Hired Wife. Karen Van Der Zee

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      It hadn’t taken great powers of observation to see she hadn’t changed much. Spontaneous, vivacious and as charming as ever.

      And tonight he was having dinner with her. It would certainly be interesting.

      Kim stood in front of her bedroom closet and scrutinized the kaleidoscopic contents in despair. Her clothes were all so hopelessly unsuitable, but she had no time to run out and buy something new.

      She loved clothes, but not the formal variety, which were fortunately not required for her work as a freelance commercial designer. She preferred fun, casual clothes, bright colors, playful designs. But for dinner tonight she needed something seriously sophisticated. She groaned with frustration as she rummaged frantically through the hangers hoping to find something halfway acceptable.

      And there it was, in the very back: a neat little black suit—sober, proper, bought for the funeral of Great-Uncle Amos last year. She lunged for it with a sigh of relief and put it on the bed. From the back of the closet she excavated a pair of black pumps. Her jewelry box yielded simple gold earrings and a matching chain necklace, a birthday present from her conservative father. She was set.

      Now her hair. She’d wear it up, out of her face. She grinned at herself. Boy, was she going to impress Mr. Samiir Rasheed with her businesslike image!

      He came for her in a long, sleek limousine.

      She was waiting outside the door to her building. The ancient cage elevator was out of order and she wanted to spare him climbing the stairs to the top floor.

      The uniformed driver held the door open for her with a flourish and she slipped in beside Sam, taking in the television, computer, phone, fax machine, refrigerator and bar. A company vehicle, designed so the busy executives could continue doing their business while being transported from airports to offices to hotel suites, or perhaps their girlfriends’ apartments.

      “Hi,” she said, trying not to sound too bright and peppy. Wearing conservative tan slacks and a deep blue blazer, he managed to look stunning, setting all her nerve endings atingle. She imagined that Sam would look stunning no matter what he wore.

      She was sitting close enough to see the fine lines next to his eyes, to notice that his square chin was freshly shaven. Close enough to see sparks of mirth in the depth of his dark eyes.

      “I hardly recognized you,” Sam said. “You, in black.”

      “Actually I hardly recognized myself.” Kim smoothed her skirt over her thighs. “I only wore this suit once, to a funeral and—” She stopped herself, and heard him laugh.

      “A funeral? I hope wearing it now is not an indication of how you feel about having dinner with me.”

      “Don’t worry,” she assured him. “I hardly ever feel funereal about anything. It’s too depressing.”

      “And you’re not a depressed sort of person,” he commented. “At least you weren’t as a girl.”

      “No.” This was dangerous territory. She didn’t want him to think of her as the silly girl she’d been, the naive girl madly in love with him. That girl would no doubt have worn red tonight. Kim had the perfect dress in her closet—a deep, rich passionate red to express her real feelings about having dinner with Samiir Rasheed, the man who gave her foolish little heart the flutters, the man who rescued her from a tragic death in her fantasies. Of course they’d never been out to dinner together then, not just the two of them. They’d hardly ever been alone together anyplace, except that one time, in the garden of her parents’ house, at night.

      Not a good train of thought. She pushed it aside and glanced out the window at the neon lights, the billboards, the buses and taxis and people rushing along, all of it like a silent movie behind the dark glass of the air-conditioned limousine. An oasis of calm in the turmoil of the city.

      Only she didn’t feel calm. She had never before been aware of the power of the past, the pull of memories. It made her angry with herself. She’d been a stupid teenager, for Pete’s sake! What she had been feeling then had no relevance to the present; she was no longer the same person. She was a grown woman now and she was not romantically interested in this cool, enigmatic man in his expensive clothes—no matter how drop-dead attractive and sexy he appeared. At the time Sam had been exotic to her, a volcano of controlled passion, ready to erupt….

      She was aware of the faint scent of his aftershave, aware of sitting very close to him. It would be so easy to touch him—his arm, his hand, his thigh. Oh, good Lord what was she thinking? He was just another rich, workaholic businessman, a man who only knew about making money and had no talent for warm, intimate relationships with friends and lovers. He was most likely just a boring human being, a man without a wife and without a social life. He probably played solitaire at night while watching the stock market news on CNN.

      Sure, a little voice teased her.

      Mercifully it was not a long drive to the restaurant, a very upmarket place she’d never had the good fortune to visit.

      “This is great,” she said, studying the wonderful modern decor, the interesting art on the walls. The aromas wafting around were promising; the menu alone was a piece of art.

      A waiter in a black suit came to take their drink orders. He talked with a French accent, a real one even.

      Kim requested Chardonnay, and caught the dark gleam in Sam’s eyes.

      “Ah, yes,” he said evenly, “it’s legal for you to drink now.”

      She knew instantly what he was referring to. She’d been well underage when she’d known him, which hadn’t kept her from secretly partaking of a couple of glasses of champagne at her father’s fiftieth birthday party. And Sam had been there. It took an effort to force down the heat of embarrassment that threatened to flush her face.

      The champagne had made her brave and wanton. She’d more or less lured Sam into the garden, behind the big hemlock tree, and thrown herself at him, or tried anyway. She wasn’t very practiced at that sort of thing. It was mortifying even to remember it.

      However, she was no longer a silly teenager. She was twenty-six, a mature adult, and she had to convince Sam of that so he’d give her the job.

      “That was eleven years ago,” she said with a dismissive little shrug, fiddling with her napkin so she didn’t have to look at him.

      “Indeed,” he said smoothly, not pursuing the matter like a true gentleman. “So tell me, what has happened with you in these past eleven years, apart from the obvious?”

      “Oh, well, in a nutshell?” She laughed. “I argued with my father a lot, went to art school anyway, argued some more, went to graduate school, argued some more and then got a terrific job with an advertising agency until I got bored working on soap campaigns and decided to go freelance to have more artistic freedom.” She stopped to take a breath. “My father keeps thinking that I’m never going to have a real career, but all in all I’m doing quite well, and I enjoy my work. I’m good at what I’m doing and I’ve gotten great contracts. I’m working with architects and artists and interior decorators and—” She was off and rolling, telling him about her work, and every time she wanted to stop, for politeness’ sake—after all he had to get bored just listening to her—he kept asking more questions.

      “And СКАЧАТЬ