my cats, failed a jump towards the window and knocked my laptop to the ground with a clatter.
“Well,” I said, dusting my hands together. “It looks like I’m just going to have to buy the downstairs neighbor out of their apartment, won’t I?”
I tossed on a coat, ran a hand through my hair, then headed for the elevator. There were a few work tasks I needed to handle before dinner, but one of the primary benefits of being the best at what you do is getting to make your own schedule. In other words, I’d get to the work when I got to it. My partners knew by now that they couldn’t rush my genius, anyway.
My downstairs neighbor was in apartment 4B. I knocked my knuckles in a cheery little rhythm on the door and waited, hands in my pockets.
To my mild surprise, a young woman opened the door. It was six in the evening on a Saturday, but she wore an outfit fit for the boardroom. She had her blonde hair pulled back into a no-nonsense ponytail. Her skirt was cream colored to match her modest, silky top. I felt immediately curious to know what she was like between the sheets. Stiff as a stone? Scowling while she mechanically rocked her hips? I wondered if she could even un-purse her lips long enough to give a proper blowjob.
“What do you want?” she asked. She actually managed to look me straight in the eye and without the slightest hint of red in her cheeks.
Oh, my, I thought. It wasn’t every day that I met a woman who didn’t get nervous at the sight of me. Well, that was fixable. The plan had been to buy her out, but that was when I pictured some grouchy, balding man. But this woman practically had the word “challenge” buzzing over her head in gaudy neon lights. And I’d always been drawn to bright lights.
I flashed my best smile, then planted my hand on her door frame. “There’s some kind of mix-up,” I said. “The apartment manager just told me you filed a noise complaint.”
“And?” she asked. She folded her arms. They were just slightly toned. Mrs. Boardroom kept herself in shape. The more I looked at her, the more I liked what I saw. She held her face in an expression between a scowl and a frown, but I knew I’d be able to fix that with a little alone time.
I wondered what she looked like when she smiled.
Scratch that. I wondered if she ever smiled.
The woman might’ve actually popped out of the womb with a briefcase in her hand and a memo in her inbox.
She’d held eye contact longer than most managed, but I wasn’t about to give up the silent game of eye contact chicken, either. Every proper conversation was a negotiation, and a negotiation had a winner and a loser. The first step to winning the game every time was taking any advantage you could get. That’s why I was so damn good at it.
I held her gaze and gave a small shrug. “There’s no reason we can’t resolve this. What do you say I grease your wheels a bit? What makes you smile? Rare wine? Priceless artwork? Or maybe just a big, fat, check?” I wasn’t actually planning to buy her out at this point, but I was curious to see how she’d react to the offer of a bribe.
I didn’t even see her move before the door slammed in my face. A little puff of wind lifted one of my perfectly placed hairs. It hung in the air, then flopped down right along with my hopes for a peaceful resolution to the problem.
This woman seemed completely immune to my charms. Very strange. Suspicious, even.
But then again, what fun was there in peaceful resolutions? I smiled, then headed back for the elevator with a spring in my step.
2
ELIZABETH
I slammed the door shut on my obnoxious upstairs neighbor and went back to my office. The thermometer was still sitting by my laptop along with a pile of used tissues. I checked and confirmed my temperature was still elevated. Ugh.
Four years ago, I joined K.M. Glass Design Studios. Mrs. Glass was seventy-two, a raging badass, and her small fashion studio had grown into an international magazine backed by a clothing line. I joined her company as an intern in the mail room when I was twenty-two and fresh out of college. One year later, I was getting paid to make coffee runs for the photographers and then the models. A year after that, I was working with the marketing department to help expand the magazine’s reach. Six months ago, I earned a position as Mrs. Glass’ right-hand-woman, and I also earned one of the first proud smiles I’d ever seen from my mother.
Things were moving upward, and all it had cost me was everything. I looked around my bleak apartment. It was so bare that calling it Spartan would’ve been giving it too much credit. I spent my life at work, and now a fever had me stuck working at home. I could already imagine how Rand was licking his lips at the opportunity to weasel into Mrs. Glass’ good graces with me out of the office. He probably thought he could secure his place as her successor.
Mrs. Glass had been making a big deal of needing to find the perfect person to take over her empire when she gave it all up “any day now.” It meant everybody with a shred of ambition was in a bloodthirsty race to be named her successor, and before this fever, I’d been the clear frontrunner.
Some nights, I couldn’t even sleep when I thought about the possibility of taking over the company. I imagined how much I would change—how satisfying it would be to see my ideas take shape and turn the already powerful company into a perfectly oiled machine. And then I imagined seeing the look on my mother’s face when she realized I’d actually done it.
I sighed, then blew my nose and tossed the tissue.
I needed to either get back to work as soon as I could, or make sure I impressed long distance.
I rubbed my temples and used a mindfulness technique to push the pain down to manageable levels. Just as I lifted my fingers to the keyboard, something clattered upstairs. I lowered my hands, glaring at my screen. I heard a man laughing hard, then scrabbling claws and thumps. Something squawked, and then there was a thump followed by another clatter.
What in the ever-living hell was he doing up there?
I had a peaceful music track playing. I jacked up the volume, focusing on the sounds of nature and the distant bird calls. Calm. Just stay calm, Elizabeth. Then I heard what sounded like the man upstairs running around his apartment while shouting nonsense.
I got up, slammed the mute button on my keyboard, and wrapped a scarf around my neck. Anger and frustration broiled in my chest until my skin felt hot. It was almost worse now that I knew what my upstairs neighbor looked like. He was exactly the sort of man that expected the world to bend and indulge his every whim. Him and that stupidly perfect, floppy hair. The cloudless sky bedroom eyes and obnoxious, soft lips framed by a few days’ stubble. And he even had the nerve to be dressed well while making more noise than an entire frat house all on his own.
I stepped out of the elevator and approached the door at the end of the hallway to his penthouse. I knocked and waited, fists on my hips.
The door swung open. His hair was even more disheveled than a few minutes ago and he was breathing hard. Did he have a woman in there? Was that what all the noise was about?
I craned my neck, trying to look past him.
He leaned sideways, keeping his face in front of me as an amused smile spread his lips. “Looking for something?”
“Is someone in there with you?”
“Just my pets.”
“Let me guess, you have dogs?”
He gave a “kinda sorta” hand gesture. “I had two, but Rocky snuck out, knocked up some little French thing across the street. They moved in together. Gizmo moved on.”
I stared. How does a dog “move on?” No. I was not even going to ask.
“Want to come in?” He asked easily. “I could make you some coffee. Or maybe a beer. You look like you could use a few dozen.”
“I’m working. So no, I don’t want to come in. I want you to keep it down. It sounds like a circus up—Oh Jesus.” I jumped back, holding up my hands. Some scaled monster with a forked tongue came slithering out on four stubby legs from behind the man. White flakes of skin were peeling from every inch of it.
“That’s Rat,” he said. He knelt down and gave the thing a scratch on the neck, then carefully pulled back a little of the peeling skin. “He’s molting. Best not to make eye contact right now. He gets grumpy when he molts.”
I wasn’t dealing with this. No. Hell, no. I was too sick, too busy, and far too sane to handle whatever this man had going on. I lifted my finger, carefully avoiding eye contact with the small dragon on the ground. “One more peep, and I’ll send the building manager back up here with a net for that thing.”
“We will promise to keep it down if you give me your name.”
“That’s ridiculous, I’m not bargaining, I’m—”
Something bright red, yellow, and blue flapped in front of the windows behind him. Something inside his apartment. Was that a freaking parrot? I blinked. I didn’t have the time, energy, or patience for this. “My name is Elizabeth. Keep it down,” I warned again.
He gave a salute and stood in the doorway, still watching me.
I halfway turned to leave, then felt him still watching me. I spun on him. “What are you doing?”
“Standing in my hallway. What’re you doin’?” he asked the last with a lazy little smile I was sure had melted hundreds of foolish hearts. Not mine, asshole. My heart only felt an oppressively warm little surge of heat, which I was perfectly capable of pretending didn’t exist. That kind of nonsense was for people with small dreams and too much time on their hands. Other people.
“Leaving,” I snapped. “So close your door and stop leering.”
He said nothing, but I could feel his gaze on me for my whole walk back to the elevator. I pressed the button several times. The stupid thing was taking its sweet time. I tried not to, but finally spun and saw he was still there—just leaning and smiling in the doorway. He gave a little wave.
“It was nice to meet you, Elizabeth. I’m Travis, if you were wondering. I’ll come by tomorrow and we can talk about a permanent resolution to our little misunderstanding.”
The elevator doors finally opened. I walked inside. “No. You’ll keep it down and we won’t have any more problems.”
He nodded in a slow, I understand you believe that, but you’ve got no idea, kind of way. “See you tomorrow, Lizz,” he said, waving again just before the doors closed.
I looked up at the ceiling, and almost lost my temper in a full-blown foot stomping, screaming moment of irritation. This was just a test. It was the universe sending me a final, ultimate challenge to find out if I really deserved to win the keys to K.M. Glass. Stuck home sick. Tormented by an egomaniac upstairs neighbor with a literal zoo in his apartment. It was just a test. And damn it, I’d never met a test I didn’t ace.
Except chemistry. Why did I have a sinking feeling that Travis was about to give me an unwanted tutoring session on the subject?
3
TRAVIS
I woke up with an oversized cat on my forehead. I carefully set him aside and got myself up. Rat was waiting eagerly by the side of my bed for his morning fruit and lettuce mix. Monitor lizards were omnivores, but Rat was a big softie and always refused meat when I tried to give it to him.
At any given time, I had a rotating mixture of animals in my life. Some were loaners from the zoo. Some just needed a safe place to recover or shelter before they could be moved to permanent habitats, but everybody in the city knew I was happy to take them, so they always kept coming. I had a full-time assistant named Jean who was an expert at being virtually invisible. If I was going to be out too long to see to the pets, I just shot him a text and he handled the rest. One of the many perks of being filthy rich, I guess.
I was a morning person, an afternoon person, and a night person, so I went about my routine with a pep in my step. Feed the animals, play with them, get in a little exercise, shower, make some calls for work, then decide if it’s a “go into the office” kind of day or a “work on myself” kind of day.
My phone buzzed just after lunch, and I saw Adrian Terranova’s handsome, grumpy ass face on my screen. I’d set his ringtone to “I Like Big Butts and I Cannot Lie” because I was a sophisticated and mature man. I picked up the phone, briefly considering ignoring the call. But Adrian Terranova thought of himself as my boss, so when he called, I usually answered to avoid ruffling his ego.
“Need something?” I asked.
“You haven’t been in the office all week. The Mercer account is on the line. I need you to make a personal appearance to get Mr. Mercer locked in.”
My partners and I did all sorts of work. For years, we’d been in pursuit of a single-minded goal to get revenge on Adrian’s behalf. Sabotage the Coleton business empire by secretly rising the ranks from within until we had our fingers on enough important buttons to bring the whole thing down. It was fun, and I’d mostly enjoyed my stint as a saboteur.
Now things were simpler. Adrian drifted around our many businesses as the great delegator. One month he’d have me recruiting investors. The next I was playing golf in Cabo and sweet-talking a CEO into selling us his company. I didn’t need the money, but I found the work stimulating. I was damn good at people, and I enjoyed practicing my craft. Plus, every week was something new, and that deeply appealed to my short attention span.
That short attention span of mine was probably the reason all my relationships were so short-lived. I just never quite understood the concept of settling down. It was like having a great steak at dinner one night and suddenly declaring you never wanted macaroni and cheese again. Or that you’d never even look at an ice cream cone with fiery, sexual lust anymore. Why would you put yourself in one box like that? I made a mental note to ask Adrian why he’d taken his vows, but figured he’d give some stupid answer like “love.”
Love wasn’t an answer. I loved steak. I loved ice cream. I loved milkshakes. My love for any one food group wasn’t about to eclipse my desire to enjoy the whole field of options. And yes, I could imagine someone angrily making the argument that food and women are two totally different topics, but the convenient thing about being in my own brain was not having to acknowledge counterarguments.
“Something came up,” I said. My mind went straight downstairs to the uptight little blonde and those pursed lips. To keep with the food theme, I wondered if she would be like one of those old Warhead candies. They were painfully sour and bitter for the first few minutes you sucked on them. But if you and your palette survived, you got rewarded with a little ball of delicious sweetness at the end.
“I need you here,” Adrian said.
“Tell you what. I’ll handle this little hiccup here today and try to be in the office by the end of the week. Fair?”
There was a long pause. Adrian was the type of man who got what he wanted the first time he asked from anyone else. But we’d known each other since middle school, and he had more than a decade of getting used to the price he paid for my considerable talents.
“Fine,” he snapped. “But if you’re not here by Friday, I’m coming there personally to drag your ass to the office. Are we clear?”
“Yep. Talk to you later.” I hung up and headed for the elevator. A moment later, I was in front of Elizabeth’s door and knocking out a cheerful little tune for her. Maybe she’d be in a better mood today.
