by Anthology
After grumbling for a few more minutes, Jenna resigned herself to the fact she wouldn’t be sleeping much so she rolled off the mattress and hobbled to the kitchen where she stuck her head in the freezer.
“Oh, God, that feels so good.”
Maybe if she left the freezer door open for a while it would cool the room off a bit. It would be worth a larger electric bill next month for a small amount of comfort now. She swore she would never complain about bills again. Who knew how bad it could be without air conditioning?
Unfortunately, a thump at her door pulled her away from her tiny bit of the arctic. A second and louder bang seconds later had her puzzled. She glanced at the clock. Who would knock at her door at two in the morning? It was too hot to rush and obviously, they weren’t going anywhere until she opened up. Soon, she’d have her neighbors yelling as well and the woman two doors down was no one to trifle with.
“Okay, okay I’m coming. Who knocks on doors halfway through the early morning hours anyway?”
A look through the peephole told her the worthless manager of the building was demanding her presence. She hesitated. While she had been the one to call and complain about no air in her place, did she really want to deal with him? The answer was a resounding no but what choice did she have? Unlocking her door was the last thing she wanted to do. She really didn’t like that guy at all—he made her feel all kinds of uncomfortable. He was like stalkerish creepy and she sensed he was one of those touchy-feely guys too.
Sad thing is, there wasn’t anyone else she could have reached out to because he’s the one in charge of building maintenance. If she’d have called a repair person herself, it would be her footing the bill and she couldn’t afford that, too. Begrudgingly, she unlocked the multiple deadbolts but left the chain attached, only because he didn’t need to be in her apartment. The air conditioner unit was outside of the building and she’d already checked and cleaned her vents. She opened the door as far as it would go, making sure he couldn’t reach her if he stuck a hand in through the crack.
“Frank, it’s the middle of the night, what is it that you need right now?”
“Well hello miss sweet thing. I got your voicemail of desperation and wanted to rush up here as soon as I could. I’ll help you anyway I can.”
His wink almost made her throw up.
“Okay Frank, my air isn’t working, and I left you that message three days ago. Do you think you could check that out? Because, I’m not enjoying the heat at all.”
“Sure, open the door and I’ll come in.”
“No, I don’t think so. There isn’t anything in here to check.”
“It could be your thermostat,” Frank stammered.
“If it is the thermostat, bring the heating and cooling company here tomorrow, during daylight hours, and they can look at it.”
“Ooh, feisty. I like it.”
She started to shut the door and he squeezed his foot into the opening.
“Frank, remove your foot or I will break it to shut this door. Please call the company to come look at the problem tomorrow.”
He removed his shoe and the door shut. She could hear him talking but didn’t care what he was saying. She relocked all her deadbolts and went back to the freezer for as much relief as it would give her.
It was really disgusting the way the building super acted. She knew from personal experience that most of the female tenants hated the guy. Maybe if she tracked down the building owner she could complain. Doubtful it would do anything but it was at least worth a try.
After digging through her stack of signed lease papers, she found the operating corporation and Googled until she found a phone number that wasn’t an eight-hundred-number. A few minutes later, the voicemail beeped in her ear.
“Uh, yeah. This is Jenna Perkins from 3C in your apartment building on 4th, Terrace Gardens. My air conditioning has taken a crap and it’s seriously hot. We are going on day three now and it’s getting old. Your creepy building manager is doing nothing about it, either—or someone would have been here by now. If I need to call and schedule it myself, just let me know please. My phone number is 687-9646. If you could call me back that’d be great, and morning is fine. Sorry I’m calling in the middle of the night, not like I can get any sleep. Oh, and if you could tell your man Frank to stop knocking on my door at two in the morning? That’s pretty much borderline stalking.”
Jenna closed her cell, tossed it on the counter, and headed for her arctic retreat.
Dead tired from an extra-long grueling day at the office, Zayn fidgeted with his keys trying to unlock the door. When he finally got in, he walked into his apartment just when his answering machine clicked off.
He’d missed the call.
“Who the hell is calling me in the middle of the night?” He’d had a ridiculously dreadful day and a message on his home phone couldn’t be anything good. “I don’t need more shit; can’t I just go to bed?”
He laid his keys and cell on the kitchen counter and only wanted to walk down the hall toward his bedroom. Instead, and against his better judgment, he clicked the play button on his answering machine.
“That better not be Jerry or I’m firing his ass first thing tomorrow. He knows better than to call me this late.”
Jerry McDonald was his personal assistant—had been for the better part of five years and he really wouldn’t trade him. Zayn had found out the hard way that women were much more drama as secretaries than men. He started to walk away, kicking off his shoes but stopped short of dropping down on his couch when a voice from heaven echoed through his living room.
“That’s definitely not Jerry.” Zayn stumbled quickly back to the age-old talking machine and hit rewind.
Because of the time, he’d only assumed he knew who the message was from because he didn’t give his home number to anyone, ever. Even his parents only called him on his cell. Not even his assistant used his house phone. The front desk was the only one who did and usually just to announce guests.
He wasn’t too proud to admit he was wrong, but his assistant didn’t have to know he’d directed the blame his way, so no harm no foul.
When the voice started talking again, he grabbed a pencil and scribbled down her address and phone number, then played the message back again just to hear her voice.
“Terrace Gardens. I should have sold that damn place a long time ago.”
It was a rundown apartment complex that would be too costly to repair on a building-wide scale. What it needed was to be leveled and to have a new complex built in its place, but he’d promised some of its older tenants he wouldn’t. It was the only home they knew and it even held a few memories there for him.
“Jenna Perkins, that’s a nice name.”
But he didn’t recognize it. For good reason though, he distanced himself from any of his tenants. That’s why he had a building manager but after hearing her comments, he might need to do some investigating into good old Frank. His dad had been the super before him so it was just a natural progression and easier than going through the drama of looking for someone else. He couldn’t have the man harassing his tenants though—unfortunately, he would have to remedy that very soon.
“I’ll just call Jerry on the way to work and have him find a suitable technician to get the air conditioning working first, then tackle the Frank problem.”
He felt bad that he put a lot on Jerry’s shoulders, but he did because he was reliable and accountable. Zayn shouldn’t wait to get that repair man and he hated to call his assistant with it being so late. He would just Google for numbers and handle it himself. He wasn’t helpless by a long shot—hell, he could fix the unit himself, but it’d been a while since he’d done that kind of work.
Zayn also wondered if he should return a call to Jenna, but it was after two in the morning and while she didn’t have air, he really hoped she was able to sleep. Nights like tonight were miserable and with how that message sounded, he’d hate to take a chance and wake her if she did manag
e to drift off.
After an extensive search in the general area for heating and cooling companies, along with reading the reviews, Zayn wrote the information down to call in the morning. He needed to go to bed—not that he’d get much sleep. Sometimes, he hated being the boss. Just once he’d like to play hookie. He could get Jerry to move around his morning commitments and go with the technician to the Terrace Gardens. That would also give him an opportunity to make a surprise visit to Frank.
Before Zayn left the kitchen, he played the answering machine message back one more time, just to hear her voice. Even with the not-so-subtle tones of anger, it was seductive as hell, which was inappropriate on his part. He didn’t even know the woman.
“It’s cold shower time.”
Fishing his wallet from his back pocket and placing it with his keys and cell, Zayn stripped off his clothes as he walked down the hall, leaving each piece where it fell. When he stepped into the bathroom, he turned on the water, making sure it was ice cold. It was the only way he could think to tap down his misplaced desire for a woman he didn’t even know and had never seen.
Living like a recluse was starting to sound better and better.
CHAPTER TWO
Jenna lay in bed listening to her alarm ring. She was just too tired to turn it off—hadn’t slept a wink all night. She had to get moving, though. Her job wasn’t something she was willing to lose just because her apartment didn’t have any air. It would have been nice to get a call back from the building owner, but who was she kidding? Realistically, she didn’t expect it. It was probably only a financial investment for him, nothing more.
“Whatever.”
She rolled from the damp sheets, grabbed a towel from the linen closet in the hall outside of her bedroom, and started the shower, leaving it on cold. At least she could enjoy a small amount of relief, even if it was only for a few minutes.
She stood in the shower with the curtain open and the towel wrapped around her, the steam visibly lifting away thanks to the warm air hitting her cool skin. Today, she was excited to go to work because her office had central air. One of the perks of having a desk job. There was no way she would ever be cut out for a physical job outside in the heat every day.
With not much time left, Jenna locked the handle of her front door and closed it. She took the stairs down to the lobby because the elevator opened right in front of Frank’s office and that was one creeper she wanted to avoid like the plague. Hopefully, his avoidance of her air conditioning problem would get him fired. Free from the building, she relaxed as she walked the few hundred feet toward the bus stop.
“It’s probably just wishful thinking, and it’s not like I’ll hear from the building owner anyway, which really makes me mad.”
She had no confidence that he would return her call. Why would he care? That’s why buildings had maintenance men. Who knows if he even got her message. One of his blond bimbo secretaries probably hit delete when she heard Jenna’s voice. He lived in his upscale high rise, pocketed all his money, and got to avoid all the rough stuff that went with life.
She really disliked those kinds of stuck up people.
A city bus ride and a couple blocks later, Jenna arrived at her office. It was a dream job to everyone that worked around her but being the senior editor of a big-name publisher in Chicago was only a start for her. She had already set her goal of being editor-in-chief within five years. Miriam Worthington was a great person—good to her employees and she’d taught Jenna a lot over the last couple years. No offense to her, because it was a terrific opportunity and a foot in the door, but she would have her dream job by the end of those five years.
“Hey, Jenna. ’Bout time you got here.”
“What do you mean? I’m not late.”
She looked at her watch to verify the time then looked back at the man sitting at his desk outside of her office.
“There was a suit here looking for you earlier.”
“Looking for me? Who was it?”
“No idea but he seemed pretty official. Are you in some kind of trouble?”
“No, I don’t ever do anything to get in trouble.”
Who the heck was here looking for me? I haven’t done anything wrong that I can remember.
“Did you ask who he was?”
“Nope, didn’t think that far. He was overwhelmingly dominant. Commanding. Totally hot. Rendered me speechless.”
“Kevin, you’re a mess. You already have a steady boyfriend.”
“That doesn’t mean I can’t drool.”
Jenna loved Kevin to pieces but he let his hormones rule him most of the time. While Kevin thought the guy was hot, that didn’t mean Jenna would agree. She took his comment with a grain of salt. At least until she saw the ‘suit’—as Kevin referred to him—herself.
“Okay. Well, he’s gone now.” She grabbed a stack of files from Kevin’s desk and turned toward her own.
“I have work to do and so do you. We can do lunch if you want—come find me when you’re ready.”
The key with Kevin was to act calm and collected because when he got the feel something was off, he was a hound dog with a bone and he would ride her until she gave in. Technically, there wasn’t anything to tell him. She was just as puzzled as he was. Nobody ever came looking for her. Not even men she’d dated in the past. Of course, that’s partly why they were now in her past.
“Okay, avoid. But, I’m watching you.”
Ugh.
He always was.
“No drama here, Kev. I know nothing. You know I don’t date and especially someone in a suit—it’s not me, never has been. I’m more of the biker bad-boy type. You know, the ones you used to drool over.”
She shot him a wink. It wasn’t true. She didn’t really know what kind of guy her type was. Her short dating history was riddled with failure so there wasn’t really anything to compare to. She just wanted a nice guy that treated her good, whether he rode a bike, or wore a suit. There was something sexy but different about each of them. She just couldn’t handle a deadbeat with no job. She wasn’t into being a mom to the guy she dated.
“Used to is right. I have a new type now.”
“Only since your new guy came into the picture.”
“My point is, anyone can change—even you.”
“Don’t hold your breath. You can hold my calls though. I have a few manuscripts to get through before Miriam gets in today.”
“Sure, bury your head in the sand.”
“Not the sand, Kev. Just the job.”
She walked away while she could. Like she said, Kevin was a hound dog, especially when it was about what he thought was a good-looking guy and revolved around her. It’s like she was his pet project, that he needed to keep track of every part of her love life. He would keep up that banter all day if she let him, too, if he thought he could get the scoop on something. He should be a journalist at the newspaper instead of an assistant at a publisher. And again, she had not done anything, and had no clue why a guy in a suit would be coming to see her.
Zayn sat in his office, the chair swiveled away from his mahogany desk, looking out over the city of Chicago. Why couldn’t he get this woman out of his head? All he’d heard was her voice. He didn’t know her, hadn’t laid eyes on her even once but the more time went by, the more he thought about her.
He found out where she worked from the rental application, which wasn’t against the law or an invasion of privacy because he was the building owner and she was his tenant. He was just hoping he could smooth things over by going to see her at her office, only she wasn’t there. He couldn’t wait for her to get in because he had an appointment to meet the cooling tech to fix her air conditioning. It took longer than he wanted and the news was much worse than just her one air unit. The entire building needed new hardware installed.
He was caught between a rock and a hard place. The better choice would be to drop the apartment complex and rebuild, but where would he put all the tenants? He couldn’t ju
st kick them out with no notice. It also wouldn’t be a financially sound idea to start fixing everything that broke down. Inevitably, it wouldn’t stop at just the air units.
Before that morning, he hadn’t been in the building in many years. Normally, Frank contacted his office—but when he stepped inside, he saw just how much work it really did need. The other thing was that those tenants had considerably lower rent versus any of the other buildings he owned. Many of those people couldn’t afford to pay more so he also needed to take that into consideration as he moved forward.
There was a knock at his door. He didn’t turn because it wouldn’t be anybody else but Jerry. Nobody ever got past his assistant without being announced in some way, shape, or form.
“Mr. Holden, did you need anything?”
I swear he has a sixth sense. He always knows when I need to talk to him.
“I do. Can you get me a list of all my residential complexes and which ones have availability right now?”
“Yep, can do. Are you thinking about leveling Terrace Gardens?”
“It’s just a thought right now but I’d like to know my options. I can’t leave these people high and dry.”
“I know you don’t have any openings in the building you live in because I just got the lease information in today on the last unit. I’ll pull the other buildings, though.”
“Also, how about a count from Terrace Gardens, too. On the number that would need to be moved.”
“Give me a couple minutes. I have all of that information saved in a file.”
Jerry left, closing the door behind him. Thank god, the day was over. He didn’t have the mental capacity to stay late. He still had work to do, but he could just take the files home and go over them later—after a long shower and dinner.
He shut down the computer on his desk and grabbed the laptop from his side table, putting it in the padded briefcase he used to transport it. It was too hot to wear his suit coat. . Now Zayn wished he hadn’t taken his khakis and t-shirt home to wash, he would have changed before leaving.
