Third Life Read online

  Third Life

  Noelle Adams

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 by Noelle Adams. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  About Third Life

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Epilogue

  Excerpt from The Return

  About Noelle Adams

  About Third Life

  FIRST TIME. SECOND chance. Third Life.

  My first time was with him—one hot weekend with a handsome stranger. It was supposed to be a one-time thing, but he keeps asking me to meet him all over the world, and I keep saying yes.

  I don't know anything about him except his first name. That's the way he likes it. He's too old for me, and he's hiding secrets, but I'm not going to be able to keep my heart out of it for long.

  One

  SOME PEOPLE ARE INVISIBLE. If you’re one of them, you’ll know what I mean.

  They aren’t the people holding court at a party. They aren’t the ones who have eyes follow them whenever they enter the room. They aren’t the ones who get dates and invitations and requests for participation—unless there’s work to be done that no one else wants to do.

  No one dislikes them. No one avoids them. No one bears any sort of ill will toward those people. It’s just that no one notices them at all.

  They’re invisible.

  My name is Gillian Meadowbrook, and I’m one of them.

  As far as I can tell, there’s no reason for my invisibility. I’m pretty enough and nice enough and definitely smart enough, and I’ve stumbled into a surprisingly successful career. When I’m working, I’m completely focused on my job, so it doesn’t matter if I fade into the background. And when I’m with my few close friends, I know they see me for real.

  But with everyone else, in any sort of social situation, I might as well be invisible.

  This is particularly true with men.

  It’s not that I don’t try to get attention. If there’s a man I like, I’ll attempt to smile and flirt and claim his interest the way I see other women do. It just never works for me. Sometimes I suspect it’s something in my biology. Maybe I’m lacking pheromones, intangible chemical signals that proclaim I’m female and sexually available.

  For whatever reason, at thirty-two and with only one exception, I’ve never gotten any sort of male attention beyond some awkward kisses with guys I don’t much care about.

  I’ve never had sex. Not even once.

  I had one amazing first date when I was twenty-six. He was just out of law school, and he was cute and funny and smart enough to challenge me. Mutual friends set us up on a date. He saw me. I know he saw me, and I can still remember the thrill of it. The miraculous certainty of his regard.

  If I’d had even one more date with Matt, I know I would have had sex with him. It would have finally happened for me. But the day after that dream date—not even twenty-four hours later—he was killed in a car accident on his way home from work.

  Just one of those things.

  Maybe that was it for me. Maybe that was my one chance. Six years ago with a man who tragically slipped out of my grasp before I even had him.

  There’s been no one since. Maybe it’s my fault. Maybe I’m trapped by that one near miss and a lifetime of being invisible. For whatever reason, I’m still a virgin on a blustery March morning in Boston.

  That’s going to change soon.

  My mom died four months ago after years of declining with MS, and that was the turning point for me. I’m tired of waiting around for something to happen. For someone else to see me. I made a decision the day after my mother’s funeral, and it’s taken me this long to bring it to fruition.

  But it’s happening now. I’m going to make it happen.

  All this is to explain why I’m on my way to the airport on a Thursday morning with a bikini wax and a suitcase full of pretty underwear.

  I have a plan. I’m going on a vacation, and by the time I come back, I’ll no longer be a virgin.

  “Are you sure you want to do this, Gillian?” Ashley Doyle asks from the driver’s seat of her car. She’s one of my best friends, and she volunteered to take me to the airport.

  She’s the only one I’ve told about my plans.

  “Yes, I’m sure. I’m ready. I’m going to make this happen.”

  Ashley is pretty in the same way I am. Wholesome. Nothing particularly stunning or sexy. She’s a redhead while I’m blond, but we have similar girl-next-door looks. We went to college together and stayed friends afterward. I used to take comfort in the way she was like me—that I wasn’t the only one who never got noticed—but then a few years ago, she married a hot, brilliant multimillionaire. She’s still crazy in love with him, and it’s obvious to everyone that he firmly believes she’s the best thing to ever happen in the universe.

  I’m happy for her. Really happy. But it’s hard not to feel kind of heavy about how she isn’t invisible like me after all. She managed to find a dream guy.

  Evidently everyone can but me.

  But I’m not feeling sorry for myself. There’s something I don’t like about my life, so I’m going to change it.

  “You know I support you. If you want to have sex, you should have sex. But do you really want it to be a stranger you pick up at a hotel?” Ashley’s eyes are sober. A little worried.

  When she says it that way, it does sound rather silly and irrational. “Who else is it going to be? Am I supposed to just ask some random male acquaintances until I find someone willing to help me out?”

  “No. Of course not. But you can focus on dating for a while until you find someone it feels right with.”

  “You make it sound easy, but it’s not for me. I’ve tried dating. I’ve tried all those apps. And the very few times I’ve landed on someone I’m remotely interested in, I’m paralyzed with awkwardness over the fact that I’m still a virgin. I know theoretically that I’m not the only virgin in my thirties, but it’s hard to feel that way when I’m in the moment and looking at a guy across a table at a restaurant. I want to do this in a way that feels disconnected from my regular life so I won’t feel so much pressure about it.”

  My dad was narrow-minded and ultrastrict, so I spent the first twenty years of my life believing that if I didn’t wait until marriage for sex, I was going straight to hell. I wouldn’t let myself even think about straying into forbidden territory. But my father died from a heart attack when I was a senior in college, and my mother encouraged me to do what I really wanted to do—which was get my PhD in biochemistry.

  My life started again with graduate school. I was no longer the good girl with the weirdly strict parents. I got my PhD, and then my mother was diagnosed with MS. Instead of taking the lucrative jobs I was offered, I stayed in Boston so I could take care of her. The only job immediately available to me there was a temporary position at a pharmaceutical company, putting together a promotional booklet on a new medication.

  Through that, I discovered my real talent. I can write well, and I genuinely understand the science. And those two skill sets don’t often go together, so I began to take on freelance projects—writing up research for nonscientific publications or developing manuals that communicate highly technical information or creating high-level promotional mat
erial in scientific fields.

  Before I knew it, I had my own business as a prestigious freelance science writer. Right now I’m in high demand and making a lot of money.

  Ashley is focusing on the traffic, but her eyes dart over briefly to my face. “I get it. I really do. And I know what happened with Matt makes everything harder for you. I’m just not sure getting it over with is the best way to approach sex. I thought you were waiting for the right man.”

  “I was. I am. But he hasn’t made an appearance, and I’m afraid he never will as long as I’m hung up on this virginity thing. I’m sick of it.” My voice breaks slightly, although I don’t normally consider myself an emotional person. “It feels like I’ve lived two lives so far. One as that scared good girl I used to be. And the second one focused only on my mom and my career. I’ve lost my mom. My career is great, but it’s not enough. It feels like this is the time for me to... to start my third life. And I don’t want to live my third life as a virgin. I don’t, Ashley. I’ve thought this through. Endlessly. This is what I want to do.”

  “Okay.” Ashley’s expression is less worried now. She’s almost smiling. “I’m with you then. So you think you’ll find a guy at this conference?”

  “I don’t know. I hope so. There are two conferences at the hotel this week—one for pharmaceutical sales and one for software developers. I think I’ll be able to find a basically decent guy who’s interested in hooking up for a night.”

  “Why not do a singles cruise or something?”

  “I don’t want to go somewhere where everyone is looking to hook up. There will be too much competition. I don’t want it to feel like high school and college, where the guys are all going after the popular girls while I’m invisible in the background. I don’t want a player. I don’t want someone who is really sexy or experienced. It will make me feel even more clueless. I want a nice, nerdy guy who is cute enough but who also thinks he’s lucking out by being with me. Believe me, I’ve gone over every option I can think of, and this is the one that’s going to work best for me. My only goal this weekend is to have sex. I’m not going to do anything risky, but I don’t care that much about the sex being good. I just want to do it. So I have it done.”

  “Maybe you should just hire a male escort. Wouldn’t that be simpler?”

  I laughed. “Sure. But I wouldn’t know where to even start in terms of finding one.”

  “I wouldn’t either. But I’m sure Sean could—”

  “You’re saying your husband knows about hiring male escorts?” I’m teasing, and it’s obvious from my tone.

  Ashley giggles. “I just figured he’d know how to go about it. He knows everything.”

  For just a moment I’m so jealous it actually hurts my chest. Not that I want Sean. Rather, I want what Ashley has. A man she’s so sure of.

  “Well, be that as it may, I’m not going to ask Sean for help in finding a male escort. I’d be afraid that would feel unnatural to me. I’d rather do it this way. People hook up at conferences all the time. I’m sure I can find someone at this hotel who won’t be too intimidating and who might be looking for one night of easy sex.”

  “Okay. Text me along the way so I know how things are going for you.”

  “I will.”

  We’re approaching the airport, and I reach down to the floor of the car to pick up my shoulder bag with my MacBook in it.

  I’m nervous but also excited.

  I meant everything I told Ashley about my plans and motivations for this trip.

  I’m ready. Things are going to change.

  My old life is over—both my old lives are over—and I’m ready to start my next one. My third one.

  This weekend is when it will begin.

  THE FLIGHT TO FORT Lauderdale is mostly smooth, and I’m jittery and determined as I wheel my suitcase out of the baggage claim area. I called the hired car service a few minutes ago to let them know I’ve arrived, and the shiny black car pulls up to the curb as I walk outside.

  I always use a car service when I travel. I got spoiled from the big companies arranging it for me when I travel on jobs, so now I hate the hassle of waiting for a cab or a rideshare.

  While the driver takes me to the large resort hotel where I’m staying this weekend, I check messages and reply to some of them to distract myself from rising nerves.

  There’s no reason for me to be nervous.

  If I decide this isn’t what I want to do, then I just won’t do it. There’s no pressure from anyone except myself and my desire to have sex at last.

  It doesn’t have to be mind-blowing. I know for sure that it won’t be.

  It doesn’t even have to be fun and exciting.

  It just needs to get done and be basically comfortable. That’s the extent of my expectations for my first time.

  I spend several minutes in a texted conversation with my current client—a manager at a pharmaceutical company who’s rolling out a new drug for hair growth and trying to get it finalized before another company who’s been working on a competing product.

  Those are my least favorite projects. Tons of money and fanfare—which means a lot of pressure on me—but minimal value to the good of most of the world. But I took on two jobs earlier this year at half my normal pay because I believed in them, so it makes sense to now do something fairly straightforward that will make me a lot of money.

  Because I’m distracted, the sudden jerk of the car makes me gasp. I look up quickly to see the driver pulling onto the side of the road.

  “Sorry,” he says through the speakers as the car comes to a jerky stop. “Flat tire.”

  “Oh. Okay.” It’s vaguely annoying but not the end of the world. It’s not like it’s the driver’s fault.

  “I’ll call it in, and they’ll send someone else to pick you up and take you to the hotel.”

  “Sounds good.”

  The hotel I chose is popular with conferences, but it’s not on the main beach strip. It’s off on its own, so the road isn’t full of traffic.

  I keep texting while the driver talks to his dispatcher.

  “Ms. Meadowbrook,” he says after a minute. “There’s another car going to the same hotel. He can stop and pick you up if you don’t mind sharing the car.”

  “Sure. That’s fine.” I’m surprised when I see another large black car pulling right behind the one I’m in. “That was quick.”

  “They were just a minute behind us.”

  The driver gets my luggage as I slide my phone into my bag and step out onto the pavement. I blink in surprise when a distinguished-looking man in an expensive suit gets out of the back seat of the other car.

  He’s obviously the rider and not the driver, but he’s standing on the shoulder and holding the door open for me. He’s handsome. Incredibly handsome. He’s about five inches taller than my five seven. He’s got strong, classic features and a lot of silver in his dark hair. He looks solid. Intelligent. Sophisticated. Mature.

  Like an old-time movie star rather than a man from real life.

  I’m almost gaping at the sight of him, but I manage to pull myself together enough to nod and slide into the back seat. I scoot all the way over, and he gets in after me to sit beside me.

  He smiles. It’s a ridiculously appealing smile.

  Everything about this man is ridiculous.

  He’s wearing a Swiss watch that costs more than a car. That suit must have been tailored just for him. He’s not wearing a wedding ring.

  How is he even real?

  “Richard Steele.” He holds a hand out in greeting after he closes the door.

  Of course that’s his name. Like something out of an old-fashioned romance. I stare for a moment before I remember to respond. “Gillian. Thanks for letting me ride along.”

  “No problem. Did the driver run over a nail? I’d be surprised if they let the tires get worn down. Their cars are usually in excellent condition.”

  “Yeah. I know. It was probably a nail or something.”


  “You’re headed to The Palms too?”

  “Yes.”

  “Work or pleasure?” Even the sound of his voice is vaguely decadent. Way too husky and sensual. His eyes are vividly blue.

  “Work,” I say.

  “Ah. Me too. But maybe you can manage to enjoy yourself a little.” His eyes are scanning my face. Like he’s interested in who I am. Like he sees me.

  No one ever sees me.

  Not in that way.

  Not a man like him.

  Little sparks of excitement ignite in my chest. My head. But with them come faint alarm bells.

  Things like this don’t happen to me. Something strange is going on. And one thing I’ve learned in my life is that if something seems too good to be true, then it always is.

  When I don’t respond, he continues, looking relaxed and friendly—as if he’s just a nice guy making conversation. “What work do you do?”

  “I’m a science writer.”

  “Really? What does that involve?”

  “I write up scientific research in a way that’s understandable to people who aren’t in the field.” That’s my standard simplified answer to a common question.

  “Interesting. I bet there’s a big demand for that kind of skill. What degree did you get to do that?”

  “I got a PhD in biochemistry. I just happen to be able to write well.”

  “So you’re here for a job?”

  “Yes.” I do have some work with me, and I’m not about to tell this sexy stranger the truth about this trip.

  My virginity and desire to be done with it isn’t his business.

  To change the subject and because I don’t want him to continue an inquisition about my job and the purpose of this trip, I ask, “What about you? What do you do?”

  “I’m a business consultant.”

  I frown. “That’s kind of vague.”

  “Yes. It’s a vague kind of position. I help businesses manage problems.”

  I don’t know anything about business, so I have trouble wrapping my head around a job like that. “So are you freelance?”