Speed Dating (6 page)

K
ENDALL WOKE
to the sound of moaning. Unfortunately, she was the one doing the moaning.

She’d drunk champagne at the wedding and then had a beer while playing that video game. She was definitely what people referred to as a cheap drunk. Maybe she ought to winnow that list of “never dones” before embarking on too many more firsts.

Underneath her pounding head and slightly rocky stomach was a feeling of persistent euphoria, however. Last night she’d been the kind of woman she admired. Strong, adventurous—Dylan Hargreave had called her kick-ass.

She quite liked that view of herself. Of course, in the racing world, being kick-ass was no doubt a good thing. In the actuarial world, she wasn’t so sure.

No one in history had ever refused the Sharpened Pencil Award. It had felt like the right thing to do when she’d stared right at Marvin and his pregnant girlfriend and realized how incredibly blind she’d been, but had she gone too far?

She rolled out of bed, showered and dressed. Today she was going home. Back to her life, her job and the humiliating reality of facing her ex-fiancé’s new love growing rounder every day with his child.

To think that twenty-four hours ago everything had been so different. She’d still been blindly engaged, arrogant enough to think she deserved the Sharpened Pencil and had never met a NASCAR driver in her life.

Dylan. What an extraordinary date he’d turned out to be. Sexy, funny, gorgeous. Aloof. She suspected he was an easy man on the surface and one it was very difficult to really get to know. He’d helped make sure she got her key when they returned to the hotel in the wee hours, and he’d given her a brief but scrumptious kiss outside her door.

She hoped he hadn’t left Charlotte yet. She wanted to say goodbye.

She could phone him but—no. She should thank him in person for the fun she’d had last night. As she reached her hotel room door, someone knocked on it.

Her pulse jumped. Dylan? Was he thinking of her as she was thinking of him?

When she opened the door, her regional manager, Bob Bream, was standing there. With him was the VP of human resources, Glen Sugorsky.

“Oh,” she said in surprise. “Hello. Would you like to come in?”

“If it’s convenient.”

“Of course.”

It felt very strange to have two of the muckety-mucks from her company in her hotel room. She wished more than ever she’d passed on that beer last night. She had a feeling a clear head was going to be called for.

“Sorry to barge in on you like this, Kendall,” Bob said. He was a fussy little man with a bald head and thick glasses who kept his desk so clean dust didn’t dare settle.

Glen was tall, with an athletic build going to fat. He had thick lips and a ready laugh.

“That’s all right.” She glanced around. There were two chairs at a small table under the window, and a third chair at the small desk where her computer sat. “Please sit down.”

She carried the chair from the desk closer to the table.

“Thank you. We would have liked a more conventional meeting space but—” Glen raised his hands “—we gave up all our meeting rooms. And we wanted privacy.”

“Really, it’s fine.” She was all packed since they were leaving today, so the room was as impersonal as any meeting space if they all turned their backs to the bed.

“Well.” Bob was obviously the designated speaker at this meeting and he seemed as though he wasn’t sure where to begin.

Her churning stomach now had nothing to do with the alcohol.

“Kendall, your speech last night was a, um, surprise to all of us. I…we…those of us in senior management had a meeting this morning, in person and conference call. We agreed that your speech—your behavior, in fact—was inappropriate.”

Her feeling of being a kick-ass woman began to dissipate faster than snow beneath a blowtorch. “Perhaps you’re right. I admit I didn’t intend to say what I did. I should have taken more time to think it over.”

“Yes,” Glen agreed. “You should’ve.”

“As I’m sure you realize,” she said, “Marvin Fulford and I—”

“Yes, indeed. A very distressing situation. Marvin
came to us last night, very upset. He held nothing back. We want you to know, Kendall, he was candid that his relationship with Ms. Varsan made you very emotional.”

Anger swept through her like a brush fire. “He broke our engagement less than an hour before the banquet. I wasn’t emotional. I was betrayed, angry, heartbroken.”

“The situation, as I’m sure you can understand, is untenable. We simply cannot have these kind of personal dramas affecting our work.”

“Of course not,” she agreed. “I assure you that I will do my job, as I always have, with the utmost professional integrity. However, I have been blind not to see what was going on under my nose. It was that lack of perspicacity in myself which made me refuse that award. It wouldn’t have been right to accept it.”

“Nevertheless, your speech publicly embarrassed our company and one of our senior employees.”

“An employee who has been humiliating me for months behind my back.” She had to stay calm, she reminded herself even as her voice shook.

“Kendall.” Bob went for the avuncular tone. She supposed he thought he had the right to treat her like a child. “I’ve known you a long time and I believe you’ve got a wonderful future ahead of you.”

“Oh, good.” She breathed out. “I thought for a second there you were going to fire me.”

Bob cleared his throat and looked at the blank table as though searching for something to straighten or tidy. “Of course not. However, we are a respected firm. We cannot allow people involved personally to affect the workplace.”

“Then you might want to separate Marvin and Penelope.”

“We’re moving Ms. Varsan to Payroll. She’s accepted the new position.”

“Where are you moving me? The mail room?”

Glen spoke up. This was obviously his leg of the dog and pony show. “We’re transferring you to the branch office in Aurora. You’ll be assistant branch manager.”

She blinked. “That’s a storefront insurance office that isn’t even open yet. I’m not an insurance clerk. I’m an actuary.”

“I’m sorry, Kendall, but we think this is for the best. As you point out, the Aurora location won’t be viable for a few months. We’re offering you a three-month stress leave. When you return to work, you’ll report to the Aurora office.”

“Stress leave?” She stared from one to the other. “You think I need a stress leave?”

The silence was so thick she heard Glen’s shoes scrape the carpet as he shifted.

“And Marvin?”

“He’ll remain where he is. We feel we’ve solved the problem.”

“But Marvin was the problem.”

“This isn’t open to discussion, Kendall. The decision has been made.”

She looked from one to the other, unable to believe what she was hearing. Marvin kept his job, and the two women he’d been involved with got demoted? She was sent off on stress leave for three months? “What if I refuse?”

“Your position has been relocated to Aurora. You have no job in the Portland office.”

All those years. All that training. The hours she’d put
in, the loyalty she’d felt for the company. It was so blatantly unfair, sexist and wrong that she felt like screaming. An outburst that would only confirm their obvious conclusion that she was too emotional.

“So you’re demoting me.”

“Not at all. This is an excellent opportunity to learn another part of the business. Consider it a sideways promotion.”

She wanted to tell them to take their measly sideways promotion and shove it sideways. But she had thirty-one years of good-girl behavior against one short night as a rebel.

There was no contest.

D
YLAN WAS LOOKING FOR
a missing sock when his cell phone rang.

“Dylan?” the soft voice of his ex-wife greeted him.

“Ashlee? Aren’t you supposed to be on honeymoon?”

“Honestly, Dylan, you never listen to a word I say.” He’d heard that line often enough when they were married. “Our plane to Nassau doesn’t leave until Thursday.”

“Right.” There was a pause. Since he was the ex-husband, asking about her wedding night didn’t seem appropriate, although he couldn’t think of anything more inappropriate than her calling him on her first morning married to another guy.

“What’s up?”

“I wanted to tell you how happy I am that you’ve found someone special. At first I thought she was awful, but then I saw you two kissing and I could tell that you and Kendall are totally in love.” Her voice lowered.
“It’s the only thing that made me go through that ceremony last night. If you’re happy in love, then maybe I can find it, too.”

Oh, great. He and Ashlee had had a pretty wretched marriage, all told. Between the yelling and the scenes, her being in love with the excitement of what he did and then freaking out before every race, there’d been little peace. Then there was the issue of her being a spoiled little rich girl and him being an equally spoiled little rich boy. They hadn’t stood a chance.

Still, he harbored a stubborn affection for Ashlee. She was flighty and spoiled, but she was also sweet. When she’d said she wanted a divorce, he’d felt nothing but relief. It took him months to realize that when she’d thrown those words at him she’d been loving the drama and expected him to talk her out of leaving. In the three marriages between, she still hadn’t given up on getting back together. He was fairly certain that she was drawn to the excitement of his world, but what she really craved was stability. He also wished she’d figure out soon that she didn’t love him any more than he loved her.

However, to blow her off would be like kicking a little Persian kitten for scratching up the upholstery. He couldn’t do it.

Ashlee’s biggest problem was that she was a born fool for romance. Being a three-time loser at marriage hadn’t dampened her sentimental notions an iota. Usually her starry-eyed romantic routine irritated him, but in the case of him and Kendall, he was glad Ashlee had decided to see true love where none existed. Kendall might not be a real actress, but she’d ended up doing a good job last night of acting crazy for him.

“I am telling you, Ashlee, that woman means the world to me. Like you mean the world to Harrison.”

“I know. I’m so happy for you. She seemed really slutty at first, but maybe that’s the kind of woman you need,” his ex-wife said with no irony that he could detect.

“Yeah, well, it might be a good idea to stop calling her a slut. I don’t think she appreciated it.”

“I guess it was prewedding jitters. Look, honey, if she’s going to be a part of your life, she’s going to be a part of mine. Put her on the phone, will you? I want to apologize.”

“Um, she’s in the bathroom right now.”

“Oh. You’re not just saying that, are you? Because if she’s right there and doesn’t want to speak to me, well, I’ll have to drive over there and apologize in person.”

“No. No! Don’t do that.”

“But she’ll be at the race tomorrow. I’m bound to see her. I want everything smoothed out now. You know how I am. I worry.”

“You’re going to the race?” What was wrong with Harrison that he couldn’t grab his wife and get the pair of them on their honeymoon like a normal couple?

“Sure. You’re in town, I’m in town. Why wouldn’t I go?”

“Because you’re on your honeymoon,” he reminded her.

“That’s silly. Harrison loves racing. We’re all from the same town. We should support each other.”

Oh, like that was going to happen.

“Let me talk to her, Dylan.”

“The shower’s still running. I should warn you that she’s a bit of a clean freak. Once she gets in that shower, I swear she shampoos her toenails. She’ll be a good few minutes yet.”

“Okay. I’ll talk to you until she comes out.” She sighed. “Wasn’t that a beautiful wedding?”

In Dylan’s top ten things he hated discussing, “beautiful wedding” would make the top three. “Sure was. Where’s Harrison? Shouldn’t you two be makin’ babies or something?”

“I sent him off to the jewelry store to get my wedding ring made smaller.”

“Why didn’t you go with him?”

“Because I wanted to talk to you and Kendall without him listening in, that’s why. He thinks I’m having a facial.”

“You’re a spoiled brat, you know that?”

“Of course I know it, and so does Harrison. He’d do anything for me.”

“He’s a fool.”

There was a short pause. “You’re not going to make me mad enough to hang up on you so quit trying. Is Kendall out of the shower yet?”

He grabbed his room card and stuck it in his pocket before slipping out of his hotel room and into the hall.

“She’s singing the ‘Hallelujah Chorus,’ so that means she’s shaving her legs. She’s almost done.”

“Good. So, did you think the ceremony was too short? I didn’t want to make too big a deal of it, being it was my fourth wedding and all.”

Two hundred guests and enough candles to light up outer space wasn’t a big deal? “No,” he said. “I thought it was perfect.”