One Way to Succeed (Casas de Buen Dia Book 1) (17 page)

For a moment, Amy let herself fantasize that she’d actually succeeded. She got Marlena to actually consider selling her land, something Rick had told her would be impossible. Something no one else had been able to do. And she hadn’t done it with smoke and mirrors or subterfuge. But she quickly came back to earth. The simple economics of the equation made a project like Rick’s impossible.

“Now tell me why you came all this ways to talk to me when you didn’t even have authorization to do a deal,” Marlena said. She rose from the chair stiffly and rang a bell. Andrea reappeared at the door.

“Andrea,” Marlena said, switching to Spanish. “
Mas café, por favor. Y unas galletas
.”

“Oh,
nada para mi
,” Amy protested.

“No, you will have some,” Marlena countered. “We still have things we have to talk about. And I’m getting a little hungry. Now go on, tell me why you’re here.”

Reluctantly at first, Amy started to describe her job at Buen Dia, what she liked about it, and what hopes she had for it.

“But what about you and Rick?” Marlena asked. Her instincts were as sharp as her business sense, Amy realized.

“What about us?”

“How did you meet him? Why did he hire you?”

Amy told her the story of Busker, and then how Rick had come to the restaurant, and how she’d met his mother. She stopped short of admitting any affection for him or admitting their sexual tension.

“Do you love him?” Marlena asked.

“What? Did I say anything about love?”

“No, but your voice did. Amy, you have to take that stuff seriously.”

“Well, if I did have feelings for him, they’re over now.” Amy told her about Rick’s problem working with women.

“You mean, you’re going to quit? But, here I was thinking there was a chance we could work together,” Marlena said. She was clearly disappointed, and for a moment, Amy let her hopes rise. “Where did his attitude toward women come from? My experience was that American men weren’t at all like men down here in Mexico.”

“Well, most of them would like you to think that, but I don’t know,” Amy said. “Even Rick’s mother has chided him about it.”

“My advice, young lady,” Marlena said, accepting a fresh cup of coffee from Andrea, “is you need to get to the bottom of it. Go ask his mother. As soon as you get back. Because I can tell from everything you’ve told me today, you’ll be making a big mistake if you walk out on this.”

“On what? Rick or the job.”

“Both. Now tell me about what’s happening in Palm Springs these days. I really miss it.”

Amy walked back into the office on Friday morning a little late. Rick met her at the door to her office and followed her in.

“Hey,” he said, closing the door behind him. He had every intention of giving her a lecture about the importance of being dependable, but when he turned around, she was still standing, looking down at something in the vicinity of his belt buckle.

“I’m sorry,” he said, tipping his head in curiosity. “Were you looking at my ass?”

Amy closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” she said. “God how awful of me. I rail against men thinking women are sex objects and here I was totally objectifying you. I’m really sorry.”

“So you were looking at my ass.”

“Yup.” Amy screwed her mouth to one side and scrunched up her nose. “Pretty disgusting. I’m really sorry.”

“Well,” Rick didn’t know what to say. He was thinking “objectify me all the way to the floor, Amy dear,” but he couldn’t say it. He was supposed to be reprimanding her for three days out of the office, not for looking at his rear end.

“Uh, where were you the last few days?” He opted for returning to his original script.

Amy looked down at her desk. She folded her arms across her chest and took a deep breath. “I had something personal I had to attend to,” she said. “I’m really sorry I couldn’t give you any notice.”

“Did it have anything to do with Rob?”

Amy frowned and dropped her hands down onto the desk. Rick wished she hadn’t done that because now he was glancing down the front of her blouse at that same cleavage that had turned him into a wet noodle weeks before. She looked up and caught him in the act.

“Were you looking down my blouse?” she asked. She sounded more humored than angry, though.

“Uh, yeah, I was,” he said. His heart was picking up the pace, and his breath was growing uneven. “I’m sorry, but…  So we’re even?”

He stopped and they looked into each other’s eyes for a long minute. Finally, Rick took a chance and stepped around her desk. He reached out for her shoulders and turned her toward him. His hand circled her waist and immediately their lips were touching, exploring, caressing. He wasn’t sure if she had stepped into his arms or if he’d pulled her in, but it clearly what they both wanted.

He knew it right away: they weren’t going to stop this time until they’d finished what they started, whether it was in the office or not. His hands followed the contour of her body up and covered her breasts before he reached the opening of her blouse and started working the top button loose. She swatted his hands away, and he pulled away to see she was taking over for him, unbuttoning her blouse herself.

“Why don’t you work on your belt buckle?” she whispered into his ear when he pulled her close again. He reached down and got to work.

“Okay, but, we’ll have to do this quietly,” he answered in her ear.

“I hope I can,” she whispered back.

They pulled down their jeans in unison. Rick kicked aside her chair and helped her lie down in the tight space behind her desk. She pulled him down on top of her, and lifted her head to meet his. He slipped his hand under her neck and nibbled on her lips. She moaned and reached down to pull off her panties. Then, she pulled swelling penis out of his boxers and guided him inside.

He started moving slowly inside her, but she grabbed his ass and pulled him in.

“Please,” she moaned, her voice deep and urgent. “Please. I want you now.”

~

“It does tickle,” she whispered as they lay on the floor afterwards, her head on his shoulder and her arms around his chest, catching their breath.

“What?” he asked, lifting her chin up to see her eyes. “What tickles?”

“Your chest hair. It tickles my nipples.”

~

Minutes later, they dressed quietly and helped each other straighten up their hair. It had taken only about three minutes to excise the sexual tension between them with a satisfying climax and a couple more minutes to calm down. Still, it seemed likely that someone in the office would suspect what was happening behind her office door.

“Well, I wasn’t expecting that,” Amy said, sitting in her chair to pull on her shoes and button up her blouse.

“Uh, me either,” Rick said. “I was going to give you a hard time for being gone, but instead I guess I gave you—”

Just then, Sandra’s voice squawked over the intercom.

“If you two are done in there now, maybe you can turn off your speaker,” she said. Then she giggled.

So, Sandra knew. No hiding from her now. Rick reached over and flipped off the box.

“I told you we should get rid of those things,” Amy said, grinning sheepishly. “I’m guessing from what just happened, you missed me.”

“Yeah. I was worried you were back in L.A. with Rob. Now, I’m thinking that may not have been the case.”

“Oh, no,” she said. “It certainly wasn’t that. But I still can’t tell you.”

“Fine. I’m not going to pry.”

“Fine. I think I should get to work. Did you do those interviews?”

“Yes, but Amy, don’t you think we should talk about what this means?”

“About what
what
means?”

“What we just did.”

“I think it’s clear what it means. We’re animals, and we can’t keep our hands off of each other.”

“Right,” Rick said. He straightened his hair again with his fingers. “I guess that’s it. Well, when you get settled, come on into my office and I’ll share the news about our COO search.”

“And that’s all we’ll do?”

“Yes, although I’m not sure I can promise.”

~

They managed to stay off the floor and keep their hands off each other when they met an hour later in Rick’s office, talking through the COO candidates. Rick shared his thoughts about each and then gave her printouts of the e-mails from the other staffers with their reactions.

“I wish you’d been here to help with this,” he said. “No one knows what I need better than you do.”

“Well, I’m glad you recognize that,” Amy said, feeling a little resentment rise up from her gut.

“Of course.”

“Then why …” She stopped. She had already decided she was going to investigate his attitude toward women by talking with his mother first.

“Why?” he asked. “Why what?”

“Never mind. So it appears your choice for COO is the golf course guy, right?”

“I think so,” Rick said. “But first we need to check his references. The one thing I can’t figure out is why he wants to make a career change. It seems that managing a golf course would be something that would be hard to give up. You know, the country-club life?”

Amy said she would start making the calls that afternoon. They spent another half-hour coming up with good questions.

That afternoon Rick got back to work on the little hotel deal he was hoping to get underway in the Movie Colony. One of the properties he had found on his recent bike ride looked promising. Thanks to Amy, he’d already reached the owner, a lawyer in Minneapolis whose mother had died in the house on the property. It sounded like he was glad to have someone come up with a suggestion for what to do with it. Apparently, no one in the family wanted to use the house—it had something to do with the fact his mother had died in it.

The project was going to require tearing down the existing house and starting a new structure from scratch. That meant hiring an architect, or at least a structural engineer, something that Rick didn’t have to do when he simply remodeled an existing hotel. Even though it meant more expense and a longer timetable, he was looking forward to it. Starting with a blank slate on an empty piece of property was something he rarely got a chance to do.

He kept his head down until a little after five working on a budget for the project, and then decided he’d take a chance and see if Amy would be willing to reprise their morning’s activity over at his home that evening. While his rambler wasn’t anything special, he wouldn’t mind if she eventually started thinking of it as a second home.

He walked to her office, but the door was closed and locked.

“Sandra?” he called out, walking out into the lobby. “Any idea where …” His receptionist was gone, too. 

“Damn,” he said. “Doesn’t anyone want to work as hard as I do anymore?” But he knew that wasn’t what was bothering and worrying him. What bothered him was that itch that Amy had a particular talent for triggering, and what worried him was he didn’t have any idea what she was up to now or all weekend. He wouldn’t see her again until Monday, and that seemed very far in the future.

Amy closed her door after meeting with Rick the second—more platonic—time that day and called his mother.

Janet came to the phone at her office immediately.

“Oh, did Rick tell you I asked after you?”

“No,” Amy said. “That’s nice to know.

“Yes, we went to a charity event last night. I wished you could have been there.”

“That’s nice,” Amy said. “Thank you. But I wanted to see if you would be willing to meet with me sometime this weekend.”

“Are you asking for my son’s hand in marriage?” Janet joked.

“Very funny, but no. I just need some advice.”

“Well, my dear, I’d be happy to help you in any way you want.” They set a date for mid-morning on Saturday at the Starbucks on El Paseo.

When Rob and Amy had first moved to Palm Springs, she thought she might find a job working in one of the high end shops or galleries on the “Rodeo Drive” of the Coachella Valley: El Paseo. She wandered up and down the street, dressed in uncomfortable heels and a dress that showed off her figure, stopping in a dozen different shops, including St. John, Gucci, and Max Mara; and galleries displaying large original acrylics and oils appropriate for the expansive walls of the mansions typical of the lower reaches of the Coachella Valley.

She was welcomed and offered a couple of positions right off the bat, but the minimum wage they offered and long drive down the traffic-gorged Highway 111 through town discouraged her. She ended up taking the hotel management job instead, and was happy with it. She thought perhaps she had found another possible career path in hospitality. So much for that: some jerk developer bought the hotel out from under her, and now she couldn’t keep her hands off his body.

Diving down 111 from Palm Springs to Palm Desert Saturday morning, she tried to organize her thoughts and plot her strategy. She needed to exude professionalism and articulate her concerns in as positive a way as possible. None of the issues was easy: why did Rick not consider women possible candidates for COO; why did his own mother call him a sexist; how was it he could trust her with so much responsibility but refuse to let women move up in his company?

Amy found a parking spot between the highway and El Paseo and walked to the corner Starbucks store. It may have occupied one of the highest-priced pieces of retail property in the valley, but it looked like any other Starbucks in the country—green umbrellas, displays of attractively bagged coffee beans, and a long line of glassy-eyed customers.

Janet sat at a table in the shade of both the awning and one of the iconic umbrellas, staring off at the hills behind the shops across the street. It was still cool outside, and she held a soft vicuña-colored shawl around her shoulders, looking composed, relaxed, and gorgeous. Whether Rick got any of his looks from his father, Amy couldn’t know, but it was clear that some good percentage of his beauty had come from Janet.

Amy ducked into the store before Janet saw her and came out with her paper cup a few minutes later. She opted for a drip coffee so as to not keep Janet waiting any longer. A latté would have taken a good fifteen minutes, given the number of people already waiting.

“Amy!” his mother said with just the right balance of exclamation and restraint. “You are just as lovely as I remember! My son doesn’t deserve you.”

Amy was unsure what she meant, but she responded with what she hoped exuded the same grace as Janet’s salutation. They exchanged a usual set of “how are you’s” and “you look great’s” for a few minutes and settled into a companionable silence as the heat building on the asphalt and the sidewalk slowly wafted up into their shade.

Finally, Janet turned to Amy, and reached across the table to touch her hand. “So what did you want to talk about, my dear?” she asked with obvious warmth. How Amy had won her affection so quickly, she didn’t know, but it sounded like Janet assumed that she and Rick had much more of a relationship than they did.

“I feel a little intrusive asking,” Amy started, dropping her eyes to the coffee cup in her hands. It was still too hot to drink and she pulled off the lid to cool it off. It reminded her of the first time she and Rick met at Koffi, she thought with a smile, and then pushed that scene out of her thoughts. She needed to focus. “But I can’t help but feel that Rick has a problem with women in business. Or at least women in his business.”

“And why are you asking me about it?”

“Well, that night at your house, you called your son a sexist. You must see the same thing.”

“Have you asked Rick about it?”

“No,” Amy said. “I don’t know what you think is going on between us, but it’s not something I feel comfortable asking him.”

“But you can ask me.”

“Yeah. Go figure.” Amy smiled. “Somehow, it is easier.”

Janet looked off into the hills again. “Let me suggest something,” she said. “Talk to him. Ask him what he’s thinking. I know he doesn’t offer much of what is going on in his head, but he might share more than you think.”

“With me? Why me?”

Janet smiled at Amy and let out a little chuckle. “How many times have you two slept together now?”

“What makes you think we’ve slept together?”

“Because any two people who have that much electricity zapping back and forth between them can’t resist its force very long. I could see it the minute you walked in my door with Rick. He’s absolutely crazy about you. It wasn’t like that with Beautiful Betty.”

“Beautiful Betty?”

“His first wife.”

“Oh.” Amy tried think back to her Internet search of all things Rick D’Matrio. She didn’t remember finding anything about his marriage. But then, she’d skipped the society pictures. She was so surprised to hear about Betty she’d lost the opportunity to protest Janet’s assertion that they were sleeping together. It was true, but Amy would have denied it anyway. It wasn’t something she wanted his mother to know.

“So my point is, with that much going for you, you two should make a point of clearing the air,” Janet continued. “Maybe you can help him grow up a little.”

“What do you mean?”

Janet dropped her smile and shook her head.

“I shouldn’t be the one to tell you this,” she said. It was nearly a whisper. “And you must promise not to tell him. But I will tell you because I really like you, and I want you to understand my son. I would like you to give him a chance. More than that, I would like you to love him.”

Amy felt herself blush at that, but she pretended it hadn’t bothered her. “So what is it?”

“When Ricky was about fourteen, I kicked his father out of the house. He has never forgiven me for it. You had to feel the tension between us. I know he loves me but he resents me for what happened to his father. Not only that, but he thinks I did it to take his father’s company from him.”

“But why did you—”

“You have to promise me you can keep that between us, or I can’t tell you.”

“Okay.”

“Ricky’s father was as gorgeous as he is. Ricky got his looks from his dad.”

Amy started to protest. “I can’t believe that—”

Janet waved off her argument. “Oh, pssshaw. You’ve seen my son. How can you believe that man takes after me? Robert, his father, looked just like him, and I loved him unconditionally, or at least I thought I did. As soon as we got married, I went to work at his company. We worked side-by-side for years, and over time, I did more, and he did less. And pretty soon, it became obvious that his three-martini lunches weren’t the only thing keeping him away from the office in the afternoon.”

“Meaning?”

“I tried to ignore it for a long time, but when I found out about Julie and then the baby, I couldn’t take it anymore. I told him it was her or me, but he couldn’t have us both. And if chose Julie over me, then he was going to have to let me run the company because at the rate he was going, he was going to run it into the ground. I’d worked too hard to let that happen.”

“A baby?” Amy wanted to be sure she’d heard that right.

“Yes, they had a son together. That was the straw that broke the camel’s back for me. Here Robert was spending less and less time with Ricky. He was passed out drunk by the time Ricky got home from school every day, and yet he thought he should bring another son into the world. And to do it with a mistress.”

“Well, surely Rick understands why you did it, then.”

“No,” Janet tipped her head and finished the last dregs of her coffee. She looked sad and vaguely vulnerable. “I never told him. And his father sure as hell wasn’t going to. He just disappeared. We were notified of his death ten years ago, and I’m afraid that’s when Rick decided he’d never forgive me.”

“But why didn’t you tell him what his father had done?”

“It was hard on him to lose his father,” Janet said. “He didn’t have many male role models in his life, and I didn’t want to take away the one that he had…or that he at least thought he had. I didn’t want him to lose the good memories of his father.”

“Oh.” Amy swallowed hard. “But, don’t you think that has contributed to his problem with women?”

“I know it has,” Janet said. “But it was either that or take his father away from him.”

“So you’d rather he hate you than find out the truth? Are you sure that’s better? Is that why he won’t let a woman into his business? She’d throw him out like you threw out his father?”

“That’s a little simplistic,” Janet protested. “I think he doesn’t let women into his business because he wants to keep love and work separate.”

“It’s the same thing,” Amy said. “And that’s why he is pushing me away.”

“Pushing you away?”

“Janet, you know I’m doing a great job at Buen Dia. Rick knows it. I know it. But instead of giving me the COO job, he asked me to find him one, and now he’s going to ask me to train the new guy. Do you think that makes sense?”

“Maybe you should let him,” Janet countered. “He’s going to hire a COO soon, and he won’t need you anymore. Maybe you can find another job and you two can still be—”

“No!” Amy was surprised how quickly she responded. And how angry she suddenly was. “You would not be happy with that yourself. How do you think I can do that? That’s not who I am. I’m not going to be the girlfriend or wife of some damaged young boy whose mother can’t be honest with him. If I have to give up this job—this job I not only love, but I’m good at—then we are finished.”

“Wow!” Janet’s brief vulnerability had passed quickly. Defiance now filled her eyes. “I am surprised he means so little to you.”

“I’m surprised you think I mean so little to myself,” Amy retorted. “Look at yourself, Janet. You didn’t become the CEO at D’Matrio because Rick’s father had an affair. You did it because you were good at it, and you had a chance excel at what you were good at. The fact that Rick’s father gave you an excuse to satisfy your own ambitions is beside the point.”

“What difference does that make? What does that have to do with you?”

“You are the one who taught your son that love and work can’t mix. You taught him to mistrust women. That means I have no future at Buen Dia. And no future with your son.”

Amy waved her arm theatrically to make the point, knocking her coffee off the table and all over the off-white sweater of the woman sitting at the table next to them.

~

Amy had all afternoon on Saturday and all day Sunday to regret how the conversation with Janet had ended. Before she went back to work on Monday, she had to decide what to do. First, she’d probably have to explain the way she’d treated his mother. Certainly Janet had called him.

Further, it wasn’t her place to tell Rick that his father’s demise didn’t prove that all women are emasculating, ambitious vipers waiting to crush their male bosses under their stilettos. And, even if he ever figured it out, it was probably too late. A thirty-year-old’s mind wasn’t as elastic as an adolescent’s. He had held onto this belief for so long—thanks to his mother—he wasn’t going to change.

“But is he hopeless?” Katie sat on Amy’s couch Sunday night and tried to convince Amy that she shouldn’t quit her job the next day.

“Well, look at it this way,” Amy said. “He’s not just a product of his mother’s silence, he’s also his father’s son. Even if he could finally accept that women aren’t the source of all evil, he’s gorgeous. Women throw themselves at him all the time, just like that woman threw herself at his father. What makes you think he can resist that forever? Maybe it’s better to give him up now than face that later.”

“You are such a fucking pessimist,” Katie said.

“Realist,” Amy corrected her.

“But Rick is better than that. You haven’t just been attracted to his good looks. There must be something else you see in him.”

“Oh, lots.” Amy thought about the way his presence commanded respect when he negotiated with his contractors or gave direction to his executives. She remembered his humble laughter at his own foibles, and the intense way he paid attention to her when they talked business. And she wasn’t thinking of his face or his body when she remembered his hands circling her bare waist. It was his touch, the way he nibbled at her lips, his breath on her neck.

It was time, she decided as she got ready for bed that night, for her to cut her losses and quit. It wasn’t so much the risk of him cheating on her as the fact that his respect for her ability couldn’t overcome his resentment of his mother. As long as Janet refused to tell him the truth—and that looked like it would be forever—it wasn’t going to work.