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They had had great sex.
In a Hummer.
And what if he’d ruined her sex life forever? What if she was destined—cursed—to only enjoy cheap, tawdry sex with complete strangers?
It was a nightmare of stupendous proportion.
“You don’t want me to call? You’re involved, aren’t you?” he said, and to her ears, he sounded relieved.
Quickly she nodded. A white lie, but lies were made to get people out of jams.
Her cell phone rang, rescuing her from further conversations or recriminations.
“McNamara here.”
“I’m sorry, Ms. McNamara, but Mr. Newhouse will be unable to wait any longer for your meeting.”
Her gaze shifted to her briefcase, boring through it, letting all her tensions narrow into one tight beam. She pushed away all thoughts of hunky guy and mangled hose, letting experience and twenty years of educational instruction whip her into shape.
With one hand, she pulled her hair back into the ponytail with a single hard twist and a tight snap of the rubber band. Her ritual complete, all brain cells now back on line and fully functioning.
“Sandy, I can you call you Sandy, can’t I?” She recrossed her legs, confidence flowing back in her veins. “I don’t need much time today. We can reschedule into thirty minutes rather than the previous hour. Don’t let me down, Sandy. And you know what? Maybe I can repay you with dinner tonight. I bet you know all the best places, in fact—” she whipped out her online Zagats, fingers flying “—there’s a fabulous little French place I’d love to try, La—”
“Finis, Ms. McNamara. Mr. Newhouse is already overbooked this afternoon and this morning’s power mishap in the city has only made things even more impossible.”
“Impossible, as a word, is highly overrated, Sandy. You sound stressed. Have you been to the day spa up in the Berkshires? If you’d like, I can set you up—”
“Hold, please, while I get the other line.”
“Of course,” purred Jamie, talking to dead air. She noticed Andrew watching her, measuring her job performance and her trampled pride kicked in. She flashed him a confident smile and began to speak into her cell, in low, overhearable tones.
“He is? Perfect! I think we can arrange to discuss that as well. And the new offerings, too? I’m sure he’ll be very pleased. B-W believes in the highest services available.”
She waited three beats.
“Of course we’re available for whatever financial needs—”
“Excuse me, Ms. McNamara, were you speaking to me?”
Sandy the Gorgon had returned.
“Another call,” Jamie snapped, her face heating up, refusing to look in Andrew’s direction. “About that later appointment. Maybe fourish?”
“Mr. Newhouse is unavailable. I don’t know how to be more direct.”
Jamie pitched her voice low. “Just ten minutes after lunch. I don’t need much time. And he really needs to hear what I have to—”
“Perhaps I wasn’t being clear.”
At that, Jamie’s stomach curdled. She glanced out the window, the rolling hills of Connecticut whizzing by. Too little, too late.
“I’m only ten minutes from the office,” she tried, hoping that the steno-taking Gorgon had a heart.
Sandy the heartless Gorgon hung up.
“Problem?” asked Andrew.
“Nothing I can’t handle,” she said with a tight smile.
“I’m sorry,” he said, sensing that maybe her year had just been shot straight to hell, and thinking that one apology, accompanied by a sexy, yet insightful regard would make it all better.
What a chauvinist.
“It’s certainly not your fault,” she answered, although she wanted to blame him. She wanted to blame ConEd, the Metropolitan Transit Authority, and possibly the entire planet, because first and foremost, when it came to business, Jamie never lost.
“I could try and reschedule my lunch plans,” he offered, still trying for helpful and Boy Scoutish, which only increased her anger.
“Look, I don’t need your help. I don’t need your assistance. I don’t need your pity. I’m a Wellesley grad, you know. Summa Cum Laude,” she added, because she needed to assert herself—regain her footing.
“What a surprise,” he said, so innocently she was immediately suspicious.
When a Boy Scout turned snarky, it was time for a rethink. “I’m sorry. It’s been an awful day,” she offered, rubbing her neck, working to ease the perpetual ridges of tension.
He raised his eyebrows, his dark eyes holding something more than a spark. Now they held a memory. The squishiness in her thighs bloomed anew.
Bitchy as she felt, she wasn’t completely vile. “No, that part was nice.”
Slowly he bowed his head. “My vanity thanks you.”
“Somehow I don’t think your vanity needs it.”
“Strokes are always…” He covered his eyes. “Strike that.”
His discomfort struck something within her, because she felt it, too. Carnal overtones were still thick and heavy in the air, a new experience for Jamie, an experience that made her want to clutch her briefcase to her chest. It was her crutch, she knew it, she admitted it, and she wasn’t going to loosen her grip.
Her fingers itched to get a bite of chocolate from her briefcase, but he would see it as a weakness, so she made a fist instead.
“Can you have the driver let me off at the train station in Stamford?”
“You’re just going to sit and wait until the trains are running again? At least let him take you back to the city.”
He didn’t seem to understand that she had to leave this pleasure-cruise on wheels. The smell of sex, cologne and newsprint mingling together into a potent aphrodisiac was weakening her mind, and she couldn’t have that. This was an experience best forgotten, or if not forgotten, then at least filed in the “Mistakes I’ll never make again” folder.
“No, thanks,” she said.
“If it’s the cost, don’t worry. I’ll pick it up.”
Like she was some minimum-wage slacker. “I can manage my own finances, thank you.”
“Just a gesture, not a judgment on your earning potential.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m not usually like that.” It was a lie. She usually was. Her nickname at the office wasn’t Porcupine for nothing. Her coworkers didn’t think she knew, but jokes spread, and one day she entered the break room one minute too early. Thinking fast on her feet, she pretended she didn’t hear—pretended her cell conversation was still going on.
She’d fooled them all, but she wasn’t sure she could fool Andrew. She pulled out her computer and began to work, shutting out Hummer limos, great sex, the uncomfortable dampness between her thighs, and Andrew. Well, not quite Andrew.
The quiet in the car grew to ear-blasting levels. The flick of fingers on the keyboard, the rustle of papers, and the sound of two people desperate to avoid a conversation.
Her in-box wasn’t even cleared when the driver announced they’d arrived.
“So soon?” she said, a poor joke, but she wasn’t feeling happy. Explaining to her boss about missing Newhouse wasn’t going to be easy. Rain, sleet, snow or power outages. Nothing would deter Bond-Worthington.
Until today.
Jamie pulled out two twenties from her wallet, not enough to cover her share, but it was all the cash she had on her. “You can bill me for the rest,” she told him, because she didn’t like debts, not to credit card companies, not to people.
“I can take care of it…” he started, but apparently noticed the militant gleam in her eyes. “So how do I get in touch with you?” he asked, trapping her neatly.
Reluctantly, she pulled out her business card, and he tucked it away in his breast pocket. “I won’t abuse it. Swear.”
“You’re a nice man,” she started.
He held up a hand. “Not the ‘nice man’ speech.”
“It’s a compliment.”
“Then why don’t you want to go out?” he asked, a perfectly logical question, which told her he hadn’t bought her earlier “I’m involved” lie. He’d probably thought no man could be involved with such a bitch.
And if the dog collar fits…So why did he want to see her again?
She noticed the torn stockings lying in the corner and sighed, a very visual clue why he wanted to see her again. Now seemed the time to share the cold, hard truth.
“I watch one hour of TV every day, the national news and Lou Dobbs. I’m on a first name basis with the delivery man from Golden Noodle. I rarely see the sunrise because I’m already at work, and I don’t like chick-flicks.”
“You watch Lou Dobbs, too?”
“I’m not who you think I am—I’m not a woman who has sex in a Hummer with a stranger. At least not normally,” she muttered after a pause.
“You think that’s the only reason I want to see you again?”
She chose not to answer, instead lugging her briefcase out of the car. Andrew would be a hi-def memory. Something to tuck away into the ten most memorable mistakes she’d made in her life. In a Hummer.
With a regretful sigh, Jamie walked away. Mistakes were not to be repeated. Ever.
LATER THAT AFTERNOON, the world righted itself. The trains ran, and Jamie returned to Lower Manhattan. The elevator ride to the thirty-eighth floor of Two World Financial Center would have been easier with a knife sticking out of her gut. With each passing floor, Jamie’s dread grew by percentages unheard of in the financial sector.
A power outage was normally a valid excuse for dealus interruptus, but Jamie was senior client relations manager extraordinaire, the legendary sales specialist who brought in the infamous Joe Tableone because she knew exactly what forty-year-old bottle of Scotch he coveted. Thomas Harris Winchell III had been persuaded to try out Bond-Worthington for a year, simply because she promised he’d never go back—well, that and a free bump to their Platinum level of customer service. Three years later, he was still a satisfied Bond-Worthington client. No, when it came to client relations, nobody could touch Jamie McNamara.
But today there was no joy on Wall Street, because Mighty Jamie had struck out. Okay, so she was being overly dramatic, but the truth was that she’d been somewhat confident when bragging about her ability to bag Newhouse for the firm. Modesty never got you anything, but a seat at the back of the room.
The elevator doors slid open with a discreet whoosh, and Jamie walked the sensible gray carpet, down cubicle alley to Walter’s office. Her eyes stayed glued ahead, the better to ignore the knowing looks shooting in her direction.
“McNamara, how did it go?”
Jamie stopped and turned to face a cheerful intern, Sanji Dykstra. Sanji was both genuine and happy, a breed apart from the usual blood-thirsty crop of Ivy Leaguers betting their fortunes at a brokerage house.
His round, coffee-colored face and brown, guileless eyes would doom him to failure in the industry, but he had less than eighteen months to graduation, and she didn’t have the heart to crush his dreams.
Jamie shot Sanji a thumbs-up. “I’ve got him just where I want him,” she answered, and continued the long, solitary walk.
Then another head popped up from the alley. A blond, coiffed one, with hair way more manageable than the traditional McNamara do.
“What happened to your hose, Jamie?” asked Lindsey Feldenberg, another intern, not quite as guileless as Sanji.
“A cat jumped on my leg. Very weird. Probably a reaction from some chemical fumes in the area. Made it freak. Nasty business. I had to ditch the hose. Torn to bits,” she ended.
“I don’t see any claw marks,” Lindsey said, blinking her big, blue eyes, but her voice was ice cold. “Nothing but lily-white skin.”
Lindsey didn’t like Jamie, and she’d made it very clear from the first day. Jamie was the competition and Lindsey thought she could outperform her. Lindsey had even told her that while calmly sipping from her coffee.
As an intern? Ha. When pigs fly.
Jamie had kept her mouth shut, but Lindsey’s constant innuendo’s were starting to draw blood.
“My skin is very thick. Claws don’t leave marks.”
Lindsey looked like she might argue, but then realized the uselessness of that action, and sat down with a slightly muffled, “Bullshit.”
Jamie smiled sweetly. “Gesundheit.”
Walter’s office loomed ahead like the dark basement in a horror film. She considered running back to her desk for the spare set of hose she kept in the bottom drawer, or possibly a sharp pencil to stab in her eye, but she’d gotten this far, and Lindsey, the eagled-eyed wonder would make a big to-do, and Walter really didn’t care if she walked around in a bathrobe as long as she brought in the deals.
Helen, Walter’s secretary, guarded the heavy paneled doors with a Fort Knox-like zeal. She was five years from retirement, and had been Walter’s secretary since he started. With her tight gray curls and trembling mouth, she could have worked in a bakeshop, or been someone’s kindly grandmother, but when crossed, Helen grew long, wicked fangs and could outglare even the nastiest nasty.
Which was why Jamie loved her.
“Afternoon, Helen. He asked for me to stop by when I got back.”
“Yes, dear. He’s on the phone with the auditors. Be careful. He’s in a particularly foul mood today.”
Damn, damn, double damn. “You told him the meeting got cancelled?” asked Jamie.
Helen nodded. “Hit him right after lunch with the bad news, just like you asked.”
“Thanks for helping,” Jamie answered, then took a deep breath, preparing to wrestle the lion in his den. After a quick run-through of all possible excuses, she opened the door, entering the world of high-luxe.
The vice presidential offices at Bond-Worthington were old-school. Mahogany paneling, the requisite trophy wall littered with degrees, and padded leather chairs that both rocked and rolled. A VP at B-W wouldn’t be caught dead with an art print or a family photo, or any bit of evidence to indicate you didn’t eat, breath, sleep and ruminate solely for the firm. There were rules on Wall Street, and Jamie had learned early on to follow them to the tenth decimal place.
“Afternoon, Walter,” she said, shooting for cheerful and confident. She seated herself in front of his desk with one tiny rock of her chair to convey the necessary arrogance.
