Lindsey steeled herself. She couldn’t take this again. Once was too much. “Remember that Friday four years ago when I went to work and came home to find all your stuff gone except for a scrap of sketch paper with a note on it telling me how sorry you were?”
“I still am sorry.”
The doors opened and Lindsey dove through them. She fished her keycard out of her pocket even though her door was halfway down the hall. “I didn’t even know there was anything wrong. You didn’t give me a chance.”
“I know. After I left, I knew what I’d lost. I knew I needed to try and get you back. It just took me a while.”
Lindsey stopped at the door she fervently hoped was hers. Her vision was too blurry to check the number even if she remembered it. She shoved the card into the slot, and the door unlocked. “That explains all the letters and flowers you’ve sent over the years trying to apologize. Or maybe that was one of the other guys who’ve so spectacularly dumped me. Oh wait, there was only the one. You.” She pushed the door open and stepped inside. “Go away, Kent. It’s too late. Way too late.”
* * * *
Kent flinched when the door clicked closed in his face. He knew she’d wanted to slam it and wished she’d been able to. It might have helped burn out a little more of her anger. Her very appropriate anger. If he hadn’t been such a coward four and a half years ago, he’d have been on her doorstep with the flowers and the apologies that would have worked then. Inside the room, he could hear her sobbing. He pressed his hands against the door, wishing he could somehow get inside to comfort her. But no, he’d messed up big time. He’d assumed she would give him a minute to talk so he could tell her what he’d done to make amends.
He should have known better. Actually, he had. Time for Plan B.
Kent looked at his watch. He had an appointment to keep and an invitation to finagle before seven o’clock. And he should stay out of Lindsey’s way until the close of the Con today. He didn’t want her sneaking out of the publisher party before he caught her.
* * * *
Lindsey observed the party from a carefully constructed distance. After Kent destroyed her reserve this morning, she’d hid in her room until lunch, for which she felt terribly guilty. As a rule, editors did not have fans, but she did, and her fans had been haunting the booth all morning waiting for her to return. She’d spent all afternoon talking with them and reviewing portfolios to make up for her absence this morning. Her fans had been very kind. For a bunch of radical feminists-in-training, they were very sympathetic to her man problems.
Or rather her problem man.
He had not reappeared, but she knew better than to think he’d just given up. This was a feint. He would be back tomorrow. But tonight she was safe. This was a publisher party for company people. Kent was no longer a company person.
“So are you going to tell me what happened this morning?” Amy whispered.
Amy had not been her assistant four years ago. She hadn’t even worked for the publisher yet. But Lindsey knew Amy had heard stories from the other women in the office. The men seemed to have forgotten about the broken relationship in her meteoric rise to power. The women attributed her rise to the break up. No one talked to her about it. Too dangerous. Lindsey supposed that would change now. Especially if he came to the office.
“My ex showed up. That’s all.”
“It didn’t look like that was all. I’ve never seen you get that crazy before. Not even when Fed Ex lost the pencils for that issue last year.”
Lindsey raised one eyebrow at her assistant, pleased that she could maintain her cool. “I threatened to rip the Fed Ex VP’s heart out.”
“Yes, but you weren’t shouting when you did it,” Amy pointed out. “It’s me, remember?”
Lindsey considered her options. She’d kept her work and personal life strictly separate after Kent left. His leaving had torn such gaping wounds, she never wanted to be in that position again. But that meant all her friends were too far away to be much comfort right now. “Kent and I lived together for a year, but one day I went to work, and he moved all his stuff out before I came home.”
“Ouch.”
“That fits the situation as well as anything else.” Lindsey took a deep drink from her glass. She’d wanted alcohol tonight, but with all the emotion in the air, she’d been afraid of the consequences, so she'd ordered ginger ale. If she’d joined up with bar-Con like she’d wanted to, she’d most likely wake up in Brad’s bed and spend the next four years making up for that. On a positive note, that would keep him from sniffing around Amy. Just because she was wound up about Kent didn’t mean she was oblivious to the looks darting between the two of them. Brad was one person she felt obligated to keep away from her rather naïve assistant.
“Did he say why he left?”
“Some bull story about not being the man I needed.”
Amy groaned. “I hate that. You know, just give me a real reason already. Gary said you were, uh, different when you were with Kent.”
“Different?” Lindsey asked, even though she could guess the exact words Gary used to describe her personality now. One of them was five letters long and started with B.
Amy flushed and stammered. “You know Gary. He’s still mad about losing the Eisner award.”
Lindsey sighed, checking her watch. Two more hours of chaperoning her assistant before she could go back to her room. She felt stared at. A young woman with a lit candle on her headpiece sat down at the table near her and started laying out a tarot reading for the wife of one of the artists. At least the food was good this year. The last time she’d attended, they’d been at some sports-themed place and the food all tasted like it had once been used in play.
“So you were really once, um, attached to the Kent Farrington.”
“The late great.” She held up her glass in a mock toast.
“Oh, he’s still around,” Amy murmured.
“In fact, he’s right here,” a voice said behind her.
Lindsey whipped around so fast that half her drink ended up on her hand. Kent leaned on a post three feet away, dressed in black jeans and a black brocade vest. He looked downright sinful. That explained the feeling of being watched.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
Chapter 2
“I’m a guest.” Kent grinned. The expression seemed to crackle across his face. He'd anticipated anger and accepted it as penance, but this was much harder to do in person than it had been to plan. Now, in the middle of it, he wasn't sure he had the guts to carry it out.
“Of whom?”
“Oh I can’t tell you that or you, my Queen of Hearts, would just yell, ‘Off with their heads.’ Tell me, could you really get an army of playing cards to do your bidding? Or would you just appropriate hers?” Kent gestured to the tarot reader.
Kent noticed the woman look up in alarm, and silently apologized for dragging her into this. So far so good. He needed to get Lindsey worked up beyond reason. Her white hot fury could translate to red hot passion in the bat of an eyelash. And once she burned herself out, she would listen.
If he didn’t break first.
This morning, seeing her in the convention center with her hair twisted up in a way that just about begged him to pull it down, his whole body had tightened. As he’d walked down the aisle to the booth, he’d been caught in a time warp and imagined that four years ago he hadn’t chickened out on the best thing in his life. How she managed to be so damn hot in jeans, a crisp white blouse and a black velvet blazer, he couldn’t fathom, but he hadn’t been at all surprised when he couldn’t keep his hands off her for five whole minutes. She made the competition’s booth bait look like yesterday’s mealworms.
But as he’d gotten closer, he’d heard the sharpness in her voice and noticed her blouse was buttoned all the way up. Even then the hardness in her eyes surprised him. It had also done nothing for his hardness. She might still have a core of molten passion, but she was hiding it well. She’d turned i
nto a shrew. He owed a heartfelt apology to everyone in this room, everyone left behind at the office, all the artists, writers, letterers and colorists she worked with from a distance, and most of all to the sacrificial lamb sidling between them.
“Um, hello Mr. Farrington. Kent Farrington. Mr. Kent Farrington? I was, I mean I’m a big fan of you, um, your work? I was wondering, could you, um, spare a minute? To talk? To me? Um, over there?” Amy twisted her hands together until they looked like an Escher drawing. She glanced over her shoulder at Lindsey. “I’m really, um, honored to meet you. Maybe I could, ah, get you a drink?”
Kent watched Lindsey tense, ready to lunge at him if he so much as breathed in a derogatory manner at her assistant. For a New York City girl, she was as transparent as a shop window.
“The pleasure is all mine. I’m glad you like my work. I’d love to talk to you, but I have a previous engagement.” Kent took Amy’s hand and shook it. “I will be happy to chat with you tomorrow afternoon if you’re available.”
“I don’t think I will be,” Amy said. “I mean, I’ve got to work at the booth. I’m going to be busy all day, and if I don’t get to talk to you tonight I’m afraid I can’t, I can’t, I—” Amy sputtered to a stop. She looked back at Lindsey for help.
“It’s okay, Amy,” Lindsey told her. “You can have the whole day off tomorrow if you’ll keep Mr. Farrington out of my hair.”
“Would that be figurative or literal?” Kent reached past Amy toward Lindsey’s French braided hair.
Lindsey jerked backward, spilling the remainder of her drink. “Oh lovely. Now I need a refill.” She hurried around the other side of the platform, but Kent darted around and met her next to the tarot reader’s table.
“Look, it’s your turn,” he exclaimed, grinning at the awkward youth who had been about to sit down. The kid, who penciled two of the company's least selling books, conceded to Kent's and held out the chair. Kent slapped a twenty on the table. “Here, do the whole shebang, past, future, Freudian slips.”
“I don’t want to do this. I’m sticky,” Lindsey hissed as he pushed her into the seat.
“Mmm, good,” Kent whispered against her ear. “I like you that way.”
Lindsey was still vibrating from Kent’s lips so close to her flesh when the tarot reader placed the cards on the table in front of her and told her to shuffle them. She wiped her hands on her jeans before picking up the cards. After they were suitably mixed, she handed them back. Kent stood behind her chair. If she leaned back, she would have a perfect gauge of whether she was affecting him the same way he was affecting her. But she also knew the rest of the room was watching them, and any movement would be ripe for dissection. Maybe she should take a few days off next week to allow them to gossip.
The tarot reader started dealing out the cards. Amy appeared at Lindsey’s elbow with a fresh ginger ale and a wet nap then she paused, watching hypnotically as the cards were dealt. The reader laid down the last card with a sharp snap that seemed to break Amy’s trance. She blanched and fled.
That couldn’t be good. Amy knew how to read tarot cards; she’d done readings at the staff Christmas party last year. Someone slid into Amy’s place, but Lindsey didn’t have the heart to check who. She couldn’t take revenge on all of them for witnessing this, and everyone but Amy had crowded around the table. She ripped open the wet nap and wiped the ginger ale off her hands.
The reader coughed. “Well, this is interesting.”
She picked up the first card. “I see here that there is a struggle caused by an old regret or a betrayal.”
“I didn’t betray anyone,” Lindsey said.
“No, but a betrayal has occurred, and there is something left to resolve. From this situation there has been worldly acclaim. But it’s been bought at the price of a tense balance because you refuse to face the real reasons for your actions.” She peered up at Lindsey. “It doesn’t necessarily mean anything. This is just for fun, you know.”
Lindsey forced herself to relax. Now she apparently had the ability to terrify total strangers. “I understand. What does the rest of it say?”
The tarot reader looked over Lindsay’s head at Kent as she reached for the next card. The card showed a couple entwined around one another, but it was upside down. Lindsey felt herself flush. “This card here usually means that you are reconsidering a hasty union, but it’s reversed.”
“What does that mean?”
“The opposite.” Her voice squeaked.
Lindsey nodded, letting the girl off the hook. Up close, she could see the tarot reader couldn’t be more than twenty-two years old. She probably spent most of her evenings doing light little readings for the diners’ entertainment while they waited for their food. Kent had asked for a full reading. Well, Lindsey would take this humiliation out of his hide later. Then she realized she was planning a later with Kent, and clenched her hands until her nails dug into her palm. “What else?”
The reader dropped the card. “In the future you will be focused on fulfilling your needs, but because you are viewed by some as a…” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “A tyrant.” Her voice rose again. “You fear having to fight through that, or maybe something else.” Her fingers strayed back to the lover’s card. “But if you do, it will mean the end of this struggle.” She tried to smile, but it came out wilted. “This really is just for entertainment.”
“Thank you,” Lindsey said, standing up. “It was entertaining.”
Her audience found pressing business elsewhere, except for one stunned looking young man whose face she didn’t recognize. He blinked when she met his eyes, then he whirled around and headed for the buffet.
Lindsey pasted a bitter smile on her face. She scooped her drink off the table and headed to a dim corner, knowing Kent would be right behind her. He’d decided on warfare and left her no options for a peaceful estrangement. She supposed she should have seen this coming since she was working at the top of his field, and he didn't seem to be working at all.
“So,” she said. “How much did you pay her to give that reading? And was the tyrant part really necessary?”
“I didn’t pay her any more than you saw. That was a genuine reading.”
“Gary put you up to it, didn’t he? It was probably his asking price for getting you into this party.” Lindsey stopped where she could observe everyone from relative privacy, but Kent stood in front of her, blocking the view.
“I had nothing to do with the way the cards fell this time.”
“Move, would you? I can’t see what’s going on.”
Kent studied her face. Cracks were developing in her bravado. She had hardened in the last four years, but the word tyrant stung her. Judging by the darkness in her eyes, the comment hit close to home. Even though Gary swore Lindsey prided herself on her ruthless reputation around the office. She took a sip from her drink. He watched the way her lips formed around the rim of the glass. She rarely wore make up. That lush red was all hers, but since he’d last seen her, their bee-stung fullness had thinned. He almost smiled, wondering how much kissing would be needed to bring it back. His body coiled at the thought of finding out. Lindsey took a step back and bumped into the wall. She tried not to show how trapped she felt, but it radiated from her.
“Why are you doing this?” she demanded with just a note of panic in her voice.
“I told you. I want you back,” he murmured, trying to be soothing. She was wounded enough now. She had to be. He couldn’t stand to torture her too much more.
“You’re looking for work, aren’t you? I noticed you haven’t had anything out in the last couple of years.” She clutched the glass in front of her with both hands. “I can call some friends and—”
“I don’t need the work. I need you.”
Lindsey bit her lip. “Don’t do this to me, Kent. It’s not fair. Not after you left me.”
Kent lifted her chin with the tips of his fingers so he could stare into her eyes. He wanted to cup her face in his hands, bu
t that would just lead to kissing her. As it was, he wanted to lean down and taste the drop of ginger ale quivering at the corner of her mouth. “Lindsey, honey, I told you I was sorry. I really couldn’t be much sorrier. If you’ll give me just a minute to explain.”
“I’m not giving you any more minutes of my life,” Lindsey snapped. “I wasted a perfectly good year on you, and then I wasted four more mourning you. Well, no more. I’m done.”
“We don’t have to be done, Lindsey Hop.” He put his other hand on the wall beside her head, trying to block her exit. A symbolic gesture. She could duck under his arm without mussing her hair. Mostly he needed his arm braced on the wall to keep from getting closer to her. He had forgotten how difficult it was to be near her without being consumed. Even when her eyes glittered with anger, he wanted to drink up her gaze. He knew if he leaned forward just a few inches he would be kissing her. Which would lead to touching her. Which would lead to carrying her off to some private place.
After which she would be furious, and he would have shot his best chance at getting her back. He needed to hold on just a little while longer. She was breaking, he could tell. “There’s something here to resolve, just like the tarot reader told you.”
“Yes. There is. I never got to tell you how much I hate you. I hate you for sneaking out the way you did. For never giving me the chance to fix whatever was wrong. And for…” Lindsey pursed her lips. Tears gathered in her eyes again. Panic rose in her chest and throat. She needed to get out of here before she locked herself in the bathroom and couldn’t come out. “Excuse me.”
Lindsey left her glass on the first table she passed on her way to the door. She could get a cab back to the hotel. Amy would have to take care of herself. No one would dare ask why she’d ducked out early. She blinked back tears.
That was part of the problem. She remembered a time when her coworkers were her dearest friends. She used to jockey to go to the conventions to visit with artists she worked with all year because they were her friends, too. Heading out for pizza after the show with a bunch of artists and eating lunch with a crew of writers. Choking up at the end of a show because it meant another year of not seeing her friends.
One Ring to Rule Page 2