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Landing in the vertical people mover, I confirm that I was right. It is a woman. Pencil skirt, blouse open one button too far down, shoes that make her seem deceptively taller than she is. The kind of woman who reminds me of my ex-fiancée. Not personality-wise or anything. Sex itself is baked into this person’s DNA, and that was definitely not true of my Alice. But this woman is gorgeous in a harsh way and is looking at me like there’s something wrong with me, so in that regard, they’re twins. And so, by no fault of hers, I’m wishing she had just let the doors close on me.
“Thanks,” I say as we start moving up.
“Which floor?”
“Sorry?”
“Which floor?” she repeats, nodding to the panel of numbered buttons.
“Oh, uh…” I look and see the floor she’s pressed. “Oh. That one. Yeah, that’s me.”
She eyes me—in my opinion—oddly. “You have business at Le Man?”
“Huh? Oh. Uh, not really. Just seeing a friend.”
“Oh? Who’s that?”
Trapped in a closed space with this dominatrix-looking dame is making me feel much more uneasy than I normally like to start my mornings. Again, I think it’s because she reminds me so much of my ex. The exact opposite of what I’m looking for in my life. Why couldn’t I be stuck in here with that Eden girl? I still have her charger and all. Speaking of… I can sense myself backing up and kind of gripping the charger like a bolo. I don’t want to have to fight for my life in this elevator car right now, but I’ll do it if it comes to it.
“Uh… Pierce Chevalier? He’s the—”
“He’s the editor-in-chief,” she interrupts.
I nod. “Yep. Sure is.” I smile a tight-lipped smile and raise my eyebrows in what I’m pretty certain conveys a “what-the-fuck?” vibe.
And now she smiles and says, “I’ll take you to him. I’m Myrtle. His executive assistant.” OK. So, in the spirit of not judging a book by its cover, there’s no way I would’ve pegged this broad as a ‘Myrtle.’ “And I’m sorry… I didn’t catch your name?”
“Um, me?” She nods and gives a tiny smile. The kind you offer to a slow-learning three-year-old when you want to encourage them. “My name’s Andrew Hawthorne.”
Her expression turns now to one of seeming surprise. “You’re Andrew Hawthorne? Founder of Aureality? Creator of Voice Lift?”
She certainly seems to know a lot about me. Which makes me even more uncomfortable. Which I didn’t think was possible in this moment. “Uh… Yup. I’m him.”
“Well,” she says, her gaze turning kinda bedroom-y. “You are not what I expected.”
I don’t know what the fuck she’s talking about, but I do my best not to show my confusion and try to play it cool. So, I just hit her back with… “Sure. Nobody ever is.”
CHAPTER THREE – EDEN
The Tall, Dark, and Handsome is actually a building, not a neighborhood. Or, well, it started that way. The publishing empire I work for decided to put a corporate office in Denver about fifteen years ago and came up with the most ridiculous idea for a building.
At fifty-one floors and a little over a million square feet, it’s the fourth tallest building in Colorado. Problem was, there was no room in the actual city of Denver to build it. So, they bought a whole bunch of farm land down south of the Tech Center and put it there. When it was completed ten years ago it was a shining tower of black glass, chrome accents, and marble floors. So it got the nickname the Tall, Dark, and Handsome building.
At first the publishing company was just gonna make it a huge sprawling campus like all the other corporate offices down here. But then the property values shot up once the building was underway and they started selling off parcels.
And today we have this.
It comes into view like the Rock of Gibraltar. (I stole that analogy. People say that all the time about the TDH building and I never got it, so one day I decided to look it up. So apparently the Rock of Gibraltar was the edge of the known world back in ancient times. And since the TDH is the edge of the Denver Tech Center, it sorta makes sense.)
A perfectly planned walkable urban neighborhood smack in the middle of cows.
Which explains the emergency birth on the freeway this morning.
There’s like ten tall buildings now. And a whole bunch of low ones. And then, of course, there are the inevitable townhouses and condos for all the people who work here, and further east there are sprawling mansions for the CEO’s.
It’s nice.
No, it’s cool as fuck. It’s like living in New York with a view of Pikes Peak. You can walk everywhere because the Towne Centre is pedestrian only. So there’s tons of parking garages, and little stores, and places to shop, and lunch trucks.
