A faint smile came to Carrie’s lips. “That’s Tall and Tiny. They have the most amazing Broadway show you’ll ever see.”
“Daniel ordered tickets when the little fellow handed me a white lily, which is my favorite flower. I gather they’re magicians?”
“Amazing magicians and comics, as well.”
“I won’t tell Daniel that, or he might change his mind. He hates comedy. I didn’t get your name.”
She stiffened, prepared for the woman to turn on her. “I’m Carrie Hanson. Not of the Boston Hansons. I’m just a normal person from New Jersey.”
The woman chuckled and patted her hair before extending her beautifully manicured hand. “I’m Irene Bernstein, a Jewish girl from Queens.”
Carrie shook her hand. Instead of a limp shake, Irene had a firm, no nonsense grip.
“Not all the rich are stuck in the past, just Gary and a few others. I ignore them…and always find something not up to par in Gary’s restaurant.”
Carrie felt compelled to correct one major misunderstanding. “Trent’s only my boss.”
Irene rolled her eyes. “Honey, the man standing out there worrying himself sick is not thinking like a boss. If Robert Conrad hadn’t been arrested last year for entering this bathroom to continue a fight with his wife, I’m sure Trent would be in here professing his undying love.”
A spring of hope took root in her misery. “Do you know Trent well?”
“I know everyone in society, all too well.”
“Do women in society like him?” Carrie cringed as she waited for the answer. The answer would be yes, and while Trent might go slumming for a moment, eventually he’d go back to some lady of his own class.
“Trent’s burned through all the available young woman in our circle. They think him the biggest jerk alive.”
“Bigger than Gary?”
“Afraid so.” She smiled. “Seeing Trent so happy with you had to scare Gary to death. Pretty soon he’ll be the last intolerable bachelor left standing, and honestly I don’t see that ever changing.” She patted Carrie on the shoulder. “Don’t keep your bad boy waiting.”
Carrie smiled. “I truly enjoyed meeting you. I hope to see you again.”
The woman air kissed both her cheeks. “I’ve no doubt we shall.”
Determined to fix matters, Carrie hurried from the bathroom and crashed into Trent’s hard chest. He wrapped his arms protectively around her. “Are you okay?”
She met his gaze. “I’m fine. A nice woman helped me get proper perspective. Are we ready to go?”
“We are. I’ve offered Harmon and Andy a ride back to their hotel.”
She laughed and smiled at Tall. “You’ll have plenty of leg room.”
Chapter 7
When the limo pulled in front of the hotel Tall leaned over and kissed Carrie’s cheek. “It’s a pleasure to have met you. Perhaps we can meet up again before our show closes.”
Trent cleared his throat and Tall leaned back. “The two of you, of course.”
Trent smiled. “We’re going to be really busy the next month or so, but do call me before you leave town.”
Carrie wanted to make sure they hadn’t interpreted Trent’s response as a dismissal. “Because we definitely want to see you guys again. Just at a different restaurant.”
Tall gave her a nod then looked at Trent. “I’ll check our schedule and give you a call.”
“Call me, instead. I keep his schedule.” She rummaged through her purse and found her business cards. She handed one to Tall and another to Tiny, so he wouldn’t feel left out. To her shock, Tiny already possessed a card. He exchanged it for the one in her hand.
Tall exited the limo with amazing agility and grace given how his legs, arms, and long torso had to squeeze through the door opening.
Tiny turned Carrie’s face to his and kissed her on the lips. “I will remember you always.” He pressed her hand to his heart. Then Tall pulled him from the car by his belt. “Always!” he promised, stretching his arms toward her.
Sam closed the door and returned to the driver’s seat a second later.
“Where to now, sir?”
Carrie replied. “To New Jersey. It’s late, I need my sleep.”
“Hold on,” Trent demanded and turned to Carrie. “Sam will take you home. It’s late, so I’m going to stay in my penthouse. I’ll see you at work tomorrow.”
While his words seemed completely reasonable, they still hurt her to the core. “That makes sense. I’ll see you tomorrow. I may be a little later than normal.”
“Why?” he growled.
“Because it’s already two in the morning and by the time I get home it will be four and I need at least four hours of sleep before I wake up.”
He sighed heavily and rubbed his head a very long time before answering. “Sam, take her straight home, as fast as you can. Don’t talk to her on the drive. She needs to lie down on the back seat and begin her sleep requirements. Then locate a nearby hotel for yourself and have her at work by six.” He refocused on her. “Wear something that won’t wrinkle too much if you sleep on the way in. I’ll see you at six.”
Before she could argue with his outrageous solution, he exited the limo and walked off.
“Jerk!” she muttered and threw herself across the seat and closed her eyes. She felt the car pull from the curb.
She woke five minutes later to a dinging alarm. Not good when they should be driving on Rt. 80. The door nearest her head opened. She pushed herself up and stared at Sam’s worried face.
“What’s wrong?”
“I may have gotten your address wrong.”
She looked out the window and smiled at her small Cape Cod home. “Nope, this is it.” She climbed out and breathed in the fragrance of her unruly English garden. Her neighbors must have watered it during her absence. She had expected to come home to a sun-torched yard of death.
The travel case she’d lost in Customs waited for her on the porch. Sam carried it inside and searched her house for intruders. She followed him about, certain she had no burglars since she had nothing to burgle.
Upon determining her home free of two-footed vermin, he smiled. “Nice place. Furniture looks comfortable.”
She yawned. “Thank you. I think all furniture should be comfortable. That’s its core job.” Her yawn caused Sam to yawn, as well. “Where are you going to stay?”
“Not sure, yet.”
“You could stay here if you want. I have three extra beds.”
He looked all set to refuse then stopped. “Let me check in with Master Trent and see if that’s acceptable.” She yawned again as she watched Sam hurry from her house. She had no idea why Trent thought his house staff terrible. She could attest to a superb cook, a driver who went above and beyond his duties, and recalling Trent’s beautiful home both inside and out, the gardener and housekeeper must be top notch, as well. The butler saved a family heirloom, so he seemed on the job too.
She sat down on her comfortable couch, waiting for Sam to get permission to stay at her house from Daddy Trent. The couch did its job a bit too well. She curled into a ball and fell asleep.
* * * *
Trent still walked the streets an hour later. He didn’t know if their first ‘date’ had been a promising beginning or a complete disaster. Normally, he could tell the difference. But a roller coaster had fewer ups and downs than this night.
He probably should have gone with her to New Jersey, but she’d given Tall her card and asked the guy to call her. That really pissed him off. If he’d stayed in the car, he feared their evening would end in a fight, which he didn’t want. So he abandoned ship.
Besides, he had no shot of her inviting him in, even if he made the long trek out into the wilderness of New Jersey. In addition, if by some miracle she invited him inside, having sex with Carrie on their first date would seriously impair his wait-until-he-had-new-employees-before-getting-involved plan.
When his phone rang, he answered it without even look
ing to see who called. “You better not be in an accident.”
“No, sir. We arrived safely at Miss Carrie’s house.”
“Good job.” He planned to end the call when Sam spoke again.
“The place has an unoccupied abandoned look to it, so I checked all the rooms to ensure no vagrants had moved in during Miss Carrie’s absence.”
Trent’s heart jumped. He’d never considered that possibility. “And?”
“No vagrants. But, I still worry about Miss Carrie staying here alone in its current state. Thus, when she offered me a bed for the night, instead of refusing at once, I told her I needed to check with you.”
“And she bought that?” Ever since Trent had sent his driver to the Defensive Driving Academy where he became the best driver the school had ever tested, the man had an inflated sense of self-worth. Sam never asked permission to do anything anymore. He just did whatever he pleased, knowing Trent wouldn't fire him and even if he did, someone else would hire him in a second.
“She appeared to.”
Clearly, Carrie couldn’t read people as well as he’d thought.
“In her defense, sir, I have been an exemplary employee today.”
“That’s true. Any reason for such aberrant behavior?”
“I wished to make a good impression, so later when you rant and rave about your out-of-control driver she will think you mad.”
Trent thought his driver disturbingly Machiavellian. “Well, no matter. I appreciated your obedience today. I thought you did an excellent job.”
“I always do an excellent job.”
“True, but today, or should I say yesterday, given we’ve crossed to a new day, you did an excellent job without attitude, and I really appreciated it.”
He had evidently stunned his driver into complete silence. He would have thought the man had hung up, except he could hear crickets in the background.
“Where exactly are you?”
“Standing in Miss Carrie’s front yard, which is four foot high in thick flowering weeds.”
Ah, that explained the crickets. However, it didn’t explain why Carrie failed to have a service to care for her lawn. No wonder Sam didn’t want to leave her alone in an apparently abandoned house.
“Does she have a place for you to stay?”
“There is a bed and bathroom in the basement. It is acceptable to me, if it is acceptable to you.”
“Then stay. I’m surprised you bothered to call me and ask permission.”
“This concerns Miss Carrie. I make it a policy never to get between a man and his woman.”
His chest suddenly hurt. “She’s not my woman, and please do not say that within her hearing. She’ll run for the hills. She’s my employee and nothing more.”
“Then shall I stay?”
All his internal frustration over his feelings for Carrie burst forth in a flare of temper. “I already answered you. Yes! Stay in the basement. Only don’t sleep so soundly you fail to hear vagrants breaking in.”
He raked his hand through his hair and tried to calm. People—a considerable number of well-dressed people wandered the streets at three in the morning—stared at him in alarm.
“Just take care of her and bring her back to me in the morning. I’ll send several of the gardeners out in the morning to fix her grounds.”
“It’s a postage stamp, sir. One gardener should suffice.”
He hung up on his driver, remembering why he didn’t like the fellow. Damn know-it-all! Perhaps he should have Carrie give Sam lessons on how to be likable.
He entered his penthouse lobby. The sleepy security guard popped to his feet and smiled. “Good morning, Mr. Lancaster. Allow me to call the elevator.”
When the metal doors opened, the guard held one side, lest it try to close while Trent stepped inside. The man reached in, slipped his key into the box and pushed the button for the penthouse. When the guards used their key, the elevator went directly to the floor requested, ignoring all floors between. He then smiled at Trent. “Have a good morning, sir.”
Checking his nametag, Trent smiled. “Thank you, Ray.”
The man brightened up as if he’d received a hundred dollars. Why would a ‘thank you’ make him so happy? Carrie strongly believed appreciation of one’s prior work improved the quality of future work. Personally, he’d never seen any proof of that, but the only person at work who ever warranted thanks was Carrie and she improved even when she received no thanks and several threats of dismissal.
Carrie.
Tonight showed why he had to fix his business before he started anything with her. She hadn’t been among one of ‘his people’ for more than a minute before she escaped to the bathroom. Honestly, he had no idea what Gary said to set her off.
Her reaction troubled him immensely. He’d heard horror stories about how vicious the women of his circle could be to the lower class beauties who married their way up. What if they skewered poor Carrie alive?
The elevator opened to a small lobby before the entrance to his penthouse. Mars, his amazingly efficient penthouse butler, stood at the side of the open door, ready to take his suit jacket as he entered. Without question, Mars was the best butler Trent had ever met. Fortunately for him, his young age of thirty-five and lack of a British accent meant most of society wouldn’t hire him.
After going through three old English butlers in a year, the service told Trent he could take Mars or find another service. Since he’d already been tossed from the other services, he agreed to try out the fellow. While too young to be a proper butler, Mars had studied at an English butlering school, so he knew his job. In Trent’s opinion, the fellow’s years as an army captain set him above other butlers. His black laser eyes scared the staff into perfect soldiers. In less than a month Mars had the penthouse running better than his Long Island Estate.
Still, given Trent hadn’t called and warned of his intention to stay here tonight, he’d no clue why Mars waited at the door to receive his jacket at three in the morning.
Curious, he asked.
Mars’ expression remained blank, but he blinked several times before answering. “A buzzer goes off in my room when the penthouse button is pressed on the elevator.”
“So you dressed and groomed yourself in three minutes?”
“Yes, sir.”
“In the future, if I come in after mid-night, just stay in bed and let me fend for myself.”
For a moment, a faint smile flickered on the man’s face. “Thank you for the offer, sir, but I prefer to be dressed and ready for duty.” He then studied Trent with his penetrating gaze. “Are you feeling well, sir? You appear a bit flushed. Shall I call a doctor?”
“No. I’m fine. I’ve been walking around town trying to work some things out.”
“Ah,” he stated as if he knew what things. “Can I offer you coffee or something to drink to assist in your endeavors?”
“No, I’m going to go to sleep. I need to be at work by six.”
“In three hours, sir?” His expression remained as flat as his question.
Trent realized his plan made no sense. “Better make it nine. Will you call Sam and let him know I won’t be into work until nine?”
“If you wish, but would it not be more efficient if I called you a limo to carry you the two blocks to work instead of asking Sam to come in from Long Island. The traffic is—”
Trent held up his hand.
“Sorry sir, I will call Sam immediately.”
Carrie’s lecture about ‘providing sufficient information so his orders made sense’ came back to him. “Sam isn’t in Long Island. I had him drive Carrie home and stay there so he can drive her in this morning. I told him to be at work by six, but I’m changing it to nine.”
“Thank you, sir. I will see to it immediately.”
Trent had no idea if Mars felt better understanding his logic, but he did, since the man hadn’t gone off shaking his head this time.
That his staff thought him a blundering idiot, a
nnoyed him to no end. He’d graduated from Harvard, for god’s sake! This problem lay at his father’s feet. The man had insisted a Lancaster never explained himself.
He retired to his master suite, which was immaculate as ever.
Did Carrie have a maid at least? She’d never mentioned one. Yet, if she didn’t, how did her house get cleaned? He’d send a maid with the gardener tomorrow.
Otherwise, she might ask for a week off to repair her environment that had fallen apart during her time in Taiwan. God knew, his office fell apart in her absence. When she proudly told him about the system she’d created to stop the supplies from ending up at flea markets, he didn’t have the heart to tell her that in her absence, supply cost had quadrupled.
Evidently, seeing the cop had left her station, his dead beat workers had jumped to work—stealing his supplies.
He really wanted to fire them all tomorrow, but judging by the panic in Carrie’s eyes, she did not believe they could run the business without them, so he’d do it her way. They would hire an HR person first, and go from there.
As normal, nothing was easy.
—Tuesday—
Chapter 8
A bright ray of sun burned through Carrie’s closed lids and woke her with a start. Daylight! She scrambled out of bed. The sun a quarter over the horizon indicated disaster. To make it to work by six, she needed to have left in the muted light of five at the latest.
She frantically dressed, grabbed a toothbrush and brush to put in her purse, and rushed downstairs. A yelp burst from her chest at the sight of a man cooking breakfast in her kitchen.
Sam turned and smiled. “Good morning. Breakfast is almost ready.”
How could he work for Trent and not know her boss’s anger issues with late employees? “We don’t have time! Trent will kill us for not arriving at work hours ago.”
Worst Week Ever (A Long Road to Love) Page 8
