Eighteen
Ihit the button to speak, but before I could even say who I was, the buzzer on the door went off and I went through it to the lobby.
“Jory!” she squealed loudly.
I looked up, and there, four flights up on the landing, leaning over the railing, was my friend and work partner, Dylan Greer, waving at me like crazy.
“Hurry up. I want you to meet everybody!”
I climbed the stairs as fast as I could, unwrapping my scarf as I moved. When I hit her floor, she ran from her door to reach me, and I caught her when she leaped at me and carried her to her door, her arms and legs wrapped around me.
“You came.” She smiled into my eyes, smoothing her fingers over my eyebrows.
“I would never disappoint you.”
“I know.” She sighed as I carried her through the open door, depositing her in the hallway of her apartment. “But I’ve invited you a million times before.”
“And this time I could actually make it, and I promised I would,” I said as she closed the front door behind me.
She nodded. “Gimme your coat. What do you want to drink?”
“What’ve you got?” I asked as I passed her first my coat and then the wine I’d brought with me.
“Oh, thank you, sir.” She smiled at me, taking my hand and tugging me into the living room. “How ’bout a very strong margarita?”
“Okay.” I grinned at her, brushing the hair out of her eyes. “I love your face.”
I watched her tremble under my hand; as always, a grateful recipient of my attention. She wore her adoration of me on her sleeve, exactly where I showed off mine for her. “Well, I like yours a little bit too, ya know?”
We shared a long look before there was throat-clearing close by. We both turned to the man smiling at us.
“You’ve gotta be Jory.” His smile widened as he extended his hand. “I’m Chris, her husband.”
I took the hand and returned the smile. “It’s great to finally meet you.”
“And you.” He nodded, reaching out to squeeze my shoulder. “She talks about you every day.”
“Sorry,” I said, grimacing. “No one likes to hear my stories about her either. She’s so dull, and their eyes glaze over, just like yours I bet.”
“What?” Her dark scowl was adorable.
“No.” He chuckled. “It’s good, really. She loves working with you.”
I wrapped my arms around her neck and pressed against her back. “Well, it goes both ways.”
They were listening to oldies, and when a new song started, she drew me away from her husband to the area behind the couch.
I took her into my arms, and she put her head on my shoulder and leaned.
As I moved, I heard her sigh, and she melted against me.
When the song ended and I dipped her low, the room erupted in applause.
My head snapped up, and I realized there were seven other people there besides us.
“Everybody,” she began as she looked at all of them upside down, “this is my partner in crime, my work husband, Jory.”
I smiled and she giggled. When I looked down at her, she was staring up into my face. “Let me up so you can meet my friends.”
As soon as I set her on her feet, she grabbed the front of my sweater and pulled me around to the center of the group next to the coffee table. There was a board game set up. I didn’t groan out loud, which I was very proud of.
Her friends were very nice, and when I was asked what it was like to have Dylan Greer as a partner, I leaned on her and said that from the moment we were introduced, it had been heaven. When she turned to look at me, I smiled wide. Her hand was on my cheek, and I heard the laughter around us.
My interview with first David O’Shea, and then his boss, Philip Torres, at Barrington had gone way better than good.
He’d needed a graphic designer, but he needed one who could work with a partner to develop branding for new clients.
No lone wolves—he wanted a team. We had to create logos, develop artwork, and create print material.
I was assigned to the production department after I was hired, starting at the bottom of the barrel with someone from concept design.
We worked together after sitting in on a client meeting and came up with something iconic for them to look at.
It was usually a group setting, where the client was introduced to everyone.
There were four teams that did this part of the PR process at Barrington, and we were one of them.
It was when I was being walked through the department on the Tuesday after I’d been hired that I had caught my first glimpse of Dylan Greer.
She had been sitting at her desk alone, and everyone else in the production room was clustered around another desk talking to one another.
Tony Ortiz, who had been my tour guide, led me over to her desk.
He’d knocked on it to get her attention, as she was face down on the drafting table.
She’d rolled her head instead of sitting up, and his exasperated sigh was not to be missed.
“Greer, this is Harcourt,” he grumbled at her. “Your new partner. Try not to run this one off.”
And with that he squeezed my shoulder, gave me a wan smile, and left.
He had given me the good-luck speech on the way down.
Apparently, Dylan was extremely gifted, even more moody, and sometimes violent.
Her last partner had gotten a stapler launched at his head.
He hadn’t quit, however, until she’d laughed at him, long and hard and loud, in the middle of a client meeting.
The only reason she was still there and hadn’t been instantly fired was that the client had thought the idea just as ridiculous as she had.
When she had walked her own sketches up to the table and explained her intent, the client had agreed to the concept on the spot.
She was, after all, brilliant…but manic. I’d liked her instantly.
As she’d lifted her head off the table and looked into my eyes, I’d arched a brow for her.
The smile was adorable. Her tiny little heart-shaped mouth and huge black eyes made her look like a character from a graphic novel—some lovely piece of manga.
The porcelain skin and jet-black, midnight-blue-highlighted hair added to the impression.
“You don’t look like a Greer,” I said to her.
“Do I look like an Okamoto?” she asked crisply.
“Yes.”
“You don’t look like a Harcourt,” she volleyed back. “It’s kinda snooty.”
I shrugged. No one new in my life would ever know that I wasn’t born a Harcourt. Jory Keyes was dead, and he wasn’t coming back, even for an explanation. “Well, I am kind of stuck-up. You know the type: conceited asshole.”
She eyed me hard. “You look okay to me.”
I smiled wide. “You look okay to me too.”
She offered me her hand. “Call me Dyl.”
I leaned in and hugged her tight. “Call me J.”
Her arms wrapped instantly around me, and she put her head down on my shoulder.
We went and hid in the supply closet so no one would see her cry.
She didn’t want to be a bitch, but she liked everything done a certain way, the right way, and the whole department hated her for insisting on quality instead of quantity.
I assured her I didn’t, couldn’t ever hate her, and we went from there.
By the time we got back to her desk, we were a team, and a pretty formidable one as the weeks progressed.
We clicked in some intangible way that taught me to trust my instincts and her to explore her limits.
She didn’t have to worry about me keeping up with her or being jealous of her or stabbing her in the back—her only concern was the work.
And I, who was unsure if I could even do the job, came to the realization that I had the ability, as she nurtured my talent from potential to fruition.
Our ideas bounced off each other and sometimes the walls.
She drew on any surface that was handy, and when the others complained, Gloria Todd, the head of our department, moved us off the main floor and into a tiny cubbyhole of a corner office.
Dylan papered one side of the room, tearing it down and taping it back up every morning.
Where she was fevered and driven and frantic, I was calm and soothing and still.
She said I was like water to her flame, but instead of drowning her, I just kept her even.
We fit like puzzle pieces and were both noticed and complimented.
It didn’t even bother me that Dane had been right.
I liked my new job, my new life. I liked being Jory Harcourt.
Dylan had been pressuring me for two months to meet her husband, and she wanted to meet the somebody special in my life.
Since there was no one, as I was taking a long hiatus from dating, I asked her if my brother would suffice.
She was happier with that and so had arranged a small dinner party with two other couples, her best friends that she wanted me to meet, her husband, and one of his coworkers that she was crazy about.
I knew before the words were out of her mouth that she was playing matchmaker, but she was my friend and wanted what was best for me, so I agreed to meet Raymond Alvarez, along with everyone else, at her house on Saturday night.
At a quarter to nine neither Dane nor Ray had materialized, and Dylan, true to form, went ahead and served dinner.
She had no patience whatsoever, and waiting to serve food was not where she was going to start.
We ate from a buffet line on her counter and sat around the living room.
When the doorbell chimed after we all had gotten settled, Chris rose to get it, placing a gentle hand on his wife’s knee to keep her seated.
I wasn’t surprised that it was Dane. Funny to see him there in his Armani tuxedo, looking like he had literally stepped off the cover of GQ. He was stunning.
“Oh my goodness,” Dylan breathed out, her eyes running over the man slowly, up and down, finally settling on his face, on his pale gray eyes under thick, perfectly shaped black brows. “Are you Dane?”