Heels of Steel

by Barbara Kavovit

  “The woman?” she said to Ava to cover up her embarrassment.

  “Jason’s wife, Hana Takada. She’s a painter. Really good. Only moderately successful, but what does that matter when you’re married to a billionaire?”

  “And who’s the other guy?”

  Ava looked over again. “Oh, that’s his partner and COO, Liam Maguire. Kind of a jerk, actually, but also a brilliant operator.”

  “No wonder we can’t win against them,” muttered Bridget.

  “Um,” said Ava, shifting her attention. “I don’t mean to stir up trouble, but is your boyfriend going into the bathroom with that redhead?”

  Bridget jerked her head just in time to see Kevin slip into the powder room, shutting the door behind him. She didn’t hesitate, just marched across the room and barged right into the bathroom after him.

  The redhead was crouched on top of the toilet while Kevin was bent over the sink, about to insert a rolled fifty-dollar bill up his nose.

  “Kevin!” She couldn’t decide if she was more upset about the woman or the drugs.

  He glanced up at her, deadpan. “Oh, hey, babe. You want some?”

  “No!” she spluttered. “I want to go home!”

  He nodded. “Yeah, this party is dead. Okay. Just give me and—” he looked over at the redhead “—Nadya, right?”

  The redhead nodded.

  “Just let me finish up with Nadya, here, and then we can go.” He bent back over the line of coke and snorted it up, smiling.

  Embarrassed and furious, Bridget turned and left, slamming the bathroom door behind her, heading for the exit without even saying goodbye to Ava.

  * * *

  Late that night he materialized at her bedside, waking her from a restless sleep. She regretted giving him a key.

  “Hey, babe. You left so fast. I was worried,” he said, putting down a shopping bag he was carrying and stroking her hair. “Is something wrong?”

  She whipped her head away from his hand. “Are you kidding me?” she choked out. “You were doing coke in the bathroom with some random woman. Of course something is wrong!”

  He looked genuinely puzzled. “Oh, geez. I was just having a little fun. I mean, I almost never do the hard stuff, but the party was so boring, and Natalie had some blow and she just asked me if I wanted to share, that’s all. Nothing else happened.”

  “Nadya,” Bridget corrected miserably.

  He climbed onto the bed next to her, smelling like cigarettes and scotch. “Who?”

  “Her name wasn’t Natalie. It was Nadya. And that was hours ago. Where have you been?”

  He reached for the shopping bag. “I’ve been shopping. I got you something,” he said, placing the bag on her lap and then stroking her arm. “You look so pretty when you first wake up, Bridge. I never met a girl who looks so hot in bed.”

  She glared at him. “Jesus, Kevin, how dumb do you think I am? You can’t just buy me a present and tell me I’m pretty and expect me to forget what an ass you are.”

  He smiled at her. “You’re also the crankiest person I know when you wake up.” He nudged the bag. “Come on. Open it.”

  She looked at the bag for a moment and then sighed, opening it. Inside were five pairs of gorgeous La Perla panties in a rainbow of colors. She shook her head. Bridget knew that each pair cost at least a hundred bucks.

  He pushed the bag toward her again. “There’s more. I’ve been waiting to surprise you with these.”

  She reached past the lingerie and grasped an envelope. Two tickets to Bermuda. For five days. Leaving next week.

  “A pair for every day we’re there. And I can’t wait to rip them off you one by one.”

  She shook her head. “Kevin. I can’t.”

  “What are you talking about? Of course you can. Ethan can take care of things at work while you’re gone.”

  “Even if he could, I don’t want to leave my dad. He’s not doing so well lately.”

  “Babe, he would want you to go! He’s always talking about how you need to take a vacation.”

  She shook her head again. “No, I—”

  He moved the bag aside and rolled over on top of her, pressing her down into the mattress and letting her feel the weight of his body on hers. “You can,” he said, kissing the tip of her nose. “You can and you will. Do you want to hurt my feelings?” He kissed her cheek and then her neck. “You know how hard it was to get the underwear lady to let me into the shop? She was one of those tough old broads, and they were about to close for the night. I had to tell her that I’d done my girl wrong and needed to make it up to her.”

  She laughed, imagining Kevin charming his way into the La Perla boutique.

  He smiled. “You’re laughing. Does that mean you’ll come?”

  She looked up into his sky-blue eyes, imagined them walking down the white sand beaches together, playing in the warm aqua water, making love in the tropical heat. It was twenty-five degrees outside in Manhattan and snowing...

  “Okay,” she finally said. “But about Nadya—”

  “Shhh,” said Kevin as he slowly unbuttoned her pajama top and flicked his tongue down her neck. “We can talk later. Let’s not spoil the moment, okay?”

  * * *

  I have to break up with him, Bridget thought as she watched Kevin bodysurf in the turquoise water. It hurt her to admit it, and it especially hurt watching him right now, his tanned and muscular chest and shoulders gleaming in the tropical sun, his smile so bright that Bridget felt her own lips automatically curl up in answer.

  She thought about the night before, when they had snuck out after dark to the empty, glimmering, white sand beach. The ocean reflected the starlight in a blanket of tiny sparks as Kevin dared her to skinny-dip. Never one to back down from a dare, Bridget had instantly stripped off the long, billowing, powder-blue sundress she’d been wearing, and then ran, naked and laughing, toward the surf.

  Kevin was two steps behind her, and he scooped her up into his arms as they plunged in together, carrying her out into the sea until Bridget twisted and wrapped her legs around his hips and twined her hands in his hair. He kissed the salt from her lips until she was dizzy with pleasure.

  But after, back in the bungalow, he had nonchalantly taken out a small plastic bag and begun chopping a line of coke on the kitchen counter.

  “Jesus, Kevin,” she said. “What are you doing?”

  He laughed. “We’re on vacation, babe! Let’s have some fun!”

  “But where did you even get that?”

  He smiled at her. “Smuggled it on the bottom of my stick of deodorant.”

  She gasped. “You flew with that? Oh, my God, are you freaking nuts? That’s a felony!”

  He rolled his eyes. “Relax. I’ve done it a million times. And I didn’t get caught, did I? It’s no big deal.”

  But it was a big deal. Bridget was no prude. She’d smoked her share of pot in college—it made her hungry and then paranoid that she was going to double her size from eating so much—and had even tried coke once with an old boyfriend. She liked it so much, she swore to herself she’d never touch it again. But deep down, she knew it was different for Kevin. He’d been staying with her since the iSplash job started and she’d begun to see things that worried her. She thought about the constant glass of scotch in his hand, the way he rolled a joint like it was second nature, the way she sometimes had to beg him to get out of bed in the morning and make it to the work site. Twice now, she’d had people tell her that he’d missed meetings with no explanation, and after all that bluster about being able to do the carpentry and the electrical work, she’d ended up having to sub-contract the electric trade out for nearly twice as much as she had initially estimated.

  If it had been any other guy, Bridget would have kicked him to the curb months ago. She told herself it was the sex—which remained phenomenal�
��or the fact that she was sick of being lonely, and it was so hard to meet a decent guy when she was working all the time. But the truth? The part she could hardly admit, even to herself?

  She had fallen in love with him.

  Maybe I can fix this, she thought as she watched him play around with a couple of tourist kids who had joined him in the waves. Maybe if I just talk to him—tell him he needs to cut back...

  But then she thought about the way he’d changed after he’d snorted the cocaine the night before. How pissed he’d been that she wouldn’t take any with him. How he started motor-mouthing at her, talking nonsense, going on and on, repeating himself for minutes on end. His eyes had been shining with a crazed light she didn’t recognize. It had terrified her.

  Tonight, she thought. They were going home tomorrow morning. Better to get it over with tonight and have a fresh start when she got back home.

  They had reservations at a restaurant right on the beach, and Bridget dressed carefully in a pristine white, one-shouldered jumpsuit. She pulled her hair back and painted her lips a soft pink, added gold hoops and a shimmer of gold shadow to her eyes to match the slim gold chain belt around her waist. She thought they could enjoy one last nice meal together before she broke her own heart.

  “For you, babe,” Kevin said as she emerged from the bedroom. He was holding a huge bouquet of white peonies.

  She almost cried as she crushed the flowers to her chest and buried her face in the sweet scent. “They’re not even in season right now. Where did you get them?”

  He smiled. “I have my ways.” He pushed a lock of hair from her brow. “This last week has been amazing. Thank you.”

  The week had been amazing. It had been amazing and beautiful and heartbreaking and now it had to end. If she waited, she’d never be able to do it. It had to be now.

  “Kevin, listen—” she began, but suddenly the bungalow phone was ringing. They looked at each other. “Who?” said Bridget as she turned to pick up the phone.

  “Bridget?” Her mother’s voice sounded so far away.

  “Ma?”

  “Bridget? It’s about your father.”

  Chapter 5

  Five years later the phone rang and Bridget opened her eyes with a gasp. She rolled over and groped for the cell on her bedside table, desperate to silence the blast of “Welcome to the Jungle” that had interrupted her dreams.

  Kevin groaned and flung himself away from her, yanking the covers and leaving her with just a sheet between her skin and the early spring chill.

  She squinted at the phone before putting it to her ear. “Ethan?” She cleared her throat, trying to get rid of the morning thickness. “It’s five o’clock in the morning. This better be good.”

  Ethan didn’t bother with a greeting. “Bridget, we’ve got a problem. I just talked to Manuel and there’s a rat over at Scarlett’s job.”

  Bridget rubbed her eyes as she blew out an exasperated breath. “And? Tell him to call the exterminator.”

  “No, not that kind of rat. Try a thirty-foot-tall, rubber, blow-up rat. I think it’s even got a name—Scabby. It’s blocking all traffic going in and out of the building.”

  Bridget sat up, suddenly wide awake. “Wait. A union rat? Why is there a union rat outside our job?”

  “The rep, Delmonico? He insists we’ve got nonunion guys working there.”

  She groaned. “That’s bullshit! My guys are all from the Local 6. It’s totally clean!”

  “That’s what I told him, but he wouldn’t back down. And he said that there will be fifty guys over there by eight o’clock with picket signs. Oh, and the press. He said he’s contacting the press.”

  Bridget felt her breath catch in her throat. The press. No. No. Freaking no. This on top of everything else? It was a disaster. Scarlett would murder her.

  When Steele Construction landed the job to renovate Scarlett Hawkins’s brand-new corporate headquarters, the shock waves were felt from Harlem all the way down to the Wall Street bull. Sure, Steele Construction had always been Scarlett’s go-to when she needed her beach house touched up or a gut job on her penthouse on Central Park West, but this was a whole new level. It was the biggest job Steele Construction had ever been given. Every construction company in Manhattan had been trying to get their paws on this contract. The publicity alone—building something this huge for the world’s most famous lifestyle queen and tastemaker, the uber-Domestic Goddess herself—was enough to set up a company for life.

  “I’m taking a chance on you, darlin’,” said Scarlett in her honeyed Georgia accent when she herself called to tell Bridget she was giving her the job. “This isn’t just some kitchen in the Hamptons. You know our timetable and the level of quality I expect. I went to bat for you. I’m going to want you to personally inspect every single detail of this project, be there for every meeting, check every god damned bricklayer and errand boy for janky credit scores and canker sores, and I don’t want to hear one peep about any other clients your company might be working for. As far as I’m concerned, I own you from the moment we sign the contracts until the day I cut the ribbon with a pair of those delightfully oversize novelty scissors. Are you up for that?”

  And there had been a moment—a split second in time—when Bridget had thought no. No, I am absolutely not up for that.

  Her company had grown too big, too fast in the past few years. Her habit of never saying no had started to backfire. They were already overextended on half a dozen other major jobs. Kevin had branched out and started his own drywall business and it was hemorrhaging cash by the day. They had a four-year-old son who sometimes called the nanny “Mommy,” and Bridget’s father...good God, she still couldn’t think of her father without wanting to lie down on the floor and wail with grief and loss...

  But then Bridget took a deep breath and reminded herself that this was the kind of job that she had started Steele Construction for in the first place. She had scratched and clawed for years to make something like this happen. She’d be an idiot if she didn’t reach right out and grab this thing by the balls and twist as hard as she could.

  So the split second passed, and she gulped down her doubts and told Scarlett yes and thank-you and then hung up the phone and tried to look happy as she asked Kevin to break out their best bottle of champagne.

  But maybe, she thought to herself as she sat in her bed, I should have listened to that little voice inside me.

  Because from that moment on, it had been one disaster after another. The architect Scarlett had hired handed Bridget a set of construction documents that made her eyes pop—five floors and two hundred thousand square feet of exposed two-by-fours. The place would look like the inside of an outhouse. When Bridget raised her concerns, the architect had a fit. “This is cutting-edge and modern,” he’d screamed at her. “Something you obviously wouldn’t understand.” Bridget calmly took his abuse and then turned around and told Scarlett that it would look like crap and that she should fire her architect. But Scarlett shrugged off her concerns, already wed to the design. “I trust you. I’m sure you’ll make it look wonderful,” she’d said to Bridget, barely taking her eyes off her phone.

  Then Kevin’s drywall business finally went belly-up and Bridget lost every single cent she had sunk into it, which was a huge financial hit. Not only on cash but also in human resources when she had to replace the drywall subs on all her projects. This in turn necessitated that Bridget put even more attention toward Scarlett’s build, so the other jobs Steele Construction had already taken on began to suffer, as well. Practically overnight, her company went from one of the best construction businesses in Manhattan to a heaving, trembling pile of debt and poor planning.

  Anything Scarlett Hawkins did was going to attract attention. Not just press, but the kind of attention that brought all sorts of scummy politicians and union reps and two-bit hustlers out of the proverbial woodwork. With one hand in
the kitty and the other trying to creep up Bridget’s thigh, these men whispered their demands and threats and backroom deals. The Manhattan construction world was small and incestuous and ran by its own set of rules, and Bridget was the ultimate outsider who had muscled her way in. They wanted to test her and test her hard.

  The mayor himself called to let Bridget know just what businesses she could and couldn’t source her building supplies from. She had to go with a place she’d never worked with before, and when they were delivered, all those thousands of two-by-fours were full of knots and cracks.

  “It will look rustic,” said the supplier.

  “You want your permits to go smooth, don’t you?” said the mayor.

  “You’re already behind,” said the architect. “Just get building.”

  “I trust you to figure this out, darlin’,” said Scarlett.

  And so, against all her instincts, Bridget started to build.

  And the press was all over it. Everyone loved the story of the only woman contractor in Manhattan working with the world’s most powerful businesswoman. Poor little Bronx girl clawing her way up the ladder, breaking into the most sexist industry in America. Petite, pretty Bridget Steele—crashing through that glass ceiling, becoming CEO of her own major construction company. A pioneer, they called her. A role model. And Bridget teaming up with the beloved Scarlett Hawkins, to completely redo all two hundred thousand square feet of the Scarlett Hawkins Inc. Flagship Store and Corporate Headquarters? That was the kind of juicy Girl Power story that made and stayed front-page news.

  Still, Bridget knew only too well that the same press would be just as thrilled to report on her spectacular fall as they had been to gush about her climb to the top. Nothing sold more copy than a big, fat, public failure.

  And that’s what this is going to be if I don’t fix this, thought Bridget as she closed her eyes and felt a violent headache bloom at her temples. The headline blared in her mind: How Steele Construction Crashed and Burned.