Unzipped? (14 page)

“I agree,” Hal said.

“Okay, then. Call me on my cell if you hit a snag.” Shannon pulled her earpiece out, dropped it into her evening bag and swiped a crab puff on the way out from a roving waiter.

I hope he doesn’t get along with Ellen too well….

An image of Hal kissing Jane’s friend flashed through her mind. Her stomach lurched, and the crab puff looked a lot less appetizing. She dumped it into a trash can outside the elevators and went home. When she saw Hal tomorrow, would he belong to another woman?

S
HANNON STARED
blearily at her coffeemaker and got a cup out of the cabinet. She poured her salvation into the cup and reached into the cabinet for the artificial sweetener.

Hal had never called back last night.

It doesn’t mean anything, you idiot. Just because he felt he could handle himself without your advice does not signify that he jousted with her too-long nose or got up her too-short skirt.

Shannon refocused on her coffee cup and realized that she was pouring salt into it. Sighing, she dumped it into the sink, rinsed the cup and got another one.

She went through her morning process of getting ready and then scooped up her bag, keys, sunglasses and the stamped letter to the adoption agency, requesting that they contact her about her file.

On the way to work, she stopped at the post office and pulled up to the yawning black rectangular mouth of the outgoing mailbox. She took a deep breath.

Here goes.
And Shannon fed her envelope to the box and the unknown.

H
AL WAS MUTTERING
to himself, his fingers flying over the keyboard of his computer when she walked into his office. He’d managed to make even Enrique’s haircut look suspect, and the expensive cashmere sweater she’d made him buy looked as if it had been crumpled like a fast-food wrapper before he’d put it on. If ever a man needed her, Hal did.

“Good morning,” she said, looking for any clues as to his previous night’s activities. Surely if he’d kissed a woman with that long a nose, she’d have left little round bruises on his face?

“Morning,” he said, looking up at her. His fingers still moved on the keyboard. How did he do that?

“Are you ready to go over the basic script from last night?”

“I’m ready to find the source of this damned leak!” He rubbed his face with his hands.

She frowned. “You still haven’t found it?”

“No.”

“Have you considered the possibility that a former employee of yours is working for him?”

Hal shook his head. “The guy couldn’t have gotten this much from a single person—every programmer works on only a small section of my product. No, this is different. And if I don’t find out what he’s up to and stop him now, he’s going to ruin my IPO.”

“Isn’t your product copyrighted?”

“Yes, but all he has to do is make tiny changes…” Hal threw up his hands. “Nobody has hacked in. Nobody has sent the information out of here on e-mail. I
am going to have to do something I never thought I’d do—install hidden security cameras. I’ve already called to set up the appointment. And it makes me sick.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, me, too.” He looked far too stressed to have spent the night having screaming sex with another woman. She felt bad for him. She also felt relieved.

Why can’t I be a nice person and just wish the best for him?

“Well. We should go over your date. And we should get you prepared for tomorrow’s interview with
Business Weekly.
”

He sighed. “All right.”

She questioned him about developments with Ellen and was unaccountably thrilled to learn that he hadn’t even kissed her good-night. “Why not?” she asked. “Things were going very well at that point, right?”

Hal shrugged. “Yeah. But I didn’t want to kiss her. She’s not you.”

Shannon looked down at her notepad and did her best to assume a severe expression. “You have to move on, Hal. We both do. You’ll graduate from Suave School very soon, and you’ll have dozens of women lining up to date you.”

He didn’t look excited at the prospect.

Her heart danced a little jig. She told it to break a leg.
You’re just looking for someone to hang on to in this time of uncertainty. Hal is not for you. Now let him go. You’re not being fair to him, otherwise.

She grilled him in detail about the rest of his evening. Yes, the conversation had gone fine. He’d been able to be himself. Yes, he’d actually made small talk with some complete strangers and not offended them or bored them to tears. He had the business cards to show for it. And yes, if he had to, he could make an appearance at another one of these boring social events and manage not to embarrass himself.

“Good.” Shannon nodded. “Now, the next time a woman needs help getting into your truck, you offer her your hand. You don’t pick her up like a sack of potatoes and grab her ass—even accidentally.”

“Roger that,” said Hal.

“You always make sure you have a correct address and directions before you pick up a date. You try not to be more than five minutes late.”

“Check.”

“And make sure you find the right ballroom next time.”

“Got it.”

They moved on to the interview preparations. “Reporters,” Shannon warned him, “are crafty. They want to get a good angle for a story, and they’ll use anything that comes out of your mouth. Your job is to stay on target with the message that
you
want them to report. That means sometimes not answering their questions directly and pulling the focus of the interview in an alternate direction. This goes for either print or television, okay?”

He nodded.

“In service of getting your message across, you don’t want to distract the reporter or your possible audience from that message with fidgeting, odd mannerisms or strange clothing. Even a shiny nose can be a distraction on television. You want to look relaxed, but professional.”

“Uh-huh.”

“In preparation for the interview tomorrow, I’m going to put you on camera today and work with you on various things. We’re going to plan everything down to the last detail—even a couple of jokes. We’ll especially focus on what to do about surprise questions. Remember, the reporter’s job is to knock you off balance and off message. Your job is to not allow this.”

She hauled him into the conference room where she’d set up a video camera and two chairs. They went over and over the basics, then she turned on the camera and played reporter.

“Mr. Underwood, you started a technology company out of your college apartment at the age of nineteen. You specialized in programming for the insurance industry, because your father worked as an actuary. The business was so successful that you never finished your studies. Do you regret that?”

“Not at all,” Hal said calmly. “I read widely on my own, and because what I do is so specialized and customized, the lack of a diploma has never hurt me.”

“Certainly not financially, as you’re about to make an IPO. What can you tell us about the products that
Underwood Technologies offers? Do you do quoting for insurance companies? Issue policies?”

“No, actually, Shannon, what we do is a little different. We do risk/catastrophe modeling for such events as hurricanes, floods, tsunamis and earthquakes. We help the company understand what their exposure is by geographic area, making an estimate of their losses in the event of a natural disaster.”

“Tell me more, Hal.”

“Well, if a company knows what its exposure is, then they are better able to set their rates and manage their book of business. They are able to estimate what their reinsurance costs will be—”

“How can you accurately predict what a natural disaster will do?”

“We merge actual data on previous disasters with mapping data for a given geographic area…in plain English, we can give a range of possibilities for the company to be prepared for. The company then goes and buys an insurance policy from a bigger company to protect it against catastrophic loss under those circumstances.”

She asked him several more questions about his software and then threw in a couple of monkey wrenches. “Hal, how can you be sure that your software makes accurate predictions?”

“We have a proven track record and can demonstrate it mathematically. If you put correct data into the program, you are guaranteed an accurate prediction. Of course, we don’t have a crystal ball, Shan
non. A prediction is an estimate. But we give our clients the best estimate out there.”

“Recently there have been rumors in the business press of a competitor with a similar software. How does that compete with yours?”

Hal stared levelly at her and then the camera. “I’m confident that when put side by side with any competitor, Underwood Technologies’s software is superior in terms of user-friendliness, speed and accuracy.”

“And what about price?”

“Just remember that you get what you pay for. Saving ten dollars today could cost you thousands if there’s a bug in your software.”

“Are you saying there’s something wrong with your competitor’s program, Hal?”

He faced the camera and smiled confidently. “Of course not. But I
am
in the business of forecasting.”

“Thank you, Hal.”

Shannon got up and turned off the camera. Then she slowly clapped her hands. “You may still be having problems in the dating arena, but other than that? You’re about to graduate from Suave School, babe. Congratulations.”

H
AL’S INTERVIEW
with
Business Weekly
went spectacularly well, if he did say so himself. But Shannon said so, too, and beamed at him from the sidelines as if he were five years old and had succeeded in gluing macaroni and dried beans to a sheet of construction paper in art class.

Behind the scenes, he’d been doing a lot more than that. While it had finally sunk in that he couldn’t stop the leak from occurring, what he could do was insert bugs in his own software. Whoever stole information would also steal big headaches.

And when Underwood Technologies made a sale to a new client, he would simply remove the bug from the program before giving it to them.

Hal was pretty happy with this solution, which bought him more time to track the source of the theft.

What he was not happy about was his last assignment from Shannon. “Choose a woman,” she commanded him. “And ask her out on a date.”

He didn’t really want to ask any of the women he knew on a date. And even less did he want to go to a bar, park or coffee shop to pick up a random one. The woman he wanted was Shannon.

He was reviewing a contract when Tina undulated into his office with yet another stack of handwritten phone messages. “Hi, Hal.” She winked at him. “Lookin’ good!”

He thought about telling her that flirting with him was inappropriate and taking messages by hand was inefficient. But truth to tell, she wasn’t that hard on the eyes in her tight, baby-blue sweater and an equally tight brown suede miniskirt. In fact, was that part of her bra peeking out of her neckline? Hmm. Interesting.

Hal needed a date. She acted as though she wanted one. He didn’t think about any awkwardness later. He just took the path of least resistance.

“Tina, do you have plans tomorrow? I was thinking of trying that new seafood place downtown.”

She looked at him and giggled. “Well, sure, Hal. Okay.”

“Pick you up at seven-thirty?”

“Fine. I’ll give you directions to my apartment.”

Good idea. Include the town.

Tina gave him an excellent view of her cleavage as she placed the messages on his desk. She winked at him and exited the room.

The chicks were digging him. He had a date. This was part of the reason he’d gone through all the stupid, painful makeover crap. So why wasn’t he more excited?

H
AL’S EARPIECE
tickled and made his ear feel as if it were clogged. “Pulling up to the door,” he said to Shannon.

“You in the right city?”

“Funny.” He got out and headed upstairs to the second floor of Building D. “About to ring the doorbell.”

“I’m breathless with anticipation.”

Hal rolled his eyes and leaned on the little white button to the right of Tina’s beige apartment door.

She opened it and he almost keeled over from perfume inhalation. Whew! She’d poured a pint of something over herself. Shrill, staccato barking assaulted his ears from somewhere behind her.

“Hi, Hal.” Her eye-popping silver dress had been painted on her, and highlighted every personal crevice. Every swell. Every not-so-swell.

“Hi, Tina.” He produced a smile and tried not to stare. “Your dress is really something.” So were the four-inch dangling rhinestone earrings and the four-inch spike-heeled silver sandals. He didn’t quite know how to break it to her that they were going to a chowder house.

“Thanks!” She snapped her gum. “Let me just kiss Binkie goodbye and we can skedaddle.”

“Who the hell is Binkie and what is Tina wearing?” Shannon said into Hal’s ear.

“Later,” he muttered.

Binkie turned out to be a white toy poodle in a pink plastic kennel. Hal did not find him in the least kissable, but Tina assumed the position of a large, sparkly frog and puckered up to the grille of his pink palace.

Since the fabric of her dress had stretched to the sheerness of plastic wrap, Hal discovered to his dismay that Tina wore not a stitch underneath. He hoped fervently that she would keep her legs crossed at all times in the chowder house.

Kiss complete, Tina straightened, teetered dangerously on the spike heels and clutched his arm for balance. He righted her and escorted her to the truck. Unlike Ellen, she didn’t seem put off by the height of the wheel base, and she scrambled up without any help. Hal gave thanks to the spandex gods that her dress didn’t explode off her body and went around to the driver’s side.

Dinner was full of giggles, “shut
ups
” and “no ways.” Hal pretended to be fascinated by his receptionist, and laughed loud and often. He remembered to be complimentary and charming. He made her feel like the only woman in the world. But his performance was not for her benefit. It was for Shannon’s. He wanted to show her that he wasn’t hopeless; she’d taught him well.

“So, I’m doing okay, huh?” he said, when Tina undulated off to the ladies’ room.

“You’re on fire, buddy.” Shannon’s voice sounded flat. “You’re becoming an accomplished flirt.”

“Thank you,” he said, gratified.

The evening wore on, and he disguised his extreme boredom and distaste. Tina ate clam chowder, fish tacos, French fries and a lot of ketchup. She drank a quantity of sweet pink wine: three generous glasses. She also had decaf coffee and a large wedge of pie.

Hal ate lobster bisque and mahimahi over rice. He had one beer, real coffee and no dessert. “Well,” he said, finally. “It’s getting late.”

She sparkled at him and reapplied her lipstick at the table. “My favorite time.” She winked.

“Heh, heh.” Hal paid the tab and escorted her out to the Explorer. She sat a little too close to him, and kept touching his shoulder while he drove.

“Well, here we are!” He pulled up to her apartment building and shifted into Park. “It’s been a wonderful evening, Tina,” he said as sincerely as he could. “Thank you.”

“Oh, it
has.
”

“I’ll, uh, walk you to your door.” He did.

She unlocked it and turned to face him.

Uh-oh. What the hell did he do now?

She angled her head, clearly expecting a kiss.

I really, really don’t want to kiss her. But is it rude not to? Will I hurt her feelings?

“Oh, Hal. You’re just so cute and shy,” Tina said. Then she launched herself at him with both hands and swung from his neck until he bent his head. She suctioned onto him and stuck her tongue into his mouth.

“Mmmmmwhummmm,”
said Hal, revolted.

“Put your hands on my titties, like this, Hal,” she said, breaking away and grabbing his hands. “I know you’ve fantasized about it.” She clamped his hands to her breasts.

“Er…”

“Squeeze, baby, squeeze!” She felt behind her for the doorknob, turned it, and tugged him inside.

“No, really—”

Tina pushed him onto her sofa and climbed astride him. She pulled the straps of her dress down to expose her gigantic bosom, and the nipples stared him in the eyes accusingly.

Hal blinked and goggled at them. No, this was…this was
bad.
They were like something out of
Mad
magazine, and he wished she would put them away. “Tina, I can’t—”

“Oh, Hallie.” She stuffed one into his mouth.

“Mmmfffwha.”

Tina pulled his shirt out of his waistband, running her hands underneath the fabric to his…

“Oh, my God!” she hollered.

Wire.
Oh, shit, the wire!

S
HANNON LISTENED
in growing distress as Tina and Hal kissed. Even though she told herself that this
would have happened eventually on one of his dates, did it have to happen on this one? And with
Tina?
At “Squeeze, baby, squeeze!” Shannon ripped the earpiece out and threw it onto the moldy carpet of the beemer. Hal had disappeared into the tramp’s apartment, and she could obviously call it a night. No way was she going to offer him pointers while he had sex with his receptionist.

Men were despicable. They’d hump anything with two tits and a hole. She started the car and took off like a bat out of hell. The night air was heavy with impending moisture, but she didn’t bother putting the top up until she got home.

“T
INA
,” said Hal, “I can explain—”

She burst into tears. “You know everything!”

“Huh? Well, not quite,” he admitted modestly.

“You’re working with the FBI! You brought in the police!”

“What?”

“I was forced to do it,” she sobbed, rivulets of inky mascara running down her cheeks, “blackmailed.”

“Do what?”

“He gave me the little memory stick thingy, and instructions on what to do.”

Light dawned on Hal. “Greer Conover.”

“Yes, him. The rat. He said he’d skin Binkie alive and make a hat out of him. He said he’d have my granny kicked out of the nursing home. He said—”

Hal tugged her dress up so that she was decent and
got her off his lap. “Sounds like he said a lot of things.”

“He did. And he took naked pictures of me that night we went out. He said he’d put those on the Internet and make sure my dad saw them.”

Paris Hilton, eat your heart out.

“Greer,” Hal told her, “has always been such a friendly guy.”

“He’s an asshole,” she sobbed. “With a pencil dick.”

Hal choked.

She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. “You’re going to fire me, aren’t you?”

No sense in lying. “Well, yes. But I’ll give you a very nice severance package if you’ll cooperate with a police investigation.”

S
HANNON SLAMMED
into her apartment and sank down onto her leopard upholstered chair. The many faces of Marilyn stared at her as her tears came, hot and humiliating and unwelcome.

Outside, the rain started, too, beating steadily down on the roof and splattering the windows in cooperation with gusts of wind.

The Marilyns witnessed her realization: that she’d gone and fallen in love with Hal Underwood.

She’d turned him into the hot guy that all the chicks would dig. But now that she’d transformed him, she’d give anything to have him all to herself, just the way he was the day she’d met him. Shaggy, baggy and awkward. Sweet.

What had she done to him? She’d turned him into the kind of guy who banged his receptionist on a whim. A guy who knew the power of his looks and money to ignite female fantasies.

The thought of him with his hands on Tina’s breasts sickened her. She felt bile rising in her throat as she looked at her fake bearskin rug. The rug where he’d so tenderly made love to her the other night.

Shaking, she hurtled toward it and rolled it tightly, wishing she could set it on fire or ram it down the garbage disposal or flush it down the toilet.

She settled for cramming it into the coat closet, where she wouldn’t have to look at it.

Hal could have at least thought of her for the split second it took to remove the microphone. He must have had to anyway, so Tina wouldn’t find the wire.

She imagined the whole scenario.

Squeeze, baby, squeeze!
And Hal would have obliged with gusto. He might even have pinned Tina’s wrists over her head so that she wouldn’t find his secret; gotten excited over her willing captivity…

But he’d have gone into the bathroom, ripped off the equipment and stuffed it into his pants pocket. Then he’d have ditched his clothes and come out naked.

As for Tina…she’d have been a one-step strip. No way had she had on anything under the tacky piece of plastic wrap she’d worn.

Stop thinking about it. Just stop it! Shannon searched for anything that would block the images from her mind. Vodka. She had a bottle in the
freezer. She walked into the kitchen, opened the freezer door and stared at the almost-full bottle. Icy cold, opaque with frost, it beckoned her. She slammed the door on it.

Too many people in L.A. had tried to block their problems that way. Altering the mind didn’t alter the reality to which you returned.

She put on loud music instead: an old, punk-inspired, angry Red Hot Chili Peppers album, which fit her mood perfectly. She turned it up to screaming level, knowing that she’d have complaints from the neighbors any moment, though she hoped the onslaught of rain would kill some of the sound.

Within five minutes, she heard pounding on her door, and sighed. While she wanted to ignore it or tell Mrs. Parker—it had to be Mrs. Parker—to do something biologically impossible, she couldn’t.

Shannon turned down the music, opened the door and found a wet Hal on the other side.

“Can you believe it?” he exclaimed.

She stared at him scathingly. “That you got laid? Here’s a news flash for you, Hal. That woman probably humps her own doorknobs. So don’t be so proud of yourself.”

His jaw dropped open.

“Congratulations. You’ve graduated from Suave School. I’ll send you a bill. Now get out.”

“Shannon, you don’t understand—”

“I understand perfectly. She fell into your lap all wet and juicy and you couldn’t say no.”

“That’s not what happened at all—”

“Squeeze, baby, squeeze!” she shouted at him. “I was listening to the whole thing, remember? So don’t lie to me, no matter how well you’ve learned to do it. I taught you, after all. That’s the sick part.”

Hal started to look angry himself. “I’m not lying to you. But what the hell are you so upset about, anyway? You also taught me to go out with other women, Shannon! I was supposed to move on, remember? I wasn’t cool enough for you, with my white socks and all. So what right do you have?”

“None,” she shouted. “None at all. Except that I thought you were still this pure, cerebral guy, someone better than that. And I’m sorry that I changed you, because I liked you a lot better before!”

Shannon put both hands on Hal’s chest and shoved, knocking him off balance.

“Is that right?” he said, his soulful blue eyes snapping with temper. He put his hands on her door frame and leaned in toward her, his breath hot on her face.

“Well, I’ve got a news flash for you, too, babe. You’re capricious as hell, impossible to please and I’m done pandering to your every whim. Don’t you dare pull this territorial crap when you don’t want me yourself. Got it? And you go ahead and send me that bill. I’ll include a hefty bonus for you to stay away from me.”

And Hal walked away without a backward glance. His slouch was gone and for once his posture was
perfect in the pouring rain. It didn’t look awkward or assumed. Rage became him.

Shannon took one step after him and then stopped. She went inside, curled up on her lip sofa and sobbed herself to sleep.