The talks were in a midtown hotel, and before Cleo left her office, she showered, changed, and yes, the green cashmere was the best date dress she kept in her office, and no, she did not pull her hair back into a ponytail because it flattered her cheekbones. It was because she needed to keep her hair out of her eyes while she ran numbers during the talks.
Happily, a mere two hours later, Cleo knew that Sean O’Sullivan had been right. The city’s chief negotiator and the transit union boss were sorting out the final details of the agreement, and Cleo walked from the room, nearly dancing with the power of it.
Her first call? That was easy. A heads-up to the mayor to shave and wear the Brooks Brothers jacket in navy that matched his eyes and showed up well on television because the strike was nearly over.
City Hall was empty except for the security guards. Somehow everyone knew the strike had been settled. The security guards waved as she walked alone to her office. Cleo was dead on her feet, but there was a smile on her face. The Wicked Witch of Murray Street was smiling. Anyone who knew her would call it job satisfaction. Sean O’Sullivan would call it anticipation. He would be right.
Once in her office, she checked for new messages. If there was an emergency at home, she had to call him and cancel. The chance would be gone because Cleo didn’t get chances like this often. She wanted to see him, wanted to feel his arms, his mouth. Wanted to feel those killer thighs wrapped around her, and feel her blood race. It had been so long since she felt like this, and it was selfish to want tonight. However, if they were fast, and she made it home before midnight, everything would work out fine.
There was only one message. It was from the mayor, telling her congratulations again, and asking her to set up a meeting with the Healthy New York committee first thing tomorrow morning. With the transit strike priority number one, they’d avoided the whole issue of Bobby’s brainchild, a free children’s clinic in Harlem and, in the mayor’s words, “time was wasting.”
Right.
Cleo took a deep breath and dialed.
“Yes?” Sean answered, knowing exactly who it was. Even over the phone, the sensual voice made her pulse beat faster.
“Tell me where to meet you.”
“There’s a place at the corner of Forty-seventh and Tenth. How long will it take you?”
Cleo peeked out the window at the streets. “Give me half an hour.”
“See you then.”
3
THE DRIVER DROPPED HER OFF at the address that Sean had given her, and Cleo stepped out of the Town Car.
“You need me to wait?” he asked. A congenial man, Thomas, Tommy, Stewart, Eric, something…
“No need.” In a few hours the transit workers would be drifting back to work and, worst case at this time of night, she could take a cab. The November wind was kicking up and Cleo pulled her black leather coat tight. Soon she would have to move from leather to wool, but she really liked her black leather. There was probably something subliminal in that, but Cleo chose not to analyze it.
Right now, she was here to listen to Sean O’Sullivan, try to fix his problem and sneak in a six-minute orgasm as a personal aside. She had forty-five minutes before she had to be home, so time was of the essence. As a master in productivity, Cleo could get to full climax in one hundred and forty seconds. Forty-five minutes was positively utopian.
With her schedule and her life, tonight was pretty much it for the next three months, and she was pinning all her hopes on Sean O’Sullivan. Hopefully in the full forty-five minutes he would give her enough memories to get her through the winter. She smiled to herself because she suspected he would.
Gingerly Cleo stepped up to the old wooden door of the bar and then stopped, shaking her head in disbelief. The city’s closure notice was nailed there prominently, and she realized exactly where he had directed her.
Prime.
She should have figured it out immediately and maybe if she was operating on more sleep, she would have.
Was it worth it to go above and beyond the call of duty, all for lust? Did she really need sex? Her womanly parts protested that it wasn’t merely a rhetorical question.
Ruthlessly she ignored them, studying the fine print on the notice on the door. It was by the book, offering no clues as to who was directing this little vendetta. People thought that bureaucracy was all cut and dried, computerized and inhumane, but that was a far cry from the sordid truth. Every single employee knew the exact steps to make someone’s life miserable. And that was the beauty of city government. So many opportunities for mayhem and havoc.
Not that Cleo spent her time working on petty schemes. No, she had a city that needed her 24/7. A city, and right now—a bar.
The place was definitely from another era. A green awning on the outside, a smoked glass window with oldfashioned beveling around the edges. She was admiring that beveling when Sean walked up behind her, still in the same suit that he’d been in earlier. This time, the trendy black tie had worked its way loose.
“Come on in,” he invited, his eyes skimming over her, and the black leather coat wasn’t enough to stop the shiver down her back. Anticipation. Ruthlessly she ignored that, too. This was business, at least for now. She stepped inside and it was as if she’d gone back in time. Three separate mahogany bars formed a U shape. The floor was oak, pockmocked from years of abuse. Even with all the imperfections it was still shiny and polished to a sparkling gleam. Pictures and even more pictures lined the wall, tacked together with tape, staples, nails and pins, and they were all pictures of people in the bar. New Yorkers over the years.
Oh, she didn’t want to like this. She didn’t want to like him too much. All she wanted was one orgasm, and to go back home to her nicely frantic life.
“Like it?” he asked, watching her face for clues.
Too much. “It’s nice. Like a thousand bars in the city. So, tell me what’s been happening.” Cleo frowned, a trademarked frown that had been known far and wide to strike fear in the hearts of city workers, and sometimes even her boss.
Sean didn’t even look fazed. He gestured for her to take a seat and then pulled up a stool next to her. “Two years ago, my brother Gabe bought up the space next door, and then started having some problems with the bar. Gabe, myself and my brother Daniel are on the deed, and we help out some, but it’s really Gabe’s bar. When it was a speakeasy back in the twenties, they called it O’Sullivans. Our great-grandfather opened the place, and over the years an O’Sullivan always ran it. It faded out and nobody really cared, and an uncle or cousin, somebody, I don’t know who, split it in two, and sold off the half next door. Gabe, he wanted to get it back, to restore the place to the way it was. Anyway, the problems started when he filed the building permit. They held it up until I got a friend in the building department to give us a pass, and then after that it was a health inspection, but then I had a friend in the health department, and she helped me straighten out that mess, although it wasn’t pretty. Then the pipes under the sidewalk outside needed work and they had to tear up the concrete and that lasted a month, and now we’re fighting the historical building designation, and somewhere along the way, the building department took back the building permit, so we’re stuck with a half-renovated bar.”
He pointed to the back wall, which wasn’t wood, but a canvas tarp.
Either the O’Sullivans were the unluckiest building owners in the tristate area, or else something dirty was going on—which was always a distinct possibility.
“You think this is all coming from the mayor’s office?” she asked.
“It’s the only place that has ties to all the agencies that have caused