A slow sigh and then the sexy, husky voice. “If you insist.”
“Have a seat. This won’t take a minute.”
Faye made an impatient sound low in her throat, but then she did go over and drop into one of the chairs by the enormous potted snake plant in the corner. Zoe turned and tapped on Dax’s shut door.
“What?”
She opened it and stuck her head through. “Faye is here.”
“Faye,” he repeated blankly. Then he blinked. “Oh. Where?”
Zoe tipped her head toward the chair by the snake plant. “I’ll show her in.”
“No.” He rose and came around the desk. “I’ll come out there.” Zoe moved aside and he emerged from his office. He aimed a practiced smile at the brunette. “Faye, I wasn’t expecting you.”
Faye stood up. “You ought to check your voice mail now and then.”
He went to her. She reached to embrace him. He smoothly slid from her grasp, simultaneously taking one of her hands and tucking it around his forearm. “Let’s go somewhere we can talk.”
The Bambi eyes shone with tears. “Oh, Dax …”
He led her to the elevator. They got in and the doors slid shut. Zoe heard the faint whoosh and lurch as the car started down.
Was he dumping Faye? It sure looked like it.
Zoe didn’t know what she felt about that. A little sorry for Faye, maybe, which surprised her. A little annoyed with Dax.
How old was he anyway, thirty-five or thirty-six? Old enough to stop jumping from one woman’s bed to the next. If he didn’t watch it, he’d end up ancient and wrinkled, wearing a satin bathrobe, with a blonde young enough to be his granddaughter on his arm.
That image made her wince. And then she couldn’t help but laugh. Dax was Dax. A woman was only begging for trouble if she started expecting him to change his ways.
Dax really hated it when a woman cried.
When a woman cried, it made him feel crappy and powerless. Tears were the one thing a man had no idea how to fight. You couldn’t win an argument with tears. You couldn’t punch a tear’s lights out.
You just had to sit there and try to think of the right thing to say, try not to make promises you had no intention of keeping.
He took Faye to a bar not far from the office. A nice, dark, quiet place where few of his associates ever went. He guided her toward a booth in the back.
Business was pretty slow. The bartender came over and took their drink order. Faye wanted a Cosmopolitan; Dax just had club soda. He had work to do back at the office and he couldn’t afford to be fuzzy-headed when he returned.
The drinks arrived. The bartender went off to mind his own business.
Faye sipped her pretty pink drink and sobbed. She told him she loved him.
He felt like a jerk.
He probably was a jerk, but that wasn’t the issue right now. The issue was Faye and how it was over with her and how he had to get her to see that, to look on the bright side, to remember what a good time they’d had and realize she was ready to move on.
Faye kept on sobbing. He didn’t have any tissues handy, so he passed her a cocktail napkin.
She delicately dabbed her wet eyes with it. “You’re such a jerk.”
He wasn’t offended. It was only what he’d just been thinking himself. He spoke gently, “Come on, Faye. Don’t. It’s going to be all right.”
She sniffled and delicately dabbed at her eyes some more, trying to mop up the tears without smearing her makeup. “I knew. From the beginning. It’s not as if I wasn’t warned. Love never lasts with you.”
Love. He hadn’t mentioned love. Not once. He kept love strictly out of his vocabulary when he dated a woman. It was ingrained in him, a nonnegotiable rule. And he never broke a nonnegotiable rule.
He said, “I’ve enjoyed the time we’ve spent together.”
She sniffed, sobbed, swallowed. “Enjoyed. Past tense. Oh, Dax …”
“You’re young and so beautiful …”
“Is that supposed to make everything all right? Well, it doesn’t, okay? It just doesn’t.”
He tried to think of the next thing to say. He was usually reasonably glib when it got to this point. But he didn’t feel glib today. He only felt … sorry. Really, really sorry. “I’m sorry, Faye. Truly.”
She dabbed at her mascara some more. “Sorry doesn’t do me any good.”
“I know.”
“They say that you end up friends with most of your ex-girlfriends.”
“I like to think that’s true.”
“Well, I don’t want to be friends, Dax. I really don’t.” She picked up her Cosmo and downed it in one long swallow. Then she set the stemmed glass down hard. “I guess that’s it. Goodbye, Dax.” She slid out of the booth and headed for the door.
After Faye was gone, Dax stayed in the booth alone for a while, sipping his club soda, thinking about how he hated ending it with a woman. Endings were depressing. He liked beginnings a lot better.
Too bad beginnings never lasted. Too bad the nature of a beginning was to move along toward another ending. And the only way to stop the endings was to stop enjoying the beginnings.
Unless a man decided to settle down, to find someone he could share a lifetime of middles with, so their story had no end. But a lifetime of middles wasn’t on his horizon. He was never getting married again.
For no particular reason, he thought of Zoe. Of her too-good-to-be-true fiancé who had yet to show his face around the office. Of what a great assistant she was. Of how he would never have to end it with her—well, except when she moved up the next rung of the editorial ladder, which was bound to happen, and probably sooner than later.
That would be a pain in the ass, trying to find another assistant.
But he would manage it somehow. There was going to be no holding Zoe back, he knew that.
At least when he lost her there wouldn’t be any crying, no groping for the right words and coming up with only hollow clichés. She would be happy when he lost her. He would be resigned, would do his best to keep her at the magazine. If he couldn’t have her guarding his office door forever, at least Great Escapes could get the benefit of her talent and drive.
And that was as good as it got.
In the end, a guy had to be grateful for small favors.
“So I have this idea …” Zoe said the following Tuesday, as they were winding down the morning huddle.
He’d been expecting this. Of course, she had an idea. She’d been working for him for just four weeks and already organized his slush pile. She knew the plan for the next seven issues backward and forward, had a great instinct for what would work for the magazine and what wouldn’t. When she flagged a piece for him, he knew it was something he had to make time to take a look at.
She was on her feet by then, clutching her laptop, the absurdly large diamond on her engagement ring twinkling at him. “It’s … for a Spotlight.” She actually sounded hesitant, which rather charmed him. Zoe rarely sounded nervous about anything. Even when she wasn’t sure what she was doing, she took care to project confidence. “I was thinking we could discuss it—I mean, when you’ve got a spare moment or two.”
“I’m listening. Tell me about it now.”
“Well, all right.” She dropped back into her