Sundays at Tiffany's - James Patterson [16]
Eighteen
AT 9:00 SHARP, my personal assistant, MaryLouise, showed up at the office. MaryLouise: totally honest, totally sarcastic, with the toughest, thickest Bronx accent this side of the Throgs Neck Bridge.
“Morning, Janey,” she said as she dumped a pile of mail and phone messages on my conference table. “You get Employee of the Month again.”
“Morning,” I said. “I know. I am totally pathetic, aren’t I? Please don’t answer that.” I started going through the phone messages, placing the “fires — must be put out” in one stack, the “smoldering — keep an eye on” situations in another stack, and finally the “call if you feel a need to punish yourself” slips in another stack.
“By the way, the lights aren’t on yet in Godzilla’s office.” MaryLouise cracked her gum loudly.
“You know Vivienne gets her hair touched up at Frédéric Fekkai on Tuesday mornings.”
“You mean that neon yellow with pink undertones isn’t natural?” MaryLouise snorted. “You need coffee?”
Before I could answer, I heard two unmistakable voices outside my office. My mother and Hugh. Instantly, my stomach started churning.
“You sweet Hughie, you, you, you,” Vivienne was saying in that little-girl voice that made me cringe. “Where were you when I was looking for husband number three?”
Probably in grade school, I thought.
Then Vivienne was standing in front of me, with Hugh, who had a bouquet of white roses that must have set him back two hundred dollars.
“Look who I brought. Quite possibly the handsomest man in New York,” Vivienne said, leaning over to give me my morning kiss on the cheek.
She wasn’t completely wrong about Hugh. Standing there with tousled blond hair, wearing faded jeans and a gray hoodie, Hugh looked exactly like a leading man should. He was definitely a dreamboat, a hunk, a catch. And, in theory at least, he was mine.
“I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry, Jane,” he said, managing to sound half-credible and sincere.
Even though I wanted to punch out his lights, I decided to play it a little cooler than that.
“What are you so sorry about?” I asked, eyebrows raised.
“Last night, of course. Are you kidding? I never made it to Babbo.”
“No big deal,” I said. “I had a very nice meal. Caught up on some work.”
“I forgot I had a squash game.”
“No problem. Squash is your life.” Not even close. Mirrors were his life.
MaryLouise took the bouquet from him. “I’ll go find a swimming pool to put these in.”
After some meaningful, sixth-grade-style throat-clearing and pointed eye-rolling, my mother finally left too. Hugh locked the door behind her, and I frowned. What was this? Then he took me by both shoulders and kissed me on the lips. I sort of let him, and that royally pissed me off about myself. I bet even Doormats Anonymous would turn me down. Oh, but Hugh was a good kisser, with those beautiful brown eyes up close and personal, Hermès Something Sexy misted on his neck and collarbone.
“I really am sorry, Jane.” His hand moved up and down my back, and his smile was adorable. “You do know I love you, don’t you?” His voice was warm, his eyes ultrasincere. Maybe he was possibly telling the truth.
Leaning forward, he feathered kisses against my neck. Suddenly I felt safe and warm all over, the way I used to feel with Michael. Why on earth was I thinking about Michael?
I dragged my mind back to Hugh, Hugh, who was nuzzling my neck. Ridiculously handsome, charming, insanely romantic-when-he wanted-to-be Hugh.
Then I remembered something.
Hugh was an actor.
Nineteen
MICHAEL HAD NEVER done anything like this — not even close — but that morning he’d trailed Jane at a safe, non-nutjob distance as she walked from her apartment to an office building on West 57th Street. He wasn’t sure what he was doing; he knew only that he felt compelled to do it. On 57th Street, he immediately recognized the building as the place where Vivienne had housed her production company, and apparently still did. Oh, Jane, don’t go in there! Not into the lair of the Wicked Witch of the