Hot and Bothered

by Liz Maverick

  “I think he just heard that.”

  I glared at Anna. She gave me a sad look and put the receiver back to her ear. “Uh-huh,” Anna said. “Uh-huh. Mmm-hmmm. I’ll tell her.” My sister stood over me until I stopped working and put my head up again. “He is demanding a chance to explain himself before you leave Paris. He says he’s on his way to the apartment.”

  “Unfortunately for him, we have a video intercom which, as he well knows, allows us to see who is at the door before we open it, which means I will not open it, which means he will not have a chance to explain himself before we leave Paris. Hang up the phone, Anna.”

  Anna said something to Jack I strained to hear but couldn’t, and then she came back.

  A wave of emotion washed over me as I battled against unshed tears. “Promise me you will not engage in conversation with him again. Ever, Anna. Promise me.”

  My sister struggled for a moment and then whispered, “I promise.”

  “I’m going to do a final pass of the place to make sure we didn’t forget to pack something,” I said, finding refuge in cold efficiency.” In about three minutes we’re…” I suddenly choked on the word.

  “History,” Anna finished for me.

  I made no move to do the final pass. I stared at Anna. Anna stared at me, purse in hand then checked the time on her cell phone with wide eyes, probably because that wasn’t her usual role. “We gotta run,” she said.

  I took a deep breath and then just grabbed the handle of my suitcase.

  Yeah, gotta run.

  Chapter Ten

  “Do you have any idea why I’ve never tried to sleep with you, Cassie?” my boss asked me five minutes into our first lunch on his first day in Italy.

  Oh, dear God. That was all that came into my mind. Oh, dear God, where is this conversation going? I really love my job. I really, really don’t want to lose my job. “Um…”

  Framed by heavy oak and an eclectic selection of vintage kitchen utensils hanging on the wall behind him, Wyatt Brooks tucked into his ossobucco with more energy than I remembered him ever possessing, starving after the trip from Paris where I assume he’d met with Jack. I didn’t ask about it. Didn’t even say How was the flight, boss? I’d just launched right in with, “The interiors are in amazing shape. If you bought it, I’d recommend we keep a lot of it and do a major deep clean on what we keep. It’s very traditional but that’s okay, because the renters want the stereotype. They just want a really well-done, luxury version of it. And we can give them that.”

  My boss arched an eyebrow and said, “I’ve done enough work for the day. Let’s drink. “ I hadn’t been drinking since Paris. I figured I ought to be doing less of that, but now that he mentioned it, maybe I ought to have been doing more of that. He waved over the waiter and proceeded to use what sounded more like pig Latin than Italian to order a bottle of red wine. Not a guy who cared about appearances; whatever got the job done, got the job done.

  I wasn’t myself, not since Paris. Anna said it was like the lights had gone out. I told her I was fine, but I wasn’t. I couldn’t help rethinking everything that had gone down. I couldn’t help thinking that getting busy in a public restaurant with some random woman two nights before I left made no sense.

  Was this karma for trying to make Jack feel like his success would always be because of me? I thought it was a pretty clever way to pay Jack back because it made me look like a generous person and prevented me from doing something catastrophically stupid that would propel me out of a very lucrative circle of possible renters. I knew Brooks would appreciate me bringing this kind of business his way so it was a good way to show I was worth my salary, I’d get a finder’s fee and as a kind of bonus, Jack would always owe me, always have to think of me. So he’d have to think about how he messed up for at least as many years as I’d thought about how he’d messed up.

  Brooks was silent, waiting for an answer, and I supposed that was one answer. Because we don’t talk all that much? Because we’re rarely in the same room? I wasn’t sure why he was asking, but I was pretty sure it wasn’t because he needed validation. It wasn’t that he wasn’t attractive, because he was, in a big, hulking, not especially verbal Midwest ex-football player way, although his fashion sense was pretty terrible. Because you think one of us is gay? Because I’m not your type and you’re not mine? Because you’re my boss and we’re not that stupid? “Is this a trick question?” I finally asked.

  “Because I’ve always thought of myself as a kind of father figure to you.”

  “You’re ten years older than me, max,” I said, beginning to get really annoyed with what seemed like an overabundance of young multimillionaires around who weren’t me.

  “Are you going to eat that?” he asked, pointing at my barely touched pappardelle.

  I pushed my plate forward, and he tucked right in. “I interviewed a lot of people for your job, and you were the only one I thought to myself, I’d actually be okay hanging out with her.”

  “Well, thanks, Mr. Brooks,” I said.

  He cracked a half smile and then said, “I fucking hate travel.”

  “That’s why you usually pay me to do it for you.”

  He leaned forward, and I saw the hint of excitement in his eyes, and it suddenly occurred to me that his deadpan delivery on the phone might be hiding the sort of enthusiasm that was only visible in person. “But I figured I should see what I was putting my money on,” he continued. “You know, that Jack and I should meet.” Oh, God. He wants to talk about Jack’s hotel. Shoot me now. “And then since I bothered to come out here, I figured you and I should meet. Jack has some pretty complimentary things to say about you.”

  I blinked, confused by the lack of firm segues and clarifying nouns. Putting his money on the hotel…or me?

  “Did you stay at the new apartment?” I asked, trying to inch the conversation away from Jack without it seeming obvious.

  “Jack’s place.”

  Jack’s place? My reclusive employer who I’d seen twice so far for the year was already besties with Jack and was now staying at Jack’s place? Killing Jack with kindness was not turning out to be the kind of revenge I’d had in mind. “What?” was pretty much all I could muster.

  “Didn’t want to mess up your work. And I like having a concierge.” He drank half a glass of wine with one swallow. Not like it was on purpose. More just that he was a big guy with a big appetite and that’s just what happened whenever he took a drink. “I’m gonna do the deal.”

  “Oh! Great!” Everyone was having fun but me.

  “That’s a hell of a finder’s fee you’re gonna get,” he said, squinting at the label on the wine bottle.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Jack and I are gonna split it.”

  It was hard to concentrate on the money aspect with my boss insisting on using phrases like Jack and I. What happened to Jack and I? Why can’t he say Mr. Marchand? Monsieur Marchand. Jacques Marchand. That Marchand guy, even. Why, Mr. Brooks, why?

  My boss reached over and took my hand. The last time he’d touched me had probably been via a handshake at the beginning and end of my job interview or by accident in some really chemistry-lacking exchange of paperwork. My mouth went dry and not in a good way. Jesus Christ. He patted the top of my hand. When he said father figure please don’t let it mean he wants me to start calling him Daddy. I’m about to lose my job, aren’t I?

  “Cassie…” he began, his other hand moving to the square of wood on the bench between our seated thighs. His enormous hand grazed my bare skin where my skirt had crept up when I sat down. How badly do I need this job? And I suddenly realized, this is how a person can end up in an awkward situation not of their own choosing, trapped and trying to think their way out of it fast enough before something happens that can’t unhappen. Is this is how Jack ends up with a woman’s hand in his crotch with Anna walking by? Who was she? What was he doing with her? How badly did he think he needed investment money?

  Well, Cass. You did
n’t give him the opportunity to answer any of those questions, now, did you?

  “Cassie?”

  “Yes, Mr. Brooks?” I asked stupidly, my cheeks so hot I thought my head might combust and roll onto the floor like a flaming appetizer gone horribly wrong.

  Good ol’ Wyatt Brooks, my boss of five years, self-appointed father figure squeezed my hand and said, “Don’t be an idiot. That guy’s in love with you.”

  His other hand—which apparently was touching me because it was just that big of a hand and there wasn’t enough space—went back to his utensils and we sat in silence; him because he was finishing off my pasta and me because I’d been rendered mute.

  If Mr. Brooks understood anything about anything remotely related to women, he’d know that he was supposed to keep talking. That you don’t drop a bomb like that and then stare silently into space with a noodle flapping out of your mouth, like you haven’t said what you just said. He simply did not reconnect with me, though he did manage to start chewing again.

  What do you mean? What do you mean? It finally came out: “What do you mean?” I asked about three hundred decibels too loud and about three seconds too late. He wasn’t staring into space. He was staring at Anna looking around for us at the front of the restaurant. I’d told her to give us a couple of hours to talk business and then to drop by and meet Brooks.

  “She looks just like you…but…like the angel to your devil,” he said, his tone emotionless, like he’d just said, “The rate of return for this investment is acceptable,” but for a tiny blush in his cheeks indicating his usual reservedness with women was coming back to him. It was the most bizarrely poetic thing ever to come from his mouth. Well, except for that guy’s in love with you, WHICH WE STILL NEEDED TO DISSECT, FOR GOD’S SAKE.

  I followed his stare to the front of the restaurant where pink-and-white Anna was trying to spot us and knew I was sunk. Damn it, Anna, Mr. Brooks wouldn’t be able to keep more than two brain cells operating in concert with a blouse like that in his face.

  “Thanks for considering her,” I said, my pulse bouncing all over. That guy’s in love with you. “And, no pressure if she’s not what you’re looking for. For employment,” I tacked on at the end as I noticed he was absently trying to take a swig from his empty wineglass.

  I waved at my sister, and Anna brightened like a giant human smile, smoothed her skirt and headed toward us.

  I’m not sure what I was expecting would happen once I’d introduced Anna and Mr. Brooks, but what happened was that we all proceeded to drink quite a bit, and Wyatt got quieter and quieter, and Anna got louder and louder, and I would have said, well, that’s just Anna and if you don’t like her exuberance, you’d better not hire her, if she hadn’t been sitting right there.

  I was still in shock from that guy’s in love with you. It was still out there hovering over the table, unaddressed as Anna colored Wyatt’s silence, so big I couldn’t believe neither of them noticed it, the phrase like a giant blimp bobbing and floating, about to knock all the dishes and utensils to the floor.

  I couldn’t take it anymore. “What do you mean?” I blurted, interrupting my sister’s story.

  They both looked at me. “What do you mean about that guy?” I insisted, forcing myself not to tug on my boss’s sleeve like a three-year-old.

  “What guy?” Anna asked.

  Brooks had the nerve to look as if he didn’t know, either, like he’d somehow forgotten even with a blimp threatening our table.

  “Jack,” I said, the name both salty and sugary in my mouth.

  Anna’s eyes grew round. “Are we talking about Jack? I thought we weren’t ever talking about Jack.”

  “We’re talking about Jack,” I said quickly.

  Wyatt nodded. “He had a lot of riders on the project, and all of them were about you.”

  “About me?” I asked lamely.

  Anna leaned across the table. “What were they, Wyatt?”

  “Mr. Brooks,” I corrected her. “His name is Mr. Brooks.” I took my wineglass in my hand and realized it was somehow full again. I guess when the blimp departed it left a fresh bottle of red.

  Mr. Brooks looked at me, and maybe it was the alcohol but it was the first time I’d ever seen the tiniest glint of mischief bend the corners of his mouth. “Oh, stuff like, he wouldn’t do the deal if you didn’t get a double finder’s fee. Said you needed a reason to anchor down so you didn’t have to keep running. Said I had to let you go if you wanted to take an independent position project managing the hotel chain as we got it up to snuff.”

  I gaped. “And what if you said no?”

  “He’d turn my money down,” Mr. Brooks said with a shrug.

  “He’d turn your money down?”

  “Um…” said Anna in that way she did when she had something she maybe didn’t want me to know she had, like a late credit card bill or a hickey from a married man. “If we’re talking about Jack…”

  My head swiveled so quickly in her direction I almost pulled something. “What?” I snapped.

  “What would you do if you saw Jack tonight?” Anna asked.

  “He’s in Paris.”

  “What if he wasn’t in Paris?”

  The back of my neck instantly broke out in a sweat. “Did you and Jack discuss something on the phone that you’d like to share with me now?” I asked.

  “You asked me not to engage in conversation with Jack on the phone, and I didn’t. He was trying to say something, and I literally would not allow him to finish his sentence.”

  I heaved a sigh of relief.

  “I mean, all I said was that if he had something important to say to you, we’d be in Italy as planned.”

  “You what?”

  “And he said he had to go back into a meeting and couldn’t I just tell you…” She let the you drift off with a hum.

  “Tell me what?”

  “Well, that’s when I cut him off like you made me promise to.”

  I gaped at Anna.

  “And that’s when he asked if I could be more precise about where in Italy. I said that I could not, because explaining would have drifted us into the realm of conversation, which you explicitly forbade.”

  “Oh, my God, Anna.”

  “Which is when he said that I was asking him to look for a needle in a haystack. And couldn’t I just tell you…”

  “Tell me what?”

  “Well, I cut him off again and just said…” My sister started to giggle. I seriously thought I was going to commit sororicide in front of the good people of Siena.

  “What did you say?” Please don’t say you told him that I would never come around and he lost his chance with me forever and he shouldn’t bother and it was all hopeless and pointless and…Jesus, why am I having these thoughts? He blew it and—

  “I said, WELL, JACK, HOW BAD DO YOU WANT IT?”

  I swear to God, I never laughed so hard in my life. Anna was crying. I mean, she was laughing so hard, she was crying. Mr. Brooks was silent, watching Anna and me in hysterics, a perfectly comfortable, drunken, bemused expression on his face.

  Anna’s hysterics were so extreme, in fact, that she could barely get her next words out. “So anyway,” she choked out, waving the story behind her like it was just another anecdote with which to regale Mr. Brooks.

  And that’s when it hit me how unfunny it actually was. It was sad. Anna didn’t have to tell Jack anything; I’d told him enough. He’d made a last overture, suggesting he might come to Italy if Anna would give him a clue and because of me, she didn’t. You tell a guy to get lost only so many times before it stops being a thrilling chase for him, and he actually gets lost. One of these days, I was going to run from a guy, and he wasn’t going to run after me, and I would be sorry. I sucked in a deep breath, suddenly woozy, as I realized that day had come, and I was so, so the one who was sorry.

  And then Anna said, “So anyway, he’s in the bar right behind you.”

  Thank God it was water I’d brought to my lips
so my inevitable spit-take wasn’t going to stain anything. Mr. Brooks leaned over with his giant paw fully extended but luckily Anna got to me first, patting my back, and I knew for sure that the only reason my boss touched my thigh was because his hand was very large and the bench was very small, and he was just awkward enough not to have complete control over his extremities around women.

  Sometimes there’s a reasonable explanation.

  When I stopped choking, I took a deep breath and looked over my shoulder.

  Through a small tangle of bodies I caught a glimpse of Jack atop a barstool with a travel bag carefully secured through the rungs of the bar’s struts. One hand clutched a drink, and the other ruffled up his hair with a kind of intense, anguished grip as he spoke with great animation to the bartender. I was staring at him when he suddenly looked over, and the way he looked at me looked like home.

  He put down his drink and picked up his bag, setting it on the stool where he’d been sitting.

  “You little liar, Anna,” I said, my cold heart starting to thaw. “You totally had a complete conversation with him.”

  “I guess that depends on how many nouns constitute a complete conversation,” she said gently. “It’s kind of a gray area.”

  Jack pulled something from the bag and held it up. A giant box from Mulot. He reached in and swapped it for another box. Red and yellow. Oh, man. Cartier. He reached in and swapped that for a massive, floppy bouquet of half-crushed flowers, which he held out in my direction, pressing his free hand to his heart.

  I swallowed hard.

  “It’s your move,” Anna whispered, poking a finger into my side.

  It felt like it took a year for me to get from my table to the bar, time moved that slowly. The rumpled bouquet was shedding all over the bar floor. The light in Jack’s smile was coming and going like I’d put the electricity on the fritz just by walking over. “I hope you had room for a change of clothes in there,” I blurted.

  “I had a choice. Pack or woo. I chose woo. If it goes well, I won’t need clothes.”

  “Do you want to explain what that was with that woman in the restaurant?”