Black Jack

2

"Oh , hey," Sebastian said the next day as he was sifting through some of the paperwork on Jack's desk, "Lydia got a call-back audition for tomorrow."

"Yeh?" Jack said with slightly interested nonchalance.

"Yeah," he said absently. "I noticed Bob Haleh was on the jury. Did you say hi for me too?"

"Absolutely."

"Excellent. Thank you."

"Does that thing she does with her eyes work on women?"

Sebastian shrugged. "Maybe? Not sure."

"Because Ramona told me she saw it and ... I'm still clueless."

"Ask her yourself," he muttered absently, turning away with a gesture toward the hallway outside the conference room. "She's meeting me for lunch."

Jack thought he was about as jaded as a man could get when seeing women on Wall Street, but his jaw dropped on the floor when she stepped out of the elevator lobby, looked left then right, and started toward them.

"Good God," Jack whispered.

Sebastian looked over her shoulder. "Aw, shit," he muttered. "If she thinks I'm riding bitch, she's got another think coming."

Jack gulped. The only time he saw women dressed like that was during some city-wide event to "raise awareness" for something or film set or on a catwalk with a designer who'd decided to be "edgy" that season.

But no, there she was striding confidently toward the conference room, a faraway yet serene smile on her face, leaving men gaping in her wake. Her old gold curls were bouncing. A piano teacher was striding through a floor packed with bond traders in full biker leathers!

Jack couldn't say a word when she finally opened the conference room door and walked in as if she owned the place.

"I hope you found a place to put that thing where nobody'll steal it," Sebastian grumbled.

"Oh, no," she returned calmly. "It's just out front, although I had to tell the security desk I'm with you. My eyes only got me fifteen minutes."

"You're slipping," Sebastian muttered.

"No, I'm lazy. Hello, Jack," she said politely to Jack, turning those supposed-to-be-magical eyes on him. They seemed to be an ordinary gray at the moment.

Honestly, Jack didn't need hypnotic eyes to make him stare at her dumbfounded. She returned his look with that same serene expression, as if she were patiently waiting for him to speak but not at all curious about what he had to say. Finally he gestured toward her helmet. "You ... rode?"

"Oh, yes," she said amiably enough.

"Lydia doesn't like being without her own transportation."

"You— All the way from— Where are you from?"

She smiled as if soothing a frightened child. "I drove from Kansas."

"On a motorcycle?"

"Oh, yes," she replied calmly. "It's a very common thing."

"Do you even have a car?" Jack demanded, feeling as if there were three conversations going on at once in three different languages and he didn't know any of them.

"Yes," she murmured with a soothing smile.

"That's getting on my nerves," Jack snapped.

Her eyes widened a little, again as if she were trying to communicate something. "What, precisely, is getting on your nerves?"