Lauren Weisberger - Chasing Harry Winston

He moved away ever so slightly and gave her a strange look. “Yeah, I still have to go” were the words he actually uttered, but what Emmy heard was something closer to “The last twenty-four hours were great, but not so great that I’m going to change my plans and stay with you.”

Stung, Emmy tucked the sheet under her arms and rolled, making sure to keep as much skin covered as possible. She felt exposed and vulnerable, yes, but it was more than that: It had happened suddenly, but she was now acutely aware that she would most likely never see Rafi again. So what if his departure only confirmed that they were just having a good time? That was all she wanted, anyway. Rafi was sweet and handsome, but she barely knew him and, were she being completely honest, she couldn’t see them spending the rest of their lives together. So why get upset over him leaving when he said he was going to all along? It was quite simple, so simple that Emmy suspected every woman on the planet instinctively understood the concept even when no man was able to wrap his brain around it: She didn’t necessarily want him to stay, she just wanted him to want to stay. Was that really asking too much? And even though she would never, ever agree to go with him-truth be told, she could use a little alone time, and there was no denying she needed to catch up on work-couldn’t he have had the decency to ask? A simple invitation to join him? Was that really so unreasonable?

He climbed out of bed and headed for the bathroom.

“I’m going to jump in the shower,” he called, the door already closing. “I hope you know you’re welcome to join me if you want.”

Join what? The shower? The trip down south? The rest of his life as his beloved betrothed?

This was exhausting. If she was going to make this kind of emotional investment in someone, he should at least be a proper boyfriend. But for a casual fling? She could drive herself crazy. The doubts were racing through her mind ( Just admit you’re not cut out for this lifestyle, You’re a monogamist at heart, Stop acting like an immature party girl , and on and on).

Get it together , Emmy told herself as she resolutely pulled on a pair of dependable cotton bikinis and one of her full-coverage, heavily padded, where-sex-goes-to-die bras. A navy pantsuit and white button-down shirt came next, and just as she heard the shower turn off, Emmy chose her classic loafers over the high-heeled pumps she’d been wearing for the last few weeks. By the time Rafi emerged, fully dressed in clean jeans and a blue shirt, Emmy was perched primly on the bed, flipping through her Filofax while trying to act aloof and preoccupied.

Rafi stood over her, pulled her hair into a ponytail, and kissed her neck. It was an intimate move, suggestive of people who had spent loads of time together, and for a moment Emmy was pleased. Pleased, that is, until Rafi released her hair and, after giving her a rather paternal kiss on the forehead, began to gather his watch and wallet and canvas backpack. He’d collected his things in just a minute and didn’t seem bothered by the fact that Emmy appeared both silent and completely absorbed in her scheduling.

“I know you must have a lot of work to do, sweetheart, so I won’t make this a long, sappy good-bye.” He plucked his sunglasses from the night table and pushed them on top of his head.

“Mmm” was all Emmy managed. Was he really going to just up and leave?

“Come here, give me a hug.” He squeezed her arm to indicate she should stand up; when she obliged, she found herself in the middle of an embrace so lukewarm, so passionless, that it could have been shared with a distant grandfather or a close hairstylist. “Emmy, this was great. Really, really great.”

“Uh-huh,” she mumbled again. He either didn’t notice or didn’t care.

He followed this with another fatherly kiss and the obligatory hug, then headed to the door. “Safe flight tomorrow. I’ll be thinking of you.”

“You, too,” she said automatically, with no feeling, although this did elicit from him a relieved smile, one that seemed to say, Thank god you’re not going to make this any more complicated than need be.

A second later he was gone. It took Emmy only another minute or so to realize he hadn’t bothered to ask for her e-mail address or phone number: She would never, ever see him again…and he clearly couldn’t care less.

The therapist’s hands felt sensational working over her knotted shoulders, but even with the mood music and dimmed lighting and lavender aromatherapy oils, Leigh couldn’t calm her mind. The month since she’d slept with Jesse had been torture, and for someone who was accustomed to obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviors, well, that was saying a lot. There had not been a single second-literally, not one-that wasn’t spent hashing and rehashing what had happened with Jesse, what was going to happen with Russell, or some twisted combination of the two. She’d been prepared to tell Russell everything immediately, but then she had a bit of time to think during her drive home from the Hamptons and had reconsidered. It wouldn’t be fair to Russell or either of their parents to ruin everyone’s Thanksgiving with some dramatic-and most likely relationship-ending-announcement. It had helped matters significantly when she’d received a voice mail from Jesse saying that he was leaving the following day for a holiday trip to Indonesia and wouldn’t return until after the new year. It was almost like he was handing her a free pass on a silver platter, and although her conscience begged to be cleared, she decided she would bear the guilt and pretend that everything was fine until they’d all gotten through those horrible weeks of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s.

Somehow Leigh had made it through the last few weeks without having a complete nervous breakdown, but she was even more of a basket case than usual. With Emmy in Israel and Adriana in Brazil, she hadn’t even had the opportunity to share with her friends what she’d done, although were she to be honest with herself, she was also relieved not to have to say it aloud. She’d even endured a particularly painful New Year’s Eve party at one of Russell’s colleague’s apartments-a loft that was almost identical to Russell’s, only this one was in SoHo-but when it came time to head back to work on January 2, she just couldn’t do it. She called in sick that day and the next, an event so rare it warranted a suspicious phone call from Henry.

“Are you really sick, Eisner, or did something happen I should know about?” he had asked. She’d called to leave him a message on his voice mail at six in the morning, but he’d picked up on the second ring. Henry was a lifelong Sunday-night insomniac, so he’d taken to arriving at the office at four or five in the morning on Mondays, claiming those few isolated hours were his only decent work time the entire week. In her distress Leigh had forgotten this.

“What are you talking about?” Leigh asked with passably believable irritation. “Of course I’m actually sick. Why would you think otherwise?”

“Oh, I don’t know, maybe because you haven’t taken a sick day in all the years you’ve worked here, coupled with the fact that Jesse Chapman-fresh off the plane from Asia-left me three messages yesterday and another two this morning already. Just call me intuitive like that.”

“What did he say?” Leigh asked. She knew in her heart that their professional relationship was essentially over, but she wanted the opportunity to present it to Henry herself, when she was ready.

Leigh could hear Henry sipping something and then chuckling. “He didn’t say a goddamn thing. Claims he was just ‘checking in,’ and ‘touching base’ and ‘saying hello,’ which, coming from Mr. Chapman, may as well be skywriting for ‘something is completely fucked and I’m trying to ascertain whether you know what it is or not.’”