Jasmine Cresswell - Payback

“Thank you, but I only finished breakfast a few minutes ago.”

“Then let’s go into my office. We have more hope of being left alone there.” Luke escorted her through the dining room and pulled out a chair across from his desk as soon as they reached his office. Avery sank into the seat, managing to look entirely comfortable without slumping, crossing her legs or disturbing the perfect lines of her tweed skirt.

“You look very well,” Luke said truthfully.

“I feel well, too. Or perhaps energized would be a better word. October is always my favorite month and the weather’s been heavenly for the past few days, don’t you think?”

“Perfect, especially in contrast to the rotten summer we had this year.” The phone rang. Luke ignored the ring and pressed the button to switch his calls through to voice mail. “Did you manage to escape from the city during those hot spells back in June and July?”

“Only for the odd day, now and again. I was too busy selling the penthouse. Fortunately, we managed to find a buyer before the real estate market totally tanked. The new owners are a couple from India who’ve just moved to the States and they were eager to buy a lot of the furniture, too, which suited me very well. So it was a successful transaction all around, with happy buyers and a contented seller.”

Luke hoped the sale of the penthouse had left Avery financially secure. She undoubtedly needed the money. Even if Ron had made a will and left her a decent share of his estate, Luke doubted if she would see a penny of her inheritance anytime soon. There would surely be years of litigation over the disposition of the estate, even if all the parties tried to be reasonable. The tabloids had mentioned something about a three-million-dollar debt hanging over the heads of Ron’s Wyoming family, so it seemed safe to assume both wives had suffered major financial blows when Ron disappeared.

“Have you decided where you’re going to live now the penthouse is sold?” he asked Avery, wondering how the complicated Raven family finances would ever be unraveled if Ron was officially declared alive again. Just contemplating the potential legal nightmare of getting the estate back out of probate had Luke questioning his decision all over again.

“At first, I thought about moving back to Georgia,” Avery said. “Then I realized that would be silly. It’s so long since I’ve lived anywhere other than Chicago that my roots are here now. So I’m about to move into a small house in Wicker Park.”

“That’s one of my favorite neighborhoods.” It was where Kate lived, too, so Avery was moving away from the superexpensive lakeside and closer to her daughter. Wicker Park was a younger, trendier neighborhood than the only-millionaires-need-apply Gold Coast.

“I like my new neighborhood better the more I explore. Actually, I’m rather excited. Not just about the house, but about my prospects generally. I’ve started a small business and discovered that I very much enjoy being gainfully employed.”

“That’s great, Avery!”

Her smile turned into an outright laugh. “You should never play poker, Luke, you’d be wiped out in a couple of hands. I know everyone thinks I’m a useless social butterfly with all the management skills of a potted plant, but I’m actually quite efficient.”

“I’m sure you are.”

“You’re not sure at all.” Avery seemed amused by his doubts, not offended. “I’m like a lot of other Southern women of my generation, a great deal more competent than I look. We were brought up to hide our capabilities and defer to our husbands and flutter our eyelashes if any of the gentlemen discussed politics or money at the dinner table. But the truth is, I’ve raised millions of dollars for art galleries and museums and homeless shelters over the past twenty years. I’ve personally organized more benefits and charity balls than most people attend in a lifetime. When Ron died, and I was trying to think how in the world I should spend the rest of my life, it occurred to me that I already had all the training I would ever need to become a professional event planner. So that’s what I’ve started doing, and I’m loving every minute.”

Luke smiled. “That’s a brilliant career choice, Avery. It’s the perfect niche for you.” If anything, she was understating the number of important fund-raisers she’d planned over the past decade. “You already know the best venues in Chicago for every conceivable type of event, and you have a Rolodex full of outstanding caterers, florists, musicians—anything your clients could want or need for the perfect party.”

She laughed, drawing a sleek gray PDA from her purse. “Actually, I now have a BlackBerry as well as a Rolodex. Kate finally persuaded me it was time to take a few tentative steps into the twenty-first century, and I discovered technology is great when you understand it. I even know how to access my e-mail account while sipping coffee at Starbucks. I can send instant text messages, too. I can’t quite bring myself to sign off with a smiley face, but I’m getting there!”

“Congratulations.” Avery’s pleasure was infectious and Luke smiled back at her. “In addition to becoming a techie, you’re always so polite and serene that even the most neurotic client will calm down simply knowing you’re in charge. You’re going to be hiring extra staff and turning away customers before you know it.”

“Thanks for the compliments, Luke, I really appreciate them. Especially the bit about being serene. From my perspective, viewed from the inside, I’m a nervous wreck. Still, I don’t seem to be having any difficulty finding clients, especially since I don’t want to get overwhelmed before I have all my ducks in a row.”

“I suspect your ducks are already lined up and waiting to swim off into deep waters.”

“Perhaps.” Avery’s cheeks flushed with a mixture of excitement and pride. “I just finished putting together a wedding for the daughter of an old college friend. She gave me a bare four weeks’ notice and the ceremony was last weekend. Everything seems to have gone rather well, if I do say so myself. And I’m working on two new projects right now. One is a business conference next month and the other a coming-of-age celebration for a young woman who has fabulously wealthy parents, both remarried to other partners. They apparently hope that if they spend enough money on the party, their daughter will forget they ignored her for most of the past eighteen years.”

“That sounds like the very best sort of client.” Luke grinned. “There’s nothing like a double dose of parental guilt to shake loose a deluge of money.”

Avery pulled a wry face. “Ah, yes. Parental guilt, the gift that goes on giving. I’ve certainly experienced a full dose of that these past few months. Although Kate is a kind person and she’s almost managed to convince me that I wasn’t utterly foolish not to have realized the truth about her father.”

Luke drew in a deep breath. Avery had opened the door and there was no way to put off discussing Kate any longer.

“How is Kate?” he asked, hoping he didn’t sound as stiff and awkward as he felt. He was alarmed that even now, months after their breakup, he still felt a tightening in his chest at the mere mention of her name. Dammit, he must have some deep masochistic streak that he felt this crazy tug of yearning for a woman who’d made the final weeks of their relationship something pretty close to a living hell. Not that he’d exactly been a prince, he admitted silently. But, God knew, their final breakup had been caused exclusively by Kate, with zero assistance from him.

“Kate’s well,” Avery said, her voice cooling just a little. “Busy, of course. She spent a month in Vienna this summer, working with Torsten Richter. She found him as terrifying as his reputation, but she said the terror was worth it. According to Kate, Torsten can do things with chocolate that are somewhere between obscene and heavenly.”