“I’ll have her get back to you,” Stephanie said, trying not to yawn into the phone. She was exhausted. To avoid Gabrielle and any opportunity to relay Miguel Reid’s message verbally, she’d stayed out last night until well after 2 A.M. and was out of the house this morning before seven. She was tired as hell, but what was a little missed sleep when she had the sweet satisfaction of revenge?
Stephanie leaned back in her chair and smiled. The clock on her desk told her it was 9:47 A.M. If all was right, Gabrielle was sitting in the doctor’s office with Beatrice, blissfully ignorant that she was missing the opportunity of a lifetime, while Miguel Reid was writing her off as a beautiful but irresponsible lush.
Eye for an eye, Gaby. You took my boyfriend. I stole your chance at fame. Stephanie was still smiling as she answered the phone.
“I need to talk to Ms. Wilcot.”
“May I tell her who’s calling?”
“This is Lexis Richards. If she’s there, could you put me through?”
“Okay, Mr. Richards,” Stephanie replied. “Felicia, line two.”
“Felicia Wilcot.”
“Lexis Richards here, calling to apologize.”
“You don’t say,” Felicia said before hanging up the receiver. Whether he was sorry or not, she had no desire to talk with Lexis Richards. She was still fuming over his behavior at the Montell Spirits party—behavior that had landed her in the tabloid press. Granted, Star Diary, with its band of storytellers loosely referred to as reporters, wasn’t taken seriously by anyone in her line of work, but still—calling her event tacky? That kind of publicity she did not need.
The phone rang again. “Stephanie, if that’s Lexis Richards, I’m not in,” Felicia shouted through the room divider. After three unanswered rings, Felicia peeked around the screen to find Stephanie’s chair vacant.
“Damn,” she said as the phone continued to ring. She considered letting the answering service pick up, but she was expecting an important call from Atlanta.
“Felicia Wilcot,” she answered, hoping not to hear Lexis’s voice.
“Don’t hang up. Just listen to me for a minute.”
“You have nothing to say that I want to hear.”
“Give me one minute.”
“Thirty seconds.”
“Look, I’m sorry about the other night. I didn’t mean to embarrass you or screw up your party.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, Mr. Richards. Your outburst did not ruin my party. Other than your equally rude sparring partner, no one really gave a damn that you were there.”
“Why are you so bitchy? I did call to say I’m sorry.”
“And you think calling me a bitch is the way to apologize?”
“I did not call you a bitch. I said you were acting bitchy.”
“Whatever. Your thirty seconds are up.”
“Wait. I want to talk to you about repping me. I’ve been catching much heat over these gangbangers cuttin’ up at my movies, and I need some damage control. These studio clowns don’t know what they’re doing. I need somebody on my side. I need you. What do you think?”
“I think you’ve got to be kidding. It’s pretty obvious that we can’t be in the same room together without arguing. How in the world do you think we could have a productive working relationship? So look, I accept your apology, no hard feelings, and good luck.”
As Felicia hung up the phone, she couldn’t help wondering if she was acting a bit too hastily. After all, he did call to apologize and was actually very civilized until she’d started acting, well … bitchy. And if she was honest with herself, she’d have to admit that Lexis was the inspiration behind the entire Montell event. Had he not challenged her that evening at her father’s birthday party, she would have never thought to combine her two clients. Still, there was something about Lexis Richards that got her defenses up. He was such an arrogant, opinionated, egotistical jackass. How could she work with a man like that? It was enough that she was married to one. Speaking of Trace, she’d best get going. She was having lunch with him following her meeting at Asylum Records, and he didn’t like to be kept waiting.
“Damn, she’s cold,” Lexis said, smiling as he dialed her office number again.
Stephanie, back from the mailbox, answered the phone.
“Hi. Lexis Richards again, can you get me your boss?”
“What did you say to her? She didn’t look too happy walking out the door.”
“How can she be gone? I just talked to her.”
“Honestly. You just missed her. She left for a ten-o’clock meeting.”
“What time will she be back?”
“Not until later this afternoon,” Stephanie said, checking Felicia’s calendar. “She has a lunch appointment at noon.”
“Where?”
“You are persistent, aren’t you?”
“Yeah, when I want something.”
“May I be frank? You’re already on her … shall we say poop list. If you show up and interrupt lunch with her husband, you’re going to zoom right to the top. Why not slow down? I’ll just leave her a message that you called and—”
“Won’t work. First of all, in my business if you’re slow you blow. You have to go after what you want and make things happen. If I wait for her to call back, Willard Scott will be wishing me happy birthday on the ‘Today’ show. So why don’t you do me a favor?”
“This is going to get me in trouble, isn’t it?” Stephanie asked, chuckling.
Lexis laughed. “Probably. But I’ll make you a deal. Tell me where she’s eating, and if she fires you, I’ll double any severance pay. How’s that sound?”
“Not so fast,” Stephanie said slowly as a plan hatched in her head. If Lexis Richards was bound and determined to hook up with Felicia and needed her help to do it, she should get something out of it.
“What else?”
“I’m only working here until my writing starts to pay off. So here’s my offer: I tell you where Felicia’s having lunch and you agree to let me write a feature profile on you.”
Lexis’s boisterous laugh rang in Stephanie’s ears. “As long as you don’t dis me or my movie, you have a deal. You can call my publicist tomorrow and set it up. So where can I find your boss?”
“Palio Restaurant on Fifty-first at noon. Now, a deal’s a deal,” she said as she scrambled to find a pen. “Who’s your publicist?”
“Felicia Wilcot. I think you have the number.”
Lexis was standing outside Palio’s at 11:50 A.M. when he spotted Felicia turn the corner of Fifty-first Street and head toward the restaurant.
“What’s up?” he asked, smiling.
Ignoring his presence, Felicia pushed past Lexis and entered the bar area of the restaurant to wait for Trace. To her extreme irritation, Lexis followed her inside. Her first instinct was to move to the other side of the room, but she didn’t want to create a scene, particularly when her husband could walk in any minute.
“I browbeat your secretary into telling me where you were having lunch. Don’t get mad at her, she really didn’t have a choice. When I want something, I have a way of getting it.”
“Oh, really. And what exactly do you want from me?”
“Like I said on the phone. I’m tired of getting dissed by the press. All this print on the shootings is making some of the theater owners nervous. Three more are threatening to pull out. Southeast is being platformed—”
“Platformed?”
“When a studio platforms a movie, it opens it up in just a handful of major cities to see if it gets good reviews and enough word of mouth to build up an audience. If folks talk it up and the thing makes money, the studio releases it into more theaters. If I don’t get this bullsh—sorry, this problem under control, these white-boy theater owners aren’t going to want to touch Southeast. I didn’t work this hard for it to end because of some bad press. I really need your help, Felicia.”
Felicia listened, touched by his sincerity and obvious concern for his movie. Lexis was trying to keep his creative vision alive, despite the unfair rap some of the press was putting on him. Maybe she could help him. The truth be told, maybe he could help her, too.
Possessed with the winning combination of marketing, writing, producing, and directing genius, Lexis was touted as a budding talent, destined for the top. Representing him, with his hot temper and outspoken manner, would keep her busy and constantly visible, giving her company much-needed exposure. Lexis could be the one who put Wilcot & Associates on the map. Besides, even with the success of Montell Spirits, she was in no position to turn down a potentially lucrative account.
“Mr. Richards—”
“Lexis. Let’s not be so formal—since we’ll be working together,” he said, flashing a beguiling smile.
“Lexis, I think you’re absolutely right, you do need representation. Without it, you’re bound to self-destruct before you have the opportunity to fulfill the potential everyone feels you possess.”
Lexis smiled at the veiled compliment. They were making progress. He could feel victory within his grasp.
“However,” Felicia continued, “I am not convinced that I’m the right person for this job. Let’s face it, we don’t seem to get along very well. If our short history is any indication, we can’t seem to coexist for more than two minutes without getting into a screaming match. That’s no basis for a productive professional relationship.”
“I’ll admit that you do push my buttons, but, hey, we’ve been talking now for at least three minutes and you’ve only insulted me once.”
“I push your buttons—” Felicia started, but was stopped short by her own laughter. “I’ll tell you what, we’ll try this on a trial basis. If in ninety days this relationship works out, we’ll talk about an extension. If it doesn’t, no hard feelings.”
“Bet.”
“I’ll draw up a proposal and contract and have it sent to your office. Oh, and I don’t come cheap. My retainer is three thousand dollars per month.”
“Cool, but you’ll earn every penny,” Lexis countered with a grin and extended his hand to consummate the deal.
“I have no doubt,” she answered, taking his hand into hers. It was soft and smooth, his grip powerful. “Try to keep your mouth shut for the next few days, just until we can get a plan of action together.”
“Well, who have we here?” Trace interrupted.
Felicia felt her heart jump as she turned and looked into her husband’s face. It wasn’t the acrobatics of a heart in love, but rather a heart put on alert, braced for trouble. Felicia knew that Trace’s invitation to lunch was an attempt to break the stony silence that had descended upon their relationship since his failure to appear at the Montell party.
“Trace, I’d like you to meet my client, Lexis Richards. Lexis, this is my husband, Trace Gordon.”
The two men shook hands and quickly sized each other up. To Trace, Lexis Richards, with his dreadlocks and goatee, looked like just another hip-hop troublemaker from the projects. In Lexis’s opinion, Felicia’s husband, dressed in a blue pin-striped Hugo Boss suit complete with a white silk pocket square, looked like one of Uncle Tom’s well-to-do relations.
“Lexis is the director of Southeast,” Felicia told him, hating herself for wanting to impress him.
Trace wasn’t. “Can’t say I’ve heard of it.”
“It hasn’t hit the Angelika, so I’m not surprised,” Lexis countered, referring to the café/theater on Houston Street frequented by an artsy, mostly white Greenwich Village crowd.
Touché, Felicia thought, applauding her client’s subtle retort. She was ashamed to admit that she enjoyed seeing Trace put in his place—even if it was by a man with whom she had just declared a shaky truce.
“Lexis, I’ll have that proposal sent to you the day after tomorrow. Once you’ve looked it over, we’ll talk.”
“Bet,” Lexis said to Felicia before extending his hand in Trace’s direction. “Look, man, it was good to meet you.”
Trace nodded and responded with a halfhearted shake. He waited until Lexis was out the door before launching his criticism. “He looks like he needs a parole officer, not a PR person.”
Felicia simply looked at her husband. When had he become so pompous and self-righteous? Had he always been this way, and had she simply looked the other way all these years? Ignoring his comment, she replied, “Lexis is the best of the brightest directors out there today. He sought me out and asked me to represent him. I feel honored to have him as a client.” It wasn’t until the words left her mouth that Felicia realized she truly meant them.
“Why don’t we forget business and eat?”
“Good idea. We have a lot to discuss,” she answered in the same tone she used for client presentations. Felicia had her own menu prepared for lunch. She was planning to serve Trace an ultimatum: Either they seek counseling or their marriage was over.
Felicia and Trace followed the hostess into the elevator and upstairs into the dining room. While Felicia busied herself with examining the menu, Trace studied his wife. She was still as lovely as the day they’d met. Trace remembered their meeting in every detail just as if it had happened yesterday, instead of a decade ago.
She was three weeks shy of her nineteenth birthday when he literally bumped into her on the campus of Georgetown University. He was in town recruiting for his New York law firm, and she was a bright-eyed student, finishing up her freshman year. After almost knocking her down in his search for the administration building, Trace had insisted they meet later for coffee. Coffee turned into dinner, dinner into an all-night conversation, and that conversation into plans to meet again the following weekend.
Over the next three years the two solidified their relationship, and following Felicia’s graduation they were married in a large, traditional June wedding. After a two-week Hawaiian honeymoon they moved into Trace’s Brooklyn Heights brownstone.
Early married life settled into a comfortable, easy pattern. Trace left home for Manhattan every day to further his career at the law firm, while Felicia found a job in the public-relations department at nearby Methodist Hospital.
Trace progressed quickly up the ladder at the prestigious law firm. Last year, at age thirty-five, he became a partner. Now that he could afford to have his wife at home, he went along with—and bankrolled—Felicia’s idea to start her own public-relations firm. That’s when things really began to change between them. Felicia was no longer the same inexperienced twenty-two-year-old girl he’d married and their life was not working out quite the way he’d planned, but the bottom line still remained: He loved his wife.
“You really are a beautiful woman,” Trace observed tenderly.
Taken aback by his compliment, the first in as long as she could remember, Felicia could only respond with a demure “Thank you.”
“Feli,” Trace said, calling her by his special nickname, “I know things have been rough between us lately, but I love you. You do know that, don’t you?”
“Sometimes I have to wonder,” Felicia said, surprised by her candor.
“You think I don’t love you simply because I missed your party the other night?”
“Trace, you just don’t understand. It isn’t simply that you missed the party. It’s that you didn’t care enough to be there. That party was important to me. I wanted to share the experience with my husband, but you were nowhere to be found.”
“I told you, Curtis—”
“It doesn’t matter what excuse you offer. In the end the only thing that counts is that you put your client and your business before your wife.”
“Don’t make it sound so calculated. My absence was due to circumstances beyond my control, not because I didn’t want to be with you.”
“If it had been only this incident, I’d agree with you, but ever since my company started to show real viability, you’ve gone out of your way to be as unsupportive as possible.”
“That’s not true,” Trace countered indignantly. “I’ve been behind you since the beginning. Who put up the money to get you started? Who gives you free business and legal advice? Don’t tell me I’m not supportive.”
“I don’t feel supported. I feel guilty for being successful. Tell me, Trace, are you jealous of Wilcot and Associates?”
Trace would not admit that jealousy was the motive behind his behavior. It was just that things had changed so much these past few years. Felicia was so hell-bent on being an independent career woman, she’d lost touch with what was important to him—a woman who put her home and family first. That’s how it had been in his house growing up, and that’s how he expected it to be in his own household.
“No, I am not jealous of your company. But the truth be known, I am tired of having to compete with Wilcot and Associates for the attention of my wife.”
He is jealous. The confirmation of her suspicions angered Felicia. Why did Trace feel that he needed to compete with her work? Particularly when she was killing herself trying to appease him. She felt like a circus performer, constantly jumping through hoops as he cracked his demanding whip. She wanted to be able to share with him her success and get his opinion when she had problems. Instead of being a source of strength and support, he was behaving like a jealous two-year-old with a new sibling.
“It’s not just my work. You have expectations of me that I can’t fill,” Felicia said.
“You were able to fulfill them when we were first married.”
“We can’t go back there, Trace. We’re not the same people. We both want and need different things.”
“What exactly do you need?”
“To begin with, I need us to be equals, to share our life and our life decisions together. I don’t want to be your little wife anymore. I want to be your partner. I’m a capable, intelligent woman. I have my own mind.”
“I know that. Your mind is one of the things I’m most attracted to.”
“If that’s true, stop treating me like a child. I want you to listen to me, Trace, really listen to me. Stop turning our important conversations into monologues.”
“This isn’t fair. You’re changing course in midstream. For years you’ve expected me to be the one who made the decisions for us, and now you’re complaining as if I’m some kind of dictatorial tyrant.”
“You’re right. I haven’t been forthright with my feelings in the past. The truth is, I’m not satisfied with simply acquiescing to every decision you make or letting you have the last word, despite how I feel, just to keep the peace.”
“You’re that unhappy?”
“Aren’t you?”
“Not enough to end our marriage.”
“Neither am I, but we need help. I think we should see a marriage counselor. Somebody who will listen to us objectively and help us find our way back to each other.”
“I don’t want some therapist in the middle of my marriage. Let’s give it some time and try working it out on our own.”
Trace was convinced that they didn’t need to seek outside assistance to repair their marriage, but he wasn’t going to kid himself. Getting things back to normal would be no easy task, not when he considered the woman his wife had become.
“Okay, Trace, if you’re really willing to work at it,” Felicia agreed. She had her doubts that they could succeed without help, but she was willing to try. “But this can’t go on indefinitely. If we aren’t able to make some progress on our own in two or three months, we go for counseling. Agreed?”
“Agreed,” he said, squeezing her hand. “Truce?”
“Truce,” Felicia answered with a tentative smile.
“We will make this work, Feli.” Trace was determined to save his marriage. Not only because he loved her, but also because he refused to lose her. Trace Gordon was a man who did not know failure, and he was not about to get acquainted now.