“Sir, it’s an honor to meet you!” said Mr. Kinsley, whose enthusiastic expression only faltered for a moment when Jace didn’t accept the outstretched hand. “On behalf of The Weekly Enquirer, I just wanted to apologize for sending such an inexperienced staff member yesterday. I understand that Kendall here didn’t really perform to the standard we expect from all our journalists, and I hope that her conduct hasn’t left a sour taste in your mouth. If you’d be willing, I can have the boardroom cleared out and one of our more senior employees can…”
Jace held up his hand to cut off Mr. Kinsley, lip curled in mild disgust. “Man, who the fuck cares what you have to say about anything? Seriously.” He turned to me. “Who is this guy?”
“Um… Jace, this is my boss. Mr. Kinsley. Mr. Kinsley, Jace Barlow.”
Mr. Kinsley held out his hand again.
“Really,” said Jace, dubiously, still ignoring the handshake. “Well, I was just coming in here to apologize for having to leave the interview early due to some unexpected business coming up. I was hoping to reschedule so we could finish.”
“Of course,” said Mr. Kinsley. “I can have Lucile Norris reschedule to suit any time you’d-”
“I’m not talking to anybody but Kendall.”
Mr. Kinsley faltered for a second. “Are you sure? I mean-”
“What did I say?” asked Jace.
“OK, sure, of course. Kendall is free any time. Right, Kendall?” urged Mr. Kinsley.
I looked from one man to the other and back again. “Yes.”
“Good. I’m free on Saturday. I’ll have a car pick you up at nine a.m. to make up for the... inconvenience last night. Nine o’clock, sharp. The driver will be in touch to get your address for the pick-up.”
“OK. Thank you, Jace!”
“I’ll look forward to it, Kendall. Goodbye.”
For a split second he fixed me with a look that made me blush and pulled at those invisible ropes around my knees again, but then he turned to leave.
“Thank you for giving The Weekly Enquirer this opportunity, Jace,” said Mr. Kinsley.
“That’s Mr. Barlow to you,” said Jace, not even looking at him as he began to walk away.
Halfway to the front desk I saw Lucile waiting for him to pass with the hugest flirty smile on her face. Even from this distance I could see her top button was undone, revealing the stuff of wet dreams for a lot of the men who worked here.
“Hi,” she said, twirling her hair around one finger.
I could have sworn he muttered something along the lines of “get the fuck out of my face” without slowing down and I sighed dreamily like a schoolgirl staring at a boy band poster. If I had a set of pompoms I would have cheered.
Chapter 11
Kendall
On the night I spent with him at Luc Monette’s, Jace had arranged a car to take me home. It was nice, some black Town Car with a driver who said not the slightest word about the way I looked and kept his eyes on the road as if his life depended on it.
On Saturday morning, when the driver called to say he was downstairs, I was expecting something like that again. Instead, when I walked out the front door, I was stopped in my tracks by the sight of a full stretch limo parked at the curb, behind the old rust bucket up on concrete blocks that belonged to my noisy upstairs neighbor.
The driver, definitely a different one than the one who’d picked me up previously, looked up from something on his phone and quickly put it away.
“Ms. Brooks?” he asked.
“Yes?” My disbelief drew the word out to an absurd length.
“Good morning, Ma’am! I’m Thomas, I’ll be your driver today.” He opened the rear door and gestured inside with a gloved hand and a smile.
I stepped towards him as if he might squirt me in the face with water from a fake flower in his breast pocket at any moment. This had to be a trick.
“Good morning,” I replied on auto-pilot, stooping down to look inside the luxury car.
Inside was like Jace’s office in vehicle form. It oozed class and anybody could tell that no expense had been spared in even the most minor of details. I briefly owned a car back in Woodville before I sold it to help fund my move to Port Magnus, and it was probably worth less than one of the armrests in here.
There was a bottle of Champagne sitting in a bucket of ice, but no Jace sitting in any of the seats. I stood up straight again.
“Where’s Jace?” I asked.
“Right now your guess is as good as mine, Ma’am. That’s above my paygrade. All I know is that I’ve been instructed to pick up a VIP, take them to the AquaVell Spa, be at their service for the rest of the day when they’re finished there and to take them downtown at seven sharp.”