not very good at this,’ he added ruefully.
‘You’re probably marvellous at it,’ she said. ‘I’m the one who’s out of practice.’
‘I find that hard to believe.’
‘Well, believe it, Mr Hansen,’ she said. ‘I’ve just had a depressing conversation about age with the woman whose seat you’re sitting in. New York older women age in proportion to dog years. Once we hit forty, we freewheel downhill to becoming senior citizens, wearing elasticated waists and going on cruises so we can put on another twelve pounds at the buffet. To sum up: I am all out of sexy chat with new men.’
She was sort of sorry by the time the words had left her mouth but still, she didn’t want to be toyed with. Joe was probably only amusing himself with her until a more likely prospect came along.
‘You don’t look forty,’ he said. ‘And, I’m really not good at this. I’m out of practice too. I was married for a long time and my wife and I have, well – separated.’ He said it all slowly, like he was just getting used to the phrase.
‘Sorry to hear that.’
‘Thanks but it’s been a long time coming.’ He shrugged. ‘We were married young. We’ve been trying to make it work for a long time but hey, it hasn’t.’
‘You’re on the lookout for a second wife, then?’ Izzie asked cheekily. ‘Because your neighbour’ – she meant the woman with the bank-vault jewellery – ‘seemed to be auditioning for the role.’
‘Muffy?’ he said. ‘She’s sweet but not really my type.’
Sweet? Muffy? She was as sweet as a rattlesnake, Izzie thought, but let it pass. She liked the fact that he wasn’t the sort of guy to make a snide remark about Muffy.
‘Listen,’ he went on, ‘I don’t do this normally. It’s been –’ he winced, ‘over twenty years since I did.’
He put one hand on her bare arm and Izzie had to hide her sharp intake of breath.
What was happening to her?
‘I take risks in business, calculated ones. I try to systematically beat the markets through math. Sometimes I bet on longshots, but not often. I’m known for being straight and saying what I think. I’ve never sat beside a strange woman at a charity luncheon and felt like this, or acted like this. For all I know, you might have a hotline number to page six of the New York Post to say Joe Hansen has lost it, but for once, I don’t care because I’ve got to say what I feel.’
There was silence. His fingers were still wrapped around her arm, warm skin on warm skin.
‘This is crazy,’ Izzie said, shaken.
Their eyes locked and he only looked away to curse lightly under his breath and take a tiny, vibrating cell phone from his breast pocket. He scanned it quickly, then put it back.
‘I’ve got to go,’ Joe said urgently. ‘Can I drop you someplace?’
‘I’ve got to go back to work too,’ she said. Work seemed like a million miles away. ‘But my office is off Houston, it may not be on your way…’ she added lamely.
‘I’ve got time,’ he said.
Suddenly, they were leaving, walking out without saying goodbye to anyone. The auction was still going on. Joe made a call on his cell phone and by the time they reached the street there was a discreet black car waiting for them. It was sleek and luxuriously anonymous, like something NASA might consider sending to Mars. Izzie climbed in.
‘I’ve lived in apartments smaller than the inside of this car,’ she joked, settling back into a seat of pale cream leather.
‘I know the owner. We could sort out a deal,’ he joked back.
She sat as far away from him as she could in the back seat, trying to appear as if she spent a lot of time being ferried round the city in luxury.
‘You know about me and I still don’t know anything about you, Ms Silver. What do you do?’ he asked.
Izzie gave him her spiel. Women were normally interested in the fashion world and made sympathetic noises about working with beautiful beings. Men were either bored or their faces lit up and they wanted to know – some subtly, some not so subtly – if her agency had any of the Victoria’s Secrets girls on their books.
Joe did none of these things.
He asked her about the agency and about the problems faced by a business where the main commodity was human beings. As the car cruised along, insulating Izzie and Joe from the rainy streets via darkened windows, she became passionate about the flaws in the industry.
Before she knew it, she’d forgotten everything except the need to explain to this man that she hated seeing so many girls messed up by fashion’s predilection for using the skinniest-limbed waifs they could find.
‘Officially, fashion people say it’s not our fault that the big look is “rexy” – a combination of sexy and anorexia,’ she explained when he looked baffled, ‘but of course the whole fashion industry is a factor. C’mon, if you’re a fourteen-year-old and you see an air-brushed girl in every TV commercial or magazine spread, eventually, you’ll think that’s what you’re supposed to look like, even if it’s physically impossible for you. So hello anorexia or bulimia.’
‘I’m glad I’ve got sons,’ he remarked.
‘Sons? How old are they?’ Izzie recovered at lightning speed. Of course, he’d have children. He’d spoken about a long marriage: children would be part of that.
‘Twenty-three, twelve and fourteen,’ he said, his face softening. ‘Tom, he’s the eldest. He’s in France working on his French, and possibly on the girls. Matt’s next, bit of a gap, I know, and he’s into music in a big way. Practises guitar all the time, won’t touch his math homework. Ironic, given that’s how I’ve made my money. Josh is more into his books. His school had an extra language class this term, Japanese, and he took it.’ Joe couldn’t keep the pride out of his voice. ‘Tom says his little bro is mad. Kids, huh?’
‘And they live with…?’ Izzie probed.
‘Us. We’re still in the same house while we’re sorting it all out,’ he said. ‘The separation has been a long time coming, but we’ve only recently formalised it. We’ve a big house,’ he added. ‘We want to get things right for the boys and this was the best way. No Dad moving out, not yet.’
‘Ah,’ Izzie said. Time for her to back off. No matter what instant attraction she’d had for this guy, she didn’t want to get caught up in a messy separation and divorce, or even be his rebound person. Any man getting out of a marriage after that long would be rebounding like a basketball at a Knicks’ game.
‘That’s my building,’ she told the driver as the Perfect-NY offices came into view.
The car pulled up. Joe put one hand on the door handle to let her out his side, the kerb side.
‘Would you have lunch with me one day?’ he asked.
‘You’re still married,’ Izzie pointed out. ‘In my book, that affects the whole dating process. It gets kinda messy – I’ve seen it. I don’t want to experience it.’
‘Just lunch,’ he said, and his steely grey eyes seemed to melt as they stared at hers. Izzie felt it again: that lurch of excitement inside her. She could honestly say she’d never felt anything like that before in her whole life, but what was the point? Their relationship could only be a friendship, it had no future. Otherwise, she’d be doing something really dumb.
‘Don’t move,’ Joe told the driver. ‘I’ll let Ms Silver out.’
‘Whatever you want, Mr Hansen.’
Whatever you want, Mr Hansen, thought Izzie helplessly, feeling that wave of attraction