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“No,neshama sheli,” he answered. “Not too much.”
With that, I pressed my face into his skin.
Hale ordered, “Go to sleep, Elsa.”
I didn’t, even if I forced myself to relax into his arms so he thought I did.
No, I didn’t because I couldn’t.
Not until I heard his breath even out and his body settle against mine.
Only then did I sleep.
CHAPTER21
SMART AND SAVVY
Elsa
The morning after we filmed the interview, I was sitting on Hale’s balcony, drinking coffee, when I saw him jog up the beach.
It was Saturday. We were all set to fly out Sunday afternoon, Hale coming with us. He’d informed me he was then spending a month in New York “at least.”
I’d been ecstatic and didn’t hide it. This had made Hale smile at me in a happy, mellow way that I’d never seen, but I’d love it immediately.
That was miracle one.
Miracle two was the fact that both of us were taking the entire weekend off. No work, at all. Fliss and Carole were going out shopping. Chuck and Zoey were going out sightseeing. We were all going to meet for dinner at the Dresden later.
But that day, I got to relax, just Hale and me.
He lifted a hand when he made the base of the steps up the cliff, his head angled back, looking at me.
I waved in return, thinking about sweaty Hale and smirking to myself, because he’d left me in bed for his run, he was a morning sex person, so I wondered what the next hour or two would bring.
On this happy thought, my phone vibrated on the table beside me, and I saw it was a text from Zoey.
I picked it up and read it.
I don’t want to mess up your day, but you should know.Click this whenever you’re ready.
Me. Curiosity. I wasn’t going to wait until I was ready for whatever I’d see.
I was going to make myself ready and look.
I clicked and it was a gossip website. A rival of mine…well, they used to be. I’d elevated. They’d descended into the mud.
It Must Be Love? the headline read.
Under that were pictures of Hale and me on the very beach in front of me, but farther down.
They were taken during our sunset walk last night, when I told him all about the interview, and he told me he was thinking about grooming this twenty-eight-year-old business wunderkind he’d put on the team to clean up Core Point Athletics.
His name was Javier Rojas. The child of immigrants from Chile, he’d graduated high school at sixteen, got his MBA from University of Chicago at twenty. He’d then gone right into turning around a failing record store chain, capitalizing on niche marketing and riding the wave of Gen Z’s return to vinyl. And he did this alongside investing in a fledgling fashion label that had since become the next Off White.
Hale had personally recruited him for the Core Point effort.
“And I think he could be my guy,” he’d said. “He’s smart as fuck, so smart, it’s scary. He doesn’t take shit. He’s young, but he doesn’t get intimidated. And he gets off on being insanely busy. He could travel with me, then I could scale back, and send him in my stead.”
