Eye Candy (City Chicks) (12 page)

Fiona grinned. That self-satisfied, troublemaking grin that made me understand why she and Phelps got along so well. And confirmed my suspicion that her assurance that Phelps was pure eye candy was downright manipulation.

She could be a calculating matchmaker when the mood stuck.

"You and Phelps in the most romantic country on earth? Sounds like the perfect recipe for love."

I threw a grape at her, nailing her square between the eyes. "He's not taking me. Why would he?"

Fiona popped the grape into her smiling mouth. "We'll see about that. I'll just have a talk with our young man..."

I forked a bite of triple-crème brie and savored the smooth flavor. Personal experience dictates that ignoring Fiona is the best course of action. Ignoring and distracting.

"So, Fiona. Tell me about Jacque."

"Fair enough."

And we spent the rest of lunch in the blissful absence of conversations about men. Hired or otherwise.

When I got home I made the mistake of checking my voicemail. One message from Bethany. Two from Dad. Sixteen from Mom.

They knew I was going away for the weekend, I swear I told them ten times, but when I called home the first thing I heard was, "Where have you been!"

"In Southampton." I rolled my suitcase into the bedroom and started mindlessly unpacking. "Did you need something?"

After setting two piles of folded clothes onto of the silver-gray silk duvet, I sorted into "Hang Up" and "To Cleaners" piles.

"The sailboat arrives next weekend," Mom said. "We're having a Bon Voyage get together with our friends and neighbors and wanted to make sure you can come."

"Of course I can come," I answered as I slipped one pile into the drycleaners bag. "What day and time?"

"Saturday at six."

One by one I hung up my dresses and slacks on matching wooden hangers. "Need me to bring anything?"

"You could bring one of your friends..." she said with a deliberately pregnant pause. "Or a boy. A boy friend. A boyfriend. Unless..."

I sighed at my mom's version of subtle manipulation. Her "unless" signaled something as subtle as Fiona's taste in fashion. As I placed my shoes back in their labeled homes in the wall of plastic shoe drawers in my closet, I took a deep breath.

"...you want me to introduce you to Barbara Davenport's son. He's a doctor."

Like that would cure all my relationship ills. Maybe if he was a therapist. Or a candy manufacturer. Now that'd be something.

"No thanks," I declined politely.

"A radiologist," she persisted. "Top of his class at Harvard Medical School. He works at a private hospital in—"

"Really, Mom, I'm not interested."

Grabbing my toiletries bag I headed for the bathroom and unpacked an endless array of small bottles and Prada travel treatments. As I looked at the collection of travel-sized products in my bottom drawer, a wanderlust longing hit me. It had been over three years since I'd been out of the country. And that had been a one-nighter in Paris to visit Gavin on a business trip.

One night in the city of lights just didn't count.

Suddenly, I really wanted that trip to Milan. Maybe I would go anyway. On my own. Turn it into a real vacation.

"He lives in the city. Not far from you." Mom's sales pitch interrupted my dreams of Italy. "He knits sweaters. For cats. Isn't that darling?"

L-O-S-E-R. Mom was really scraping the barrel with this one. She must have been getting desperate to get me hitched before they flee the hemisphere. Definitely stemming from the generation that didn't believe a woman could take care of herself.

"I'll just call Dustin and tell him you'll—"

"No!" If I didn't stop her now, she'd have the wedding planned and pack us onto the sailboat for the honeymoon. "I'll bring a guy, okay?"

The shocked silence from the other end of the phone was a little disconcerting. I mean it's not like I never have dates. Maybe since Gavin there's been a little lag, but— who am I kidding? Phelps was the first thing resembling a date I'd had in two years.

"Oh," she finally managed. "Okay."

If he could provide enough diversionary tactics to see my way through Mom's matchmaking until she and Dad sailed into the sunset, he was worth every penny.

Mental Post-it: Call Phelps Monday morning.

I sat down at my perfectly clean desk Monday morning, ready to tackle my immense To Do list. I had already called to book Phelps for Saturday night. If only all my tasks would prove that easy.

Pulling the neat stack of Monday items from my top desk drawer, I started to dig my way through.

Ferrero popped in at 9:02.

"
Chica
," he said in his increasingly fake Italian accent and I was certain he used the endearment because he still couldn't remember my name, "how is my beautiful muse?"

"Just muse-y," I replied with more cheek than necessary.

"Wonderful, wonderful." He looked around my office, a room he had never before visited, and nodded enthusiastically at the mahogany bookcases, tan canvas and leather armchairs, and Lempicka reproductions. "Pristine, elegant, sophisticated. Just like you."

"Thank you." Why, I wondered, was Ferrero eyeing my office like I eyed the candy aisle at D'Agnostino.

"This room is the perfect atmosphere." He scuffed his Gucci oxford along the Calvin Klein carpet with reverence. "So soothing. Calming."

Ferrero lowered into the armchair on the left and looked around the room, as if gauging the view from the seat. He then stood, moved to the chair on the right, and did the same thing.

Artists, I thought, shrugged, and went back to the pile.

First task: Call Saks Fifth Avenue in San Diego to arrange preparations for trunk show.

Well, I couldn't very easily—or politely—make a business call with Ferrero in the room, so I moved that note to the bottom of the pile.

Second task: Pull up numbers for second quarter sales of men's accessories.

Ugh. My brain was not alert enough to compute a stream of numbers. That just might put me to sleep. Slipped that one to the bottom, too.

I looked up to find Ferrero dragging the side table next to the door toward the armchairs. He tugged it into place between the two and then sat in the chair on the right and reevaluated. 

He smiled to himself and I went back to the pile.

Third task: Create PowerPoint presentation on implications of new advertising campaign for three o'clock meeting.

Okay, this I could do.

But I would need reinforcement.

I clicked open PowerPoint on the computer—ignoring the urge to check my email with willpower of steel—and pulled open my lower left drawer.

My gasp could be heard for a three block radius.

"What is it, 
cherie
?" Ferrero asked, slipping now into pseudo-French, and looking up from rearranging a shelf of photographs.

I could only shake my head in shock, but I did manage to close my mouth. He took this as a sign that all was well. "This room will be perfect, I have decided."

"W-what?" I stammered, dragging my gaze away from the drawer. "What h-have you decided?"

My whole body started to shake, like after a really hard yoga class when my muscles just gave up any pretense of working in their state of utter exhaustion. Like after I downed a whole 10-pack of Pixie Stix in ten minutes and my blood turned to sugar water.

I grabbed the arms of my chair to hide the quivers.

"This will be my creative center," he decreed. "The Spring Collection will be designed in this room. I shall have Antoine move my things in here this afternoon."

With a flourish and a swirl of his knee-length lilac kaftan, Ferrero exited my office.

I knew he had just announced he would be taking over my office, my personal space, for the duration of the upcoming season design, but my brain could not begin to process the loss. Instead, my wide-eyed gaze dropped back to the open drawer.

For several long minutes—until my assistant came in with a peppermint Frappuccino and shook me out of the trance—I just stared. Unseeing. At the empty drawer.

All my candy was gone.

9

Q: What kind of keys don't open doors?
A: Piano keys.
— Laffy Taffy Joke #156

My first thought was to call the police.

It took about 4.7 seconds for me to realize how ridiculous that would sound. "Hello officer, I would like to report a theft. What was stolen? A drawer full of candy. Hello? Hello?"

"Angela," I said very calmly to my assistant, "has anyone been in my office this morning?"

She tugged at the waist-length braid draped over her left shoulder. "You," she answered. "And Mr. Ferrero."

My knuckles whitened as I clutched the chair.

Angela was not the brightest Smartie in the pack. But she was a good assistant. Kept my business life running smoothly and on time—too bad she didn't hire out for personal lives.

"Yes, I know that Mr. Ferrero and I have been in my office because I was in here at the time." My fingernails dug into the chair arm's padded leather strip. I peeled up three inches of stitching and chipped two nails before I realized what I was doing. "I mean before I arrived. Was anyone else in this office before I got in this morning?"

"N-not that I know of." Angela started backing away. She looked like she thought I was about to combust.

Maybe I was.

"Fine," I managed in a steady voice. "Never mind."

She turned and fled the room, closing the door behind her and leaving me alone with my empty drawer.

Trying to quell the surging panic, I grabbed my purse from beneath the desk and dug around for a treat. Any treat. A half-sucked Lifesaver. A dinner mint. A caramel wrapper with a tiny blob stuck to the corner.

Nothing.

Not even a lone Nerd rolling around the dust and lint gathered in the bottom of my bag.

How had I left home without a single piece of candy?

Leaping from my chair, I pressed the intercom button and announced, "I have to go out for a minute. Please hold my calls."

Angela didn't respond from the other end of the phone line, but I didn't care. I dashed for the door. Just as I reached for the handle the door burst open.

Instantaneously, a dozen men dressed all in white began removing furniture from my office. Out went the armchairs and the side tables and the floor lamps before I could even voice a, "What on earth is going on here?"

Had I been fired? Had Jawbreaker found out that Phelps was a fraudulent boyfriend? Had there been an unwritten rule in the croquet tournament that the loser lost her job?

"Mr. Ferrero's orders," one of the men said. "Wants everything out but that desk and chair."

Then, with all the offending furniture gone, they threw plastic sheets over the desk, the built-in bookcases, and the entire floor. One of the men carried in two paint cans and set them in the middle of my dropclothed desk.

He popped off the lids to reveal brilliant fuchsia and tangerine. Three other men made their way around the room laying strips of blue painter's tape in parallel, vertical stripes on the bare walls.

Oh no, I thought, my beautiful khaki and cream walls. And then, before I completed the thought, the painters started spreading garish deep pink and light orange stripes up and down my lovely walls.

I couldn't watch. As I turned to leave, I ran into Jawbreaker in my doorway.

"Lydia, I'm glad I caught you," she oozed.

Great Gobstoppers, can't she say 
anything
 without simpering. "What can I do for you, Janice?"

"I need to get the files for the trunk show tour."

"Oh, I haven't gotten the PowerPoint done yet." Or even started for that matter. I had more pressing concerns at the moment.

She smiled like a cat came across an endless river of cream. "That's alright," she purred, "Kelly can do that."

No, Kelly can't do that. The West Coast Trunk Show was my project, my idea from the beginning, and no little KY tramp—fellow tiara hunter or not—was going to take it away.

Giving up on getting out of the room anytime soon, I walked back to my desk and plunked my purse on the plastic-covered desk. "Actually, I was going to start as soon as I get back. I'll have it to you before lunch."

She didn't look as taken aback as I'd hoped.

"You have too many other things on your plate right now, what with the Spring collection and all. Besides," she drawled, her voice positively reeking of unadulterated gloat, "that will fall under the purview of Kelly's new duties."

"New duties?" If not for the sheet plastic covering my chair I would have collapsed into the cushy softness.

"Ferrero's orders," Janice said.

I watched in horror as a gloating grin spread across her tanned, aging face. Where was candy when I needed it?