Authors: Linda Francis Lee
Since they’d moved here, all her dad did was work on the place (or should she say, boss other people around while they worked on the place), sit at the big desk in the downstairs office, reading
The Financial Times,
studying computer screens—basically making sure his empire stayed, well, empirick—and meddle in her life. Correction:
ruin
her life.
But the fact was, there was something about her dad that made people do what he told them. When he walked into a room, people quieted. When he asked a question, people embarrassed themselves trying to come up with the answer. He wasn’t handsome, not like her uncle Anthony, whom everyone said was totally beautiful. But still, her dad didn’t have to say much to have people jumping through hoops to do his bidding. At least that was the case with everyone but her older sister, Miranda.
Miranda was sixteen and had been forced to leave her boyfriend behind when they moved into the city. Ariel had seen the guy once only even back in New Jersey, since Miranda did a really great job of keeping him out of their dad’s sight. Dad would combust if he found out Miranda had a boyfriend. While Ariel couldn’t say the guy was anything to write home about, clearly Miranda thought he was, since now she spent most of her time slamming doors and throwing herself across her bed, going on and on about how unfair life was.
No question Dad needed more to do with his time.
For a while after Mom died, all three of them had walked around like zombies in a movie. For six months they had barely put one foot in front of the other. Then, out of nowhere, just as the school year ended and summer was starting, Dad came home and told them it was time to move on.
Move on?
Like people could do that?
Though really, moving to New York had made it possible to turn the whole dead-mom thing into a secret. Ariel had learned the hard way that people completely freaked if they heard.
So, in June they had moved into the city. In July, she and her sister had started with the Shrink. In September, she and Miranda had started new schools. Now it was nearly October and there was no sign that her dad was going to stop being in charge of all of their day-to-day stuff. She had pretty much given up on him going back to his old ways of distractedly asking them how their day was while reading the newspaper.
Previous scenario before everything went to hell in a handbasket went something like this.…
Father Reading
The Wall Street Journal
: “How was your day, Ariel?”
Extremely Intelligent and Witty Daughter: “Great, just finished watching a bunch of porn online and I need ten dollars for lunch.”
FRWSJ: “Ten dollars for what?” Said while turning page.
EIAWD: “Lunch.”
FRWSJ: “Fine.”
Conversations like that were totally things of the past (she didn’t think it appropriate to put in writing her dad’s new, not-improved-as-far-as-she-was-concerned reaction to the most recent time she had used her Internet porn wit), and Ariel figured she had no choice but to take matters into her own hands and find her father a distraction.
Since Gabriel Kane was nothing if not a poster boy for perfect behavior, he couldn’t be tempted with the normal things like partying, poker nights, strippers, or even taking massively smart classes in the quest to be the next Renaissance man. Never mind. Ariel had put together a plan, one that would produce something / someone to take his mind off her and Miranda. She had tried to run the idea by her sister, but Miranda just rolled her eyes, announced that the Stupid Shrink should give refunds, and left Ariel standing alone on the stairs.
Seriously, if it weren’t for her snooping, Ariel wouldn’t know anything at all about what Miranda was up to. Thank goodness the Shrink had made Miranda write in a journal, too. And Miranda wasn’t as good at hiding hers as Ariel was.
It was after reading Miranda’s latest lovesick entry about the left-behind boyfriend and wanting to get back at dad
“for ruining my life!!!”
that Ariel decided to find a new woman to keep their dad busy. Not a wife. No way would he ever marry again. He totally loved her mom. But a nice lady, someone to date, was the best Ariel had come up with.
Granted, for the last few months, Dad had dated plenty, but he hadn’t met anyone who held his attention for more than a nanosecond. And it was going to take more than a nanosecond to get him out of their hair.
In her original plan, she had considered taking out an online dating ad.
Wanted: Girlfriend
Nice man seeks really nice lady. There’s a kid involved (a little lanky, but cute in her own extremely intelligent way), though she won’t be any trouble, and I swear you’ll like her. Interested parties call: 212-555-0654.
Perfect wording, like a commercial for a made-for-TV movie, and that was bound to interest somebody. She figured there was zero reason to mention Miranda. At this point, a full-fledged high school–variety teenager would probably be a deal breaker for any sane woman.
But in the end, she couldn’t go through with it. If she spent her lunch money on an ad, one, it would take more than a few lunches’ worth to afford it; and two, what was she going to eat in the meantime? Contrary to popular belief, not all newly pubescent girls had dreams of anorexia. Beyond that, how did you screen out all the skanks, gold diggers, and weirdos when you ran an ad to the masses?
Of course, now there was Portia, from downstairs. She was interesting, if you could overlook the awful apartment. Was it possible to like living in a place with cracked windows and uneven floors? And what was up with the sink? Big and deep, with the pipes showing underneath. Ariel could have sworn she had seen pictures in her social studies book of places like that from New York City in the Dark Ages.
Not a big plus, but the lady seemed to be available, and she didn’t have that gold digger look in her eye. No self-respecting gold digger would get anywhere near that run-down apartment.
But she was kind of cool, even though she was a horrible dancer. Her hair was a nice sort of curly, which Ariel liked. And boy, could she cook. Didn’t they say that the way to a man’s heart was through his stomach?
Whatever, Ariel had to get this taken care of.
Miranda’s journal entries were getting weirder. She had gone from just drawing big teardrops all over a blank page to writing
Life Sucks!
And now she had moved on to
I Hate Dad.
No exclamation mark. Strangely, an exclamation mark would have made Ariel feel better about it. An exclamation mark meant emotion. Miranda’s journal didn’t seem to have an ounce of emotion in it anymore.
Ariel knew from experience that the clock was ticking before her sister did something stupid.
She wasn’t sure how she would hold on if another bad thing happened.
She was done with bad things. Seriously done.
Now she just needed the universe to listen to her.
Six
I
F ANYONE HAD TOLD
Portia a year ago that the only job she could get in New York City would be as a “hamburger,” she would have laughed and rolled her eyes. Not that she was much of an eye roller. But really? A hamburger? Could anyone with half a brain believe that a woman as smart as her could go from highly regarded Texas political wife to, well, hamburger?
But after two weeks of unsuccessful job hunting, that was exactly what she had done. Or rather, what she had become.
“Shoo!” Portia hissed, waddling down West Seventy-third Street as fast as the hamburger suit allowed, attempting to outpace the pack of little dogs that had escaped their dog walker.
It wasn’t as if she hadn’t thrown her heart into looking for a job. She had. She’d made calls and sent out résumés, but not a single person had been willing to so much as interview her. Sure, two weeks wasn’t that long in the scheme of things, but her bank account told a different tale. She needed money, sooner rather than later. Robert still hadn’t deposited the settlement in her account, and her savings were evaporating like a reservoir in the middle of a Texas dry spell.
As a result, she had jumped for joy when she received the e-mail from Angus Industries offering her a job in public relations. In hindsight, she should have wondered why they offered her employment without so much as an interview or a phone call. It turned out that
Food Industries PR
for Angus Industries hadn’t entailed any actual public relations work. Instead, when Portia arrived at the address provided, only a block away from her apartment, she found herself at Burger Boy, where she was handed a rubber hamburger suit and told to direct the public to the fast-food hellhole.
When Portia realized what the job entailed, she wanted to say no. A thousand different ways she
should
say no flashed through her mind. But her pride had to balance the staggering expense of living in New York. Was it possible that a two-dollar box of cereal in Texas cost five dollars in NYC?
End result?
She had pulled on the burger suit, though no sooner had the manager zipped her up than Portia thought it smelled strange. Mr. Burger Boy had assured her she was imagining things. But as she stood on Columbus Avenue trying to entice passersby with discount coupons, the unseasonably hot fall day beating down on her, the suit began to waft the aroma of charcoal-grilled burgers. Not long after that, the dogs that had been sitting clustered around their dog walker as he talked on his cell phone made a break for it and came after her, leashes flying in the wind, like buzzards sensing fresh kill.
The manager emerged from Burger Boy just long enough to threaten her miserable life if she let one of those dogs take a chunk out of his costume. She had tried to wiggle out of the suit, but the zipper was stuck. When the manager disappeared back inside the shop, she had fled.
Now she waddled down the long block toward home, going as fast as she could. Her hair had gotten loose, curls falling all over her face.
One thing was for sure: This was all her ex-husband’s fault. Well, her husband and her ex-friend Sissy LePlante. Portia swung along as fast as she could, her mind full of revenge fantasies—all of them involving skewering, grilling, or butchering. Hamburger related.
She was only two town houses away from her apartment when she realized that one dog was still following her. “Damnation!” she yelped, swatting at the pesky Jack Russell terrier leaping at her side, vibrating with excitement as he tried to get a piece of one of the two faux meat patties circling her waist. The only thing that kept the terrier from true success was that it kept getting tangled in its trailing leash.
Her husband thought she was a pushover?
Right.
Portia swung around and met the dog’s eye. “Go home!” she thundered.
He squeaked, tucked his leg between his legs, and tore off.
“Ha!” she chirped, swinging back around.
Straight ahead, she could see the thick green trees of Central Park at the end of the long tunnel formed by apartment buildings. Pedestrians, locals and tourists alike, got out of her way. No one, not even the hard-core New Yorkers who had given her nothing but grief since she’d moved to town, were going to mess with Portia Cuthcart in a burger suit, a murderous light in her eyes.
Finally, she made it to the town house. All she had to do was get inside her apartment, find a knife, and cut the burger right off her body before she suffocated or melted.
She barreled up the front steps and through the thankfully, if surprisingly, open front door into the building’s small vestibule. Momentum and velocity squeezed her through the opening, the sound of thick rubber against the door seal like a beach ball being rubbed to a squeal.
But if bad things come in threes—one, the burger suit, two, the dogs—then number three had to be the cherry on top … or the garnish on the burger. The very neighbor she had been working to avoid was in the vestibule, now crowded into a corner, his daughter on the opposite side.
Even plastered against the wall, Gabriel Kane made awareness slide along her skin.
“Oh, hello, Ariel,” she stated, her smile forced. “Mr. Kane.” What wouldn’t she have given to be dressed in a fabulous little dress rather than ten pounds of rubber.
“This is a surprise,” he replied, not looking one bit happy. “Though it explains where you’ve been every time I’ve stopped by to meet with you.”
Awareness, indeed. Sheez. How many times did she have to remind herself that he was an arrogant New Yorker who wanted something from her, though not anything that had to do with shivers of awareness. “That’s me. A regular busy beaver.”
His eyes widened fractionally. It didn’t take a genius to guess he wasn’t a man used to people snapping at him. But after a second, a smile tugged at the corner of his lips. “You mean, a busy
burger.
”
Portia glared at him. “Ha-ha.”
His reluctant half smile ticked up a notch. Heat rushed through her, the kind of heat that had nothing to do with the layers of the thick rubber suit, which just made her all the angrier.
The man wasn’t good looking in any classical sense, and never mind his broad shoulders, dark hair, and darker eyes. His features were rough-hewn in contrast to the quality of the suit he wore.
Portia hated his perfect suit.
On the other hand … that imperfect face? Lust. Even wrapped in a hamburger suit, she couldn’t miss the flash of non-rubber-induced heat rushing down her body. Yep, pure lust.
I’m attracted to men who are kind and quietly intelligent,
she told herself. Men who had sandy blond hair and light blue eyes, who held doors for ladies, and made liberal use of words like
please
and
thank you
.
The type of men who were stupid enough to run off with their wife’s best friend.
“Do you work for Five Guys?” Ariel asked. “That’s my favorite. If I was going to be a burger, I’d totally work for them.”
Gabriel raised one of those dark brows. “How is it in the competitive world of burgers?”
The book about courtesy her mother stole from the library was hard to set aside, even north of the Mason-Dixon Line. Portia drew a deep breath, fought for a polite smile, and said, “I was hired as a … representative of Burger Boy, not Five Guys. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll just get out of your way.”