“One fresh cherry margarita coming up,” the regular Thursday evening bartender said when she reached her destination.
Kate eyed the glass the bartender lifted from the rack and flipped over with a twist of the wrist. “No, Andre, that won’t do it tonight. Give me the monster size.”
He looked at her straight on. “You know that’s five times what you generally order.”
“Yep, I did the math on the walk over.”
“You’ve got it.”
While she waited, Kate tapped her fingernails on the wood and scanned the room, her gaze fixing on a guy sitting alone at a table for two, his eyes glued to his cell phone. Stood up? She blinked. The guy looked familiar, but she couldn’t place him.
“Here you go.” Andre slid her drink across the bar to her.
“Thanks.” She cradled the glass in both palms and walked the table maze to where Julie was sitting.
“Well, are we celebrating?” Julie asked. “Did K.A. Lewis break the glass ceiling? Am I looking at the DeBakker Funds’ new Growth and Income Fund Manager, the fund’s first female manager?
“Not exactly.” Kate sat, and took a healthy swallow of her drink.
“Want to spill or wait for the others? Julie asked.
Kate glanced toward the entrance. None of the other members of the No Brides Club had arrived yet. The group was her lifeline when she was drowning in frustration over her career. She didn’t want to imagine what her life would be like without the support of other women who were equally focused on their careers. Women who were so focused that they’d decided not to weigh themselves down with the baggage of trying to balance romantic relationships on top of the struggle to climb the corporate ladder.
“No, I need to get it out.” She was closest to Julie. They’d been friends since college. “But where is everyone, anyway?”
“Kinsley is upstate at her wildlife sanctuary, Rachel has an extra play practice, and Georgina and Melody are working late. So what excuse did your boss give you this round?”
Kate fortified herself with another slug of her margarita. It was the third time she’d been up for this promotion—a promotion she needed to take advantage of the opportunity she’d been offered recently to buy her apartment. Her apartment building was converting over to condos, and its location was too perfect to even think of moving. She’d earned this.
“Bob started with some BS about how I’d been putting in long hours lately, longer than usual, and my hard work had made a difference in our returns. I was on the edge of my chair, sure he was going to follow that up with an offer for the manager position.”
“But, no.” Julie shook her head, thumbs up, her mouth holding the O of no.
“No. The higher-ups want to delay naming a new manager.” Kate slapped her palm to the table. “I was sure I had it this time.”
“But you’re still in contention?”
“Supposedly.” Kate rested her elbows on the table and splayed her fingers, palms up. “I’ve paid my dues. Four years as a statistician and analyst for Growth and Income Fund, two of them as senior analyst, two years at a smaller fund family before that, and four years juggling that awful bank job and graduate courses for my MBA. What does it get me? A pat on the back, a small bonus next pay period, and an assistant for two months to help catch up on the backload of work the new software conversion caused.”
“That rots.”
“And that’s not all. They’ve hired some guy who used to be an associate at the largest private equity firm in Boston as my assistant. No consulting me about it. Yeah, like a guy with those credentials wants to be an assistant statistician. Right.” Kate gulped her margarita to the halfway mark. “So, I get to train the guy who’ll probably get the manager position.”
“What?” Julie placed her drink glass on the table with a clunk.
“Yep, first I asked Bob whether the guy seriously wanted to be an assistant statistician/analyst. I mean investment management is a cutthroat business. People don’t take demotions, unless forced to.”
“What did Bob say?”
Kate swirled her finger tip around the edge of her glass and licked the salt off. “He had the audacity to chuckle and say, ‘No, he thinks he wants to be a professor at some small college upstate, but we’ll convince him otherwise, eh.’ You know, teamwork and all that.”
Julie shook her head.
Kate downed most of the rest of her margarita to combat the bile rising in her throat. “Then I asked Bob outright if I was being asked to train this Smith guy … his name is John Smith.” Why did that name sound so familiar, other than it was terribly common? “Train the guy for the position I wanted.” She cleared her throat. “Am I talking really loud?”
“No,” Julie said. “Maybe a little. What was Bob’s answer?”
Kate waved a hand at her friend. “He said I was still his first choice for the job, that the hiring came from higher up. His hands were tied.” She leaned forward. “Well, I’m going to untie them. I don’t care what John Smith’s experience is. He’s been hired as my assistant, and I’m not going to let him take my promotion.”
“That’s the spirit,” Julie said. “I’m going to get a drink. You want another one?”
Kate eyed the empty monster glass. “I’ll wait. I should eat something first.”
Julie headed to the bar, and Kate’s gaze followed her as far as the lone guy she’d spotted earlier. The bar server approached him and stood talking far longer than it would take her to get his drink order. She flipped her hair over her shoulder and said something that made the guy laugh. The server was flirting with him. Kate drew her lips into straight line. Not that there was any reason that should interest her. She was still focused on him after the server left and Julie returned.
“That is a nice view,” Julie said before she sat.
“Hmmm?” Kate said.
“The eye candy sitting over there by himself.”
“He looks so familiar, like I know him from somewhere,” Kate answered as much to herself as to Julie.
***
“I trust your stay with us was enjoyable,” The Greenwich Hotel concierge said as she opened the door for Jon Smith to exit.
“Excellent,” he answered. It wasn’t the Four Seasons, but had been more than fine for a one-night stay. Jon squinted at the bright sunlight that greeted him as he stepped outside. He was well-rested and ready for his meeting. Staying at the hotel had saved him the half hour to Rhinecliff and the two-hour early train to New York this morning. Getting up three-and-a-half hours before his meeting versus getting up an hour before should have been a no brainer. But it also entailed getting someone to stay with his grandfather, check on his livestock last night, and come feed them this morning.
Jon pulled open the gleaming glass doors to the DeBakker Mutual Funds office building, thinking he should be nervous, excited, something walking into his first face-to-face with a new employer. But he felt nothing but a little curious, maybe since he hadn’t pursued the statistician position he was starting Monday. His former girlfriend Olivia had done that for him, before she’d thrown him over for a surgeon she’d met over coffee at the Westchester Medical Center when Grandpa had still been in inpatient rehabilitation there. Olivia had been staying at the farm with Jon then and had come to hospital with him.
He let the door drop closed behind him. Olivia had her father call a friend, who happened to be one of the DeBakkers of DeBakker Funds soon after Grandpa had had his stroke and Jon had moved from Boston to his grandfather’s place. By the time he’d received the email setting up the Skype interview, she’d tired of what she called his playing at professor and gentlemen farmer. She’d needed a man she could depend on to keep her in the style Daddy had made her accustomed to. By then, Jon, as power of attorney for his grandfather after his stroke, had learned of the home equity loan Grandpa couldn’t afford that he’d taken to come out of retirement and start up a grass-fed beef operation. The summer gig with DeBakker-Gelm would knock out a good
chunk of that loan before Jon started his lower paying college instructor position in the fall.
His cell phone pinged as he pressed the elevator button for the fourth floor.
Morning. Thought I’d let you know I’ve made it to another day.
Grandpa and his gallows humor.
Good to know.
Jon stepped out into the hall.
Having breakfast with my babysitter.
He and his grandfather had gone `round and `round about Grandpa needing someone to stay with him, and Jon had finally gotten him to agree to the widow from up the road. Jon suspected his grandfather had a thing for Dottie—or at least he had before the stroke. Starting Monday, Dottie’s 18-year-old grandson would be stopping in to do the chores and be there for Grandpa, and Dottie would be coming in the early evening to prepare supper.
Enjoy. I should be home about three.
Okay.
John checked the suite numbers on the offices for 410, where the funds’ analysis and statistics offices were.
“Good morning,” a young woman behind the reception desk greeted him. “How can I help you?”
“I’m Jon Smith. I have an appointment with Robert Conway.”
“I’ll let Bob know.” She smiled, her gaze lingering on him a moment longer than he was comfortable with before she picked up her phone.
He still wasn’t accustomed to the difference people—well, mostly women—saw in his appearance since he’d taken up swimming in college and dropped the extra 40 pounds he’d carried in high school. And he’d built up some muscle taking over for his grandfather on the farm.
“Jon.” An affable man about Jon’s father’s age stepped into the reception area and offered his hand. “I’m Bob Conway.”
After shaking hands, Bob said. “Leave your bag here with reception, and I’ll take you up to HR to get all that out of the way first.”
Jon handed the receptionist the gym bag he’d brought as his overnight bag and walked with Bob into the hall.
“Stairs good with you?” Bob asked, reaching for the knob to the stairwell door. “It’s only two flights.” He sized up Jon and patted his own slight paunch. “And I could use the exercise.”
The old shame weighed his chest. “That’s fine.” Jon shoved his hands in his pockets while he waited for Bob to open the door.
“When you’re done in HR,” Bob said. “I’ll introduce you to the senior statistician you’ll be working with and the three of us can go to lunch.”
“Sounds good.” Jon grasped the handrail. That would shoot his plan to catch the 12:30 train and be home by three. He should still be home in time for afternoon chores. Grandpa had beef cattle now, not dairy, so the afternoon schedule wasn’t as important, and their neighbor had said she’d stay as long as needed. Of course, Grandpa thought that was not at all. Jon made a mental note to phone Dottie first about the change in plans and then clue his grandfather in, so he didn’t send her home.
An hour and a half later, after he’d filled out all the required papers, sat through an interactive video about corporate compliance, and completed the required computer modules on sexual harassment in the workplace and safety, Jon was back in the reception area of the statistics and analytics offices, sitting and waiting for Bob and the senior statistician to join him for lunch. He stood when he heard Bob’s voice in the hall and looked in that direction. Bob walked toward him accompanied by a woman about Jon’s age with brunette hair artfully pinned back from her attractive face. Hmm. Bob hadn’t mentioned his new boss was a woman. Not that it mattered or that Bob should have.
As the pair stepped into the reception area, the office lighting played tricks with his eyes and superimposed an image of his high school secret crush and nemesis on the poised woman.
“Jon,” Bob said, “this is …”
Jon blinked. “Kate Lewis.” The lighting hadn’t been playing tricks.
***
“You two know each other, then,” Bob said.
Kate stared. It was the man she’d seen at Briarwood last night, that Julie had referred to as eye candy. It couldn’t be. But it had to be. John/Jon Smith. But this Jon Smith didn’t look anything like her shy, pudgy classmate whom she hadn’t been especially nice to. She cringed, trying to find her voice. She’d left that Kate back in Genesee when she’d headed off to college. She looked at the handsome, confident man standing in front of her. Evidently, Jon had left his high school self behind, too.
“We went to high school together,” Jon filled the silence left by her surprise. “Good to see you, Kate.”
She took his proffered hand and returned his firm handshake. “Good to see you, too.” She meant that in the literal, not “let’s relive the good old glory days” way. Who would have suspected those masculine high cheek bones lay beneath his formerly round cheeks? Not to mention the strong square jaw.
“Ah.” Bob threw up his hands as if he’d made a grand discovery. “Then, you two don’t need me. I’ll leave you to catch up and order something in for myself. Take the afternoon if you’d like.”
Kate fidgeted with the adjustable buckle on her bag’s shoulder strap. She never fidgeted. She didn’t want to spend the afternoon—let alone the next three months—with Jon, not after the way she and her friends had treated him. Well. Not only him, and not always. There were times when she and Jon had clicked in class, brought together by a shared, almost insane, fascination with numbers.
“After you.” Jon held the office door for her.
“Thanks.” As she stepped past him, she tried to recall him being so tall. Had he shot up after high school, or was it the change in his physique that had made her notice it?
“Where to?” Jon asked, standing close beside her on the crowded sidewalk.
Kate inched as far away as she could, to relieve the edginess of him being so close. While Kate loved being in the city, in the 10 years since she’d moved here permanently after earning her BA from NYU, she still wasn’t used to all of the people. She chalked that up to her having lived 22 years outside Genesee in Western New York, nearly six hours from the city, where seeing ten people on the sidewalk in downtown at one time was a lot.
“The Briarwood Tavern has great sandwiches and salads.”
“Sounds good to me. I stopped in there yesterday evening.”
Kate weighed whether to mention she’d seen him. But that would remind him that she hadn’t recognized him, and she needed a congenial work relationship that would allow her to assess Jon so she could put herself ahead of him in the race to portfolio manager. She studied his profile, wondering if he knew he was in the running yet.
“About the whole afternoon, what Bob said, I’d like to catch the 3:10 train to Rhinecliff, so I’m home for supper.”
So, Jon didn’t live in the metro area, would be commuting from one of the small towns up north, a ways up north. He probably had a family, which was almost as much of a career advantage to men as it was an obstacle to women.
“Can I say I’m relieved?” Kate cringed. That didn’t come out of her mouth right. Did she still harbor whatever it was that had always pressed her to get a dig in when she was with Jon?
Jon raised an eyebrow, an action that made his face even more stare-worthy than it already was.
“I have a lot of work on my desk and …” She faltered. “And I keep feeling like I need to apologize for the way I treated you in high school.”
“No need for apologies. You didn’t treat me any differently than a lot of the other kids in our class, better than most of the ones in your group. Besides that was 15 years ago. We were kids.”
Jon’s easy acceptance didn’t make her feel any less guilty.
“Have you kept in contact with anyone from high school?” Jon asked.
Maybe his acceptance wasn’t so easy. Had he sensed her guilt and decided to play on it? She wasn’t going to let him guilt her into giving him her promotion, if that was his plan. His open expression didn’t give any hint of that.
“My first couple of years at NYU, I spent the summers at home, but once I’d escaped the family dairy farm and Genesee, I was a different person. Everyone I’d hung out with was still fixated on Genesee’s football team being bumped out of the playoffs, where the next party was, and cutting down anyone who wasn’t in our clique in high school.” Kate pressed her lips together and felt her cheeks flush in embarrassment. She sure didn’t sound any different than her old critical self. “How about you?”
“Dave Wheeler.”
Another math-science nerd, Jon had hung around with. A dullness in her chest underscored that she hadn’t been close enough to any of her high school friends for them or her to want to stay in contact.
“What’s he up to?”
“He’s a nuclear engineer out in California. I got together with him a couple of years ago when I was out there on business. Married. A couple of kids.
They reached Briarwood and Jon beat her to the door handle and held the dark wooden door open for her again.
The hostess approached them. “Are you here for lunch?” she asked before leading them to a corner table for two.
Kate pulled out her seat before Jon could, somehow needing to do that. “And you? Do you have a family?” She picked up the menu that she already knew by heart.
“Only if you count my grandfather as my kid, which is on mark a lot of the time. He had a stroke nine months ago. I left Boston to stay with him at his farm outside of Rhinecliffe, while he recuperated.”
“That’s why you left the private equity firm?” She placed her menu on the table.
“It was the excuse I needed to leave. While I love the mathematical challenges of financial management, I don’t love the stress and cutthroat atmosphere of large financial services companies. Just give me some numbers to play around with and leave me to them, and I’m a happy camper.” Jon grinned
Kate leaned back in her seat and tapped her splayed fingers to the table, remembering their shared love of math all through school and how in her quest for popularity in high school, she’d downplayed it with everyone but Jon.
No Time for Temptation: No Brides Club, Book 4 Page 16