Simona Taylor - Meet Me in Paris

“Wanderlust, good morning. Trey Hammond’s—”

“Petreena.”

Petreena’s tone was a combination of embarrassment, anxiety and irritation. “Kendra, I don’t think—”

“Petreena, please. Help me. We used to be friends.”

“I’m not too sure about that….”

To be spit out so easily, like a pebble in a spoonful of rice. It shouldn’t have hurt, but it did. For a dizzying moment, she had the sensation of blinking out of existence and then flickering back. If you were denied by people who knew you, did you cease to exist? She accepted her demotion from friend status with grace, but insisted, “Well, we were colleagues, at least. You’ve had coffee at my desk. We’ve split lunch. For the sake of that, if nothing else, please let me speak to him.”

The hesitation was longer this time. Then she heard a series of clicks and blips.

“Miss Forrest.”

The hand holding the receiver had gone cold. It took great effort not to let the phone fall to the floor. “Mr. Hammond, I need to see you.”

“What about? I thought we’d already said all that needed to be said.”

“Please, I need you to know I’m sorry.”

“I’m sure.”

“I mean that. You have to believe me. I made a mistake and I’m sorry.”

Hammond’s deep voice was deceptively melodious, but what he was saying was poison. “Miss Forrest, time is money, and you’ve taken up enough of both of mine already. If you want to apologize, fine. That’s neither here nor there with me. But if your conscience is pricking you, I suggest you find a priest. Absolution is their job, not mine. Now, unless you have a check for fourteen thousand dollars that you’d like to drop by with—”

“I’ve got nowhere near that—”

“Then we have nothing more to say to each other.” The next thing she heard was the dial tone. She stared at the receiver, looking for answers. After a few minutes the phone kicked up a howling that wasn’t half bad, given that it penetrated the silence in the apartment, at least for a while. Instead of clicking it off, she set it down on its side, and let the jarring, obnoxious noise spur her into action.

She took a shower, allowing the hot water to soak away the despair and self-disgust of the past few days, and then surveyed the contents of her closet. Hammond had made a nasty remark about her expensive taste in clothes. That meant he could recognize a genuine designer original, as opposed to a knockoff. As much as she adored the sheer beauty of a well-designed outfit, the last thing she needed was to wear something that would set him off again. Chloe would just have to chill out on the rack for a while. She chose a simple navy shirt dress with long sleeves and a modest hemline. With the kind of eating frenzy that had overcome her over the last few days, she half expected to have ballooned beyond all logic; but it fit her 132-pound frame as perfectly as it had the day she’d bought it. She brushed her short cap of hair, smoothing it down carefully and wrangling it into its pixie shape with holding gel.

Makeup? A little mascara, maybe, and a warm shade of lipstick. Enough to look dressed rather than provocative. Not enough to look vain or self-absorbed. Her pumps were all business and no flash, but she drew the line at giving up her hand-tooled Spanish leather handbag. After all, a girl has to have something to bolster her confidence when she went to seek out a very mean and dangerous fire-breathing dragon.

Kendra stood staring up at the sixteenth floor of the Farrar-Chase building. It was lunchtime, and Blackburn Boulevard was humming like a beehive. The bank of four glass revolving doors at the top of a short flight of stairs were practically whirling as workers spilled out of the building and down onto the sidewalk. Even on this overcast, slightly windy spring day, they were cheerful, chatting in their pairs and threesomes.

The determination that had fueled her thus far abandoned her at the foot of the stairs. Could she really do it? Could she walk past all those desks and cubicles, feel the burning stares at her back, hear the hushed conversations, and know they were about her? And that glass office, Shel’s eye in the sky. Speaking to Hammond in there again would leave her naked. Stripped.

The doors spun again—and out walked chatterbox Iris. Fluffy as a lemon meringue, chubby legs having difficulty with the stairs. Smiling and laughing with Jennifer from procurement.

Panic! Kendra darted back to the curb, squeezing herself between a hotdog cart and the newsstand where she always bought her papers. The newsstand owner gave her a funny look, but didn’t comment.

If she couldn’t go in there, she’d have to come up with an alternative battle plan.

An ambush was her next best bet; the man had got to come out sometime. Bachelor style, he never brown-bagged his lunch and never ate in his office. He prowled the restaurants within a block or two of here, a habit everyone in Wanderlust had grown accustomed to. She could only hope he kept up his pattern today.

But, as had been the trend these days, she was long on hope but short on luck. She watched other employees leave and return, watched Iris and Jennifer saunter back in, and still no sign of Hammond. Round about one thirty, it began to rain. And why not?

She was glad for her camel coat, and even more glad the newsstand owner didn’t seem to mind her huddling under his narrow eave for what little shelter it afforded her. Was the man ever going to come out to eat?

Then, in one of those uncanny moments where everything seemed to have been choreographed by someone with a flair for the dramatic and a deeply ingrained sense of irony, the door on the far right spun again. Out strode Trey Hammond, larger than life and twice as striking. He descended the stairs like a huge ticked-off puma. Long legs eating up the sidewalk, mackintosh open down the front, coattails unfurling in the slight breeze, as though he didn’t care if he got wet. He was limber, graceful, and filled with purpose. Unbelievable, Kendra thought, he even walked like he was on slowed-down film. The only thing missing from the scene was Miriam Makeba on the sound track, warbling the refrain from “The Lion Sleeps Tonight.”

His brows were drawn in an expression that was either pensive or irritated. Her money was on the latter.

Just before he passed the newsstand, she blocked his path. “Mr. Hammond.” Her voice hadn’t betrayed her. Good.

The irritation was replaced by surprise. It took several seconds for him to get over the shock and speak. “You’re aware, of course, that stalking is a crime.”

Ha ha. Funny. She clarified for his benefit. “I’m not stalking you. I was waiting for you.”

“But I’ve told you I don’t want to speak to you. Since I don’t desire your company, doesn’t your persistence constitute stalking?”

She was tired, hadn’t slept for three nights, and her glycemic load was through the roof. She tried to be calm and explain her position as best she could. “Look, Mr. Hammond, all I want is two minutes of your time.”

“Why?”

He really did make her feel like she was in the presence of a huge feline. Even standing still, he was thrumming with pent-up energy. His solid, powerful body dwarfed hers, and his eyes held her in thrall. Cats were known to mesmerize their prey with a stare, weren’t they? She almost forgot what she was about to say.

“I want you to know how sorry I am.” Ah, yes, that was it.

“You’ve already said as much.”

“And you need to know I’m not a bad person. I’m not a thief.”

Unblinking, he still had her pinned. “Miss Forrest, I think we’ve gone over this ground already, and frankly, I’m a little tired of it. I didn’t brand you a thief. You did yourself that disservice.”