Leanne Banks: Feet First

STUNNED, JENNY FELT her hands go limp. The bottle of champagne slid through her fingers. She tried to grasp for it, but she felt as if she were moving in slow motion.

Marc moved in a split second and caught the bottle just as it hit the floor.

Jenny shook her head and winced. “Sorry. I, uh.” She shook her head. “Great save.”

He nodded and stood in front of her. “You’ll need to be briefed by the PR Department and they’ll require you to take a few lessons. The worst part is you’ll have to deal with Brooke until this is all over, and you won’t get credit for your designs. We’re trying to build the name of Sal Amoré by Bellagio as the premier line in evening and bridal shoes. I wasn’t sure if you could do it, but Sal insisted you could. He told me to take a second look at your résumé. I didn’t know you’d attended design school and even did an apprenticeship with one of our competitors.”

She didn’t know that, either. Jenny dropped her jaw in shock. Marc must have gotten her résumé mixed up with someone else’s. Jenny had never attended design school unless one counted the pottery class she’d taken. And she’d never apprenticed with one of their competitors unless one counted her stint as sales person in Rice’s Department Store Shoe Department.

She should correct him. She really should correct him, she thought. “I think there’s been some confusion,” she began.

Marc lifted his hand. “Sal warned me that you wouldn’t want to take credit. He told me not to let you pull the modesty act.”

“It’s no act,” she insisted. “I haven’t—”

Marc cut her off again. “The company needs you for this,” he said.

Jenny opened her mouth to try to set Marc straight again, but something niggled in the back of her mind. When Sal had first hired her, he’d mentioned in an offhand way that he needed to fill in some blanks on her résumé for the Personnel Department. She’d thought he’d meant her recent change of address and social security number for health insurance.

How embarrassing. She should correct Marc right this minute.

And give up the opportunity of a lifetime just because she didn’t go to design school.

She should correct him. It was the right thing to do.

“Of course you’ll get a promotion and salary increase,” Marc said.

She felt herself tilt to the dark side. A promotion. A real promotion, not the move from French-fry cooker to front end clerk at Burger King. Her mind whirled with possibilities. It was okay that she wouldn’t get credit, she thought, but still felt a little pinch. The feeling surprised her. She’d thought she would be content to anonymously doodle and create until she reached retirement, but maybe she wasn’t. So she had an ego after all. She wanted some credit, too. She frowned in irritation. What a pain in the butt for this to show up now.

“What would my title be?”

“Associate designer. What else do you want?”

Good question, she thought, drawing a blank. The only time she could remember someone asking her what she wanted was in reference to food choice, and it usually involved takeout. “I’m not—” She sighed. “I need to think about that, if it’s okay with you.”

He studied her and nodded slowly. “Okay. We can talk tomorrow.”

She nodded. “That will work,” she murmured, seeing his Italian heritage in his dark hair and tanned skin and his Scottish ancestry in his strong bone structure and blue-gray eyes. He has great eyebrows, she thought. This was the first time she’d been close enough to really notice.

He frowned. “Are you sure you’re okay? You look shell-shocked.”

She moved her head in a circle, trying to clear it. “Well, this caught me off guard. I usually have a fast recovery, but this was several things at once. Plus I’ve probably just fallen off the sugar high I got from the Krispy Kreme doughnuts I ate.”

His lips twitched. “Do you need the rest of the day off?”

Wow, he was being almost nice. She never would have expected it. One surprise after another. “I don’t need the whole day, but I’ll take some extra time at lunch if that’s okay. A long walk will help.”

“Take it,” he said. “Just remember that the confidentiality agreement you signed at the start of your employment is in force.”

Jenny vaguely remembered skimming the agreement along with the forms for Social Security, tax deductions and insurance. At the time, she’d been much more concerned with starting the job so she could make her rent and car payments. “So I can’t discuss this with anyone,” she said.

“Correct.”

“Except maybe a cat,” she mused, thinking of her adopted barn cat, Romeo, at home.

“R…i…g…h…t,” he said, drawing the word out and giving her a strange look.

“You don’t have a pet, do you?” she asked.

“No,” he said. “Why?”

She shrugged. “No reason, really. You have a very demanding position. I imagine you feel like you don’t have the time or the inclination to take care of a pet.”

“And your point is?”

She shrugged again, wishing she hadn’t rattled on. “Nothing really.” She could tell she needed to shut up. Her attorney sister had always told her to give the least amount of information possible to officers of the law and people who could control your income.

He narrowed his eyes and hesitated, then looked away and back again. “There was a point to your comment about pets, but I suspect I don’t need to know what it was.”

“True.”

He frowned. “What is true?”

“What you just said, both things,” she said, and smiled because she felt as if she were sinking into the giant hole she was creating for herself. “Thank you for giving me some extra time at lunch, and I’ll talk to you tomorrow.” She glanced at the drawings of the shoes. “Is it okay if I take these with me?”

“Yes, but make a set of copies for me.”

“Okay,” she said, supremely uncomfortable with his attention as she picked up the drawings. “Well, it’s been interesting.” She turned around and backed toward the door. “Bye for now,” she said, turning the doorknob and waving.

He waved in return, still looking at her as if she had a loose screw. Which wasn’t far from the truth. Jenny had learned long ago that in a world of round holes, she was definitely a triangle.

AT EIGHT O’CLOCK that night, Marc stepped into his Italian-tiled foyer with his laptop and assorted files crammed into a case. The condo was dark and completely silent. He stood still for a moment. It was so quiet he could hear his heartbeat.

For ten seconds he treasured the silence, a respite from the noises at the office and in traffic. He walked through the hallway to the kitchen counter and glanced through his mail before he put it down. Shooting a glance at his widescreen television, he made a mental note to turn on the Braves game while he worked tonight. He set his case down on the sofa table, loosened his tie and went to the refrigerator to grab a beer. Corona. It reminded him of a trip he’d taken to the islands years before when he’d had more time and less corporate responsibility.

He felt a twinge at the memory. Lord, that felt ages ago. Had it been so long?

Dismissing the thought, he took a long draw from the bottle of beer and went upstairs to his bedroom. It was just as he’d left it this morning. Neat and orderly. The way he liked it. He’d nixed the decorator’s suggestion for a useless pile of extra pillows on his king-size bed. He didn’t like clutter. He never had. He didn’t like messes because he’d had to clean up too many.

His mind wandered to Sal’s assistant, what was her name? Jillian? Jerri? He shrugged, remembering her kooky comment about pets. What had she meant? He shouldn’t care, but he was curious. She’d been right. She’d been right about Brooke, right about Sal and somewhat right about him. He tugged his tie loose and unbuttoned his shirt.