“Bill, you don’t understand,” she said, trying to get a grip on the sanity she felt seeping from her mind. “I’m not marrying Helmut Eckherdt. I’m not marrying anybody.”
“But it says right here—”
“I don’t give a damn what it says!” she exclaimed angrily. “I’m not marrying him. The story is a mistake. I have been seeing him, but that’s all.”
“What about a gargantuan diamond engagement ring you’re reported to be wearing?”
She sighed and rubbed her forehead with her palm. “I am wearing one, but—”
“Well, then?”
“I…It… Oh, hell, Bill, it’s too hard to explain. Just believe me. I’m not getting married, so you can keep my ‘replacement’ in London. Now I’ve got to go—”
“Wait a minute, Jordan.” He halted her again. She heard him sigh deeply, ominously, before he said quietly, “Baby, it’s not going to be that simple. You see, old man Bauerman has been after me for months to find a job on the Continent for his daughter. She’s bored with tea parties and fox hunting and suddenly wants to go to work. Nothing too taxing, you understand—just something to keep her occupied for a while. When I read this article about you last night, I thought your job would be perfect for her. So I called the old man—”
“And gave his daughter my job,” she finished for him.
“Well, sort of, yeah.”
“Sort of?”
“Well, yeah. She’s been promised your job.”
A heavy silence hung between them. Jordan was stupefied. What Bill had just told her couldn’t be true, yet it was. She had lost her job to Mr. Bauerman’s daughter. Mr. Bauer-man owned a publishing house as well as the chain of English newsstands she worked for. Things like this happened all the time in the business world. But not to Jordan Had-lock. And it hurt. And it was all Reeves Grant’s fault.
“Say, doll, I’m sorry, but—”
“Never mind, Bill. I’ve got to go now. Call me back later.”
Without waiting for his response, she hung up. For long moments she sat on the edge of her bed, her hand still on the receiver of the telephone, willing that everything she had heard over it wasn’t true. But it was. An announcement of a wedding that would never take place was going to be plastered on newspapers all over the world. She had been fired from her job.
As she mentally tallied the consequences of Reeves’s deceit, a belated fury replaced her bemusement. She balled her fists tightly until her nails made deep half moons in the palms of her hands. “Bastard,” she hissed.
She flew off the bed, flinging off her nightgown and rifling through a drawer for a pair of panties. She stepped into them hurriedly and slid on a pair of jeans. She jerked a ski sweater off a hanger in the closet and pulled it on over her head. Her feet were crammed, without the benefit of socks or stockings, into a pair of loafers.
In the bathroom she performed a cursory ablution of face and hands, brushed her teeth, applied a minimum amount of makeup, and haphazardly raked a brush through her thick hair.
Running through her bedroom, she grabbed a jacket and her purse and then dashed down the stairs. She locked the door of the bookstore behind her before quickly turning down the alley into the early-dawn gloom.
Taxis weren’t out this early in the morning so she was forced to reach her destination on foot. She didn’t mind. Angry determination was a fuel that propelled her more strongly with each footstep. Her breath frosted on the air, but she was untouched by the cold as she marched through the streets of Lucerne.
The row of hotels across the street from the lake was quiet and still. The wide verandas that fronted most of them were empty of loungers who could be found there later in the day, sipping drinks and taking in the scenery.
The lobby of the Europa was vacant except for two maids who were polishing mirrors and dusting furniture. The concierge was sorting through registry cards when she strode toward the desk and planted her hands flat on the smooth marble surface of the countertop.
“What room is Mr. Reeves Grant in?” she demanded.
The concierge raised his eyebrows in query and studied her disheveled appearance. “I beg your pardon?” he asked in accented English.
His wariness cautioned Jordan and she made herself smile beguilingly. “I know I must look a fright, but I’ve been driving all night to surprise him. He’s my… friend,” she added with deliberate insinuation. “You understand, don’t you?” Her eyelashes batted down over the fiery gray eyes and the man was helpless.
“Y …Yes, of course. He…uh…let’s see now. Room four twenty-nine. Shall I ring him?”