Rebound (16 page)

“So what’s this one
look like?” she asked Jill, pulling out her cellphone, just in case
there was another message from Kevin. Susan was referring to the
men Francesca was now infamous for surrounding herself with. Always
tall, devastatingly handsome, and always, always more than twenty
years younger than Francesca herself.

Francesca Costa
was a cougar. And like her wardrobe, she got herself a new young
man for every season. She’d latch onto these twenty-somethings and
paw them with unabashed crudeness. The youngsters were always good
architects, and working with Francesca would make them
very
good. Chicago was littered with her cast-offs,
and the architectural community looked upon her firm as a sort of
training ground--waiting to scoop up the next Costa
refugee.

“Mmm,” Jill
moaned.

Susan looked at her
and saw Jill purse her lips, tilting her head so she could better
ogle the guy over her reading glasses.

“If I weren’t happily
married…”

“Really?” Susan
chuckled. “That good?”

Jill licked her lips.
“Mmm.”

Susan had never seen
her like this. The guy must be hot.

“Not as young as
usual, but...” Jill took a deep breath and seemed totally
mesmerized as she let it out in a hiss.

“This has to be
good,” Susan said, turning to take a look. She dropped her Gucci
leather portfolio, gasped, and lost all ability to speak as she
clung to Jill’s arm.

Francesca Costa was
hanging all over her new boy-toy.

The new boy-toy was
Kevin.

Her Kevin!

Kevin and Francesca
were talking with Lou Dante, the owner of Waterhouse Architectural
Design. Kevin was smiling, looking tall and broad and devastatingly
handsome. And even six months later, Susan could mentally take away
the gorgeous dark blue pinstriped suit and picture him naked. Every
detail. Every freckle and scar…and his beautiful penis.

But that vision of
naked Kevin blew away like tumbleweed as Francesca pressed in
closer, her entire body now cleaved against Kevin’s side, her
breasts squished against his arm, and she leaned up and whispered
something in his ear, her white teeth dazzling against her blood
red lipstick.

And those lips!
Totally synthetic! Lips weren’t like that naturally. She’d had
them, like everything else on her body, surgically enhanced.

Kevin smiled and
looked at her, and the look on his face was downright
rapturous.

Susan felt something
in her drop with a thud, leaving her confused and dizzy. She gave
Jill a pleading look. “This just can’t be happening.”

Jill looked even more
alarmed than she had in the boardroom. “What can’t be
happening?”

Susan searched for
the words, and tried like hell to take a breath. “That’s
Kevin!”

Jill shook her head,
not understanding, and then the realization dawned across her face.
“Kevin from the text message?”

Susan nodded.

Jill made the last
connection. “Kevin, your-best-friend-from-college Kevin?”

Susan nodded again.
“That’s him.”

“Oh my God!” Jill
reached out and grasped Susan by the shoulders, and looked over at
him again. “He’s hot as hell.” She gave Susan a strange look. “You
made him sound like just another architect geek.”

Susan rolled her
eyes. “He used to be.”

“Used to be,” Jill
said. “And now he’s gorgeous, and Francesca Costa is rubbing
herself all over him, marking her territory.” She shot Susan with a
scathing glance. “So why haven’t you gone after him?”

“
What?” Susan
was ready to scream. He was her best friend. What had happened in
Cancun was wrong. And no matter how many times she tried to
rationalize it, no matter how many times her dreams had been filled
with the instant replays of them making love--
argh, that word!
--she couldn’t escape the fact that they were still
just friends.

Yet he hadn’t so much
as texted her in six months. What kind of friend was that?

But then, what kind
of friend would force her best friend to do her, just so she could
get over her ex?

That’s when Kevin
turned around, Francesca Costa still surgically attached to his arm
by her boobs. He looked genuinely surprised when he saw Susan. A
wide, happy grin spread across his face as he rushed forward to
Susan. She thought he was about to hug her, like he always did when
they hadn’t seen each other in a while. But just as he was going to
scoop her up in his arms, he stopped. He faltered, halting, his
smile dimming dramatically--and he didn’t look like Kevin
anymore.

He looked...

He looked like she
did when she was missing him.

He started talking in
a formal, business-y way. “Susan, this is Francesca Costa.
Francesca, this is Susan Rhodes.”

“
We’ve met,”
both women said in unison. Susan glared at her, wanting to chop her
hands off from where they were clutching Kevin’s arm, with a
machete. Francesca had the look on her face she always had when she
saw Susan. No matter how many parties they met at, even parties for
buildings Susan designed herself, she always gave Susan this
look:
still no
imagination
.

Kevin smiled and gave
a nervous laugh. “Oh, right. Francesca was your hero in
college.”

Susan glared
murderously at Kevin. Francesca looked taken aback.

“You’re kidding?”
Francesca’s smile wavered, but came back with an arrogance more
befitting her. “So you’re the president of my fan club. Good to
finally meet you after all these years.”

Susan saw red, and
her fist clenched, her arm jerking back, ready to lay the bitch
out.

But Jill caught hold
of her and changed the subject with astonishing speed. “So what are
you doing in this neck of the woods?”

Francesca gave Jill
an interested look, and Susan mentally started planning Francesca
Costa’s death. Painful. Slow. Bloody.

“I’m here for the
opera house. Kevin is my lead, go-to man.” Francesca’s smile was
both gloating and filled with pride.

Sure, she was
still hot. But with enough cosmetic surgery anyone can be. So she
should stop looking so goddamn proud of herself for catching some
handsome stud.
He’s
more than just a great body and pretty face, he’s
Kevin...

“Susan just made her
presentation,” Jill said, keeping the civilized conversation going,
yet not letting go of Susan’s still straining arm. “The council
members loved it.”

Jill was getting a
big raise, even if Susan had to pay it out of her own pocket. Not
only had she saved her in that boardroom, but now she was keeping
her from making a spectacle of herself, and possibly getting
arrested for assault, and was loyally letting Francesca Costa have
it.

She’s a doll!

“Suze always swings
for the stands,” Kevin said, his expression melting momentarily
from cordial to downright affectionate. The effect left Susan
breathless.

“They haven’t seen
Kevin’s designs yet,” Francesca said, puffing up her chest and
pushing her boobs all the harder against Kevin’s arm. “They’ll be
eating out of his hand.”

“I don’t know,” Jill
said, her smile beatific and a little malicious. “They spent ten
minutes just slapping Susan on the back. Looked like a sure thing
to me.”

Francesca leaned back
from Kevin to give Jill her undivided attention, her eyes flashing
with delight. “So Maestro Rossi was enamored with Susan’s
proposal?”

That
would be a no.

“You bet. I had to
make him let go of her by force. Didn’t seem to want to let her
go.”

Francesca’s left
eyebrow lifted with practiced scrutiny. “Sure he didn’t.”

The next couple of
beats were deathly silent, and then the council’s secretary came
through the big oak doors and beckoned to Kevin and Francesca to
come in.

“Well, that’s us, so
you ladies have a lovely day,” Francesca purred as she walked
gracefully past them and toward the boardroom.

Susan and Jill shared
a look, both thinking the same thing: bitch!

Kevin grabbed Susan
by the arm, looking like he was about to blurt out something. But
he didn’t. He slowly let go and straightened up to stand at his
full height. “So, we still on for dinner tonight?”

Susan gulped. In all
her shock and dismay, she had forgotten about dinner. “Of course.
What? Eight o’clock.”

“Eight it is,” he
said, his eyes focusing on her a few beats too long. “I’ll pick you
up.”

Susan almost
stuttered, took a deep breath and said, “Okay.”

Kevin turned, a big
smile spreading across his face as he strode toward Francesca and
the boardroom.

Susan stood in
stunned silence as the boardroom door swung closed, and Kevin
disappeared from view.

“So what the hell was
that all about?” Jill said, standing defensively on Susan’s
flank.

“Beats the hell out
of me.”

Chapter 12

A few minutes later,
Jill had Susan in a cab and they were headed back to the office.
Susan had been sitting quietly, desperately clutching at the now
scuffed and fingernail marked Gucci portfolio case, lost in her
own, rather vacant thoughts.

“You’ll be fine once
I get you back to the office,” Jill said, a worried expression on
her pretty face.

She couldn’t go
back to the office. Susan pulled the battered portfolio case to her
chest, like a little girl clutching her pillow. She needed any
excuse
not
to go back to the office. She was
certain she wouldn’t be able to make civilized conversation with
anyone there, not to mention explain how thing went with her
proposal.

At least the
proposal had gone well. Hell, it had gone great. The only holdout
being the brooding, goat-like Maestro. Suddenly Francesca Costa’s
words hit her.
So
Maestro Rossi was enamored with Susan’s proposal?

What did that mean?
Who cared if the conductor liked her proposal? He certainly
couldn’t have final say. That would be ludicrous.

But the way Francesca
had said it...

Suddenly Susan
remembered her lunch plans with Jill. “Aren’t we headed for
Bloomy’s?”

Jill smiled wanly. “I
didn’t think you’d be up for that. I mean, with all the surprises
this morning...”

“Hey, I promised you
shoes and an extravagant lunch. I’m not one of those
forgets-their-promises bosses.”

Jill’s smile
brightened and she elbowed the Plexiglass partition with a hard
rap. “Thirty East Oak Street. The Prada store.”

She even knew the
address for the damn store. Susan couldn’t believe it. Jill did
know everything.

* * * *

Susan floated numbly
through the Prada store. Even all those stunning leather shoes
surrounding her couldn’t keep her attention. All her mental
energies were trying to piece together her drastically changed
reality.

Jill passed right by
the sling-backs that Susan had on, and fell in love with an
exquisite pair of mules that not only made her legs look elegantly
long and sexy, but were two hundred dollars less.

At Bloomy’s Jill
tried to get away with ordering just a salad, but Susan caught her
mid-order and changed it. “We’ll be having the filet mignon with
shrimp and those marvelous garlic whipped potatoes. Portabella
mushrooms stuffed with lobster, and the French onion soup to start
out with.”

Jill’s jaw dropped as
she looked down at the menu, obviously mentally tallying up the
bill.

“And we’re going to
want the chocolate soufflé for dessert.”

“Very good, madam.”
The waiter scribbled down the order.

Susan waited until he
was done before adding, “And two Cosmos. Straight up.”

The waiter
disappeared and Jill gave Susan a strange, tense look.

“I don’t know about
you,” Susan said. “But I need a drink after all that.”

* * * *

An hour and
twenty-five minutes later, both women had a nice buzz going as they
poured themselves into a taxi. Jill was holding her belly, happily
stuffed to the gills. Susan had eaten a few bites of her meal, but
mostly she was still lost, thinking about Kevin, and wondering why
on earth he was working for a barracuda like Francesca Costa.

She wasn’t a
barracuda. She was a cougar. And Kevin was young, fresh meat.

Susan cringed at that
thought. It had to be a mistake. There was no way Kevin could
be...

Boffing the silicon
queen?

Susan groaned.

“You don’t look so
hot.” Jill leaned up and gave Susan a closer look. “Maybe you
should take the rest of the day off and rest.”

“I can’t do
that.”

“Why not?” Jill
pulled out her BlackBerry, checking Susan’s schedule. “You only
have two meetings this afternoon. They’re not even clients, just a
couple of bean counters from legal. I can have them canceled before
you get through your front door.” Jill leaned back against the
ancient leather seat of the taxi, turning her face to Susan, her
smile devilish. “And you could use a nap before you get ready for
your date.”

“What date?”

“With Kevin.
Remember? Dinner at eight.”

“Oh, yeah...Kevin.”
Susan had a sudden, hot, sticky flash of Kevin picking her up onto
the kitchen counter of that Cancun hotel room. She remembered how
his skin had been moist with perspiration, and his hands had felt
so good as he...

Susan gulped. Jill
was right. With the way her mind kept flipping onto the Kevin Spice
Channel, going back to the office was a bad idea. Maybe all she
really needed was a nap.