At Your Service (Silhouette Desire)

by Amy Jo Cousins

  She’d stopped at the host stand for a moment when the sight of an elegantly dressed couple caught her eye. The woman looked vaguely familiar, but unplaceable. Not until the man with her turned around and Grace caught a glimpse of the graying, sandy hair pulled back in a ponytail, did she recognize them.

  Before she could decide whether to bolt for the kitchen or to stand her ground, Tyler’s old boss, who’d threatened to hire her away from him, walked right over to her.

  “Ms. Haley.”

  “Richard.” Using his first name seemed too intimate, but she’d never known his last name. The words came awkwardly. “I’m pleased to see you again.”

  His eyes were kind. “Quite a different life you’re leading these days, young lady.”

  “Not really,” she surprised herself by disagreeing, and then realized it was true. “The scale may be different, but the job is basically the same.”

  “I’m glad to hear you say that. Not everyone would.” He hesitated and then continued, “He’s very angry.”

  The tears came instantly, but by now she was an expert at blinking them away.

  “It was a terrible thing, what I did.”

  “I don’t know about that.” His words were unexpected. “It occurs to me that you had to have some pretty powerful reasons to disrupt your life like that. My glass house isn’t built for stone-throwing, and you never struck me as a dishonest person.”

  Compassion was the last thing she’d thought to receive, and it broke her self-control. Tears fell and her voice was shaky. “Thank you.”

  “You ought to stop in sometime. You’re missed.”

  Grace shook her head no immediately, wiping her eyes carelessly on her silk sleeve. “I don’t think so. He wouldn’t want to see me.”

  “Then maybe you can tell me why he joined my wife and I for dinner tonight.”

  “Here?” She nearly choked and felt as if her head would twist off as she looked around her frantically.

  “Tyler’s a man. He doesn’t know what he wants. And besides, you shouldn’t just let things happen to you, Grace. Sometimes you have to make them happen because of you. Think about it.” With those final words, Richard squeezed her in a quick hug and caught his wife’s attention with a wave. She walked directly over, a familiar shape following two steps behind her.

  Surely she made some sort of polite conversation with Richard’s wife, but later Grace couldn’t remember a word of it. Every ounce of her consciousness froze at the sight of the man who walked toward her.

  She recognized the suit he wore. Felt her breath catch because she knew he wouldn’t have wanted to appear to dress to impress her. The tie was new. She wanted to know who had bought it for him. He stopped in front of her as any casual acquaintance might do, an expression of polite distance on his face.

  She must have said hello.

  “Good evening, Grace. It was a lovely meal. My compliments to the chef.”

  She wondered if it could possibly have cost him as much as it did her, to speak like strangers. She couldn’t do it.

  “You’ve spoken to Chef Paul before, actually,” she said, hoping the reminder that she’d had help in her deception wouldn’t work against her.

  He stared blankly for the moment he needed to fish for the memory. She could see the moment he remembered suggesting that she tell her diner work reference to knock off the fake French accent, and for a moment Grace thought he might actually laugh.

  But at her hint of a smile, the shutters slammed down.

  “Congratulations on your success” was all he said before following his friends out of the restaurant.

  She finished out her night somehow, but Richard’s final command lingered in her mind. Think about it. And she did.

  Late that night in her condo, the Chicago skyline sparkling like a piece of star-strewn sky outside her floor-to-ceiling windows, Grace poured herself a glass of wine, sat on the carpet by the fireplace and thought. Without giving in to her stormy emotions or waves of self-pity, she quietly took stock of her life, and her decisions, past, present and future. What she discovered did not exactly please her.

  In recent weeks she’d worn her pride like armor. Pride in her decision to fight her mother and Charles for her company. Pride in her ability to regain control over her life. And she’d been justified. But she’d also assumed that once she’d decided to take charge, she would automatically continue to be strong in all areas in the future.

  This, it turned out, was not exactly the case.

  Looking at it objectively, Grace realized that she’d sunk almost immediately back into her old patterns of giving up her control, her choices, to outside forces. The better part of autumn had slid by her in a blur of resigned acceptance. The dawning awareness that she would likely always have to jump-start her own empowerment, at least until she managed to carve out some new habits, made her want to weep. And laugh.

  She felt exhausted already at the effort required. On the other hand, the possibility of changing her current course thrilled her. To celebrate, she finished the last of the Cabernet Sauvignon as she watched the sun rise over the lake.

  Crawling out of bed the next morning after two hours of sleep, she vowed to ignore her raging hangover and start charting that new course at once. She’d done her thinking. Now it was time to act.

  She called her attorney.

  Three hours later Franklin O’Connell slammed her office door behind him as he left, and Grace smiled. She pressed the intercom button to her assistant with new enthusiasm.

  “Please call Elizabeth Han of McDowell, Stein and Han, and set up a meeting at her earliest convenience. Tell her I’d like to offer her the position of corporate counsel to the Haley Group, and I want to arrange it quickly.”

  She hadn’t talked to Liz in years, but she thought the small, brusque dynamo of an attorney would be pleased to hear from her.

  Next, she attacked the corporation’s financial balance sheets, looking this time with a clear eye. Days of analysis brought back to her the pleasure of actually using what she’d learned while getting her M.B.A. In the end, she was surprised at the decision she made.

  Shaking off doubts like rainwater, she called for another meeting on the Monday before Thanksgiving.

  Grace came out from behind her desk to shake hands with the recently hired Elizabeth Han at quarter to ten Monday morning. She’d remembered long hair and baggy clothes, but hadn’t been surprised to find Liz in a chin-length hair cut and tailored suits. The stunning Asian beauty and blunt manner were unchanged.

  “Are we all set?”

  “Good to go. I can handle the paperwork in no time, and if your read on the situation is correct, this ought to be a cake-walk,” Liz said, tossing her briefcase in a chair and grabbing a cup of coffee.

  “Excellent. They ought to be here any minute.”

  “Let’s get ’em.” Liz’s grin was almost feral in anticipation.

  When Charles walked into her office alone twenty minutes later, flaunting his disregard of the scheduled time, Grace wasn’t surprised in the least. She was also certain that he carried her mother’s power of attorney in his pocket.

  “Let’s make this brief, shall we?” she challenged him, already irritated by the sight of his perfectly groomed hair and prissy mannerisms. “I’m taking control of the Haley Group, Charles.”

  “Are you really?” She wondered if he thought that lazy drawl made him sound important. “Well, your mother will certainly be disappointed that she chose cocktails and gambling in Monaco over fun and games in Chicago, won’t she? The last I checked, she and I still control fifty percent of the corporation, so just how do you plan on accomplishing your grandiose scheme?”

  “By making you an offer you can’t refuse,” she said flatly.

  For once, her handsome, self-centered colleague looked unsure of himself.

  “And if I refuse to sell?”

  “Please, feel free, Charles.” She smiled coldly. “I’d hoped to split the sale between
you two, but I’m sure Mother would be more than willing to pick up a few extra million dollars on her own. After all, you’ll both continue to receive your percentage of the profits based on your remaining shares.”

  And just like that, it was over.

  Thirty minutes and some minor bickering later, the deal was a fait accompli. Grace Haley was president and majority partner of the Haley Group.

  Liz packed up her files, promising to have the necessary documents drawn up as soon as humanly possible. “Got big plans for Thanksgiving? You probably feast like a queen with all of these kitchens at your disposal.”

  “Not really.” Grace laughed. “I try to give them holidays off. No, I’m planning on a quiet day. Maybe a glass of champagne to celebrate our triumph today.”

  “You get all the credit for this one, babe. But drink an extra glass of bubbly for me. I’ll be fighting off the starving masses. My siblings don’t know when to stop having children.” Liz waved goodbye on her way out the door, stopping briefly to add, “And don’t worry, I’ll take care of that other matter we discussed at the same time as all this.”

  “Thanks, Liz. Happy holidays.”

  That evening, she perched on a stool at a stainless-steel counter in the kitchen at Nîce and regaled Paul with a highly exaggerated version of Charles’s bravado and ultimate collapse. In between brow-beating his sous-chefs and line cooks and threatening the servers with bodily harm if they didn’t get their orders out of his kitchen in timely fashion, he roared his approval of her strategy and total success.

  “Magnifique, chérie. And you save his life, too, that fiancé who is no fiancé of yours,” Paul announced. “I am getting very close to some bad things with him.” He buried his cleaver in a large melon shaped suspiciously like a human head, chopping it in two.

  Grace choked on the water she’d sipped.

  “Paul!”

  He shrugged. “Nobody’s fingers go in the pots in my kitchen but mine. There are rules.”

  She smiled and forked up another bite of Paul’s airiest soufflé. Liz’s question about the upcoming holiday echoed in her head, and the surge of loneliness she’d hidden at the time inspired her now.

  “What are you doing on Thanksgiving, Paul? Why don’t you come over to my place?” She added impulsively, “I’ll cook a holiday dinner for us.”

  “Wait.” He shifted an enormous vat of simmering soup off a back burner before dipping a large spoon for a taste test. Rolling his eyes and lifting his face to imagined heavens, he paused and then sighed. “Bon. Take it.” In response to the imperial wave, a busboy lurched under the weight of the pot and staggered off. Paul turned to her. “Grace, I do not think I am ever hungry enough to eat your cooking. Besides, I am preparing the dinner for the orphans.”

  “The orphans?” she asked, ignoring what felt like a rejection.

  “Yes, orphans. These kids, they work here, but some are far from their families. Nine or ten would eat spaghetti at home alone, so I make them the tradition. The turkey, the sweet potatoes, all the trimmings.” His eyes nearly sparkled in anticipation. “Three kinds of stuffing. Very good.”

  She felt the urge to self-pity roll over her like a wave. Stop. Was there anything she could do to change her feelings, or the situation? She found that indeed there was.

  “Do you think I could join you?”

  “Hi, Gramma. I’m sorry I haven’t come here before now.”

  The small bouquet of autumn flowers she’d placed at the base of her grandmother’s tombstone looked lonely against the cold ground. She’d nearly felt like a part of a large family at Paul’s Thanksgiving dinner for the “orphans.” The sensation had reminded her that she could in fact visit one member of her family who’d loved her, so she’d directed her driver to this small town north of the city on an impulse this morning. Another area of her life she would take better care of from now on.

  “I had dinner with Paul on Thanksgiving. Then I gave him half of Nîce. He cried. You’d have been proud of me.”

  She brushed the tears away and thrust her cold hands deep into her coat pockets.

  “I’ve done some other things you wouldn’t be so proud of. I hurt some people I love very much. One person in particular. I’m not sure I can ever be forgiven for it.”

  She could practically hear her grandmother’s feisty words ringing in her ears. Somehow she laughed through her tears.

  “I know. You’re right. I’m a Haley.” Her voice firmed in the deserted cemetery. “I have a genetic history of ancestors who defined the word tenacious.

  “Maybe we’re just too stubborn to know when to quit. But as long as there’s a chance, I can try to make things happen, my way.

  “Wish me luck, Gramma.”

  Where was her taxi?

  Grace paced to the floor-to-ceiling windows that looked out over the front of the building and peered down at the street, as if she could call the cab to her with the sheer force of her impatience, from several hundred feet above street level. She didn’t regret giving her driver the night off, but maybe she should’ve asked if the limo she’d hired to take him and his fiancée out on the town for New Year’s Eve could have dropped her off first.

  She paced a little more before giving up and striding to her front door. Forget it. She’d wait outside. Maybe she could flag a cab on the street. She stopped a moment at the mirror in her entryway, checking her face and hair for the ninth time in fifteen minutes, and then screwed up her nerve and turned to head downstairs.

  Sudden pounding rattled the door on its hinges. She jerked her hand back from the knob like a two-year-old touching a surprisingly hot stove. After two moments of silence, the pounding recommenced, even louder now, if that were possible.

  “What did I do?” Grace murmured, and then shook herself out of her startled immobility. Why, in these situations, did she always assume that she’d done something wrong? Feeling guilty as a knee-jerk response was not good. After all, it was very possible that whoever was assaulting her door like a Marine taking Iwo Jima had the wrong condo number.

  “Grace!” The thick oak door didn’t muffle Tyler’s bellow one decibel.

  Shoot.

  She ought to have guessed. The dratted man had the timing instincts of a birthday honoree who insisted on returning home before all of the surprise party guests had a chance to assemble.

  “Grace! Open the damn door.”

  She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, and then back again. Her velour felt winter hat was rolled into a skinny tube between her twisting fingers. He was ruining everything.

  The pounding let up for a moment.

  “Go away!” she shouted. “You’re ruining it!”

  “What? Ruining what? You’re the one locked away on the fiftieth floor of some…” His voice trailed away to a low rumbling mutter. The doorknob rattled in its socket. “Damn it, Grace! The doorman hosed me for a hundred bucks and a date with my sister. Open the door.”

  Her hand was already on the knob, which twisted a little under her palm. She pictured his hand on the opposite end of the mechanism and felt the instant awareness of his physical presence like a blow to the gut. She opened the door.

  And took a step back as it flew open and crashed into the wall. Tyler barged through like a man who’d barely resisted the temptation to try to kick the door down. She retreated farther and stepped off the tiled floor of the entry, the heels of her winter boots sinking into plush carpeting. That probably explained her wobbly knees and the fact that her center of balance seemed to have flown out the window.

  Yeah, right.

  God, he looked good. In a long dark coat, black turtleneck sweater and dark jeans, he stalked toward her like an upscale sailor hitting shore after too many months on a boat without his woman. Make that a pirate. She edged backward and felt distinctly as if she’d just taken her first step down the plank.

  “My doorman’s going on a date with your sister?” she said, grasping for any conversational straw in the sudden ri
ver rush of emotion at the sight of him. “Which one?”

  “I don’t know your doormen by name, Grace.” He was definitely irritated with her.

  “No. Which sister?”

  “Sarah. She’s waiting in the car.” He whipped a daily organizer out of his coat pocket and scribbled words on the tiny screen with a stylus as she watched, openmouthed. “Get tinted windows.”

  “When did you get a Palm?”

  “Right after we got reviewed in the Tribune, the Sun-Times and Chicago magazine. All in one week.” Tyler shot a sharp look at her from under lowered brows while Grace nodded and tried to look dumb. What were strings for if you couldn’t pull one or two? “Not only has business gone through the roof, but I happened to mention that I wanted to showcase local jazz and blues bands someday. Now I’m getting phone calls every day. Bands, people who represent bands, and some guy who wants me to come down to Dallas and open a place there. Crazy. I can’t keep track of a damn thing without this computer now.”

  “Sounds good,” she ventured.

  “It is. I’m knocking down the wall and expanding into the next building.”

  “Terrific. Congratulations.” She heard herself reduced to babbling as Tyler took a step toward her. “I mean, that was always your plan, right? Expansion. You’re just doing it a little…” She dug for the words, came up with nothing and edged farther backward.

  “Ahead of time?” When she nodded and gasped, she realized she’d been holding her breath. Her calf knocked painfully into what felt like a coffee table as she shuffled in reverse, trying to keep several steps away from Tyler as he stalked toward her, but unwilling to take her eyes off him. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear he was grinning at her, amused by her evasion tactics. “I’m running about two years ahead of schedule, and I know who’s responsible for that.”