One
Sitting in a booth in Ryder International’s flagship bar situated in the famous Forrester-Grantham Hotel in Manhattan, Kinga Ryder-White tapped an impatient finger against her glass and scowled at the face of her Piaget watch.
Griff O’Hare was extremely late for their meeting but that didn’t surprise her. She wouldn’t hold her breath waiting for him.
Honestly, what was Callum thinking wanting someone so disreputable as the headline act at one of the most highly anticipated social events of the decade? Nothing good ever came of her irascible grandfather meddling in PR affairs.
Yesterday, when she was summoned to Callum’s office, he’d gestured Kinga to look at his massive flat-screen TV. Her grandfather was watching YouTube, a surprise in itself. Her scowl deepened when she saw Griff O’Hare in the video—wearing holey-at-the-knees jeans and a red T-shirt—sitting at a piano in a music studio.
She couldn’t deny that he was talented. And hot.
“I don’t want to hire him, Callum.”
Callum ignored her, pushed Play, and O’Hare’s rich voice filled Callum’s office, deep and dark and magical. She recognized the song and was marginally impressed that the bad boy of rock and roll could control himself long enough to give a creditable rendition of “Nessun Dorma.”
When the video finished, Kinga had turned to Callum and shrugged. “I never said he couldn’t sing. I said he isn’t someone I want performing at the ball.”
“I will make that call, not you,” Callum had retorted, throwing the remote onto his desk.
Yes,of course. Because, in Callum’s world, a woman couldn’t possibly make a decision without having a male approve it. Kinga controlled her urge to scream. She and Callum had a hate-hate relationship: he hated her sassy mouth and lack of deference, and she hated the way he treated her father and his frequent dismissal of her and Tinsley’s opinions.
She loved her job, loved the people she worked with...but couldn’t stand her boss.
Callum had nodded to the screen. “That video has had over sixty-five million views in a month. The music world is speculating on when he’ll return to performing.”
She’d stared at the view count, her eyes skimming the comments. Ah, this was starting to make sense now. Griff O’Hare was unreliable, but he was a superbly talented, currently elusive rock star, and the world was clamoring for his return.
Callum Ryder-White wanted to be the person credited for bringing O’Hare back into the limelight by having his first performance in, well,foreverbe at the Ryder International ball. Callum always wanted everything and anything that was new, shiny, exclusive and expensive.
He was, after all, the patriarch of the Ryder-White family, and he considered himself to be East Coast royalty. And kings wanted what they wanted...
Blergh.
Nope, hiring the unreliable O’Hare was far too risky. Kinga shook her head. “I’m not comfortable with his return performance being at my ball.”
“Myball,” Callum had corrected her. “My company, my ball, my decision. Meet with him, and make it happen. Or else find a new job. Now go away.”
Kinga, knowing it was useless to argue, had left. But she couldn’t help wondering if her grandfather was serious or if he was playing her, setting her up for failure. Callum did like to play manipulative mind games. Whatever he was up to, Kinga had no intention of riskinghercarefully planned event being spoiled when the entertainment failed to show.
Since that meeting with Callum she’d done her homework, conducted research on the guy and concluded that Griff O’Hare—once voted the world’s sexiest man—was an ass.
Even worse, he was a bad boy ass.
Kinga had no time for either—bad boys or asses.
Kinga scowled, decided she’d give him another thirty minutes and then she’d move on. She didn’t have time to waste on tardy one-time superstars who thought they were God’s gift.
She liked New York City but she didn’t love it; Portland—her proud little city, smaller, cleaner and far lovelier—was home. And she needed to get back.
On the point of leaving, she felt the atmosphere in the bar change, heard the buzz of excited voices and assumed her four-thirty appointment had deigned to join her. Lifting her head, she watched Griff O’Hare flash his famous half smile, half smirk at the excited waitress. Most of the men drinking in the luxury bar wore designer suits and thousand-dollar shoes—hair neatly brushed, ties precisely knotted and beards carefully trimmed—but O’Hare flouted the dress code with his faded jeans ripped at the knee, biker boots and a leather bomber jacket, a matte black helmet tucked under his arm. His nut-brown, naturally shot-with-gold hair was overlong and messy, and a thick layer of stubble covered his strong jaw.
A vibe of I-don’t-give-a-crap rolled off him.
If she were honest, she’d admit her stomach did feel a bit mushy, her skin prickly. But that was just biology. She, like most women, was programmed by evolution to look for the fittest, strongest, most masculine guy in the room as a potential mate.
But Kinga, relentlessly single, needed more than an attractive face topping a ripped body. There were other, more important traits she required in a partner. Fidelity, a solid work ethic, intelligence.
But none of that mattered, since she no longer believed in love, didn’t know if she ever had. But even if she did, and had, she’d never again risk losing a person she loved.