One Night in A Bar Read online

  “Karen.” Stuart struggled to get the sheet up to cover himself and Michael. “What are you doing here?”

  “It’s my apartment.” Her gaze darted between the three men. She groped for the doorframe and leaned against it, grateful for the support. Stuart and Michael exchanged glances.

  “Yes,” Michael said and put a small amount of distance between himself and Stuart. “But you’re supposed to be at work. Why aren’t you at work?”

  “I—spilled coffee.” She’d only just changed the sheets yesterday. Now she’d have to change them again.

  “This must be a shock to you,” the third man said sympathetically. He came forward and extended his hand. “I’m Tom Grossman.”

  She blinked at him, looked at his hand then turned her head to look at Stuart.

  “Who…?”

  “Tom’s my tax accountant, Karen,” Michael said.

  “Oh.” She looked back at Tom. “Uh…I’d rather not shake your hand just now, if you don’t mind.” A voice at the back of her mind screamed at her to spray Mace at this stranger, this naked stranger, standing in her bedroom with his dick hanging out, but it all seemed so far away.

  “That’s fine,” Tom said, still in that sympathetic, soothing voice. “I have an idea. Why don’t you join us?”

  She took a step back. “What?” Maybe she hadn’t heard him right with the blood rushing through her ears.

  “Tom, for God’s sake!” Stuart snapped.

  Tom shrugged, turned away and climbed back into the bed. Had he really just…?

  “Karen.”

  She blinked and looked at Michael, standing in front of her with a pillow—one of her pillows—clutched to his groin.

  “Karen, I know this must be unexpected, but I need you to understand that it’s not general knowledge.” She stared at him blankly. “Karen,” he began again, gentling his tone and slowing his words, “I know you handle confidential information all the time. Just treat this like that. I promise you’ll never have to see this again. Just keep it to yourself.”

  As his words sank in, she felt her brain click back online. She’d never have to see them, naked in her bedroom, again, if she kept her mouth shut? She looked at Stuart, who was nodding encouragingly. Then she looked back at Michael, at the confident smile on the face of a man she’d trusted and admired.

  “Screw you.” She lifted her hand and sprayed Mace square in his face.

  As he screamed, Stuart and Tom scrambled out of the bed, getting tangled in the sheets. She calmly walked over to the closet, selected a clean shirt and left the apartment, stopping only to scoop up her keys and purse.

  Luckily, a woman was just stepping out of a cab as Karen emerged from the building. She slid in and gave the driver her office address. Ignoring his interested glances in the rear-view mirror, she stripped off the soiled shirt and donned the clean one, then pulled out her cell and called Stuart.

  “Karen!” he yelled into the phone. “What the hell have you done? Michael’s going to have you arrested for this!”

  “Not unless he wants me to explain why I did it.” She was calm. Back in control. Into his silence she added, “Your stuff better be gone by the time I get home tonight.”

  “But I live here!” he exclaimed, aghast.

  “Not anymore. It’s my apartment. Pack your things and get out. This is the only warning I’m giving you, Stuart. If you’re there when I get home, I’ll call the police. Anything you leave behind will go to Goodwill. Don’t ever try to contact me again.” She disconnected the phone with a sense of satisfaction that lasted only until the cab pulled up in front of her office.

  Late that afternoon she sat in another cab, this time with a box of her belongings on the seat beside her.

  Chapter Three

  Two weeks later, she’d begun to wonder if maybe she should have just hopped into bed with them. It seemed that Michael, denied the satisfaction of pressing charges, had instead decided to blackball her to anyone who would listen. Unfortunately, his success and influence within the industry—qualities she’d previously respected—meant that a lot of people were listening. Even getting interviews was like pulling hens’ teeth.

  Finally, by calling in a ridiculous number of favours, she managed to convince the HR manager at one of the prestigious smaller agencies to at least see her.

  She arrived right on time, ready to talk about her past clients and experience, but from the moment she sat down she knew she was just being humoured. The woman hadn’t even glanced at her résumé, and had spent the entire five minutes looking at the clock on the wall. When she began making wind-up noises, Karen finally lost her cool.

  “Don’t you want to know why I left my last job?” she asked sweetly. She’d avoided that question in the few previous interviews she’d managed to wrangle.

  “Yes, of course,” the HR cow said. She looked past Karen’s shoulder at the opening door. “I’ll be just one moment, sir.”

  Karen turned to look at ‘sir’, a man in his late thirties or early forties with an unmistakable aura of authority. Clearly a higher-up of some sort.

  “Oh, good. It’s probably best if you hear this too, sir. I left my last role because I Maced my boss when I found him fucking my boyfriend and his tax accountant in my bed.”

  The HR manager dropped her pen, while ‘sir’ looked faintly surprised. Karen stood and picked up her purse.

  “Please call me if there’s anything else you’d like to know.” She sailed out of the room on a wave of righteous indignation.

  She headed straight for the nearest supermarket to invest in a pint of ice cream and a spoon, then called her best friend on her way home.

  “Amanda speaking.”

  “It’s me,” Karen mumbled around the spoon in her mouth, ignoring the cab driver’s evil look.

  “Oh, hey!” Mandy’s voice went from professional to friendly in a single beat. “How’d the interview go?”

  “Crappy. They didn’t even listen.”

  Mandy made a sympathetic noise. “Okay, it’s been two weeks and you’re getting disheartened. The solution to this is simple.”

  “Find a job?” Karen asked. “Sell my apartment, since I still can’t sleep in my own bed? Put a hit out on the three sexketeers?”

  “No, none of those, although selling your apartment might be worth thinking about. You know, new beginning and all that. But I’ve got a more immediate fix in mind. I’ll pick you up at eight. We’ll find a bar and get trashed.”

  Karen hesitated, spoon halfway to her mouth. “I really don’t feel like going out…”

  “Sure you do,” Mandy interrupted. “But not to one of those crappy yuppie places you usually go. I’ll ask around here and find a good bar, and then we’ll go there and you can drink a shitload of alcohol and gain a new perspective.”

  In the end, she’d let Mandy talk her into the night out, only to regret her capitulation later that evening when they walked into what was, in her opinion, a few very small steps away from being a biker bar.

  “Mandy, are you sure this is the place?”

  Mandy rolled her eyes and hustled her across the room to the bar. Karen looked longingly over her shoulder at a table by the wall.

  “Let’s sit there,” she suggested, but Mandy was shaking her head almost before she’d finished.

  “It’s a known fact that men are more likely to approach a woman if she’s sitting at the bar.”

  “But I don’t want to be approached,” Karen explained patiently. Mandy huffed.

  “Yes, you do. It will make you feel better. Empowered.”

  She sighed as Mandy pushed her towards a bar stool, and climbed up. The bartender, a woman in her early twenties wearing a tank top that displayed her tattooed torso, wandered over.

  “What can I getcha?”

  “A daiquiri?” Karen was hopeful.

  The girl looked at her as if she were an idiot.

  “She’ll have a beer,” Mandy said. “Whatever’s on tap. Same for me.
” The bartender threw one last sneer in Karen’s direction before she meandered off to get their drinks.

  “Mandy, why are we here?”

  “Because,” Mandy leaned towards her, “you need to broaden your horizons. You only ever go to the same preppy bars and date the same preppy guys. Did you ever even experiment with other types of guy during college? No, of course not.” She didn’t give Karen a chance to answer. “And now you’ve discovered that even preppy guys have secret vices. I’d put money on the fact that you’re planning to retreat back into your shell and stop dating. Am I right?”

  It was, in fact, so close to what Karen had been thinking that she didn’t say anything.

  “Exactly,” Mandy said triumphantly. “So tonight you’re going to walk on the wild side, get drunk, and maybe flirt with a guy who is completely different from your usual type.”

  The bartender plunked their drinks down, and Mandy handed her a credit card.

  “Run a tab,” she told her. “My friend and I are planning to have a fun night. Oh,” she added, “we want to start with some tequila shooters.”

  Hours later, Karen climbed back onto her stool after a dance, giggling compulsively at nothing. The bar was a haven for rednecks, and she’d met the kind of men she’d only seen on TV. The best part was that they’d all come to her. She was ensconced like a queen on her bar stool. Men had been coming over to try out corny pick-up lines, offer to buy her drinks, and to ask her to dance, one after the other. Mandy and Toni, the bartender, were watching over her like indulgent mother hens.

  She was having the time of her life.

  “Toni, another please!” she held her glass aloft, and Toni smiled, poured tequila and pushed a lime wedge across the bar.

  “Let me get that for you,” a deep, gravelly voice said, a man moving to her side.

  “It’s okay, we’re running a tab,” she told him, turning to look and nearly tumbling off the stool.

  “Whoa,” he caught her arm and righted her. “Careful there.” She checked that she was firmly planted on the stool and looked up at him.

  “Thanks—”

  Mmmm-hmmmm.

  He was the epitome of her teenage fantasies, the kind of man she’d never consider dating. Tall, dark and dangerous-looking, from his black hair to the motorcycle boots on his feet. Her gaze wandered over him, taking in the battered biker jacket open over a black T-shirt that clung to a muscled chest, and dark jeans worn at the stress points. His hair brushed the collar of his jacket, wildly tousled, and his slow smile displayed white teeth behind his black moustache and goatee. She’d never kissed a guy with a beard, she mused, unless you counted morning stubble… She stopped her rambling thoughts. Who cared? He was hot, and she wanted him.

  “Hi.” She put her hand on his arm. “I’m Karen.”

  “Daniel,” he said.

  She smiled.

  “Well, Daniel, thanks for rescuing me. Can I get you a drink? You know,” she peeked at him from under her lashes, “to show my appreciation.”

  He pinned her with his stare. He lifted his hand and brushed a finger over her earlobe, tracing it down the side of her neck, across the base of her throat and along her mostly bare shoulder. She shivered as he continued down her arm, pausing momentarily at her elbow before coming to a stop at the pulse in her wrist. Lifting her hand from where it rested on his arm, he turned her wrist and placed a kiss in her palm. The fine hairs of his moustache tickled her sensitive skin.

  “Why don’t we dance instead?”

  She heard herself murmur an assent as she slid off the stool…

  Karen hunched over the employment section of the paper. She’d exhausted pretty much all her possibilities. She was going to have to apply for data administration or waitressing jobs.

  The phone rang. Without taking her eyes off an ad for what she thought might be a job at a topless bar, she reached over and picked the receiver up.

  “Hello?”

  “Karen Hampton?”

  “This is she.” Karen caved to the inevitable and circled the ad to follow up later.

  “It’s Serena here from The Masters Agency. You interviewed with us last week.”

  She sat up straight. That interview. The one where she’d lost her cool. Why would they call to tell her she didn’t have the job? Wasn’t it kind of a given?

  “Yes, of course. What can I help you with?” She heard some papers rustling.

  “We’d like to invite you back for another interview.”

  Karen fumbled with her pen.

  “What? I mean, thank you, that’s wonderful.” Belatedly she realised the woman had sounded disapproving, but who cared? She’d fought to get a first interview. She sure as hell wasn’t going to turn down a second.

  “When would you like me to come in?” She was prepared to drop everything and race in immediately if they wanted.

  “Tomorrow at two would be convenient for Mr Masters.”

  Karen nearly dropped the phone. She was being interviewed by John Masters himself? She’d assumed the meeting would be another HR interview. Meeting the boss, that had to be good. Right?

  “Tomorrow at two is fine.” Karen fought to keep her voice level. “Please tell Mr Masters I’ll see him then.”

  She ended the call without embarrassing herself, and stared at the phone. Had she been hallucinating? She picked up the receiver and dialled star-sixty-nine.

  “The Masters Agency, how may I direct your call?”

  “Uh—wrong number,” she choked out, and hung up. Not a hallucination.

  She screamed, leaping up and jumping up and down in her pyjamas like a crazy woman, then she grabbed the phone and called Mandy.

  The next afternoon at three minutes before two o’clock she walked confidently through the glass doors of The Masters Agency and smiled at the receptionist.

  “I have an appointment with Mr Masters,” she said. “Karen Hampton.”

  The woman smiled back. “Yes, of course. He’s expecting you. Straight down the hall, last door on the left. His secretary will show you in.”

  Thanking her, Karen followed her directions, the two-inch heels of her pumps sinking into the plush carpet. She was dressed to impress in her best suit—a dark grey pinstripe—with a royal blue silk blouse underneath. Her hair was up, her makeup understated. For the first time in weeks she felt in control of her life.

  She knocked on the correct door and walked in. The aforementioned secretary, a pleasant-looking middle-aged woman, stood and came around her desk.

  “Karen? I’m Stephanie. He’s ready to see you.” She led her over to a door behind her desk and opened it.

  “John, Karen’s here.” With a smile, Stephanie ushered her in.

  “Thanks, Steph.” A deep voice responded, and Stephanie shut the door.

  Karen looked around for the source of the voice. A man stood beside a whiteboard in the corner. The board was covered with what looked like a list, and the man—John Masters—was drawing a line through one of the items.

  “I’ll be just a second, Karen. We’ve just achieved one of this year’s goals and I want to cross it off before I forget.”

  “That’s not a problem.” She was pleased that he kept track of goals, something her previous employer hadn’t bothered to do. “Congratulations.”

  He capped the marker. “Thanks.” He turned around, and her jaw dropped.

  John Masters was ‘sir’, the man she’d embarrassed herself in front of at her first interview.

  She’d blurted out the tragedy of her life to John Masters, one of the most respected agents in the business.

  Feeling her confidence slipping away, she took a deep breath, offered her hand, and forced a smile. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr Masters.”

  “John, please,” he said, shaking her hand. “And please don’t feel awkward about last week. To be completely honest, if you hadn’t mentioned your little encounter with your boss and your boyfriend, I wouldn’t have looked a bit deeper at the rumours flying aroun
d.” He smiled. “As it is, I’m now able to judge you completely on your experience.” He gestured to a couch near the window. “Have a seat.”

  Forty-five minutes later, Karen turned at John’s office door to shake his hand.

  “It’s been a pleasure meeting you.” She was riding high on a wave of self-assurance.

  “You’ll hear from us in the next few days,” he said, smiling.

  She left the building and headed home, this time without needing to stop for ice cream.

  Chapter Four

  A month later, Karen walked into her office juggling a folder, a takeaway coffee and a paper bag containing a muffin. She’d sacrificed breakfast, as well as forty minutes of sleep, to be at her desk an hour earlier than usual. She was meeting an important new client that day, and wanted to clear her desk first so she could devote as much time to him as necessary.

  After all, it wasn’t every day an agent got the chance to represent Crogan.

  Crogan, no first name, was one of the premier artists on the planet. His sculptures sold almost before they were available. Their clean lines and imbued sensuality appealed to the masses as well as to art collectors. She had spent countless hours at his exhibits, lusting after different pieces. More than once she’d considered taking out a loan and buying one, but her practical side had always won out.

  And now she not only got to meet this artistic giant, she was going to be his new representative.

  “It’s a big job,” John had said when he’d first told her about her new client. “Crogan’s not easy to work with—typical artistic temperament. He’ll expect you to read his mind most of the time. He’s been known to ignore all calls and emails when he feels like it. Carrie,” he said, referring to Crogan’s previous agent, “managed to talk him into giving her a key to his place. You’ll probably have to use it on a regular basis to make sure he’s meeting exhibit quotas and the like.”

  She’d smiled, nodded and assured John she was up to the task. She’d gladly move in and babysit the man full-time if necessary.