The Learning Curve Read online

  The Learning Curve

  Kelly Collins

  Copyright © 2017 by Kelley Maestas

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover design by Michelecatalanocreative.com

  For all the readers who demanded more. Your voice was heard.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Thank you for reading.

  A Sneak Peek into Redeeming Ryker

  Other Books by Kelly Collins

  Get a free book.

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Twenty years ago

  Coco Chanel had it right when she said, “There are people who have money, and people who are rich.” The people she forgot to mention were those who were neither—the poor bastards living paycheck to paycheck, borrowing from Peter to pay Paul. I was one of Coco Chanel’s forgotten, but I planned to change that.

  The Paul in my life was tuition, rent, and groceries. I’d maxed out my loans. I’d maxed out my credit cards. I’d maxed out my options. I was down to living off hopes and dreams. Three-quarters done with college and fully committed to finishing.

  I glanced at my watch—a Timex. I endeavored to be like its slogan: Takes a licking and keeps on ticking. Like this watch I’d dropped, washed, and lost a dozen times, I was no quitter.

  My last-ditch effort was this meeting with the dean of the school. I’d hounded him with fifteen letters, twenty-two phone calls, and a five-hour sit-in in the reception area of his office. The letters went unanswered, and the calls were not returned, but the sit-in did the trick. He took one look at me and scheduled an appointment. It turned out that his secretary was taking the summer off to tour Europe and he was looking for a temp.

  I gathered my things and raced across campus to his office. What I lacked in experience, I made up for in determination.

  I had no idea what the job entailed, but I was game for anything. A summer job would keep me from returning to the commune. I was finished with community gardening and free love. I wanted more. I wanted the power and control that came with a degree.

  The glass ceiling was there; it sparkled and shone and gave you a glimpse of a possible future, but it was bulletproofed. There was no way to break through if you were a woman with limited means. All I knew was that Dean Hollings held the power when it came to this school, and power was something I craved. Hopefully, he’d offer me the job.

  In front of his door, I pulled it together. I pinched my cheeks, straightened my skirt, and applied fresh lip gloss. After a long, cleansing breath, I walked inside. Something told me today was the start of something big.

  I announced myself to the prune-faced secretary: “Sandra Tierney to see Dean Hollings.” She dropped the pen from her thin, gnarled fingers. Fingers she no doubt worked to the bone day in and day out. She’d typed the fat pads right off them, leaving bony tips that looked like unsharpened pencil nubs.

  The nameplate on her desk said, Greta. An old-fashioned name. The woman stood, her back so hunched over, I was certain she’d been born at the turn of the century. Her soft-soled shoes squished across the floor until she came to a squeaky stop in front of Dean Hollings’s door. She tapped twice and opened it.

  “Ms. Tierney is here to see you,” she said with a slight tremor in her voice.

  Was it fear or old age that made her words tremble? Dean Hollings didn’t strike me as a man to fear. He was a man to revere. He ran an elite university that educated some of the greatest minds in the world.

  “Send her in.”

  The deep tenor of his voice pushed a ripple of something up my spine. Maybe he could instill fear. I wanted to believe I could be the one to intimidate—that I could take charge of any situation—that I would be more than a secretary or a waitress. I wanted to be a woman who ruled her world, but as much as it bothered me, I needed the help of a man to get me there.

  “Close the door, please,” he said without raising his head. He shuffled through a few pages on his desk, then looked up at me. “Come here.”

  My heels clicked out a staccato rhythm across the tile. With my head held high, I marched to his desk. I didn’t balk at his demand. I did what I was told. The dean didn’t come across as a man I should question.

  Younger than most men in his position, he didn’t get there by not hunting down what he wanted. If he wanted me at his desk, I’d be there. I looked at his dark hair and stared into his whiskey-colored gaze. He was easy on the eyes, successful and sexy all rolled into one.

  He rose to his feet and pointed to the leather sofa against the wall. I walked to the sofa and smoothed my black pencil skirt over my thighs. I adjusted the side slit so only a peek of my bare skin showed when I took a seat. At first, I tucked my legs to the side, which was the most ladylike way to sit. But then I crossed one leg over the other because it made me feel more feminine, and I noticed how his eyes lingered from the slit of my skirt to my calves.

  His height and width loomed over me like a dark cloud, hardly the way I wanted to start this interview. “Are you going to stand?” I asked.

  He narrowed his eyes and looked between the couch and me like he was at war with himself. The leather cushion won.

  Air rushed up as the cushion compressed under his weight, catching the smell of his cologne and spreading it like an atomizer through the air.

  This man wasn’t Old Spice or dime-store cologne. He was old money. It showed from his argyle socks to his silk tie.

  “What can you do for me, Ms. Tierney?”

  I loved the way he said my name—the hard T followed by a whisper of the rest.

  My heart skipped a beat, and my nerve faltered. I had no idea what I could offer him. All I knew was that I’d gotten in the door after thirty-eight attempts.

  Takes a licking and keeps on ticking.

  “I’m in trouble, Dean Hollings.” I’d never been a weak woman, but I thought I’d play the damsel-in-distress card first. “I’m one year away from graduating with my business degree, and I fear I can’t afford to finish.” I tried to summon a tear, but I wasn’t a skilled thespian, so I rubbed at the corner of my dry eye for effect, hoping to play on his sympathies.

  He kept looking at my legs and licking his lips. “You need this job.”

  My sigh lifted and sank my shoulders. Damsel in distress and sympathy weren’t working. It was time to stroke his ego. “You’re the most powerful man on campus.” I lowered my head and let my hair curtain my face. “I thought maybe…”

  He slid forward and pushed the strands behind my ear. “You thought what, Ms. Tierney?”

  I licked at my red apple lip gloss. His eyes followed the tip of my tongue. “I thought I’d be a good fit for your summer position. I need a job, and you need an intern.”

  He sat back and raised both brows so high, they disappeared under the fringe of his dark brown bangs.

  “Intern?” He shifted on the cushion until he faced me. “I was thinking more of a temporary hire. Bringing you in as an intern implies I’d
be your mentor.” His knee brushed against my thigh. “What experience can you bring to the position?” He pulled his lower lip between his teeth and rolled it back and forth.

  “I’m responsible, motivated, and a quick learner.”

  “Do you have experience?” The way he asked made me think he was asking about more than my typing and shorthand skills.

  “I can take notes and type and answer phones. What I don’t know, I’ll learn. I aim to please.” The last time I’d needed something fiercely, I’d slept with a man for a used car and a semester of paid tuition. “I really need this job. I’m desperate.” The words had a breathy Marilyn Monroe wispiness to them I didn’t recognize, but I sure welcomed it.

  “Desperate can be dangerous.” His eyes went to the closed door. “Where’s your family?”

  “I’m an only child, and my mom lives up north.” To be more accurate, she lived at a nudist colony. She couldn’t help me. She had less than I did. She would have loved for me to stay with her, but I had bigger dreams than organic gardening and free love.

  “I was an only child, too.” He pulled at his tie and leaned back, gaining distance from me, but his eyes never left my face.

  “I grew up with a lot of other kids around.”

  Living in a place where everyone slept with everyone produced a lot of children. Mom was protective and kept the men away from me until I turned seventeen, the age of consent. After that, I was allowed to choose for myself. Little did she know, I’d been having sex since I was sixteen with Daniel Ockey, a boy I walked to school with each day. You couldn’t live in a nudist colony with hundreds of wagging dicks around and not be curious. We fed our curiosity every day after school behind the barn.

  “So what you’re telling me is, you know how to play nice in the sandbox.”

  “I can play nice when I have to.” I uncrossed my legs and watched him watch me. “I’ll do what I have to in order to get what I want.”

  “What is it you want?”

  “I want it all, Dean Hollings. Every inch of everything life can offer me.” I leaned back and looked at him.

  His amber eyes had turned to dark chocolate. A bead of sweat formed on his brow. “Can I call you Sandra?”

  “Of course.” He could call me anything as long as he hired me.

  “I have another interview today following this one. The person I select has to be open-minded and available.”

  I placed my hand on his leg. “Please choose me,” I whispered. My fingers skated across his slacks until my hand dropped from his knee.

  He cleared his throat and looked at his watch. “Sandra, I—” He glanced at the door and then at me.

  My time was finished, clearly. “I’m sorry I’ve taken up so much of your time, Dean Hollings.” I gathered my purse and walked to his desk. “I’ll leave my phone number just in case you have more questions. I’m positive I could be an asset to you over the summer.” I scribbled my number on a piece of his stationery. “I’m good at typing and oral …” I let it hang there for a minute while I finished writing the last two digits of my phone number, “… dictation,” I finished.

  I walked to the door, turned around, and smiled. “See you soon.” I closed the door behind me.

  Someone once said that when a man was attracted to a woman, she became his weakness. I had never fully considered the power of being a woman—until recently. A man with the right appetite could provide a girl with what she wanted. All she needed was the drive to pursue what she desired and the balls to take it.

  I didn’t wake up and think, I’ll seduce the dean for a job. It seemed to happen without thought, although in hindsight he did seem taken with me during my sit in.

  When he swept my hair back, I realized it wasn’t the touch of a concerned administrator. It was the touch of a would-be lover.

  Mom always told me the key to influencing men was to keep them coming back for more. She bartered for things like orgasms. The stakes were higher for me: I needed a job, but a quiver in my girly bits would be a nice bonus. Or maybe I could negotiate for a scholarship. That was a thought. A pleasant one. Lord knew I’d given more for less.

  Well, I’d planted the seed, and now it was time to leave. It would work or not. Either way, I was no worse off than when I came in. I’d leave here a girl up to her neck in debt with one year of college to complete—exactly as I entered. Or maybe I’d get a call that said, “Let’s barter.”

  “How did it go?” Greta asked with a hopeful expression.

  I let out a little giggle and looked over my shoulder at the dean who was adjusting his trousers. “It’s hard … to say.”

  Chapter 2

  I threw my purse on the counter of the kitchen and raced to my answering machine. I pressed the button and listened to the woman’s voice tell me, “You have no new messages.” My shoulders sank with my sigh. But he’d call. I knew it deep in my bones.

  I opened the cupboard door to grab a coffee mug, only to have the door fall off in my hand. “Damn it.” I’d asked my landlord weeks ago to fix the stupid hinge, but the slumlord wasn’t motivated to fix anything. He got his rent no matter whether he repaired stuff. My showerhead had fallen off six months ago and was currently kept in place by duct tape.

  Affordable living was tough to find in New York City, and this place, although a hellhole, was a steal I couldn’t afford to lose. Who cared if the linoleum was cracked and the paint was peeling? This wasn’t my forever place. It was my for-now place.

  I put the kettle on the stove and heated water for a cup of tea. English breakfast tea was all-day tea as far as I was concerned. I sat at my corner table in the secondhand chair I’d bought for two bucks and turned into a masterpiece. I loved clean lines. Everything was better when it was tidy and gilded. Black. White. Gold. That was my palette, and it colored everything in my life, from my attitude to the clothes hanging in my closet.

  I opened The New York Times to the financial section. Hank Waller, billionaire, would be jailed for soliciting a prostitute. Stupid man. There were plenty of ways to find a woman without hitting the street corner. What a waste. He’d do a year in prison. Imagine the money he’d lose in lawyers and lost wages.

  Powerful men were weak when it came to their penises. There was a host of influential men taken down by their desires. There had to be a better way for them to get what they wanted. No street corners. No dark alley negotiations. Wouldn’t it be great if a man could order a girl like he did his favorite lunch? Wouldn’t it be nice if a woman could do the same? How many Mrs. Robinsons wanted a Dustin Hoffman of their own and would pay for him?

  Sex was taken too seriously. It was no less important than sleep or food, but somehow people learned to consider sex a sacred thing—or a taboo thing. I didn’t get it. Sex was an intimate handshake. It meant nothing unless you wanted it to, and those who got caught up in the silly notion of true love were idiots. Having grown up where I did, I learned you could love a lot of people.

  Sex was stress relief. It was food for your sex organs, nothing more. Something to explore and savor.

  A few nuggets of wisdom along those lines were passed down from my mother. One time, she told me I shouldn’t decide vanilla was my favorite flavor until I’d tried them all.

  What flavor was the dean? My thoughts kept drifting back to the interview … and the man. He didn’t ask many questions; he was more interested in my legs and lips. Men like the dean didn’t necessarily have money. They had something more important: connections. His list of influencers was expansive. Look at any society column, and Dean Hollings was shaking hands with the who’s who.

  Those men had the tickets to the buffet. Once you got there, what you ate was your choice, but getting there was key. And few women got a ticket to dine with the big boys.

  When the kettle sang, I plopped a tea bag and a level teaspoon of sugar into my mug and went back to my little black and gold chair. It sat in front of a curbside find: a table that only needed sanding and paint to make it gallery-wo
rthy. That’s what I did. I took shit and turned it shiny. I buffed coal into diamonds. I would turn my problem into a profit, and that profit would become a penthouse on Fifth Avenue decorated in white, black, and gold. I’d sit on my couch in my Chanel suit and sip tea and laugh at the world because I’d learned to play the game better than some of the men making the rules.

  Hovered over my notebook, I doodled the name Dean Hollings over and over again until the page turned black.

  When the phone rang, I sat for a moment, not wanting to seem too eager to answer it. I knew who it was. Only three people had my number. My mother, who never called. My best friend, Jenny, who was at work schlepping blue-plate specials to hungry patrons. And, now, Dean Hollings.

  Just before the answering machine picked up on the fourth ring, I said, “Hello.”

  “Sandra, this is Mark.” His voice was strong and forceful, a voice that took charge.

  “Who?” I knew exactly who it was, but if I sounded desperate, then he owned the negotiation, and I wanted some control over my life.

  “Mark Hollings, the dean.”

  I giggled like a schoolgirl. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t recognize the name Mark.”

  He cleared his throat. “The job is yours.”

  “Really?” I was more than excited, but I tried to play it cool.

  “I can’t wait to work with you. Did you say you were proficient at oral dictation?” I would have sworn the man put an emphasis on dic in the word dictation.

  “Yes. And I’m sure I’ll get better with practice.”