“You’re going to figure out what’s wrong and fix it.”
Fix it. Yeah, just fix it, Ash.
It sounded so easy, so completely staring-her-in-the-face easy. So why couldn’t she figure it out? Forcefully Ashley hacked off another square before handing the cheese to her sister. “Why don’t the women of Chicago realize that not only am I providing non-cookie-cutter clothes at a decent price, but by shopping at Ashley’s Closet, they are contributing to the livelihood of struggling fashion designers everywhere?”
Val shrugged. “You could have a sale. A big sample sale thing.”
“Sales, schmales,” mocked Ashley, sawing furiously again.
“Tell me how you really feel.”
“I need something pizzazzy, jazzy.”
“You’ll find it. You’ve got jazz.”
I need jazz.
Ashley watched as Val popped a cube of swiss into her mouth, glad to see her sister’s confidence level back to normal.
Val was a fast-spinning top that could fall off with only a word, a look, or a doubt. Unlike most people, when Val tipped over, it wasn’t minutes or hours before she got up, it was weeks and months. It was Ashley’s job to make sure she didn’t tip.
“What’s your schedule tomorrow?” Ashley asked.
“Seven to three. Why?”
“I’ve got a lot of catch-up to do at the stores. The Lakeview manager isn’t returning messages, so God only knows what disaster will befall when I walk in the door. You won’t see much of me. You and Mom have Brianna covered?”
“Yeah. We’re good.”
“Night, sis,” said Ashley.
“Night.” Quietly she took the last bit of cheese, then flicked off the light. Ashley could hear the soft sounds of Val padding down the carpeted hall behind her, and she ended the night the same way she always did.
“Val, I’m proud of you.”
“As you should be.”
Ashley smiled.
ONCE IN BED, Ashley pulled out The Card. She should have slipped him hers as well. But no, she didn’t, she’d been cowardly, and because of that, if she wanted to ever see him again, it was all up to her
Ash, you go to Manhattan lots of times. Go see that new designer on the Lower East Side. You’ve been dying to see his work. This is your chance.
And what was the polite time frame to call up a man, whom you expressly told that it would be a mistake to see again?
There was no statute of limitations on a booty call.
He truly did have a fine booty.
Her hands curled and uncurled like a happy kitten because she could remember the feel of that firm piece of flesh under her fingertips, remembered the pleasuring fill of his thick sex. Now that was jazz. And no, she wasn’t completely cheap and shallow. She liked him. He made her comfortable with herself. With everything, really.
That was the pull of one David McLean. He wasn’t exotic, or vain, or some slutty billionaire.
He was, quite simply, the man she wanted.
Ashley stared at the card, recalling how his voice whispered against her ear, and she knew. That was it. Decision made. She’d set up an appointment in New York. Then she would call him, and if things were meant to proceed, he’d be ready, willing and available.
A long-distance affair.
Decadent.
Her mouth curved up at the corner, and all that night she dreamed of David.
THE LAKEVIEW STORE was a wreck. Her manager had quit, one salesgirl was late and the strapless smocked sundresses were priced twenty percent lower than what she paid for them. It was enough to make a weaker woman cry. But not Ashley, not this time. She was still flying high on the aftershocks of great sex.
For the next week, Ashley worked eighteen-hour days to get the store back in order. Her first instinct was to promote the lead sales associate to manager, but honestly, that wasn’t smart and she knew it, so she caved and put a Help Wanted sign in the window. Forty-eight hours later, she’d hired a new manager, a gum-popping twentysomething named Sophie, who didn’t meet her eyes all the time, but her resumé was good, and she wore a great vintage Halston to the interview. That alone was enough to get her the job.
By the middle of the week, the Lakeview store was in better shape, and the Naperville, State Street and Wicker Park stores were holding their own. She was ready to make the call. It was late on a Wednesday that she decided to do it because she worried about whether he’d be alone on a Friday, or whether a Monday morning call seemed too needy. And what if he slept in late on Sundays?
Thankfully, he picked up on the first ring.
“Hello.”
“David? It’s Ashley,” she told him, praying that he wouldn’t ask, “Ashley-who?”
“Hi,” he said, completely the perfect response.
“I’m going to be in New York.”
“When?”
“Two weeks. If you’re not busy…”
Don’t be busy. If you’re busy, I’m never going to call a man again in my life. Ever.
Don’t be dramatic, Ash.
Shut up, Val.
“Not busy. We’ll get dinner. Or a show. Or does that sound too normal? We don’t have to do normal. You can stay here if you want. I’ve got space.”
“No. I’m booking a room,” she answered firmly, not the frugal answer, which was part of her problem, but hotels were dim, mysterious, sinful. Apartments were warm, homey and mundane. And if she found herself settling into his warm, homey and mundane, what would happen to all that smoking-hot passion? Would it disappear, as if it had never existed?
Not going to happen. She liked this smoking-hot passion. She was going to keep it.
“Is your hotel near the airport?”
Ashley tried not to laugh, but failed. “No.”
“Good. How’s work?”
“Not so good. But I’m optimistic.”
“Much better than defeatist.”
“Probably.”
She thought about all the other things she could say, but they sounded neither exciting, nor affairish, so she elected to hold her tongue. “I should go now,” she told him.
“Call me when you get in. Have a good flight, don’t forget to pack your bunny slippers, and Ashley—”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks for calling.”
“Anytime,” she answered, before quickly hanging up.
5
THE FRIENDLY SKIES were extinct, along with dinosaurs, cheap interest rates and the commitment to customer service. The next week David flew fifteen thousand pain-filled miles to Portland, Houston, Seattle and two trips to DC. In the process, he discovered that the plastics company in Portland was running dangerously low on working capital, the oil services company in Houston was ripe for a friendly buyout and the people who worked in government had zero people skills. As he was waiting on the tarmac to head back to New York, Christine called.
“I’m sorry about your meeting. I debated a long time to call, kept hoping that you would call, but you didn’t, so I decided I should. It would mean a lot to me, and Chris, too, if you could come and visit.”
David eyed the air-sickness bag, felt the aftertaste of hard feelings rise in his throat and in the end politely opted to spare his fellow passengers excessive hurling noises. He was thirty-four, not four. “I’ll try,” he lied.
“Maybe you can reschedule the meeting. He misses you. He’s your only brother.”
Sucks, dude. I feel your pain.
“They’re telling us to shut off all electronic devices, Christine. I need to hang up.”
“David, you don’t have to be like this.”
Because he was exactly like that, David hung up.
IT WAS A WEDNESDAY afternoon at the start of earnings season, and the offices of Brooks Capital were humming with closing-bell guesses and bets and gossip and shadow numbers that were most likely pulled from someone’s ass. David’s office was on the forty-seventh floor, one below the executive floor, but he wasn’t worried. His boss l
iked him. He liked his boss. Things were proceeding nicely. And nowhere else but Brooks Capital could he learn from the best of the best, Andrew and Jamie Brooks.
There were three monitors on his desk, one green screen to monitor the markets, one open to e-mail and the last was his latest work in progress, Portland Plastics. Market recommendation: Hold.
The door opened, and his boss, Jamie Brooks, walked in, perching herself on the desk, high heels swinging to an unknown beat.
“You have the latest on Houston Field Works?” she asked coolly.
Without missing a step, David handed over the folder. It was a test. She liked to test him, see if he was ever at a loss. He hadn’t failed yet. “Anything else?” he asked confidently.
Jamie opened it, skimming over the introductory fluff, jumping right to the bottom line. “You’re going to Omaha on Friday?” she asked, not looking up from the words, her expression an unreadable blank. David still wasn’t worried.
“I’ll be there.” Nebraska was the home to an alternative energy company that was close to going public. On paper, they looked good. But David’s job was to visit, kick the tires, peek under the hood and in general, see if the hype was worth it.
“Good,” she said, and then closed the folder with a snap. “You’re in for the pool on the Mercantile Financials report?”
David pulled a crisp c-note from his pocket. “Down ten-point-one percent.”
She stared at him with appraising eyes. “Gutsy.”
He shrugged modestly.
“Andrew says up three-point-four,” she remarked. Andrew was Jamie’s husband. The Man. Capital T, capital M.
In the last seven years, David had followed Andrew’s every move. When Andrew opened his own fund, David jumped at the chance to follow. When the market had put most hedge fund managers out on the street dancing for nickels, Brooks Capital had not only survived, but they were also still turning the same solid returns year after year. Andrew was as thorough and methodical as David, and he was usually right. Andrew Brooks made his reputation on being right. This time, however, Andrew Brooks was wrong.
“He’s too high,” David told her, perhaps more confidently than he should, but he’d done his homework, and he had a feeling. You always did your research, always gleaned over every piece of data available, but when push came to shove, bet on your instincts.
Not taking her eyes off David, Jamie slid the bill back and forth through her fingertips, thinking, considering, wondering if David could beat the master. Eventually she broke down and laughed. “Breaking from the crowd. I like it.”
During his first days on the job at Brooks Capital, Jamie had intimidated David, but then one afternoon he had brought her a report on a waste management company in Dallas, and she’d pointed out the one tiny, yet deal-breaking detail that he’d missed. At first, he’d been all pissed and thought there was no way that she could be right, until that night, when his cooler head prevailed, and he went over his numbers, and holy shit, she was correct. Since then, she’d earned his respect in spades.
“We’ll see who knows better,” she said, still doubting him, but he didn’t mind. Jamie provided a novel perspective in the male-dominated world of finance. And currently, that was exactly what he needed. A novel female perspective.
“Can I ask you something?”
“Shoot.”
“Do you know fashion, you know, the business side—what makes a company work, what makes it not work, what women like in clothes?”
The swinging high heel froze. “Broadening your horizons into fashion?” she asked, coughing discreetly. “Brave and not afraid of the stereotypes. Definitely gutsy.”
“What do you know?” he asked, battling forward, even though he was deathly afraid of stereotypes.
“Driven by trends at the high end. At the mid-level, it’s more about the classics and originality, and at the low end of the spectrum, it’s nothing but trendy knockoffs and bargain-basement prices. What are you interested in?”
David thought over Ashley’s travel attire and took a guess. “Mid-level. So, classics and originality are the drivers?”
Jamie nodded. “It’s the America’s Next Top Designer mentality. Women don’t like to wear something that someone else is wearing. We’re very territorial about fashion.”
“America’s Next Top Designer?”
“Television show. Ratings up ten percent on an annual basis, three years running. They’ve launched four successful designers, one not-so-successful designer, but I think that’s because of his crappy designs. The guy was a certified disaster area.”
His face assumed the requisite manly look of horror. “A show about sewing?”
“You have to watch. It’s a train wreck, but a fun one. Why the interest?” she asked.
“It’s for a friend. She’s got these clothing boutiques, and is having some issues. I thought I could give her some advice. Try and figure out what’s going wrong.” Next week Ashley would be in New York, and he wanted to understand the fashion industry, help her determine what problems could be fixed, and also have his wicked way with her eight ways to Sunday. It was a big assignment, but not impossible. It might mean watching reality TV. It might mean learning what was hot on the female clothing market. He would survive. Probably. Hopefully.
“This is all for a she?” asked Jamie, quirking one perfectly arched brow, just as David’s e-mail window popped into sight, indicating an unread e-mail had arrived.
David, I would love to meet you. I’m nineteen, which is younger than what you requested in your profile, but it’s a mature nineteen…
He inched his shoulders forward, blocking the view, blocking the view…not quite blocking the view from his boss.
Jamie glanced at the now-fading window, then glanced pointedly at David. He elected to stay silent. It seemed the prudent thing to do.
“Dating again?”
He shrugged in a completely noncommittal, I-don’t-want-to-talk-about-my-private-life manner.
She didn’t take the hint. “I think it’s a good thing. You should have done this a long time ago. I have some friends—”
“No,” he answered quickly.
His boss shook her head, then smiled. “All right. Have it your way. But if you change your mind, I swear, they’re all nice women.”
David pulled another hundred out of his pocket, mainly to divert her. “Give me another hundred on Mercantile Financial.”
She took the bill, clearly not fooled by the diversionary tactic, but gave him a pass, because Jamie was nice like that. “More courage, sport. And Andrew’s going to kick your ass, but you’re brave. I like it.”
Once Jamie left, David wiped the wayward sweat from his brow and opened the offending e-mail.
Dating. He could feel the perspiration pooling at his neck. After the night with Ashley, he’d thought he was ready for this, she’d told him he was ready for this, but…this was wrong. It felt wrong. It felt…idiotic. David never liked feeling like an idiot, but after he saw the picture, the idiot feelings got worse.
Oh, yes, there was a picture. It was a picture that men—cheap, goaty bastards that they all were—would jump all over. Totally not safe for work. She was pert, all right. Too pert. There was no meat in those breasts. No experience, no…Stop, he thought, stop now. He minimized the window, opting for a safer, more calming spreadsheet.
Right then, his cell phone rang, saving his cheap and goaty ass. Was it boneheaded to stare at a topless picture of a willing nineteen-year-old from Brooklyn while wishing his caller ID said Chicago? Probably.
“Yeah,” he answered.
“David?”
“That’s me.”
“It’s Martina. From I-Heart-You.com. They said you okayed the call.”
David closed his eyes. Courage. He only needed courage. He could do this. “Yeah, I remember you,” he mumbled, trying to remember. “Female…twenty-seven.”
“Twenty-four.”
“And a…lawyer?” he guessed.
> “Editor.”
“Oh, sure. Only a second ago I got off the phone with a lawyer. My mind can be like a black hole sometimes. Too many late nights,” he rambled on, wincing.
“I wanted to call and chat. See what you sound like.”
What he sounded like? What was that about? He had a voice. An average voice. And now what was he supposed to say? “Yeah. This is what I sound like.”
And who was this Martina anyway?
“You work on Wall Street?”
“Yeah,” he repeated, exactly as an idiot would.
“I like that. It must be very exciting.”
David glanced at the green screen, then at his report, and frowned. “Thrilling.” After a long, panicked moment, he realized he was supposed to add to the conversation. “So, why a dating service? Do you meet any…good guys this way?”
“They’re all better than my ex. The man was a pig. Cheated on me once, but I stayed strong. Kicked him right out of my life.”
And what could he say to that? His panicked eyes shot to the Dow, searching for some constant, some bit of normalcy.
The market was down three hundred for the day. It seemed only fitting. “Sorry. Want to have lunch?”
“Love to. I’m in midtown. Tomorrow?”
“Can’t.” David checked his calendar, looked at the open day next week and frowned. He didn’t want to do this, he really didn’t want to do this. But it was time to man up, move forward and get back on track. “Next Wednesday? April twenty-second. Noon?”
“Love to,” she told him.
Good God. He had a date.
IN ALL THERE WERE four mindless dates. One Kim, one Pam and two Ashleys, who sadly, were nothing like the original. Oh, the women were all nice enough, hot enough, but there was no zing, no bam. Just a feeling that he was reading a magazine, looking at pretty pictures, and there were no articles with the pictures. Ashley had been wrong, telling him to try a dating service. He’d known she’d been wrong, but he felt a strong urge to go through with her suggestion, if for the sole purpose of being able to tell her she was wrong when he saw her again.
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