Читать книгу It Takes a Rebel - Stephanie Bond, Stephanie Bond - Страница 9

ALEX STRETCHED HIGH to relieve the pressure of bending over the desk in her apartment for the past hour, then reached for the crystal goblet of white wine she’d been nursing since arriving home from her typical twelve-hour day. Using her stockinged foot, she levered the chair around to stare over the lights of downtown Lexington. It was another in a string of unusually warm October evenings. On impulse, she’d opened the sliding glass door leading to her balcony to dilute the stale air in her condo. The fresh breeze and the view revived her.

The University of Kentucky was having some kind of sports function because the streets leading to campus were choked. Not particularly fond of sports, she nonetheless recognized the huge economic advantage of having a popular college athletic program in town: athletics attracted attention for the university, swelling the student population, and college students remained the strongest buying group for the local Tremont department stores.

Alex swallowed a mouthful of chardonnay, thinking she should attend a college game of some sort with her father, a bona fide sports nut, just to see what all the fuss was about. On the other hand, Heath would undoubtedly take her in grand style if she wanted to go, even though he wasn’t much of a sports buff either.

Heath Reddinger had been scrupulously accommodating to both her and her father since joining the senior management of Tremont’s as Chief Financial Officer. She had liked him immediately—he was handsome, intelligent and sensitive. Her father, on the other hand, had never taken to Heath, although Al appreciated his contribution to the company, and had nodded in acquiescence when she and Heath had become engaged two months ago. Alex smiled as she fingered the diamond solitaire he’d given her. Heath was hard-working, predictable and fairly low-maintenance. She appreciated men with nice, neat edges.

Her smile faded when the face of Jack Stillman appeared to taunt her. The unkempt man was a loose cannon. She knew instinctively he was just the kind of man who could stir her father to rebellion. But she was determined to work with the St. Louis ad firm who could put Tremont’s on the same page as Roark’s and Tofelson’s—two southeastern chains with toeholds in Louisville which, according to a survey she’d commissioned in her position as Director of Marketing and Sales, were ranked higher than Tremont’s in perception of quality and style. In layman’s terms, the other stores were deemed more classy than Tremont’s. But the St. Louis ad agency could change all that. Just last year, they’d taken an unknown soft drink into the sales stratosphere with an award-winning campaign.

Her phone rang, rousing her. Heath’s name appeared on the caller ID screen, so she picked up the cordless extension, along with her goblet of wine and headed toward the kitchen. “Hello.”

“Hi, honey.”

She stopped to straighten a pillow on the sofa—living in an open loft apartment meant everything had to be in its place. “Hi. Did you get my message?”

“Yes. Do you want me to come over?”

They hadn’t slept together in weeks, but she simply wasn’t up to his lengthy, methodical foreplay rituals tonight, not with work issues weighing on her mind. “I’m really tired, and my day is packed tomorrow.”

“Oh, okay.” Agreeable, as always. “By the way, Al asked me to sit in on the morning meeting with the local ad agency. I hope that’s okay with you.”

She’d suspected as much—her father was gathering supporters, and he knew Heath was anxious to gain his favor. Alex pursed her mouth, weighing her response. “That’s why I called, although I personally think the meeting will be a waste of time. I paid the agency a surprise visit today and the owner is a Neanderthal.”

“Hmm. Did you tell your father?”

“Sure, but he insists on going through with this charade because of a promise he made to the former owner of the agency.”

“Well.” Heath hesitated, always a little nervous when she disagreed with her father. “I guess it’ll be a short meeting.”

“Uh-huh,” she agreed as she moved into the tiny blue and chrome kitchen nook situated in a corner. “I’m sure you’ll agree with me wholeheartedly once you meet this character.” She recorked the wine bottle and returned it to a shelf in the refrigerator door. “We’ll have to stick together to convince Daddy that we need to elevate the quality of the firms we do business with. You know—being judged by the company we keep, and all that jazz.”

“Okay,” he agreed, but he sounded as if he were sitting on a fence row, casting glances on either side.

She tore off a paper towel and wiped a ring of moisture gathered on the tile counter where the bottle had sat. “Maybe we can have dinner tomorrow night.”

“Great! I’ll make reservations at Gerrard’s.”

Her favorite—Heath was such a gentleman. For a few seconds, she reconsidered having him come over, then decided guiltily that she needed the sleep more than the physical attention. “Gerrard’s sounds wonderful. I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”

After disconnecting the call, Alex removed the pins from her hair and sighed, feeling restless and antsy for some reason she couldn’t quite put her finger on. She grabbed a magazine and her half-full glass, then fell into her white over-stuffed chair-and-a-half and propped her feet on the matching ottoman. With the pull of a delicate chain, she turned on a Tiffany-style floor lamp and fingered the large porcelain bead at the end of the chain, studying the intricate design she had memorized long ago.

The lamp had been a moving-in gift from her mother when Alex had first bought the spacious loft condo. She wasn’t sure which one of them was more excited with the find, but then her mother had passed away suddenly, before they’d had a chance to decorate the unique space together. Alex knew it sounded corny, but when she sat under the lamp, she felt as if her mother’s spirit glowed all around her. She sipped from her glass, and idly fingered the pages of the magazine, subconsciously absorbing the latest styles, colors and accessories. The store carried that line of coats…that line of separates…that line of belts.

Jack Stillman…Jack Stillman. Alex laid her head back and frowned at the antique tin ceiling she’d painted a luminous pewter. Why did his name tickle the back of her memory? Perhaps it was just one of those names…

A frenzied knock on her door interrupted her thoughts. She knew who it was even before she pushed herself to her feet and padded across the white wood floor, but she checked the peephole just in case. Lana Martina, friend, fool, and neighbor, peered back at her, her arched white eyebrows high and promising.

Alex’s spirits lifted instantly—Lana was a full-fledged, flat-out, certified nut who just happened to have taken a liking to quiet, scholarly Alex while they were in high school. Within the halls of their private Catholic school, Lana was a walking scandal, her pleated skirt always a little too short, her polished nails always a little too long. But her incredible intellect had kept the nuns at bay. In fact, Alex had met her on the debate team, and while the girls couldn’t have come from more different backgrounds, they had formed a lasting friendship.

Alex swung open the door, smiling when she saw Lana held two pint-sized cartons of ready-to-spread cake frosting. “Mocha cocoa with artificial flavoring?” her friend asked, reading from the labels. “Or fantasy fudge with lots of nasty preservatives?”

“Fantasy fudge,” Alex said, standing aside to allow Lana in. Her friend was as slim as a mannequin, but her personality needed as much room as possible.

“I brought utensils,” Lana said, holding up two silver dessert spoons. “It’s such a pain to get chocolate out from under your fingernails.”

Alex took the proffered spoon and carton of icing, then followed Lana to the sitting area. Having performed this ritual countless times, they assumed their respective corners of the comfy red couch, Alex’s feet curled beneath her, Lana sitting cross-legged.

“Nice silver,” Alex observed, studying the intricate pattern on the end of the heavy spoon.

“It belongs to Vile Vicki.” Lana ripped the foil covering off the top of her carton.

“You stole her silver?”

“Borrowed,” Lana corrected, dipping in her spoon and shoveling in a mound of chocolate big enough to choke two men. “She’s such a witch,” she said thickly.

Alex smiled, then spooned in a less impressive amount of the creamy fudge icing, allowing the sweet, chocolaty flavor to melt over her tongue before she responded. “She can’t be that bad.”

“You don’t live with her,” Lana insisted. “The woman is simply the most self-absorbed, tedious, annoying female I’ve ever met.”

“There’s Gloria the Gold Digger,” Alex said, pointing her spoon.

“At least she was smart enough to marry your father.”

“True,” Alex conceded with a sigh. Hopes that she and her father would become closer after her mother died had been dashed by Gloria Bickum Georgeson Abrams. The woman had brought a disposable pan of the most hideous macaroni salad to their home after her mother’s funeral, and had been underfoot ever since.

“I swear, Alex, I’m going to kill her.”

“Gloria?”

“No, Vicki. Do you know what she did?”

“I can’t guess.”

“Guess.”

“I can’t.”

“Sure you can.”

Alex sighed. “Borrowed your suede coat again?”

“She ruined it. No, worse.”

“Forgot to pay a bill?”

“I had to flash the cable man so he wouldn’t cut us off. But it’s worse.”

“What?”

“Guess.”

“Lana—”

“She’s dating Bill Friar.”

Alex swallowed. “Oh.” Lana was the most popular, outgoing woman she knew, and her looks were extraordinary, if offbeat—classic bone structure and violet-colored eyes allowed her to pull off spiky bleach-white hair. But Lexington men did not stand in line for eccentric-looking women with an I.Q. that put her on the Mensa mailing list. Bill Friar had seemed to be the exception—at first. Then the big phony had broken her friend’s big heart.

“Yeah, ‘oh,’ is right.” Lana shoveled in another huge bite. “She has the nerve to rub it in my face.”

Alex felt a pang for her friend. “Are they getting serious?”

“No, she’s dating a dozen other guys. She only went out with him to get back at me.”

“How did she know you and Bill were once an item?”

Lana stirred the spoon aimlessly, her eyebrows drawn together. “She read my diary.”

Alex sucked on her spoon, her eyes wide. “She didn’t.”

“She did and, just watch, I’m going to get her back.”

“Why don’t you just find another roommate?”

“We both signed the lease, so I’m stuck for another eight months, but after that, I’m outta there. Meanwhile,” Lana said, holding up the ornate spoon, “I’m going to borrow her things for a while. These are her earrings, too.”

Alex leaned forward to get a better look at the copper spheres. “Nice.”

“Aren’t they? So what’s new with you?” Lana asked, fully vented and ready to listen. “I phoned you this morning for lunch, but your secretary said you were out.”

“I was running an errand on the east side.”

“Eww. Why?”

Alex took another slow bite before answering. “Ever hear of a guy named Jack Stillman?”

Her friend blinked. “Sure. Hotshot receiver for UK when we were freshmen. Don’t you remember?”

Alex worked her mouth from side to side. “Maybe, maybe not.”

“Great looking, big man on campus, dated the varsity and the junior varsity cheerleading squads.”

“He sounds pretty forgettable.”

Lana laughed. “He had a perfect record his senior year—never once dropped the ball. Of course I’m not surprised you don’t remember. You practically slept at the store back then to impress Daddy, not that things have changed much in fifteen years.” Her smile was teasing. “You really need to get out more, Alex.”

“Heath and I go out.”

“That tree? Please. My blow up doll Harry is more exciting.”

Alex had heard Lana’s lukewarm opinion on Heath too many times to let the comment bother her. So he wasn’t Mr. Excitement—she didn’t mind. “To each her own.”

Lana put away another glob of empty calories. “I suppose. Why the questions about Jack Stillman?”

“He owns an ad agency in town and he’s pitching to us in the morning.”

“Well, I guess he grew up after all.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Alex said dryly. “This morning I dropped in to check out his operation and had the displeasure of meeting the man.”

Lana leaned forward, poised for gossip. “Is he still gorgeous?”

“I couldn’t tell under that heavy layer of male chauvinism.”

Her friend frowned, then her mouth fell open. “He got under your skin, didn’t he?”

Alex squirmed against the suddenly uncomfortable over-stuffed goose down cushions. “Not in the way you’re implying.”

Lana whooped. “Oh, yeah, under like a syringe.”

She sighed, exasperated. “Lana, believe me, the man is no one I would remotely want to work with.”

“So, who’s talking about work?”

Alex rolled her eyes. “Or anything else. He’s a player if I’ve ever seen one, and the man doesn’t exactly scream success, if you know what I mean.”

Lana made a sympathetic sound. “Too bad. He used to be hot.”

“I believe he still operates under that delusion.”

“So you don’t think he’ll get your business?”

“Not if I can help it.”

“Well, let me know how it goes,” Lana said, standing and stretching into a yawn.

Alex frowned. “You have to go already?”

“Four-thirty comes mighty early.”

“When are you going to buy that coffee shop?”

“Maybe when I acquire a taste for the dreadful stuff,” her friend said with a grimace. “I still keep a stash of Earl Grey under the counter. I’m busy tomorrow, but let’s have lunch the day after and you can let me know how it goes with Jack the Attack.”

“Jack the Attack?”

Lana nodded toward the wall of bookshelves. “Check your college yearbook, bookworm. Goodnight.”

“Here’s your spoon.”

Lana grinned. “Keep it.”

Alex was still laughing when the door closed behind her friend, but sobered when Jack Stillman’s face rose in her mind to taunt her. The man was shaping up to be more of a potential threat than she’d imagined. She walked over to a laden bookshelf and removed the yearbook for her freshman year of college. Within seconds, she located the sports section and, as Lana had said, it seemed that Jack Stillman had been the man of the hour. Although UK was renowned for all of its team sports programs, Jack the Attack had been heralded for single-handedly taking his football team to a prestigious post-season bowl game, and winning it.

Page after page showed Jack in various midmotion poses: catching the football, running past opponents, crossing into the end zone. The last page featured Jack in his mud-stained uniform, arm in arm with a casually dressed man who was a taller, wider version of himself, behind whose unsuspecting head Jack was holding up two fingers in the universal “jackass” symbol. Twenty-two-year-old Jack had the same killer grin, the same mischievous eyes, with piles of dark, unruly hair in a hopelessly dated style. Alex smirked as she mentally compared the boy in the picture to the man she’d met this morning. Too bad he was such a cliché—a washed-up jock still chasing pom-poms.

Alex snapped the book closed. The ex-football star angle worried her. Her father was already aware of it, she was sure, and the fact that he hadn’t taken the time to enlighten her probably meant he would bend over backward to work with Stillman just to be able to tell the guys at the club about the man’s athletic accomplishments.

Anger burned the walls of her stomach, anger about the old boy’s network, anger toward men who shirked their duties but advanced to high-ranking corporate positions because they had a low golf handicap and could sweat with male executives in the sauna. Subtle discrimination occurred within Tremont’s, although she was working judiciously to address disparity within the sales and marketing division. And subtle discrimination occurred within her own family. Had she been a son, an athlete, she was certain her father would have showered her with attention, would have fostered her career more aggressively. She ached for the closeness that she’d once shared with her mother, but that seemed so out of reach with her father.

She blinked back tears, feeling very alone in the big, high-ceilinged apartment. Fatigue pulled at her shoulders, but the sugar she’d ingested pumped through her system. She needed sleep, but her bed, custom made of copper tubing and covered with a crisp white duvet, looked sterile and cold in the far corner of the rectangular-shaped loft.

Alex located her glass of wine and finished it while standing at the sink. Knowing the ritual of preparing for bed sometimes helped her insomnia, she moved toward the bedroom corner to undress. After draping the pale blue suit over a chrome valet, she dropped her matching underwear into a lacy laundry bag. From the back of her armoire, she withdrew a nappy, yellow cotton robe of her mother’s and wrapped it around her. After removing her makeup with more vehemence than necessary, she walked past her bed and returned to the comfy chair she’d abandoned when Lana arrived, covering her legs with a lightweight afghan.

But she lay awake long after she’d extinguished her mother’s light, straining with unexplainable loneliness and frustration, stewing over unjust conditions she might never be able to change. Right or wrong, she channeled her hostility toward the one person who, at the moment, best epitomized life’s arbitrary inequities: Jack Stillman. Clodhopping his way through life and having the Tremont business laid at his feet because he was a man and a former sports celebrity simply wasn’t fair.

Remembering Lana’s words, Alex set her jaw in determination. Perfect record be damned. The infamous “Jack the Attack” Stillman had already dropped the ball—he just didn’t know it yet.