Beautiful Little Fool

by K. K. Hendin

  “You know Indigo’s work?” Cedar asked, resting her hand lightly on his arm and heading to the back of the gallery.

  “Mixed media collages. They got arrested for breaking into a city bank at one point in an attempt to get bank slips for a collage. There’s an Indigo piece in the main office, too.”

  “There is,” Cedar agreed. “That was one of their first pieces, and was the first commission. Harold loved their work.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Ellis said softly.

  She smiled up at him, eyes sad. “Thank you. It’s hard to believe he’s gone.”

  “This is a wonderful tribute to him,” Ellis said, looking around the gallery. “He would have been proud.”

  “I hope so,” she said. “Here’s Indigo’s new piece. They’re around somewhere.”

  The piece was enormous, covering almost the entire wall from top to bottom. A little white place card next to it said that the piece was called “A Tribute to Feingold,” and had, among other things, newspaper covers collaged onto the canvas.

  Ellis did not for the life of him understand exactly why this piece was such a big goddamned deal other than the fact that it was actually enormous. But he didn’t need to know about art to bullshit through the night, it was enough that he knew who Indigo was.

  “How impressive,” he managed.

  Cedar nodded. “As it should be. Our standards here are quite high.”

  Do I meet your standards? Ellis wondered, and then mentally shut down that little conversation before it got anywhere else. He was the heir to the damn Feingold fortune, and they had to be good enough for him. And he was just going to repeat that little sentence in his head until he believed himself.

  It would be easier for him to believe around other people, but Cedar was a different case.

  He wanted her.

  Which was a problem, given that he had a fucking girlfriend.

  Who he hadn’t called since the day he left to Manhattan, which made him an incredibly shitty boyfriend, but a boyfriend, nonetheless.

  “Well, Indigo has seemed to have disappeared,” Cedar said, her smile taking on a bit of an edge. “Let’s see what else we can find that might interest you. Or people for you to meet.” She peered over at him and fluttered her eyelashes delicately. “There was only so small I could keep the guest list, so I’ll try to make things easy for you.”

  “Thank you,” Ellis said, both incredibly relieved and also kind of pissed at the same time. She thought he couldn’t manage a crowd of people this size? She was wrong, and he was going to make sure she knew that by the end of the night.

  And she was wrong at the end of the night, but not nearly as wrong Ellis thought she was. He remembered names of people he’d never met, and remembered where they were in context of Feingold Investments. He didn’t know if they were impressed with him or not. You never really could tell with people who had more money than God. But he could tell they all liked Cedar.

  Well, liked might have been a bit too strong of a word, but the way they fell over themselves around her meant that even if they didn’t like her, they respected her. They were kind of scared of her, which Ellis thought was a little ridiculous. She was basically Feingold’s adopted daughter, but she was really sweet. Funny and bitingly intelligent, too. Not to mention the fact that Ellis had still not gotten over the way she looked as he headed out the door of the gallery back to the privacy of his car. Nor did he forget when he went to bed that night.

  He forgot to call his girlfriend, even though he had remembered while at the gallery. But when his eyes closed that night, all he thought about was Cedar. Did she have a boyfriend that he didn’t know about? He would have met the boyfriend if one existed, wouldn’t he? She was single, which was mind boggling to him. How could someone as perfect as her be single?

  It was probably that nobody was good enough for her.

  So it was ridiculous that he was fixated on her, Ellis told himself the next day when he was supposed to be paying attention to head of the real estate firm he now owned. There was no way he was good enough for her if nobody else in this city was. And yet, there he was, drooling over her like some pathetic teenager.

  You have a girlfriend, he firmly reminded himself, and called a florist to arrange to send a bouquet to Karen, hoping that would do some damage control until he could breathe for half a second and call her. Ten minutes later, he called a different florist to send a bouquet of flowers to Cedar, thanking her for the lovely evening.

  It was just the polite thing to do, he rationalized, as he read through files for the real estate office. She had hosted his first event in the city and had been ever so gracious to him. It was only right that he sent her flowers saying thank you.

  Fuck, should he have sent something a little more unique? Everyone sends flowers. She probably had another three bouquets sitting on her desk at work already.

  But he didn’t know her well enough yet to know what kind of gift she would appreciate more than flowers.

  Ellis added “find out more about Cedar” to his mental to do list.

  And then ‘take Karen out to dinner’ underneath.

  “Well, well, well,” Cedar drawled. “Look who sent me flowers.”

  They were red roses, which were both classy and a little boring, but a safe bet. She plucked the note out of the bouquet, and skimmed it quickly. ‘Cedar, thank you so much for the lovely evening. I’m sure Harold is proud. Ellis.’

  Well, that was nice.

  Cedar tucked the card into her top drawer to save until she could figure out where she wanted to display it. Because obviously she would.

  He was definitely interested, which was excellent. And he was definitely not gay, which was even better.

  The question was how to proceed now. Play hard to get, or dangle the rope for a little bit longer?

  Cedar moved the bouquet of roses to the edge of her desk, grateful that the vase he had sent wasn’t hideous. And it matched the decor of her office, which he hadn’t seen.

  Maybe there was some hope for him.

  She pulled out the folder of information on him. She really had to shred it soon, but she wanted to make sure she knew exactly what was written in it before she destroyed it and pretended she had never seen a thing.

  Personal life.

  Has been dating Karen Hunt for a year and a half.

  Cedar laughed. Not for too much longer, he wouldn’t be.

  Cecil was out of the office on an errand for her, which meant nobody was going to disturb her now.

  She locked the door, just in case, and stared at the vase of roses.

  What to do next? She knew he was interested, but she didn’t know how interested he was. And she wanted to make sure he stayed interested enough in her for things to move forward.

  Maybe the roses were just a polite thing to do.

  Cedar pulled out a rose from the bouquet and slowly stripped off the petals, one by one. Should she say something, or should she not?

  The polite thing to do was to say thank you.

  But by card, so she didn’t have to talk to him. Better to leave herself in an air of mystery for a little while longer. She unlocked the door to her office and returned to her desk. I need a piece of mail hand delivered, she texted Cecil. Let me know when you’re back.

  Pulling out one of her personal cards, she wrote a quick note back, sealed it in an envelope and left it at the corner of her desk.

  Step one of getting Ellis interested? Partial check.

  Thank you so much for the roses. They’ve brightened my day. C

  Hand delivered from her office.

  That meant she was interested, right? It had to be.

  Ellis’s cell phone rang, and he picked it up without checking who it was who was calling.

  “Oh my God, I thought you were dead!”

  Ellis sank back into his seat. “I’m not dead, Karen. I’m really sorry. It’s been crazy around here.”

  “I figured. Jesus, Ellis, what the
hell has been going on? I don’t hear from you for a few days and the next thing I know you’re in Manhattan and you’ve inherited more money than I can wrap my mind around. What happened?”

  “Swear to God, I don’t really know what happened.” Ellis propped his feet up on the desk and settled into the chair. “Everything was normal and then this lawyer showed up and told me Feingold had left almost all his stuff to me. Which doesn’t make any sense, and it still doesn’t make any sense, but that’s kind of what happened.”

  “That’s crazy,” Karen said. “So, you’re staying in Manhattan now?”

  “Yeah. I have to learn about all the businesses that he had, and how to run all of them or if I want to sell any of them. I can’t sell anything for at least a year, though, according to the will, or I lose any part of the money I have.”

  “Holy shit.”

  “Pretty much.”

  “I miss you,” she said softly. “I was so worried about you.”

  “I’m really sorry,” he said, and meant it. “It’s been so crazy here I haven’t been able to breathe. I keep thinking about you.”

  “I want to see you, but I don’t know what to do about work. I can’t take off any days yet, and you can’t really come back here now.”

  “Maybe we could Skype,” Ellis suggested. “Until we can figure something else out.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Mr. Carrington?”

  “I have to go now, babe. I’ll talk to you later, okay?”

  “No problem. Love you. Have a good day.”

  “You too.” Ellis hung up and called for Rob to come into the office so they could deal with the latest crisis, whatever it was.

  It wasn’t until that night when he was about to collapse onto his bed that he realized that he didn’t tell Karen he loved her too. He’d make it up to her tomorrow. He just had to get some sleep.

  Tomorrow came, and with it came another two major crises that Ellis had to deal with. Running a multibillion dollar corporation was more work than Ellis had realized, and he knew it was going to be a lot of work. He didn’t realize just how all-consuming it was. Or maybe it was just because he was new and all of this was new to him. He hoped so, because working like this forever would end up killing him before he hit forty.

  Another pile of papers done. Ellis moved them to the mail box on his desk for Rob to deal with, and saw a bit of heavy cream paper.

  Cedar’s note.

  She was the curator and part owner of the gallery. He should answer for no reason other than they were co-owners of a highly profitable business. That was all. There was no other reason that he was going to invite her out to dinner. None. It had nothing to do with how she looked that night at the gallery, nothing to do with the quick smile that flashed across her face when he said something amusing, nothing to do with what she was and who she was and what that could mean for him.

  No, it was because they were co-business owners.

  That was all.

  Really, that was all.

  “Morris, I need a list of restaurants, please.”

  “What kind?”

  “The nice kind.”

  Ellis could hear Morris rolling his eyes on the other end of the line. “Well, obviously. I’m not suggesting you go to McDonald’s. Who are you going with?”

  “Cedar.”

  “Really?”

  “We haven’t met about the gallery yet,” Ellis justified. “And I’ve met with almost all of the other CEOs.”

  “Well, Cedar likes Bella.”

  Cedar was a lesbian? Well, there went that.

  “What?”

  “Bella. The restaurant near the Met. You’ll have to pull some strings to get a reservation. No, wait, let me check...” Morris paused. “Harold had a table there. You’ll be fine.”

  “Great. Thanks, man.”

  “No problem, Mr. Carrington.”

  Ellis hung up. He was really going to have get used to the whole formal thing.

  And he was going to have to figure out how to ask Cedar out. No, not ask her out. He was going to tell her they were meeting to discuss the gallery. Right. That was what he was going to do.

  “Robert, call Cedar Reynolds and let her know I’d like to arrange a meeting soon,” he said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  Well, that was dealt with. No reservations at any restaurant because he was going to be professional about this, and he wasn’t going to think about doing anything unprofessional with Cedar. He had a girlfriend, dammit, and he didn’t cheat.

  “She said she’ll be in the office all afternoon and she’ll clear her schedule for you,” Robert said.

  “She said that?”

  “Well, Cecil did. Her assistant.”

  Forget the restaurant, then. For now.

  Jesus, Ellis. You have a girlfriend. He shook his head and focused. “Okay. I’ll need the car in fifteen.”

  “It’ll be here.”

  Fuck, was he dressed for this?

  Stop it, Ellis. It’s just a business meeting. There’s nothing more to this afternoon than two business partners meeting.

  Nothing.

  Right? Right.

  He straightened his tie, and pushed his hair off his face. He really needed to get a haircut. No, he’d worry about that later. He rifled through the folders in the cabinet next to him until he found the ones for the gallery. He had around a half an hour before he was at the gallery, and he wasn’t going to walk in knowing nothing.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck. Cedar was in no way dressed for meeting Ellis. Yeah, she was dressed and she looked gorgeous and all, but it wasn’t the right look for meeting with Ellis on her turf, in her office. Sure, he said it was a business meeting, but that was what he thought. This was stage two in Get Ellis Interested, and this was not the outfit to wear for that.

  Slipping off her heels, she padded across the office, and pulled up a photograph hanging on the wall. Punching in the security code, she opened the door hidden in the wall. If you looked closely, you might entertain the notion of a room behind Cedar’s, but you would probably just shrug it off as part of the architecture.

  But there was a room behind the office, and it was Cedar’s work closet, among other things. There were outfits in there for every occasion, because what was the point in having a secret room attached to her office if it wasn’t to make sure that she was prepared for anything that might happen?

  Cedar rifled through the dresses until she found the one she was looking for. Cut just a little lower than polite company demanded, but still looking exactly like the kind of dress that an art curator would wear.

  She shimmied off her panties, and tucked them into a small laundry bag hanging on the inside of the door. No garter belt, it would ruin the line of the dress, so no stockings, either. Cedar pulled out a different pair of heels, ones that strapped on and over themselves. Spraying herself with a bit of perfume, and fixing her bra, Cedar walked back out of the room and into her office. The pair of heels she had been wearing that morning would be tucked into a drawer, so she could remember to take them home that day.

  She examined herself in the mirror. Professional with cleavage.

  Excellent.

  She sat down at her desk, and focused on the payments from the last showing until she heard a slight knock on the door.

  “Yes?”

  “Cedar, Mr. Carrington is here to see you,” Cecil said. “Do you want me to set you up in the conference room?”

  She smiled. “No, I think my office will be sufficient. Hold my calls, Cecil.”

  “Of course.”

  Ellis stood at the entrance of her office. “Ms. Reynolds.”

  Cedar laughed. “Just Cedar. How are you, Mr. Carrington?”

  “Just Ellis. I’m good. You have a lovely office.”

  Of course she did. “Thank you. And thank you for coming.”

  “My pleasure,” he said, and she could tell that he meant it. Excellent.

  Ellis walked into the office, glance
firmly on her.

  Perfect.

  “Can I get you anything to drink?” Cedar asked, sitting in the oversized chair next to his. No power plays here. He had to get comfortable quickly.

  “No thanks.” Ellis placed his briefcase on the table and opened it. “How have things been going here?”

  Cedar leaned forward just enough. “They’ve been going well. The showing has been excellent publicity, and we’ve had a lot of questions about commissions, which is wonderful. The search for a scholarship winner is still going, which I’ve emailed you about. We’ve been looking into a new artist to add to the mix, but no official decision has been made about that yet.”

  “Who’s on the committee for choosing new artists?” Ellis asked, scribbling notes onto a pad of paper. With a regular pen. Cedar sighed to herself. She had so much to teach him.

  “Well, most of the initial legwork is done by Cecil and I. We do extensive research on any potential candidates. It usually ends up being a pool of around three artists that we’re deciding between, after we’ve filtered everyone out. Then we interview them in person a few times each, and Harold is/was part of that process, and the process from that point forward.”

  “I see. And how many artists are you at in this round of searching?”

  “Five,” Cedar said. “All strong choices, as of now, but we’re not finished doing our research. We have an impeccable reputation here, and I will not ruin that at all.” She leaned forward just a drop forward, and watched Ellis’s eyes drop to her cleavage. Perfect.

  “Sounds good. I assume I’ll be updated when you’ve narrowed it down to three?” Ellis tore his eyes off her cleavage, and tried to look like he hadn’t just been gawking at her creamy skin. Which was kind of useless, because Cedar was more than aware of his gaze.

  He was hot, Cedar realized as he pulled out a pair of glasses to scan some paperwork. Tall, blond, could have stepped off the pages of Vogue. Good bone structure, good posture. It was all an added bonus, but actually being attracted to him was the cherry on top of a very rich and mostly clueless cake.