AND IT was worse at work. Someone had broken into her office. And shockingly enough, because only a few items had been disarranged, it looked like it might have been an inside job. Even more depressing, she thought she might know who had done it.
Amanda’s mind was in turmoil. The shattering of her well-ordered emotional life last night and this morning’s discovery that her well-ordered business life had also been invaded did not make Amanda a happy camper.
The euphoria of Antonio was fading quickly, dragging her silly Olympian fantasies with it. She set to straightening her files.
He’s a nice enough guy. Yeah, and a really buffed-out hunk of male flesh. Interesting, moody, obviously has a checkered past and God knows what kind of present.
Exactly the kind of heart-breaker who did not fit into her well-ordered plans. She slammed a file drawer shut, satisfied nothing was missing, though the files had obviously been gone through.
Some young- well, maybe not as young as she had thought- good-looking, curly-haired stud who easily dropped his pants and whose melted-chocolate orbs intensely burrowed into her soul was definitely not on the agenda.
Definitely… not.
Raising her brothers with an overprotective dad, it had been hard enough to convince herself men were more than over-sized kids who needed a strong hand to keep them from making total fools of themselves.
And the boyfriends back in Pittsburgh-Heaven help her, one of whom she had almost married-weren’t much help in convincing her otherwise.
New York guys were different. Opportunistic, self-absorbed, career-oriented. Not exactly life-partner material. She had finally taken charge of her life by striking out on her own. The last thing she needed was to get involved with someone. Maybe once she felt secure in the business world…
Amanda sighed and settled into the upholstered chair behind her desk. Her fingertips pressed gently against her closed eyes. She willed him away. A few deep breaths, a final lung-full of mind-clearing oxygen and her eyes opened and her back stiffened with fresh resolve.
She quickly riffled through the disordered papers on her desk. Nothing missing there, either. She got up and checked the rest of the office. The sofa, the easy chairs, the homey knick-knacks were in place. On the walls, several of the framed, dramatically-colored, blow-ups of violent covers of the illustrated novels it was her job to see to publication had been shifted. There had been an attempt to dislodge the backing of one of the illustrations, as though the prowler had expected to find something hidden between the print and its backing.
Amanda perched on the flower-patterned sofa across from her desk and fiddled with an action figure of the hero of one of the novels. She recapitulated: there was so sign of a break-in, yet her files had been gone over with a fine tooth comb. What were they looking for? Someone had badly wanted to find something. Surely it had been no one from the company, yet who else could have had such easy access to her office?
She felt a sinking sensation. If it had been Nathan, on drugs again and in need of ready cash, what had he hoped to find to hock by going through the firm’s records? That made no sense. She felt ashamed for even thinking such a thing. Besides, she noted practically, there were any number of pieces of equipment he could have more easily taken from the work carrels outside.
Why wasn’t Antonio some master detective that she could call on to race to her rescue?
Amanda sat bolt upright. What was happening to her? What was happening to her vaunted self-sufficiency, that with the first crack in her carefully constructed new life, she crumpled.
But it wasn’t the first crack. That had occurred last night when she had allowed a dark-eyed Italian to disrupt her life.
She tightened her jaw and steeled herself. She had dashed through the outer cubicles gaily waving hello this morning, allowing no one and nothing to stop her, not even the smell of freshly-roasted coffee. The others knew she had an important meeting scheduled with a potential backer and, she hoped, would stay at arm’s length, assuming she needed to prepare.
What Amanda had needed was a few moments alone to try and put her thoughts concerning the last fifteen hours in some manageable order-an impossible hope at the apartment this morning. Cissy must have run out of Prozac; she was certainly in no mood to be civil.
Amanda reached for the intercom. There was one person whose shoulder would always be available.
A gentle patterned knock on the door told Amanda the intercom wouldn’t be necessary. “Please, professor, please come in.”
Professor Angeli slipped quietly into the room.
“I told Jimmy, your ever-faithful watchdog, I would only be a moment. I know this is a vital morning. I just wanted to wish you the best of luck and perhaps share a moment or two in remembering what an extraordinary gift we were given last evening. Nathan, of course, has done nothing except denigrate the entire experience. I do think…” He stopped and stepped forward, adjusting his glasses as he peered closer at his executive director. “Oh, my dear, you must be under terrible pressure.”
Amanda could feel the sting behind her eyes and realized she was making an effort to keep her lower lip from trembling. The gentle, supremely-gifted artist was the only one she ever allowed to see the weakness in her determined facade.It must be the Daddy thing.
“Not even your morning coffee, yet? Allow me.” He flicked the intercom on the desk. “Jimmy, our esteemed Lady Lochinvar desires her morning decaf to prepare for the ordeal ahead. The usual, please.”
He tilted his trim white head and stared down at the collapsed shoulders. “Do we need a hug to fortify us?” Amanda stood and clasped his fragile frame close.
“He was amazing, wasn’t he, professor? So absolutely powerful. I’ve never seen such energy, such belief- I never expected to…” She grabbed a tissue and blew her nose.
“I knew you were as moved as I.” The elder artist observed her carefully. “Perhaps even more so. He is an extraordinarily handsome young man.”
Amanda cleared her throat. “Yes. He is that. But,” she forced her mind to switch tracks, “I certainly never expected to have such an experience when you and Nathan talked me into taking the class. Maybe I’ll be more productive next session.”
She forced a rueful laugh as she went to check her make-up in a nearby wall mirror before turning back to the professor. “But that was last night. This morning I discovered someone gained access to my office and went through my files. Have you any idea who might do such a thing and why?”
The look of utter shock and instant fear that flooded the old man’s face was as palpable as a slap. Amanda raced to him in utter dismay to put a protective arm around the narrow shoulders.
“It’s a terrible thing to say, but with Nathan’s history, I was afraid…”
“No!” The professor pulled sharply away. “It’s not Nathan. I’m sure. He’s promised me he’s clean. Has been. Promised. I’m sure it’s not he.”
The door burst open before Amanda could respond to his extraordinary reaction and Jimmy, the Jimmy Olsen of their division of AA Enterprises, burst in, his fingers hooked around three mugs of coffee.
“I figured if the Ancient Mariner could bug you, I could at least listen in before the barracuda you’re gonna face this morning leads you to the chopping block.” Amanda laughed. Her head writer tended not only to mix his metaphors but to embellish them luridly.
“Nathan’s been besmirching your rep with Tales of the Naked Hunk from last night,” Jimmy continued eagerly, “and I thought maybe I should get it from the horse’s mouth- or is it mare?” He arched an eyebrow. “Before I spread the ugly gossip at the coffee counter that our fair boss has been smitten by a muscle nudie.”
“Thanks, gang. Just the kind of back-up I need to face a hard-nosed venture capitalist.” Amanda took a deep swallow of the foul brew that Mindy, the receptionist, managed to concoct each morning. “‘Smitten by a muscle nudie?’ Wasn’t that a lead story inHeartfelt Confessions, Jimmy? Our beloved sister publication a couple of floors down? Doing a little moonlighting on the side, are we?”
“How appalling,” the professor muttered, taking his mug from the young writer and shooing him out the door.
“Perhaps it was the clumsiness of an overzealous cleaning person who upset your files. At any rate, I’m sure young Nathan had nothing to do with it.” He glanced at the clock on the wall that told time with the bulging muscular arms of a superhero. “The time grows nigh. I’ll leave you to yourself for a moment. If any of us can provide any backup, you know where our dungeons lie.”
Amanda nodded gratefully and the professor left. She felt more annoyed than ever with her faithful Jimmy going along with Nathan’s smarmy suggestions and the professor being less than helpful in suggesting she might be overreacting.
She retrieved the draft of her proposal for the imminent meeting and began going over figures in her mind.
The intercom buzzed. It was Jimmysotto voce, “He’s coming. Shall I send him right in?”
“Fire when ready.” Amanda straightened the papers on her desk, touched her hair and stood, as the door opened and Jimmy ushered in an attractive blond man wearing horn rim glasses. She held out her hand.
The stranger turned to watch Jimmy shut the door behind him.
“He said you were expecting me. I’m glad. I was afraid after last night…”
Amanda felt the blood drain from her head. It was Antonio’s voice, the same rich velvet tones, but the man it was coming from wasn’t Antonio. She felt her inert hand gripped with the same strong and secure clasp she had felt in the Village restaurant. But the man in the beautifully-tailored, dark gray suit wasn’t Antonio. Her hand dropped from his and she fell back into her chair.
“I got the name of your office from David, but I had to look up the address. The man knows nothing. I’m sorry about not calling first. I… I was a little nervous about how you’d react. I didn’t know,” he glanced toward the office door with concern. “I didn’t know the old guy and kid worked here. David didn’t tell me that. Thank God, my contacts were bugging me this morning and I wore my glasses. Maybe they won’t notice it’s me.”
“What the hell is going on here?” The loud crack of the flats of her hands slamming onto the desk, as she drove herself upright, stung her palms and startled the stranger backward. The intercom buzzed.
“Uh, Amanda, there’s a guy here who sayshe’s the one who has the appointment with you. Uh, what should I do? Who’s the first guy? And what was that noise? You okay?”
“Oh, I’m just peachy,” Amanda punched a sharp finger at the intercom. “Sure, send him in…now! This one is leaving.”
The blond businessman opened his mouth to speak.
“I don’t even want to begin to think about what stupid game you might be playing.” Her heels clunked sharply as she went to the door and grabbed the doorknob. She could hardly believe it. This… man… was the model. “But I’ve a very important business meeting right now, whoever the hell you are, and I would appreciate it if you would never darken my doorway again with your absurd play-acting. I’ll find my own damn tour guide, thanks a bunch. And from now on if I need naked, I’ll checkPlaygirl.”
She swung open the door and faced a severe-looking, heavy-set businessman carrying a briefcase.
The blond man reached over and closed his hand around the edge of the door. “Not quite, yet,” he said grimly to the man and shut the door in his face.
Amanda’s mouth dropped. “How dare you? Who the hell are you!”
“My name is Marc Parkerson. David, your art instructor, is my older brother. I’m a private investigator and I have no intention of letting you turn me out of this room until I’ve had a chance to clear up some stuff.”
“Stuff!” Amanda’s voice choked on the understatement of the year. “Look. Here, Mr… Parkerson,” she said evenly. “I’ve got a business to run, a very important meeting to take right now… very important, and…”
“Money man?”
“What?”
“Is the guy outside a money man?”
“Well, yes, but…”
Marc opened the door. “It’s taking a little longer to make my proposal clear to Ms. Emerson than I had expected.” His voice was tight. “If you’d rather not wait…”
Amanda stepped forward quickly. “Mr. Untermeyer, I do apologize. I expected to have… finished with this meeting by now.” She glowered at the determined man standing next to her and glanced past the startled Untermeyer to the professor and Jimmy hovering nearby.
“Professor Angeli and my personal assistant will be happy to show you around our den of inequity. The efficiency of our production team should be of great interest to you and your business associates.” She turned sharply to Marc. “Five minutes,” she snapped and marched smartly back to her desk leaving him to give the slack-jawed businessman a baleful look and close the door as the fawning professor and Jimmy quickly descended.
“Let’s get out of here.”
Amanda looked at him blankly.
“I noticed a coffee shop downstairs. I shouldn’t have come here in the first place. Stupid. I’m really losing it. Now’s a good time to sneak out while the old guy’s busy with Mr. Money Bags.” He eased the door open to survey the outer room. “Where’s the pseudo young Brando?”
Amanda looked toward Nathan’s cubicle and saw he was intent on distracting the young woman who worked in an adjacent cubicle.
“Five minutes,” Marc said. “You gave me five minutes.” He grabbed her hand and tugged. She felt his firm hand at her waist.
“What is this place?” he asked, looking around at the large, violent drawings depicting dramatically-posed muscular heroes and heroines adorning the walls as Amanda allowed herself to be guided hurriedly through the room full of artist’s cubicles.
“You can read,” she muttered. She informed Mindy, the receptionist, where she would be, and gave firm instructions to be paged in five minutes.
“Yeah, I see the name: Ahn-sel of the 21st Century. What’s that? Some kind of comic book?”
“Illustrated novels. Philosophical, angst-ridden, super-hero and requisite attendant super-heroine. Started about ten years ago by a kid drawing in the basement of his farm house in Minnesota. Guess it was the long, hard winters.” She stepped smartly into the elevator.
“The kid was eventually discovered by mega-publisher AA Communications and was swept off to the Big Apple, or at least this Park Avenue South slice of it, to do battle against the likes of Marvel and DC Comics.”
He was giving her his undivided attention. As if he cared a whit about what she did with her corporate life.
“His hero was re-named Ahn-sel and, unlike the Edsel, of which the kid had never heard, limped along for a number of years and then suddenly for no discernible reason exploded into ‘overnight’ success.”
They entered the restaurant and were ushered to a back booth. Another secluded booth.
I gotta check my horoscope.
She ordered tea with lemon and a bagel with light cream cheese from the waitress. He ordered tea with milk. Somehow, with his outfit, she had expected him to order a martini or something equally sleek.
His eyes weren’t the deep, lush, dark chocolate she had found so inviting, but they were a decent blue behind the horn rims. Horn rims. She didn’t know anyone wore horn rims anymore. He reminded her of Clark Kent. Another fake.
Amanda continued the story of her corporate life. “I came along about the time they needed a good office manager, got pretty much involved in running the place, and a few months ago was promoted to Executive Producer in Charge of the Series. Which basically means, my ass is on the line if we don’t pull a profit. The guy upstairs is a ‘money man’ who hopes he and his associates are going to be buying into another Batman franchise.”
“The kid doesn’t happen to be Nathan, does he?” Marc’s attitude was less grim now that the tenseness between them had eased a bit.
“Lord, no. Nathan’s the chief illustrator of the series. The kid, who has returned to and now owns the lower half of Minnesota, doesn’t even draw anymore. He approves everything and makes lots of suggestions via faxes and email. Lots of suggestions. Meaningful ones.” She chuckled and took a healthy bite of bagel. The scent of the fresh, meaty bread combined with the slightly pungent cheese gave her a sense of security. Home and hearth, again.
“I’m surprised Mr. Parkerson didn’t know Professor Angeli and Nathan and I work together.” Though, not really. Parkerson was a good instructor, but he always seemed distracted, as if the class were a bit beneath him. “The professor and Nathan talked me into taking his classes at the League, saying it would help me communicate better with the artists here, and because I once used to draw a little,” she added modestly.
“The professor draws moody super-heroes, too?” His clear blue eyes, bulls-eyed by the dark frames, peered over his cup of tea.
“No,” she said, with a smile. “He’s a colorist. Absolute genius. Amazing eye. I had no idea he was also a brilliant artist until I saw his work.” She munched on her bagel, scooping up crumbs on the tip of her finger. “Okay, now it’s your turn.” Her eyes narrowed and her voice hardened. “As I recall, my exact words were: Where are the curls?”
After a moment’s confused hesitation, Marc smiled. The same gleaming white flash, if not set off quite so dramatically by his now only lightly-tanned skin.
“A wig.”
“Obviously. And the eyes?”
He spread his hands and shrugged.
“Contacts.” They answered in unison, both nodding.
“Well,” Amanda shook off her incredulity at their similar reactions. “At least I know the rest of you is real. Or is it… foam rubber? Or surgery?”
Marc laughed, his powerful body shifting into a more comfortable position in the booth.
“I wish to God it were. If you knew the hours I spend in the gym… the months… and the sun tanning. Only my dermatologist knows what I’m doing to my skin. There wasn’t time to get it dark enough, so I’m using some body stuff. I even wear mascara.” His handsome face soured. “Do you know what it’s like for a guy to figure out how to use mascara just because David said Italians all have thick black lashes? Jeez.” He chuckled and took a healthy swallow of his tea. “What an asshole I must seem.”
Well, Amanda thought, whoever he is-did he say his name was Marc? -he does have a sense of the absurdity of it all.He doesn’t seem all that bad. In fact, she could almost begin to see her beloved, dramatic Antonio lurking inside the neatly trimmed, dark-blonde, well-turned-out business man seated across from her.
Oh, yeah, right, Ace. Ten minutes ago you were dumping your ‘beloved’ Antonio. Remember?
“This disguise…” His strong hands curled around the mug of tea. “It seemed to make sense under the circumstances. I just didn’t think the caper would get so complicated. I didn’t expect to…” His eyes locked on hers. “Meet you.”
Amanda felt light-headed. The gods of Olympus, casually watching, instructed her to pay attention; this could be important.
“Ace- Amanda- I know this whole business seems strange, but believe me there’s a good reason. I don’t run around trying to be somebody else. I don’t want anything to come between our getting to know each other… better. Bear with me. It’ll just be a few more weeks and then everything should be settled.”
She thought for a minute. “Is this going to hurt anybody?”
“Not if I can help it.”
“Is it legal? Whatever it is you’re…”
He laughed. “We’re the good guys, Ace!”
“We? How much does Mr. Parkerson have to do with this? Are you in… whatever this thing is… in this together?”
“Oh, yeah! This is pretty much his operation. He’s the one that figured it out. I’m just,” he grinned, “the muscle.”
She pronounced the name slowly. “Marc Parkerson.”
He nodded sheepish. “Marc Richard Parkerson. I’m sorry, Marc isn’t even ‘multi-syllabled.’” He remembered her romantic comment regarding Antonio. “Marcus Antonius? Antonio- get it?” He was gratified to see her wrinkle her nose at the pun.
“And David?”
“Yeah. David’s my older brother. Means well, but he’s a little over-anxious. He’s already pretty upset with how I’m handling this case.” He held her hands lightly, but firmly.
“You’re a private investigator?” She had wished Antonio might be someone to whom she could turn for help.Be careful what you wish for, girl. “What’s wrong at the League? What does it have to the with the class?”
“It’s no big deal. It’ll be cleared up in a few weeks. Earlier, if we’re lucky. Just don’t say anything, okay? To anybody. It’ll be safer.”
“What do you mean… safer?”
“There’s no danger involved. I mean this whole thing is pretty important to David.” One side of his broad, sculpted lips twisted up. “And we already know he’s not too keen on…us.”
Us.
The other side of his handsome mouth rose to join the first. “I think in the long run, David could care less about us. Just, not now.” He leaned toward her. “You’ll play along for now?”
Well, he’s got nice eyes and the hair’s not too bad. And the body’s for real.
The gods of Olympus smiled.
She’d play along… for now.