Three hours of telephone hell informed me about how difficult it really was. It started with the tall blonde receptionist stonewalling me and finished with me trying every number I could find for any companies remotely linked with Jace Barlow. I vowed that even if he was the hottest guy I’d ever met, if I got another meeting with him, I’d get my story out of him just to see the look on Lucile’s face and so I wouldn’t have to see the looks on my parents’ faces.
Suddenly, as I listened to terrible hold music in one ear, the background noise of the office changed completely. Rolling like a wave from the direction of the front desk, animated conversations on telephones changed to hushed whispers with whoever was close enough.
The wave swept past me, but I didn’t look up, I didn’t have time for anything except tracking down the most heavily tattooed businessman in the city. My finger was hovering over the button, ready to hang up and dial the next number when my search abruptly ended.
I smelled him before I saw him. Cologne, money, the faint essence of him under it all. I hung up the phone as I spun around in my office chair, and there he was, leaning casually on the wall of my cubical as if he owned the place. Oh. My. Gosh, he smelled good.
Mere minutes ago I’d been vowing to keep it all business if I was ever face to face with him again, but something about Jace Barlow seemed to break my mind.
All at once, it felt like there were invisible ropes tied around each knee, pulling my legs apart. Sore or not, there were parts of my body that absolutely cried out for him.
That wasn’t the only battle waging inside of me though. I wanted to run and hide. That was a more familiar sensation.
Standing right here in front of me as I failed to come up with even a “hello” let alone a comprehensive interview was the first guy I’d had sex with. The previous night. He’d seen me, he’d felt me. I felt exposed all over again, except this time it was in front of the entire office.
I blushed and folded my arms across my chest, trying to make myself small enough to disappear completely. That primal, sexual, part of me that had been so utterly satisfied by Jace last night called me crazy from whatever dark room of my brain it called home.
Jace was taking his time giving me a full body scan and it felt like he had x-ray vision. Maybe it was because out of everybody in the entire world, he was the only one who really knew what I looked like under these clothes.
“Hi Jace… er… Mr. Barl-”
“You can call me Jace, Kendall, it’s fine, remember,” he said, calm as the eye of a hurricane.
“Right. Right. Uh… hi, Jace.”
“Hi. Sorry to drop in unannounced, but I was in the area and-”
“Mr. Barlow!”
Mr. Kinsley was striding across the office wearing his suit jacket for the first time I’d noticed in weeks, buttoning and smoothing as he went. He looked like he might have fallen off his chair when whoever it was had rushed in to tell him the most sought-after interviewee in the city had walked through the doors.
A bodyguard, standing silently behind Jace watched Mr. Kinsley’s approach like a hawk, looking ready to spring into action at the slightest misstep. My boss put on his most disarming smile.
“Sir, it’s an honor to meet you!” said Mr. Kinsley, whose enthusiastic expression only faltered for a moment when Jace didn’t accept the outstretched hand. “On behalf of The Weekly Enquirer, I just wanted to apologize for sending such an inexperienced staff member yesterday. I understand that Kendall here didn’t really perform to the standard we expect from all our journalists, and I hope that her conduct hasn’t left a sour taste in your mouth. If you’d be willing, I can have the boardroom cleared out and one of our more senior employees can…”
Jace held up his hand to cut off Mr. Kinsley, lip curled in mild disgust. “Man, who the fuck cares what you have to say about anything? Seriously.” He turned to me. “Who is this guy?”
“Um… Jace, this is my boss. Mr. Kinsley. Mr. Kinsley, Jace Barlow.”
Mr. Kinsley held out his hand again.
“Really,” said Jace, dubiously, still ignoring the handshake. “Well, I was just coming in here to apologize for having to leave the interview early due to some unexpected business coming up. I was hoping to reschedule so we could finish.”
“Of course,” said Mr. Kinsley. “I can have Lucile Norris reschedule to suit any time you’d-”
“I’m not talking to anybody but Kendall.”
Mr. Kinsley faltered for a second. “Are you sure? I mean-”
“What did I say?” asked Jace.
“OK, sure, of course. Kendall is free any time. Right, Kendall?” urged Mr. Kinsley.
I looked from one man to the other and back again. “Yes.”
“Good. I’m free on Saturday. I’ll have a car pick you up at nine a.m. to make up for the... inconvenience last night. Nine o’clock, sharp. The driver will be in touch to get your address for the pick-up.”
“OK. Thank you, Jace!”
“I’ll look forward to it, Kendall. Goodbye.”
For a split second he fixed me with a look that made me blush and pulled at those invisible ropes around my knees again, but then he turned to leave.
“Thank you for giving The Weekly Enquirer this opportunity, Jace,” said Mr. Kinsley.
“That’s Mr. Barlow to you,” said Jace, not even looking at him as he began to walk away.
Halfway to the front desk I saw Lucile waiting for him to pass with the hugest flirty smile on her face. Even from this distance I could see her top button was undone, revealing the stuff of wet dreams for a lot of the men who worked here.
“Hi,” she said, twirling her hair around one finger.
I could have sworn he muttered something along the lines of “get the fuck out of my face” without slowing down and I sighed dreamily like a schoolgirl staring at a boy band poster. If I had a set of pompoms I would have cheered.
Chapter 11
Kendall
On the night I spent with him at Luc Monette’s, Jace had arranged a car to take me home. It was nice, some black Town Car with a driver who said not the slightest word about the way I looked and kept his eyes on the road as if his life depended on it.
On Saturday morning, when the driver called to say he was downstairs, I was expecting something like that again. Instead, when I walked out the front door, I was stopped in my tracks by the sight of a full stretch limo parked at the curb, behind the old rust bucket up on concrete blocks that belonged to my noisy upstairs neighbor.
The driver, definitely a different one than the one who’d picked me up previously, looked up from something on his phone and quickly put it away.
“Ms. Brooks?” he asked.
“Yes?” My disbelief drew the word out to an absurd length.
“Good morning, Ma’am! I’m Thomas, I’ll be your driver today.” He opened the rear door and gestured inside with a gloved hand and a smile.
I stepped towards him as if he might squirt me in the face with water from a fake flower in his breast pocket at any moment. This had to be a trick.
“Good morning,” I replied on auto-pilot, stooping down to look inside the luxury car.
Inside was like Jace’s office in vehicle form. It oozed class and anybody could tell that no expense had been spared in even the most minor of details. I briefly owned a car back in Woodville before I sold it to help fund my move to Port Magnus, and it was probably worth less than one of the armrests in here.