Copyright © 2017 by Vi Keeland
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.
This book is a work of fiction. All names, characters, locations and incidents are products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, things, living or dead, locales or events is entirely coincidental.
EGOMANIAC
Edited by: Jessica Royer Ocken
Cover model: Clément Becq
Photographer: Fred Goudon, www.fredgoudon.com
Cover designer: Sommer Stein, Perfect Pear Creative
Proofreading & Interior Formatting by Elaine York, Allusion Graphics, LLC/Publishing & Book Formatting
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Epilogue
Sneak Peek
Acknowledgements
Other Books by Vi Keeland
Sometimes what you’re looking for
comes when you’re not looking at all.
-Unknown
Drew
I hate New Year’s Eve.
Two hours in traffic to make it not even the nine miles home from LaGuardia. It was after ten o’clock at night. Why weren’t all these people at a party by now? Whatever tension two weeks in Hawaii had relieved was already back to coiling tighter and tighter inside me as the town car inched its way uptown.
I tried not to think about all the work I was coming back to—the endless string of other people’s problems to compound my own:
She cheated.
He cheated.
Get me full custody of the kids.
She can’t have the house in Vail.
All she wants is my money.
She hasn’t given me a blowjob in three years. Listen, asshole, you’re fifty, bald, pompous, and shaped like an egg. She’s twenty-three, hot, and has tits so young they almost reach up to her chin. You want to fix this marriage? Come home with ten Gs in fresh, crisp bills, and tell her to get on her knees. You’ll get your blowjob. She’ll get her spending money. Let’s not pretend it was ever more than it really was. That doesn’t work for you? Unlike your soon-to-be ex-wife, I’ll take a check. Make that out to Drew M. Jagger, Attorney at Law.
I rubbed the back of my neck, feeling slightly claustrophobic in the back of the Uber, and looked out the window. An old lady with a walker passed us.
“I’ll get out here,” I barked at the driver.
“But you have luggage?”
I was already exiting the back of the car. “Pop the trunk. It’s not like we’re moving anyway.”
Traffic was at a dead stop, and it was only two blocks to my building. Tossing a hundred-dollar tip at the driver, I grabbed my suitcase from the trunk and took in a deep breath of Manhattan.
I loved this city as much as I hated it.
575 Park Avenue was a restored pre-war on the southeast corner of Sixty-Third Street—it was an address that gave people preconceived notions about you. Someone with my last name had occupied the building since before the place was converted into overpriced co-ops. Which is why my office was allowed to remain on the ground floor when other commercial tenants were tossed out years ago. I also lived on the top floor.
“Welcome back, Mr. Jagger.” The uniformed doorman greeted me as he swung open the lobby door.
“Thanks, Ed. I miss anything while I was gone?”
“Nah. Same old, same old. Peeked in on your construction the other day, though. Looking good.”
“They use the service entrance down Sixty-Third like they were supposed to?”
Ed nodded. “Sure did. Barely heard them the last few days.”
I dropped my luggage inside my apartment, then headed back downstairs in the elevator to check things out. For the last two weeks, while I was screwing off in Honolulu, my office space had been getting a total renovation. Cracks in the high, plastered ceilings were to be patched and painted, and new floors installed to replace the old, worn parquet.
Thick plastic remained taped over all of the interior doorways when I walked in. The little furniture I hadn’t put in storage was also still covered with tarps. Shit. They aren’t done yet. The contractor had assured me there would only be finish work left by the time I returned. I was right to be skeptical.
Flicking on the lights, I was happy to find the lobby completely done, though. Finally, a New Year’s Eve with no horrible surprises for a change.
I took a quick look around, pleased with what I found, and was just about to leave when I noticed a light streaming from under the door of a small file room at the end of the hallway.
Thinking nothing of it, I headed to turn it off.
Now, I’m six foot two and a half, two hundred and five pounds, and maybe it was just my frame of mind, my not expecting to see anyone, but when I opened the door to the file room, finding her there scared the living crap out of me.
She screamed.
I took a step back through the door.
She got up, stood on the chair, and began yelling at me, waving her cell phone in the air.
“I’ll call the police!” Her fingers shook as she dialed nine, then one, and hovered over the last one. “Get out now, and I won’t call!”
I could have lunged for her, and the phone would have been out of her hand before she realized she hadn’t dialed the final digit. But she looked terrified, so I retreated another step and put my hands up in surrender.
“I’m not going to hurt you.” I used my best soothing, calm voice. “You don’t need to call the police. This is my office.”
“Do I look stupid to you? You just broke into my office.”
“Your office? I think you took a wrong turn at the corner of Crazy and Nutjob.”
She wobbled atop the chair, holding both arms out to regain her balance, and then…her skirt fell to her feet.
“Get out!” She crouched down and grabbed her skirt, tugging it up to her waist as she turned her back to me.
“Do you take medication, ma’am?”
“Medication? Ma’am? Are you joking?”
“You know what?” I motioned to the phone she was still holding. “Why don’t you push that last one and get the police over here. They can drive you back to whatever loony bin you escaped from.”
Her eyes widened.
For a crazy person—now that I was really looking—she was pretty damn cute. Fiery red hair piled on top o
f her head seemed to match her firecracker personality. Although from the looks of her blazing blue eyes, I was glad I’d held off on telling her that.
She pushed one and proceeded to report the crime of entering one’s own office. “I’d like to report a robbery.”
“Robbery?” I arched an eyebrow and looked around. A lone folding chair and crappy metal folding table were the only furniture in the entire space. “What exactly am I stealing? Your winning personality?”
She amended her complaint to the police. “A breaking and entering. I’d like to report a breaking and entering at 575 Park Avenue.” She paused and listened. “No, I don’t think he’s armed. But he’s big. Really big. At least six feet. Maybe bigger.”
I smirked. “And strong. Don’t forget to tell them I’m strong, too. Want me to flex for you? And maybe you should tell them I have green eyes. Wouldn’t want the police to confuse me with all the other really big thieves hanging out in my office.”
After she hung up, she stayed standing on the chair, still glaring at me.
“Was there also a mouse?” I asked.
“A mouse?”
“Considering you jumped up on that chair.” I chuckled.
“You find this funny?”
“Oddly, I do. And I have no fucking idea why. It should annoy the crap out of me that I come home from a two-week vacation and find a squatter in my office.”
“Squatter? I’m no squatter. This is my office. I moved in a week ago.”
She bobbled again while standing on her chair.
“Why don’t you get down? You’re going to fall off that thing and get hurt.”
“How do I know you’re not going to hurt me when I get down?”
I shook my head and contained my laugh. “Sweetheart, look at the size of me. Look at the size of you. Standing on that chair isn’t doing jack shit to keep you safe. If I wanted to hurt you, you’d be out cold on the floor already.”
“I take Krav Maga classes twice a week.”
“Twice a week? Really? Thanks for the warning.”
“You don’t have to ridicule me. Maybe I could hurt you. For an intruder, you’re really kind of rude, you know.”
“Get down.”
After a full minute stare-off, she climbed off the chair.
“See? You’re as safe on the ground as you were up there.”
“What do you want from here?”
“You didn’t call the police, did you? You almost had me there for a second.”
“I didn’t. But I can.”
“Now why would you go and do that? So they can arrest you for breaking and entering?”
She pointed down at her makeshift desk. For the first time, I noticed papers all over the place. “I told you. This is my office. I’m working late tonight because the construction crew was so loud today that I couldn’t get done what I needed to. Why would anyone break and enter to work at ten-thirty at night on New Year’s Eve?”
Construction crew? My construction crew? Something was going on here. “You were here with the construction crew today?”
“Yes.”
I scratched my chin, half believing her. “What’s the foreman’s name?”
“Tommy.”
Shit. She was telling the truth. Well, at least some of it had to be the truth. “You said you moved in a week ago?”
“That’s right.”
“And you rented the space from whom, exactly?”
“John Cougar.”
Both my brows shot up this time. “John Cougar? Did he drop the Mellencamp, by chance?”
“How should I know?”
This wasn’t sounding good. “And you paid this John Cougar?”
“Of course. That’s how renting an office suite works. Two months’ security, first and last month’s rent.”
I shut my eyes and shook my head. “Shit.”
“What?”
“You got conned. How much did all of that cost you? Two months’ security, first and last month? Four months in total?”
“Ten thousand dollars.”
“Please tell me you didn’t pay cash.”
Something finally clicked, and the color drained from her pretty face. “He said his bank was closed in the evening, and he couldn’t give me the keys until my check cleared. If I gave him cash, I could move in right away.”
“You paid John Cougar forty thousand dollars in cash?”
“No!”
“Thank God.”
“I paid him ten thousand in cash.”
“I thought you said you paid four months.”
“I did. It was twenty-five hundred a month.”
That did it. Of all the crazy shit I’d heard so far, thinking she could get space on Park Avenue for twenty-five hundred a month took the cake. I broke out in a fit of laughter.
“What’s so funny?”
“You’re not from New York, are you?”
“No. I just moved here from Oklahoma. What does that have to do with anything?”
I took a step closer. “I hate to break the news to you, Oklahoma, but you got ripped off. This is my office. I’ve been here for three years. My father the thirty before that. I was on vacation the last two weeks and had the office remodeled while I was gone. Someone named after a singer scammed you into giving him cash to rent an office he had no right to rent. Doorman’s name is Ed. Walk through the main building entrance, and he’ll verify everything I just said.”
“That can’t be.”
“What do you do that you need office space?”
“I’m a psychologist.”
I held out my hand. “I’m an attorney. Let me see your contract.”
Her face fell. “He hasn’t brought it by yet. He said the landlord was in Brazil on vacation, and I could move in, and he would come back on the first to collect the rent and bring me the contract to sign.”
“You’ve been scammed.”
“But I paid him ten thousand dollars!”
“Which is another thing that should have tipped you off. You couldn’t rent a closet on Park Avenue for twenty-five hundred a month. Didn’t you find it strange that you were getting a place like this for next to nothing?”
“I thought I was getting a deal.”
I shook my head. “You got a deal alright. A raw deal.”
She covered her mouth. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
Emerie
I felt like such a damn idiot.
A light knock came on the bathroom door. “You okay in there?”
“I’m fine.” Embarrassed. Stupid. Naïve. Flat broke. But fine.
I washed my face and stared at myself in the mirror. What the hell was I going to do now? My phone line was finally being installed this week, and my stationery was being delivered. My beautiful stationery. With the pretty logo and fancy new Park Avenue address. Ugh. Another two hundred and fifty dollars wasted. I hung my head and stared down at the sink, unable to look at my dumb face any more.
Eventually, I cracked open the bathroom door and stepped out. The rightful tenant leaned against the wall, waiting for me. Of course, he had to be gorgeous. Because I couldn’t just mortify myself in front of an ugly man. No, definitely not.
“You sure you’re okay?”
I avoided eye contact. “I’m not. But I will be.” I hesitated before continuing. “Is it okay if I go back into my office…I mean…your office…and clean up my stuff?”
“Of course. Take your time.”
There wasn’t too much to pack. All of my furniture was also being delivered this week. As were the files from my storage unit. I was going to have to cancel that, too. Where the hell was I going to put everything? My apartment wasn’t much bigger than the file room I’d been sitting in.
As I was packing the last of my things into the box I’d brought them in, the rightful tenant came to stand in the doorway. I spoke before he could.
“I’m so sorry—for falling for the scam, for threatening to call the cops on you.”
&n
bsp; “Don’t forget threatening harm with your mad Krav Maga skills.”
I looked up and found him smirking. It was a good look. Too good. His handsome face made me nervous, albeit not the kind of nervous I felt compelled to stand on a chair and call the police over. No, this man’s smile was cocky and hit me in the knees—amongst other places.
“I do take Krav Maga, you know.”
“Good for you. You scared me a little when I walked in. I bet you can kick some little-girl butt.”
I froze mid-packing. “Little-girl butt? My instructor is a man.”
He folded his arms across his chest. His wide, thick chest. “How long have you been taking lessons?”
“Almost three months.”
“You are not going to take down a man of my size with three months of Krav Maga training.”
Maybe it was the late hour, or the realization that I’d been conned out of my life savings and had no office to meet patients in, but my sanity snapped. I lunged at the poor, unsuspecting man. I literally hopped up on my chair, jumped onto the folding table, and dove at him. Dove at him.
Even though I’d caught him by surprise, he had me completely restrained in less than a heartbeat. I wasn’t even sure what the move he’d done was. Somehow he’d managed to spin me around so my back was to his front and my arms were pinned behind me between us.
It pissed me off that he wasn’t even winded when he spoke. His breath tickled my neck as he held me in place, and his voice was low and measured. “What was that?”
“I was trying to show you my moves.”
I felt his body shake behind me, although there was no sound.
“Are you laughing at me? Again?”
He laughed through his answer. “No.”
“I have moves. I swear. I’m just all sorts of off tonight because of everything that happened.”
He still hadn’t released me. Instead, he leaned forward, putting his head over my shoulder, and spoke. “If we’re showing off moves, I’d be happy to demonstrate some of mine, too.”
Every hair on my body reached for the sky while goosebumps prickled my skin. “Umm…I…I...”
He released his hold, and it took me a minute to find my bearings. Rather than face him with the blush I felt on my face, I kept my back to him as I gathered the last of my things and pulled my charger from the wall.