Strapless. Leigh Riker

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СКАЧАТЬ her feet hurt.

      At four o’clock she wanted nothing more than to slip off her shoes and rub her toes until they stopped cramping. Please. If it wasn’t one cramp for a woman, it was another. And just like a man, Walt had dragged her up and downhill the rest of the day, heedless of the fact that she was wearing heels. Chunky ones, yes. But Darcie could scream from the pressure on her insteps now. The canted incline of the streets had turned her mood from morning-after tingles, courtesy of Dylan Rafferty, to late-afternoon agony. At least she was wearing a cotton dress. Summer in January? She couldn’t hate that.

      “How many storefronts do you think we looked at today?” she asked.

      “Not enough.”

      “Walt, I think you’re taking the wrong approach.” When he glared at her, Darcie hastily added, “We are, I mean.” It wouldn’t do to offend him. Team Player Darcie at your service, Mr. Corwin. Sir. She reminded herself that she was a long way from home, and at least Walt spoke normal English. He didn’t murder his vowels and he didn’t lift his voice at the end of every sentence.

      Not that it wasn’t a charming effect coming from Dylan Rafferty. His “language lessons,” too.

      Was Walt really angry with her for staying out all night?

      Gee, she thought. I was only two floors down, practically underneath you. She shuddered at that image of Walt. Dylan Rafferty in bed was one thing…

      Too bad she’d never see him again.

      “Go on,” Walt said.

      “What?”

      “Say what’s on your mind.”

      I’d like to spend the night, for the next two weeks, with a sheep farmer.

      Yet it was Darcie who’d set their boundaries. No names. Then names but no plans for the future…even for tonight. “Let’s play it by ear,” whatever that meant. She was too tired to figure it out. Like the rest of her life.

      “You don’t think we should look at that place on Gloucester Walk?” Walt said.

      “Well, it’s trendy—”

      “The Rocks is one of the best neighborhoods in the city these days. Maybe it used to be a slum but no longer. We’re talking upscale with a vengeance. I don’t see how we could lose, Darce. It’s high traffic—”

      “Not on weekdays, and after five the restaurants get all the business.”

      “Your suggestion would be…?” His voice held an edge. Walt gazed down the eucalyptus allée, across Park Street, toward the Anzac Memorial. A flock of ibis strutted past to peck at a bed of marigolds.

      Careful, Darcie. Walk soft but carry a big stick.

      She shuddered when another spasm of pain shot through her instep.

      “Damn. I give up.” She yanked off her shoe, massaged, and groaned. “God, that’s better than sex.” Oops.

      “Must have been a great night with the sheep farmer.”

      “It was. But right now I need this even more.”

      Impatient, Walt got to his feet. He wasn’t limping and he didn’t have a run in his panty hose. Darcie straightened on the park bench then let him off the hook. Walt was a fine boss, a good mentor, and he’d been with Wunderthings from the start. But five years didn’t turn him into a woman—a woman on limited time these days with too many obligations to juggle.

      “From my research, I learned that Australian women are just now joining the rest of the world. It’s become an economic necessity. They used to be stay-at-home moms, but two wage earners are needed to pay the bills, just as in America, and no one has time to hike around looking for underwear, even in The Rocks.”

      “So?”

      “Our best stores in the U.S.—the majority of our branches—are where?”

      She knew she’d be wise to let him take the credit.

      “Malls,” Walt said, but as if he’d never heard the word before.

      “Right. Like the Barrack Street Mall, the Pitt Street Mall.” Darcie paused. “Any of them here are in the center of the action. They’d make shopping convenient, quick, accessible. Let’s look there.”

      He groaned. “My back’s killing me. Come on,” he said, “we have one more today. Then you can buy me dinner. Tomorrow we’ll try your idea.”

      “You have an expense account.”

      “So do you right now. It’s your turn.”

      Darcie hesitated. “You just want to keep an eye on me tonight, make sure I don’t have any fun.” No, that wasn’t wise, either. “I mean, get myself in trouble.”

      Walt shook his head. “With Dylan Rafferty.”

      “He must be Irish. You know what they say about those Irish men.”

      He gave her a look. “Don’t believe everything you read. He’s an Aussie, too.”

      “And the combination is magnifique.” Was, she added silently.

      She’d been out of her mind to go to his room. She’d been even crazier to let him out of her sight after their one-night stand.

      Story of my life, Darcie thought. Ships passing in the morning…and all that. She remembered the sight of him then, not in jeans but in his well-tailored suit. Her mouth watered. That white shirt against his tanned skin, and overlaying his muscles…

      Walt’s scowl returned. “You gonna see him again?”

      “I doubt it.”

      “Just as well,” he told her. “We have a lot to accomplish in two weeks.”

      He led her back through the park to Elizabeth Street.

      “I’m telling you,” Darcie said. “We’re wasting our time with this location.”

      “Knowledge is power.”

      “Walt—do you have a life?” Did she?

      Greta liked getting to work early. She loved dawn in Manhattan and French crullers on her way to the office, carrying hot black coffee in a cardboard cup. She enjoyed being alone when no one else was around, and the elevator, the aisles on her floor, the cubicles everywhere, stood empty. She adored the chance each morning to go through someone else’s desk.

      Slinking past the big copy machines at the end of the row, toting her coffee and pastry, Greta wandered into Nancy Braddock’s space. Just outside Walter Corwin’s office, the anteroom wasn’t quite its own room—but close. Certainly closer than Greta’s cubicle, and far more private.

      Breathing a sigh of relief, she cast off her heavy black winter coat, flinging it across Nancy’s desk chair, then pushed up her sweater sleeves. СКАЧАТЬ