“Can we have a quick head count?”
“Why don’t I just start?”
“That’s fine.”
“This is Selene Gallio, calling in from our branch here in Manhattan.”
Ororo took that as her cue and spoke into the air, as always feeling silly sitting next to the large conferencing phone. It looked like something out of Star Trek Voyager, and the volume button almost never worked properly.
“Good afternoon, this is Tory, Tory Munroe, here with Selene.”
“Your title, give them your title,” Selene hissed under her breath. Ororo smothered a sigh.
“I’m underwriting this account,” she offered. She was met by a tinny chorus of hello’s on the other end.
“Is it Tory, or Ororo?” a male voice inquired that didn’t sound familiar to her ears.
“I answer to Tory,” she elaborated. Selene nodded in agreement and smiled, even though the other meeting participants couldn’t see it.
“Glad to have you aboard, Tory! This is Scott, Scott Summers. I’m handling the ancillaries on this account.”
“Great!”
“We didn’t expect them to purchase dental and life on their renewal.”
“We’re still trying to pitch them our vision package.”
“Good luck on that,” Betsy chimed in. She was calling in from the regulatory department on short notice after sifting through strings of emailed dialogue regarding mandated requirements. Ororo thanked God that New York wasn’t a “white space” state for their carrier. Shake’n’Take liked OptforWellth’s preferred plans with very few tweaks.
“Has legal already approved the new shell?”
“They have for the policy. Still waiting on the booklet,” Betsy admitted with a sigh.
“When will we have the client on the line?” Selene whispered. Ororo thoughtfully put their phone on mute.
“They said they’re calling in late. I’m waiting on an email from their admin.” Ororo’s stomach was already in knots, and she abandoned her half-finished coffee.
“Wish they’d get on with it, then,” Selene grumbled. “If they’re paying us enough money, I guess they expect us to wait all day.”
Ororo smothered a laugh; Selene came up with about three different errands she needed Ororo to do at the last minute, including bringing along a jump drive with all of the meeting attachments in case anyone was on their laptop and didn’t have access to the database, coffee (which she could barely drink, thanks to her nerves), and placing the lunch reservations for fifteen people. Pot calling the kettle black? Definitely.
And black was her signature color. Selene wore it like she meant it, all except for her French-manicured nails and mean slash of red lipstick. She was a striking woman, classically beautiful, but she had hard eyes that chilled a man to the bone. Her long ripple of black hair was held back from her face with a tortoiseshell barrette, emphasizing the slant of her eyes and sharp cheekbones.
Selene trusted few people, a trait that had taken her far and cost her few failures. Ororo was her right hand; Ororo made a point of staying one step ahead of her expectations to avoid being her scapegoat.
Ororo had certainly dealt with worse account managers than Selene Gallio. Few, granted. But worse.
Ororo was one hell of an underwriter, but she’d never have answered that was what she wanted to be when she grew up. She merely lived by the numbers. Literally.
Her mother knew at least ten recipes that involved hot dogs. They’d been a staple in the Munroe household as long as she could remember, because they were cheap. David and N’Dare were dirt poor for several years before her father’s ship finally came in as a broadcast journalist.
Until then, school was miserable.
Ororo Victoria Munroe was the only ten-year-old on the planet who hated recess. She lingered beneath a tall oak right inside the fence, doodling on scraps of paper she’d stuffed into her pockets on the way to lunch. Stevie and Monica were in a different lunch group; she wouldn’t see hide nor hair of them until they walked home from school.
In the meantime, she had to deal with the Cuckoos.
They called themselves the Queens, but Ororo came up with her own moniker after her teacher showed them a nature film about the birds who hijacked nests they didn’t build themselves.
Emma, Esme, Sophie, Mindee, Phoebe and Celeste all acted, looked, dressed and sounded so much alike that they were interchangeable. Emma Frost was their appointed sovereign and mouthpiece. None of them attacked their chosen target first, opting instead to scope out their prey for the weakest member of the pack.
Emma determined which day of the week they wore pink socks and ribboned barrettes. She went first at every game of hopscotch and stopped the tetherball mid-spin whenever she deemed a do-over. She named any girl on the playground who couldn’t do a back handspring a queer, and heaven help any of them who tried to defend themselves.
They took one look at Ororo’s clothes her mother bought her from the clearance rack of Sears and had a field day.
So Ororo became obsessed with having enough money. Not lots of money, enough money. She hoarded pocket change and looked for pennies between the couch cushions. Stray nickels were harvested from the cupholders in her father’s battered Dodge station wagon. She dumped all of the loot into a change jar her mother kept in the cupboard with the salad bowls, enjoying the clink that sounded less hollow each time she made a deposit.
She mentally added sales tax for every dollar she spent at the five and dime. She was the one who split up the bill each time she, Stevie and Monica went to Friendly’s for a single scoop. Ororo believed strongly in layaway to buy her own school clothes from what she earned at her summer job every year. She counted out her cash down to the last penny and carried those boxes home under arm proudly, receipt tucked into her pocket.
By ninth grade, the Cuckoos grew bored with Ororo and moved on to Anna Marie Darkholme and her eczema that was so bad, no one wanted to touch her. Anna was relatively wealthy but still managed to be an underdog; rumors flew around the school about her mother, who was inexplicably single. No one knew whether she was widowed or divorced, since no one had ever seen a Mr. Darkholme at school functions or at the Stop and Shop. She was intrigued by Ororo, who was pretty in her own unique way, smart, funny, and wouldn’t hurt a fly. Literally. Ororo was the kind of girl who would catch a spider in a napkin and gently toss it back outside where it belonged.
Anna always offered to pay their way; Ororo always refused. They went to the mall once or twice a month, where Ororo would count out her pocket change and get herself an Orange Julius and Anna would buy a chili dog. They’d people watch and duck whenever a cute boy caught them staring and dared to stare back. They were thick as thieves.
In short, Ororo never wanted to depend on anyone to give her what she felt responsible to acquire for herself.
The Cuckoos did their level best to steal away any prospective friends who made any overtures of good will, but as high school progressed, people made up their own minds. They knew a fake when they saw one, and Emma’s glossy good looks were no match for her vicious tongue.
For Ororo, the best revenge was living well. The Cuckoos ended up as trophy wives to cheating husbands the last time she’d seen any of them at her high school reunion. Ororo silently laughed her way to the bank.
Her reverie was broken by an abrupt greeting on the other end of the call.
“We were afraid we’d missed you,” Scott told someone in the background.
“Got caught up in traffic, bus got stuck in road construction.” The new arrival had a gruff voice that was unabashedly male and unapologetic. And why should he be? He got stuck in traffic, she mused.
Something about his voice sounded…yummy.
“Ororo, Selene, I’ve got our broker here right now, looking a little the worse for wear…introduce yourself to the nice ladies,” he chuckled.
“Hey. I’m James, James Howlett. Might’ve seen my name in a few email strings.”
“They all run together after a while,” Ororo admitted. “But it was nice of you to join us today.”
“You too. Welcome aboard.” Ororo and Selene were both pleased.
They discussed the transactions while Ororo had them open the attachments onscreen to review rates.
“So where’s the set of rates for the renewal? For the COBRA members?” she heard James ask, inadvertently interrupting Selene.
“They’re in the second sheet,” Ororo told him. She heard him rifling pages in the background, wondering why.
“That’s not what’s in the hard copy. I have the copy that the client got from me at time of sale. It’s the set they signed on.”
“What day did you get the signatures?” Selene barked. Ororo scowled and started swirling her remaining coffee in its to-go cup.
“On the first, exactly thirty days prior to their effective date. It was a clean sale.”
“I’m not arguing that it was,” Selene told him gently, but Ororo caught the brief flare of her nostrils and wanted to tell the guy on the other end, “Look, Chuckles, RUN!”
“We did this sale by the book. The rates were supposed to be locked in for twelve months for the products sold, health plans and ancillary.”
“Yes, but they have COBRA,” Ororo interjected. The guy was working her last nerve. “COBRA and Retirees.”
“I realize that.” His voice took on a certain “I know you are, but what am I?” edge that made her teeth grind. “What I’m looking for is a breakdown of their rates that the client can see up front, easily indicated, showing the premiums their COBRA and retired lives can expect to pay.”
“Like in yellow highlighter pen?” Ororo muttered under her breath. Selene scowled and put the phone on mute while Ororo fiddled with the laptop.
She took over the web conference, mousing over the attachments and pulling down file menus as she spoke.
“Look. Here are the COBRA numbers. Here are the retirees. This will be spelled out on the group policy and labeled pretty clearly when we send this to Contracts. Was that what you had in mind?”
“Pretty much.” She was about to sigh in relief until he said “Make sure we do this on the other plans, too.”
“Wait…”
“Dental, vision and life. All of the rates need the same breakdown for those demographics and corresponding language in the booklets.”
“Fine,” Selene announced, restoring their end of the connection. Ororo fumed. Fine, then.
The rest of the meeting ran into similar stops and starts. Scott ended up being Ororo’s favorite, placating Selene whenever his colleague played devil’s advocate.
“So you’ll send out new attachments to reflect the rate corrections?” Ororo was interrupted from her stewing.
“I save them on the shared drive.”
“Emailing them leaves a paper trail with a date when you changed them.”
“People hate email clogging up their inboxes.”
“I have hundreds of messages in mine,” Selene added with a roll of her eyes. She tapped one long, French-manicured nail against her Blackberry. The noise was driving Ororo nuts, but what was one more thing?
“Some of us work remotely more often than in-house,” James informed them curtly. “You can imagine the life of a broker.”
“I can imagine,” Ororo admitted dryly.
On the other end of the line, Logan clenched his fist in his lap and pounded back a double latte, wiping the corners of his mouth with his fingers. What was up with this chick? Geez…
…and what was it about her voice?
If she wasn’t busy working him over, it would have been a nice voice. Deep, throaty and smooth, a low alto, the kind of voice made for laughing until you were breathless. Her inflections were familiar, definitely an east coast girl, but not necessarily by birth?
The day hadn’t started any better than this meeting, even before he got out the door. Logan’s stomach was growling, but aggravation distracted him from the fact that he’d burned his bagel beyond recognition before having to dart out the door. He’d splashed through a puddle of filthy slush, leaving his ankle freezing cold and sopped; a quick stop to wipe down his shoes showed him that he’d left the Residence Inn wearing mismatched socks. For fuck’s sake…
Why?
Logan mustered as much patience as he could, taking his cue from Summers’ wary look across the table. “It’d be nice to have a paper trail to add to the client’s hard file, just to cover our collective backside? Just a thought.”
Ororo sighed. The client’s hard file was already three inches thick. Thank goodness the benefit booklets were electronic, thanks to OptforWellth’s “paperless” delivery of the plan documents. It saved postage, it saved a tree, and typos or plan omissions could be fixed in the .pdf files with the click of a mouse. Hooray for technology.
“Not a problem. I’ll get that to you as soon as I’m back at my desk.” Ororo wasn’t going to fiddle with it in the middle of the meeting, even if she was on her laptop. She hated the sound of other people “multi-tasking” in the background; it was hard enough to keep her own fingers away from her cell when it started vibrating in her pocket, promising more voice mail to answer between emails.
“So this should be pretty straightforward, then?” Selene encouraged. “We sold preferred products? No need for legal input at this point?”
“The client gets thirty days to review. No comments from them means we go to press,” Scott assured her. Ororo thought he sounded like a Boy Scout. Bless his heart.
“All right,” Selene chirped, perky as the Good Witch of the North. “Sounds great. I promise that shop talk’s a no-no once we get to the brewery. Everybody put their calls on forward.”
“You might as well ask us to chew off our right hands,” Scott chuckled. There was a wave of quiet laughter in the background behind them. Ororo shook her head. She decided she could actually eat.
Selene drove them to the restaurant; no surprise there. Ororo was grateful, despite the line of cars backed around the block with noon traffic. Selene’s car, a slick, black Porsche, rode smooth as butter, and her stereo filled the interior with bland classical music that soothed both women’s nerves.
They bundled into the front lobby, and Ororo breathlessly gave the hostess their name.
“Party of fifteen, reserved for Gallio?” Ororo informed her. The hostess smiled.
“A few of your party have already showed up. This way.”
Ororo and Selene were similarly dressed in business black, but Ororo wore a snug periwinkle blue sweater beneath her blazer instead of the gleaming white silk blouse Selene favored. She wore her hair in a simple French braid that reached halfway down her back; soft tendrils framed her face and made her look more approachable than her boss.
Two rectangular tables were already set end to end. A handful of people in beige and gray work gear were divesting themselves of heavy coats and finding seats. Ororo’s smile was already safely in place as Selene hurried forward and began making introductions.
“It’s good to put faces behind names! I’m Selene Gallio, your account manager!” Ororo sighed under her breath at the look of awe they wore when they met the attractive yet intimidating woman and shook her hand. Even during warm weather, Selene’s hands were cold as ice.
They eyed Ororo carefully, measuring her before making their hellos. Ororo’s “nice to meet you, glad you made it” speech was automatic and easily repeated each time one of them pumped her hand off.
She’d already figured the tall guy with the well-cut brown hair and perfect teeth was Scott Summers. He was as nice as he sounded on the phone.
“Great restaurant you picked out, Ororo. Even the bathrooms are nice!” he boasted. Ororo laughed.
“We aim to please.” The table started to fill up. “Who are we missing?”
“Donald, our implementation rep.”
“Donald who?”
“Pierce.”
“Ah.”
“He’ll be running the demographics so we can send out the welcome letter to the members next week.”
“Then he’s my hero.”
“He’s sharp,” Scott promised. “Logan just got here a minute ago.” Ororo frowned.
“Is he a member of the account management team for this client?”
“No. He’s the broker.”
“We spoke to the broker at the meeting about the rates,” Ororo argued. “He introduced himself as James.”
“He does the same thing you do, sometimes he goes by his middle name with people he talks to on the phone, but he uses his first name on his emails. And he’s over there at the bar. I told him we were going to take drink orders once everyone got there, but he wanted a soda.” Scott pointed toward the long bar. The only person Ororo saw there had his back turned to them.
What a back it was. He was shorter than she was, built like a linebacker, and filled out his dark brown suit like a Hugo Boss model. She saw him raise one beefy hand as he beckoned to the server and heard his low voice ordering a Dr. Pepper.
His dark hair was thick and slightly ruffled by the wind outside, but he had a decent barber. Ororo enjoyed drinking in little details about him, like the no-nonsense silver watch he wore and the shape of his ears.
“A soda sounds too cold right now, I want something to warm me up.”
“Coffee?” Scott offered. “I could order it for you if you’re not ready to sit down?”
“Oh, no. No, no, no. Had my fill during the meeting.” Scott grinned.
“My blood type’s espresso. How about tea?”
“Herbal, if they have it,” she nodded, pleased. He gave her arm a light squeeze and returned to the table as Ororo drifted to the bar.
The clamor of patrons and the clinking of glasses and silverware made it difficult to hear her own voice as she greeted him. “Hi. Scott told me you handled the sale.”
“Pardon?” he muttered as he set down the glass and turned to face his visitor.
He turned. She swallowed. Time stood still.
His eyes dilated and she caught the slight flare of his nostrils as his eyes roamed her face, then the rest of her. Disbelief and shock lingered between them as Ororo licked her lips. His eyes jerked toward her mouth with that gesture. Her stomach flipped.
“Better come sit down, it’s like playing musical chairs! C’mon, Logan, some of us want to eat!” Scott turned to Ororo. “Ororo, I went ahead and ordered your tea.”
“Thanks,” she murmured weakly, sparing him the briefest of glances before he left.
Her body’s response was immediate. She wanted, no, craved a chance to touch him, or to lean in and breathe in his scent. Did he still wear the same cologne?
He radiated heat and masculinity that made her cheeks flush.
“Tory?” he whispered.
“Oh, God.” She didn’t recognize her own voice.
Her hand rose to shake his hand. It was instinctive. It would have been bad form if she hadn’t after all the greetings she’d offered a few minutes ago.
He looked confused.
“It’s…nice to meet you, James. I-I’m…”
He didn’t let her finish. He took her hand with his left, curling her fingers around it and tugging her stiffly after him. She nearly stumbled as they made their way out of the main lounge.
What the heck just happened? her sense of reason screamed.
Heck if I know.
Behind them, Selene peered around the lounge, frowning. “Where did Tory go?”
“Tory?” Scott asked.
“Tory. Tory Munroe, our underwriter.”
“Oh, right! I’ve been calling her by Ororo. I figured that was her name?”
“Her middle name is Victoria. I’m horrible with names, so I get to call her Tory.” Selene announced this like it was a special privilege.
“I love her autosignature in her messages! No one else uses purple font. It’s cute.” Selene sniffed. She didn’t find it impressive. Scott pondered what she’d said.
Why was the name Tory familiar to him?
For that matter, where did she go? Where the heck was Logan?? His soda was sweating forgotten on the bar.
He wasn’t here. She wasn’t here. That wasn’t her hand, smooth and cool, gripped in his. “What are you doing, where are we going, what…?”
“Wait,” he hissed. They hurried down the short corridor toward the rest rooms. Ororo heard hand dryers coming from the men’s.
Is he out of his mind? He knocked on the door to the women’s and jerked open the handle. Before she could point out the obvious, he’d pulled her inside after him. She felt flutters of excitement and her pulse speed up when he punched the tiny lock in the knob.
He looked determined as he faced her. “C’mere.”
“Wait…”
Her world turned itself inside-out when he pulled her against his broad, hard chest and crushed her mouth beneath his.
Good night… She tasted his soda and a remnant of coffee on his lips as she leaned into the kiss, following the smooth, slow slant of his mouth and the velvety stroke of his tongue. Logan swallowed the low, desperate sounds she made as they shared breath and heat. In the back of his mind he remembered her throaty laughter and the sunset, her wicked red dress puddle on the floor and high-heeled sandals bouncing against his back.
His body confirmed that yes, this was Tory. Despite the tweedy blazer whose button gave way easily enough beneath his searching fingers, she felt like her. She smelled like her, and she definitely tasted like her.
They stumbled back into she collided with the hand dryer. They inadvertently punched the ‘on’ button, but its low, steamy roar didn’t distract them from need.
“Logan,” she whimpered as his lips trailed hotly over her face, tasting her.
“God, Tory, oh God,” he rasped into her ear as he suckled it. Her hands were greedy, kneading and caressing his back through the blazer and curling into his hair, so thick and satisfying to clutch.
His fingertips feathered over her abdomen, tracing her ribs once he freed her sweater from the waistband of her black skirt. She stole greedy kisses from him and toyed with the collar of his shirt. He groaned when she found his neck and lapped at his pulse.
Something cool and rough got in her way.
She stared with hazy blue eyes at the gold chain. The clasp was visible beside the St. Christopher medal.
“You can still make a wish,” she murmured. He looked confused for a moment, then shook his head.
“Maybe I don’t need to, darlin’,” he told her, and she felt a rush of want run through her body at his knowing stroke of her breast through the satin of her bra.
This is crazy. She didn’t want to stop. She didn’t want him to stop.
Similar questions were running through his own mind.
Why did she leave the hotel so abruptly? It was a one-nighter, he’d gotten the memo, but still…?
Ororo. Scott had introduced her as Ororo. Then who the hell was Tory?
She was bereft and surprised as he lowered the hem of her sweater and gently released her.
“Logan?”
“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered, mastering his thoughts and catching his breath. He eyed her over his shoulder while he straightened his collar. His hair was a lost cause, but he didn’t care. “Yer Tory.”
“Yeah.”
“But yer Ororo.” Her look said “get on with it, already.”
“Sure. Ororo Munroe.”
“Ya work fer OptforWellth. As an underwriter.”
“As the underwriter for the Shake ‘n’ Take account.”
It dawned on him slowly, like a late morning hangover.
Weeks. He’d spent weeks talking to her back and forth in his email strings about business. Never a phone call until today. He’d had her location and last name for weeks. Known how she worked and communicated.
What made it worse was that she was the control freak, stick-up-her-ass underwriter who’d rained on his parade throughout the client’s implementation from the moment they signed on the dotted line.
“We’re gonna be late fer lunch,” he told her curtly.
“What?”
“Fix yer hair. And yer top.”
“Wait…what just happened here?”
“A coincidence. One in a million.” He stood gripping the door handle. “Or two in a million, I guess.” His look was appraising as he gave her a once-over again, taking in her sedate outfit and hair.
He wanted to mess her up, take down that braid and peel off her clothes. The Tory from the beach was wild and unhibited; “Ororo” was too buttoned-up, too controlled and glossy for his taste.
It was a mind-fuck. Their encounter here was a tease.
Her own emotions began drifting over her lovely features. She straightened up and cleared her throat, buttoning her blazer and smoothing her hair.
“A suggestion.”
“Name it, Ms. Munroe.” She gritted her teeth.
“Miss. I go by ‘miss.’”
“Nice of ya ta inform me.”
Grrrr… “You leave first. Be discreet.”
“Yer better at making speedy exits than I am.”
She looked nonplussed. “Men like you invented them.”
He felt the moment her guard went up. “Tory” died; he already grieved her.
He left. His posture was broad and took up space, and he walked with long, swift strides. Her own pace was more controlled and sedate.
Like Ororo herself.
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