Hard Sell| ETHMA

4

EMMA
Tuesday Night, September 19

Quiet nights at home are rare in my line of work. More often than not, I'm in four-inch heels and a little black dress at fancy fund-raisers, cocktail parties, or expensive dinners.

In other words, nights out on the town? Part of the job. People think they're paying me big money to solve their problems, and technically they are, but what they're really paying for are my connections and how well I know people.

Name a judge: I know her favorite type of French wine. Name an attorney: I know his phone number and his niece's birthday. Name a socialite: I can give you a list of every person she's ever dated. Name a hedge fund manager: I can tell you the name of his wife and his mistress.

I don't have a little black book; I've got an entire encyclopedia, and there's nothing little about it.
The point is, a night to myself is rare, and when they come up, I go all in. Yoga pants, fuzzy socks, oversize sweatshirt, messy bun, Norah Jones on the speakers, the works.

Normally I pour myself a big old glass of red wine and settle in for a movie, and though a movie's still on the agenda, I'm not feeling the red wine vibe tonight. It feels like a cocktail kind of evening.
I feed my dog, Juno, and begin setting out the makings for an ice-cold martini, when someone knocks on my front door, setting Juno into a barking frenzy.

I scrunch my nose at the interruption. Not only because I'm not expecting anyone, and I hate the unexpected, but because I live in a high-rise on the Upper East Side where the doormen look like bouncers. Nobody gets up here without being on a resident's preapproved list. I can count the number of people on my list on one hand, and none of them is expected tonight.

Going to the door, I check the peephole, assuming it'll be someone who knocked on the wrong door by accident.

I groan, because it's so much worse than an accident.
I purse my lips and consider my options. I could pretend I'm not here, but remember before when I said that I know people?
Well, I know this guy better than most. He's relentless. And he will wait me out.

Giving in to the inevitable, I open my front door, not bothering to hold Juno back from throwing her considerable weight at Ethan Dolan.

Instead of looking annoyed by the eighty pounds of Lab / Rottweiler mix getting fur all over his thousand-dollar suit, Ethan bends down and gives Juno an affectionate rubdown. "Hey, girl."

I lean against the doorjamb, begrudging my dog her poor taste in character. "How'd you get in here?"
Juno rolls onto her back, tongue lolling out, belly up, and Matt obliges, scratching the dog like they're old friends. "Doorman let me up."
"You're not on the list."

"You sure about that?" he says with a grin. Then he looks up at me and does a double take at my appearance. "Whoa. Has it finally happened? Have you finally run out of skin-tight dresses and high heels?"

"What did you think, I slept in a push-up bra and Louboutins?"

His grin shifts from playful to seductive. "I know firsthand that you don't."

I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from saying that in the few times he's seen me in my bra—and out of it—we don't exactly do much sleeping.

Because of that, I'm relieved at my current appearance. The casual clothes feel like a shield of sorts—a guarantee that he won't make his move and that I won't be helpless to resist, as I generally am.
Ethan gives my dog one last pet and stands. His six-foot-two frame doesn't quite tower over my five-foot-seven self, but I have to look up, and that's annoying.

Actually, everything about him is annoying.
See, adversaries aren't supposed to look like him. And make no mistake, for all our ill-advised hookups in the past, Ethan is an adversary. As such, it'd only be fair for him to have scars, a paunch, or at least an asymmetrical face.