Slow Hands

been when he’d arrived.
    “I must be brain-dead,” he said, offering her a smile. “But I somehow let the woman who won the date with me get away without making our final plans. And I don’t know how to get in touch with her.”
    The woman frowned. “What was her name?”
    Sticky one. Jake thought about bullshitting some more, then decided honesty was probably the best way to go. If the brunette felt sorry for him at having been bought and then dumped like yesterday’s garbage, she might be more forthcoming with the information he wanted.
    “To be honest? She didn’t give it to me. I think she got cold feet, even after laying out twenty-five grand.”
    Recognition washed over the woman’s face. “Ah, yes, I remember her.” As if wanting to console him, she added, “She did say she had to be somewhere else. I’m sure she was in a hurry and didn’t realize she hadn’t given you her name and number.”
    “That must have been it. I’d really appreciate your help, uh…Noelle, right?”
    “Right,” she replied. “Noelle Santori.” Turning her attention toward the money she’d been counting, she added, “She won’t be hard to find. There was only one check made out in that amount tonight.”
    The woman riffled through a stack of checks piled inside the metal strongbox, plucked one out and said, “Aha!” Then she frowned. “Uh-oh, it’s a foundation, not a personal check. Her name’s not printed on here, and her signature is a little…messy.”
    “Her name is Madeline Turner,” a woman behind him said. Jake swung around and saw a slender, attractive blonde, watching him with hooded speculation. He didn’t know her, as far as he could tell. She might have been one of the horny, diamond-laden princesses bidding fast and hard during the auction. Or she might not. The spotlights hadn’t allowed him a close enough look to be certain.
    “Here,” the blonde said, handing him a business card. “Maddy works at a bank downtown. That’s the address.” She gave him a thorough once-over, assessing him as if he was a six-foot-three lobster in a fancy restaurant’s tank. And she was very hungry for some surf and turf.
    Finally, she sighed and crossed her arms. “I’m sure it was an oversight, her leaving without getting what she came here for. So you be sure to look her up.” She turned away, tugging her weather-inappropriate stole tighter around her shoulders. As she walked away, he caught one final whisper. “You might just be an answer to a prayer.”

3
    “E XCUSE ME , M ISS T URNER , there’s someone to see you.”
    Madeline looked up from her desk as her administrative assistant, Ella, peeked around the partially open door to her office. Being addressed as Miss Turner tipped her off to her young employee’s unusually somber mood. Most times, the efficient-but-bubbly young woman would have buzzed her, reminded her of an appointment, then snapped a quick, naughty joke. Ella liked nothing better than leaving Madeline with an inappropriate grin on her face as some staid business visitor entered her office.
    This time, though, Ella sounded subdued, almost awed, and wore a facial expression to match.
    “Oh, damn, is it the congressman again? I told him we weren’t increasing his line of credit.”
    The other woman shook her head slowly. “Nope. A stranger.” Clearing her throat, she blinked a few times, as if trying to physically shake off her dazed mood. After a few seconds, she grinned. And when she began speaking in a rush, Maddy realized her real assistant was back in the building.
    “Look, I just have to say, if this is a sales guy running a scam and he doesn’t really know you and doesn’t really have an appointment, I will so totally take him off your hands. I’ll whisk him out of here, no problem. Show him the door, follow him out, go somewhere private and whip him into shape. Give him a good, stern talking-to about coming by without appointments.” Her expression verging between lustful and hopeful, she added, “It would probably take hours and hours. Maybe the whole weekend.”
    Ella wasn’t exactly the most professional bank employee in the world, but she was by no means flighty. Which meant whoever Maddy’s visitor was, he had to be someone capable of turning a normal, levelheaded young woman into a jazzed-up, sexed-up, babbling twit.
    “Oh, hell,” she whispered, knowing who was standing right outside her door. Only one man she’d met recently was capable of