Chapter 35
Carla
I wasn’t surprised when the outer reception door opened. After all, I’d made the call to Chow’s—my favorite takeout Chinese restaurant around the corner—half-an-hour earlier and they were usually spot-on with their delivery times. But I was surprised by the casual linen suit the delivery person was wearing—or the fact that he was a drop-dead handsome, silver fox with a wry expression on his face.
“I hope you don’t mind,” he said, holding the white plastic “Have a Nice Day” bag aloft in a tender, delicate hand. “But I took the liberty of buying you dinner.”
He looked oddly familiar as I studied his handsome features. Salt and pepper hair cropped close to his head, broad shoulders and a commanding, athletic appearance despite being clearly in his early to mid-50s. He wore a soft grey V-neck under a black linen summer jacket while matching linen slacks flattered his long, tapered legs.
“I’d thank you,” I said, demurely crossing my legs as I sat at my desk, running the numbers for my dwindling modeling company’s worth. “If I had any idea who you are.”
While I should have been alarmed—a strange man bearing Chinese food and a wry grin in my office at sunset—this was, after all, South Beach. Stranger things had happened, and often did. “I’ll tell you my name,” he teased, approaching my desk cautiously, even gracefully. “If you’ll allow me to treat you to dinner.”
I nodded at the food in his hands. “Didn’t you just do that?”
He wrinkled his nose before promptly dropping my entire order of shrimp lo mein and egg drop soup into the trash. “A proper dinner,” he said, wiping his hands clean as if he’d just changed the oil in an eighteen-wheeler.
“Hey!” I said, standing up to retrieve my meal. “I was looking forward to that.”
“Trust me,” he said, intercepting me with a slight shift to the left. “What I have in mind is far superior to Chow’s happy hour special.”
I paused, our bodies close as we strategized over who might reach the trash can first. I finally relented, leaning my hip against the desk and giving in. It had been a long two days in South Beach, with far less sleep than I needed—or was used to. My company was in the crapper, my last remaining models were getting antsy, I was looking at a quick sale or bankruptcy, and frankly the smell of greasy Chinese food was turning my stomach.
“Carla Richmond,” I said with a weary sigh and an extended hand.
The mystery man brightened and took it in a warm, tender grip. “Deacon Manchester,” he said, and suddenly my hand grew limp and cold in his.
“So we meet at last?” I asked, slipping my hand from his and backing up an appropriate amount of paces.
His eyes looked knowing, even apologetic. “I’m only sorry it took us so long to meet at all.”
I peered back at the founder and CEO of Florida Faces, the architect of my current misery. I knew him by reputation, of course, but had never met him personally. And any time I might have seen his face—handsome and chiseled though it was—in a magazine profile or online puff piece, I had promptly turned the page or clicked away out of disgust or, perhaps, personal jealousy.
Now here he was, in the flesh—and in my office. “You have a lot of nerve, coming here.”
He nodded, leaning against my desk as well. “Oh, Carla, I’ve come here many times,” he confessed. “I just never had the courage to walk in the door.”
“You?” I clucked. “Lacking courage? That’s a laugh. After all, you’ve been mighty brave up to this point, sabotaging my company and all.”
Rather than challenge me or deny it, his face looked chagrined. “Yes, Carla, perhaps I’ve been a bit… over ambitious… about our friendly competition. That’s why I’d like to take you to Balthazar tonight and discuss… the future.”
I should have kneed him in the groin, or at least kicked him in the shin. Should have huffed and puffed and screamed him right out of my office. But I was desperate. He’d clearly been interested in Miami Models for the last few months, and made no secret of his intentions to poach my best and brightest models during that time.
He was clearly here for a reason, I needed to eat and as long as I’d lived in South Beach, I’d never been able to get into Balthazar’s, the invitation-only five-star restaurant on top of the nearby Hildebrand Hotel.
“I should say ‘no,’ of course,” I sighed, reaching for my purse as he watched me cautiously.
“But?” he asked as we stood in the middle of my office, at a temporary stalemate.
“But why shouldn’t the architect of my destruction buy me an expensive dinner at the town’s hottest restaurant?”
He smiled. “Don’t think of me as someone out to get you, Carla,” he murmured, following me from the inner office through the outer reception area and onto the sidewalk in front of the building. “Think of me as someone here to offer you salvation.”
Salvation. I smirked at the word, so dramatic and yet so welcome. I’d never been one for wheeling and dealing, for negotiation or back door politics. And yet desperation had made me brave in ways I’d never been before. Like my stepfather, Roy, who was going to have to learn to walk, talk and hold a spoon all over again, I too, was treading new water—even swimming with sharks.
A man like Deacon Manchester didn’t make house calls for no reason. If he was in my office at the close of day, he was there for a specific purpose. Whether it was to ruin me or, as he put it, to “save” me, I owed him—and myself—an hour or two of my evening to lay it on the line. If I didn’t like what he had to offer, at the very least I’d get a free meal out of it. And if he was good for his word, I might get much, much more.
After all, I could use a little salvation, and it didn’t hurt that it was wrapped up in such an appealing, handsome package…