Janet Lee Nye - Boss Meets Her Match

Lena looked from Dr. Rutledge to the man smiling up at her from the bench. “No,” she said, ice cubes practically dropping from the word. “We have not met.”

“Lena, this is our artist.”

A hot spark of anger flared in her chest and spread to her cheeks. The man stood, still smiling, and held out a hand. “Matt. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Lena.”

“Did you know who I was when you approached me?”

“Nope. Just a happy accident.”

She stared at him until the smile melted from his face. A long string of profanities pushed against her pressed lips. Breathe. Just breathe.

“Matt asked for a recommendation. Told him I wouldn’t have anyone else in the city watch after my portfolio.”

“Thank you,” she said automatically. She turned back to Matt. Gave him her iciest smile. “I’d be happy to discuss this with you. In my office. During business hours. Call my secretary and make an appointment.” She turned to Dr. Rutledge. “Eliot, it was good to see you.”

As she rounded the corner to the stairs, she heard Dr. Rutledge’s voice. “Did you make her angry? I’d recommend not doing that anymore.”

Smiling as she pushed through the doors out into the perfection that was Charleston in October, she nodded. That’s right. Don’t piss me off. Her condominium was a short walk away along Waterfront Park. She ambled past tourists and college kids. There was still light in the sky and it was a perfect sixty-five degrees. Maybe she’d go for a run. Or maybe she’d collapse on the couch, order some Vietnamese and binge-watch something. Her phone vibrated in her purse. She fished it out. Sadie. Her best friend. The woman she called sister. Her finger hovered over the screen. Completely tired of talking to people for the day, she was sorely tempted to dismiss the call.

“What’s up?” she asked.

“Your mother is what’s up.”

Lena smiled. At least she wasn’t the only one being tortured by her mother. “What’s she done now?”

“We went to look at dresses. I swear to God, Lena. I’m going to get married in jeans and a T-shirt just to spite her. You should have seen the dresses she begged me to try on ‘just to see.’ I looked like Scarlett O’Hara’s cousin from the trailer park. A full veil. To the knees!”

“Sounds perfectly lovely. At least she’s off your case about getting married in a church.”

“For now,” Sadie replied grumpily. “What are you doing this weekend? I need a rational human being for dress shopping.”

Lena reached her condo door and leaned against it. She could hear her cat meowing indignantly from the other side. Supper was an hour late. “We can do that. But don’t invite my mother. I’m trying to stay off her radar right now.”

“Yeah, by throwing me at her.”

“You’re the blushing bride. Much more fun than the dried-up old maid.”

“Is she still on that?”

“She’s backed down a bit. I think my aunts are planning something. Every time I see one of them, I feel like I’m being interrogated. Look, I gotta go. I just got home and la gata has complaints.”

“Okay, grumpy. Bye.”

* * *

“KEEP YOUR FUR ON,” she said as she entered her condo and kicked her shoes off. Sass, the cat, did not keep her fur on. Winding her way around and between Lena’s ankles, she complained bitterly of the near-death experience of having supper one hour late.

An hour later, she’d been forgiven by Sass, her business suit had been replaced with pajamas and Bon Banh Mi had delivered dinner. Wallowing happily on the couch, she scooped salad into her face and resumed binge-watching Supernatural. Her phone buzzed and Sass smacked at it. “Sthop,” she said around a chunk of lettuce. Estrella Acosta. Shit. What now?

“Hola, Tia. Qué pasa?”

“Are you coming to church on Sunday?”

Okay. Getting straight to the point. That’s new. “I hadn’t planned on it.”

“Contestame, will you come to church on Sunday?”

Lena made a face at the phone. “I haven’t been to confession.”

“You don’t have to go to confession to go to church, Miss Smarty Pants.”

“Which mass?”

That was important because no way she was getting up at four in the morning on a Sunday to drive an hour for a sunrise mass.

“Ten.” Lena grinned at the clipped tone in her aunt’s voice. “You haven’t been to church since Luis died. It would mean a lot to your mother.”

That melted the smile off her face. She slumped into the couch. “Okay. Yes. I will come to the 10:00 a.m. mass this Sunday.”

“And to the house for lunch too?”

“Yes.”

Sass swatted at her hair hanging over the arm of the couch. “This is why I should have got a dog instead of you, Sass. I’d have to walk a dog. Take it out to pee and stuff. Perfect excuse to stay home. But no. I got a cat.”

It wasn’t that she didn’t want to see her family. It was that ever since Sadie got engaged, everyone was starting to look at Lena like she was supposed to just pick out a man and start popping out babies. Her mother was calling Sadie’s soon-to-be stepdaughter nieta and dropping grandbaby hints like it was her job. Problem was Lena had spectacularly rotten luck with men.

CHAPTER TWO

MATT PLANTED HIS hands on the balcony railing and looked down at the crowd below. He was bone tired and the voices below were echoing off the high ceiling, making his head hurt. The only thing keeping the smile on his face was the memory of Lena Reyes’s departure. Her long black hair swinging side to side as she strode away. He smiled again. She didn’t look like any financial expert he’d ever met. He hadn’t missed the heat in those nearly black eyes either. When he’d sat beside her and she looked at him. There was nothing professional in her eyes at that moment.

A hand patted his shoulder. “Very good turnout, don’t you think?” Dr. Rutledge asked.

“Great turnout. Thank you again for putting it together.”

“I’m seeing a great many sold tags going up. You’re going to be the next big thing.”

“For now. Problem with being the next is there always someone behind you, ready to be the next next.”

Dr. Rutledge laughed. “Very true, but what’s that old cliché? Make hay while the sun shines? Keep this going for as long as you can, give the money to Lena. I don’t know how she does it, but she has the magic touch.”

“If she’ll even take me as a client now.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Dr. Rutledge said. “She’ll get over it. If you’re lucky.”

“I hope so. I really need her help.”

“What you really need is to get back downstairs and charm wallets out of purses.”

“If I must.”

Dr. Rutledge’s rich laughter echoed in the open area. “Just smile at the ladies and remember what this is all for.”

“I never forget that. I will also never forget all your help.”

“You’re welcome, son. But I’m doing it for selfish reasons.”

“I wouldn’t call helping sick kids selfish.”

“No. I’m doing it because of that look I saw in Clarissa’s eyes when she was painting with you. That joy? All her pain forgotten? I want to see that for a very, very long time.”

Matt followed the older man down the stairs and into the crowd. He hadn’t known who the man was who’d come into the playroom at the Children’s Hospital and interrupted his therapy session with several kids in for cancer treatment. The little redheaded girl’s grandfather, he’d surmised by their greetings. He didn’t know then that Eliot Rutledge was a world-famous neurosurgeon who felt helpless as his beloved granddaughter battled leukemia. Matt didn’t know then that his world was about to change. His dream was suddenly much closer.