Winner Takes All (10 page)

After she had sent off the text, Eva pulled up the website for Hammond Communications and started poking around. The site was well organized and neatly designed, with a useful search function into which she typed “Reed.” Nothing came up.

“Darn it,” she muttered, wondering if she should call the company operator and ask to speak to Reed. After hesitating for a moment, she picked up the phone. She wasn’t doing this for herself, she thought as she dialed the general number for Hammond Communications. This was for Wyndham’s. She didn’t even want to talk to him. She merely wanted to leave a message on his voicemail informing him that the package had been sent this morning like she’d promised and then hang up.

As the phone rang Eva felt her heartbeat speeding up. She was nervous. She had her speech all ready, but she didn’t know what she’d do if he picked up and she actually had to make conversation.

“Hello, Hammond Communications,” the operator said. “How many I direct your call?”

“Reed please,” she said.

“Excuse me?”

Eva hadn’t really expected it to work. It was unlikely that a businessman would go by a single name, like Madonna or Bono, but it had been worth a try. “I’d like to speak with Mr. Reed please.”

“My computer is showing no Mr. Reed.”

Hell
. “Perhaps Reed is his first name.”

“Perhaps,” the operator agreed, “but that doesn’t help me direct your call. I require a last name.”

Eva had been afraid of this. “Can’t you skim all the
R
names?”

“Employees are listed by their last name,” the operator explained patiently to Eva’s impractical suggestion. “Is there somewhere else I can direct your call?”

The disappointment she felt was keen and had nothing to do with Wyndham’s. Eva closed her eyes and told herself to be brave. “Yes, Mrs. Hemingway in Cole Hammond’s office.”

“That’s extension 765. Please hold for Mrs. Hemingway,” she said, before clicking off.

The gatekeeper answered after one ring. “Hello. Mr. Hammond’s office. How may I help you?”

“Hello, this is Eva Butler from Wyndham’s. I was there yesterday for a meeting with Mr. Hammond,” she said.

“I have no record of such a meeting,” Mrs. Hemingway said tersely.

Damn it. Why did I remind her of that?
“Of course,” she said placatingly. “My mistake. I’m just following up at this time on a package I sent to Mr. Hammond this morning.” Eva knew she sounded stiff and nervous. “I wanted to make sure it arrived safely.”

“Please hold while I check the log.”

Eva listened to soothing jazz for several minutes, feeling agitated and annoyed. She had no doubt that Mrs. Hemingway was making her hold out of spite. The well-organized dragon probably kept the log opened in front of her at all times and could have given Eva the information within five seconds.

“Your package arrived at eleven-thirty,” the woman said, returning to the line.

“Great. Thank you.”

“Thank you for calling Hammond Communications. Good-bye.”

“Oh, wait,” Eva said before she lost her courage.

“Yes?”

“When I was in there yesterday, the man.…” Eva trailed off, feeling silly. This wasn’t professional; it was the opposite of professional.

“Yes?” the gatekeeper said again in that icy voice.

Despite her intentions, Eva could not force the words out of her mouth. She simply couldn’t bring herself to ask this awful dragon of a gatekeeper the name of the man with whom she’d had lunch yesterday. “Nothing. Thanks again.”

She hung up the phone and laid her head down on the desk. This Reed business had her acting like an idiot. It had to end. It had to end right now.

***

The next morning Eva sauntered into the office at nine, with her four-dollar cup of coffee and an energetic grin on her face. She was well rested and focused and thoroughly determined not to think about Reed whatever-his-name. Yesterday’s foolishness was behind her. Today she would concentrate on nothing but work, and this time when she called Mrs. Hemingway—and she would call Mrs. Hemingway because following up was part of her job—she would ask to speak with Mr. Hammond or at the very least to leave a message on his voicemail. No more calling with flimsy excuses to ask the name of mysterious men.

It was the good night’s sleep, she thought, as she turned on the computer and waited for it to boot up. There was nothing like getting a solid eight hours.

She logged on to her computer and sent Ben a quick note detailing her Hammond movement of yesterday and outlining what she planned to do today, making sure to cc Ben’s immediate supervisor. Over the years she had found that the best way to deal with her boss was to make preemptive strikes. It was always better to tell him what you plan to do rather than wait for him to ask what you have done.

Then she called Ruth’s cell and asked her what she was doing for lunch.

“Eat a quick bite at my desk,” she answered, stepping outside her apartment. “Maybe a tossed salad. But it’s just a general plan. I’m not married to it or anything. If you’ve got time to chat and chew, I’m completely open to discussing it.”

Eva smiled. “Great. Why don’t we meet at China House at one-thirty?”

“Chinese?”

“You said you were open.”

“I said I wanted a salad.”

“All right. Then the diner on Sixth and Forty-seventh.”

“Right,
guapa.
See you there.”

***

Four hours later, Eva was standing in the doorway of Andrew’s Diner waiting for Ruth. Her stomach grumbled and she wondered again what she had been thinking to schedule lunch for one-thirty. She usually ate around noon.

“Sorry,” said Ruth breathlessly, coming up behind her. “Sorry I’m late. Traffic was a bitch. I sat for ten minutes on Fifty-first without moving. I mean like seriously stalled. Not even inching our way to the corner.” She enveloped Eva in a Fendi hug for a moment before pulling back. “How long a wait?”

“I think she said about five min—”

A woman came up to Eva with menus enfolded in her arms. “Two?”

“Yep.”

They followed the waitress to a booth in the back, gave drink orders and opened their menus.

“Why were you coming from the east side?” Ruth’s office was on Fifth Avenue, like Eva’s.

“Photo shoot. Grueling. Don’t make me talk about it. I’m looking for a little escapist fun. What do you think of the chef’s salad?”

“Not as diverting as the Greek salad but certainly a good distraction.”

“Excellent,” she said, closing her menu. “You?”

“Cheeseburger deluxe.”

“That comes with fries, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.”

She wrinkled her brow and glanced at the menu consideringly. “French fries are very escapist.”

“You can have some of mine.”

“Now that’s just the sort of can-do attitude we look for,” she said, as the waitress brought their Diet Cokes. When she had left again with their orders, Ruth leaned in. “So what’s up?”

“I think I need to jump-start my love life,” she announced.

Ruth tilted her head. “Oh?” she said coolly, underplaying her curiosity. Coming from Eva this was a bombshell, but Ruth knew better than to show too much interest. She didn’t want to frighten her friend off.

“The last long-term relationship I had was right after grad school. That was—what?—like four years ago,” she said, thinking about Rob Peterson for the first time in ages. He had also been getting his master’s in decorative arts at Columbia. They’d dated for eighteen months, but things fizzled quickly after he’d moved to Boston. Eva still wasn’t sure who had ended it, and it was entirely possible neither one had. For all she knew, Rob might still consider her to be his girlfriend.

“More like five years, two months and fourteen days ago,” Ruth said softly, turning her head away so Eva wouldn’t hear.

“What?”

She smiled innocently. “Nothing. So you were saying something about your love life?”

“I need to get back out there, be open to opportunities the universe provides,” she said, explaining the thoughts that had come to her early that morning as she was washing her hair in the shower. Her fascination with Reed wasn’t the root of her problem, she decided, it was only a symptom. She had been out of the dating game for a long time, and he was simply the first man to catch her interest. But her interest had been caught. That was the important thing to remember. If Reed could interest her, then other men could, too. Right? It was time to get over herself.

And if she could further Mark’s suit at the same time, why the heck not?

“Cool. But you do realize, right, that means you have to stop shutting them down?”

“Excuse me?”

“You know, that thing you do that makes men feel like flies being swatted away?”

Eva straightened her back, offended. “I don’t do that.”

“You always do that,” Ruth said. “You did it just last week at Hanley’s. To that very handsome man with the dark eyes.”

“He kept rubbing himself up against me.”

Ruth waved a dismissive hand. “The place was a mob scene.
I
kept rubbing up against you.”

“Yeah, well, your motives are not suspect.”

“Okay, what about that guy you met at Irving Plaza last month? He was an architect, I think,” Ruth reminded her. “Very funny and he liked all the same bands as you. You didn’t even give him a chance.”

“That letch? He kept looking at my breasts.”

“He only glanced once—and out of the corner of his eye. I thought it was very discreet.”

“Ruth.”

“The point is you have to give men a chance. They’re not all after your body, you know.”

Eva raised an eyebrow.

Ruth was not swayed by the haughty gesture. “That’s it exactly.”

“What?”

“That look you just gave me is the one that makes men slink away. If you want to have a fulfilling satisfying relationship you’re going to have to get that eyebrow under control. Indiscriminate eyebrow raising is all that is standing between you and relationship bliss.”

Eva wasn’t positive that relationship bliss was what she was after, but even so, she was reasonably sure that her eyebrows weren’t all that stood in the way. Despite Ruth’s conviction to the opposite, Eva tried to be open minded when it came to meeting men. It was just that so many fell short of her expectations. And she knew she wasn’t the only woman who felt that way. The city was filled with equally discontented females.

“Maybe I’m going about it all wrong.” Here was her chance to do a good deed. Eva paused. “What do you think of Mark?”

“He’s great. He’s one of my most favoritest people in the—” she broke as her eyes widened with comprehension. “No.”

“Why not?”

Ruth couldn’t articulate why but protested vehemently anyway. It came from the gut. “No.”

“But why?”

“Because I said so.”

Eva fought a happy smile. This was precisely the reaction she’d hoped for. If her friend had been delighted by the suggestion, Eva didn’t know what she would have done. But Ruth’s visceral dislike of the idea spoke volumes. “It’s just something I was thinking about,” she said casually.

“Well, stop thinking about it. Mark doesn’t think of you like that. You’re only going to wind up making him feel awkward and uncomfortable. Trust me, I know him. He’ll try really hard to let you down easy and he’ll tell you nothing has changed, but you’ll spend the rest of your life wishing you hadn’t said a thing.”

This was a remarkable speech, and suddenly Eva found herself wondering what exactly Ruth felt for Mark. For the first time ever, she started to suspect that this unrequited love thing might actually go both ways. “All right,” she said softly, not wanting to upset her friend further. She had done enough for one afternoon, she thought, as the waitress brought her food. Clearly the Ruth-Mark situation was going to be easier to resolve than she’d imagined.

CHAPTER FIVE

The invitation arrived
first thing Friday morning. It didn’t come in the regular post but via a bicycle messenger who required Eva’s signature.

Since she was busy preparing a report that needed to be done for an eleven o’clock meeting, she barely glanced at him as he held the clipboard under her nose. Eva scribbled her name carelessly over three lines and nodded as the man dropped the black square envelope on her desk. She left it sitting there for a half hour as she finished detailing information about a previous sale. It was only when she was done and printing out a copy to proofread that she noticed the sender: the Hammond Foundation.

With unsteady fingers, Eva tore into the envelope, scarcely able to believe what she was holding. The Hammond Foundation’s annual fundraising event was one of the toughest tickets to get. The glitziest affair amid a season of glitzy affairs, the Fashion Ball raised millions of dollars each year for colon cancer research by auctioning off one-of-a-kind designs by the most famous designers in the world. Inevitably, Eva would gasp as she read about items of clothing as basic as bras and panties, albeit studded with diamonds or rubies, going for tens of thousands of dollars.

Eva’s first thought was that she had nothing to wear. Sure, she had a wardrobe full of nice dresses that would do well enough at a cousin’s black-tie wedding or a Christmas party at Tavern on the Green but nothing that was equal to this. Attending the Fashion Ball was like going to the Oscars and required something fabulous. If she didn’t want to look like a complete dowd, that was. And Eva knew she had to put her best foot forward. This event wasn’t just about her vanity. It was also about business. She would be going as a representative of the auction house and as such would have to dress and act accordingly. For the first time in her life, she would be socializing exclusively with men and women who were either Wyndham clients or potential clients. Everyone there would have something she wanted, if not a rare collection of Fabergé eggs, then their presence at a sale like the Hammond collection.

The thought was daunting. It was so daunting that it didn’t even occur to her that Reed might be there until several minutes later. Great, she thought, as she felt her heart flutter, just what I need.
To be distracted at the most important party of my entire life. She could see the scenario now: She’d be trying to make polite conversation with the Astors or Kardashians and while they were telling her about their zillion-foot yacht, she’d be looking over their shoulders for Reed.