Martina observed.
“No, I don’t think so,” Ellie agreed, wondering who on earth he’d bought such a hideous necklace for. His wife? She couldn’t imagine a snooty society maven ever wearing something so garish. A girlfriend on the side? Much more likely, she thought, wrinkling her nose.
She looked at the name of the jeweler on the white satin under the lid. “I guess I’ll have to take it to the jeweler’s tomorrow.” She sighed. Tomorrow was Christmas Eve—she had two houses to clean and her aunt’s and uncle’s party afterward. She really didn’t have time to make another trip up to Michigan Avenue.
It would serve him right if I didn’t return it until after Christmas, she thought, feeling just a little bit grinchy herself.
“This guy must be really rich.” Martina glanced sideways at Ellie. “I wonder who he is.”
“I have no idea.” And she didn’t want to know.
“Mmm.” Martina was still eyeing her. “Some old guy, I suppose.”
“Not really. Thirty, maybe.”
“Thirty! That’s not bad at all. Good-looking?”
“I didn’t think so,” Ellie lied. In fact, her first impression had been that he was very attractive. When she’d first looked up into his concerned face, her heart had given an odd little thump. He’d seemed so friendly, his greenish eyes smiling down at her…until suddenly, for no reason at all, they’d turned a frosty gray.
She’d fumed over his rudeness all the way home. She’d apologized automatically—but really, the collision had been his fault as much as hers. He hadn’t been looking where he was going and he’d been walking very fast. He’d knocked her off her feet, caused her to drop and damage some of her gifts and made her miss her train, as well. He could have at least offered her a ride. Not that she would have accepted, but still…He’d probably been worried that she’d get his fancy limo dirty.
No, he hadn’t been attractive at all, she realized now. “He was big with mean eyes,” she told her cousin.
“Fat?”
Actually, he’d felt like solid steel when she bumped into him. “I couldn’t tell—he had on an overcoat. But he had a Van Gogh sort of face.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Martina asked. “He only had one ear?”
Ellie laughed and shook her head, but didn’t say any more. It was too hard to explain. In her mind’s eye, she could see the man clearly, the heavy eyebrows, the penetrating eyes, the angular features just slightly asymmetrical….
“Hmmph. I don’t know why rich men all have to be ugly as dirt.” With a sigh, Martina reached into the bag again and pulled out the magazine she’d asked Ellie to buy. “Well, maybe not all rich men,” she amended, holding up the magazine to show Ellie the cover. “Garek Wisnewski is a doll, don’t you think?”
Ellie had grabbed the magazine at the store with barely a glance at the cover. Looking at it now, she stiffened.
Dominating the page was a picture of a half-dressed redhead and a man staring angrily at the camera—a man with familiar cold gray eyes below slashing black brows.
The expression on his face had been exactly the same a few hours ago when he’d left her standing in the gutter.
Ellie looked at the headline above the picture.
Main Course: Hanky Panky, it screamed in eye-popping red print. Dessert: Chicago’s Most Eligible Bachelor.
Chapter Two
Getting in to see Garek Wisnewski was like trying to get in to see the pope.
Ellie had been worried that the office building might be closed on Christmas Eve, but it wasn’t. Employees filled the marble foyer—at least the part Ellie could see from the security desk near the entrance while the guard inspected her ID. He looked at her license closely, as though he suspected it might be a forgery, before demanding to know her business. She told him, then waited, shivering every time someone opened the door and let a blast of cold air in, while the guard made a telephone call, casting suspicious glances at her the whole time.
As ten minutes stretched into twenty, Ellie began to be annoyed. She’d come straight here from cleaning the second house on her schedule and she felt grimy and sweaty. She needed to go home and wash and change for the party. She wanted to be at her uncle’s, not standing in this cold foyer waiting on Garek Wisnewski. She wished she hadn’t let Martina talk her into trying to contact him directly.
“Don’t you see, Ellie?” Martina had said. “This is your chance. Return the necklace and ask him if he needs any art for his office. Maybe he’ll buy something. And if you’re lucky, maybe he’ll ask you out on a date.”
Ellie rolled her eyes. “I doubt he would appreciate anything at Vogel’s. And if he asked me for a date—which he wouldn’t!—there’s no way I would agree to go anywhere with him. I told you how rude he was. Besides, what kind of man gets featured on the cover of tabloids with his ‘exotic dancer’ girlfriend?”
“Maybe that’s why he was rude—because he was embarrassed about the picture.”
Ellie glanced at the scowling face on the magazine cover—and at the redhead wearing a big smile and not much else. The caption identified her as Miss Lilly Lade and stated her occupation.
Embarrassed? Ellie didn’t think so. There’d been too much hard self-assurance in his bearing. Even if he had been, that still didn’t excuse his rudeness. Nor his execrable taste in women—and jewelry. Now the necklace made perfect sense.
But in the end, she hadn’t been able to outargue Martina or her own conscience, which told her that if she really wanted to help everyone who relied on the gallery, she would swallow her pride and go see Garek Wisnewski.
It was the logical thing to do. No matter how rude he’d been, he’d be grateful when she returned his tacky necklace.
After looking up Wisnewski Industries in the phone book and discovering its ritzy address on the Loop, she took the train from her last job into town. When she first saw the skyscraper, it reminded her of a fortress—all gray stone with narrow, impenetrable windows.
The overzealous security guard reinforced the impression.
He finally hung up the phone and turned to her, a clipboard in his hand, his eyes still suspicious. “Fill in your name and address, and I’ll give you a pass to go up. Leave your coat and things here.”
Did he think she had a weapon hidden in a pocket? Ellie shed her wet coat and took the clipboard, filling in the gallery’s address rather than her own. She clipped the plastic pass to the strap of her purse.
Upstairs, she had to run another gauntlet—of navy-suited, gimlet-eyed assistants. At the final desk sat a woman with shiny silver-gray hair cut like a helmet and piercing blue eyes who gazed disapprovingly at Ellie’s jeans and yellow sweater. She made a brief phone call, then escorted Ellie into the inner office.
Wood paneling, plush carpet and heavy furniture met Ellie’s gaze.
