Heels of Steel

by Barbara Kavovit

Scarlett laughed. “That is not where I thought this conversation was heading.”

  She sat up. “I mean, we’re not even really together, so how can I break up, right? But I suppose I could stop letting him into my apartment.”

  Scarlett patted her hand. “You could. Lord knows that has been a final solution to many of my own peccadilloes.”

  “Yeah? You just ice them out? Pretend they never existed? That doesn’t sound very polite, Miss Manners.”

  Scarlett smiled. “I only do it when they just can’t take the hint.”

  “Anyway, I know I should get rid of him. No doubt at all. There are, like, five million complications already. And actually, yesterday I had decided to do just that. I was going to text him that we needed to pack it in, but before I could, he showed up at my place and all of a sudden we were doing it on the kitchen floor.”

  “The kitchen, eh?”

  “The kitchen, my bed, the bathtub, the couch, the dining room table...”

  “Oh, if you’re doing all that—don’t break up with him yet, Bridget. Why miss all the fun?”

  Bridget sighed. “Why does nobody want me to do the right thing? You’re all a bunch of enablers.”

  Her phone buzzed in her jacket pocket and she fished it out and looked at it. “Harrington and Kim. Oh, I’ve got to take this.”

  Scarlett waved her off. “Be my guest.”

  “Hello? This is Bridget Steele.” Bridget stepped out into Scarlett’s hallway and shut the door behind her.

  “Hello, Bridget Steele, it’s Mark Harrington.”

  Bridget swallowed. “Oh. Hello, Mr. Harrington. Is there something I can do for you?”

  “I think I owe you a lunch.”

  She blinked. “You do?”

  “Yes, at a very nice place, because this morning I met with the HealthTec executives and we were looking at the rendering, and I could see that they weren’t happy. And because of you, I was able to let them know that we were already looking to redesign the generic nature of their building—that we envisioned something much more worthy of their name—and so, in a roundabout way, you might have had something to do with saving this project.”

  “So I was right.”

  He laughed. “Yes. You were right.”

  “Well, I love being right.”

  “Don’t we all? So are you free now? Hungry?”

  “I’m at a client’s, actually, but—”

  “Oh, honey, just go,” whispered Scarlett as she breezed by her. “You’re all screwed out and useless at the moment, and I have an appointment, anyway.”

  Bridget coughed loudly, hoping he hadn’t heard Scarlett’s comments. “Actually, looks like my schedule just cleared. Where would you like to meet?”

  “How about the Union Square Café? I want to see their new space.”

  “Yeah, me, too,” Bridget agreed. “I heard it’s huge. Okay, I can get there in twenty.”

  “Excellent. I’ll grab us a table and see you there.”

  Chapter 36

  Jason was shopping on his lunch break. After he had used one of Bridget’s nice, big, soft towels the night before, he’d realized that his own linens were severely lacking. He wanted some of those—what had she called them?—bath sheets. She had said they were nothing special—he could get them anywhere, but all he knew was that when he’d looked at what was hanging in his own bathroom that morning, they had been flimsy little pieces of rags compared to what he had wrapped around his waist and then she had torn off him again later that night.

  He stared at the massive wall of folded towels in front of him. So many frigging towels. And apparently, Bridget had been right—because half of what he was looking at were labeled “bath sheets.” He touched one. Not as soft as Bridget’s had been. He touched another. Better, but he didn’t like the color. Who the hell had black towels? He grabbed another towel and shook it out—what color should he pick? Was he supposed to do all the same color or pick a bunch of different ones?

  He put the towel back and took out his phone, texting Bridget before he thought too much about it.

  Is it weird to have more than one color of towel?

  He stared at the phone for a moment, willing her to answer, then put his phone back into his pocket in frustration and pulled another towel down from the shelf. Soft. A nice bright blue. He wrapped it around his waist, tucking it into the waistband of his jeans.

  “Jay?”

  He’d recognize that voice anywhere. The hackles on his neck went up and he turned around to face Liam Maguire.

  “Liam.”

  His former best friend hadn’t changed a bit. Dark-eyed, compact, pale and intense. His black hair flopped over his brow like it always had—making every woman he met want to reach up and push it back for him. And he wore his usual uniform of jeans, T-shirt and hoodie—still dressing like a college student even though he was worth millions.

  “Nice towel.”

  Jason snatched it off. “Need to replace my old ones.”

  Liam eyed the wall of towels next to them. “Well, looks like you came to the right place.”

  Jason remembered the last time he had seen Liam. It had been at least six months before. He’d stopped by Jay’s apartment to pick up the last of Hana’s stuff. Some records, a sweater that had turned up in Jay’s wash on one particularly painful day, and, nonsensically, a framed picture of the two of them and their extended families on their wedding day. They had fought about it over the phone the night before—which is why Liam had shown up to claim the things, not Hana. She had insisted that she should have the picture because it was one of the last ones taken of her grandmother before she died. She didn’t care if it was their wedding photo—for her, it was a family photo, no matter if Jay was in it or not.

  Her saying that had hit Jay like a kick in the balls and he wasn’t in any kind of better mood when Liam showed up to take it the next morning. Jay cringed to remember; he had tried to pick a fight—like a fistfight—with Liam. He had actually swung at the guy. He was bigger, but Liam was fast and he had guessed what was coming—so he ducked, grabbed Jason’s wrist, twisted him to the ground, picked up the bag with all of Hana’s stuff and made a quick retreat to the door.

  “Look, Jay,” he had said from the safety of the hallway, “I’m sorry. I know none of this is easy. You gotta believe me when I tell you that I never meant for any of this to happen. I miss you, man.”

  “Fuck off,” Jay had spat. And that had been the end of that.

  “I like the bright green ones,” offered Liam, still looking at the towels.

  Jay frowned. He liked them, too. But he sure as hell wasn’t going to buy them now.

  Liam turned and looked him in the eye. “How you been?” he said. “Everything okay?”

  For a moment Jay had the impulse to tell him. Like, really talk to him about what was going on—with Alli, with work, with the Harrington job, with Bridget. For a minute it just felt like he was standing in front of Liam—his old friend. The guy he used to share almost everything with. And he missed him.

  And then he remembered. Work, Hana, Alli—if he was having issues with any those things, it was literally because of Liam. This guy, this old friend—had ruined Jason’s life.

  “I’m fine,” he said, grabbing some plain white towels—not nearly as soft as Bridget’s had been—and turning away. “Actually, I’m better than fine. Work is great. Everything is great.”

  “Jay!”

  He stopped, but kept his back turned.

  “So is Russo Construction going up for the Harrington and Kim job?”

  Interesting.

  He turned around. “Of course we are.”

  Liam nodded. “Us, too.”

  Their eyes met. Jay smiled as he smelled the faint scent of revenge. He knew that Liam’s business was still new, that getting something like the Ha
rrington skyscraper would propel him into another league. And man, was he going to enjoy making sure that didn’t happen. “Big job,” he said. “A lot to take on for a new company.”

  Liam smirked. “So may the best man win, then, right?”

  Jason thought about this for a moment, and then laughed. “Or woman.”

  Liam looked at him oddly. “What?”

  Jay shook his head and then put the white towels back and grabbed a stack of the green ones. “I’ll see you around, Liam.”

  Chapter 37

  Idiot! thought Liam as he walked away from Bed Bath & Beyond and headed back downtown toward his office. He’d heard rumors that the owners of the building were thinking of doing a renovation and had wanted to see if it was worth his time to pursue, but seeing Jay had chased that errand right out of his head. Huge mistake. Why had he opened his big, fat mouth and mentioned the Harrington job? There had been basically no doubt that Jay would be up for it. Russo Construction had worked for Harrington back when Jay’s father was still alive. But Liam couldn’t help himself. He just had to make sure, and the minute he’d said the words, he’d regretted them, because he’d seen the killer light turn on in Jay’s eyes. That look he used to get whenever they were up for anything that wasn’t an absolute done deal; the look that meant he loved a challenge, and that he was going balls to the wall to get what he wanted.

  Liam used to be delighted by that take-no-prisoners look. It meant work, money, security, success.

  Now it was trouble.

  He had been shocked when he turned the corner to find his ex-partner hovering in front of a wall of Turkish linens. Liam had stood there, just watching him for a moment, as Jay foolishly wrapped himself in a towel like there weren’t fifty other people in the store to see him do it. Liam wanted to laugh but he felt a tinge of envy, as well. It was exactly like Jay not to give a damn what people thought. That was what happened when you grow up rich and good-looking.

  He must be seeing someone new, he mused as he made his way downtown. A man doesn’t just go buy new towels without a woman being involved somehow. Hana had replaced every towel in Liam’s loft when she moved in. The sheets, too. And Liam had nice linens.

  Well, good. If he knew Jay had moved on to someone else, maybe he could shake the queasiness he always felt when he thought of his old friend. The ping of guilt, the knowledge, deep down, that he had stepped on the back of someone he cared about to get something he cared about more. But if Jay found someone else to love, then maybe, once Liam had worked all this stuff out with Hana, of course, they could all be friends again—merrily laughing about how unhappy they’d all been in their previous lives, yukking it up over how Liam had actually done Jay a favor by stealing his wife...

  Liam stopped at a corner and waited for the light to change. Yeah. No. New woman or not, Liam had seen the look on Jay’s face. He would do everything he could to screw Liam’s chances with Harrington. He would win the job just to spite Liam. And Liam only had himself to blame.

  He remembered when Jay’s father died. After the funeral they had stood in a little huddle, Liam and Jay and Hana, in Jay’s parents’ huge Upper East Side penthouse. Servers floated around them, silently offering food and drink. Titans of the industry, dressed in sober suits with their wives clutching their arms and making little moues of sadness with their Restylane-filled lips, took turns offering Jay their condolences. Jay’s mother had died two years earlier, and the apartment was now Jay’s to do with as he wished. Liam remembered looking around in silent awe and wondering what it would be like to know that everything, the apartment, the house in Aspen, the place in the Hamptons, the stocks, the bonds, the savings and most of all, the actual business, would be passed down to you like a father handing his son his grandfather’s watch on graduation day.

  “So on the bright side,” Jay had said in a moment between elderly developers wringing his hand and clapping his back, “you’ll come work for me, now, right, Liam?”

  Liam looked at him, confused. “As what?”

  “My COO, of course.”

  Liam had been working at an entry-level job at Goldman Sachs, surrounded by guys with half his brains, taking the ferry in from Staten Island every morning so he could fetch coffee and answer phones and wait for his chance to climb another rung on the ladder. What Jay was offering made his breath catch in his throat.

  Liam remembered Hana smiling at him. She had known that Jay was going to bring this up.

  “Your COO?” he choked out.

  Jay nodded. “I hate the operations guy my dad left me. He’s a sexist, racist dinosaur and he still thinks he can treat me like I’m the boss’s son. But firing him while my dad was still alive would have been more trouble than it was worth.”

  “Wait, you’ve been waiting for your dad to die so you could offer me a job?” Liam could hear that his voice was two octaves too high. And loud. Inappropriately loud.

  “Of course not.” Jay looked around uneasily and then put his hand on Liam’s arm. “But when it comes to running the field and numbers, you’re the smartest person I know, man. We’d be lucky to have you.”

  Another gray-faced, white-haired man started to approach. “We can talk about it later,” whispered Jay.

  And just like that, Liam’s life had changed. The money came flowing in. He moved out of his one-room efficiency on Staten Island and into a two-bedroom in Midtown. Then a year later he bought his loft in SoHo. A year after that the house in the Hamptons. He bought his mom a two-bedroom condo in Chicago and sent her money every month to live on. He picked out an Audi R8 and then a driver to go with it. He hired a staff to keep his properties in order. He slipped into this lifestyle just like Jay had actually handed him that heirloom watch.

  Sometimes he woke up and still expected to be back in his stuffy childhood bedroom in Chicago, either too cold or too hot, and wondering if his mom had made it home the night before and whether there was anything in the kitchen for breakfast. But then he would look around at whatever beautiful room he happened to be in, Manhattan or the Hamptons, and he would see Hana curled up next to him, and smell the good, clean air, and silently catalog the luxuries he was surrounded by now, and slowly remind himself that he had done it. He had actually made it out.

  He owed Jay everything. He knew he did. Everything good that had come to him in this life, including Hana, had been given to him by, or taken from, Jay.

  But that wasn’t going to stop him from doing his very best to get this Harrington job. Maybe he’d woken up a sleeping tiger. Maybe Jay was going to go for it, balls-out, just to punish him. He couldn’t blame him if he tried. But Liam had learned from the best. And lately he had a pretty good track record of getting what he really wanted.

  Chapter 38

  Despite its new location, the Union Square Café still felt like itself. The venerable restaurant had recently opened in a new, much bigger space, and a certain part of Manhattan had let out a sigh of relief when they had been able to ascertain that their favorite eatery still had its original soul.

  It was the service, of course, thought Bridget as she was led down to the lower bar. The food was delicious, the wine list was great, but it was the way the staff famously made you feel—like a guest in their home—that kept the customers coming back. It was a business lesson to learn. The aesthetic and space were replaceable, but the people were not.

  Harrington stood up and smiled as she approached. Bridget felt torn about his frankly admiring gaze. She had worn a black Fendi sheath dress, perfectly professional, but suddenly she wished it covered up a little more. She wanted to look good, of course. But she wasn’t able to change before meeting him so she had to make it work. She knew that, like it or not, looking good could help her cause, but it was a fine line. She needed him to take her seriously as a CEO—not as a potential date.

  “Bridget,” said Harrington, briefly touching her hand and giving her a light
kiss on each cheek. “May I call you Bridget?”

  That scent again—leather, chocolate and musk. Bridget swallowed. “Of course, but only if I can call you Mark.”

  “Perfect,” said Harrington as he waited for her to sit and then sank back into his own chair. “Glad to be on a first-name basis.”

  She unrolled her napkin and took a sip of water, giving him an inconspicuous once-over. He was older, but still a handsome man. Those bright blue eyes, the perfectly cut suit, strong, manicured hands, not a hair out of place. He smiled at her and she noticed a deep dimple appear on one side of his full mouth.

  “I hope you don’t mind,” he said, “but I took the liberty of ordering for us both before you arrived.”

  Bridget felt a streak of defiance. “Oh, did you?”

  He laughed. “Uh-oh. I see I’ve annoyed you.”

  She shrugged, toying with her empty wineglass. “I just find it interesting when a man thinks he knows exactly what a woman wants.”

  Harrington grinned. “I usually hit the mark.”

  The waiter approached with a basket of warm bread and a bottle of champagne. Bridget frowned as he popped the cork. “I thought this was a business lunch.”

  “It is,” Harrington said as he lifted his glass. “If you hadn’t spoken your mind to me, I wouldn’t have been open to changing the design, I’d have lost HealthTec and instead of this champagne, I’d probably be drinking cheap whiskey alone in my apartment right now.”

  She paused a moment and then clinked her glass against his. “Cheers, then,” she said. She didn’t want to seem ungracious.

  The champagne was delicious, as was the first course of beef tartare followed by ricotta gnocchi so light and airy that they melted in her mouth, but as they chatted, Bridget couldn’t help but feel uneasy. Despite his assurances, this did not exactly feel like a business lunch, and as Harrington smoothly questioned her about her family and growing up in the Bronx, she felt her unease grow. Harrington was exactly the kind of man Bridget usually went for: smart, handsome, urbane and powerful. And in other circumstances, she might have enjoyed his attention. But this felt all wrong. Bridget made a point of wining and dining as many potential clients as she could. It was part of the job. She was all business, all day, and she did her best to be professional, but the nature of the job meant things could get blurry, and opportunities had been lost when men decided they’d rather date her than hire her.