Montaine (4 page)

“What is it?” I stood
before him at soldierly attention, my pen poised over my notepad, ready to jot
down the vital instructions that I believed were forthcoming. He fished in his
front pocket and removed a thin pink piece of paper, handing it to me with the
solemnity of a Nobel Prize ceremony.

West Manhattan
Cleaners
. I was holding a dry
cleaning receipt.

“My shirts are ready.
Would you mind picking them up for me?” His lips parted in that same catlike
grimace.

“Yes, I would mind, as a
matter of fact.” I recalled Tony’s warning.
Don’t poke the bear.
I
softened my tone, trying for diplomacy. “It’s just that, I’m here to learn this
summer. Do you have any more…um…
journalistic
assignments for me?”

“Show me you can handle
the small stuff, and maybe I will let you tackle something more substantial. Do
you understand?” He enunciated the last words extra slowly, as if I were hard
of hearing or simply stupid.

“Yeah. I understand.” I
crumpled the receipt and shoved it into my pocket. Kill hopped from the desk
and walked away without another word.

***

“You’re working late.”

I sat hunched over my
computer, my eyes strained and stinging from the dull monotony of endless
proofreading. When I lifted my head, I realized that the only other person in
the room was Trent Montaine. He stood a few feet away, a messenger bag slung
over his shoulder and his eyebrows raised in an unspoken question.

My heart jumped with
surprise. I blinked with the sudden shift of focus from my laptop screen to the
overhead fluorescent lighting.

“I lost track of time, I
guess.” I peeked at the clock in the bottom right corner of my screen. It was
almost 8:00.

Trent’s gaze slid over
the top of my desk and settled on a pile of shirts draped on wire hangers and
covered in plastic. I had angrily dropped them onto my desk hours before when I
returned from the dry cleaner only to find Kill’s office already empty and
locked.

“What is that?” Trent
asked with a note of suspicion.

“Kill’s dry cleaning,” I
was unable to keep the disgust from my tone. “He asked me to pick it up for
him.”

Trent breathed in deeply
and slowly. He exhaled through his perfect nose in a way that articulated an
equal measure of disgust, or at least frustration. His broad shoulders slumped
slightly as he set his bag on the floor. He perched on the corner of my desk
and leaned toward me, resting his weight on one brawny arm. His nearness sent
my stomach into somersaults. I tried unsuccessfully to slow my rocketing pulse
with a few deep breaths of my own.

“Look, Kat,” he began. “I
was just kidding with that stuff I said yesterday, about my only hiring you
because you’re a woman. I apologize if I gave you the wrong impression. I’m an
asshole about some things, but not about my hiring decisions.”

I was unable to stifle a
smile. He bent low to catch my eye.

“There’s the smile that I
haven’t seen yet.” He grinned with a magnetic and luminous charm that made my
head swim and my cheeks flush hot. “The truth is, I hired you because I see
great potential in you. I was impressed with that story you wrote about the
women’s rowing team.”

“You actually read that?”
I asked in shock.

“Of course I read it,” he
laughed. “It was part of your application. I read hundreds of them from
students all over the country. Yours was the best. I wouldn’t tell you that if
it wasn’t true. I don’t give praise easily. You have to earn it. You did.”

“What in particular did
you like about the story?”

His eyes glinted with a
keen excitement, and his smooth lips curled upwards with obvious delight. “You
ask questions like a real journalist.”

“I am a real journalist,”
I said defensively.

“Relax, feisty.” He placed
a hand on my forearm for the briefest instant. It was long enough for a rush of
warmth to race through my veins to every extremity. “I liked your story because
you didn’t stop with the cheerful tale of a team finally obtaining the funding
they needed to survive. You went the extra step. You asked the serious
questions about fairness and equality. You gave a real sense of the motivations
and struggles of the athletes themselves. That’s the kind of writing I look
for.”

“That’s the kind of
writing I strive for.” I stared up into his penetrating blue eyes, which were
locked tightly on mine. I broke away first, looking shyly down at my fidgeting
fingers. I could still feel the heat of his gaze.

“I want you to enter the
contest…for the cover story.” He rapped his knuckles on the desktop and pointed
a forefinger at me for emphasis. “Promise?”

I looked up and nodded.
“I’ll start researching story ideas.”

“Good. That’s what I like
to hear.” He stood and lifted his messenger bag from the floor, slipping the
strap over his sturdy shoulder. “It’s almost eight o’clock.” He paused. “Do you
have any plans right now?”

For a moment, I entertained
the crazy thought that Trent Montaine was about to ask me to dinner. “No. No, I
don’t,” I hurriedly blurted.

He clucked his tongue.
“That’s a shame. A girl like you should have plans.” He turned and marched in
long strides toward the exit. “Get out of here, Kat Raney,” he shouted from
across the empty room as he pushed open the heavy glass doors. “Save those
pretty brown eyes.”

With a final backwards
wave, he was gone.

“I’ll clothesline that dirty
hussy!” Marcie shouted over the din of pulsing drumbeats. “If she doesn’t back
off in exactly five seconds, she’s toast. I swear it.”

Marcie’s eyes glinted
with menace as she watched the side of the stage, where Vaughan leaned lazily
against a curtain, clutching the neck of a guitar in one hand and flipping his long
curls back from his forehead with the other. A voluptuous, raven-haired girl
was raised on tiptoe, her lips only centimeters from his ear as her shoulders
quivered in a giggle. Her breasts were wrapped in a skimpy strip of fabric that
looked more like a brightly colored bandage than an item of clothing. Her
smooth back arched. Her hips, stuffed into skin-tight leather shorts, angled
with an invitation.

“Maybe she’s just a music
theory student interested in discussing his unique take on modern punk rock.”

Marcie shot me a burning
glare that could have torched a forest.

“Kat’s right,” Tony
chimed in. “Maybe she’s a music critic and she wants to hear about his
classical influences.”

“Oh, you two are truly
hilarious.” Marcie slumped in her chair and scowled. She tossed a curled lime
peel garnish onto the sticky tabletop and downed her martini in one long swig.

My eardrums felt ready to
burst from the carnival of noise that surrounded us. Thumping bass, shouted
conversations, screeching guitar. From our spot on a raised platform near the
back of the club, we had a good view of the stage, the surging and pulsing
crowd beneath it, and the teeming bar, where lines for drinks were five deep.

Tony placed his hand on
the back of my chair and leaned toward me.

“Thanks for inviting me!
This is fun!” he yelled. Even though he was only inches away, I still had
difficulty making out his words. I also couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic
or genuine.

When Marcie told me that
Vaughan’s band would be playing at
Squirrel
, the oddly named but
incredibly trendy downtown club, I reluctantly agreed to go. It was Wednesday
night, and I needed to be up early the next day. Still, my first few days at
the magazine had been both stressful and tiring. A stiff drink didn’t sound half
bad.

On a whim, just before we
hopped on the subway, I texted Tony and invited him to join us. I hoped that he
and Marcie would hit it off, and the side-by-side comparison of the smart and
quick-witted Tony with the dim and dull-witted Vaughan would spark her interest.

Tony looked handsome in a
black form-fitting, short-sleeved button-down shirt that was far more appealing
than his usual collection of pastel office polos. Unfortunately, Marcie had spent
the entire night alternately gushing over Vaughan’s guitar abilities, which I
judged to be subpar at best, and obsessing over the female attention he
received once his band finished their set and retired to the wings.

“Where’d they go? I don’t
see them?” Marcie’s head popped up like a prairie dog and swiveled from side to
side as she scanned the stage and its boundaries. Her dangling silver
chandelier earrings swung wildly. Her pert body in its clingy red mini dress
stretched straight as a flagpole.

Vaughan and his new
friend were no longer visible behind a screen of waving arms and bouncing
heads. Onstage was some kind of punk metal group. A shirtless and sweaty lead
singer with chains looped around his pierced torso screamed into the microphone.
He flailed his head up and down with enough force to cause serious whiplash.
With a final prolonged squeal and a thunderous mechanical thud, the band went
silent. The crowd erupted in cheers. People made their way to the bar for fresh
drinks. Vaughan was nowhere to be seen.

“That’s it. I’m going
after that scumbag.” With the alacrity of a gymnast, Marcie hopped over the railing
and darted through the milling throng, her red dress a fiery flag of anger, until
she too disappeared from view.

“She’s interesting,” Tony
said matter-of-factly.

“Cheers to that.” I
clinked my glass against his beer bottle. We both took a long drink. My
vodka-heavy concoction sloshed around in my brain and loosened my tongue. We no
longer had to shout at each other in the sudden lull, but my eardrums still
buzzed. “So, do you like her?”

Tony almost choked on his
beer. “You can’t just ask a guy that. That’s not fair,” he laughed. “Besides,
she seems a little…um…preoccupied at the moment.”

“Vaughan is just a phase.
Marcie deserves better. She really is a great girl once you get to know her. A
bit manic at times, but she has a good heart. And she’s smart as a whip.”

“Why do I get the idea
you’re trying to sell me on this?” He took another sip of beer.

“Give it time. Then I
won’t need to sell you.”

We drank in silence for a
few more minutes, observing the line of fashionable people that streamed
through the entrance. Even a Wednesday night in Manhattan was an opportunity
for endless partying.

“Wait. Isn’t that Trent?”

“Trent’s here?”  Now it
was my turn to choke on my drink.

Tony eyed a small excited
knot of people to the right of our platform. He jutted his chin in their
direction. Sure enough, Trent’s towering and sinewy physique sliced through the
crowd, a lick of black hair flopping enticingly over his forehead.

He wore the same gray t-shirt
and dark wash jeans that I’d seen in the office earlier that day. Grasping his
arm was an impossibly tall and lithe blonde, her sticklike figure draped in
thin folds of silver fabric that left her long back completely exposed from her
swan neck all the way down to the minor swell of her tiny round ass. Her delicate
features and shining mane of upswept golden hair looked familiar. I stared,
trying to make the connection. Then I realized where I had seen her before.
Times Square. A billboard ad for perfume. She loomed over the city, three
stories high and utterly naked but for a few strategically placed daisies.

“Damn.” Tony’s jaw hung
loose.

“You might want to close
your mouth. You’re drooling,” I said testily.

“Jealous?” he poked me in
the shoulder.

“Oh please. She probably
has the I.Q. of a sock puppet. What’s there to be jealous about?”

“Mmmm-hmmmm,” Tony
crooned, taking another sip of his beer and trying to hide the smirk that
threatened to break across his lips.

“You jerk,” I laughed.
“Remind me why I invited you tonight?”

“To hook me up with your
friend, who may or may not currently be murdering a rival for her lover’s
affection. Thanks for that, by the way.”

I tossed a rolled-up
napkin at him, swallowed a hearty gulp of vodka, and slammed the glass onto the
tabletop with a resounding clank.

“Careful. Don’t break the
fine crystal.” It was Trent’s droll voice, and it came from a spot only inches
behind my head.

I swiveled in my seat, my
eyes wide and my mouth agape. There was no sign of the glistening blonde. Trent
settled into the chair on my left, his legs spread wide and his fingers hooked
into the belt loops of his jeans. His blue eyes watched me with a searing
focus.

“What are you doing here?”
I stammered in surprise.

He threw back his head
and laughed, his thick Adam’s apple bobbing. “Is that any way to greet your
boss? ‘Nice to see you, Trent. Fancy meeting you on this fine evening.’”

“Nice to see you, Trent.
Fancy meeting you on this fine evening,” Tony echoed with a sarcastic edge.

“See, Tony knows how to
do it right. You could learn a lot from him, Kat.”

“I keep telling her that,
but she won’t listen.”

“So,” Trent sat up and
rested his elbows on the table, the muscles in his forearms visibly shifting
under the skin. “What are
you
doing here? Shouldn’t you both be at home,
sound asleep and dreaming of all the ways that you can help my magazine make
even more money?”

I lifted my drink and
swallowed a last bit of vodka to steady my nerves. The alcohol swished within
my skull and sent my internal balance momentarily off kilter. I slapped my
palms onto the table to regain my center of gravity.

“My roommate’s boyfriend
played in one of the bands earlier. I invited Tony to come along.”

“I see.” Trent glanced
from me to Tony and back again. He lowered his eyebrows as if deep in thought
and then nodded with pursed lips.

“Looks like the bar’s
cleared up a little. Think I’ll go grab another beer,” Tony interjected.
“Anyone else want anything?”

Trent and I shook our
heads in unison. Tony bounded down the platform stairs and melted into the
crowd.

“You and Tony, huh?”
Trent nudged me with his elbow.

“What? What about me and
Tony?”

“Aren’t you two on a
date? Did I interrupt?”

“Oh, God no!” I blurted a
bit too quickly and emphatically.

“Well, why not? What’s wrong
with Tony?” Trent tilted his head to the side as he observed me, a smile barely
lifting the corners of his mouth.

“Nothing’s wrong with
Tony. We’re just friends, though. I’m actually trying to set him up with my
roommate, but I have to peel her away from the rock star first.” I made air
quotes around “rock star.”

Trent shook his head
ruefully. “Why do the girls always go for flash over substance?”

“Girls? You’re one to
talk!” The vodka had substantially lowered my inhibitions. Words flew out of my
mouth faster than my brain could process them.

“Excuse me?” He sat up
straight and cocked an eyebrow.

“What about Miss Daisy
over there?” I made circles with my hands and held them over my nipples. “Are
you dating her because she has substance?”

A perfect grin beamed
across his face. My breath caught in my throat. He really was ridiculously
handsome.

“Just because she’s
attractive doesn’t mean she’s stupid,” he replied in a lecturing tone.

“No, I guess not,” I
conceded.

“But to tell you the
truth,” he leaned forward and lowered his voice to a near whisper, “she really is
very stupid.”

We both broke into loud laughter,
catching a few interested glances from adjacent tables.

“Where is Miss Daisy
anyway? Did you abandon her?”

“Ah, Miss Daisy will
never be abandoned.” He surveyed the teeming club and immediately zeroed in on
her location at the far end. She was easy to spot in her shimmery silver dress.
I followed his gaze and saw her embrace a man with a bronze tan and an
open-collared shirt from which black chest hairs sprouted in tufts. “See, she’s
already found her next target.”

“That guy looks familiar.
Who is he?”

“He was on one of those
bachelor shows. Millionaire Bachelor. Royal Bachelor. Dipshit Bachelor. I can’t
keep track anymore.”

“You don’t seem too upset
about losing her to the Dipshit Bachelor.”

“I’m not. They’re made
for each other. I like more of a challenge where my women are concerned.” He
paused and cleared his throat. “But I’m sure the tabloids will make a story out
of it. Trent Montaine abandoned at club! Miss Daisy finds love with Dipshit
Bachelor!”

“Montaine forced to spend
evening in company of Plain Jane!” I said in my best newsboy imitation.

Trent stared at me
frankly and openly, his eyes traveling over my light auburn hair that cascaded in
shining waves and the tight violet dress that clung to my curvy figure. The ruched
fabric snugly outlined my waist and hips. The plunging neckline, draped low and
loose, afforded a generous view of my cleavage.

“Kat, you are anything
but a Plain Jane. You are stunning.”

The surrounding club with
all of its noise and clamor seemed to fall instantly away. I opened my mouth to
speak, but no sound came out.

“Finally got my beer!”
Tony’s cheerful voice cut through the fog and brought the pulsing club back to
life. He plunked the bottle onto the table. “Did I miss anything exciting?”

“Not at all. Kat was just
criticizing my taste in women.” Trent threw me a sideways grin.

Marcie hopped over the
railing and landed with a thud beside our table. She panted heavily. Rivulets
of mascara ran down her cheeks.

“Kitty Kat, we have to
get out of here.” She gripped my arm and attempted to hoist me from my seat.

“Why? What’s going on?”
Her fingers were tiny vises encircling my flesh.

“Don’t ask questions.
There’s no time.” She swiped her palms over her wet cheeks, leaving black
smears like a Halloween mask.

“I think you’re being a
bit overly dramatic. What happened back there?”

She relaxed her grip on
my arm. Since there were no more empty chairs, she flopped theatrically into my
lap with a heavy sigh.

“I searched backstage and
found Vaughan making out with that bitch in the rubber band top. He had his
hands all over her huge tits! So, I screamed and pulled her off by her ratty
hair and came away with these.” She held up a fistful of long hair extensions,
which she tossed onto the table in a ragged heap. “And he was all like, ‘Babe,
what’s wrong?’” She expertly imitated Vaughan’s signature slow drawl. “What’s
wrong!? He has his tongue down the throat of some piece of trash, and he has
the nerve to ask me what’s wrong. What a dick. Anyway, she started screaming
when I ripped out her hair. So I ran.”