whiskey. A good bottle, one that I hide away from clients because it’s my favorite and expensive as shit.
Pouring myself two fingers, I lift the glass to my lips as I spin around in my chair and look out at the city lights. The Dallas skyline isn’t anything like New York’s, but it’s nothing to sneeze at either.
At over sixty years old, I’m not sure if I’ll have anything waiting for me after these papers are signed. My love life is probably over. I waited twenty years for a change, it didn’t happen, and I’m full of a sense of regret that I can’t shake.
I could have done it earlier, but then what would my children’s lives have been like? Maybe they’ll hate me more now that I’m doing it at the age they are? I’m not sure, but I do know that I’m tired of living my life in a way where I’m always worried about what others will think or say.
My children are adults, Laurent is thirty, the same age I was when he was born. Lawrence is creeping up behind his brother and my sweet Lucinda is graduating with her bachelor’s degree from Yale.
They are living their adult lives or just beginning to. I have devoted mine to them and to a woman who stays with me because I’ve built my business up so well that she has an endless supply of the things she wants, of the money she desires.
Letting out a sigh, I push up from the chair and walk over to the window. Looking down, I wonder if I’m just going to pile on more regrets by leaving her. Will this only make my life even more lonely, and difficult? Maybe it would be easier to just accept that this is the way we are?
We’ve been sleeping in separate rooms for fifteen years, separate dwellings for the past five. Perhaps this is just the way we are now. Perhaps I should just be glad to have a companion as I grow older?
Turning around, I slam my drink down on the desk.
Goddamnit.
I don’t feel old. I may have gray at my temples and lines on my face that weren’t there twenty years ago, but I work out every day. I enjoy being active, hiking, boxing, running, lifting weights. I’m not dead yet, why should I live my personal life as if it’s the end?
There has to be someone who would look at me as if I’m someone. Not just as if I’m a credit card, a means to get what they want and nothing more.
There has to be more.
Something.
Anything.
Someone.
Chapter Two
THREE WEEKS LATER
TENNESSEE
Sliding my sweaty palms down my skirt, I wrinkle my nose. Gross. I am a hot sweaty mess and I can’t even blame it on the weather. At least not today. It’s a gorgeous spring day, the birds are out, the sun isn’t blazing hot, and there is a slight breeze.
Tipping my head back, my eyes move up the building. I feel intimidated by the building alone. I don’t know how I’m going to go inside and talk to the actual owner.
Pressing my lips together, someone brushes by me, knocking into me. Turning my head to the side, I open my mouth to apologize, but my breath comes out in a whoosh.
He’s tall, broad, a thick short beard and clean-cut, with trimmed neat hair. He doesn’t stop, his phone is against his ear, but he does look back at me and jerks his chin in his own type of apology, I guess. He’s wearing mirrored aviator glasses, so I can’t tell if he even sees me.
I suppose it’s my fault he ran into me. I am standing in the middle of the sidewalk, at the entrance to the building, unmoving because I’m scared shitless of what is going to happen next. If I don’t get this job, then I don’t know what I’m going to do.
It’s not like I can just move back to Oklahoma. My mom and I set up the apartment already, paid all that money for deposits and furniture. Plus, I’ve signed a lease. There is no way that I can fail, I won’t let myself. I’ll do what I have to, to make this work, to make Dallas my new home.
Squaring my shoulders, I take a step forward, then another, my legs and knees trembling with each step that I take closer toward the tall glass doors. They automatically open as soon as I step close to them, my eyes