Hearts Unleashed Read online

Keep it simple. Texts should be brief.

  Hi. Would love to. Lunch? Thursday or Friday? Happy to come to you. Let me know where/when. Thanks.

  Wait. “Lunch” is too presumptuous. Make it “coffee.” Okay, good. Send.

  Now just wait.

  Cynthia got up and walked toward the kitchen. Halfway there, the phone bleeped: Ava Dodd Radcliffe.

  Wow, this is one anxious billionaire.

  Chapter 3

  SUNDAY AM

  Max Ramsey stepped out of the ornate hotel lobby and into the pounding Dublin rain. A doorman held an umbrella for him, but this was the kind of downpour that laughs at umbrellas. He was soaked by the time he boarded the first cab in line. He usually liked rainy Dublin autumns, but for the past eight days, he had not seen so much as a sliver of sun. He’d been doing quite a bit of California daydreaming in response. Even though this had been a momentous trip. Or at least potentially momentous. He’d spent the past two weeks working on a merger deal for the Irish tech company he had co-founded years earlier and that had recently gone through the roof. This was a big deal, one that could change the lives of everyone involved.

  But with Max, no trip was all business. Emily, a lovely young woman from Cork, who the company had assigned to Max as his assistant and tour guide, emerged from the lobby with her own umbrella and slid onto the seat beside him. Immediately, even before he directed the Irish cabbie as to what their destination would be, he gently pulled aside the drenched hair from her face and kissed her. The cabbie no doubt concluded that they were deeply in love. But the truth was that even though Max had jumped into bed with Emily exactly two hours after she’d picked him up at the airport thirteen days earlier, now he was already thinking about Lolita. And Cyn. Together. There’s a thought. He wasn’t so deluded to think that could possibly happen. He just loved thinking about it.

  Max said, “Dublin International,” and then took out his phone and speed-dialed Lolita.

  Emily kissed his neck and slid her hand between his thighs, coming to a halt at his balls, cupping them firmly through his trousers for a few moments before continuing slowly up along the length of his shaft and unzipping his fly.

  “Max,” answered Lolita, not surprised in the least to hear from him, since he had been calling her more than once a day, “hold on just a minute. I’m with a client.” By client, she meant a seven-pound toy Yorky with a ribbon in its hair and a real diamond-and-pearl necklace/collar that was worth more than Lolita’s car. A lot more, actually. She handed the dog over to its two-hundred-and-forty pound “Mommy,” who was wearing an identical necklace and signing the credit card printout, adding a fifteen-percent tip onto the $1,200.00 charge.

  Max stared out the window at the rain as Emily started doing something with the tip of her tongue that was unlike anything he had ever felt. He honestly wasn’t sure what she was doing down there. Just then, Lolita rejoined the conversation.

  “So, Max, you must be on the way to the airport by now.”

  Max’s head was leaning way back. His mouth was wide open and his arm had dropped, taking the phone far from his mouth. He was in a state of stunned arousal, unable to move.

  “Emily, Emily, Emily…” he whispered.

  “Emily?” asked Lolita. “Max? Are you there? Who’s Emily?” Although totally aware of Max’s womanizing ways, she had little inkling of the staggering depths of his deception. She never would have guessed that the same man who had pined over her for days in a row now, who had repeatedly declared his love for her, and had persuaded her to meet him at LAX very, very early the next morning, could possibly have the gall to call her while receiving world class felatio from a “work associate” half a world away.

  Max struggled to sound coherent. “Emily is a little dog who belongs to someone at the hotel. A little Pug. Adorable.”

  “Aww…” said Lolita, obviously a sucker for any dog anytime.

  Emily squeezed Max’s buttocks just hard enough to register her objection.

  “Ahhh!” he blurted.

  Emily giggled and got back to work.

  The cabbie rolled his eyes and shook his head. He hated working in the rain anyway, but he especially hated people who fooled around on his backseat.

  Then Emily did something with her fingers and her lips and god only knew what else that almost sent Max through the roof of the cab.

  Max inhaled sharply and somehow recovered enough to raise the phone back up to the vicinity of his face, muttering something about bad reception and I’m losing you and I may have to reschedule my flight and I’ll call you soon and I’m losing you and…Hello? Hello? Okay, good-bye, and all that.

  The cabbie was steaming now. He was generally bitter about his own life and certain kinds of behavior from certain kinds of people could quickly bring his blood and bitterness to a boil.

  “Okay, then,” said Lolita. “Let me know. All that to you too.”

  Emily administered one last bit of alchemy down below, causing Max to utter one last “EMILY!!!!!” while kicking involuntarily into the back of the driver’s seat, thrusting the cabbie forward against the horn, blaring a sharp warning to the elderly nun crossing at the crosswalk in front of them, who jumped about a foot in the air and stared daggers at the driver.

  “God damn you!” barked the cabbie, his head still straight ahead, so that it appeared to the nun that his remark was directed at her.

  “Jesus Christ Almighty!” she shrieked, turning toward the car. “Isn’t it bad enough that I’m drenched to the bone from the devil’s own monsoon for Christ’s sake?” She peered in through the windshield.

  “Seamus O’Brien, is that you?” she asked incredulously. “Haven’t you matured one iota since your expulsion from St. Michael’s?” This nun had wrapped the cabbie’s knuckles on a regular basis in the seventh grade. “I’m going to tell your mother you’re spending your waking hours terrorizing ninety- year-old nuns with your bloody horn!”

  Emily looked up at Max. “You’re welcome to terrorize me with your horn any day.”

  This was too much for the cabbie. As soon as the light turned green, he pulled over.

  “Get out of my fucking cab, you fuckin’ ugly American and, Emily, you poor wayward lass!”

  Max and Emily spilled onto the sidewalk and giggled, splashing through puddles like school kids, all the way back to the hotel. Max called the airline and while waiting on hold, he proceeded to peel every drenched garment off Emily’s lithe body and feast upon her loins, already slippery from rain and anticipation, but getting slipperier and more delicious by the minute.

  The hotel maid, thinking Max had finally checked out, tiptoed out of the bathroom and almost to the door before he spotted her and, turning momentarily from his work and flashing his famous megawatt smile, asked if she wanted to join them. Emily laughed out loud at his joke______even as Max’s tongue dived back deep inside, then out and around, fluttering mercilessly at her “good spot” as she called it. But he wasn’t kidding. Max would have claimed it was a joke under interrogation, but it most certainly was not. Unfortunately for Emily, she was even more deluded than Lolita. She had only known Max for a short time.

  The maid screamed and left.

  Emily screamed louder and came.

  Chapter 4

  SUNDAY AM

  Four blocks away, right in front of the Brendan Behan statue on Upper Dorset Street, Seamus O’Brien dropped off another fare. As the passenger opened the door, she stopped and picked something up.

  “Some poor American forgot these items back here,” she said handing Seamus a business card, an American Express card, and a Starbucks card.

  “Oh, thank you,” said Seamus as the lady stepped onto the street and slammed the door. “You don’t need to be slammin’ it!” he said for approximately the three-thousandth time in his cabbie career. He shook his head and tucked all three items into his wallet. Then he gazed up at the Brendan Behan statue, the first bit of sun in days moving from behind clouds and providing dramatic backl
ighting for the great Irish playwright, poet, novelist, and infamous drinker. Behan was one of the cabbie’s heroes. He’d made a splash across the pond way back in the 1950’s and O’Brien had always wanted to follow in his footsteps. Leaving out the prison stints and the whole horrible-death-by-drinking thing, of course. Seamus had a mountain of short stories, any one of which would make a far better major motion picture than ninety percent of the crap out there, and he was beyond sick and tired of driving a fucking cab. He also had an older brother who owned a coffee shop in Hollywood. Seamus wasn’t tied down. No wife. No kids. Just a twelve-year-old beagle named Samuel Beckett and the fourteen-year-old piece of shite taxi that had become his prison on wheels. It was time for a change. He pulled over, out of traffic, and called Donald Griffin O’Brien.

  “O’Brien’s Irish café, dart coliseum, and musical emporium…what can I get you for?”

  “Brother Donald,” said Seamus with more enthusiasm than he’d expressed in the last ten years, “I’m comin’ your way. It’s high time for me to conquer the United States of America.”

  “Hallelujah,” said Donald. “It’s about feckin time. I’ve got to introduce you to my girl, Adriana. And our friend Cynthia Amas, the genius matchmaker to the stars.” He looked at Cynthia, who happened to be sitting right there. “He’s handsomer than me, myself, and I rolled into one. He wants to be a writer, but he’s a born movie star. I think you’d like him.”

  “I’m not in the market,” smiled Cynthia.

  “Anyone whose booty call is brought to her courtesy of a handheld device is in the market,” said Adriana, rubbing Cynthia’s shoulders like she was preparing a prizefighter for a championship bout.

  “Okay then,” said Donald into the phone, “we’ll see you when you get here. I’ve got a couch with your name on it.”

  Seamus drove home, packed a suitcase with more notebooks than clothes, put Samuel Beckett into his carrier, and headed for his nephew’s house.

  “Matt, my boy,” he said with a smile, when the nephew appeared at the door in his underwear. Matt had lost his job as a bouncer at a local pub six months earlier. “What exactly did I give you for your birthday last year?”

  “Umm…well, Uncle Seamus,” he mumbled, wiping the sleep out of his eyes, “I’m not sure you gave me exactly anything.”

  “Well, happy birthday, then,” said Seamus, handing him the keys to the cab. “The title is in the glove box. The tires are new. I can’t account for the rest of the piece of shite, but it does run. Or at least limps relatively quickly. For now.”

  “Uncle Seamus,” he said beaming, “I do not know what to say.”

  “How about, ‘Certainly, Uncle Seamus, I’d be pleased as St. Patrick on a mountain of dead serpents to drive you to the bloody airport.’”

  Chapter 5

  MONDAY AM

  Cynthia woke up and before she even opened her eyes, she remembered that she needed to get back to her blog. She had started writing a dating advice column for her website and had been overwhelmed with letters in the past few weeks. Writing it was fun. It was finding the time to write that was difficult. She would just have to stop what she was doing and do it. One letter seemed to almost jump right out at her.

  Dear Second Acts;

  I met a guy while on vacation at a resort last year. I really like almost everything about him. Except he travels all the time. At first it seemed like we could cope with it…that I could go along with him sometimes, talk on the phone a lot, just deal, you know? But the reality of the situation is far from workable. Most of the time I’m too busy with my job to go meet up with him. On the rare occasion that I do, he’s too busy to take time off and I end up hanging around at the hotel, wishing I’d stayed home. But, get this: I have fallen in love with this guy and I can’t seem to stop loving him.

  Please help,

  Stranded in Louisiana

  Dear Stranded;

  You will never know just how deeply I feel your pain. Years ago I was in a somewhat similar situation. The cold hard, ironic truth is that long distance relationships cannot last long. The sooner you face this, the better off you’ll be.

  Cynthia stopped typing for a moment and stared out the window. This letter was ridiculously close to the bone. “Years ago,” what a joke.

  Anyway, Stranded. If you feel that you can trust your boyfriend, and that’s a big if, you need to at least put a time limit on this long-distance madness. Talk to him and tell him how you feel. Together agree on an end date. Dating a musician is never easy and you can’t allow it to go forever like this.

  Yours,

  Second Acts

  Cynthia looked over what she’d written and shook her head. Stranded never said anything about her man being a musician. Cynthia changed it to “Dating anyone long distance is never easy…”

  She hated the expression OMG but she said OMG out loud, involuntarily.

  A few hours later, Cynthia was moving west on Wilshire, passing into the Miracle Mile district, when her phone buzzed. It was her best friend Lolita, who also happened to be one of Cynthia’s first and most challenging Second Acts clients. Despite her claims to the contrary, she was more in the market for lust than love.

  “Hi, Sweetie,” she answered, “Miss you.”

  “Yeah, you’re telling me,” said Lolita. “I haven’t even seen your new place all finished. Are you trying to avoid me?”

  “No, no…why don’t you come by tomorrow morning and we can grab a bite of breakfast in the neighborhood.”

  “Well, no,” she said. “I can’t tomorrow. I have to go down to the airport super early.”

  “Leaving town?” asked Cynthia. Lolita hardly ever went away. She was as married to her business as Cynthia was to hers.

  “Not a chance,” said Lolita. “I’m picking someone up.”

  “Which someone is that?”

  “Ahh…nobody special. Not important.”

  Cynthia knew Lolita well. She would only make a super early airport run for a guy. And she was not shy about offering details about guys…the who, what, where, why of them. So it was obvious to her that this was a guy whose identity she was trying to keep secret. Which could only mean one guy. She knew why Lolita wanted to keep it from her, even though she really didn’t care. It was more of an issue of embarrassment. Max was one of the guiltiest pleasures in the world.

  “So,” said Cynthia in the deadest of deadpans, “you’re picking up Max at the airport then.”

  After a five second pause that seemed a lot longer, Lolita burst into laughter and Cynthia followed suit. It was the kind of hearty, crying laughter that makes driving dangerous. Cynthia needed to make a concerted effort to not crash the car.

  Max Ramsey figured prominently in both of their histories. He had been Cynthia’s longtime, on-again, off-again, highly desirable object of desire. He was one indisputable hunk of tall, dark, and handsome and a true master of the carnal arts. He was hilarious and intelligent and his love of life and mischievous sense of adventure were intoxicating and infectious. He was a dream lover in many ways. Unfortunately, he also happened to be one of the great womanizers of the western world. He had an irrepressible lust for lust. He aimed to please and be pleased. And even though he was quite direct about his proudly professed non-monogamy, Cynthia had always been quite aware that the schedule of sexual extracurriculars in his well-worn datebook was far more rich and varied than she would ever know. Cynthia and Max were no more.

  Lolita and Max had just begun. It was as if he’d been passed along from one friend to another, almost like a good book…a good book with great benefits. Most friendships could never withstand this sort of incestuous cross-pollination. The fact that Cynthia and Lolita seemed to be taking it in stride was a testament to their deep affection for one another. It was also made possible by several facts. One, Cynthia was over, truly over Max. It had taken years, but she finally knew that he would never change and that she would never stop wanting him to. She would always cherish her memories of t
heir time together, but had absolutely no intension of acquiring more. And two, Lolita had just met Max. So, for one thing, the fruit of his loins was still ripe, still fresh, still irresistible. Also, since Lolita was not really looking for much more than great, endless rolls in the hay, she had no illusions nor unrealistic expectations. In this way, they were a match made in heaven. Some kind of wild, hedonistic version of heaven. But it was not just the sex. He made her laugh.

  And so did Cynthia. They really hadn’t known each other terribly long, but they’d grown incredibly close. They got each other. The fact that Cynthia was still supposedly looking for a match for Lolita was totally beside the point. In some ways it was merely a ruse to spend even more time together. They both had friends they’d known much longer, but for now anyway, none came close in terms of real-life day-to-day quality and quantity contact. They were textbook examples of fast friends. On paper, it would be almost inexplicable, but yet here they were, two people not in the market for BFFs, but now unable to imagine life without the other.

  They laughed for six full blocks of Wilshire, before Cynthia pulled into the parking structure of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

  “Listen, Lo,” she said, wiping a tear from her eye and taking the ticket from the machine, “I gotta go. I’m parking.”

  “Where are you going on this fine Monday morning?”

  “I’m at LACMA. I’m meeting______get this______Ava Dodd Radcliffe for breakfast. So, I’ve really gotta get…”

  “Hold on! You don’t gotta nada! Except explain. But wait. I hate to break it to you…LACMA isn’t even open on Mondays. I think you’ve got your wires crossed.”

  Cynthia locked the car with a beep and headed toward the museum’s side entrance. “Hate to break it to you, but they’re opening just for us. Well, for her. She wanted to meet me, to show me some new exhibit, and apparently she’s bringing along her private chef. I guess it’s just one of the perks of donating twenty million dollars to a major cultural institution.”