She swept into the chair opposite him, a panoramic view of Boston Harbor under a clear May sky at her back. Lee’s table was the best in the house. His office was just two floors down. He enjoyed working in what was commonly referred to as Boston ’s boldest and most luxurious building. He intended to keep his job, even if it meant doing for Quentin Reed what the president of Winston & Reed wouldn’t do for himself.
“Sorry I’m late,” Rebecca said.
There was nothing apologetic in her tone or her expression, and Lee’s moment of guilt drowned under a fresh wave of irritation. The woman had to have known she was provoking just such a lunch as today’s when she bid for the coveted design job with Winston & Reed. She should have restrained herself.
“But,” she went on, “I’ve never been asked to lunch with a vice president who didn’t mean to fire me.”
Fresh words from a damn artist, Lee thought. Her eyes-a vivid, clear blue-met his just for an instant before she smiled and put her water glass to her coral-dusted lips. She looked every inch the stylish professional in a pumpkin-colored jacket over a black skirt-probably, if Lee could believe hall gossip, something she’d picked up for a song at Filene’s Basement. She could afford to shop wherever she liked. Lee had to remind himself that Rebecca Blackburn was a very wealthy woman. She wasn’t going to starve.
He noticed the gold dragons hanging from her ears. They demonstrated her renowned irreverence, her Blackburn independence. Even if they’d been three-dollar costume pieces-and they weren’t-they would have told Lee Donigan that she wasn’t one of them. She stood apart from everyone else at Winston & Reed. She didn’t belong. And she knew it.