Kathleen O'Reilly - Beyond Breathless

With one hand, she pulled her hair back into the ponytail with a single hard twist and a tight snap of the rubber band. Her ritual complete, all brain cells now back on line and fully functioning.

“Sandy, I can you call you Sandy, can’t I?” She recrossed her legs, confidence flowing back in her veins. “I don’t need much time today. We can reschedule into thirty minutes rather than the previous hour. Don’t let me down, Sandy. And you know what? Maybe I can repay you with dinner tonight. I bet you know all the best places, in fact—” she whipped out her online Zagats, fingers flying “—there’s a fabulous little French place I’d love to try, La—”

“Finis, Ms. McNamara. Mr. Newhouse is already overbooked this afternoon and this morning’s power mishap in the city has only made things even more impossible.”

“Impossible, as a word, is highly overrated, Sandy. You sound stressed. Have you been to the day spa up in the Berkshires? If you’d like, I can set you up—”

“Hold, please, while I get the other line.”

“Of course,” purred Jamie, talking to dead air. She noticed Andrew watching her, measuring her job performance and her trampled pride kicked in. She flashed him a confident smile and began to speak into her cell, in low, overhearable tones.

“He is? Perfect! I think we can arrange to discuss that as well. And the new offerings, too? I’m sure he’ll be very pleased. B-W believes in the highest services available.”

She waited three beats.

“Of course we’re available for whatever financial needs—”

“Excuse me, Ms. McNamara, were you speaking to me?”

Sandy the Gorgon had returned.

“Another call,” Jamie snapped, her face heating up, refusing to look in Andrew’s direction. “About that later appointment. Maybe fourish?”

“Mr. Newhouse is unavailable. I don’t know how to be more direct.”

Jamie pitched her voice low. “Just ten minutes after lunch. I don’t need much time. And he really needs to hear what I have to—”

“Perhaps I wasn’t being clear.”

At that, Jamie’s stomach curdled. She glanced out the window, the rolling hills of Connecticut whizzing by. Too little, too late.

“I’m only ten minutes from the office,” she tried, hoping that the steno-taking Gorgon had a heart.

Sandy the heartless Gorgon hung up.

“Problem?” asked Andrew.

“Nothing I can’t handle,” she said with a tight smile.

“I’m sorry,” he said, sensing that maybe her year had just been shot straight to hell, and thinking that one apology, accompanied by a sexy, yet insightful regard would make it all better.

What a chauvinist.

“It’s certainly not your fault,” she answered, although she wanted to blame him. She wanted to blame ConEd, the Metropolitan Transit Authority, and possibly the entire planet, because first and foremost, when it came to business, Jamie never lost.

“I could try and reschedule my lunch plans,” he offered, still trying for helpful and Boy Scoutish, which only increased her anger.

“Look, I don’t need your help. I don’t need your assistance. I don’t need your pity. I’m a Wellesley grad, you know. Summa Cum Laude,” she added, because she needed to assert herself—regain her footing.

“What a surprise,” he said, so innocently she was immediately suspicious.

When a Boy Scout turned snarky, it was time for a rethink. “I’m sorry. It’s been an awful day,” she offered, rubbing her neck, working to ease the perpetual ridges of tension.

He raised his eyebrows, his dark eyes holding something more than a spark. Now they held a memory. The squishiness in her thighs bloomed anew.

Bitchy as she felt, she wasn’t completely vile. “No, that part was nice.”

Slowly he bowed his head. “My vanity thanks you.”

“Somehow I don’t think your vanity needs it.”

“Strokes are always…” He covered his eyes. “Strike that.”

His discomfort struck something within her, because she felt it, too. Carnal overtones were still thick and heavy in the air, a new experience for Jamie, an experience that made her want to clutch her briefcase to her chest. It was her crutch, she knew it, she admitted it, and she wasn’t going to loosen her grip.

Her fingers itched to get a bite of chocolate from her briefcase, but he would see it as a weakness, so she made a fist instead.

“Can you have the driver let me off at the train station in Stamford?”

“You’re just going to sit and wait until the trains are running again? At least let him take you back to the city.”

He didn’t seem to understand that she had to leave this pleasure-cruise on wheels. The smell of sex, cologne and newsprint mingling together into a potent aphrodisiac was weakening her mind, and she couldn’t have that. This was an experience best forgotten, or if not forgotten, then at least filed in the “Mistakes I’ll never make again” folder.

“No, thanks,” she said.

“If it’s the cost, don’t worry. I’ll pick it up.”

Like she was some minimum-wage slacker. “I can manage my own finances, thank you.”

“Just a gesture, not a judgment on your earning potential.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m not usually like that.” It was a lie. She usually was. Her nickname at the office wasn’t Porcupine for nothing. Her coworkers didn’t think she knew, but jokes spread, and one day she entered the break room one minute too early. Thinking fast on her feet, she pretended she didn’t hear—pretended her cell conversation was still going on.

She’d fooled them all, but she wasn’t sure she could fool Andrew. She pulled out her computer and began to work, shutting out Hummer limos, great sex, the uncomfortable dampness between her thighs, and Andrew. Well, not quite Andrew.

The quiet in the car grew to ear-blasting levels. The flick of fingers on the keyboard, the rustle of papers, and the sound of two people desperate to avoid a conversation.

Her in-box wasn’t even cleared when the driver announced they’d arrived.

“So soon?” she said, a poor joke, but she wasn’t feeling happy. Explaining to her boss about missing Newhouse wasn’t going to be easy. Rain, sleet, snow or power outages. Nothing would deter Bond-Worthington.

Until today.

Jamie pulled out two twenties from her wallet, not enough to cover her share, but it was all the cash she had on her. “You can bill me for the rest,” she told him, because she didn’t like debts, not to credit card companies, not to people.

“I can take care of it…” he started, but apparently noticed the militant gleam in her eyes. “So how do I get in touch with you?” he asked, trapping her neatly.

Reluctantly, she pulled out her business card, and he tucked it away in his breast pocket. “I won’t abuse it. Swear.”

“You’re a nice man,” she started.

He held up a hand. “Not the ‘nice man’ speech.”

“It’s a compliment.”

“Then why don’t you want to go out?” he asked, a perfectly logical question, which told her he hadn’t bought her earlier “I’m involved” lie. He’d probably thought no man could be involved with such a bitch.

And if the dog collar fits…So why did he want to see her again?

She noticed the torn stockings lying in the corner and sighed, a very visual clue why he wanted to see her again. Now seemed the time to share the cold, hard truth.

“I watch one hour of TV every day, the national news and Lou Dobbs. I’m on a first name basis with the delivery man from Golden Noodle. I rarely see the sunrise because I’m already at work, and I don’t like chick-flicks.”

“You watch Lou Dobbs, too?”

“I’m not who you think I am—I’m not a woman who has sex in a Hummer with a stranger. At least not normally,” she muttered after a pause.