No Time for Apologies: No Brides Club, Book 5

by Gordon, Jean C.

  “No,” she answered to both of his questions.

  “Seems like the manager position should be yours. If you want it.”

  It wasn’t easy to resist accepting Jon’s compliment at face value. She wanted to, wanted to know he respected her as a professional equal. But there was that one niggling doubt in her that said he could be setting her up for a fall.

  “Grab your laptop and let’s go work on my report revisions in the small conference room.” Where no one can overhear us.

  He raised an eyebrow at her non-response.

  A minute later, Kate shut the door to the small conference room behind her and Jon. He took a seat and opened his laptop. She started for the seat next to him, but decided on the one across the table instead. Arm’s length, she reminded herself. Kate rested her hands on her closed laptop and looked across the table at him. The man was model handsome. Kate bit her tongue. First, his height. Now … What was her brain doing, letting emotional observations break through like that? This was business, and she routinely worked with several attractive single men without any of this nonsense clouding her thoughts.

  “Yes, to answer your question, I want the portfolio manager position, as I wanted the last fund manager opening and the one before it.”

  “But the Growth and Income Fund is your fund. I would think it would be a given to promote you.”

  Yeah, I would, too, but I know better. “The atmosphere in the meeting was an accurate cross-section of the culture here.”

  Another raised eyebrow fixed her gaze on his eyes. She hadn’t noticed before, but his eyes weren’t actually blue. They were more aquamarine. Kate dropped a hand to her lap and pinched herself. We’re business associates. And she’d made a policy of keeping everyone she worked with at an arm’s length. Her gaze dropped to his arms. The thin cloth of his crisp dress shirt did little to hide the outline of the muscles that lay beneath—muscles that the t-shirts he’d worn on the drive to and from Genesee had given her an up-close view of.

  Kate cleared her throat. “My plan is to get the position this round and work it a couple years for a step up to something bigger at another firm with more opportunity for women.”

  Jon studied her with an intense expression she remembered from school, the expression he’d get when he was trying to crack a difficult math problem.

  She snapped her mouth shut. That wasn’t exactly what she’d planned to say. Nor did she particularly want him analyzing her words. That was more like something she’d share with the No Brides members. She was out of control. The companionable drive to and from Genesee had lulled her into putting Jon into the friend category. She needed to shove him back into her coworker one.

  “You can cross my former employer off your list, if you’re wondering,” he said, losing the pensive look.

  “It’s not on the list. I’d rather stay in New York. I do have a work question, though.”

  “Shoot.”

  “What’s your interest in the portfolio manager position?”

  Chapter 6

  On Thursday, Kate stepped out onto the sidewalk, the heavy humid air a welcome relief from the precisely cooled air inside her office building. She’d never gotten Jon’s answer to her question. Before he could speak, Bob had breezed into the room and whisked Jon away on some special project that had kept him working on the far side of the cubicle maze for the past three and a half days. In exchange, she’d been lent a new female junior analyst. The young woman was more cutthroat than many of the men Kate worked with. And unlike with Jon, Kate knew what the woman’s answer to her question would be.

  By the time she reached the Briarwood Tavern rooftop, her damp suit had her wishing she’d taken a cab or at least hadn’t made the short trip a powerwalk. Kate made her way to the bar.

  “The usual,” she said to the bartender Andre.

  “The usual usual or the new usual?” Andre grinned.

  “I’ll stick with the usual usual.” Her day had been trying, but nothing extremely out-of-the-ordinary had happened to make her go monster-size this week. Hey, the Stable Growth Fund Manager had even emailed her to get her take on some new speculations his senior analyst had come up with. Almost like an equal.

  “Here you go, one regular fresh cherry margarita.”

  “Thanks, Andre” Kate surveyed the room for her friends and checked the clock behind the bar. Only a little after five. She must be the first one here. She made her way to the back and staked claim on two four-seat tables. They could push them together if everyone showed. Lately, the group had fallen out of its habit of sending around a text the evening before to confirm their meeting, so she didn’t know who to expect.

  A short while later, Julie stopped by the table to let Kate know she was there. “I think we may be the only ones again tonight,” Julie said. “It appears the male species has made a serious inroad in our No Brides bailiwick,” she observed of the other members’ recent domino-effect fall into love.

  Kate peered at her half-gone margarita. “No chance of that happening with me. I’m putting all my energy into my promotion battle.” Except for the times my work doesn’t take all my thought power and Jon fills the empty space. She pushed the margarita a couple inches away. She’d better slow down or she’d run the risk of becoming downright maudlin.

  Julie pulled her wallet from her bag and hung the bag on the seat across from Kate. “I’ll grab a drink and be right back.”

  “I’ll be here.” Kate nursed her drink until Julie returned.

  “Guess who I saw come in when I was leaving the bar?” Julie said, placing her drink on the table across from Kate.

  Kate did a quick inventory of friends and acquaintances they had in common. She came up blank. “I give up.”

  Julie leaned toward Kate, and in a conspiratorial tone said, “Mr. Eye Candy from the other week.”

  Jon! “Where?”

  “Look past me to the left.”

  Kate looked, then lifted her arm, and waved when his gaze connected with hers. So much for her confirming it was Jon without him seeing her,

  “What are you doing?” Julie’s voice rose with each word.

  “Sit. We haven’t talked recently,” Kate said. She’d skipped last Thursday’s meeting to get ready for her weekend trip to Genesee. A pang of guilt vibrated through her. At one time, she wouldn’t have waited for their weekly meeting to share the news. She would have been right on the phone, texting all the group members about her new assistant. “I missed last week’s meeting, and you were out of town.”

  Julie sat and tapped the table with her splayed fingertips. “Who is he?”

  “Hey.” Jon appeared at their table before Kate could answer.

  “Hi. Did you miss your train?” So far as she could tell from last week and the office buzz, Jon had been out of the office and headed to Penn by five every afternoon since he’d started work, which Kate had put in her mental no-column tally as to whether he wanted a permanent position at DeBakker.

  “No,” Jon said.

  “Don’t look now.” Julie interrupted, “but you just lost your table. By the way, I’m Julie Harrison.”

  “Sorry,” Kate said, looking more at Jon than Julie.

  “No need for apologies. I’m Jon Smith. Kate and I went to high school together.”

  Julie lifted her drink. “Ah, so you dated or something?”

  Both Kate and Jon laughed.

  “More like avoided each other like the plague, which isn’t easy when your entire high school has only about 400 students,” Kate said.

  Julie’s expression shouted, Were you nuts? Jon stilled, his face expressionless.

  Kate’s throat tightened. She’d offended him, fallen into age-old behavior. He hadn’t really avoided her, although he should have, given how she and her friends treated him. And she hadn’t actually avoided him either.

  She pasted a smile on her face. “And Jon is my new summer assistant.”

  Julie leaned on her elbow closest to Jon and cupped her
hand around the side of her mouth. “Lucky you,” she mouthed.

  “Yes.” The word rose way above the din of the bar. “Jon has jumped into the position with both feet.”

  “I see.” Julie eyed them both.

  What did Julie see? That Jon could be more than simply her assistant/coworker if she let him. Which she didn’t plan on doing. Not that Jon had given her any signal that he would want to be. Besides DeBakker-Glem frowned on boss-employee relationships.

  “Join us,” Julie said.

  “Only to finish my Coke.” He raised his half-full glass in a toast motion.

  While Jon took a seat between them, Kate analyzed Julie’s invitation and his stopping in the bar, paying bar prices for a Coke. The No Brides Club didn’t have a set of rules, but it was universally understood that the group was women only. And she couldn’t very well talk to Julie about Jon, the meeting Monday, or him being grabbed away from her for a special project the rest of the week with him sitting right here. Of course, it wasn’t much of a group or meeting with just her and Julie.

  Her gaze fixed on his drink. As for the Coke, maybe he was meeting someone here and wanted to be at his sharpest for the meeting. Someone from DeBakker? That fanned a doubt in her about Jon being interested only in his summer position that her mental rundown of what she couldn’t talk about in front of him had started. She put that doubt in the yes-column of her mental tally.

  “Julie are you in financial services, too?” Jon asked

  “No, I’m a software developer. Kate and I were roommates at NYU and stayed in touch after we both found jobs in the city.”

  The bar server from the other evening stopped by their table. “Jon, can I get you or you ladies anything else?”

  “No we’re good.” Kate crossed her arms in front of her. “Thanks,” she added, softening her too-sharp words and covertly studying Jon for any reaction to the server remembering his name. She didn’t see any, but that could explain Jon being here. For all Kate knew, he stopped in every evening after work.

  “Okay, let me know if you do,” the server said.

  Julie’s gaze trailed after the server. She tilted her face toward Jon. “Do you come here often?”

  “Nope, only my second time.”

  Kate gripped her drink. And the server had remembered his name. Not that Jon had seemed surprised.

  “I didn’t think so, at least not on Thursday nights.”

  Her friend’s unspoken, I would have noticed, had Kate clenching the glass now, for no discernible reason. Why shouldn’t Julie or any woman notice Jon? He was certifiably noticeable. She lifted the drink to her lips and took a gulp, nearly dropping the glass when she heard a cell phone ring close by over the bar noise.

  “That’s mine,” Julie said, pulling the phone from her bag and glancing at the screen. “I have to take it.” Her cheeks reddened before she turned to stand and walk a short distance away.

  “Interesting,” Kate said aloud to herself.

  “Pardon?” Jon said.

  “Nothing.” Kate waved her hand back and forth a couple of inches above the table. “You never said what kept you here this evening. Normally, you’d probably be halfway home by now.”

  “Yes, and looking forward to getting there.” He rubbed his forehead.

  “So?”

  “Gregg called a 7 a.m. project meeting for tomorrow.”

  Kate strained not to clench her hands into fists. It wasn’t her project. There was no reason she should have known about the meeting. Or care. But she did.

  “I decided to stay over at The Greenwich.”

  “Then, you’ll need dinner. We usually order something here,” Kate said as Julie returned to the table.

  “No, thanks. I’m going to grab my gym stuff from the hotel and go swim laps, since I won’t make my usual workout tomorrow morning before work.”

  “Oh, Okay,” Kate stuttered, her mind picturing Jon in a form-fitting swim jammer suit like many competitive swimmers wore. From Julie’s half smile, she might be, too.

  “Besides, I understand the No Brides Club is women only.”

  “Ava strikes again!” Kate said, shaking her head.

  Jon grinned. “Yep.” He stood, tucking his chair back under the table. “Nice meeting you,” he said to Julie, who’d finished her call and rejoined them.

  “The pleasure was mine,” she said.

  Kate refrained from glaring at Julie.

  “See you tomorrow, Kate.”

  “Right.” Unless Jon was still tied up with the secret project he was working on with Gregg.

  Julie picked her bag up from the back of her chair. “I’ve got to go, too. Something, uh, something has come up.”

  Something or someone? Kate remembered Julie’s blush when she looked at her phone.

  “Sure. I understand.”

  After Julie left, Kate stared at her now empty margarita glass. Her heart began pounding. Jon wouldn’t tell the guys about her group, would he? It was the sort of thing her group in high school might have done, mocked a girls’ club. But Jon wasn’t like that. Or he hadn’t been like that. But what did she know about him now? He’d been very successful in a cutthroat business.

  Kate cradled her head in her hands. She should have ordered the monster size.

  * * *

  Jon towel dried his hair. The swim had done him good. But it had used up the carbs from the Coke he’d had at the Briarwood and the protein from the energy bar he’d wolfed down on the walk to the Equinox Gym. He was starved. Kate had said her group usually ate at the Briarwood Thursday evenings. He could go back there. Jon ran a comb through his hair, rolled his swimsuit in his towel and stuffed it in his gym bag. Maybe they’d still be there.

  He pushed open the locker room door. No. She’d be with her friends and wouldn’t want him around. Kate hadn’t looked any too happy when he’d walked over to her and Julie and Julie had announced that he’d lost the table where he’d been sitting. He’d get some takeout and go back to his hotel room.

  Jon stepped into the hall and blinked twice. It was Kate in yoga pants and a tank top, with her hair pulled up in a waterfall of curls rather than scraped back in the bun or whatever it was she did with her hair for work. The perfect “O” her mouth formed before she pushed a stray curl off her forehead said she’d spotted him, too.

  Kate push a stray curl off her forehead. “Jon. Hi. I didn’t know you’d be swimming here.”

  “I figured I might as well take advantage of the corporate membership.”

  “Right. Me, too. Yoga.” Her expression flickered from surprise to flustered.

  “So, your meeting broke up early.”

  “Something like that.” Flustered turned to guarded.

  He hoped he hadn’t caused the early end. Jon reverted to his old habit of second-guessing-himself, something he thought he’d killed a long time ago. No, why would his stopping by her table have ended the meeting? From what Ava had told him about Kate and her friends’ group, his presence would have only gotten the conversation going after he left.

  “I, um, need to change.” Kate pointed at the women’s locker room door.

  “Yeah.” Although he liked the yoga version of Kate better than the buttoned-up version at work, as he’d liked the casual version of her last weekend.

  She lifted her hand to push open the door.

  “Wait. Have you eaten yet?”

  “No.”

  “Do you want to get something with me? The two of us. After you change.” His half-stuttered invitation was right out of his awkward nerd years. Like his brain couldn’t move him and Kate out of high school. Jon rubbed the back of his neck, braced for her no thank you excuse.

  “Sorry, I already ordered a pizza and need to hurry if I’m going to get home before it gets there.”

  “Okay, maybe another time.” He gripped his gym bag and took a step.

  “Wait. You could come over and we could share the pizza.”

  Kate was inviting him to her apartment.
“Sure.”

  “Great, now I really need to get changed.” Kate disappeared into the locker room.

  Jon watched the door close. He wasn’t going to read anything into that invitation. Nope. She was probably just being polite. Nor was he going to let his brain loose on the idea that Kate was disrobing on the other side of the wall. He was an adult.

  Jon nodded at a guy walking by that he thought he remembered vaguely from DeBakker and moved to a bench in the hall a short distance from the locker rooms. Sitting here wouldn’t look as stalkerish as standing across from the door to the women’s locker room. He checked his work email—not that he expected to find anything of interest—and kept an eye out for Kate. Deep inside, he couldn’t let go of the micro possibility that she might slip out without him. The old Kate might have thought something like that was funny. But he hadn’t seen any hint of that version of Kate since he’d started working with her.

  “A problem?”

  His head shot up. “No, why?”

  “Your expression. You looked deep in thought.”

  “Everything is fine.” He pushed up from the bench and walked her to the door, holding it open for her to go out first. “Subway or taxi?”

  She smiled at him over her shoulder, making him grab the door tighter so it didn’t slip out of his now sweaty hand.

  “Neither, I live right up the street.” She grabbed his hand and pulled him up the sidewalk. “And I think that’s the pizza guy.” She pointed at a car weaving through traffic.

  He wrapped his hand around Kate’s, wishing he’d rubbed it against his pant leg before she’d grabbed it and adjusted his gait to match hers. Maybe he could read a little into her inviting him to her place.

  The delivery person dashed up the walk of a building two doors down, rang the intercom bell and tapped his foot while he waited.

  “Apartment 211?” She shouted, breaking into a full run.

  Jon half stumbled on the uneven sidewalk and picked up his pace, rather than let go of her hand.

  She stopped in front of the deliverer, who was headed back to his car. “Is that a pepperoni pizza for Lewis, apartment 211? I’m Lewis.”