Heels of Steel
Page 28
“You going home now? I’m going to get Scarlett’s driver to take me to the jitney, but if you’re driving anyway, maybe you could drop me off?”
He picked his cup back up, clenching it to his chest like he was cold. “No. I think I’m going to stay here awhile.”
Bridget wrinkled her brow. “Here? Why?”
“Because Scarlett invited me, that’s why. And I don’t feel like going back to my house here or my loft in the city.”
She finished her last gulp of coffee. “Wow. Okay. Well, enjoy. I don’t know how Scarlett does with broken hearts, but she makes a hell of a frittata.”
He stuck out his chin. “I don’t have a broken heart.”
She laughed. “Me neither.”
Chapter 59
Jay faked it through breakfast, flipping stacks of pancakes and frying rashers of bacon to feed the hungry teens, but his mind kept flashing back to Hana, and then to Bridget, and then back to Hana again, and he couldn’t bring himself to look Alli in the eye for fear she’d figure out what was going on.
As far as he could tell, she hadn’t seemed to notice anything amiss. She gave him a perfunctory kiss on the cheek as the rest of the kids chorused their thanks and goodbyes and headed out the door. But it was still a huge relief to see the rearview lights of the Escalade drive out the front gate. He needed time alone with his thoughts. He needed to figure out what the hell he was going to do.
First things first. He would contact Bridget. It was total asshole behavior to leave her high and dry last night—not even bothering to check in and say sorry. She was probably furious, and rightfully so.
But what would he tell her? How could he call when he had no idea what he was going to say?
He sat at the table, amidst the piles of dirty dishes and half-eaten pancakes, and he tried to weigh his choices.
Bridget was the most thrilling thing that had happened to him for a long time. She was smart and funny and tough and sexier than any woman he’d ever known. She’d rattled his cage in the best possible way.
But when Hana had kissed him the night before, he’d felt something. There was no denying it. She was his first love, the mother of his child, and if he had made the call, she never would have left in the first place. And here she was, willing to start over, to figure it out, to knit their little family back together again.
He thought about Alli. About the fact that she was slipping farther and farther away from him, that she was starting to feel like a stranger instead of his baby girl. He couldn’t take that. He couldn’t stand the idea that she was beyond his grasp.
Hana was offering him another chance to be the father and husband he should have been in the first place. He didn’t understand why she’d had this sudden change of heart, or even if it could be trusted, but he felt like he had to at least give things a try.
He rose from the table, stacking dishes and carrying them to the kitchen. He put the jug of maple syrup away. He piled the dishes in the sink.
For Alli’s sake, he thought, he had to give things a chance with Hana. Which meant that he needed to tell Bridget.
Should he be totally honest? Did he have to tell her that he kissed Hana? Or anything about Hana at all? Should he actually break up with her? Could he even break up with her since they were never officially together? How could he explain that it was tearing him up to think about stepping away, but that, on the other hand, Alli, and therefore, Hana, had to come first?
He knew that he should have this conversation face-to-face but he doubted his ability to walk away if she was there in the flesh. He couldn’t see her and smell her and touch her and not want her. He toyed with his phone, picking it up and then putting it back down again. He knew what he had to do, but he was slammed with an undeniable feeling of loss. He was about to let something important slip out of his fingers and he couldn’t pretend otherwise.
Chapter 60
After she got back to the city, Bridget went to pick up Dylan from Kevin’s place, and when her little boy locked his arms around her neck and told her how much he missed her, she felt almost like herself again.
This, she thought, this is what’s important. For a moment she was almost grateful for Jay’s bad behavior—because it reminded her of her priorities.
They headed back to their apartment, Dylan’s small hand gripping hers, a bag of take-out tacos and a jug of orange juice under her other arm, and Bridget felt like maybe she had been telling Liam the truth. Maybe her heart wasn’t so very broken.
But then, when she got into the apartment and Dylan had run off to play in his room, she checked her messages and took a sharp breath when she saw Jay’s name.
Hey. Sorry to have disappeared last night. Can we talk?
She quickly texted back, jabbing her thumbs at the keys.
I just got home with D. Can’t really talk right now.
Well. I just wanted to say that you might not hear from me for a while. I have some stuff to figure out and I feel like it might be best if we took a break.
She bit the inside of her cheek. She’d known it was coming, but that didn’t lessen the sting.
She sent him a thumbs-up emoji.
I’m really sorry. It’s complicated.
This time she sent him the middle finger emoji.
Then she put down her phone, pulled out her laptop, fished his budget out of her trash and forwarded it to Ethan and Mrs. Hashemi with the message to not ask any questions, but just use it in whatever way they could, so they could get the budget over to Harrington & Kim ASAP.
Chapter 61
Scarlett gave Liam his own wing of her house. A massive bedroom with a king-size bed facing the French doors that opened out onto a terrace with an endless ocean view, a sitting room with walls of books and a fireplace surrounded by marble, mother of pearl and onyx tiles, a bathroom with a Japanese soaking tub, and another fireplace, and a small, eat-in kitchen, which seemed to be restocked daily by, as far as Liam could tell, an entirely invisible servant.
“I could put you in the guesthouse now that Bridget went home,” Scarlett said to him as she showed him around his quarters, “but I’ve got a feeling that you might need a little more human company than that. No, I think I’ll keep you in the house proper, so I don’t end up finding you at the bottom of my pool.”
Liam snorted. “Why would I drown myself when I’m sure you’ve got a whole cabinet’s worth of Ativan somewhere in this place?”
Scarlett raised her eyebrows. “Actually, a little cocktail of Klonopin and vodka is my drug of choice, darlin’. But you better believe me when I tell you that I do not share.”
He laughed in spite of himself.
She wrinkled her nose. “Now. What are we going to do about your clothes? I don’t happen to keep many manly garments just floating around my domicile. Perhaps I shall simply give you a bathrobe for now, because you do need a shower rather desperately, and then I’ll send Martin out to pick up a few things. Do you have a choice of garments? Shorts? Khakis? Kilt?”
He shook his head. “This is silly. I should just go home. I literally live twenty minutes away from here.”
She squinted at him. “No. I think not. I know a desperate soul when I see one, and you are most definitely him. I think our original plan is just fine. You stay here until I say you’re well enough to go home. After all, I did purchase the pleasure of your company for fifty thousand rather extravagant dollars, you know.”
“Fine.” He had zero fight in him. And Scarlett was right—he wasn’t sure he could take it if he ran into Hana. “Thank you,” he added begrudgingly.
“Just don’t leave me with your blood on my hands, son,” said Scarlett with a smirk. “And once you’ve had a chance to sulk and fret all you need to, come on out and we’ll play a little tennis. Exercise is good for the old black dog.”
He wrinkled his brow. “Black dog?”
Liam nodded. He could see the bed from where they were standing and suddenly all he wanted was to climb on into it and pull the covers over his head.
Scarlett tracked his line of sight. “Well, that’s fine,” she cooed. “A little nap won’t hurt, either, but Lord’s sake, take that damn shower first, Maguire. Nobody likes a spoiled bed.”
Part Three
Chapter 62
“It’s a frigging blessing in disguise, really,” Bridget told Alexander Redetzke over crab toast and an Akaushi hamburger. They were having lunch at ABC Kitchen, one of Bridget’s favorite restaurants. It was tucked into a hugely expensive, multilevel Aladdin’s cave of a furniture store in the Flatiron District. “I mean, who needs the distraction, right? The only thing I should be thinking about right now is how we’re going to crush this job.”
Alexander’s mustache twitched as he picked at his pretzel-dusted calamari. “Yes, well, it sounds like he did not treat you very well at all. I think you did the right thing.”
“Damn right, I did. In any case, I’m so excited that you’re coming aboard our team, Alexander.”
Alexander inhaled sharply and then started to cough violently, turning purple. Bridget reached across the table to pound his back. “There! Are you okay?”
He nodded weakly and reached for his water.
“Well, now, um, I still haven’t decided whether or not I—”
“Alexander!” Bridget’s fist came crashing down onto the table in frustration. “You told me that Liam Maguire treats you with no respect. Isn’t that true?”
Alexander’s eyes shifted nervously around the restaurant as if he was afraid of just who might overhear this conversation. “Yes,” he whispered. “That’s true.”
“And you told me that he never gives you the independence to run your projects and men in the field, either. Isn’t that true?”
He stuffed a tentacle-laden bite into his mouth and nodded while chewing.
“And you told me that you’ve been dying to leave—but you were just waiting for the right opportunity to arise. Right?”
He nodded again. He looked like a nervous rabbit waiting to be nabbed by a fox.
“Well. Here I am. The right opportunity. We are on to the next phase—our budget was comparable to the other bidders. Next step is our presentation. We need to blow them away, and I can’t do it without you because you are brilliant. You’ve been in the industry forever, have done a lot of ground up, and you are going to help me show them something they’ve never seen before.”
Alexander’s face went pink with pleasure. “I am? I do? We are?”
“You are, you do, and we are definitely going to. So suck it up and tell Liam you quit. Or if you want, I’ll tell him.”
“But working without pay...” Alexander held up his hand, interrupting himself. “You know what? Never mind. I have some money saved, and it’s worth it. I can’t keep working for him. I’ll—I’ll text him. That’s what I’ll do. In fact—” he pulled his phone out of his pocket “—I’ll do it right now.”
Bridget tried not to laugh at the look of intense concentration on Alexander’s face as he thumbed his way through his message. She didn’t care how he quit, just that he did. She hadn’t been engaging in hyperbole when she said that he was brilliant, because he truly was. And it was Liam’s own fault for not seeing what he had and treating him like he should.
Alexander looked up at her, beaming. “There!” he said. “I sent it.” He blinked. “Gosh. That feels like a thousand pounds off my back. I’m a new man!”
Bridget reached up and clinked his water glass with her own. “Congratulations! You won’t regret it, I swear.”
She took a big, happy bite of her burger and it tasted delicious. Stole the budget, underbid Jason, nabbed Alexander Redetzke right out from under Liam’s nose... Bridget liked playing dirty. It got shit done.
Chapter 63
“Hey, Jason,” said Leela, sticking her head inside his office door. Her hair was green now, he noted. “Harrington and Kim just called. They said they have some questions about our budget and wondered if you could jump on the phone?”
Jay rolled his eyes. What was there to question? It was a budget like a million they’d done before. “Fine,” he sighed. “Put them on.”
“Jason, how ya doing?” said Harrington’s unmistakable Queens accent.
“Good, good, Mark. How are things there?”
“We’re good. So I have some questions about the budget you laid out. It all looked good, really good. That is, until we got Bridget Steele’s budget.”
Jay’s mouth went dry when he heard her name. He thought about her all the time. He forced himself not to pick up the phone and punch in her number at least ten times a day. It was torture.
“What do you mean? What’s the problem?”
“Well, I just don’t understand how she managed to be tighter on every single number. It puts a stick in the wheel for our usual way of doing things, you know? Makes it much harder. Now, I know you guys were playing footsie for a while. Any chance she saw your numbers?”
Jason blinked. “What? No. Not a chance. She’s never even been to my office.”
Suddenly, almost violently, he remembered her arched back on his desk, wet from the rain.
“Oh. Wait. Hang on. There was one time—”
“She saw your budget.”
“No. I mean, I’m not sure.”
“Well, judging from the way she cut your numbers, I’d say I’m sure.” He dropped his voice. “You know, your father would have never let this happen.”
Jay felt a swell of anger. “Yeah. Well, I’m not my dad.”
“No kidding.”
“I don’t think Bridget would do this to me.”
“Oh, yeah? Wanna bet? Did you piss her off?”
Jay swallowed, remembering the middle finger emoji she’d last sent his way. “Okay, yeah, it’s possible, I guess.” He frowned. “So where does this leave us?”
“Don’t you worry about that. I’ll step in with my partners and take care of things like we always did for your dad. Just bring us a dynamite presentation and your A team, all right? And watch your back! Bridget is hard-core.”
Chapter 64
Liam was in Scarlett’s basement. At least, he thought it was her basement. It seemed basement-like. It was definitely underground, cool, dark and damp, but instead of the water heater and boiler, there were just dozens of perfect, white-coated rounds of something in various sizes, like a series of squishy-looking hatboxes, stacked neatly on shelf upon shelf upon shelf.
He’d needed a distraction, so he’d come looking for the whiskey cellar. He’d heard about it at the gala before everything had gone south. A woman next to him, wearing an enormous diamond brooch at her neck, had breathlessly recited the specs of Scarlett’s house: thirty-five thousand square feet; one thousand linear feet of direct ocean frontage. Twenty-five bathrooms, eleven bedrooms, four living rooms, three kitchens, two libraries, a full-size gym with an indoor lap pool, two elevators, a ballroom and a whiskey cellar. And that doesn’t even count the guesthouse or the pool house!
But no mention of...whatever the hell this place was.
“Maguire?” Scarlett’s voice came echoing down the stairs. “What in the Lord’s name are you doing in my cheese cave?”
He laughed. “Ah,” he said to himself as he bent closer to one of the rounds and sniffed. Smelled like warm feet, sharp and definitely cheesy.
Scarlett came halfway down the stairs carrying an armful of dog leashes.
“I was looking for your whiskey cellar,” he said, “but I got lost.”
Scarlett shook her head. “I do not have a whiskey cellar. Nor do I brew
my own beer. Those are rumors started by a vengeful ex. I have a wine cellar—but so does every civilized person in the world.”
“And a cheese cave,” he pointed out. “You have that, too.”
“Well,” she huffed, “it happens to be very difficult to import unpasteurized cheeses from outside the US, so one must do what one must do in order to make a decent cheese plate.”
He smirked. “Indeed.”
“In any case, despite the fact that you are unashamedly nosing around my home, I am delighted to see you are finally out of bed. I was just coming in to see if I could lure you out into walking my dogs with me, but one of the maids said she saw you heading down here.”
Scarlett rather famously had a pack of eight much doted upon rescued pit bulls, all named after various golden-age Hollywood stars. So far, Liam had managed to avoid them, but he supposed his time had come.
“Certainly,” he said as he climbed up the stairs. “Listen, thank you again for everything, and since I have basically used up all my dignity and your patience, after this walk I think it’s time I went home.”
“Oh?” said Scarlett as they emerged into one of her three kitchens—one for everyday cooking, one in her guest wing and a full restaurant-quality one for big events and occasional filming. “I somehow feel like I got the fuzzy end of the lollipop on this. For fifty thousand dollars, I thought at least I’d have a reliable tennis partner.”
Liam laughed. “I’m a lousy player. Ask anyone.”
“Lousy just means I win more, and I love to win. Come on, let’s go find the puppies.”
Liam had been in quite a few mega-mansions and, past a certain size, they tended to have the cold feel of a hotel or museum. But Scarlett’s house did not. Every room she led Liam through was so thoughtfully laid out and elegantly finished that it felt as if he was just moving from one well-loved living space to the next. The views, of ocean or garden or pool, were all perfectly framed; the colors were rich but muted and had just enough fade and wear to feel lived in; there were books in every room that actually looked as if they’d been read; the art was probably priceless, but it was displayed casually and without ostentation. The only strange part was that the place never actually seemed to come to an end. Despite the fact that Scarlett lived here entirely alone, except for the phalanx of servants and pack of mutts, of course, the house felt used in the best possible way.