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“Hmm. Right.” I bent over and scooped up my bag and coat. “I’m off to bed.”
“You can’t avoid everything, you know,” he called after me. “It’s a life philosophy that will get you deported.”
He was right, of course.
But I was my father’s daughter.
* * *
Felicia had tried to cancel our dinner plans earlier Thursday afternoon, calling me and telling me she was too upset to be good company.
“Is it that bad? Are you really being deported?” I had asked her, staring at the images on my laptop she’d sent me. It was her, modeling the clothes I’d had sent over to her apartment on Wednesday.
The shots were for her auction site, and she’d apologized that she would have tried to use a different model given the circumstances, but that her two regulars she used were the wrong size for Becca’s clothes. Several of the dresses I honestly didn’t even remember. There was one I did, but it stood out for all the wrong reasons. Becca had actually been angry with me the night she’d worn it to a fundraiser for the hospital. We’d had a fight about her spending habits and she’d bought it to be defiant. It was red, which was not a color she ever wore, but it had been done to stand out in a sea of dresses in what would undoubtedly be ivories, blacks, and blues.
I still didn’t associate red with Becca.
But I did with Felicia.
I swiped through the images quickly in my office, not really caring about the lighting and the overall appearance, which was what Felicia wanted me to approve. They all looked fine and I was sure she knew what she was doing and could get them sold. None of that mattered.
All I could think about was how much she intrigued me, how amazing the sex had been, and how soon she was going to be leaving New York.
“It’s that bad. I’m really being deported. I have forty days unless something changes.”
I swiveled in my chair. I only had about five minutes. I had a meeting with the orthopedic department head. “I don’t like the sound of that. What would need to change?”
“Either I have the world’s greatest lawyer who convinces the INS that somehow I’m special and worthy of bending the rules because my contribution to the States is just absolutely extraordinary. I think we can see how that is going to turn out. A monster failure.”
That made me frown. Really? I finally found a woman I could see exploring a relationship with and she was being sent out of the country. “How do you feel about going back to England?”
“It’s not my first choice. I burned a bridge or two across the pond. But mostly, my adult life is here in New York. I haven’t lived in London for more than a few months since my twatty teen years.”
Normally that would have made me laugh but I was too pissed off. “There’s no other way you can stay? Maybe as a fugitive or under a false name?” I was tempted to hide her in my apartment.
She laughed. “I’m not much for subterfuge, though I do love a good spy wardrobe. But I’m a bit of an idiot if you hadn’t noticed. I couldn’t pull out the lie long term. No, the only way to stay is to get engaged to an American. I asked my roommate Javier and he gave me a shockingly resounding no. I was quite offended.”
Get engaged? Interesting.
“How could anyone say no to you?” I said.
“Quite easily. But Javier has a girlfriend, so I can’t blame him. I need someone single for it to be believable.”
“Did you have someone in mind?” My thoughts started to churn.
“I can’t think of a single soul,” she said.
Yet she sounded almost… flirty.
My surgical assistant popped her head in. “Are you ready?” she asked.
“Yes, be there in a minute, Kim, thanks.
“Felicia, I have to run to a meeting, but don’t cancel dinner. I want to see you. It will be a great distraction for you.”
“A great distraction? How could I say no to that?”
“You can’t. Remember that. You can never say no to me.”
