When he finally found the strength to pull away, he settled her on her feet and went to toss the condom in the toilet. He wiped himself off, aware of the appreciative way she watched him and loving it. She didn’t look at anyone else like this. Just him.
After living with her for the better part of a month, he could say that with certainty. There were parts of her—many parts, the best parts—she only shared with Michael, and it had helped him forget their relationship wasn’t real.
But he needed to remember. She hadn’t wanted her coworker’s kiss, but if she had, there was no reason why she shouldn’t have done it. They weren’t monogamous. He wasn’t her boyfriend or her fiancé or her husband. She was his client, and he was her . . . vendor. That sounded awful as fuck, but it was true. He had no right to defend her and no right to be possessive. She was paying him to help her—at least she thought she was—and he needed to stay detached and professional.
Too bad he’d gone and fallen for her, instead. When they eventually separated, it would break him. But she’d be better off. She’d know how to be herself with another person and what to expect out of a relationship, what it felt like to be loved. He hoped she never settled for less.
Drawing on years of escorting experience, he slipped on a smile and said, “I’ll have to buy you a new pair of those.”
When a confused expression crossed her face, he nodded toward the torn side seam of her panties that she’d been absently fingering all this time.
She smiled and flattened her palm over her hip. “That’s okay. I can do it.”
“I don’t mind. Though for most couples, women buy all the underwear.”
She tilted her head to the side. “Why?”
He shrugged. “I think it’s because they do a lot of shopping and like to take care of the people they love.”
As he said the words, Stella drew in a surprised breath. A discovering look lit her face before she stared off into space, focusing on things inside her head.
“Where did you go?” He waved a hand in front of her until she refocused on him. It was such a Stella thing to do, he grinned despite the emptiness in his chest. He loved how brilliant she was. Everything about her did it for him. Every single thing. “You’re thinking about work, aren’t you? Here I am talking about replacing the underwear I tore having hot bathroom sex with you, and you’re zoning out to think about econometrics.”
She straightened her glasses with a wrinkle of her nose. “I-I’m sorry. I can’t help it all the time. I try to be present, but—”
“I’m teasing you. I love your genius brain,” he admitted. Because he couldn’t help it, even when he was sad, he kissed her soft lips once, twice, and one last time again. “Come on, Ngoại will probably have to use the bathroom soon, and I want to show you something.”
* * *
• • •
Stella covered a gasp when Michael pulled a hanger from a hook on the wall, revealing a little white dress of creamy fabric. “Is that for me?”
“I had to guess at your dimensions, so the fit might be all over the place. Try it on for me?”
She stared at the garment in wonder. Her own Michael Larsen dress.
After closing herself in the mirrorless dressing room, she undressed in a hurry. Of course the dress was strapless so she couldn’t wear a bra, but the inside was lined in soft silk. There wasn’t a single exposed seam to bother her skin. She was dying to see what it looked like on.
Holding the bodice to her chest, she walked out and turned around. “Can you zip the back for me, please?”
His lips brushed against her nape as the zipper closed with an intimate zzzzzip, sending a shiver down her spine. It felt like it fit her perfectly. It hugged her body better than her yoga clothes, and she loved her yoga clothes. When she turned around, Michael assessed her with a critical eye, his sexy arms crossed over his chest.
“Can I look?” she whispered.
A small smile formed on his lips, and he nodded toward the raised area in front of the mirrors where he did fittings.
She stepped onto the dais and felt her heart stutter, reboot, and resume. The dress was a smooth ivory sheath that followed the lines of her body from her knees to her chest. The fabric of the bodice fluted just off center in such a way that it gave the impression she was a curvaceous calla lily. Her nipples were not visible.
It was perfect. Simple. Modest but daring. Her.
She ran her hands over her hips, turned around, and gasped at what the expert construction of the dress did to her behind. Her butt had never looked so pert and voluptuous. She settled a hand over the ripe curve of one cheek, and Michael cleared his throat.
He stepped onto the dais and trailed his fingers down her sides. “I’m happy with the fit. My hands knew the size of you.”
“I love it. Thank you, Michael.”
“My gift to you. For all the birthdays when I didn’t know you. When is your birthday?”
Warmth effervesced inside her like champagne. A gift. From Michael. That he’d made with his own hands. Each seam, each thread, each piece of fabric had been chosen just for her. “The summer solstice, June twenty-first. You?”
“June twentieth. But I’m two years younger than you.”
“Do you mind that I’m older?” She knew men often liked younger women.
He grinned. “Not at all. I crushed on older women when I was growing up. I can still see Ms. Rockaway bending over in her tweed skirt to pick up the chalkboard eraser.”
“Who was she?” Unpleasant emotion speared through Stella.
“Chemistry teacher sophomore year. I hope you’re jealous, so you know how I feel about Dexter kissing you,” he said, his face thoughtful as he ran his fingertips down her arm.
“Dexter?”
“Maybe Stewart. That’s a good name for the kind of guy I’m picturing.”
“Don’t picture him.”
“Mortimer.”
She laughed. “No.”
“Niles.”
“Michael.”
“Don’t tell me his name is Michael.”
“It’s not. You’re my only Michael. Do you really want to know his name?”
He was quiet for a moment before he released a heavy breath and said, “It’s better if I don’t. Since you don’t want me to beat the shit out of him.” When she stiffened at his language, a hard smile touched his lips.
She caught her breath, unsure what to say. It wasn’t Philip she cared about. It was Michael. If he went after Philip, there could be awful consequences. Lawsuits, jail, HR claims. Even though she would have liked to see Michael in action, one nasty kiss wasn’t worth all that.
“I’m glad you like the dress,” Michael said with a softening expression. “I’m looking forward to seeing you wear it tomorrow.”
* * *
• • •
After a lunch of catfish soup with pineapple and celery over rice, Stella rushed back to the office. She wanted to look at the data again.
Philip lifted a hand at her when she passed by, but she didn’t have time to deal with him. She strode past his office, tossed her purse in her desk drawer, and sat down, clicking through screens on her monitors until she came to the function she’d formulated to model men’s purchasing behavior with regard to high-end boxer shorts. It was an elegant equation with five key variables that included things like age and income bracket and several minor variables.
She’d boiled the termination of male purchasing of boxers down to a single binary variable, β, and had found markers that led to its activation, things like increased spending on fine dining and luxury gifts. It seemed counterintuitive to Stella that in a time of decreased price sensitivity, men suddenly quit buying their underwear. Even luxury boxers weren’t that expensive.
Now, as she looked at the math and the numbers, Michael’s words trickled through her brain. Women like to take care of the people they love. Somehow, some way, Stella had used market data, math, and statistics, to quantify love into a single variable.
β was love.
β was a zero or a one. A yes or a no.
And it was overwhelmingly linked to the time when men quit purchasing their own underwear. It wasn’t an absolute, of course. People were people, and they hated to be entirely predictable. But it was a visible trend. You could gamble with this data and win more than you lost.