At Last (19 page)

“Did you say something, ma’am?” The cabby was young and polite, with short red hair and slightly too big ears. But his smile was warm and sweet.

Drunkenly, Susan leaned forward and shot him her best smile. “Change of plan, Red. Let’s head for Foster Avenue.”

~*~

In his hotel room Kevin couldn’t stop thinking how amazing Susan had looked. And how crazy she’d been acting. Dressed like a temptress, acting like Sybil. And she’d gotten so drunk that he’d wanted to take her home and tuck her into bed. But he’d poured her into a taxi, for he remembered what happened the last time he’d gone near her when she was drunk--and near a bed.

“Don’t think about it!” He berated himself. “You’re doing the right thing. Just be her friend, that’s what she really needs right now.” And that’s what he really needed right then too.

He’d been miserable the last six months. The only thing that soothed him at all was the work he’d done on the opera house. And he’d be damned if he was going to go on not having her in his life. He’d survived--hell, he’d
thrived
--just having her as his friend, living on separate sides of the United States. There was no reason that it wouldn’t work again.

But reason had to be reasonable, and the way he felt when he’d laid eyes on her coming out of that boardroom wasn’t reasonable. For a fleeting instant he’d seen the Susan that he’d loved all that time. A woman self-possessed, a woman in charge of everything and everyone around her. But when she saw him, she changed. All her self-confidence had evaporated like mist. And what was up with Francesca and Susan’s assistant?

He needed a shower. Kevin pulled open the buttons of his shirt and shrugged it off--it smelled like Susan’s perfume. At least that hadn’t changed tonight. He tugged his undershirt over his head, then took off his watch. When he drew his billfold out of his pants pocket he felt how hard he was just from thinking about Susan.

Make that a cold shower.

He fished his keys and some loose change from his pocket, and the small black ring box. He didn’t have to look inside, he had the diamond ring in it specially designed for Susan. He’d never forget it.

And he’d never give it to her.

He’d come to Chicago for two things. First, to submit his design for the new opera house. He’d spent so much time after graduation touring Europe--Italy, Austria, France, England and Germany--studying the great buildings of the past, especially those theaters and opera houses, that when he heard of the Chicago project he’d been like a man possessed until he’d finished his design.

Second was to sort his feelings out for Susan. Either he’d grow a spine and a set of balls and ask Susan to marry him, or he’d slink off and let her go forever, settling for just being friends.

He’d laid eyes on her, and she went from happy and self-confident to a jittery train wreck in six seconds flat. Then came the over-sexed vamp outfit. And when she’d looked into his eyes at the restaurant he’d known--she still wanted him, physically, but she wasn’t in love with him. If she’d been in love with him, she’d be looking at him, not just ogling him.

So he’d made up his mind on the spot. He couldn’t be with her again, not like that. For one thing it seemed to be having a self-destructive effect on her. And second, he just couldn’t do it to himself again. To be there in Susan’s bed, to have her body, to give himself--whatever she wanted or needed--and to know she’d leave him.

It was only a matter of time.

He’d be broken again, vagabonding from town to town, staying with relatives and trying like hell to get his head back on his shoulders. Trying desperately to make his broken heart beat again.

He’d finally had the woman he’d loved forever, yet he wasn’t the one. He’d known he wasn’t, but still...

She hadn’t come after him.

He’d thought, once in the air, heading away from Cancun, that if she boarded a plane and came to him, if he let her go and she came back to him--just like the axiom--that she would be his forever.

A late night text almost an entire month later told him that she wasn’t in love with him. But her texts, voice mails, and emails came like clockwork. And though he never opened the messages, it left him with a small, good feeling that she cared.

Kevin put the ring box on the stand by the bed--not his bed, and certainly not the bed he wanted to be in. He stood in the dim light of the bedside lamp, and tried to think of how he’d felt all those years before Cancun. How had he done it? If only he could remember how he’d been before Susan had been his, and for those few days she’d been completely his...

He lay down on the bed, his arm behind his head.

Maybe he could go back to the way he used to feel?

But instead he felt a searing heat build up inside him as a panel of memory fell into place. The morning he’d woken to her taking him. How strong and vital she’d seemed, how amazing he’d felt as she took him into her, and how he’d been burning alive for her, and how hard it was not to...

“Oh Christ, just get a grip!”

Kevin lurched up from the bed and headed into the bathroom, stripping off his pants, kicking off his shoes, ignoring the aggravated state of his manhood and jumping into a frosty cold shower. He stood under the biting spray for what seemed like hours before his agitation went away.

~*~

All of Chicago knew that Francesca Costa lived in the Beaumont Building. It was one of her first designs and she’d later bought a posh half a floor in the early nineties. Luck would have it that there was a party on the floor right below Francesca’s.

Susan had burned through some of the alcohol in her blood, so walking into the building, blending in with the partygoers and navigating the elevator to Francesca Costa’s floor was easy enough. But she was still drunk--drunk, drunk, drunk--and when the door was not answered by her second finger jab into the doorbell, Susan started pounding on the metal door like King Kong.

“Wake up, you over-the-hill vamp!” Susan yelled with Cosmo-induced rage. “Open the goddamn door, you tramp!”

Susan heard a click, and the beige door opened a crack. Francesca Costa peered out over the security chain. Her eyebrows scrunched up in concentration, and her head tilted as she recognized her.

“Susan Rhodes?” Francesca’s tone was not only pleasant, but concerned.

Susan wanted to rip the door right off its hinges, and beat Francesca to death with it. “I need to talk to you!”

Francesca smiled, and that smile made Susan angrier than anything else. What the hell was she smiling about?

“Okay,” Francesca chirped, closing the door to undo the security chain, and swinging it wide open. She stood there resplendent in a long red silk robe, open in the front, with a matching silk and lace nightgown. Even her slippers--pink Gucci mules crowned with fluffy pink feathers--were to die for.

She looked both cute and sophisticatedly sexy. And more comfortable than any human being had a right to be in a pair of heels. Susan’s heels were killing her, pinching, making her ankles ache and the soles of her feet numb. Even as drunk as she was.

And there was that smile again. “What can I help you with, Susan?”

If she smiled one more time… “Kevin.”

Francesca pursed her lips and shook her head dubiously. “Kevin’s not here.”

“I know he’s not here!” Susan roared. She wondered, what if he was there? Somewhere back in Lady Dracula’s labyrinth of a condo? Or what if he was on his way? Susan eyed Francesca’s silk and lace attire. She was definitely dressed for the part of Lady Chatterley...or Mrs. Robinson, or whatever horned-up-old-hag she was going for.

Susan shook that thought from her head, and for a moment she felt dizzy enough to sit down on the floor and put her head between her knees. But she didn’t. Not in front of this woman. She’d rather die!

“I came to talk about him,” Susan began, pushing herself through the dizziness, locking her knees and grasping the doorjamb to steady herself. “I want you to keep your filthy old lady mitts off him!”

“Excuse me?” Francesca was good. She really did sound both surprised and offended.

“You heard me! Leave Kevin alone. He’s not one of your boy toys, he’s
my
Kevin...” Susan’s voice cracked like a pre-pubescent boy’s. “He’s too good, too special, to be one of your conquests, for you to discard when you’re done with him, like all the others.”

It dawned on Susan that she was crying. Tears running down her face, her voice all rasp and sorrow--and her nose was starting to run.
Great time for hysterics!

Francesca folded her arms over her ample bosom, her beautiful face turning from confused and annoyed to downright bemused.

She was fucking laughing at her! Susan clenched her jaw, and her right fist, ready to swing, ready to rearrange some of Francesca’s surgically enhanced face.

“I was wrong about you,” Francesca said, with amusement in her voice. “You do have imagination.”

You do have imagination
.
That scalded and shocked and made Susan’s mind do cartwheels. And though she hated the old hag, and though it wasn’t rational--and she was still going to lay her out any minute--she felt a flush of pride at Francesca’s offhanded compliment.

“What?” Susan managed. “Huh?”

Francesca absently checked her manicure as she continued. “I remember not hiring you because I didn’t see any imagination in your work.” She’d hardly even looked at Susan’s work! “But this story you’ve cooked up...now that takes real imagination. Maybe you should be a romance writer.”

“I didn’t make anything up.” Susan stood straight and indignant. “The whole town knows you’re a man-hungry old Cougar who goes through young men like most people go through coffee filters!”

Francesca started to laugh--raucous, full throated, Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman laughter--making her look all the more ready to whip out a bullwhip and start doing backflips down the hall.

Just then a short, pudgy man with fine Italian cheekbones, thick salt-and-pepper hair and a nose like Al Pacino’s, came into the frame of the doorway, a protective hand going around Francesca’s waist, and his gaze moving from a loving glance at her, to an alarmed stare at Susan. “Is anything wrong?”

Francesca was holding her nonexistent belly as she tried to get a hold of herself. “No, darling. Everything is fine.” She laughed again, bending over at the waist, which was starting to piss Susan off. She straightened and took a long, deep breath. “This is just an architect colleague of mine--the competition.” Even the way she said “the competition” was condescending. “Susan Rhodes, this is my husband, Marcello Costa.”

Susan’s mouth fell open with shock. Francesca Costa was married? How didn’t Susan know that? Francesca had been her idol, and she didn’t know the woman was married? Of course, Susan had pretty much limited her research on her idol to her career, her owning her own architectural firm, the buildings she’d designed, and her chic style--pre breast implants.

So what if she was married? She was still a philandering, lecherous tramp!

But Susan saw the love, the utter affection glowing in Francesca’s eyes as she looked upon her husband, all but forgetting Susan was even at her door, or that she’d been accusing her of serial adultery. Susan felt very stupid and embarrassed.

After some humiliatingly quiet beats, Francesca finally pried her eyes from her husband and glanced in Susan’s direction again.

“I’ll be in in a minute, darling. Susan was just leaving.”

Marcello looked from his wife to Susan, and back again, his expression softening as he smiled and kissed Francesca on the cheek. “A pleasure meeting you,” he said to Susan, then ambled off into the apartment.

Francesca hit the intercom button on the wall by the door and a man’s voice came over the speaker. “What can I do for you, Mrs. Costa?”

How did he know it was Mrs. instead of Mr. Costa?

“Freddy, would you be a dear and call a cab for a friend of mine? She’s had too much to drink and needs to go home.”

“Of course, Mrs. Costa.”

“Thank you. She’ll be down in a few minutes. You’ll know her by the stunning black silk sheath she’s wearing.”

“Anything for you, Mrs. C.” And the voice cut off.

Francesca grinned at Susan. “Doorman. He never lets me down. He’ll make sure you get home.”

“Oh.” Susan started to say more, but she sputtered and stuttered, and she hiccupped like a drunken cartoon character. All she needed were tiny bubbles floating out of her mouth.

Francesca was staring hard at Susan, as if she were weighing a decision of some sort. “Not that it’s any of your business,” she said, pulling the silk robe around her better, “but I love my husband completely. That’s why I don’t design full time anymore, to spend more time with him.”

Susan nodded. “Okay...”

“As for the young men I employ, I simply like them better. They’re fun, have more energy, and don’t seem to give a thought to working for a woman. Men that are older always give me shit.”

Susan’s eyebrows shot up, and she almost laughed.

“And truthfully, I’ve only met one woman in my life I can even stand long enough to work with, and she’s my assistant.”