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“He’s even hotter now,” one of the interns piped up. “He doesn’t do drugs anymore. Hardly drinks, I hear. And takes good care of himself. He’s a hunk if I ever saw one. But he still exudes cool.”
“You saw him?” another girl asked.
“Sure. When I came in for my interview, he was having a meeting with Maggie. Maggie said something about sleeping with him, a long time ago. But I keep staring at her, wondering. She can’t have been hot back then. She’s certainly not anything to look at now.”
“Well, she’s his age. I don’t think it’s too far outside of reality,” another girl said saucily. “Besides, I don’t think Quentin cared back then what his girls looked like. He was set on fucking them, regardless.”
“I wish he was still like that,” Randy said loudly, laughing. “I’d do anything to wake up in bed with him. The famous Quentin McDonnell.”
The group sighed collectively. Charlotte’s heart ached with jealousy, knowing, now, that the other interns felt the same as she. But who was she kidding? It wasn’t as if Quentin would take a single notice of her. Perhaps if she’d been twenty-four when he’d been an addled, crazed rock star…
“Don’t even think about it,” Pam said, her voice tart. “There’s a strict no-fraternization policy. Didn’t any of you read the handbook before you came in? He’s got a daughter now. I think it’s frankly disgusting to speak of him this way.”
“So, you’re just here to work?” another girl asked, snorting loudly.
Several of the other interns joined in laughter, taunting Pam. Pam lifted her chin, pointing her nose toward the door and obviously praying for Maggie to save her.
Suddenly, Maggie reappeared in the main office with Quentin McDonnell himself beside her, speaking quietly and conspiratorially on the other side of the glass. Immediately, Charlotte’s throat clenched. Hunting for oxygen, her tongue tipped against the top of her mouth, making it difficult for her to breathe. He was the most handsome man she’d seen in her life, taking the outrageous gruffness of his earlier years and marrying them with a sophisticated, editorial look, with horn-rimmed glasses and salt and pepper hair. His muscles were thick, curved beneath his immaculate, gray suit, and his pink lips were just as kissable as they’d been ten years before—when he’d haunted Charlotte’s sexual dreams.
“Jesus Christ,” someone whispered. “A no-fraternization rule? You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Suddenly, Maggie beckoned toward the team of interns, mouthing the words, “Lunch! Go to lunch!”
They hadn’t been at work for more than twenty minutes, making them confused—yet eager to feel comfortable again.
“She must not have time for us right now,” someone joked as they churned from the intern office, bounding back toward the elevator. One by one, they passed both Maggie and Quentin, who were bent over the spread of a future print of the magazine.
Charlotte hung back, allowing herself to be one of the last to pass by Maggie and Quentin. Her eyes turned toward Quentin. Her hips shimmied from left to right, articulating her curves, her femininity. She knew what she was doing; it had become automatic. Quentin looked up from his spread, making intense, immediate eye contact with Charlotte.
The tension around them grew immensely, causing Charlotte to panic and drop her notebook onto the ground. The notebook smacked, bringing heads back toward the scene, as if they were watching a car crash. Her face burning, she knelt quickly, retrieving it, and feeling the stern eyes of the rock-star-turned-editor on her ass.
He’d noticed her.
She lifted the notebook quickly, spinning back and hiding her ass, blinking wildly into his dark eyes. Her tongue searched for words of apology, words that would tell him that she was sorry for interrupting his meeting. But seconds ticked along, with both of them holding the intense eye contact. Neither formed words.
Perturbed, Maggie took a dramatic step back, dropping her hands to her sides. “Didn’t I say interns go to lunch now?” she asked, obviously forgetting Charlotte’s name. She was still new, nameless, and unimportant. But she still held court for the editor. At least in that moment, he only had eyes for her.
“Wait a moment,” Quentin said firmly. His voice was provocative, dominant, powerful. Maggie pressed her lips together, clearly frightened. He continued to stare at Charlotte, his eyes glossing over her frame.
In this moment, Charlotte felt like one of his groupies from ten years before, when he’d ransacked the bodies of teenage and twenty-something beauties all over the country. His penetrating gaze made her feel suddenly sexually charged.
Charlotte still didn’t speak. The tension mounted, with Maggie and Charlotte sitting in wait, holding their tongues.
Finally, Quentin removed his horn-rimmed glasses, shaking his ear-length, salt and pepper hair. “Who on earth are you?” he finally asked, as if she should have told him already. As if, all along, he’d been waiting for her.
