“David? Anastasia Buckingham’s here.”
The men’s gazes locked across the desk. Adrenaline surged through David’s blood and he felt reenergized. David smiled and, seeing the smile, Ellis chuckled.
“I’ll have her eating out of the palm of my hand in no time,” David told Ellis. “You wait and see.”
“So nice to meet you, ah, Anastasia.”
With difficulty, David extracted his hand from the dagger-clawed vise grip of the firm’s newest and biggest client. He thought he’d known what to expect, but this haughty, purple-wearing, diamond-dripping Amazon was not it.
“And you,” Anastasia Buckingham said.
Her low, modulated voice fully enunciated every syllable—every letter—in an overblown, pretentious way that reminded him of a fledgling network news anchor. The faint British accent puzzled him, because he’d read her bio—actually, he’d read most everything ever written about her—and knew she’d grown up in Queens before moving to Cincinnati several years ago. She apparently spent some time in the English countryside every now and then, but still. How one acquired a British accent on this side of the pond, he couldn’t imagine.
They studied each other with polite interest and David wondered when he’d ever been eye-level with a woman while standing; even though she wore heels, she had to be a good six-one in her bare feet. Square and broad, she had shoulders as wide as David’s and a jutting bosom that no doubt entered every room five seconds before the rest of her did. She was one of those fortunate black women whose smooth skin refused to age, therefore making her look to be about forty-five although he knew she was sixty-eight.
She wore an expensive suit in a color best left to Barney and grape Kool-Aid. On her head towered a sleek, poufy black wig like the ones Diana Ross and the Supremes wore circa 1965. He did his level best not to stare, but his gaze crept back to it again and again. Around her neck sat a string of gumball-sized pearls. Diamonds glittered on her hands, wrists and ears, and the cloying, heavy scent of flowers—as if she’d put every fragrant flower known to humankind in a blender and liberally spritzed herself with the results—clung to her skin.
Peeling his gaze away from her, he turned to her companion, an itty-bitty, thirty-something man in unrelieved black. David had more than half a mind to call the people at Guinness so they could kill two birds with one stone and verify the world’s tallest woman and shortest man at the same time. The top of the guy’s head just hit the level of Anastasia’s bosom, and his longish blond hair was slicked and swirled into what David’s father would have called a swoobob. And the man’s fragrance of choice was some overwhelming musky scent that no doubt left a trail behind the man for miles.
David held out his hand. “I’m David Hunt.”
The man stared, expressionless, at him through watery-blue eyes. He neither took David’s hand nor answered. Just when David had started to wonder if he had some sort of developmental disability, Anastasia spoke.
“This is Uri.” She put a protective hand on the man’s shoulder.
Was this the thing to do now? Just give first names when introducing people? Cher, Madonna, Oprah and…Uri? Whoever he was, he must be new, because David had memorized the names of everyone on Anastasia’s staff: Jorge the masseuse; Alma the chef; Rita the hair, er, wig stylist—the list went on and on. But who was this guy?
“Ah, Uri, did you say?” David asked carefully.
She waved an impatient hand. “Uri. My astrologer. I don’t do anything without him.”
Smiling as if this was a perfectly normal proposition, David sent up a silent prayer for patience, and that the planets were all in alignment and doing whatever it was they were supposed to be doing. This was just wonderful. Why didn’t Anastasia go ahead and bring in the rest of her staff? Then they’d be able to make plans
The men’s gazes locked across the desk. Adrenaline surged through David’s blood and he felt reenergized. David smiled and, seeing the smile, Ellis chuckled.
“I’ll have her eating out of the palm of my hand in no time,” David told Ellis. “You wait and see.”
“So nice to meet you, ah, Anastasia.”
With difficulty, David extracted his hand from the dagger-clawed vise grip of the firm’s newest and biggest client. He thought he’d known what to expect, but this haughty, purple-wearing, diamond-dripping Amazon was not it.
“And you,” Anastasia Buckingham said.
Her low, modulated voice fully enunciated every syllable—every letter—in an overblown, pretentious way that reminded him of a fledgling network news anchor. The faint British accent puzzled him, because he’d read her bio—actually, he’d read most everything ever written about her—and knew she’d grown up in Queens before moving to Cincinnati several years ago. She apparently spent some time in the English countryside every now and then, but still. How one acquired a British accent on this side of the pond, he couldn’t imagine.
They studied each other with polite interest and David wondered when he’d ever been eye-level with a woman while standing; even though she wore heels, she had to be a good six-one in her bare feet. Square and broad, she had shoulders as wide as David’s and a jutting bosom that no doubt entered every room five seconds before the rest of her did. She was one of those fortunate black women whose smooth skin refused to age, therefore making her look to be about forty-five although he knew she was sixty-eight.
She wore an expensive suit in a color best left to Barney and grape Kool-Aid. On her head towered a sleek, poufy black wig like the ones Diana Ross and the Supremes wore circa 1965. He did his level best not to stare, but his gaze crept back to it again and again. Around her neck sat a string of gumball-sized pearls. Diamonds glittered on her hands, wrists and ears, and the cloying, heavy scent of flowers—as if she’d put every fragrant flower known to humankind in a blender and liberally spritzed herself with the results—clung to her skin.
Peeling his gaze away from her, he turned to her companion, an itty-bitty, thirty-something man in unrelieved black. David had more than half a mind to call the people at Guinness so they could kill two birds with one stone and verify the world’s tallest woman and shortest man at the same time. The top of the guy’s head just hit the level of Anastasia’s bosom, and his longish blond hair was slicked and swirled into what David’s father would have called a swoobob. And the man’s fragrance of choice was some overwhelming musky scent that no doubt left a trail behind the man for miles.
David held out his hand. “I’m David Hunt.”
The man stared, expressionless, at him through watery-blue eyes. He neither took David’s hand nor answered. Just when David had started to wonder if he had some sort of developmental disability, Anastasia spoke.
“This is Uri.” She put a protective hand on the man’s shoulder.
Was this the thing to do now? Just give first names when introducing people? Cher, Madonna, Oprah and…Uri? Whoever he was, he must be new, because David had memorized the names of everyone on Anastasia’s staff: Jorge the masseuse; Alma the chef; Rita the hair, er, wig stylist—the list went on and on. But who was this guy?
“Ah, Uri, did you say?” David asked carefully.
She waved an impatient hand. “Uri. My astrologer. I don’t do anything without him.”
Smiling as if this was a perfectly normal proposition, David sent up a silent prayer for patience, and that the planets were all in alignment and doing whatever it was they were supposed to be doing. This was just wonderful. Why didn’t Anastasia go ahead and bring in the rest of her staff? Then they’d be able to make plans
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