Strapless

by Leigh Riker

  “He’s lying, Darcie. Don’t believe a word he tells you.”

  In Claire Spencer’s opinion, for which she was highly paid in her job, Merrick Lowell was a bigger problem for Darcie than Greta Hinckley. Worried about her friend, on Tuesday night Claire watched Darcie pace the living room of her grandmother’s apartment, which Darcie shared. Roommates? The odd couple, she thought. The duplex apartment, perched high on the Jersey Palisades in the same building where Claire lived with her husband two floors down, overlooked the Hudson River but, too tired to care about the view, she couldn’t enjoy it. Even here, she imagined she could hear tiny Samantha’s wail from her apartment’s new nursery.

  “Why would Merrick lie?” Darcie wondered, bringing Claire back to reality.

  “You can’t be that naive.”

  “Oh, yes I can. I’m from Ohio.”

  Her grandmother was watching television in another room, Claire knew, with her demonic cat, and Claire gave thanks for privacy. That, and Eden Baxter’s famous macadamia chocolate chip cookies. Claire snatched another one from the Wedgwood plate on the coffee table. Maybe Darcie should eat more of them, add twenty pounds to her frame, turn her legs into protective pin cushions, and forget men, especially Merrick Lowell. How could she stand him?

  “We don’t do sophisticated in Cincinnati,” Darcie pointed out. “It’s a simpler place. People trust each other there. They leave their cars unlocked—at least in their driveways. They gesture to one another at Stop signs.”

  “With middle fingers?”

  Darcie sighed. “No, with polite waves of the hand to go ahead.”

  “You can’t be serious.” Claire was a New Yorker. Middle fingers were like another borough dialect. Staten Island or the Bronx.

  “They’re so courteous, they stop in the merge lane on the interstates.”

  “I can see the pileups now.”

  While Claire fought against a yawn—lack of rest, not boredom—Darcie stalked to the windows and stared out at a balcony like Claire’s own. Off to the left the majestic George Washington Bridge stretched across the river, but, used to the same view, Claire munched her cookie and studied Darcie’s rich, dark hair. Straight and silky, it gleamed in the light, putting her own carefully frosted curls to shame. And what she wouldn’t give for Darcie’s slim figure just now, or her hazel eyes ringed with darker pigment, not the black circles from no sleep beneath Claire’s generic blue eyes. She wondered if Darcie knew her own value.

  “After yesterday with Greta and what you’re saying about Merrick, maybe I should go home,” Darcie said. “That would make Mom and Dad happy. If I lose this chance at Wunderthings, if Merrick is lying to me—”

  “You’re in love with that ass?”

  Darcie backpedaled. “Well, no. But Merrick’s pretty good in bed.”

  Claire wouldn’t ask about last night. She’d only end up angry with Merrick, and sad for Darcie. Running on three hours’ sleep herself, with her postnatal hormones all over the place, she’d just start crying. For a single instant she envied Darcie. Her figure. Her single life. Her chances.

  “I wouldn’t compromise. I’d look for damn good. Make that stupendous. Lights and laser shows. Fireworks. Excitement, Darcie,” Claire insisted. “Thirty—the big 3-0—is staring us both in the face. You first.” She couldn’t help gloating. “Six months, sweetie. From then on, you don’t settle for third-rate when you choose a man. Or a career, for Pete’s sake—not to take my own husband’s name in vain.”

  “Peter the Great. He’s crazy about you.”

  Was he? Claire didn’t feel certain these days. She thrust her shoulders back to emphasize her newly maternal shape. She needed to remember that she was still a woman. A bigger woman right now but… “Since the baby was born, I’m a goddess. At least after a night’s sleep, which is rare, I am. Did I tell you? He loves my new chest.”

  Darcie turned and rolled her eyes. “He always did.”

  Not that Claire let him touch her yet. “Peter’s a breast man, I admit.”

  “The man is completely obsessed.”

  “He loves all of me,” Claire murmured to convince herself. She worried sometimes…most of the time…about going back to work soon, about marriage and being a good mother—what a change from her freewheeling, prebaby life with Peter—and about not being sexy to him now. Talk about obsessive. Silly, she supposed. Once they made love again…when she felt ready…

  “Maybe you and Peter are a fluke.” Darcie hesitated. “A hunky husband, a beautiful baby, that fancy job of yours. Vice President, Heritage Insurance, Inc.,” she intoned, making Claire smile. “A new shape that stops traffic….”

  The smile faded. “Except for my oh-so-generous and saggy-to-my-knees belly.”

  “You fit my mother’s profile of Woman perfectly.”

  “Uh-oh.” Claire knew Janet Baxter could be a handful, but she had Darcie’s best interest at heart, too. They both wanted to see Darcie happy. Claire picked up another cookie, wondering why, if she was so happy, she cried all the time. “Your turn will come.”

  “To be pregnant, with morning sickness? I watched you, remember. I need that at the moment like a pink slip from Walter Corwin.”

  Claire frowned. The small but upscale women’s lingerie company had seemed like a good opportunity for Darcie four years ago, but she’d gotten stuck behind Greta Hinckley—who wasn’t naive at all—and Claire feared she would lose her creative momentum to Greta’s continued sabotage. She pushed aside her own muddled emotions and the topic of Merrick Lowell.

  “You’re really worried about your job?”

  With a groan Darcie strode away from the windows and Claire regrouped. She’d heard all about Greta.

  “Listen. Hinckley’s so caught up in her own underwire, gel-enhanced bra—top-of-the-line of course—she doesn’t hear people whispering behind her T-strap back.”

  “Whispering what?” Darcie said. “About her stealing underwear, or getting the new assignment we’re competing for in Expansion?”

  “She won’t get it, sweetie.”

  “She’s a shark.” Darcie told Claire more about the stolen proposal yesterday and Nancy Braddock’s rescue, then forced a smile. “I’ll know whether she mentioned that to anyone else by noon tomorrow. Either way I’m having lunch with Walt. If he chooses me, I won’t have time for men,” she added. When Claire snorted, Darcie said, “I may need sex but that’s all. Until I get my life in order.”

  Claire bobbed her head. “I see. Then sex is why you stay with Merrick. What a deal. He gets laid with no strings. You get screwed with no consideration….”

  “If so, that’s my choice. Temporarily.” She plucked a throw pillow from the sofa and threw it at Claire, who dropped the last of her cookie. “End of discussion.”

  Claire retrieved the chocolate macadamia nut crumbs from the carpet. “A new assignment is the least you deserve for all your hard work. For instance, rewriting Corwin’s reports so they sound like a form of intelligent life wrote them in the first place. Working late three nights out of four on his projects—then coming in on weekends. If that slimeball Hinckley does get the spot, I swear—”

  “I’ll kill her myself. Walt, too.”

  “Give me a call. In this case I don’t mind being an accessory to murder.”

  “We get along so well. We could share a cell.”

  Claire grinned. “Hang curtains, lay rugs…a few pictures, and it’ll be home.”

  “Listen to us. Home for the Criminally Insane.”

  Claire joined her in a snicker then sobered. “But about Merrick…”

  “He’s okay. He takes me out, opens doors like a gentleman—”

  “Once a month. The rest of the time he just pokes you.”

  Darcie couldn’t argue except to add, “He’s smart, makes good conversation—”

  “When he’s not on top of you.”

  “And he loves his nephew,” Darcie finished.

  Claire gaped at her, her own fatigue forgotte
n. “See?”

  “What? Now you’re saying his nephew doesn’t exist? Merrick carries his picture in his wallet, and why would he lie? He’s a sweet little boy with fair hair, the Lowell smile…” But she grabbed a cookie from the plate and so did Claire.

  “I’m telling you, Darce. Wake up. The guy is married.”

  At noon the next day on the corner of Fifty-Fourth and Fifth, Merrick Lowell was the last thing on Darcie’s mind. She stepped off the curb reciting her own vital statistics.

  “Darcie Baxter. Twenty-nine years old and, possibly, about to be cast aside. I stand five feet four in my panty hose, which are soaked at the moment—no, not with lust but, like the rest of me, from this freaking rain.” On the other side she marched along the sidewalk in the freezing January downpour. “I live with my grandmother, whose cat despises me. I’m sleeping with a man who likes his cell phone better than me, and obviously—” she drew a deep breath “—I talk to myself.”

  A yellow cab rushed past splattering slush over her down trench coat and nearly running Darcie over.

  “I have a college degree, right? I’m not a total washout in the brains department, if some might disagree. I shower every day, use deodorant. I shave my legs before the hair even needs curlers. I don’t lie—except for tiny fibs now and then, usually to protect someone’s feelings. And only this morning I helped a little old lady cross the street.” Or did Gran’s daily trip to the convenience store next to her apartment building count? She’d been half a block ahead of Darcie the whole way. “I can’t be that bad. Oh—and I do my job.” In fact, she thought her presentation that morning to the board had gone well. She hadn’t fainted or lost the power of speech. “So why give the goodies to someone else?”

  She walked on, mumbling. No one noticed. On a dismal, gray day in Manhattan with a raw wind whipping off the East River and blowing through the canyons of skyscrapers, turning hats and people into sails, no one would. In New York, unlike Cincinnati, they scurried from meeting to deal, from glossy restaurant to trendy bar. They fought for cabs on the street. Except in times of crisis, they left others to their own devices.

  Which proved to Darcie that she was in real trouble.

  Maybe she should have stayed in Ohio. Bite your tongue, Gran would say.

  In the middle of the block, she turned in at The Grand Vitesse. Its burgundy canopy looked to be the priciest thing about the place.

  Inside, she spied Walt Corwin immediately. His thin hair lay plastered, as usual, against his scalp and he was—what else?—reading the Wall Street Journal.

  Darcie waved off the waiter, who tried to take her damp coat. She plopped down across from Walt, propped her chin on her hands and beamed at him. Think positive. “Well?”

  “Well what?” He continued to peruse the paper and her heart sank.

  “Unless you’re reading the fourth column—one of those cutesy feature stories—would you mind putting that down?” Another deep breath. Might as well get this over with. Then she could go home, peel off her sodden panty hose, pour a stiff belt of scotch—even though she hated liquor—and cry. “Did I lose out this morning?”

  Walt’s myopic blue eyes winked into some kind of watery focus.

  “What makes you think that?”

  She shook out her napkin. Real linen. Maybe the place wasn’t that cheap, or Walt.

  “I didn’t lose?”

  “Darcie, you need confidence. Why would you assume—”

  “Desperation.” Greta Hinckley, she thought.

  “Take my advice. In the corporate jungle, never let ’em see you sweat.”

  “Walt, I need a raise in order to eat. I need this assignment to Global so my brain won’t rot.” She paused, not daring to hope. “You’re my boss. Tell me. The board meeting…”

  “Went to hell in less than five minutes.” He glanced up again from the paper. “Four minutes after we dealt with your presentation. Order anything you like. I’m told the daily special—coq au vin—is pretty good. Chicken,” he said when Darcie just blinked.

  Blindly, she took the menu she was handed. She couldn’t decipher a word, but not because it was in French. Even the translation didn’t register. Her mind whirred in circles. Walt had warned her only yesterday that as a relatively junior employee it was unlikely the board would approve her appointment. And, Darcie knew, with Greta Hinckley in contention…

  Hope skipped inside her. She scanned the entrees for the most expensive item, testing the waters. “How about lobster Newburg?”

  “Go for it.”

  Her pulse sped. “You mean…”

  He laid the newspaper beside his salad plate. His lips twitched. “Let’s order wine. Or would you prefer champagne?”

  Her mouth went dry.

  “I…don’t like champagne.”

  Could it happen? More money…a future? As if signaling the start of her imagined prosperity, Walt snapped his fingers. The waiter appeared with a bottle of chilled Chardonnay. Darcie watched him pour a pale-golden stream into her glass after Walt had tasted the wine. Her heart hammered harder than it did whenever Gran’s pet Persian cat cornered Darcie in a surprise attack. When they were alone again, he lifted his stemmed goblet.

  “Here’s to my new Assistant to the Manager of Global Expansion for—”

  “Walt! I love you!” She shouted it through the whole restaurant.

  “—Wunderthings International.”

  “Oh. Oh Jesus. God. Oh—” She knocked over her wine. “I can’t believe this.”

  She had talent, ability, good ideas. She wasn’t (except with Greta) afraid to speak her mind. But fickle luck, actually coming her way? Darcie tried not to grin. I’ll never be hungry again, Scarlett.

  Walt sopped up the wine with his napkin. She knew he hated messes. Hated the display of emotion for which Darcie had become justly famous in his department.

  “Don’t get your panties in another twist,” he said, scowling at the wet tablecloth. “There won’t be a lot more money.”

  Giddy, Darcie didn’t care. She could manage. The opportunity, a title…

  “A title, Walt.” She grinned. “Can I have that on my office door?”

  “What office?”

  “I don’t get an office?”

  “Honey, I have an office. You’re still on the cubicle farm…until next year when the board can see how you’ve done with this first assignment.”

  “I’ll prove to them—” she waved an airy hand “—whatever they need me to prove.” Had they actually accepted her plan? “I’ll work twenty hours a day.”

  “You’ll have to,” he said.

  “I can do that. Jeez, I can do anything.” She drew herself up straighter. What was it Gran said? “‘I am Woman, hear me roar.’” Her voice rose again over the room full of diners. Heads turned—well, whaddya know? Some New Yorkers weren’t that jaded.

  Walt laid a hand over her lips. “Christ, keep it down, will you? I went to bat for you over Hinckley, and I expect you to slave for me. I expect to be pleased.”

  Pleased? For a single instant Darcie thought she’d discovered the worm in the apple of paradise. Was he propositioning her? She fought back a mental image of herself on her knees in front of Walt at his desk. Her face on a level with his swollen lap. No, never. Despite Greta’s possible fantasies about him, Darcie doubted that Walt, who was a widower, had a sex life at home or at work. If he did, she sure didn’t want to be part of it.

  “Your wish is my command.”

  Fighting a smile, he shook his head. “You’re so full of shit.” After the waiter took their orders, he poured more wine into her empty water glass. New York in the midst of a torrential winter downpour was also under a water rationing edict. Darcie couldn’t imagine why—something about the reservoirs—but you had to beg for the stuff, even in five-star restaurants. As if she knew about those. Walt raised his glass. “Congratulations, Darce. Others may doubt but I have every confidence you’ll do a fine job—make me proud. Make sure you do,” he said,
then, “I hope your passport’s in order.”

  “Passport?”

  He nodded toward the front windows where icy rain slid down the glass.

  “I said, Global.” He grinned. “Isn’t that what you wanted? The Pacific Rim. It’s like a reprieve from hell. Nancy told me what happened—and tipped the balance in your favor. Hinckley stays here. Good presentation, Baxter—for which you get your fondest wish—the opening of Wunderthings, Sydney. It’s summer there.”

  Chapter

  Two

  “Balmy ocean breezes,” Darcie told her grandmother. “Hot sun…”

  “That’s a shame.” In the early evening after her trip home from Wunderthings, she watched Eden Baxter fluff another Oriental pillow on the oyster-white sofa. “I doubt you’ll have time for the beach. Corwin will expect you to work.”

  True. She had her chance now to prove herself—much to Greta Hinckley’s dismay—and didn’t intend to blow it, but excitement still flowed through Darcie’s veins.

  “The guidebooks tell me I can spend nine to five in the city, then be lying on the sand at Manly after a thirty-minute ferry ride.” Her specialty, Darcie supposed, owing to her daily commute across the Hudson. She might be new to this assignment, but she was a pro with ferries.

  Eyeing Gran’s huge gray Persian cat, which had just entered the room, Darcie felt her pulse hitch. She stepped back into the dining area. She never relaxed until she pinned down Sweet Baby Jane’s location—and took up her own position as far away as possible.

  “Maybe I’ll reverse commute into the city. Then I could run in the mornings at the beach, grab a few rays—”

  “Ah, to be young-er.”

  Eden flicked a feather duster over a spotless walnut end table. Another perk of living with Gran, Darcie acknowledged. She didn’t have to clean. Neither did Gran but that didn’t bear pointing out. Nor did the fact that in the glow of light from the end table lamp, her grandmother’s carefully groomed, rich auburn hair had an apricot cast. And white showed at her roots. She needed a touch-up.

  “You’ll always be young, Gran.”