“Hmm.” Lucía unabashedly looked him over. “You must be tired,” she said.
“I’m fine,” he said. But Lucía didn’t look like she believed it any more than Gloria had. What was wrong with these women?
Lucía apparently decided to drop it. She moved to hug Ellen. “I am sorry to keep you waiting, hon. I know you’re busy right now.”
“That’s all right,” Ellen said. “Shall we?” She nodded toward the doors.
She wished Fielding would go away. Why didn’t he give his debriefing, or whatever it was? But he just stood there, smiling at the two of them.
“Why don’t you use my office?” he said. “You can spread out on the conference table.”
Okay, he had to know what that had sounded like. Bloody man; couldn’t even have a simple conversation without that gleam in his eye. Gorgeous, deep-set eyes, x-raying her from under straight brows, with that lock of hair falling over them. Not that she was looking.
Maybe she had been reading too many tabloids. He wasn’t even that famous, for God’s sake. Just another spoiled brat who’d had everything handed to him, and who’d happened to catch the eye of an actress a few years ago. He’d been trading on that publicity ever since.
Lucía was already saying, “That’s great, thanks, Kane. Better than that hole you call a conference room, anyway,” and Fielding was holding out an arm to usher Ellen through the doors, saying to Lucía, “Hey, does or does not your office have a window? Well, then you can’t complain when the conference room doesn’t,” and Ellen had no choice but to follow Lucía through.
The office spaces looked around a hundred years old. The walls were lined with dark wood paneling. The desks were old-fashioned wooden ones. The only signs of the twenty-first century were the large touchscreens on the computers.
The three or four secretaries outside the other offices greeted Fielding with surprise, and more pleasure than Ellen thought appropriate. She couldn’t see his face as he replied, but she could just bet he was flashing that come-hither smile at them. His own secretary, a pretty blonde with shoulder-length hair that had a wave in it Ellen envied, was the only one who didn’t adjust something as he approached. In fact, she looked quite stern.
“Hi, Anna,” he said warmly, and there he was again, being all nice.
“What are you doing—?” But then she saw that Lucía and Ellen were with him.
“This is Ms. Hunter,” he explained. “She’s going to use my office to present...” He frowned and turned to her. “Which hotel was it again?”
“Boy, do you need coffee,” said Lucía.
“Boy, do I. Lots and lots of coffee.” For a second Ellen saw the exhaustion hit him again. He scrubbed one hand through his hair, and there were gray shadows around his eyes.
Anna tutted but obviously didn’t want to say anything else in front of an outsider. “Go on in. I’ll get the coffee,” she said.
“Thanks,” Fielding said, and put out his hand to guide Ellen into his office.
She had to pass quite close to him when she got to the door. Dammit, dammit, dammit. His height and the dark suit or the smell of him or something... Her legs began to feel odd. This was not good. Unanticipated wobbles about the knees were not permitted; were in fact beginning to send licks of fear into her stomach. No. I am not going to do this again, feel like this again.
All it took was one memory of Edward, so contained and collected right up until he wasn’t, to bring her back to herself. The barriers once again clanging into place, her cheeks perfectly cool, she was able to move to the conference table at one end of Fielding’s corner office and take her book out of her briefcase.
The office looked out over the mix of old and new buildings that made up downtown Boston, and was just as old-fashioned as the rest of the building: dark mahogany and leather, with heavy furniture that had no idea mid-century modern was back. Had this all belonged to Fielding’s grandfather? Great-grandfather?
Fielding pulled out the chair at the head of the table for her and sat on one side, with his back to the window. Lucía sat opposite him. Ellen turned the artist-size binder to face them and began, “Well, as Mr. Fielding said—”
“Kane,” he said.
What a ridiculous name.He sounds like a soap-opera character. She gave him a tight smile and continued. “The Rosette is the best hotel in Boston. We’ve had our five stars for more than thirty years and not one, but two of our restaurants are Michelin-rated. You won’t find a more prestigious location for your conferences in the entire state. I’d go as far as to say the entire East Coast.”
She showed them the range of meeting rooms, the added facilities that the Rosette gave their clients, the newspaper articles that showed the cachet that came with the name.
“I don’t know,” Fielding said slowly, but his eyes lit up. “You guys might be too fancy for us millworkers.”
She looked at his custom suit, at the expensive furniture they were sitting on. She thought of the news and videos she’d researched from the last few years, where Fielding’s face appeared, relentlessly perfect (apart from the hair, and even that looked premeditated), reminding everyone of the quality that his company could produce because it was all American-made. His family probably hadn’t worked in a mill in all the ten generations it had owned this company.
“Mr. Fielding, I don’t have to tell you about the value of image.” She hoped her intrinsic dislike of his public persona didn’t trickle into her voice. “Fielding stationery is known for its quality. You work very hard to keep it that way. We can help with that.”
“Yeah,” he said, leaning back in his chair and tapping one finger on the table, “you don’t have to tell me about image.”
What did that mean? He sounded almost irritated, as if he didn’t like the constant attention.
