Beyond Breathless

“It would make sense,” he said with a curt nod.

He seemed polite, logical, with that extra quotient of testosterone that fluttered her insides.

Jamie didn’t need fluttered insides today, or any day, so she started to tell him no.

But those eyes.

Intense, sexy, and slightly geeky. Those eyes currently held her tongue in check.

You need to get to Connecticut. He’s right.

Weak, very weak, McNamara.

Her insides fluttered again, she nodded. “Okay.” She held out her hand. “I’m Jamie. Pleased to make your acquaintance.”

“Andrew,” he said. His hand touched hers briefly. Nothing too personal. The handshake was crisp, businesslike.

Andrew. The name fit. Strong, intelligent, steadfast.

He spoke again, and embarrassingly, it took her ten seconds to realize he wasn’t speaking to her. He was speaking into the wireless earpiece hanging low next to his mouth.

It was a nice mouth, if you were a woman who noticed the male mouth. Jamie usually didn’t, but this bottom lip belonged to a man who would never spout poetry or renegotiate a deal. Firm, decisive, driven.

Just like her.

For a moment, Jamie let herself relax. Her mother had always said she was too driven, that she’d have a heart attack before she was thirty-five. Maybe, but at least Jamie would know that she had tried. She had plans, goals, ambitions, and she could get there, heart attacks notwithstanding.

In Manhattan, you had to be hard, driven, and relentless in order to make it.

And sometimes, you needed a reward.

Jamie fished in the briefcase, finding the inside pocket that held her secret stash. She broke off the tiniest of pieces, just a bite, just a hint, just a taste, and popped it in her mouth while no one was looking.

The milk chocolate sugar rush washed over her, and she closed her eyes in bliss.

Oh, God, that was good.

Immediately the cravings struck again, but some of her mother’s lectures were too deeply ingrained, so with a look of longing, she closed her briefcase, and put it away.

But tomorrow was another day.

They waited on the crowded sidewalk, frustrated commuters surrounding them, until finally Andrew tugged at her arm. She followed him to the south end of the block, past an interminable line of occupied cabs, hurrying pedestrians, and honking cars.

Eventually he stopped at a car and her mouth gaped.

Car was a euphemistic term only.

This monstrosity was a white Hummer limo that was as close to tacky as a black velvet Elvis.

The big chrome wheels trimmed in gold, the endless line of doors, the tinted windows—it screamed of junior proms or drunken women flinging their bras out of the roof.

Oh, God, he was in the music business.

A neat little man emerged from the driver’s seat and then opened the passenger door. “Continental Cars, at your service.”

“This?” Andrew asked, and Jamie was relieved to hear horror in his voice.

“It’s all we have, sir. Cars are in big demand now since the trains aren’t running.”

Jamie averted her gaze from the vehicle, the block-long engineering defect making her corneas burn.

“Maybe a Town Car?” Andrew asked the driver hopefully.

He shook his head. “We’re fresh out. Take it or leave it.”

Andrew looked at Jamie, a question in his eyes.

She wanted to flee, alligator-trimmed heels poised in a northward position, but instead she weighed her options, her sensible side telling her to call Newhouse and reschedule.

Newhouse.

Now there was a name to pull her right into a Hummer.

It’d taken her three months, fourteen phone calls, and three Powerpoint presentations to get one heel in the Newhouse door.

A lesser woman would have abandoned the situation, put a minus in the credit column and walked away, but the prize kept her in the game. Newhouse was one of the few software companies to not just survive, but thrive during the tech bust, and now they were rolling in cash. Cash that needed to be strategically invested because the bread crumbs that their current firm was earning for them were pitiful. Bond-Worthington could change all that, and Jamie, the top client-relations rep at the firm, was the one assigned to recruit them. To date, it had been an uphill battle. But Jamie was made of tough stuff.

The name Jamie McNamara meant nothing to Newhouse and his Gorgon of a secretary, but they would soon learn…

Assuming she could get to Connecticut before lunch.

She took another look at the vehicle and tried not to shudder.

Hummer limos were for sleazy account managers, girls gone bonkers, and South Beach.

She didn’t like this ostentatious hulk of metal on wheels, but the Newhouse account was calling. If she had to ride in a Hummer limo, well, suck it up McNamara, there are worse things in life.

She took a deep breath and nodded, echoes of a porno soundtrack spinning in her head.

Andrew held open the door, and before she could change her mind, Jamie climbed inside.

ANDREW BROOKS HAD a conference call in ten minutes and idle conversation wasn’t his forte, but thankfully, the woman didn’t seem to expect him to talk. Instead, she pulled out a copy of the Wall Street Journal and began to read.

He nearly smiled, because he knew just how she felt. People got in the way of productivity. Always wanting to ask him advice, or talk about a hot date, or worse yet, analyze Survivor. Survivor: The Wall Street Edition, that’s what they needed. That was one game that Andrew would win. Every time.

The limo was hideous, red leather seats and the ceiling was covered with sparkling lights that blinked on and off. He thought there was a pattern, but was afraid to discover what it was.

He glanced over at “Jamie,” wondering what her story was. She was tall and sleek, clad in a dark suit that was almost masculine in its severity. But those black shoes…