The Dirty Truth, page 6
“I insist.” I cut him off. “And, Tom?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t tell her I’m coming. I’d like for this to be a surprise, much like the surprise she imparted to me in my inbox this morning.”
“I won’t say a word.” His voice is marked with seriousness, and I trust he’ll keep his promise. He’s been with me since the beginning, started as a groundling and worked his way up to a supervising editorial position. Unlike some people here, Tom actually appreciates his career.
Thirty minutes later, I’m finishing up a few emails for the day when a knock at my door brings a trembling assistant with a french braid and a cardboard box.
“Here you are, Mr. Maxwell.” The young woman places Elle’s things in the middle of my desk and then stands, wide eyed and curious, as if she’s waiting to be excused.
“Thank you . . .” I feign an attempt to remember her name, but you can’t remember a name you’ve never learned.
“Leah,” she says with a wide, small-town smile.
“Leah,” I echo. Waving toward the door, I add, “Thank you. You’re free to leave.”
She turns to go, nearly tripping over her schoolgirl Mary Janes.
“Wait,” I call out.
Leah spins on her heel, hands clasped at her hips. “Yes, Mr. Maxwell?”
“How well did you know Ms. Napier?”
Her face contorts, as if it’s a complex mathematical equation I’m asking her to solve and not a simple question.
“Um,” she says. “I’ve been her admin for the last eight months.”
“Were you aware of her plans to quit the company?”
Her eyes grow round. “Not at all, sir. I’m just as blindsided by this as you.” Taking a step closer, she adds, “And if I may say, I really respected and admired her. She was probably the nicest boss I’ve ever had. Always available around the clock. Took me out for lunch every week, her treat. Cared about my personal life—was always giving me dating advice. Offered me feedback on this novel I’ve been working on for the last two years . . . I sent her a text this morning to see if she’s okay, but she hasn’t responded yet. I’m not really sure what to make of any of this.”
I check my watch as she rambles on. I wasn’t expecting an essay-length answer to my question.
“Thank you, Leah,” I say. “That’ll be all.”
Rising, I examine the contents of the open-lidded box as the sad girl with the braid departs my office.
A small potted plant. A tin of spearmint Altoids. A tube of lavender hand cream. A framed photo of Elle with three women who look like ice-blonde versions of herself. A book of poetry. A half-empty bag of white chocolates. Cherry blossom lip balm. And an antique gold compact with someone else’s monogram carved into the top.
I’ve never made a habit of getting to know my employees. Besides the fact that there are far too many to get to know, I’m here to run the ship, not rub elbows and make friends.
Pulling out the framed picture, I study the striking face of the woman who rattled my cage with 399 measly words.
I saw her a handful of times over the years, always in passing. She caught my eye every time—though I never made a show of it. A Made Man doesn’t grovel, drool, or conduct himself like a shameless horndog in the office.
With her long cocoa-colored hair and striking Pacific-blue gaze and those full, pouty lips the color of ripe raspberries, it was impossible not to notice her, even from across the room. She was quiet, dutiful, and confident, always keeping a safe distance. And she had a smile that always lit the room and drew people in, as if her calming sunlit atmosphere was the antidote to our gray city days.
Little did anyone know, I’d always looked forward to her column every month. Even after I’d approved her work, hers was always the first thing I flipped to when I cracked the spine on a fresh copy of Made Man.
And while I’m not the kind to crush on someone (I’m a thirty-seven-year-old grown man, for fuck’s sake), I thought about Elle Napier more than I should have. She’d creep into my mind during those quiet, late nights in the office, and I’d let myself conjure up ridiculous fantasy after ridiculous fantasy of all the things I’d do to her if she were mine.
Only I had no intentions of making her mine.
Illusions, in my experience, are always better than realities. I preferred Elle Napier in my dreams, where she could be exactly what I wanted and precisely what I needed and there was no room for bullshit relationship drama or complicated feelings.
I text my driver, grab Elle’s things, and head downstairs.
Fifteen minutes later, my driver drops me off in front of a brown-brick apartment complex with a small green awning.
I buzz her apartment number—4C—and wait.
CHAPTER NINE
ELLE
“So, uh, there’s a man downstairs buzzing up here.” Indie leans against my doorjamb, worrying her lip. “Asking for you.”
A few minutes ago, I’d just woken from the deepest afternoon nap I’ve taken in my entire adult life and was appreciating the fact that the most stressful item on my agenda tonight was whether I was going to eat leftovers or make Indie go with me to that new Thai place down the street.
Sitting up, I brush the mess of hair off my face. “What? Who is it?”
“He says he’s your boss.” Indie picks at a flake of milk-white nail polish on her index finger.
“Hm. As of eight o’clock this morning, I didn’t have one of those anymore.” I fling the covers off my legs and grab a duster cardigan off the back of my closet door to cover my strappy silk camisole and pajama bottoms. “Maybe he has the wrong place?”
“He asked for you by name. Said he had some of your things from the office.”
“Oh.” Tom lives on the opposite side of the city and would surely have sent my assistant or an intern to drop my things off, but I could see him making a personal appearance if he’s trying to persuade me to come back. “All right. Tell him I’ll be down in a sec.”
I shuffle to the hall bath, splash water on my face, and run a brush through my hair before stepping into a pair of satin house slippers and heading to the lobby of our complex. Only the instant I step out of the stairwell, I find it isn’t Tom waiting for me with a box of my things.
It’s West.
My heart stops beating for a fraction of a second, and every last bit of oxygen exits my lungs. While the times I’ve come face to face with this man have been few and far between, it’s nothing compared to finding him here, in my apartment lobby, eyes homed in on me, with zero warning.
Not only that, but he’s looking unusually casual in his navy slacks and a white button-down oxford cuffed at his elbows. And his hair—usually nary a strand out of place—is mussed, as if he’s been running his hands through it all day.
Only West Maxwell can be having an off day and manage to look ten times sexier.
Squaring my shoulders and lifting my chin, I peel my shock off the floor and manage a simple “What are you doing here?”
“Came to drop off your things,” he says, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world. “Thought we could have a chat while I’m here.”
The main building doors swing open, and the sullen widow from 2B ambles toward the mailbox center, grocery bags in tow and keys jangling. Within seconds, another resident strolls in, yapping on the phone about getting tickets for the next Mets game.
“If this is about my article,” I say, “I stand by what I wrote. And if you’re trying to get me to come back, my mind’s already made up.”
“This is absolutely about your article.” His aqua irises glint as he studies me. “And don’t worry—I wouldn’t dream of employing you again.”
Humbled yet very much confused, I cross my arms. “Okay, then say what you came here to say.”
The woman from 2B loads up her bags and a large stack of mail, and I grab the stairwell door for her just as a family of six bustles in—strollers, diaper bags, and all. But despite the cramped lobby, West doesn’t budge or divert his attention off me; he stays anchored in the center of it all, making everyone move around him.
A rock in a stream.
“Is there somewhere we can go that’s a bit more”—he flashes a look at the noisy bunch—“private?”
“If you’re asking me to invite you up, the answer is no,” I say without hesitation. “But we can go outside.”
His loaded gaze scans me from head to toe, a reminder I’m not exactly dressed for conversation on a city sidewalk.
A week ago I’d have cared.
Today I couldn’t care less.
West places my box by the stairwell before following me outside. We find a little stretch of walkway beyond the entrance and step off to the side.
“All right,” I say. “I’m all ears.”
West chuffs, speechless for a second. And I can’t help but wonder if there’s anyone in his life who speaks to him like this.
Doubt it.
“Were you aware, Ms. Napier, that I hand selected you for your position out of more than three hundred and sixty-eight applicants?” he asks.
“I . . . no,” I manage. “I was not aware of that.”
“You were the twenty-ninth candidate in my stack,” he says. “As soon as I read your sample article, I shoved the remaining three hundred and thirty-nine in the trash, picked up the phone, and had Tom make you an offer immediately.”
My writer’s ego beams quietly on the inside, basking in his bewildering praise.
“I was quite taken with your candidness, and I could tell from the first line you had the sort of perception most writers only dream of,” he continues. “It was selfish of me to assign you such a flippant column every month, knowing that you were capable of deeper, more moving pieces, but damn if you didn’t make me proud.”
“Until this month.” I blow a puff of air between my lips, refusing to let his flattery unravel me or soften my stance on him.
“Even the best hitters strike out sooner or later,” he says. “Never took you for the delicate-ego type.”
“You gave me less than twenty-four hours to write a completely new column, and you refused to tell me what you didn’t like about the one you accepted a week ago.”
“I didn’t accept it—Miranda did,” he counters. “Between the merger and a personal matter I’m dealing with, I delegated a few things to her that I shouldn’t have. Your article being one of them. And I realize my deadline was extreme, but I had faith in you to pull through. Imagine my dismay when you pulled that little stunt instead.”
My jaw slackens. “No.”
“No?” His brows knit.
“No,” I say again, louder. “I’m not letting you turn this around on me, as if I did you wrong. I did exactly what you told me to do. And it just so happened that in the process, I realized I didn’t want to work for Made Man anymore—a personal decision based on personal circumstances.”
“Funny, because your decision felt very targeted to me,” he says. “As if you were writing for one person in particular and not our millions of loyal readers.”
“The article was written with all readers in mind.” I leave it at that, because a beloved journalism professor once said explaining oneself is futile because every reader will infer their own interpretation anyway. “If what I wrote upset you so much that you had to show up at my apartment to tell me in person how wrong I am about you, then you’ve done nothing but prove my point. You’re not the man people think you are.”
His brows slant, yet the rest of his expression is unreadable as he examines me.
“My point in the article—in case you missed it,” I continue, “is that no one really knows who you are as a person—they only know you in pictures. And we all know pictures only tell half the story . . . the rest of the story is filled in with assumptions. So when your customers read your magazine because they think they’ll be the next you, they’re chasing after something that doesn’t even exist. Even you aren’t you.”
His silence is deafening and perhaps a sign that Vesuvius is about to erupt, but I can’t stop. The words find my tongue faster than I can process them. Years of pent-up frustrations are bubbling to the surface, and there’s no going back.
“You’re like the Fyre Festival,” I say. “Lots of hype but nothing there once you arrive.”
His mouth turns slack before his jaw tenses. And maybe that was a little harsh, but it’s true.
“You’re false advertising of the human variety,” I say. “What you see is not what you get.”
“Maybe your opinion would hold some weight if you actually knew a damn thing you were talking about.” He finally speaks, and his handsome face morphs into a handsome glare. “Tell me, Elle, are you satisfied? Flushing a promising career down the toilet, all for a couple of cheap digs?”
“My career was over the day I returned to the office last week,” I say. “My heart isn’t in this anymore. You just happened to provide the wake-up call I needed to realize that. And honestly, West? Part of me was hoping I’d inspire a bit of change in you.”
He scoffs, hands resting on his narrow hips.
“Between the pages of your magazine, you seem like this upbeat, fun-loving, larger-than-life everyman, but in reality, West . . . you’re an awful person,” I say, because what’s he going to do now? Fire me? “You’re cruel and cutting. Unapproachable. Distant. And at times, terrifying.”
“Thank you for that insightful and unsolicited opinion.”
“Fact,” I correct him. “Not an opinion. Fact. A fact no one else will tell you to your face because they’re so scared of what you’ll do or say. You know, when I first started, Tom specifically pulled me aside and told me to tell the readers what they wanted to hear, that they couldn’t handle the truth. But it turns out neither can you . . . because here you are, trying desperately to prove that I was wrong because you know I’m right.”
A group of twentysomething girls in high-waisted mom jeans and messy topknots passes by, nudging one another and pointing as one slyly pretends to take a selfie to get a shot of West in the background.
But he’s so incensed with me, so homed in on me with that unnerving teal gaze, that he doesn’t so much as notice what’s happening around us.
“I just think,” I say, “if you’re going to be influencing people, you should be yourself so other people can see that it’s okay to be themselves too. West, you have a platform of millions of men who all think the only way to have it all is to look like you and act like you and be like you, and that simply isn’t true.”
Cocking his head, he says, “What I do goes deeper than you know. And truly, Elle, believe me when I say . . . you know nothing.”
“Deeper? Really? Because all I see is surface-level bullshit. One minute you’re quoting the Stoics, and the next minute you’re selling the next hot sneaker and posing in front of the Taj Mahal. Please, tell me what’s deep about that.”
“Everything I do serves a greater purpose.”
“Ah yes. Right. To pad your pockets.” I thump the heel of my hand against my forehead. “Of course.”
His lips press flat as his incredulous stare bores into me.
“Anyway, I don’t want to keep you. I’m sure you have more important things to tend to.” I tug my cardigan tight around my pajamas and cross my arms to secure it in place. “Oh, by the way. I met your niece today.”
Squinting, he sniffs. “Excuse me?”
“Found her on a bus bench on Tenth when I was on my way to grab a coffee. She was upset, and we had a nice little talk.”
Disbelief colors his chiseled face.
“Sandy hair, big blue eyes, lots of makeup, tiny clothes,” I elaborate. “Said she just moved here and things weren’t going well . . . then you showed up looking all angry and—”
“She was ditching school.”
“She hates it here.” I toss my hands in the air. “This city’s not for everyone.”
“Not that it’s any of your concern, but she doesn’t have a choice,” he says. “I’m her legal guardian, and she’s stuck with me for the next four years.”
Just when I thought the most self-centered man in the world couldn’t be more self-centered, he pitches a curveball that begs to differ.
“It’s weird thinking of you as an uncle,” I muse aloud, taking him in under the fading early-evening light.
“What’s weird about that?”
“Because it implies you have a soft spot . . . and there’s nothing soft about you. You’re all edges, West. You’re ice cold. A person could get frostbite just looking at you.”
“Poetic.”
The journalist in me is dying to know the story behind this iron-hearted media mogul taking custody of his teenage niece, but I don’t dare ask unless I want him to rip off my head and spit the answer down my neck.
“You know, I’ve probably googled you a hundred times,” I say. “And there’s nothing. It’s like your past has been completely scrubbed clean.”
“I pay good money to keep it that way.”
“What are you so afraid of? Is your past so colorful that it could shatter this perfect illusion you’ve built up?”
“Not afraid of anything,” he says. “I value my privacy.”
“I’m sorry, but don’t you lose some of that when you plaster your own face on the cover of the most widely circulated men’s magazine in modern history? You’re basically a millennial Hugh Hefner—minus the girlfriends and orgies. At least I assume. No one really knows for sure . . .”
“I’ve had to put a pause on those.” His mouth turns up in one corner. “It’s a little difficult to host orgies when I’m sharing the roof with my fourteen-year-old niece.”
Choking on a laugh, I say, “So you do have a sense of humor . . .”
“Excuse me . . .” A man in ripped jeans and a designer T-shirt stops by. “I don’t mean to interrupt, but are you West Maxwell?”
West gives a subtle nod, hardly attempting to disguise the annoyance emanating from him in waves.
“Would you mind if I got a selfie with you? My roommates are never going to believe this . . .” The guy readies his phone, but West waves him off.
