“This fund-raiser.”
“And was the fight just a silly fuss or were they really angry with each other?”
“They ended their professional and personal relationships before my eyes, Rusty. What do you think?” Jade sounded a little put out at Rusty for her curiosity.
Rusty didn’t care. She had to be sure she hadn’t just kissed some other woman’s man. “So why would Brad, er, Reo lie to me about his identity?”
“I’m afraid it might have something to do with me.”
“that?”
“Look, Rusty. We really need to go.”
“But—”
“I can see the car from here. If we cut through that flower bed—”
“I’m barefoot!”
“And climb that fence—”
“In this gown?”
. “We’ll be outta here in no time!” That said, the everathletic Jade hiked up her skirt past her knees and loped across the grass to a flower bed, through which she plunged without hesitation and without consideration for the poor landscaper who’d surely labored for days to make it look so pretty.
Rusty stared after her in disbelief for maybe a heartbeat before she, too, lifted the hem of her skirt and dashed across the lawn.
Jade owed her answers. Rusty intended to get them.
Panting by the time they reached the car, Jade jabbed her key in the lock, swung open the door and slipped behind the wheel. With a click of a switch, she unlocked the passenger door.
“Hurry!” she ordered even as Rusty dropped into the seat.
Seconds later, tires squealed as Jade drove out of the lot.
“Talk,” Rusty demanded as soon as they lost sight of the country club.
“I can’t talk and drive.”
“Since when?”
“Since tonight,” Jade snapped, shaking her head, then adding, “Oh, God, what a mess. Why did this have to happen?”
“What, exactly, has happened?”
Jade shifted her eyes from the road and gave Rusty a long, appraising look. “If I tell you the truth, will you still be my friend?”
Rusty, who hadn’t heard those words since the two of them were grade school buddies, winced. “Oh, Jade, is it that bad?” Jade had always had a knack for getting into mischief.
Jade nodded.
Rusty sighed and responded with her part of the litany. “You’ll be my friend forever.” Even if you did sell your body to buy tonight’s tickets.
“I think Reo Sampson knows I fished our fund-raiser tickets out of Colleen O’Shaunessy’s trash.”
“Excuse me?”
It was Jade’s turn to sigh. “When Reo Sampson and my boss had their fight this morning, she threw the two tickets she’d bought for this party into her wastebasket. As soon as they cleared out of the room, I rescued the tickets.”
“Oh, Jade, you didn’t.”
“This is the social event of the year, Rusty. I’ve always wanted to attend. She obviously didn’t. Why waste the tickets?”
“How much did she pay for them?”
“A thousand dollars each.”
“Ach!”
“Yeah, but she can afford it. Heck, she pays that much for her hair barrettes.”
“That’s not the point. You stole those tickets. We went to that fund-raiser under false pretenses.” “And Reo Sampson is aware of it. I’m going to lose my job. I just know it, and you can certainly forget the man ever calling you for a date.”
Just my luck, Rusty thought. Then logic waved a red flag before her eyes. “Wait...how could he possibly suspect you took the tickets?”
“He’s no idiot, Rusty. He watched me watch her throw the tickets in the waste can. He’s well aware I could never afford to pay for even one of them and probably even saw the greedy gleam in my eye. Two trashed tickets. Me and you appearing at his party—”
“His party?”
“Well, not literally, but he does donate big bucks to this charity and attends this fund-raiser every year. I’m certain he has a say in who’s invited. He surely knows you and I were not on the list.”
“How could you have thought for one second that you’d get away with this, Jade Martinelli? I mean, you knew the man was going to be here. Didn’t it occur to you that he might see you, recognize you, wonder how in the hell you got in the door?”
“You don’t understand. I heard him tell O’Shaunessy that he had other plans tonight. How was I supposed to know he just meant he preferred going to this thing stag instead of with her?”
“Use your head, Jade. Your boss was undoubtedly trying to impress Reo by buying tickets to an event he always attends. When he refused to accompany her, she knew they were through—the reason for the fight.”
“Oh.” Jade began to chew on her bottom lip, a little-girl expression of angst that had survived her childhood. “I’m sorry, OK? I never thought...”
And that, of course, was the problem. Jade never did think. Probably never would. Rusty held up a hand, halting what was surely going to be a nonstop flow of apologies that would not even be heard by the man who needed to hear it. Meanwhile, he undoubtedly thought she was partner to Jade’s crime.
So much for romance with a good-looking mail clerk. And so much for romance with a good-looking rich man. If he ever dialed the phone number she’d given him it would be a miracle.
Not that she even wanted him to now. Rusty knew first- and secondhand about rich businessmen who, when they weren’t having affairs with close friends’ wives, spent way too much time at the office getting richer. Hadn’t she just witnessed the heartbreak of her very own sister, once married to a man who’d risen from clerk to company president? “Damn!”
Jade nearly ran off the road at the sound of Rusty’s blurted curse. Successfully startled into silence, she glanced hesitantly over at her passenger, who now floundered in the wave of yet another ramification to tonight’s folly.
Come Monday, Rusty was scheduled to meet with Angie Mallett’s boss at Sampson Enterprises to finalize the business arrangements for the most exciting—and lucrative—assignment of her life.
And just who was Angie’s boss?
Why, the CEO of that company...none other than Reo Sampson himself!
Chapter Three
Alone in his study, Reo Sampson sat at the massive desk that once belonged to his maternal grandfather and frowned at the pair of women’s shoes he held, one in each hand. They were high heels—strappy, black numbers with 7 1/2 M imprinted on the inside.
Foolish shoes worn by a mystery woman he’d met mere hours ago on an elevator and could not seem to forget.
She called herself Rusty. Her eyes were green. Her figure could keep a man up all night—Reo grinned at his pun—wondering what it would be like to love her.
Love her? Oh no, not that. Never that.
Make love to her? Much more like it, since his crazy, undeniable attraction to Rusty was fleeting and physical—nothing more. How could it be when she was so flighty, a trait he abhorred in anyone? There were other traits that made her unsuitable for romantic pursuit, Reo