Heels of Steel

by Barbara Kavovit

  Bridget laughed. “If only it was that easy.”

  Scarlett looked her in the eye. “Darlin’, it is that easy. And the old you would have known that and planned accordingly.” She stood up from the table. “Well. It is time to let the screaming hordes through my gates. Thank you for having this libation with me, missy. I must begin the festivities.” And then she executed a perfect little curtsy like an oversize Shirley Temple and walked away with a tiny wobble in her step that only someone who knew her very well would ever notice.

  Chapter 50

  Liam should not have been drinking. He almost never drank to excess in public, preferring to do his occasional binge solo, behind well-locked doors. But that martini in the car and the fact that Hana had left him in the hands of the auction organizer the moment they walked into Scarlett Hawkins’s ballroom had unleashed a desperate need for several more strong drinks delivered as fast as possible into his bloodstream.

  “So in about thirty minutes, the band will take a break and we’ll line you all up on the stage,” said Robin, a moonfaced man with a British accent, to the assembled men who were to be auctioned off. He had something green in his teeth, which Liam could not help but fixate on as the man yammered on about how they all needed to smile and look as appealing as possible. It was for charity, after all.

  “Hey.” Liam’s hand shot out and caught a passing waiter with a promising silver tray. “What have you got?”

  “We have a choice of a raspberry Sgroppino, a champagne mojito and a sipping whiskey from the outskirts of—”

  “I’ll take the whiskey,” interrupted Liam. “I don’t need to know about the tiny Scottish children who mashed the barley with their bare feet.”

  The waiter looked unhappy about losing his chance to wax rhapsodic as he had so obviously been prepped to do, but he handed Liam a half-filled tumbler of golden, fragrant liquid.

  “And so,” concluded Robin, “once you have been sold, we will make contact with your buyer and ask her, or him, a series of questions so that we can arrange an evening or event that will be an exceptional pleasure for you both.”

  “Does that mean we have to screw ’em?” said an orange-faced goon. He was one of an army of men here tonight, all obviously modeled after the same pattern: spray tan, patent leather hair and overly bleached, moronic grin.

  “That,” said Robin with a wink, “will be left entirely up to you and your dates, gentlemen. Of course there is no obligation to be anything but a pleasant companion. But please, if things progress to an intimate juncture, do be sure of consent. It would not do to have Habitat for Humanity sued for an unfortunate misunderstanding.”

  The men guffawed.

  Jesus, thought Liam. What am I doing here? He looked around for Hana. Maybe he could talk her into leaving early. They didn’t need him. They had a dozen assholes in monkey suits to auction off. But she had apparently disappeared.

  “Scarlett got ya, too, huh?” came a familiar voice behind him. Liam turned to see Jay standing behind him with, if not exactly a friendly look on his face, somewhere close to neutral. As always, his ex-best friend looked like he had been born in his tuxedo.

  “Who can say no to charity?” Liam answered back, trying to pretend that it was perfectly normal that the two of them were chatting. “I mean, what am I, some kind of monster?”

  Jay raised an eyebrow as if considering his answer.

  “Never mind. Don’t answer that.”

  “Nice suit,” Jay said.

  Liam’s hand flew to his bow tie, defensively tugging at his collar. “It cost enough. I ought to get buried in it.”

  Liam noticed the way Jay slightly winced when he mentioned the price of his suit. Ah yes, the very rich can’t stand to actually acknowledge that money exists.

  “Where’s Alli tonight?” asked Liam.

  Jay frowned and shook his head. “She’s supposed to be back at my house with her friends, but I suppose there is no guarantee.”

  “Which friends?”

  Jay closed his eyes for a moment. “Max. And two Rivers?”

  Liam nodded. “F and M.”

  Jay looked annoyed. “Yeah. And Joleen?”

  “Cho Li, I think you mean.”

  “Damn. Yeah. And Hatty, no wait, Hetty. And Brooklyn. That one I can remember. And Minerva.”

  “Wow. You got the whole crew there.”

  Jay widened his eyes and nodded. “I guess I do. You obviously know them all, eh?”

  “Well, they come around a lot. You know, the loft is near the school. They like to hang out and do their homework together. That kind of thing.”

  Jay frowned. “And what do you think about Minerva?”

  “Oh.” Liam smiled. “Did something finally happen?”

  Jay’s frown deepened. “You knew?”

  “That Alli likes Minnie? Sure. She’s been mooning over her for months.”

  “Months?”

  “What, she didn’t tell you about her?”

  Jay looked away. A muscle in his jaw twitched.

  Liam suddenly got it. “Wait. You mean you didn’t know—”

  Jay looked at him. “How long have you known?”

  “Since—since before you and Hana got a divorce even. She told me she thought she might be like three years ago.”

  Jay’s face flushed red. “And you never thought to tell me?”

  Liam held up his hands. “She asked me not to. Said she wanted to tell you in her own way. I had no idea you didn’t know. I figured she’d done it years ago.”

  “What about Hana?”

  “She knew before me. But she just guessed it.”

  Jay swore under his breath.

  “Look, Jay, I’m sure she was just worried about how you’d take it.”

  “Why? I know plenty of gay people.”

  Liam laughed. “Yeah, the fact that you once had a threesome with two bisexual women in college doesn’t really count, man.”

  Jay balled his fist like he was going to punch Liam. Liam stepped back. He didn’t want to have to unman him again. Luckily at that moment, a small, dark-haired woman in a purple dress stepped between them, smiling up at Jay. “Hey, there you are.”

  Jay’s face instantly relaxed.

  Ah, Bridget Steele. Interesting, thought Liam.

  “Hey,” said Jay. He reached out and touched her hand. “You look amazing.”

  Wow. He’s got it bad.

  Bridget’s smile widened. “You don’t look so bad yourself.”

  And she’s into him, too.

  The band, a full swing orchestra, struck up a rendition of “I Only Have Eyes for You.” Liam snorted. How on the nose could they get? They both looked at him, suddenly remembering he was there.

  “Bridget, this is Liam Maguire.”

  Bridget wrinkled her nose as she shook his hand. “Right,” she said. “We’ve actually met before, I think?”

  “Here or there,” said Liam.

  Jay’s eyes narrowed.

  Suddenly, a hand was on Liam’s shoulder. “Hey, boss,” came a voice in his ear. “Fancy meeting you here.”

  Liam turned and found Alexander Redetzke, his project manager from the office, grinning at him.

  “Redetzke. What are you doing here?”

  Redetzke was wearing a polyester tuxedo, complete with tails. “Isn’t this wild? Actually, my sister-in-law has done some legal work for Ms. Hawkins, and I was out visiting them in the Hamps this weekend so they invited me to tag along.”

  “Redetzke,” said Liam. “Nobody calls it the Hamps.”

  Redetzke shrugged happily. “Well, maybe they should! We can start a trend!”

  He looked meaningfully at Jay and Bridget.

  “Yeah. Okay. Alexander Redetzke, this is Jason Russo and Bridget Steele. Jason and Bridget, Redetzke is my project
manager and also has his mechanical engineering degree.”

  “Structural,” corrected Redetzke, putting out his hand toward Jay. “So great to meet you.”

  Jay started to return his handshake, but Bridget cut in and took Redetzke’s hand instead. “I think you were on a few of my past projects. I’m familiar with your work,” she said, looking up at him through her eyelashes.

  Redetzke flushed red. “You are?”

  She took his arm. “Yes. I’d love to talk with you about it. Would you mind coming over to the bar with me? I can’t seem to wave down any of the waiters for a drink.” She looked back at Jay and winked. “Save me the next dance. I’ll be back.”

  As they walked away, Jay looked at Liam and shrugged, mystified. “Beats me. Maybe she likes talking about erosion?” He looked around. “I’m going to go find the waiter with those little serrano ham tartlets.”

  Liam shook his head ruefully and snagged another drink.

  Chapter 51

  It only took about twenty minutes of undivided attention for Bridget to have Alexander Redetzke eating out of the palm of her hand. While standing in a glittering ballroom, surrounded by the rich, famous and beautiful, she laughed uproariously at a “mathematician, statistician and an engineer walk into a bar” joke. She made herself appear completely mesmerized as he breathlessly recounted how he once saved an entire parking garage from collapse by reconsidering the position of a very important rebar, and she listened sympathetically as he described a particularly mysterious and persistent rash he had in the crook of his elbow.

  He was actually talking to her about something interesting—a new exterior paint made from titanium dioxide that absorbed fumes generated by traffic—when Liam Maguire walked over, drink in hand, and interrupted them. Bridget was more than a little annoyed.

  “Hey, Redetzke,” he said. His speech was just slightly slurred. “I had an idea. Why don’t we cut out early and go work on the Harrington presentation? I have everything we need back at my place. We can get a pizza and some beers—none of this finger food bullshit. Guys’ night in. What do you say?”

  Redetzke looked horrified, but judging from the fifteen minutes she had just spent with him, Bridget knew he wouldn’t have the guts to say no.

  “Hey!” She waved frantically as Scarlett rolled by, dressed in a pale green gown shot with gold thread, flanked on either side by two Victoria’s Secret models. “Scarlett!”

  Scarlett looked a bit irked to be interrupted but separated herself from the models and walked over.

  Bridget grasped her arm and said, “I just wanted you to meet my new friends. Oh, but I think you already know Liam Maguire, right?”

  Scarlett smiled at Liam as she gave him a double kiss on his cheeks. “Indeed. Liam is one of my prime bachelors tonight. I can’t wait to see how much he goes for.”

  “And this is Alexander Redetzke. Alexander is a project manager and structural engineer for Liam’s company.”

  Scarlett raised a very subtle eyebrow. “Oh, is that so? What a fascinating line of work.”

  “So, Redetzke, you in or what?” Liam sounded more insistent.

  Bridget leaned in toward Scarlett and dropped her voice. “I just need you to get Liam off his back. Can you keep him busy?”

  Scarlett put her hand on Liam’s arm. “Liam, darlin’, the auction should be starting very soon. I have already heard numerous women speculating on just how much money they will have to pony up for the privilege of your company.”

  Liam scowled. “You know I’m not actually a bachelor, right? I live with Hana Takada. We’ll be married pretty soon.”

  Bridget worked to keep a blank face. Married? She wondered if Jay had any idea. She shot a look at Liam. He was good-looking enough, she supposed. He reminded her of some of the boys back in the Bronx, handsome in an almost pretty way, but rough around the edges, and full of attitude. But compared to Jay? She couldn’t understand why any woman would ever choose someone like Liam over someone like Jay.

  “Well, I don’t see any ring on your finger yet,” said Scarlett, steering him toward the stage and allowing Bridget to resume her conversation with Alexander.

  Bridget handed Alexander another drink and placed her hand on his arm. “Now, what were you saying about that paint?”

  Chapter 52

  They lined up the men behind the stage, a dozen in all, smirking in their tuxes, drinks in hand, and acting like a bunch of high school football players waiting to see who would be crowned homecoming king. There was a fairly well-known actor who was a regular, but not the star, on a Shonda Rhimes show, a rotund chef known for his creative use of offal and his chain of high-end restaurants, a morning host on NBC who was rumored to be gay, an over-the-hill rock star whose last hit was fifteen years old, several different high-powered lawyers with varying amounts of hair, a former congressman, a very famous film director, a not-so-famous but very handsome author, and then, rounding it out, Liam and Jay.

  For Jay, it was almost a relief to have something else to think about. Bridget was still chatting up the engineer, which somehow Jay instinctively knew not to be jealous about, though he wasn’t exactly happy to have lost her attention for so long. But what he was really smarting over was his conversation with Liam. He kept thinking about how close he and Alli had been when she was little. How she always ran to him first when she got hurt. How he used to give her a bath and read to her every night, and she would take a pinch of his shirt and rub it between her fingers as she drifted off to sleep. And then inch by inch, year by year, he’d put less and less time in with her and more and more time at his office. He’d let Hana take over on bath and story duty. He’d stopped spending his Sundays in the kitchen with Alli at his side, cooking and fooling around while Hana painted in her studio, the three of them sitting down for a meal of whatever he and Alli had come up with that day.

  He’d lost Hana the same way, of course. Benign neglect that turned malignant. But there was a part of him that believed that no matter what he had done, that loss had been inevitable. He and Hana were probably never really meant to be forever. But how had it become so bad with Alli, his little girl, that Liam, of all people, had been the one she had confided in, not her own father?

  “And sold for five thousand dollars to Mrs. Horowitz!” called Jimmy Hilton, the late-night TV host and comedian that Scarlett had talked into being the emcee and auctioneer for the night. “I hope you like pig intestines, Mrs. Horowitz, because you know Chef Simon will be cooking some up for you on your date! Next, we have ex-Congressman George Novano! Now, ladies, I want you to remember that the congressman voluntarily resigned, he was absolutely not forced out and nobody ever proved that was actually his penis in those texts!”

  The crowd, already well into their fourth or fifth drink, roared with laughter as the politician headed for the stage with an angry flush on his face.

  Jay looked over the audience, first searching for Bridget, who was sitting at a table up front with Alexander Redetzke and Scarlett, laughing along with the crowd. She was radiant in her purple dress, her dark hair pulled up in an artfully arranged bun that Jay thought looked like she had just rolled out of bed in the best of possible ways, a thin gold chain glimmering at her throat. He loved the way she laughed, with her full body, as if she had too much joy to contain.

  His eyes scanned the crowd and he picked out Hana sitting in the back, alone at a table. She was as austere and beautiful as always, but Jay recognized something sad in her expression. He shot a glance at Liam, who was waiting to be called up next, and saw that his face mirrored Hana’s—strained and unhappy—and wondered what was happening between the two of them.

  For a moment he almost felt as he had back in college—when Hana and Liam were the closest people on earth to him. When he’d felt like the luckiest guy alive to have such a great girlfriend and such an awesome best friend. It had been a double blow to lose them both a
t the same time. And honestly, he sometimes wondered who he was angrier with—and who he missed more—his wife or his best friend.

  The room was full of the beautiful, the rich and the famous, all in their haute couture, eating and drinking unimaginably rare and delicious things that they simply took for granted, jockeying for seats at the right table, making sure they talked to the right people, constantly comparing their jewelry and jobs and press clippings and trophy wives... Jay had grown up around this crowd, or at least many who were exactly like it, and yet, he’d never felt like they were his people. Hana and Liam had been his people.

  And now Bridget...he was starting to think that she might be his person, full-stop.

  “And next on the docket is Mr. Liam Maguire, the CEO of South Side Construction! Liam is young, handsome, rich beyond your wildest dreams, ladies, and a little birdie told me that he’s dynamite in bed! Oh, wait, that little birdie once told me that Ted Cruz was a master of cunnilingus, so maybe that little birdie is full of shit. Anyway, come on up, Liam! The bidding starts at one thousand dollars!”

  Liam looked like hell, thought Jay, watching his friend’s face as he stood on the stage. There was nothing appealing about him at the moment. He looked nervous and sweaty, like he wanted to do nothing so much as claw off his jacket and tie and dive from the stage. He just stood there staring past the crowd at Hana with a look of forlorn hope on his face.

  “One thousand!” said Jimmy Hilton. “Do I hear one thousand? Come on, ladies! You all were willing to bid on the guy who posted his balls on Twitter—okay, yes, allegedly, Congressman Novano—but you can’t pony up for this handsome devil?... Nothing?... Okay, I’m going to slash the price and see what happens. Cut-rate bachelor on the loose! An incredible bargain! Let’s go to five hundred dollars! Five hundred dollars for a night with this hunk of a man! He might even build something for you! How about that, ladies! He’s a contractor, after all! Don’t you want your kitchen redesigned? A little bathroom remodel?”