efforts to keep it simple, his hunt for a wife was growing more complicated by the day.
I like her,' Heath said to Annabelle on the following Monday evening as Rachel left Sienna's. 'She's fun. I had a good time.'
'Me, too,' Annabelle said, even though that was hardly the point. But the introduction had gone better than she'd dared hope, with lots of laughter and lively conversation. The three of them had shared their food prejudices (Heath wouldn't touch an organ meat, Rachel hated olives, and Annabelle couldn't stomach anchovies). They told embarrassing stories from their high school years and debated the merits of the Coen brothers' movies. (Thumbs-up from Heath, thumbs-down from Rachel and Annabelle.) Heath didn't seem to mind that Rachel wasn't a knockout on the order of Gwen Phelps. She had both the polish and the brains he was looking for, and there were no cell phone interruptions. Annabelle allowed the twenty minutes to expand to forty.
'Good work, Tinker Bell.' He drew out his BlackBerry and typed a memo to himself. 'I'll call her tomorrow and ask her out.'
'Really? That's great.' She felt a little queasy.
He looked up from the BlackBerry. 'What's wrong?'
'Nothing. Why?'
'You have a funny expression.'
She pulled herself back together. She was a professional now, and she could handle this. 'I'm just imagining the newspaper interviews I'll give after Perfect for You hits the Fortune Five Hundred.'
'Nothing's more inspiring than a girl with a dream.' He returned the BlackBerry to his pocket and withdrew his well-stuffed money clip. She frowned. He frowned back. 'Now what?'
'Don't you have a nice, discreet credit card tucked away somewhere?'
'In my business, it's all about the flash.' He flashed a hundred-dollar bill and tossed it on the table.
'I'm only mentioning it because, as I think I told you, image consultation is part of my business.' She hesitated, knowing she had to tread carefully. 'For some women… women of a certain upbringing… obvious displays of wealth can be a little off-putting.'
'Believe me, they're not off-putting to twenty-one-year-old kids who've grown up with food stamps.'
'I see your point, but-'
'Got it. Money clip for business, credit card for courtship.' He slipped the object under discussion back into his pocket.
She'd basically accused him of vulgarity, but instead of being offended, he seemed to have filed the information away as dispassionately as if she'd given him tomorrow's weather report. She considered his flawless table manners, the way he dressed, his knowledge of food and wine. Clearly these things had all been part of his curriculum, right along with torts and constitutional law. Exactly who was Heath Champion, and why was she beginning to like him so much?
She pleated her cocktail napkin. 'So… about your real name…?'
'I already told you. Campione.'
'I did some research. Your middle initial is D.'
'Which stands for none of your damned business.'
'Something bad then.'
'Horrifying,' he said dryly. 'Look, Annabelle, I grew up in a trailer park. Not a nice mobile home park-that would have been paradise. These heaps weren't good enough for scrap. The neighbors were addicts, thieves, people who'd gotten lost in the system. My bedroom looked out over a junkyard. I lost my mother in a car accident when I was four. My old man was a decent guy when he wasn't drunk, but that wasn't very often. I earned everything I have, and I'm proud of that. I don't hide where I came from. That dented metal sign on my office wall, the one that says beau vista, used to hang on a post not far from our door. I keep it as a reminder of how far I've come. But beyond that, my business is mine, and yours is doing what I tell you. Got it?'
'Jeez, all I did was ask your middle name.'
'Don't ask again.'
'Desdemona?'
But he refused to entertain her, and she ended up staring at his back as he headed for the kitchen to pay his respects to Mama.
I want you in the clubs every night,' Portia announced to her staff the next morning. Ramon, Sienna's bartender, had awakened her at midnight with the disturbing news about Annabelle Granger's success with her latest match, and she hadn't been able to fall back to sleep. She couldn't get past the feeling that another important client was slipping away from her. 'Pass out your business cards,' she told Kiki and Briana, along with Diana, the girl she'd hired to replace SuSu. 'Pick up phone numbers. You know the routine.'
'We've done that,' Briana said.
'But apparently not well enough or Heath Champion wouldn't have made plans with Granger's prospect last night instead of ours. And what about Hendricks and Mccall? We haven't shown them anybody new in two weeks? What about the rest of our clients? Kiki, I want you to spend the rest of the week staking out the modeling agencies. I'll hit the charity luncheons and the Oak Street boutiques. Briana and Diana, work the hair salons and the big department stores. All of you-clubs at night. By this time next week, we're going to be screening a fresh batch of candidates.'
'A lot of good it'll do with Heath,' Briana muttered. 'He doesn't like anybody.'
They didn't get it, Portia thought as she returned to her office and flipped through her calendar. They didn't understand how hard you had to work to stay on top. She gazed down at Friday's calendar entry. In a short, terse phone conversation, Bodie Gray had set up their date for this weekend. She'd done her best not to think about it since. Just the possibility that someone might see them together gave her nightmares. But at least he didn't seem to have told Heath about her spying episode.
A helicopter flew overhead. She rubbed her temples and considered setting up a spa day. She needed something to lift her spirits, something to make her feel like her old self again. But as she turned toward her computer, a traitorous voice whispered there weren't enough massages, ayurvedic facials, or hot stone pedicures in the world to fix whatever wanted to stop working inside her.
Annabelle couldn't afford to pin all her hopes on Rachel's date with Heath, so she spent the rest of the week hanging out at two of Chicago's top universities. At the University of Chicago in Hyde Park, she alternated between haunting the hallways of the Graduate School of Business and lingering by the steps of the Harris School of Public Policy. She also made her way to Lincoln Park, where she spent most of her time with the music majors at the De Paul Concert Hall. At both schools, she kept her eyes open for comely graduate students and beautiful faculty members. When she found them, she approached them directly, explained who she was and what she was looking for. Some were married or engaged, one was a lesbian, but the world loves a matchmaker, and most of the women were interested in helping her. By the end of the week, she had two great candidates ready to go if she needed them, as well as half a dozen women who weren't right for Heath, but who were interested in signing on as clients themselves. Since they couldn't afford the kinds of fees she wanted to charge, she established an academic discount. Heath was out of town for the week, and he didn't call. Not that she expected him to. Still, for someone who spent all his time on the phone, she would have thought he could have spared a few minutes to check in with her. Instead of stewing about it, she slipped on her sneakers, jogged to Dunkin' Donuts, and distracted herself with an apple Danish.
Heath spent the first four days of the week traveling between Dallas, Atlanta, and St. Louis, but even as he met with clients and player personnel directors, he found himself thinking ahead to his Friday afternoon powwow at Stars headquarters. When it came to the Stars, he tried to do as much business as possible with Ron McDermitt, the team's top-notch general manager, but once again Phoebe Calebow had insisted on seeing him instead. Not a good sign.
Heath prided himself on having a good relationship with all the team owners. Phoebe was the glaring exception. It was his fault they'd gotten off to a bad start. One of his first clients had been a Green Bay veteran unhappy with the contract his former agent had negotiated. Heath wanted to prove how tough he was, so when the Stars expressed interest in the guy, Heath had unfairly strung Phoebe along, letting her believe she had a good chance at
