Иностранец. Становление. Игорь Шелег

She slipped her stockinged feet into the four-inch black Manolo Blahnik pumps under her desk to regain some semblance of power in the conversation.

      Seven leveled a steady gaze at her. “Okay,” he said.

      Although his movements seemed slow and unhurried, he quickly gathered the remains of their impromptu picnic into the basket and tucked them away. Soon, he stood at the door, ready to leave.

      “Thanks for stopping by,” Bailey said. Even with every disastrous thing she now knew about him, she still wanted to rush over to Seven and ask him to stay. Beg him to stay. “It’s unfortunate we won’t be working together, after all.” Slowly, she stood up to her full height and then some in the couture stilettos, giving him her coolest and most professional smile.

      He held her gaze for a long moment before responding. “Yes, a shame.” Then he was gone.

      Bailey’s smile withered away. After his faint footsteps had faded down the hallway, she stood in the middle of her office, with the after-fragrance of their picnic swirling around her, disappointment like ashes on her tongue.

      * * *

      She left the office shortly after Seven did, unable to concentrate on work. With him gone, the building seemed lonely in a way it hadn’t before. Lonely and cold. Bailey gathered her briefcase, turned off the lights in her office and got on the elevator, pressing the button for the parking garage.

      The last time a man had intrigued her as much as Seven, she’d quickly opened herself to him, excited that, for the first time in her twenty-eight years, she felt something close to love, a feeling her sister always swam in like some rarified pool in an otherwise dry universe. Bailey had almost drowned. She hadn’t realized that Clive, a professor at the University of Miami, had been steadily sleeping his way through his graduate students. Even after he’d asked her to marry him.

      Bailey’s heels clicked a sad tattoo against the cement floor of the garage. Although it was almost nine in the evening, hers wasn’t the only car in the well-lit parking structure. She pressed a key on the remote and it chirped once, unlocking the pale blue Volvo C70 with a quick flash of the headlights. She climbed in and turned on her stereo and the Alice Smith song that had been playing on her way to work blasted into the small confines of the car. The bluesy, big-throated song blew away her unproductive thoughts about her love life and anything else lurking in her subconscious.

      With the top down, she drove to her beachside condo, enjoying the feel of the wind in her hair during the short drive. She knew the route well and had driven it most of the eight years she’d been working at Braithwaite and Fernandez. It hadn’t been her first job offer after graduating from the University of Miami with her degrees in finance and business administration, but it was the one that had the most potential for growth and allowed her to stay in Miami. Stability. She had it. And it was something she was grateful for.

      In the condo, she put her keys on the silver-plated hook by the door, walking by moonlight into the living room to drop her briefcase on the couch, then detouring in the kitchen to grab a crystal tumbler from the cupboard. Ice cubes clinked against the glass as she held it under the fridge’s dispenser. At the sideboard in the sitting room, she poured Scotch into the tumbler. The liquor gurgled and splashed over the ice in the silence.

      Seven Carmichael briefly floated through her thoughts as she took the first sip of the twelve-year-old single malt. He had been like the drink, a searing heat through her senses that put her on pause for a moment to pay close attention to the slow burn over her tongue, in her chest and her belly.

      Bailey shook him from her head.

      It had been a long day, but she was far from tired. Her work energized her. And though she would have liked to share the evening with someone—the silver rush of moonlight over her hardwoods, the coolness of the floor against her bare feet, her quiet walk back out of her condo and up the elevator to the rooftop pool—she also savored her privacy. Her things.

      Her home was all paid for. So was her car. She owed no one. It was a great feeling. One she cherished even as she sat at the edge of the pool with moonlight and starlight winking overhead, her whiskey by her hand. Alone.

      Chapter 3

      “If I’d known you were going to make a play for her, I would have warned you.” Marcus braced his elbows against the bar, sipping from his Hennessy and Coke. “Unless you’re corporate, you’re wasting your time.”

      “Why? Is she just about money?” Seven asked.

      He hadn’t gotten that vibe from her at all, and she had seemed to warm to him over the course of the hour they’d spent together on her office floor. But that warmth had disappeared once Marcus opened his big mouth and told her what Seven did for a living.

      Seven tilted the last of his beer to his lips and leaned back in the chair at the bar of Marcus’s favorite spot, Gillespie’s Jazz and Martini Bar. The sound of the piano wove through the lazy Monday night, while soft laughter, the clink of glasses, the flash of jewels imbued the air with a subdued urban magic.

      “Nah,” Marcus said dismissively. “She doesn’t care about things like that. Her last man was a teacher, some professor over at UM. She just doesn’t do artists.”

      Seven looked at him. “If you knew that, why did you tell her that?”

      “Like I said, man. I didn’t know you were feeling her like that. Most guys, once they realize she’s such a hard-ass, they back off. She’s hot, but damn!” Marcus shook his head.

      Seven breathed in the memory of Bailey. Everything about her was hot. Her body. The way she had thawed for him like an ice sculpture under the rising sun. And her smile—absolutely incredible.

      “Just give it up, man.” Marcus raised his drink to his lips. “You’re better off.”

      Seven made a noncommittal sound. After what had happened in Bailey’s office, he’d been in a hurry to distance himself from Marcus, convinced that the other man was bad luck for his new life in America. He had left Braithwaite and Fernandez to view a condominium with vacancies. Luckily, they allowed him to move in immediately. When Marcus called to invite him to Gillespie’s, Seven had reluctantly accepted, plugging the address into the GPS and making his way to the club.

      “You’re not going to give up, are you?” Marcus asked, his tone of voice saying that Seven should give up.

      “Why should I?”

      “I already gave you a good reason. Bailey is a genius with money, but she’s a bitch. Plain and simple.”

      “Every strong woman isn’t a bitch, Marcus.”

      “Spoken like a man who’s already whipped. And she didn’t even give you any.”

      Seven gestured to the bartender for another beer. “Spoken like a man who’s never had a special woman in his life.”

      “I’ve had plenty of special women.” Marcus laughed.

      Seven nodded his thanks as the bartender slid him another bottle of Corona with lime.

      “And speaking of which...” Marcus swiveled around in his chair as two women walked up to them, parting the crowd with their video-girl good looks. It was two of the girls from earlier that day. “Felice and Masiel are here for our pleasure,” he said, pulling Felice against him. The girl settled into his chest with a satisfied purr while her friend looked at Seven expectantly.

      Seven squeezed the lime into his beer then slid the crinkled remnants of the citrus into the full bottle. “I don’t need any company tonight, thanks.” He sipped his beer, mouth puckering at the tartness of lime and beer.

      Marcus stared at him in amazement. “You’re refusing this?” He gestured to Felice’s lush frame while she posed seductively, hand on hip, breasts thrust out.

      “You’re hot like fire, baby,” Seven reassured the woman. “But I’m not in the mood.”

      “Damn.