by Jane Porter
"Is he married?"
She shook her had swiftly. "No."
"Has he taken advantage of you?"
She couldn't help blushing. "No. No, it's not like that. The problem is, he doesn't know I exist while I…I-"
"You what?"
"I'm crazy about him." She averted her head, wishing she could just crawl into some city manhole and hide. "Hopelessly crazy."
"That does sound bad."
"It is," she answered huskily, her voice breaking.
She could feel his gaze rest on her, felt what seemed to be sympathy, and she didn't want it from him. "Which is why I started looking for a new job. I knew this wasn't working out and I thought change was necessary. I thought it'd be wise to put some distance between us."
Mr. Grady looked troubled. "But if he doesn't know...?"
"It doesn't matter if he knows or not, I know. I know when he's here. I listen for his footsteps, for his voice, for everything." She bit her lip, fought for control. "But it's too painful. I can't do this anymore."
He studied her for a long silent moment and then shook his head. "Fine. Tell me his name and I'll fire him."
Winnie nearly fell off her chair. "Mr. Grady!"
"I'm not going to let one of my most valuable staff members ruin her career."
"You can't blame him!"
"I don't. But I'm also not going to stand by and watch you walk out because some guy here is knocking around your heart. If you can't stand coming to work because Mr. Heartbreak works here, then give me his name and let's get this over with."
She couldn't believe he was serious. He'd fire someone because she wasn't happy here anymore? "You can't be serious."
"He'll get an excellent severance package."
"Mr. Grady!"
"And the best references."
"No."
"I want his name."
"No." Her phone rang and she looked at the handset where the number and name of the caller flashed. "It's Shipley's Bank again," she said, heart hammering, hands shaking and yet incredibly grateful for the interruption.
"His name, Winnie."
Her phone rang again. She tensed, muscles tightening everywhere. When the phone rang a third time she couldn't keep silent. "I'm going to answer. Do you want to take the call or should I take a message?"
He didn't say a word, his dark blue gaze locked with hers. He didn't look angry as much as determined, jaw jutted, expression intense.
Winnie reached for the phone, "Mr. Grady's office, may I help you?"
He gave his head a slow shake and mouthed the words, "This isn't over, Winnie," before returning to his office.
He remained sequestered in his office on the call with Shipley's Bank for nearly two hours before leaving directly for a meeting across town.
After he left, Winnie let out a long sigh of relief. She'd been sitting on pins and needles the past two hours and wanted nothing more than to get a break herself. She opted for a rare luxury-lunch out, heading down the street to her favorite deli two blocks away.
But not even a lunch out could erase her worry.
Business and pleasure didn't mix. Careers were destroyed over office romances. It'd be disastrous for her to remain at Grady Investments much longer. She felt it in every bone of her body.
Winnie walked slowly back to the Tower's building, trying to ignore her reflection in the mirror-glass building fronts but it was impossible to deny the black glasses, beige blouse, hair scraped back from her face which screamed, uptight. Make that uptight, unsatisfied virgin.
Yes, an uptight, unsatisfied virgin. That's exactly what she'd become.
Winnie stopped and stared at her reflection and hated what she saw. This wasn't her. This isn't how she felt on the inside. On the inside she was madly passionate, daring beyond measure. On the inside she wanted everything and was willing to risk all-
On the inside.
There lay the problem. No one knew about Winnie on the inside. No one saw the fun side, or adventurous side of her. No, she kept that side buttoned down and pressed back because once upon a time she decided if she wasn't going to be popular and sexy and fashionable then she damn well better get respect.
Respect. Aagh! Respect was fine for seventy-year-old matriarchs, but she was twenty-five. She had no social life. No dates. No romance. No wonder.
Impatiently Winnie reached up and undid the top button of her stiff blouse. She didn't want to be uptight. She didn't want to be unsatisfied. She didn't want to go through life without ever experiencing anything.
Winnie unbuttoned the next button. Checked her reflection again. Still boring, still a virgin, still really, really not sexy. And let's face it, two buttons unfastened on a beige blouse were not exactly a makeover. What she needed was a miracle. What she wanted was a life-changing experience.
She'd give up everything, she thought, if for one week-no, make that a month-she could look like Tiffany from the sixty-third floor. Sexy, curvy, sensual. A woman that made men hot. A woman that made men melt.
Crossing the lobby Winnie's sensible heels clicked loudly on the floor. She pressed the elevator up button and waited. A moment later the elevator doors opened. People streamed out. Winnie stepped back to let the others pass. As she moved out of the way, Tiffany Saunders grabbed Winnie's arm.
"Hey," Tiffany cried, latching onto Winnie's sleeve as if they were life-long friends. "I just heard the news. It must be nuts upstairs!"
"What news?"
"About Morgan Grady. News Weekly's Man of the Year. Isn't it incredible?"
Winnie blinked blankly. "But Mr. Morgan isn't Man of the Year, he was Sexiest Man-"
"No, no. This just happened. The magazine doesn't hit the stands until tomorrow but it was announced on the noon news broadcast today. The media are everywhere. They're swarming upstairs-" Tiffany broke off, eyes widening. "You didn't know? Where've you been?"
Winnie's throat dried. "Out to lunch."
"Well, honey, you better check in because your Morgan Grady is Man of the Year."
The express elevator to the seventy-eighth floor always left Winnie's stomach at her feet, and today was worse than ever.
Stepping off the elevator, she walked into a frenzied sea of reporters and carefully picked her way through the crowd to the reception desk. The young receptionist at the front desk, flagged Winnie down. "Thank God you're here," the receptionist choked. "They won't go away and they just keep arriving and I don't know what to do."
"They're here for Mr. Grady?"
"Yes. It's about the Man of the Year award. The phones keep ringing-" She was interrupted by the telephone and her face crumpled as she sat down again to take the call.
Winnie sized up the crowd. Tiffany was right. It was bedlam in here. Every reporter from every paper and TV station must have a representative in the reception area.
Poor Mr. Grady.
The receptionist hung up the phone. "So what do I do, Winnie? How do I get rid of them?"
"Tell them he's not here."
"I did, but they don't care. They won't leave. They want Mr. Grady and they're going to stay until he arrives.”
Winnie recognized the stricken look on the poor girl's face and her conscience pricked her. She couldn't leave this eighteen-year-old from Nebraska to deal with this snapping, yapping throng. The journalists had been kept waiting for over an hour and they were impatient, hungry, and doing a very good imitation of a pack of wild dogs.
She also knew how Mr. Grady would hate returning to face this crowd. He'd never sought out the media, had never wanted to be a poster boy for the gorgeous and eligible. He routinely declined interviews, shunned society events, donated anonymously instead of funding charities publicly.
In the last six months she'd witnessed firsthand how the media hounded him. Board meetings, morning runs in Central Park, and dinner dates were nothing more than photo ops for the determined press. Just last week a reporter with a microphone jumped out from a stall in the men's washroom in hopes of g
etting a good sound bite for the evening's news.
Morgan Grady was a hunted man.
Winnie felt a wave of loyalty, laced with pity. Facing the noisy throng she put two fingers in her mouth and whistled. The piercing sound silenced the crowd. "Thank you," Winnie said briskly. "Now is there something I can do for you all or are you here applying for a job?"
Winnie's question drew some reluctant laughs and the crowd jostled closer. "Is Morgan Grady here?" one reporter shouted above the rest.
"No, he is not," she answered.
"Where is he now?"
Winnie crossed her arms over her chest. "In a conference across town."
"Does he know he's been selected News Weekly's Man of the Year?"
Winnie's eyebrows arched. "What do you think?"
The crowd laughed again. Another reporter stepped forward. "When do you expect him back?"
"Not until you're gone."
And they laughed harder, real chuckles mixed with mock groans. Winnie couldn't help smiling back, realizing that some of the tension in the reception area had finally dissipated. For the first time in days she felt as though she'd finally done something right.
Just then, from the corner of her eye, she saw the elevator doors slide open and inside the gleaming paneled elevator stood Morgan Grady.
Her heart lurched.
His gaze met hers and held. Her smile faded and she felt the most intense longing for all the things she'd never had, for all the passion she'd never known. What impossible desires, she thought, what painful impossible dreams.
She shook her head slightly, a nearly imperceptible shake that only Morgan noticed. You don't want to get off here, she tried to tell him. You don't want to go through this now.
Morgan remained inside the elevator and the doors slid soundlessly closed.
He'd escaped.
CHAPTER FIVE
HE'D escaped.
Morgan let himself into his Fifth Avenue
apartment and shut the door behind him. A row of extravagant floral arrangements crowded the marble-topped eighteenth-century mahogany sideboard with dolphin feet. Those were new.
He scanned the florist envelopes, reluctant to open any of them. He could guess who'd sent the arrangements and he could imagine the sentiment expressed. It wasn't that he didn't appreciate the support-it was wonderful to have such a loving family-but he didn't feel celebratory.
How ironic that a big day like this should leave him cold. He hated the fuss. Didn't know how to internalize success like this.
The phone began to ring and Morgan started to move, but stopped as he heard Mr. Foley, butler and chef, answer it. Mr. Foley was taking a message, murmuring thanks and saying goodbye.
The phone rang almost immediately again, and then the doorbell chimed.
Morgan closed his eyes, pressed a fist to the middle of his forehead, and wished he were anywhere but here. Most people would have loved the honor News Weekly bestowed on him today, but it was the last thing Morgan needed. He couldn't bear to be the focus of so much attention. The hype reminded him too much of where he'd been.
The doorbell chimed a second time.
He had to get out of the limelight, had to do something soon. But first, the door.
Morgan opened the door, accepted an even more lavish bouquet, a huge crystal vase filled with lilies and orchids. There was no room left on the crowded table and Morgan set the vase down on the limestone floor.
Mr. Foley appeared in the doorway. He wore a dark suit, white shirt, dark tie, all very crisp and formal. "Congratulations, sir."
Morgan struggled to smile as he nodded his thanks but the smile never came. He hadn't felt this lonely in years. "Thank you, Mr. Foley."
The butler bowed. "Can I get you a drink, sir? A celebratory champagne, perhaps?"
"Gin and tonic is fine."
"Of course, sir. And congratulations again, sir."
No, lonely wasn't the right word, Morgan thought, correcting himself as he glanced around his expansive entry hall, teeming with flowers and the overpowering sweetness of lilies. He wasn't lonely. He felt alone. It was a subtle, but significant, difference.
It was a difference that continued to haunt him hours later as he lay in bed. How had he become this larger than-life figure?
He wasn't a cool, sophisticated playboy, nor was he Wall Street's Boy Genius and he hated the cult of personality. The Morgan Grady the media glorified had never existed. He saw what they saw-Ivy League schools, gorgeous girlfriends, tremendous wealth. On
paper, he looked good. In an Italian suit, he looked even better. But scratch a little at the surface polish, peek beneath the diplomas, the social life, the tailored suit, and he was Morgan O'Connell, Big Mike's terrified kid, a kid so desperate to escape his neighborhood that he took all kinds of jobs to get him off the street and away from the fighting.
He'd folded newspapers at four in the morning, delivered them on his bike at five, collected payments from the high-class neighborhoods in the afternoon. When he'd finished delivering papers, he collected beer bottles and Coke cans, and then started mowing lawns. He'd made up flyers and pasted them on bulletin boards, stuck them in mailboxes, pushed them under people's doors.
Morgan O'Connell. Yardwork, Painting, Cleaning, Odd Jobs. Excellent work at cheap prices. References available. Will work after school and every weekend.
Anything for a buck.
Anything to escape the decrepit building called home. Anything to avoid Big Mike's mean temper and quick fist.
Eyes burning, Morgan grabbed his pillow, and turned over on his stomach. The sheet slipped low on his hip, leaving his torso bare.
The Gradys helped him leave his old neighborhood behind, and he'd made enough bucks now to ensure financial security. But he still didn't feel as if he’d made it. And work, which had been his safest haven, had become a nightmare. How to do this? How to continue like this? How to be someone he wasn't?
Closing his eyes, he rested his cheek on the cool cotton pillowcase. But with his eyes closed he saw a dark shape, and the shape became a squiggly black-green tattoo on Big Mike's arm. Wouldn't the press love to know that Morgan Grady was really Morgan O'Connell from Roxbury, not Beacon Hill?
Charlotte had found out and look what had happened.
She'd hadn't just left him. She'd run away.
Morgan couldn't do this anymore. Rose had said to throw the media a bone, to give them a story. A story ...
Morgan Grady gets married.
Morgan Grady no longer a bachelor.
No longer sexy, now just a boring old married man ... a very boring Morgan Grady.
Morgan took a deep breath and the pressure in his chest began to ease. He'd get married, get away from the hype, get back to being just a regular guy.
And it came to him as the tension melted, that he knew the perfect woman, knew the most sensible, practical woman who handled the press with ease, could manage his schedule, and already knew his many foibles-Winnie.
She'd been the best damn secretary. She'd be the best damn wife.
****
In the end, Winnie went to the interview at Osborne Manufacturing. It didn't seem right to cancel at the last minute and she thought she'd be smart to keep some avenues open. But while Mr. Osborne was just as nice in person as he'd been on the phone, Winnie knew the life she wanted wasn't in Charleston. The life she wanted was on Wall Street in downtown Manhattan, and just thinking of Morgan made her heart jump, more pain than pleasure in the swift rush of emotion.
On the late flight from Charleston to New York, Winnie plucked the pins from her chignon, freeing her hair. It fell past her shoulders in a heavy tumble.
The plane touched down in one big bump. Drooping a little in her taupe suit, she filed out with the other passengers, hair still loose, her travel bag dangling from her shoulder.
She'd kill for a long soak in the tub, followed by a pint of Rocky Road
ice cream. No, make that a half gallon. To hell with her diet. D
iets didn't work anyway. All the experts said so.
Wearily, she moved with the crowd through the terminal until she reached the curb, searching past the whizzing cars and buses for an available taxi.
"Need a lift?"
Him, it was him. Winnie half closed her eyes, thinking she'd never grow tired of that voice, never grow tired of the rich husky inflection. Air catching in her throat she turned around.
"Hello, Morg- Mr. Grady." It was the first time she'd slipped like that. Must have been the glass of wine she'd had on the plane on the way back.
