“I don’t think so,” Bailey muttered.
On the beach, the man turned away from the water and began to pull on his clothes. He shoved his feet in sandals and threw something—probably a shirt—over his shoulder. A sixth sense must have warned him about her watching, because he looked up. And Bailey lost her breath. She was dimly aware of him raising a hand in acknowledgment. Then, instead of waiting on a response from her, the man walked up the sand away from the water, and away from her. Bailey blinked as she watched the dark figure disappear down a narrow side street.
It was Seven Carmichael.
Chapter 5
Bailey couldn’t stop thinking about him. At work the next day, he lingered in her mind like the sound of the sea, haunting and unforgettable. Long after his figure had disappeared from below her at the beach, Bailey had allowed her thoughts, loosened by the Scotch, to dwell on the most beautiful man she had seen. Bette had tried to talk her into seeing him again, but Bailey refused to listen to her. Just because he had a hot body—a damn near perfect body, in fact—didn’t mean she should just throw her principles out of the window.
“That’s exactly what that means,” Bette had said with a happy lilt to her voice.
Wasn’t Bailey the one who had been drinking?
“Aren’t you supposed to be gay or something?”
“Bisexual,” Bette had corrected. “I can’t wait to see this guy. It’s too bad we’re not identical twins. I could get his cookies and he’d never know the difference.”
“I think you’ve been sleeping with women too long. Guys don’t have ‘cookies,’ Bette.”
“Oh, yes, they do, sister dear.”
Bailey had almost hung up the phone on her. After their call, she’d felt regretfully sober. She’d left the comfort of her balcony for a long shower, where her thoughts had lingered over the picture Seven made on the beach—muscled back, tight body, lean grace in every movement.
“I don’t want him!” Bailey had said to her reflection in the bathroom mirror as she combed out her wet hair. No one in the room had believed her.
The next morning, she tried to focus despite an unexpected hangover. A virgin Bloody Mary and too many cups of coffee later, she still didn’t feel 100 percent. In her office, she was sluggish, forcing her mind from thoughts of her comfortable bed to the task at hand.
Her client Raymond Gooden sat in her office, carefully glancing over the papers she had just presented for him to sign. Bailey took a deep breath of relief. The headache was finally going away, and at least he didn’t seem to notice her sluggishness. She’d managed to present nothing but a competent, businesslike front to her client as they’d discussed plans for investing the latest three-million-dollar payoff from his European film investments.
Wearing a red tie, body-conscious suit and trendy haircut, he seemed to be taking advantage of all the perks of his money, but contrary to appearances, Mr. Gooden was very cheap. If he ever asked Bailey out, he’d probably expect her to pay.
She flicked her gaze across her desk at the fiftysomething-year-old man. Why was she thinking about this man asking her out? Just because Seven Carmichael... Bailey clamped down on her thoughts and forced herself back to the matter at hand.
“What do you think, Raymond? Are these figures to your liking?”
“These numbers are fine with me,” Mr. Gooden said, offering a slight smile.
As soon as Raymond Gooden left her office, she gathered his paperwork, slipped it into his file and put it in the outbox for her secretary. Bailey had digital backups of everything, but she enjoyed the touch of paper. It gave her a sense of security the intangible digital material did not have. Funny, since people would say what she did with money—trading, multiplying and moving it around in a world far removed from paper—was the ultimate triumph of the intangible over tangible. But she didn’t care; she lived with her contradictions as well as anyone else.
As she flipped through her notepad to see what notes needed transcribing, someone knocked on her door.
“Come in,” she called out.
She’d expected her secretary coming in to tell her she was heading out to lunch, but instead, it was Raphael Fernandez, the less appealing of her two bosses. He came into her office, took a small bottle of antibacterial spray from his pocket, spritzed his hands, then wiped them on a handkerchief he took from his breast pocket. Apparently, he’d had to touch her germ-ridden doorknob on the way in. Raphael swept inside, attempting to take up most of the space in her office. Luckily, they’d given her enough square footage so that wasn’t possible. So instead, he loomed over her desk.
In a tailored charcoal suit, with his handkerchief once again tucked into the pocket of his jacket, and an American flag lapel pin, Raphael presented the perfect picture of a wealthy and patriotic gentleman. Though he dressed the part of an urbane man about town, his face was like a fighter’s—rough-looking, with a scar slashing across his right cheek and a nose that looked as though it had been broken a few times. It was a contradiction that pleased the clients. Maybe they thought he was one who would protect their money at all costs.
“Bailey,” he said. Unlike Mr. Braithwaite, Raphael preferred the more casual approach. Although, with him, his use of her first name was almost patronizing. It was a skill Bailey sometimes marveled at. “Harry told me you were here working until the small hours last night.”
“Not that late, Raphael. A few things came up with a potential client. It didn’t take very long. Mr. Braithwaite caught me when I looked the busiest.” She gave him a cool smile.
“Nevertheless, I wanted to tell you that you’re doing a good job. Your work here at the firm has not gone unnoticed.”
“Thank you, Raphael. I’m merely doing my job.”
“And doing it in an exceptional way,” he said.
Although she didn’t like Raphael as much as she did Mr. Braithwaite, she found that he had a grudging respect for her that made itself known at the most bizarre of times. Like now. She merely leaned back in her chair, lacing her fingers together under her chin to watch him posturing, instead of entering into a battle with him over the physical position of power in the room. The scar on his cheek lifted his mouth in a vaguely menacing smile.
Bailey smiled back at him.
Raphael smiled again in approval and stepped back, ready to leave her office. Then something on her desk caught his eye. Her notepad.
“Do you know Seven Carmichael?”
She looked down at her desk to see what he’d noticed. Seven’s name scrawled on the yellow legal pad along with some financial figures.
“Ah, yes. He came in yesterday for a consultation. He’s relocating to the Miami area and is on the hunt for a local firm to handle a few things for him.”
“Did he bite?”
“No. I don’t think he’d be a good fit for us.”
“Good fit? My dear, this man is worth millions. Not just that, his art is being collected by every bank and bored housewife with a garden. Get him to change his mind and come with us.” He lifted an eyebrow. “Unless you don’t want that partnership, after all.”
Bailey winced. Not this again. Every time she thought she’d done something good enough to catch the attention of the partners, another test or hurdle appeared. Would it end? Bailey clenched her back teeth, cursing herself for not ripping off the page with Seven’s name and throwing it away when she first got into the office.
“Okay,” she said. “I’ll see what I can do.”
Bailey almost slammed the door into Raphael Fernandez’s back as he left her office. Was she really going to