Heels of Steel

by Barbara Kavovit

  “God,” he groaned. “You’re right.” He looked at the stacks of files and shook his head. “Well, let’s keep looking. Maybe we’ll find something that proves my dad wasn’t totally corrupt.”

  Chapter 80

  So far, Bridget, Lee, Mrs. Hashemi, Ethan and Ava had all lost their jobs. The live stream had shot through the office buildings of everyone remotely connected to real estate, architecture, development or building in the city, and anyone who was in that room that day who wasn’t supposed to be was called onto the carpet and immediately dismissed.

  “It will be okay, it will be okay, it will be okay,” promised Bridget to herself as she walked into The Polo Bar and was greeted by the kind of maître d’ who looked like he would throw himself in front of anyone trying to get in with less than A-list status.

  “I’m meeting Mark Harrington for dinner,” said Bridget, and her magic words were immediately rewarded with a warm smile and an escort downstairs to the dining room.

  Everything was perfect in The Polo Bar. The lighting, which made even the most hungover and haggard of celebrities look as if they were lit with their own personal halo capable of taking ten years off their skin; the staff, who were beautiful and knowledgeable and hovered just enough to make you feel important; the interior design, because, well, Ralph Lauren; the people dining there, because there was at least one A-list celebrity for every anonymous, super-wealthy power player hiding in plain sight; and the food, which was casual and elegant and never too challenging.

  Harrington had called Bridget the day before, inviting her for dinner, and she had been delighted. She had started to get a little worried when she didn’t hear back from Harrington & Kim after the first couple of days, but now she was certain that she would be landing the contract for the HealthTec job.

  “Bridget,” Harrington said, smiling and rising to kiss her hello. He was seated in a coveted corner table and already had a bottle of champagne on ice hovering off to the side.

  Bridget smiled back as she sat down. “Did you already order for me?” she teased.

  He smiled sheepishly. “Just the appetizers and the wine. I’ll let you choose your own dinner.”

  She laughed. “You never learn, do you?”

  The waiter came over to pour champagne for both of them.

  “To your amazing presentation,” said Harrington, lifting his glass.

  She met it with a clink. “Thank you. I’m so glad you liked it.” She sipped her drink and then laughed. “We’re still trying to figure out who filmed it, though. That part has been a little crazy.”

  Harrington smiled and took a drink and then picked up his menu. “So what are you going to have? I wholeheartedly recommend the pastrami sandwich. It’s Ralph’s personal favorite.”

  Bridget looked at him carefully, noting the way he had sidestepped the subject. “What’s your guess on who sent out that link, Mark?”

  Harrington put down his menu. “Listen. We should just get all the work talk out of the way so we can enjoy a nice dinner and whatever else we like for the rest of the night, eh? So let’s start with the headline. I’m sorry to tell you this, but we’ve decided to go with Russo Construction.”

  Inwardly, Bridget exploded in panic. She didn’t have a job. Her team didn’t have jobs. She was well and truly screwed and she was taking down some of her favorite people with her. Again.

  “What?” she said, searching for words.

  Harrington waved his drink in the air. “You were great, of course you were great, and I think we will certainly be happy to consider you for work in the future, but it turns out that HealthTec just can’t risk hiring your firm since you are a start-up, and your track record doesn’t have a history of you being union friendly with large-scale projects.”

  Bridget shook her head. “Wait. What are you talking about? Steele Construction will become a signatory of the union and only use union labor.”

  Harrington shrugged. “Well, you know, you say that, but you proved pretty clearly that it’s not true. I mean, you brought Daniel Schwartz into the actual presentation, and a little birdie told me that this was the same guy who brought in the scabs for the Scarlett Hawkins job you got fired on, right?”

  She shook her head. “No, that wasn’t his fault and it won’t happen again. Danny has worked on countless union jobs before this with no problem.”

  Harrington smiled and nodded. “Well, yeah, I know they know about him. Because Sal Delmonico, the head of Local 6, tipped us off to just who Daniel Schwartz was. That doesn’t sound like you’re very union friendly, Bridget.”

  “Wait, Sal? He’s had it out for me for years. Ever since he got a little too handsy with me on a walk-through. I’m not even going to pull the guys from that hall this time around, I’m going with the 233.”

  Harrington nodded thanks at the waiter as he brought them oysters and pigs in a blanket. He pushed a plate toward Bridget. “Here, try these. They’re delicious.”

  She ignored him. “Are you hearing me, Mark?”

  He looked at her. Suddenly, his smile grew very ugly. “You know, Bridget, when you got into this industry, I think you knew what you were in for. You knew that you’d be the only woman in the room. You knew that men were going to be slobbering all over you and asking you for dates and telling you that you looked pretty. And I think you liked it. I think you liked the attention and you liked feeling in control, and I think it’s probably ninety-nine percent of the reason you’re even doing what you do. So when you get all ‘Me, too! Me, too! I was sexually harassed!’ I just find it to be really unattractive.”

  Bridget felt like her head was going to explode. “That’s not what I was saying. I was saying—”

  “You were never going to get this job, Bridget,” Mark snapped. “I brought you in because the clients wanted to see some diversity. That’s it. And I filmed you because I knew you were in over your head, and I was sure you’d embarrass yourself publicly, and then there’d be no question of anyone insisting you get hired just because you’re a woman and they want to look progressive. And I’ll admit, that backfired, because you did better than I thought you would do. But aside from the utter disrespect you showed, bringing in a new architect, how could I live with myself if I chose some outsider, some inexperienced girl, over a man with a family who’s been in this business for years? It just doesn’t make any sense.”

  Bridget closed her eyes. She felt like she was having an out-of-body experience, and yet, at the same time, she had been in this exact place so many times before. “No,” she said softly. “No. I am so freaking tired of this. I can’t win. No matter how hard I work, you guys will just not make room for me.”

  He shook his head. “Come on. You can’t expect to just show up and smile pretty and be handed everything you want. You’re not from around here. You don’t understand how things work.”

  She took a deep breath, willing herself to keep her voice calm. “I can’t even begin to tell you all the ways you are wrong right now. And obviously, I’m not going to change your mind, so I think I’m just going to leave.”

  She jumped when she felt a hand on her hand. She opened her eyes and Mark was staring at her with what he seemed to think was a sincere look on his face. “Listen, I know you worked hard, and I’m sorry it didn’t pan out this time, but I could mentor you, you know. I could teach you everything I know. About the business and—” he gave her a shark-like smile and squeezed her hand “—anything else you’re curious about.”

  Bridget snatched her drink and tossed it in Harrington’s face before she could even think. He jumped up with a yell, champagne dripping from his face onto the tablecloth.

  “You bitch!” he screamed as he lunged across the table. “You god damned bitch!”

  It was as if her father was there in the room with her, telling her exactly what she had to do to keep safe. To win.

  Put your thumb
outside your fist, darling. Between your first and second knuckles. Keep your wrist straight. Now, come in at a slight angle, aiming upward at his nose. Roll your hips into it. Aim for two inches beyond that nose so you can really hit him hard. Short, hard jab, darling. Now, go!

  Bridget felt Harrington’s nose crunch under her fist as she hit it, saw the blood spurt as he screamed out and doubled over, his hands clutched over his face.

  “Yeah,” she spat at him as he stayed bent over, his back heaving, dark red blood oozing between his fingers, “you’re right, Mark. I’m not from around here.” He looked up at her, and she saw fear in his eyes. “And I advise that you never forget that.”

  Chapter 81

  Scarlett’s pit bulls had taken a liking to Liam and gave him too much attention when he was in the mansion, so Scarlett got jealous and banished him to the guesthouse.

  “You’d think they’d know which side of their bread has the butter on it, wouldn’t you?” she said with disgust as she watched her dogs taking turns trying to knock Liam over with their enthusiastic greeting. “It’s like you’re a bitch in heat.”

  Liam pushed off a particularly fat, silvery-gray dog and shook his head. “Why’d you bring them out here, then?”

  “Oh,” said Scarlett, waving them back out the door, “I told them I was going out to retrieve you for dinner, and they all insisted on coming along. Out, out, out now.” She shoved the last one out and shut the door behind them. They all crowded at the door and stared at them mournfully through the glass. “Ignore them. They look tragic but really they just want to hump your leg. Now let’s have a nice little chew and chat before we eat. Get me a vodka and tonic, please.”

  When Liam had shown up at Scarlett’s door three days before, she hadn’t seemed surprised at all. “Things not going so well, Maguire?” she asked in a voice several notches kinder than he had ever heard from her before. “Well, I don’t have anything planned for the next few days, so why don’t you just come on in?”

  He didn’t know he was heading for Scarlett’s. He had told himself that he was going to the Hamptons because he was sick of the Greenwich Hotel and he had a huge house on the beach just sitting empty. Hana had offered to move out of the loft, but he’d told her to take her time finding something else. He didn’t want Alli to feel displaced.

  But once he got to the Hamptons, he drove right by his own driveway and straight on to Scarlett’s.

  First, he had convinced himself that he wanted to confront her about making him lose Alexander Redetzke. But she just laughed when he had started to complain about that.

  “Oh, bless your heart, of course I was helping out Bridget. At least at first. But really, the way you were treating that boy, you were lucky he just quit and didn’t poison your coffee on the way out. He was ripe for the plucking. So I bought you at auction and kept you around to give Bridget some time—make sure she could close the deal, you know—but I was pleasantly surprised to find that I actually liked you. Plus—” she gave him a wink “—I was worried that if you went home any sooner, you might walk in front of a bus.”

  Since then, he had been spending every day the same way, having coffee by the pool in the morning, then meeting Scarlett and her pack of dogs for a long walk on the beach. His job was to be on the lookout for Bono. Then they would lunch, usually in the garden, then he would get on the phone and check in to work, and pretend he cared, and then he and Scarlett would meet for dinner in the solarium. She said she liked the trees. After dinner they would linger, nursing a nightcap or sometimes sharing a joint.

  “Hmm,” said Scarlett as she settled on the couch and looked around. “I never come out here anymore. I rather think it might need a freshening up. I believe the last time I renovated was three or four years ago.”

  “It’s perfect, Scarlett,” he said. “Don’t touch a thing.”

  He realized that he had yet to walk through and catalog the house. Something he’d never been able to avoid doing after more than twenty-four hours in any one place. He wondered what that meant.

  “You know,” said Scarlett, accepting the vodka and tonic, “it’s really too bad that I find men’s bodies about as appealing as fuzzy cheese, and I’m probably twenty years and fifty pounds outside your preferences, because I do believe that you and I just might be soul mates, Liam Maguire.”

  He laughed and sat down next to her. “Well, that seems kind of complicated.”

  “No, I think it’s rather lovely. If we were to be romantically involved, I’d drop you like a stale cake in a week or two, but this—” she nestled next to him and put her head on his shoulder “—this I can see lasting.”

  They sat in silence for a moment.

  “But you know you can’t stay forever,” she murmured.

  “I know.”

  “But you can always come back if you want.”

  He smiled and kissed the top of her head.

  Chapter 82

  “The hell with you, Jason Russo! The hell with you and the hell with Harrington! You are a soulless piece of crap to be working with him!”

  Jay blinked at the apparition standing in his office door. “Um. Hi, Bridget.”

  She stormed in, a whirlwind in a tight purple Gucci dress and heels, her long brown hair wavy and electric around her face. “Don’t you ‘hi’ me,” she growled. “Do you know how many people’s lives you have ruined?”

  “Should I call security?” said Leela.

  Bridget whirled on her. “And who the hell are you?”

  “This is my COO, Leela Rajan,” said Jay mildly. “Leela, this is Bridget Steele.”

  “Oooh!” said Leela. “I knew I recognized you! Hey, really nice job on that presentation. You totally knocked it out of the park.”

  “Thank you,” said Bridget. For a moment she was distracted. “That’s very nice of you to say.” Then she turned back to Jay and poked him in the chest with a pointy blue fingernail. “You have a ton of stuff to answer for, Russo. First of all, you dumped me for your ex-wife.”

  “You did?” said Leela.

  “It didn’t work out,” said Jay.

  “It didn’t?” said Leela.

  “Then you tipped off freaking Sal Delmonico about Danny’s involvement with the presentation.”

  “Oh, no, that wasn’t me. That was Liam. And he’s sorry he did it. He thought he was doing me a favor. And okay, maybe he was kind of pissed at you for poaching Redetzke. But hey, if we’re playing this game, you stole my budget!”

  Bridget looked sheepish for a moment, but she rallied. “Yeah, okay, but you stole my skyscraper!”

  “Well,” said Leela.

  “And now,” continued Bridget, “I have six people from my team that all need jobs and I think you should hire all of them.”

  Jay and Leela looked at each other and laughed.

  “That might be difficult,” said Leela. “Since we’re not moving forward with the HealthTec project.”

  “What?” said Bridget. “What are you talking about?”

  Jay let out a long breath and gestured to the couch. “Why don’t you have a seat?”

  Bridget sat down, warily keeping her eyes on him as he pulled out a folder from his desk. “Here,” he said, handing her the papers, “take a look at these.”

  He watched Bridget’s face change as she read through the papers, from puzzled to a dawning awareness of what she was looking at.

  God damn, he thought as he waited, I miss her.

  Finally, she looked up, wide-eyed. “So your dad and Harrington?”

  “Yup,” said Jay.

  “And is he trying to rig the project with you now?”

  “Yup,” said Jay.

  “And who are you taking these to?”

  “I’m sending copies to the District Attorney and HealthTec. I figure they’re going to pull out as anchor tenants, but, doesn’t
matter now.”

  “What about Henry Kim? Do you think he’s in on it?”

  Jay shook his head. “I don’t think so. From what I understood, he really wanted to hire you. It was only after Delmonico got involved that he backed down.”

  Suddenly, Bridget’s face lit up. “Oh, wait, do you think Delmonico was in on any of this?”

  Leela grinned. “It’s looking pretty bad for him.” She looked over at Jay and clapped her hands. “Hey! This is super-fun!”

  Jay laughed. He looked over at Bridget, who smiled at him.

  And suddenly, he felt his whole world open up again.

  “Psst, Jay,” said Leela, elbowing him in the ribs, “after this place falls apart, I’m going to go work for this crazy lady, okay?”

  Chapter 83

  Bridget was just about to put Dylan to bed when there was a knock on her door.

  “Scarlett?” she said, opening the door and finding the world-famous celebrity standing in her tenement hallway. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Well, hello to you, too,” said Scarlett. “May I come in?”

  “Mommy?” said Dylan. He was wearing his pajamas and had toothpaste on his chin.

  “My, my,” said Scarlett, beaming down at him. “Don’t you look adorable. You probably don’t remember me, but I knew you when you were a tiny little baby. My name is Ms. Scarlett.”

  “Hello,” said Dylan. “I’m not a baby anymore, just so you know.”

  “Well, yes, I can see that. So how old are you now?” She looked genuinely puzzled. “I’m going to guess around, what, three?”

  “No!” said Dylan, mortally offended. “I’m almost eight.”

  “Oh,” said Scarlett, shrugging. “All children sort of look the same to me. I honestly can’t guess their ages until after they’re well through puberty.”

  “Mommy,” said Dylan, looking hopefully at Bridget. “Since we have a guest, do I get to stay up?”

  She laughed. “Nope. Say good-night to Ms. Scarlett.” She looked over at the older woman. “You don’t mind, do you? I’ll just be a minute.”