by Alison Kent
Four
Livia took her time brushing out and clipping up her hair, tying the sashes of her halter top at both the neck and the waist, and slipping into the jacket she’d been wearing when she’d met the photographer this morning.
She still didn’t know his name, and she left the blinds closed once she was finished putting herself back together. One didn’t have anything to do with the other. They were just two thoughts of the many doing a mambo in her head—the loudest one a reminder that she needed to get to work.
It was nearly noon, and she’d done next to nothing since arriving at Splash & Flambé. She had spent a productive and very early hour in the living-room studio of a young Cuban designer, whose silk vests and scarves would be a hit with the boutique’s male and female clients. But that was it as far as anything accomplished on the business front, and she had no one to blame but herself.
If she didn’t have this need to walk through the boutique’s front door every day, to see the gorgeous window displays, the bold signage with just enough gaudy flash to make her smile, the customers strolling by early to see what was visible of the designer items from the street, she wouldn’t have noticed the man and his camera at all.
If she hadn’t noticed him the first time, she wouldn’t have been looking for him the second or the third—since the business that had brought him to the area was obviously taking some time—and he wouldn’t have come to mind this morning after she’d listened to the message Dustin had left while she’d been in the shower, nagging her yet again about getting the portraits done.
But because she loved seeing the street entrance of Splash & Flambé, the same view the boutique’s customers saw; loved seeing her work, her dream realized, she hadn’t been able to miss the man or his big lens. She still wasn’t sure he wasn’t spying for a competitor….
Even so, when she’d seen him, she’d thought, Why not? Have camera, will photograph, right? Besides, he was very attractive, admittedly not in the sophisticated, urbane, über GQ way she preferred her men. No. He was, if she were to be honest, a bit rough around the edges.
His black hair was too long, nearly unkempt, shaggy even. And the fact that he needed to shave wasn’t a fashion statement but a matter of personal grooming. His clothes—the blue jeans, the T-shirt, the ball cap, the athletic shoes sans socks—belonged on a campus.
She could picture him there, surrounded by girls in hip-hugging minis, or in a park, tossing a Frisbee for a dog to grab from the air. He looked like he was ready to play, like he set his own hours, ate when he remembered to do so, slept when he couldn’t take the exhaustion anymore.
Before she’d given him her card, she’d done her best to get a feel for who he was—and failed. She hadn’t been able to catch him with his guard down. He’d revealed next to nothing about who he was or what brought him to the bistro every morning. She wasn’t used to business meetings—because she wanted him for business—not going her way.
Then there were all the things he’d said about watching the sun come up. The water. The wind. The whitecaps. The clouds. Her photographer was no ordinary man. He was a romantic, a poet, even if he didn’t admit it. She wasn’t used to running into men who qualified as either.
What she was used to were lines and come-ons that were slick and practiced, that came from a part of the male anatomy south of the heart and far removed from the soul. Those she knew how to deal with in a way that made sense and fit the order of her life. This matter of sunrises was way outside of her comfort zone and experience.
That didn’t mean she wasn’t interested in seeing where it might go. If first she could figure out where things had gone so wrong. How she’d ended up giving him her card, telling him to call her, taking her clothes off when he rang her number. And doing so because he told her to, not for any other reason at all.
She couldn’t think about him anymore. Not now, she mused privately, crossing her office, opening the door, and calling for Carmen. The manager of Splash had two floor clerks on the clock and could spare a minute or two. Livia returned to her desk, launched her e-mail program, and when the other woman rapped on the door, looked up.
“You wanted to see me?” Carmen asked, sliding the lettered necklace she always wore side to side on its slender gold chain. She looked nervous or unsettled. Livia couldn’t be sure.
Letting her e-mail download, she asked, “Is everything okay? You seem rattled. Don’t tell me Sandra Moss is trying again to return those earrings I saw her wearing at Dustin’s Labor Day brunch.”
The customer would let no one but Carmen attend to her, and since she spent two full hours in the boutique every time, she often left Splash’s manager worn out and craving a cool mojito the minute the door closed behind her. Fortunately, she stopped in to check Livia’s new stock only once every couple of months, so Carmen was in no danger of becoming a true alcoholic.
Carmen settled into one of Livia’s guest chairs. “I wish she was. I think I’d rather deal with her today than with Tomás.”
Uh-oh. “I thought you two had settled things about the move.”
“We have. We put down the deposit on the town house last weekend. But he and Roland got into it about a delivery. Again.”
“Not the one Roland said was crushed?” The one that had arrived with a nearly imperceptible dent on one corner.
Carmen reached for her necklace, tugged as if making sure it was still there. “I don’t know which one it was. I do know I’m tired of the two of them acting like three-year-olds. This feud is ridiculous. There’s no reason for it.”
No reason except for Roland being a consummate perfectionist and Tomás thinking a dent in a box was a cost of the shipping business. Which it was. No product had been ruined. The packaging had been carefully done, the contents secure. “I’ll talk to Roland—”
“I wish you would.” Carmen sat forward, her hands in her lap, her chin and eyes lowered. “I like Roland. You know that. But he expects too much from Tomás. And not just Tomás,” she added, looking up and pleading. “He pulled Alma aside on Friday and told her it didn’t look good for the store for her to wear things she bought somewhere else.”
Livia picked up the mechanical pencil she used to jot notes during phone calls, tapped it against the surface of her desk. Alma had been working the floor only since summer. Carmen had interviewed her and recommended her to Livia to hire.
Livia required her managers to dress in the boutique’s fashions, as she herself did, but knew the floor clerks weren’t able to afford a full Splash & Flambé wardrobe. As long as they dressed with what bit of flair their income allowed, that was all she asked.
“Alma knows my policy, as does Roland.” Tap, tap, tap with the pencil’s end. “I realize he’s a bit more particular about things than you or I, but I’ll remind him that dress-code violations fall under my purview.” Talking about one of her managers with the other did not sit well, so Livia left it at that. “I’m going to need Tomás to pick up some things from a designer in Little Havana. Can you get Penny to add the run to his schedule for Friday?”
“Sure. You have the address?”
Livia passed her the designer’s business card. “He said any time before noon would be good.”
Carmen nodded, got to her feet. “I’ll let Penny know. I need to pick up a check she’s holding for Tomás. The price of gas is killing him.”
Penny Garza ran the back office of Splash & Flambé and was as vital to the boutique’s operation as either of Livia’s managers. She took care of payroll and accounting, as well as scheduling deliveries, employee hours, and any store maintenance required. If she didn’t mind the personal handling of vendor payables, Livia wasn’t going to interfere.
“Don’t let Roland get to you, okay? He’s just overly fussy at times.” She didn’t want to stereotype, but, well, he was who he was.
“I usually don’t,” Carmen said, worrying the business card between two fingers. “But with Tomás being so stressed over work, having Ro jump
him about the corner of a box being dinged…”
Was just too much. Livia finished the thought Carmen let trail. She understood the younger woman taking sides with her man, but she wasn’t going to interfere beyond making sure all of her employees stayed busy. “Send him up here, would you please? I had a brainstorm about the space in the front corner.”
One of Carmen’s brows arched. “Where he hung the silk boxers on tree trunks?”
“That would be the one.” Livia didn’t mind the display or the metaphor. She just wanted to split the space for her new designer’s scarves and vests. “And tell Penny to let me know if there’s any problem with the delivery for Friday. We’ll have to work out something with another service if Tomás can’t fit us in this late.”
“It shouldn’t be a problem,” Carmen said from the doorway. “But I’ll tell her.”
With one manager gone, Livia swiveled her chair around while she waited for the other. Usually, a view of the street below greeted her from the window, but she hadn’t yet opened her blinds after pulling them shut after losing her photographer’s attention. Neither had she processed the sweeping storm of emotion accompanying the realization that she had, that he’d just vanished as if she wasn’t there following his commands.
She got up from her chair, yanked on the cord, raising the barrier she’d dropped between them. She doubted he was still there, across the street, looking at her, wondering about her the way she was wondering about him—even though his being male undoubtedly meant he was wondering only how he’d managed to get so lucky. She, on the other hand, was drowning, unable to surface from the depths of her thoughts.
She lifted a hand to shield her eyes. The windows across the street from hers were treated with a tint that kept the sun out and kept her from seeing in. She didn’t need to. There wasn’t anything on the other side of the glass worth her wasting this much of her day.
A cute guy was a cute guy, and in Miami a dime a dozen. If this one didn’t want her business, it wouldn’t take but a phone call to find one who would. And, yeah, that contradicted everything she’d told herself earlier about chemistry.
But, really. When had she ever made a business decision based on things ethereal or indefinable? That would be never. It wasn’t how she operated, or the method she’d used to establish herself, to become the success that she had over the last few years.
So why was she thinking of starting now? Was the idea of having this man looking at her, following her, capturing her actions digitally so appealing that she was willing to throw away what she knew?
She couldn’t say, and that was the worst part of this attraction. Because it was an attraction. One that was purely physical, but one she sensed might be the most interesting one she’d experienced in a very long time.
Five
Having always enjoyed the coolly sophisticated ambience of the frosted glass, onyx, and stainless-steel interior of Downtown Blue, and the extension of the decor into the art gallery’s offices, Jodi Fontaine could not figure why, all of a sudden, her work space left her cold.
The private showing of the Noir Purrfection exhibit was three nights away. Invitations had gone out. RSVPs had come in. The caterer had been hired, and a final consultation held this afternoon, followed by another with the agency providing the waitstaff, and a third with the floral designer. There was absolutely nothing left for Jodi to do.
And that was exactly what she was doing. Nothing. Not a goddamn thing—except trying to decide where she’d gone so wrong with Roland Green, and what that personal failure had to do with her hating every minute she spent in the office these days.
She knew he was straight, as hetero as a man came. It wasn’t her gaydar rocked off kilter. It was her. Something was wrong with her. And she knew that was the core of her current dissatisfaction with what felt like everything in her life.
She didn’t have man trouble. Ever. If she wanted a man to take her to bed, she told him so and he did. She’d been comfortable knowing that, living that. Enjoying that. As comfortable as she’d been spending her days in the gallery, which was a work of art in itself.
Working for Dustin Parks was a dream. Her degree was in simple business administration; her talent organization; her memory a match for any chip. He’d hired her on the spot three years ago, when she’d arrived in Miami, having left Atlanta and a persistent ex.
She’d needed the space, wanted a fresh start, and craved the sun. Life had been perfect, the parties, drink, and men endless. And then, a month ago, she’d met Roland Green.
It had been the highlight of one of the best weeks of her life, that day she’d gone with Dustin to Splash & Flambé. He shopped there regularly because he was a good friend to Olivia Hammond, and because the items she stocked, showcased really, fit his personality and his fashion sense. Most of the time, he shopped alone, but that day he’d asked Jodi to come along.
She hadn’t wanted to go. Correction. She hadn’t felt either one of them could afford the time away. They’d been deep in the planning for Noir Purrfection, and she’d seen no need to interrupt the flow of ideas for a shopping trip.
Dustin had insisted. They could continue their exchange on the way. Besides, he’d said, the outing would be the perfect time to get her input on a photography exhibit that was currently no more than a germ in the soil of his infinitely fertile mind.
She’d agreed to accompany him, thought his concept of catching an exhibitionist in action brilliant—especially when he’d explained that it wasn’t the woman’s body he was interested in putting on display.
What he was most interested in was the look in her eyes, her facial expressions, capturing the elusive motivations that drove her, and teasing his audience with what was going on in her mind.
Eyes closed as she leaned back in her chair, Jodi remembered how consumed Dustin had seemed with the project, and how infectious she’d found his enthusiasm. She’d questioned him about the logistics of such a photo exhibit, queried him on what model and photographer he had in mind.
And then they’d entered Splash & Flambé, and her eyes had connected with those of the man who she hadn’t been able to get out of her mind since.
He wasn’t anything like the men to whom she was usually attracted. She went for suave and smooth, enjoying men who knew their way around women, a room, the world. Men who were more than breadwinners. Men who could put a bakery out of business if their morning toast was stale.
She’d grown up having nothing, living on leftovers, living in hand-me-downs. Two part-time jobs had got her through her first year of college. During the second, she’d realized there were any number of men who frequented the coffee shop where she’d worked as a barista eager to take her under their wing, expand her horizons, tutor her on the ways of the world, and pay her tuition while they did.
All she had to give them in exchange was free access to her body—a win-win situation that educated her on the opposite sex so completely, she found it hard to relate to her own. She liked that men didn’t apologize for their arrogance, but considered it their right.
And, yes, she knew there were men who were jerks, who abused the stronger-sex theory, proving they didn’t know shit about strength. Those weren’t the men she was talking about, or the ones she was attracted to, the ones whose tutelage had opened her eyes.
Which brought her back to eyes. Roland Green’s eyes. She wondered if he had any idea of the things she’d seen when their gazes had met. The frustration, the impatience, the depth of both that spoke of a dissatisfaction she related to more than he’d ever know. It was the need for change, the same one that had sent her from Atlanta to Miami, a change that had saved her sanity, if not her life.
What she’d seen in Roland’s eyes didn’t fit. Not his personality. Not his position at Splash & Flambé. Not the way he’d told her in no uncertain terms that he wanted nothing to do with her physically. She didn’t buy any of it. She knew more about men than most women ever would, and whatever he was hiding or avoidi
ng or running from, she would find out.
“Jodi? What are you still doing here? I thought you’d gone home hours ago.”
Jodi opened her eyes to find Dustin standing in her doorway. She sat forward, shoved back her hair, and smiled. “I’m too tired to go home.”
“Well, that sounds like a decidedly depressing state of affairs. I’m sorry I’ve been working you so hard.”
“You haven’t been,” she assured him. “I’ve loved getting ready for the show. It’s going to be such a hit.”
“I agree.” Nodding, he leaned a shoulder against her open office door. “Who knew naked women and their cats could be so much fun?”
If he only knew, she mused, with a private chuckle, forcing herself out of her chair and reaching for her Coach satchel. “We’ll have a full house Thursday night.”
“Good,” he said, rubbing his hands together with glee.
At least she supposed it was glee, though he was missing the mad scientist cackle. “I invited someone. He wasn’t on the list. I hope you don’t mind.”
“A date? Why would I mind you bringing a date? After all the work you’ve done, you deserve to make a night of it.”
She planned to make what she could of it, but here was where it got tricky. “It’s not actually a date. Not in a romantic way.”
Now Dustin was frowning. He was overdue for his Botox. “Then in what sort of way?”
“He’s a friend,” she said, digging for the keys to her Saab. “So he’ll be a friendly escort.”
“I look forward to meeting him.”
“You already know him. Roland Green,” she hurried out with, then held her breath.
Dustin’s frown deepened, and he grew confused, almost hurt. “Wasn’t he on the guest list originally?”
“He was, yes.” She nodded, as if the yes hadn’t been enough.
“And he declined to come? Or the two of you decided to come together? When did you see him?”
This was going to get painful and awkward for both of them if she let it go on much longer. She hadn’t considered Dustin’s feelings when asking Roland to be her date, only her own, and she headed toward the door before she got stuck dwelling on that.
