“You’re really not going to marry him?” Lily asked a few days later as we sat in a small café, having cheesecake. “Has he been back to the apartment?”

“He’s there packing today and getting his things,” I replied, practically tossing a chunk of cake in my mouth so that I wouldn’t say anything else. I could read her mind. She thought I was completely insane. “He’s sort of mad at me.”

Lily rolled her eyes. “What do you expect? He invests that amount of time on a relationship, thinking it’s going somewhere and is turned down in front of everybody.” She was right. He did have a reason to be mad at me. He had every reason in the world to be mad at me. “You just need to face these fears of commitment Erin. If not, you’re going to end up fifty years old and alone,”

She was right yet again. Maybe that’s why she was going to school for her doctorate in psychology. She’s too smart and the fact that she can read me like an open book only makes her smarter.

“Well,” I said, putting my fork down, “Daniel went to my mother and told her about her the problems we’ve been having lately.”

“Those problems?”

“Yes, the fact that I wasn’t really in the mood to be with him, sexually,”

“You sound so elegant –“

“Fine, I didn’t want to fuck him. My mother came up to me talking about this and when he asked me to marry him, I just froze. I knew that I couldn’t live my entire life with him and my parents, well my mother, against me. They like him more than they like me,” I confessed, leaning back in the seat.

After I said that, I realized that’s exactly why I didn’t want to marry him. Maybe I didn’t know exactly who I was yet and I didn’t know exactly what I wanted in my life, but I knew that I didn’t want to marry a man that was closer to my mother than he was to me.

“That’s a horrible excuse,” Lily snorted, while eating her last piece of cake. “You should be thankful that he got along so well with your parents and family – what if they hated him? Would you have married him?”

“You know how I love to piss my family off,” I replied, looking out the window of the café. Maybe that is the kind of guy I’m meant to be with – a bad boy that my parents hate. I’ve always dated “good guys” who had a good job or did well in school and my parents have always loved them, but I didn’t. Right now, I’m concentrating on myself, not a guy. Unless the right guy comes along and that will be a cold day in hell.

After a quick meeting with Lily at our favorite little café, I decided that maybe I should go to work. It’s funny that I actually decide to go to work. It’s not like they need me there anyway. Plus, I’ll probably run into my father more than likely and hear him lecture me about my relationship with Daniel.

I work for my father. Well, I don’t really work for him, we work together. My grandfather began a fashion company, Stellar Designs, back in the early 1930’s and since then, it has grown into a huge empire. When my grandfather died in 1968, it was passed down to my father who became president at the age of twenty-six. When my father dies or retires, the empire will be passed down to Tabitha, my older sister, and I.

Tabitha, fortunately, cares nothing about the business. She’s happily married with two little girls and could care less if the company sunk down to the depths of hell as long as she still has money in her bank account. Not that she needs our family money for that, she’s married to one of the fastest rising lawyers here in Los Angeles.

I, on the other hand, love the business. Thanks to my grandfather’s hard work, I get to live a life where I really don’t have to work, but love and respect his business enough that I want to keep it alive.

Too bad I can’t say that about a lot of the heiresses around here.

“Erin, your father wants to see you A.S.A.P,” Sabrina, the receptionist at the office, said as I walked in. I ignored her. I wanted to get to my office quickly enough before anybody spotted me and sent word to my father that I was here.

I walked into my office, shut the door and sighed when I saw a picture of Daniel and myself on the desk. I picked it up, and threw it in a desk drawer when my door flew open. “Erin Scarlet Davidson,” my father spat out as he slammed my door shut. I was in for it and I knew my life was over.

He never raised his voice around me when my mother was in the room. That’s the father that I loved. This father was my work father who had a temper worse than the devil. “Erin, why have you not returned our calls? Why have you not been into work? I could fire you,”

“Oh Daddy,” I said, sitting down in my chair. “I needed some time alone. I didn’t see anybody or talk to anyone.” That was the truth. Today was the first day that I had seen Lily since the dinner. Hell today was the first time I actually left my apartment.

“You broke that boy’s heart. He was ready to marry you and he was a good catch. He came from a good family and he had a good job,” he said, pointing at me. My father’s face was turning red and I could tell he was getting very upset.

“Daddy, calm down before your blood pressure gets too high –“

“You are twenty-six Erin, you need to grow up. If something happens to me, who is going to run this company? Not you because you don’t have the discipline to do it. I want this business kept in the family.” I sighed, looking up at him. I could tell by the look in his eyes that he meant it. I just didn’t know what he meant by saying I had no discipline. I have discipline and I can work hard. It’s just commitment in relationships that I have a problem with.

“Daddy, I’ll work harder. I promise,” I said. I stood up and gave him a tight hug, telling him that I loved him. I knew I had to suck up a lot since he was so upset with me. “I’m sorry about Daniel, but would you want me to be unhappy for the rest of my life?”

My father shook his head no, before he filled me in on that days activity. I knew right then that it was more or less my mother’s fault that my father was so upset about my relationship with Daniel being over. I knew my father wanted me to be happy and that was the most important thing. We had a pretty great relationship for a father and daughter.

My relationship with my mother was another story.

I walked into my apartment that afternoon to see that Daniel had moved all of his things out. The apartment looked almost empty now – not like the home that it once felt like. He had taken every last thing that belonged to him, leaving me nothing to remember him by. In a way that was a good thing. I wouldn’t have to look at anything and wonder if I had made a mistake. I wouldn’t question my actions. Most importantly, I wouldn’t start to miss him.

The only thing is the apartment reminded me of him. We had picked this place out together and moved in together. It was ours. I wondered why that bit of commitment didn’t scare me as much as the prospect of marriage did. It didn’t matter. I wasn’t going to move just because we had picked the place out together. I love the apartment and I plan on staying here until I decided to get my own home.

I just don’t like the place being this empty. I guess when the whole fear of commitment thing kicked into gear with Daniel, I never thought about him and his stuff leaving this apartment. I would have been fine with him staying and us still having a relationship – I just didn’t want to get married.

I guess you can’t always have you cake and eat it too.

“Erin, we should go out,” Lily said as she closed one of her books for class. She had come over to keep me company, even though I really wasn’t in the mood for any. “Come on, let’s go out to a club or something.”

“I have to work tomorrow.”

“So? I have class but that’s not stopping me.”

“Yeah, but see, I had this conversation with my father today about the company and how he wants me to take more responsibility,” I said, standing up from my chair. “I just don’t think going to a club and coming into work with a hangover in the morning is showing good character.”

Lily stared at me. She stood up and put her hands on the side of my face. I started to laugh, pushing her away. “Good character? Come on. Seriously Erin, we don’t have to get drunk, let’s just get out. We haven’t been to one in months because of Daniel.”

“Okay, fine, I’ll go get dressed,” I said, walking towards the bedroom. “Want to borrow something to wear?” I knew that was a stupid question to ask since she was practically in my closet before I even got there.

Lily and I went to clubs constantly when we were younger, before I ever met Daniel and she was still going for her undergraduate degree. Most of my other boyfriends loved going to clubs too but Daniel wasn’t into it. He was more into business parties and staying at home. I guess now that he’s out of the picture I can go back to being the real me, just more mature.

We walked into one of the hottest new clubs on the Strip a little later that night. We were both dressed up, ready to party, or at least grab a quick drink before going back home. Lily looked like a little girl on Christmas morning. She hadn’t been in a club in months and I almost wanted to laugh at her. Before I knew it, she was already out on the dance floor, dancing with Ryan, a guy that we had both known since we were in high school. I didn’t know what he was doing here and frankly, I could care less.

I ordered a Sex on the Beach and leaned up against the bar. The place was crowded, almost too crowded for my taste and hearing Justin Timberlake over the speakers did not make things any better. I took a sip of my drink after the bartender sat it on the counter and looked up to see a guy standing beside me.

He wasn’t just a normal guy that you pass by on the street. He was hot! He moved his blue eyes over, looking at me and then looked away with a smirk. I smiled to myself putting my drink back on the counter but didn’t say anything. That’s when I saw that he had ordered the same thing.

“So you like Sex on the Beach too?” I asked. He moved his eyes back to me, looking confused. “Yeah, I’m talking to you,”

“Well,” he said, turning around to face me. Oh, he had a southern accent. A southern accent was a weakness of mine. I practically sighed to myself when I saw what he looked like in full view. Daniel who?, I thought as he smiled at me. “I just moved here so I haven’t really tested out the beach yet,”

I snorted. Was that some kind of pick-up line or was he serious? “I meant the drink, that we’re both drinking,”

“I know, but I meant the other,” he said, smiling at me. I’m not usually the type of girl that will sleep with someone the first night I meet them but if he was willing to take me home, I was more than willing to show him what sex on the beach was like. “Come here a lot?”

“Uh huh,” I replied. I couldn’t even form words. I was in lust.

“Maybe I’ll see you around,” he replied, smiling at me before he walked away into the crowd. I tried to follow him with my eyes but he became just another bobbing head. I couldn’t see him anymore.

I basically lied to him. I told him I came a lot. Well, now I am coming here often because I am bound and determined to get his name and number. I hadn’t been that taken back by a guy since the first time I saw Brad Pitt in person, not that I ever had a shot with him.

I do think I could have a shot with this southern boy. I’ll call him my cowboy until I find out his name – a cowboy that I wouldn’t mind riding, that’s for sure.