“Six-fifteen. I want to make sure everything is ready.”
May was about to say something smart, but the sight of his face stopped her. “You’re worried?”
He glared at her. “Of course not. It’s a clean transaction. I’ve met the requirements. It should be no trouble.” But his face took on that abstracted look again.
May couldn’t help digging herself in further. “If it was no trouble, why did you spend a billion dollars to arrange it?” She immediately regretted asking. How rude could she be? But, to her surprise, he answered.
“Touché,” he said, sighing. “I’ll go get ready. Do not touch anything on the table.”
Which she hadn’t. She’d actually cat-napped on the sofa. There was nothing she was worried about at the restaurant. Although work was starting to be a problem.
The brochure was done and at the printer, thank the stars. But the recent economic downturn hadn’t shown signs of abating in the nonprofit sector, at least in the penguin portion of it. Next time the board met, Sadie had told her, if the investments still looked as peaked, people’s hours would be cut. Since May worked only 35 hours a week already, even a small cut might lose her her health insurance. And she sure as hell couldn’t let that happen.
“I’ll do whatever you need. Won’t you need maps and guides for the expedition?”
“We could farm those out.”
“Probably to me,” said May, hearing a trace of dejection in her voice. “That would be cheaper for you.”
“I don’t want that. You are valued, and not just for your art skills. Nobody else knows the technical end of our site, and that’s golden.”
Any clever intern could do what she did on the site, May thought, though thankfully she kept her mouth shut in Sadie’s office.
And here she was, taking out her frustration on the goose that was planning to hand them a golden egg. Or, rather, the gander.
She would be more compliant with Mr. Kurck. It wasn’t his fault he was a too-rich asshole, and he certainly wasn’t worse than her own Mr. Edmondsson, with his “back when we were at the pole” and “I take my coffee with a half-teaspoon of sugar. One half.”
When Markus Kurck next came into the living room, May gasped. Newly shaved, hair glistening, he perfectly filled an obviously custom-made charcoal suit, pants fitted at the back and knee as it they’d been sewn onto him. His blue Oxford shirt had those odd French cuffs, still loose, and he carried shined shoes in his hand and his suit jacket over his arm.
“Help me with these,” he said, and dropped a pair of cufflinks in her hand. He sat next to her, bumping her hip and dipping the overstuffed sofa so much she trampolined up an inch. She scuttled half a foot down the sofa and leaned back toward him, hoping he wouldn’t notice.
He didn’t seem to, his expression a thousand miles away as he held out a hand toward her, wrist up. May pressed the two cuff-holes together and slid the tiny link in. She clicked the link into place, and then looked at it. A tiny cartoon penguin.
She looked up at him, startled. He shrugged, a little sheepish. “They’re good luck.”
“Mine’s a Hello Kitty bracelet.” May cringed inside. Why had she said that?
“Hello Kitty has no personal meaning,” he said sententiously.
“H.K. has whatever meaning a person chooses to give her.”
“I see I’ve hit a nerve.” He raised an eyebrow at her. How did he make them triangle like that? “Other sleeve, please.”
He shifted toward her, dropping his shoes on the floor. She clicked the cufflink on, then, belatedly remembering her promise to herself to be nicer, ran her fingers across his pulse point.
He jumped, or she did. He lifted his wrist to inspect it. “Static electricity in June, May?”
Trying to cover the shock of what she’d just felt—it could not possibly be lust—May went for the easy joke. “Just the excitement of being here with you, Mr. Kurck.”
“Excitement, little May? Then by all means, call me Beau.”
He was all joviality in the elevator, but his mood grew cooler and more introspective with every block closer to the restaurant they walked. May’s mood did the opposite. The day was beautiful, with the bright blue sky and mild weather that lulled one into thinking that DC summers were Eden. They’d get two weeks of this, tops, before the muggy-swamp weather took over for the rest of the summer. She wanted to soak in this wonderfulness, since it would not last.
Now in the restaurant, their moods were reversed. Beau paced, and May stood calm as a yogi. Neither touched the pitchers of ice water and margaritas on a shiny platter at the edge of the table for eight. There weren’t any place settings, so May expected it would be a short meeting.