Harvard hottie, p.4
Harvard Hottie, page 4
“Good,” he says. “Because I’m going to need your help cutting the fat. Tell me, are there any female employees that you think are going to be getting pregnant in the near future? We don’t want any maternity leaves right now.”
I know Gloria, two cubicles down from me, has been trying to get pregnant, but I can’t tell him that. I don’t want her to get fired.
“No, I don’t,” I say quickly.
Luke narrows his eyes at me. “Are you lying to me, Ms. Jenson?”
I swallow. “No, of course not, Mr. Thayer.”
“Next,” he says, “I want you to do a thorough search through the company employees’ medical records.”
“Medical records?” I stare at him. This has gone from evil to illegal.
“That’s right,” he confirms. “I want to weed out any abnormalities, any critical medical conditions.”
I nod, thinking of poor Bob in sales, who had a heart attack last year.
“But mostly, anything weird,” he says. “I don’t want any freaks working under me. I want them fired. Especially anyone born with extra toes, extra fingers…”
At that moment, I look at Luke’s face and I see a grin slipping through.
Shit, he recognized me.
“Ho ho, very funny,” I say.
“Oh, come on, Ellie,” Luke says, grinning full on now. “That was freaking hilarious. The look on your face… I wish I had a camera.”
“I didn’t think you’d recognize me,” I admit.
“Of course I recognized you,” he says. “How could I forget my first college crush? Who horribly and painfully rejected me, I should add. And now I’m her boss.” He grins wider at the expression on my face. “Lucky for you, I don’t hold a grudge.”
My shoulders relax as I study Luke’s face for a second. As messed up as he is below the neck, he’s still very attractive from the neck up. Now that I’m looking closer, I notice a small pale scar under his right eye and one down along his jawline. The scars mar the perfection of his features, but also give him this really sexy rugged look. I’m not sure why I’m thinking about this, though.
“So aren’t you going to ask?” he says.
“Huh?” I reply innocently.
“‘Oh my god, Luke, what happened to you?!’ Or something along those lines.” He raises his eyebrows at me.
“What do you mean?” I say delicately.
“Oh geez, Ellie, I guess you didn’t notice… I’m in a wheelchair.” He gives me a mock sober expression. “A lot of people think I just shrunk or something.”
“Okay, okay, I noticed,” I admit. “But you don’t have to tell me anything.”
He shrugs. “It’ll save you the trouble of asking Google. Anyway, I broke my neck. Rock climbing. Damn twenty-three-year-olds, think they’re indestructible.”
If he was twenty-three when this happened, that means he’s been disabled for over a decade. I guess that explains why he’s so comfortable wheeling himself around.
“Anyway,” he says, his voice growing more formal, “this isn’t entirely a social call, although I admit it’s been fun. The truth is that there are going to be cutbacks here. Big ones. But I’d like to make the right decisions, and that’s why I need your help.”
I nod, feeling slightly ill. If he makes me fire somebody, I may have to quit.
“Don’t worry, I wouldn’t ask you to fire anyone,” Luke says, demonstrating he still has the ability to read my mind. “But I need your opinions. You’re smart, Ellie. In fact, I heard you went to Harvard.”
I make a face at him. “You got a higher grade in expos than I did.” He got an A to my A-minus. He made a point of telling me.
Luke grins. “I said you were smart. I didn’t say you were smarter than me.”
I finally leave Luke’s office with an agreement to meet tomorrow for a working lunch to talk more about the cutbacks. Every time I close my eyes, I can see the image of Luke sitting in that wheelchair. I’m not quite sure how to feel about it all, but I’m beginning to get the sense that I was really wrong about Luke Thayer all those years ago.
Chapter Six
I wear make-up again the next day and a dress rather than my usual comfortable pants suit, although I’m not entirely sure why. Even as I was applying the eyeliner and blinking away the little black specks that got into my eye, I wasn’t sure why I was making such an effort. I guess there’s a part of me that always sort of wants to impress Luke.
Jenna immediately notices the difference. “You’re wearing make-up again,” she points out.
“Yes,” I say. No comment.
She narrows her eyes at me. “Are you having another meeting with Luke today?”
“A working lunch,” I mumble.
“He’s taking you to lunch?!” Jenna nearly screams.
“Shush!” I say, my face turning red. “And it’s a business lunch. Totally business.”
“Sure it is,” Jenna says, grinning at the look on my face. “Hey, I don’t blame you if he’s as cute as in the photos.”
“He’s not,” I say. “Believe me.”
“Well, he’s pretty fine in the pictures,” she says.
“Look, Jenna,” I say patiently. “Lu… er, Mr. Thayer is… he’s… disabled. He’s in a wheelchair.”
Jenna’s lips form a little O. “Oh my God! Are you serious?”
“Yes.”
“Wow,” she breathes. “Gosh, I had no idea.”
And after that revelation, she doesn’t hint at me again that I might be interested in Luke. Which is good because, you know, I’m not.
Luke told me to come to his office at noon, so I arrive at 11:55, hoping he won’t comment on how anally punctual I always am. I can’t help but notice that his assistant Michelle is freaking gorgeous. She’s got that blonde, slim but curvy, tall physique, like all the girls I used to see Luke with in college. She’s also got to be all of twenty-five.
As Michelle ushers me into Luke’s office and shuts the door behind me, I can’t help but make a comment. “She’s really gorgeous,” I say.
Luke glances up from a thick stack of papers on his desk. “Yeah, she is, huh?”
“Are you sleeping with her?” I say the question as a joke, but it strikes me as the words come out that I’m serious. She’s exactly the kind of secretary that bosses all sleep with.
“God, no,” Luke says, looking shocked by my question.
I blush. “I was just kidding.”
“Were you?” He raises his eyebrows. “Anyway, even if I were the kind of guy who slept with his secretaries, which I’m not, she’s not my type.”
Not his type? Michelle is pretty much everyone’s type. Hell, she’s even my type and I’m a heterosexual woman.
When we head down in the elevator, I assume Luke’s going to get a car service to pick us up, so I’m surprised when we go to the garage in the basement. “Where are you leading me?” I ask him.
“My car,” Luke says.
His car? I watch Luke push himself out of the elevator and I can’t figure how he’s going to be able to drive a car. Even though I’m less shocked by his appearance than I was yesterday, I still think that he looks very impaired. The weirdest thing is his posture. Luke used to have a ramrod-straight spine, to the point where I felt like I could put a book on his head in the morning and it would still be there in the evening. But now it’s like he has no muscles at all in his trunk. I can tell he’s aware of it because he frequently pushes his hand against his thigh in order to straighten himself out. I mean, it’s not awful or anything. To be honest, he may still have better posture than me. But when I think of that night in college when I saw Luke naked and how effortlessly perfect his body was, I imagine it must kill him the way he looks right now.
Luke’s car is a Mercedes. Naturally. I watch as he lifts his body from his wheelchair into the front seat, then pops the wheels off his chair and tosses it behind him into the back seat. As I get into the car next to him, I guess he notices I’m staring, because he says, “What?”
“I thought…” I bite my lip. “To be honest, I figured you’d need help getting into a car.”
“You wouldn’t be the first,” he says. He smiles at my questioning look. “I’ve had a lot of practice. Most people think quadriplegics can’t do anything for themselves, but that’s not the reality for a low-level injury like mine.”
“Also,” I say, blushing slightly. “I just figured you’d have a chauffeur.”
Luke laughs. “Yeah, that sounds like me.”
“Well…”
He starts up the car and places his right hand on what seems to be an accelerator of some sort. Obviously, he doesn’t have full use of his hands and I’m a little worried about being in this car with him, but he’s my boss so I guess I don’t have a choice. “I don’t really like having everything done for me,” he says.
I can’t resist: “So do you scrub your own toilet, then?”
Luke grins. “Wow, Ellie. You haven’t changed at all.”
I furrow my brow. Is that an insult? It must be. I was so lame back in college. “Yes, I have.”
He glances at me as he pulls out of the garage. “Well, your hair is different. It looks nice.”
“Thanks…”
“Although I liked it before.”
I roll my eyes. “Okay, now I know you’re putting me on. I looked like Roseanne Roseannadanna.”
“Who?”
“You know,” I say. “That character Gilda Radner used to play on Saturday Night Live with the gigantic frizzy hair?”
“Oh,” Luke says. “Yeah, I guess you did kind of look like that. But it was adorable. You were like one big giant pouf of hair.”
I groan. “Thanks a lot.”
He shrugs. “Well, anyway, you’ve changed less than I have.”
“Yeah, I have to say… I’m kind of impressed. I never would have thought you’d be able to handle… you know, all this.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“Well, you have to admit,” I say, “you were pretty spoiled.”
“Fair enough,” Luke says as we head in the direction of the North End. He’s amazingly doing a pretty good job maneuvering through the disarray of the streets of Boston. And by “good,” I mean he’s aggressive as hell. Let me tell you something about Boston drivers: They’re insane. I grew up in Jersey and I thought they were insane over there, but Boston is a million times worse. The streets of Boston make absolutely no sense: streets change names, zig-zag, and do all kind of things, and it makes the people who drive here lose their freaking minds. “Actually, you’re kind of right,” he says. “When I first got injured, I didn’t handle it very well at all. I got it in my head that disability was something for the lower class and that I had enough money to walk again.”
That kind of sounds like the Luke I used to know. “So what happened?” I ask, too curious to be tactful.
“I did my best,” he says. “I got involved in every experimental study under the sun. I let myself get braced up to my armpits but I still couldn’t take even one step unassisted. I hired some phony psychic who swore she saw a vision of me walking again. I was really out of my mind. I wouldn’t even sit in a wheelchair because I thought that was like giving up. In fact, I threw a fit if someone even mentioned a wheelchair to me and my dad encouraged my behavior because he didn’t want me to be crippled any more than I did. He even paid some nurses to carry me everywhere and basically do everything for me. I couldn’t even shower by myself.”
“For how long?” I ask, wide-eyed.
“I’m embarrassed to tell you,” he says. Then he adds, “Two years.”
“Two years?”
“Just about,” he says. “I still remember: I was about a month away from the two-year anniversary of my injury. I was lying in bed at home and I was hungry. It was such a basic thing but there was nothing I could do about it. I tried to hit the call button but I knocked it onto the floor. So I just lay there, screaming for help for like thirty minutes. I felt so… I don’t know… I guess ‘ridiculous’ is probably the best word. A week later, I had a wheelchair and got into an inpatient rehab program.”
“Wow,” I say.
“Yeah,” he agrees. “Rehab was kind of rough, especially for a spoiled brat like me. But they made me do everything myself, which was just what I needed. To be honest, after getting carried around for two years, you pretty much don’t want anybody’s help with anything again. Ever.”
Luke pulls into the small parking lot of an expensive-looking Italian restaurant. I’m about to point out to him that the lot is full, which was always an issue when I went to the North End in the past, but then I realize that, of course, he can park in the handicapped spot. “Okay,” he says as he kills the engine. “You can pry your fingers off the dashboard now.”
“Shut up,” I say, although I notice I’m a bit shaky as I climb out of the car. I guess you have to be an aggressive driver if you live in Boston, but there were a few times when I saw my life flashing before my eyes.
As soon as I see the Italian restaurant, I get this awful sinking feeling. This isn’t the kind of place you have a business lunch. You don’t have a business lunch in a place with dim lighting and candles on every table. We’re the only people in this place who aren’t holding hands. “Um,” I say. “Have you been here before?”
“Nope,” Luke says. “But I heard it was wicked good food and that they had parking.” He squints. “Kind of dark, isn’t it?”
Luke’s made reservations and the hostess leads us to our table, which has got to be the most secluded table in the whole damn restaurant. I keep telling myself that he didn’t know the restaurant was so dark and romantic and that he didn’t pick the table, but then again, what if he did?
We’ve been seated for less than a minute when a waiter dashes over to our table. “May I offer you a drink?”
“I’ll have a glass of pinot noir,” Luke says.
I know having a glass of wine at lunch isn’t a big deal, but I feel like it’s somehow important to have complete control of my senses now. Plus, I’m a lightweight and even one glass of wine is liable to alter my judgment.
“I’ll have a ginger ale,” I say.
Luke stares at me. I desperately wish I could take back my order, but the waiter has already dashed off to bring our drinks.
“Ginger ale?” he repeats. “Are you five?”
“I like ginger ale,” I say defensively. I pick up my menu and study it intently, avoiding his gaze.
“You know,” he says, grinning, “they don’t have any Happy Meals on there, if that’s what you’re looking for.”
Ho ho, very funny.
The prices in this restaurant are horrifying. I don’t think I’ve ever seen food this expensive before. I end up ordering a salad, even though Luke assures me that the company is paying for the meal and that I should order something big and expensive and that “comes with a toy.” He orders a steak, which costs slightly less than my rent.
“Okay,” Luke says after the waiter takes our orders to the kitchen, “now down to business.”
Finally. He really does want to talk business with me. I’m relieved.
And also slightly disappointed?
Luke starts spouting out numbers at me and I realize he’s memorized the revenues of each division of our company. This guy knows his stuff. “I really hate to fire anyone,” he says, “but every company has excess. You guys have a lot of excess.”
“Why does everything have to be about profit?” I ask angrily. For a moment, I feel like we’re back in expos class, fighting over a story by Flannery O’Connor.
“I didn’t buy the company to take a loss, Ellie,” he says. And suddenly, I realize that he’s right. He’s not a humanitarian, he’s a businessman. Why would he buy a company just to lose money?
When I’m quiet, he raises his eyebrows at me. “Nothing else to say?”
I shrug. “Well, you’re right. I guess.”
“Holy shit,” he says. “I can’t believe my ears. Twelve Fingers just admitted I’m right. I thought that was against your religion. Maybe you really have changed since college.”
I laugh. “Come on, I wasn’t that bad.”
“Bad?” He smiles. “I loved arguing with you, Ellie. I used to lie in bed awake the night before, trying to think of what I could say to rile you up.”
I stare at him. “You did not!”
“Of course I did,” he insists. “You were so cute arguing with me. That was the best part of my week.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. What I thought were heated angry debates was apparently just foreplay to Luke. It figures, I guess.
“So aren’t you going to tell me why your division is the best one?” he says. “And everyone else is shit? That’s what your buddy Lewis did.”
“He didn’t!” I gasp.
“Don’t worry,” Luke says. “He at least said nice things about you. He thinks you’re pretty awesome. In fact, I’d say he’s got quite the crush on you.”
Oh God, that better not be true. “I don’t think so.”
“Oh, I would say he definitely does,” Luke says and winks at me. “So, um, does he have a chance? Are you seeing someone?”
I watch Luke as he picks up his wine glass with his right hand, sliding the neck of his glass between his third and fourth digits, and takes a sip. I keep looking at his hands, with those deep grooves, as much as I try not to. Despite the way they look on the back, his palms seem more normal and they seem to function fairly well, as far as I can tell. But still, they seem like the kind of hands you’d see on some… I don’t know, disabled person. Which I guess is what he is. I shift in my seat. “Yes, I have a boyfriend.”
Surprise registers on Luke’s face. “Oh?” he says. “Is it serious?”
Why not go for broke? “Yes, it’s pretty serious.” It’s fun pretending I have a serious boyfriend. Much better than telling people I haven’t had a date in months.
“I had no idea,” Luke says in a subdued voice. “What’s his name?”
