Knave of Broken Hearts (12 page)

Holy jeez, he might have a heart attack right there. If Billy came back and Jim had been able to line up more work—that would be the best. “I’d be very interested in discussing that with you.”

“Excellent.”

He chewed around his burger.
Think. Don’t appear too anxious.
“Let me price out the new concept tonight to be sure we’re on the same page. Then I’d be delighted to speak with you further on any additional designs you’d like to pursue.” Jesus, he should have recorded that for the Cool Hall of Fame.

“That sounds perfect.”

They chatted about her other buildings while they ate. “You’ve certainly accomplished a lot for a young woman.” He smiled.

She looked at him through her lashes. “Thank you for the ‘young’ part. Sometimes I feel old with all my friends married and having babies.”

“You’ve made good choices. Look what you’ve accomplished.” He meant that. No bullshit.

“Thank you, Jim. My father’s a developer. He taught me everything I didn’t get in school. I started with one small strip mall and have been growing my investments ever since.”

“You’re amazing.” He meant that too.

“I’m glad you think so.”

The waiter came with the bill and he reached for his wallet, although he could barely cover it in cash, and he and Billy had never discussed an expense account. Hell, Billy would hardly have thought Jim would be lunching with the client. She stopped his reach. “No, this is on me. Your firm can pay next time.”

His firm. Next time.
Jesus, he liked the sound of all of that. “Thanks so much. Do we need to show the existing suite design to your new tenant?”

“I already did. He approved it.”

“Then we can get going on the build-out?”

“The sooner the better.”

“With your permission, I’ll get the crew working this afternoon. I may keep a skeleton crew on a few nights. That will get us caught up.”

“Excellent. I like that you’re willing to work nights for me.” Her eyelashes batted a couple of extra times.

Whoa.
Should he flirt back? This was the client, and he was way out of his range of experience. Most of the women he dated were like Peggy. Blue-collar gals whom he met in bars. He swallowed. “Any time.”

He got up, helped her out of her chair—which won him another big smile—and they walked toward the front of the restaurant. She took his arm. “Are you going back to the suite? I’ll walk with you.”

“Sure.” The sound of a musical laugh from one of the side booths of the restaurant shimmied up Jim’s spine, and his head turned automatically. Against the wall in an intimate booth sat Ken Tanaka across from a really attractive, very young guy. The companion had just thrown back his head and laughed very loudly, and Ken’s lilting chuckle joined in. As the guy opened his eyes, he brought both his hands down over Ken’s and leaned toward him with a possessive smile.

Jim’s heart leaped, hammered, his face went hot, and the rubber sole of his shoe caught against the stone floor and made him stumble.

Constance tightened her grip. “Jim, are you okay?”

“What? Oh yeah.”

Ken’s eyes rose from the man opposite him and connected with Jim’s. Then his gaze traveled to Constance, whose grip on Jim’s arm was anything but casual. His gorgeous lips parted slightly. A weird little crease popped in his forehead, then his eyebrow rose and a slow, not happy smile played over his lips. His eyes jerked like he ripped them away, and he started talking to the other guy as if he’d never seen Jim at all.

Constance pulled on his arm, and somehow Jim managed to keep walking.

“What happened?”

“Uh, damned rubber shoes. I just tripped.”

“You seemed surprised to see the doctor.”

“What?”

“Dr. Tanaka. My tenant.”

“Oh yeah. He’s signing my insurance forms. He told me I have a heart murmur. It’s no big thing, but I was surprised.”

“A lot of the people from the building eat here, especially at lunch.” Her hands tightened on his arm as they walked out of the restaurant into the bright lobby space. “You’re okay, aren’t you?”

“Sure. I’m fine.” If you didn’t count the heart failure he somehow felt like he was having. Weird. He’d seen Tanaka with a bunch of guys, so what the fuck was this reaction about?

“I’d hate to lose you right after I found you.” She beamed at him.

Jesus, here was a pretty, smart, accomplished woman practically throwing herself at him, and he was thinking about some guy with yaoi eyes. He should ask Ian about that.

“D
O
YOU
know that guy?”

Ken looked up from staring at his iced tea. Mickey gazed toward the door, where Ken wished he was also looking. “Excuse me?”

“I asked if you know that guy. The one who about fell on his face when he saw you.”

“Yes, he’s a patient of mine.”

“Man, some hunk. How do you keep your hands off him?”

He just smiled and sipped his tea. The answer to that, of course, was he didn’t keep his hands off, and he should be ashamed for violating the patient relationship instead of sitting here pissed that Jim was out with that woman. The building owner. Maybe it was a business lunch, but she was practically plastered to Jim like a barnacle on the hull of a Newport harbor yacht.

“What’s his story? Has the guy got heart problems?”

“I can’t talk about my patients.” He smiled to soften the refusal.

Mickey grinned. “Aw c’mon. Tell me that under that crisp white shirt beats a heart in a muscled chest above a sexy six-pack.”

Ken flashed his dimples. “I guess it doesn’t hurt to confirm your supposition.”

They both laughed, but Ken’s stomach tightened.

“I’ll bet you’d like to crawl on that table with him and give him a solid poke in his rock-hard ass.”

Ken glanced around. “Keep your voice down.” Of course the truth was, he’d like to be the pokee. He’d actually dreamed about Jim Carney fucking him—twice.

Mickey shrugged. “I’m impressed you can live through that kind of temptation.”

“You did see the woman he was with, right?”

“Hey, straight schmait. Almost any guy would benefit from a gay blow job.”

Man, if only that were true
.

Mickey pushed his empty plate away. “Say, have we passed the lunch test? Want to move on to a nighttime date?”

Ken sipped the last of his tea to cover the pause. Mickey was a boy, not a man. Still, he was cute as hell, and being able to say he’d taken the guy out twice would sure make his mother happy. It would also add to his credibility when he told her he had zero plans of marrying Mickey Okuwa. He stared toward the door where Jim Carney’s ass had vanished. Besides, he didn’t have anything else going on hookup-wise right now. “Sure, when did you want to go out?”

“My band’s got a concert tonight. Want to come?”

“Where?”

“A small club in Costa Mesa.”

“I guess so.”

“My friends will be very impressed if I show up with someone as gorgeous as you.”

Hell, it was nice to be appreciated. “Yeah. Just tell me the time and place. I’ll take my own car.”

Mickey’s dark eyes twinkled. “Don’t trust me?”

“You’ll have a lot on your plate with performing. You don’t need to worry about driving me.”

“Yep. You don’t trust me.” He laughed.

Ken smiled. That was the fucking truth.

J
IM
STOOD
outside Ken’s office and breathed. Why did the doctor have to call him today? Maybe by tomorrow, he’d have recovered from being such an idiot. Why did Tanaka make him react like some teenage girl all the time?
Jesus.

Come on. Be a grownup. Dr. Heart Throb doesn’t know you exist and doesn’t care how you feel. You shouldn’t care either. Get your prognosis and get back to work.

He pushed open the door. Nobody in the waiting room. It was late. The girl behind the desk—not Andrea—nodded at him. “Please take a seat. The doctor will be right with you.”

He sat. The magazines held no appeal, so he flipped through his e-mails on his phone. Oh, one from Constance Murch.
Do you like plays? I happen to have tickets to a musical this Saturday at the Performing Arts Center. Want to go?

Well, damn. Lunch could be business, but a play on Saturday was sure as hell a date. If she supplied the play tickets, he’d have to supply the dinner. That made it even more a date. Did he want that? To go out with the boss? Man, he was over his head here. What if he said no? Would she cancel Billy’s job? Maybe she’d just not give them the new work she’d talked about, and he wanted to give that gift to Billy because he felt Billy had given him a gift. Maybe more than one. His heart hammered against his ribs.

“Jim?”

He looked up at Ken Tanaka standing in the door to the inner office. The doc came to get Jim himself.

“Are you okay? You look upset?”

“Oh no, not exactly.”

“Want to come in?”

“Sure.”

He stood and walked through the door, inhaling Tanaka’s spicy/sweet scent that filled his head like smoke. God, he felt disoriented, like he didn’t know which world he lived in—one where he went out on dates with a rich woman, or one in which he gazed into the beautiful eyes of Yaoi Man and got a hard-on. Hell, both of them had to be fantasyland.

Ken motioned him into a private office that wasn’t an examining room. “Please, take a seat.”

Jim sat in a guest chair in front of Ken’s desk, and the doc walked all the way around to sit in his big leather chair. Very professional. Very distant. Very not a good sign. “So I got back the results of your echocardiogram.”

“Yeah?” Shit, they should take another test right now. The way his heart hammered in his ears, he’d sure as fuck fail.

“Your mitral valve prolapse is what I would call moderate to severe. It’s difficult to tell exactly without doing surgery.”

“Surgery?”
Close your mouth, idiot.

“Yes, that’s how a severely, shall we say, floppy valve is corrected.” He smiled tightly.

“Floppy?” It came out like a squeak.

“I’m not recommending surgery now. We’re going to observe over the next few months. I want you to let me know any problems, arrhythmic heartbeats, racing heart, chest pains, anything irregular that might occur, okay?”

Shit, all of that was so regular for him, and he was so not going to tell Tanaka that. He nodded.

“Don’t worry. Mitral valve prolapse is quite common. Most people never have any real difficulty. Just follow my directions. Don’t drink excessively, eat healthy food, even organic would be advisable, and avoid stress.”

Jim’s mouth opened, then closed. He was okay on the drinking thing so far, although this news made him want to down a bottle of Jack. Still, on the other stuff, the doc might as well say fly to the moon and bring back some green cheese. Hell, even being around Tanaka could give him a fucking heart attack. Sitting here thinking he might die any moment, and his cock still wanted to escape his jeans just from looking at the doctor’s lips. Maybe that’s how he’d go out. Lean over and kiss Ken Tanaka. Bye-bye, Charlie.

“Does that all seem doable?”

Jim nodded. “Does, uh, that mean I don’t get the insurance?” Jesus, that would be bad.

“No. As I told you, mitral valve prolapse is common. I’ve signed the papers and turned them in. You should get the approval with no problem. You’re officially no longer a patient.”

That felt both good and bad. “Thanks, man.”

“My pleasure. As I say, it’s not an inherently worrisome diagnosis.” Ken sat back in his chair. “So you’re hooking up with our sexy landlord, huh?” He smiled, but something seemed phony about it.

“Uh, no. She was just talking to me about how to build out her suites. And she, uh, has some more work for us.”

Ken stood and walked toward the door of his office. “I don’t know, buddy. I’d look out for her. You could find yourself hooked.”

Buddy? Seriously?
“I won’t worry too much. You told me to avoid stress.” He walked over to the door, looked at Ken, then glanced away. “You seem to have a new boyfriend. Cute guy.”

He frowned. “My mother fixed us up.”

“Seriously?” Jim snorted a laugh.

“You, my friend, are not Japanese, or you’d understand.”

“You were born in Japan?” Ken had no accent at all.

“No, I was born in Costa Mesa, but—well, it’s complicated. So don’t worry about your heart. My office manager is gone, but she’ll call you to make an appointment in about two months. Meanwhile, I’m serious about contacting me if anything unusual occurs.”

“Anything?”

“With your health, crazy man.” He smiled, and this time it reached his eyes.

Two months. He had no excuse to see Ken Tanaka for two months. Hell, that was good news. Maybe he’d get his feet back under him, if he didn’t die of a heart attack first.

“Thanks again for helping me with the architect thing.”

Ken raised an eyebrow. “Is it working out with Willings?”

“Yeah. He assigned one of the young guys in his office to handle the drawings, and he’s great. He’s really saved my ass.”

“Good. See, I helped relieve your stress.” He sounded sad.

“Yeah.” He stuck out his hand. Ken took it, and heat traveled up Jim’s arm all the way to his heart. “Guess I’ll see you in two months.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t marry any guys you don’t want to marry.” He tried to grin.

Ken didn’t grin. “I’ll try.”

Jim walked out of the office, across the waiting room to the hall, and to the elevator before he really took a breath. That was that with Ken Tanaka. He’d probably see the doc around, but in two months, hell, he’d be a memory. He took a long, slow breath to keep his heart from tripping.

Down in the lobby, he pushed into the suite where Charlie and Raoul were still working. Raoul stared down from a ladder. “Hey, man, you look like you lost a friend or something.”

Jim shook his head. Charlie walked up beside him. “You okay?”

“Yeah. I just found out the heart thing is pretty bad, I guess.”