Strapless

“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. An acrylic sweater, of course. Greta couldn’t afford cashmere. She couldn’t even afford Darcie’s silk-wool blends. Greta knew because she sneaked looks at Baxter’s labels whenever the opportunity arose. Setting her coffee and cruller bag on the desk, she went to work. Nancy deserved this round of snooping. So did Walter.

Even the thought of his name made Greta’s heart bump.

As for Darcie… With a brisk sense of purpose, she set about her task.

At Wunderthings, no one locked drawers. Greta had worked in offices where privacy, and security, were matters for paranoia. Not so here. Thank goodness. It amazed her, but in her five years with the company—she and Walter had started on the same day—she had learned a lot in these early morning sessions.

If only Nancy hadn’t caught her with Darcie’s proposal.

The office felt more empty than usual this morning—and the solitude fairly shrieked of her own defeat.

Thanks to Nancy, Darcie Baxter was now in Sydney. With Walter.

The double insult was not to be borne.

After a brief foray through the desk drawers, Greta pulled Nancy’s in-basket toward her. She plowed through monthly reports, expense account renderings, phone messages…finding nothing of interest. Still, you never knew.

Darcie’s naiveté would be her downfall—if Greta had anything to say about it. She just needed to wait for her next opportunity, and keep searching. No way would that dark-haired, hazel-eyed, trim little witch from Ohio trump her ace again. With Nancy’s help, of course.

She ruffled through a stack of invoices, including Walter’s AmEx bill for his tickets to Australia, and felt a heavy rush of desire that pooled down low in her stomach. Walter…

He never noticed her. Not really. But that, too, would change.

When the elevator doors whooshed open at the end of the hall, Greta crouched low behind Nancy’s desk. What eager beaver had shown up early this morning? Not Nancy, she hoped. Not Walter. Certainly not Darcie, who was probably at this very moment wrapped around him in some Sydney hotel room. Why couldn’t Baxter be satisfied with her new job assignment? Wasn’t that enough? Did she need Walter Corwin, too?

Anger boiled in her veins.

Greta cocked her head to listen for a moment, but the person who exited the elevator—whoever it might be—walked down an adjacent corridor, and his footsteps faded. Probably one of the big brass…none of whom had ever acknowledged her contributions to Wunderthings International.

She would outlast them all.

One of these days Walter would recognize her value. He would overlook the rumblings from the office malcontents who tried to blame her for their own creative shortcomings. Darcie Baxter among them.