When it opened to let her out on the ground floor, she was greeted by who else? Milty Goldman and the same group of investment bankers in interchangeable suits who had witnessed the inflatable doughnut debacle.
“Miss Kent,” boomed Milty.
“Hello, Mr. Goldman. Gentlemen. How are you this morning?”
“Fine, fine,” Milty said genially, all the while doing a full-body scan of her, and not being too subtle about it. The rest of them did the same thing, and she felt her temper rise.
This…this…
gaggle
of men was no different than Jack. She was a person, not a sex object. She was a businesswoman, and existed for more than their viewing pleasure. How would they feel if she did the same thing to them?
She wasn’t a toy or a blow-up doll. And she damn sure wasn’t a reject who couldn’t hold her man’s attention. Dev, for all his faults, had helped her to see that. He’d helped her find her confidence again.
With a cool smile, she walked past them to the reception desk, where two dozen blood-red roses peered carnally out of a clear glass vase. Dev’s apology?
“Ooh, Kylie, aren’t they beautiful?” April said, clear envy in her voice.
They were. They were stunning. No doubt about it. But Kylie wished the group of men didn’t have to witness her getting flowers at work. Kylie found the card and slipped it out of the plastic holder. She opened the envelope.
Can’t wait to see you on Friday, babe. We have so much to talk about.
Xoxo, Jack.
Her heart dropped into her Stuart Weitzman pumps. The roses were from Jack? And what did he think they had to talk about?
She took a step back from the reception desk, and then another.
“You must have made some guy very happy over the weekend, Miss Kent,” called one of the investment bankers. “Your tailbone must be back in good working order.”
Even April blinked in shock at the snarky, sexist comment.
As for Kylie, her jaw dropped. Had the bastard really said that? Really? Her spine stiffened as rage shot up it in a fireball.
“Kenny, you’re so bad,” another one of them said, snickering.
She didn’t care that Milty was standing right there. She didn’t care if the chairman of the federal reserve board or God himself was standing there—she wasn’t going to let the rat bastard get away with this.
She turned and faced them all. “Actually, Kenny, the flowers aren’t for me. They’re for you, from the two hookers you hired to entertain you on Saturday. They send their condolences that the Viagra didn’t help.”
Kylie turned and walked away, without a single hitch in her stride. Behind her a thunderous silence ensued, followed by the sound of one man clapping. She didn’t know who, until Milty’s voice carried after her, ricocheting between the granite walls that housed the elevators.
“Boys,” he said, “that is why Miss Kent is our new assistant vice president of small business loans. She’s absolutely unflappable.” He left off the last line, but it was clear to everyone present:
even in the face of morons like you, Kenny.
Kylie stopped at the elevators and leaned weakly against the wall. She’d gotten a promotion? When? How?
Footsteps, measured, authoritarian, approached. She looked up to see Goldman standing there, a smile on his face.
“Mr. Goldman?”
“Call me Milty,” he said.
“What, uh—”
“Priscilla Prentiss isn’t returning to work,” he said. “She’s going to stay home with her children. And she highly recommended you for the job. I concur. So. We’ll make it official tomorrow. I thought you might like to know, though.” He stuck out his hand.
Dazed, Kylie shook it. “Thank you. I guess I fully expected to be fired after what I said to Kenny.”
Milty laughed. “Not at all. He was way out of line. And you showed that you’re capable of handling yourself beautifully with the big boys. I don’t want someone who falls apart over that kind of thing. I want someone who can take off the gloves and fight back. Anyway. Tomorrow we’ll talk about your responsibilities and compensation. See you then.”
Kylie tried to take it in. She was actually sorry that Priscilla wasn’t coming back, but glad of the opportunity. She felt half-exultant…and half-empty. She’d achieved her big short-term goal, which meant she was on the right career track.
She wanted to share the news with someone. She wanted to share the news, in fact, with Dev. But especially in the face of his performance Saturday night and this new promotion at the bank, she needed to cut ties with him.
Devon McKee represented a conflict of interest, a danger to her career. Not to mention that he’d be bad for her image as an executive. She pictured him showing up at a corporate function in those black leather pants of his.
Jack, on the other hand…
27
JACK PICKED UP KYLIE at seven o’clock on Friday. She’d had her hair washed and blown out at her salon and she wore a beautiful white silk halter blouse with a tropical print on it, with an over-the-knee white skirt and high heels.
She knew she looked her best, but Jack’s admiring gaze didn’t make her feel nearly as good as she’d imagined.
Potsy had the bad taste to come out, wind his way around Jack’s ankles and purr. So much for animal instinct.
Actually, she couldn’t fault Potsy for liking Jack, since they’d lived in the same condo for over a year, and that whole feeding issue was bound to confuse him where her ex was concerned. There was just something about the guy who fed him canned tuna and bagged kibble.
Potsy’s standards were low, but he didn’t know any better.
“Ready?” asked Jack, giving the cat a peremptory scratch on the head and brushing cat fur off his pant legs. He looked at his watch. “We have reservations at seven-thirty.”
“Yes!” Kylie said, with a bright, fake smile. Why had she agreed to this? It was too weird.
Her ex looked as though he’d stepped off the cover of
GQ,
in another pair of his immaculately pressed khaki pants and a blue dress shirt. He wore woven-leather loafers with tassels on them and a matching woven leather belt. They were the same light caramel color as his hair, and she wondered if that was by design.
As he turned, she saw the corner of his wallet, and it, too, was caramel leather. So was the accent on his key-chain. And the seats in his dark blue BMW sedan, which was bigger and newer than the one he’d driven while they were engaged, but otherwise looked exactly the same.
Kylie complimented him on the car, because he seemed to expect it. He dropped the information that he’d gone to the competition, a rival medical supply company, for a big raise and promotion.
“It’s a lot more headaches and responsibility, though,” he added.
“How did you—” Kylie broke off. It wasn’t very nice to ask him how he’d gone from fired, porn-and-pill-addicted bum to a big job with a competitor.
But Jack wasn’t stupid. “How did I make the jump? Connections. My dad went to business school with a guy on the board. And we finessed some things on my résumé.”
Finessed.
In other words, he’d lied. And because of the
connections,
nobody had checked up on him. The world was easier for some people than it was for others, that was for sure.
She sat back in the buttery leather seat and thought about how she’d beat up on Dev for lying about the goldfish. But to his credit, Dev had been brutally honest about everything else in his life, whether or not it reflected well on him.
She shook her head and sighed. Dev. If she didn’t know better, and if she weren’t still disgusted with him, she might think she missed the guy.
Jack steered his elegant, purring BMW through the madness that was downtown Miami, and she found herself contrasting it with Dev’s flashy, rumbling, cayenne-red Corvette. Jack didn’t take any corners on two wheels. He didn’t fly through yellow lights. He drove sedately, like an old man.
No insults or zingers crackled through the atmosphere. No unseemly, magnetic sexual tension kept her on edge. And there were no lascivious glances or promises from Jack to chew off her skirt.
Kylie realized to her horror that she was bored already, and they hadn’t even gotten to the restaurant.
Speaking of restaurants, Jack was ferrying her to South Beach. He crossed the Julia Tuttle causeway, humming. Within minutes he turned down Collins and then took a right, swinging past the little parking lot a couple of blocks from Dev’s bar, where she’d been leaving her car.
“Jack, where are we eating?” she asked, getting a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach.
“Well, since you had to work so hard waiting tables there last weekend, I made reservations at Bikini for tonight. Someone can wait on
you
for a change.” Jack smiled at her as he pulled the car up to the valet guys and unfastened his seat belt.
Oh, no. No, no, no. This was all wrong. If she’d felt weird before, Kylie now felt completely off-kilter, as if the whole globe were about to roll backward and squish her underneath it.
But Jack didn’t ask if she was happy with his choice of restaurant. He was already out of the car and waiting for her to join him after the valet handed her out.
How could she go on a date with another guy to Bikini? Dev would hate her. Unless she found him first and told him that this wasn’t really a date. It was merely a courtesy.
“Jack, I really don’t want to eat here. Can we go someplace else?”
“What are you talking about? Don’t be silly, Kylie. This place is the hottest new thing. Do you know that Bikini is completely booked for the next three months?” Jack said.
That’s so great for Dev.
“I had to pull some strings—call in a favor with a guy I know at American Express in order to get in. But here we are.” He looked smug.
“Jack, I could have gotten us a table if you’d told me,” she reminded him. “My bank did the business loan.”
He shrugged. “I wanted to surprise you.” He slid his hand under her hair and caressed the skin left bare by the halter. She shivered, but not with pleasure. Then he propelled her toward the door.
Bikini was hopping, even at the grossly unfashionable time of 7:30 p.m. Generally speaking, south Floridians kept Latin hours, often not dining until ten o’clock at night, and not hitting the clubs until well after that. But she and Jack were gringos.
An unfamiliar hostess greeted them and handed them off to a waiter she’d never seen before, either. Of course after last weekend, Dev would have had to hire almost all new ones.
The guy seated them and said he’d be right back to take their drink orders. Kylie searched the room for Dev, but didn’t see him anywhere. Jack, oddly enough, excused himself from the table and headed for the back, leaving her sitting alone.
DEV WAS ACTUALLY sitting in his office inputting receipts into the Excel file Kylie had set up when he overheard a guy asking one of his waiters to drop an engagement ring into a glass of champagne for his girlfriend. Even as a cynic, Dev had to admit it was a romantic gesture. He went to the door.
A guy with light brown, sort of blondish hair pulled a ring out of the pocket of his khaki pants and held it out toward Bucky, who eyed it, clearly awed. The stone was at least two carats.
“You want me to take it out to her?” Dev asked, wondering vaguely why the man looked familiar. “I’m the owner.”
“Oh, hey. That would be great, man. I really appreciate it.”
“What table?” Dev asked Bucky.
“Fourteen.”
“Okay. You run get the glasses, kid, and I’ll get a bottle of—what, Dom? Taittinger? Perrier-Jouet?”
“Dom,” said the guy.
“I’m Dev, by the way. Devon McKee.” He stuck out his hand.
“John Hayward. People call me Jack.” They shook hands.
“Good to meet you, Jack.” Dev ignored the instant spasm of dislike he felt for the guy. His name wasn’t his fault, after all. He walked into the kitchen and retrieved a bottle of Dom Pérignon from the refrigerator, pushing aside renegade memories of Kylie.