Jennie

11:46 p.m.

An arrangement.

The words circle in my head as I return to my hotel, shower, put on my pajamas, and stare at the ceiling.

What the hell was I thinking? What possessed me to agree to such a thing? I must be losing my mind.

I should be thinking about my divorce. My failure. Starting over again when I was supposed to have it all figured out. Whether or not I'll ever be able to find a man who completes me in the way I need—

No, that's not the way to think of it. I don't need anyone else to "complete" me. Not a man, and certainly not a girl who puts a tinge of pink in her hair and has the traces of me still on her tongue.

I shouldn't think of that. Think about my divorce. My law practice. My parents. The chipped polish on my left middle toe. Anything but…

An arrangement.

I'm a lawyer. She wants to be one. We both know about arrangements, rules, and guidelines. It hardly sounds like an act of spontaneous passion, which is how we've been going about things so far.

"So far," because we've made an arrangement to go further.

Stop! I groan, roll over, and bury my face in my pillow. These high-thread-count sheets are very nice. When my furniture is moved, I'll have to tell Lisa to order me some—

Stop, stop, stop.

Yes. Stop. I should do that. I should walk back this whole disastrous deal.

"We will, won't we?" she'd asked, her own desire naked and on display as if she wasn't ashamed of it. As if it was normal for her. Well, of course it is. She's a lesbian. I'm not. Definitely not.

I glance toward my nightstand, where there rests a glossy copy of Atlanta, the sort of magazine all hotel rooms have—a publication meant to show off the city. The cover shows a glamorous woman and a man in a tuxedo. The woman wears a low-cut dress that is apparently the work of a local designer. Her skin glows, her hair is a glorious tumble, and her lips are lush. She's…gorgeous.

Obviously I notice all that. I've noticed that sort of thing all my life—lips, hair, low-cut dresses. Those things are there to be noticed. I'm an extremely observant person. It doesn't mean anything. At all.

I flip the magazine over to the back cover. The High Museum's advertisement of their Vermeer exhibit is much less distracting. Then I roll over on my side and take in the glittering view of the city through my window.

I'll have a similar view from my new apartment. The one Lisa selected for me.

I can feel her tongue between my thighs all over again. And then the expert press of her fingers, filling me up. She'd played me like a violin. We'd had only one previous encounter, and somehow that was enough for her to know how to thrill me from head to foot.

An arrangement.

I'm changing my mind about that.

I'm definitely changing my mind.

1:14 a.m.

You look good. I like looking, she'd said, and I'd thought I'd catch fire from it.

No. Definitely, absolutely not.

1:47 a.m.

She doesn't have a girlfriend. Why not? Well, she stays busy. Her job. School. And no doubt looking after her father would have taken a great deal of her time and energy.

She's never mentioned a mother, has she? She's named after her grandmother; I know that much. But she must have a mother, or have had at some point. Everyone does. Where does Lisa get her looks? What side did those brown eyes come from? I try to remember what I've learned about genetics.

Not much.

She's extremely intelligent. I'm sure she could hold her own with a girlfriend who knew all about genetics.

2:12 a.m.

I'll need to start going over Sana's track record tomorrow. Why are so many of my employees disappointing? Sana nearly losing us the Jung case, Marcus still unable to get his head out of his ass. Sometimes I wonder if Lisa Manoban might not be the best hire I've made in the last year.

Oh, dear.

2:26 a.m.

She didn't even try to tempt me with the details of this arrangement. She didn't give me the least excuse to listen to her. If you want to get your way in this world, you've got to learn to speak up. What was I supposed to do, ask?

I need sleep. I need my common sense—

Lisa picks up after the third ring.

"What?" she asks hoarsely, instead of the usual polite inquiry. I picture her sitting up in bed, rubbing a hand over her sleepy eyes, her hair pillow-tousled. What does she wear to bed? She'd be gorgeous in a lacy negligee.

I open my mouth to walk everything back. It won't make me look like the world's top negotiator, but I have no choice. I've decided that.

"I—" I begin, but nothing follows. Why not? Why isn't my mouth moving to say what it needs to say? Time to rally. "I—Lisa, I'm…"

Silence. My words stop and my face burns. Damn it.

Then she says, "Really? Now? I mean, no, wait. Don't hang up." How did she know I was about to? "Okay. Ow, my neck. I fell asleep on the couch."

I mentally revise my image of a bed and a negligee to Lisa in her rumpled work clothes, sprawled inelegantly across a sofa. "Why?"

"What? Why the couch? I, uh…" She yawns. "Watching TV. Lemme go back in my room before I wake Minnie."

"Minnie?" Jealousy, unreasoning and futile, claws at me.

"My roommate. Haven't I mentioned her?"

"I can't remember. Does it matter? Does—" I sit bolt upright in bed as a horrifying possibility occurs to me. Does she know? Has Lisa been so foolish as to tell anyone?

"Guess it doesn't. Hold on." I hear the shuffle of footsteps and then the sound of a closing door. "Okay. Start over."

I have to get this out of the way first. It's essential. "Have you told her what happened?"

"No." She sounds incredulous. "Are you kidding? Minnie would tell me I'm crazy. She'd be fucking right, obviously."

At the sound of that sweet Southern drawl dropping a curse word, heat curls through me. I close my eyes against it. That's just pathetic.

"Why did you call? Have you…" Her tone tilts with uncertainty. "You haven't changed your mind, have you?"

And right when I need the words the most, they desert me completely. Her voice is my undoing. I should have sent a discreet but unmistakable text. Now, listening to her musical drawl makes me think of her lush mouth, and there's no point in pretending, is there? No point in pretending I can call this off.

"I have not," I say stiffly, and then wonder what the hell excuse I have for calling now, in the middle of the night.

"Oh. God. Good. So, uh—what did you want? I mean—"

"Rules," I blurt out. "The rules of the arrangement. We need to be more specific."

A pause. Then she says, "You called me in the middle of the night to talk about the rules?"

At least she sounds bewildered instead of condescending. I press my lips together in irritation anyway. "As you see. And you're the one setting them, not me. Keep up."

"Oh. Right? I really am waking up, I swear." She gives a halting laugh. "You about gave me a heart attack when you called. My phone went off right next to my ear."

"Rules," I prompt. She really does want me to lose my mind, doesn't she?

A pause. Then she says, caution in her voice, "I mean, the first thing is to maintain boundaries, obviously."

"Obviously." It hisses through my teeth. "You might consider that I'd have some ideas about that, too."

I'd meant to sound withering, but apparently the words were too encouraging for Lisa to care about tone. She sounds hopeful when she says, "You do?"

"No evidence." Now I keep my tone flat as a piece of paper. She wants to be practical? Let her see that in action. "No paper trail. No photographs. No suggestive texts, much less explicit ones."

"Right, yeah, that makes sense. And, uh, this wouldn't factor into our professional roles. We just stop being boss and assistant for a bit. I think we can do that, don't you? Um… What else…"

What else, indeed. There must be something else. Surely there's a whole playbook you should follow when you embark on an arrangement with your nubile young assistant who has the tongue and fingers of a goddess. I wrack my brains for what should come next.

"Oh, also." Now she sounds quiet. Not just hushed, like someone trying to keep her voice down, but truly quiet. "You don't touch me. No kisses. All that stuff we've, you know, already not been doing."

She still wants that rule? It wasn't just a thing for tonight? I freeze at the thought. A protest freezes too on the tip of my tongue. Words I can't say. But I want to touch you. I want to kiss you. Don't you want it?

That way, it's not your fault, she'd told me earlier, giving me an out. An out I can still keep. I swallow hard. "And that…suits you?"

If she says no, then that means I get to touch her, to kiss her. If she says no, then I can have what I want—what we both want—and it won't be my fault then either if she says No, it doesn't suit me. I want you to touch me.

After a pause, she says, "Sure. Why wouldn't it suit me? I already told you—I need the control. And you seem to like… That is, it's been working so far, right?"

I droop. Well—I asked, and she answered. Unlike her, I can't push. She's insisted this isn't an abuse of my authority, but that strikes me as an extremely fine line.

"It has been working," I say. Maybe she's right, after all. Maybe I wouldn't even like touching her if I tried it—the elevator might have been an aberration.

"Right. It has been." Another pause. She sounds hesitant when she says, "So…we got a deal? Well, an updated deal?"

I could still turn back. It's not too late to reclaim my sanity and try to go back to life as usual, my life as it's always been, except I'm jettisoning a problem husband.

"We have a deal," I whisper, and it seems something whispers back to me, though it isn't Lisa. It's a warm, dark, approving voice that comes from somewhere deep inside me, whispering words I can't yet translate. Perhaps no dictionary exists for them.

Lisa inhales, and exhales on a sigh, "Oh. Good. I'm glad, Jennie. It'll be…" She pauses. "It'll be good. You'll see. It'll be good for both of us."

The notion should be laughable, that this could be anything but a disaster for both of us. But Lisa's certainty gives me pause. Could she be right? Maybe this doesn't have to be a disaster at all. Maybe it can be a way for us both to escape whatever pressures and demons hound us, a way to slip into pleasure for just a few intoxicating minutes at a time.

"Maybe," I breathe before I can stop myself.

"You'll see," she repeats. "We'll be careful. We'll have fun. Anyway. I'm making this awkward. I'll—" Her voice jumps up into a higher range. "I'll see you tomorrow?"

Maybe she thinks I might not show up in my own office, choosing instead to escape to Peru. Who could blame me? Instead, I say, "Tomorrow."

Then I hang up, because there's nothing else to say, and I can't abide wasting time on the phone once matters are concluded.

I toss my cell phone back onto the nightstand and finally give in to my urge to flop backward. I fall so hard I bounce on the mattress, and it startles a giggle out of me, as if I'm a girl jumping on the bed. I place a hand over my mouth. That was unexpected. Nothing about this is funny, after all, is it? Nothing about this is sweet or, or romantic. Certainly not to Lisa. What a ridiculous notion. It's only sex.

Tomorrow, I think, and wriggle under the plush duvet, tingling from head to toe in anticipation and knowing myself to be a complete and utter idiot.