Wishful Thinking Read online

  “Uh-huh.” Phil tried not to let her hopes drop too much. Maybe he really had remembered it was her birthday and he was just leading her on. Sometimes Christian liked to tease her that way. “You know,” she said, giving him a tentative smile. “If you have time later on tonight I’d really like to talk to you. About plans for the wedding—Cass and Rory and my nana all want to know when we’re setting a date.”

  “Aw, c’mon.” Christian frowned. “Don’t hit me with that first thing in the morning, okay? I know you want to set a date and I promise we’ll do it soon. But we need to save enough money so that you can have that nice big wedding you deserve.”

  “I don’t know, Christian.” Phil looked down at her bare feet. “Lately I’ve been thinking that a big wedding isn’t so important to me. We could even run off to Vegas if you want to.”

  “Look, Phil, can we talk about this later?” Christian was beginning to look annoyed. “You know I want to get married as much as you do. Hell, we’ve been waiting four years to do it. But just…not now. Okay?”

  Phil sighed and bit her lip. Her fiancé always seemed to have some excuse for not talking about the future they had planned together.

  Christian must have seen her expression because he put down his coffee and reached out an arm to pull her close and gave her a squeeze. “Aw, don’t look like that, babe. You know how much you mean to me and that I want to spend the rest of my life with you. Don’t you?”

  Phil nodded. “I know. It just seems like you’re always too busy to talk about the details.”

  Christian grimaced. “It’s this damn job—has me tied in knots day and night. But I promise we’ll talk about it soon, okay? You know how I feel about you—right?” It was an old joke between them and Phil answered automatically.

  “The same way I feel about you. Hate your guts, you jerk.”

  “That’s right. Hate you so much I can’t stand to be without you.” Christian laughed and dug his fingers into her side, just below her ribs. Phil yelped and jumped away.

  “Christian! You know I hate to be tickled.”

  He grinned at her charmingly and picked up the mug of coffee and the paper. “Why do you think I do it, Philly-babe? Seriously, I promise we’ll talk about plans for the wedding and all that crap later, okay?”

  When Christian had decided he didn’t want to discuss something, there was no point in trying. Pasting a smile on her face Phil said, “All right, I guess we can talk about it later just as well. So—did you sleep well?”

  “Well as can be expected with so much on my mind. Got a big day today.”

  Phil felt her heart leap. He had been teasing her earlier! This year he really had remembered! “So, you have something special planned for tonight?” she asked, trying to sound casual.

  “Sure do, babe. And you better be ready at seven sharp ’cause we’re going out.”

  “Really?” Phil nearly did a little happy dance right there in the kitchen. She knew Christian wasn’t a sentimental kind of guy—he’d warned her he wasn’t when they first started dating. So when he did go out of his way to make a gesture like this, it meant that much more to her.

  “Really.” Christian shook out the paper and sniffed the air suspiciously. “Hey, what’s that smell?”

  “Nothing,” Phil said hastily. “I spilled some coffee on the burner and it smoked up some. So can you tell me where we’re going?” She couldn’t keep the excitement out of her voice.

  Christian sniffed the air again, shrugged and took a sip of coffee. “Sure, we’re going out to Ivarone’s with the Vances—new clients of mine. Remember I told you about them? He’s into foreign imports and she collects some kind of art. Thought maybe you could schmooze ’em a little since that wacky sister of yours thinks she’s an artist.” He laughed and took another sip of coffee.

  “New clients?” Phil felt her heart drop. Please don’t tell me you forgot again! she thought desperately. “But…but Christian, don’t you remember what day this is?”

  “Sure I do.” He shook out the paper so he could read the date at the top of the wrinkled page. “It’s…Monday, June thirtieth. Looks like a beautiful day.” He slurped down the last of his coffee, belched and stood up to kiss her on the cheek. “Gotta go, babe, I’m running late. If you’re gone by the time I get out of the shower, have a good day. And don’t forget to be ready by seven tonight. Can’t keep the Vances waiting.”

  He brushed past her, leaving Phil feeling like someone had poked a hole in her heart and let all the good feelings out, like air leaking out of a balloon.

  Chapter Four

  The drive to work was uneventful although Phil found, when she pulled in to the parking garage for Brummel, Brummel, & Dickson, that someone had parked in her assigned space. The sleek red Mercedes seemed to mock her smaller, shabbier, pale blue Volkswagen bug. Phil had been working at BB&D for almost four years and she knew exactly who the Mercedes belonged to—Alison, the office flirt who used her charms shamelessly to get anything she wanted. Alison had her own assigned space, but it was toward the back of the lot and she didn’t like to walk. How she could afford such an expensive car on her salary, which was supposedly the same as Phil’s, was a subject of ongoing office speculation. Sighing, Phil found a spot in the back and walked slowly towards the elevator.

  “Hey, lady! Hey, lady! You wanna buy a pencil?”

  Phil winced as she passed the kid, who looked to be fourteen or fifteen, wearing large, dark sunglasses and jingling a cup of change and pencils. He was short for his age and only the dark fuzz of hair on his upper lips gave it away. There wasn’t supposed to be any solicitation on the BB&D premises but somehow the little blind pencil boy never got caught. Honestly, Phil wasn’t even all that sure he was blind, or even sight impaired. She was fairly certain she’d seen him or someone who looked exactly like him riding away on his bike one day, sunglasses tucked in his back pocket, as soon as all the employees had gone into the building. But still, every day he made her feel guilty and every day she bought a pencil she didn’t want for a dollar she would have preferred to spend at lunch.

  She’d told Cass and Rory about it and they had laughed at her, and called it ‘the not-so-blind-pencil-boy diet”. Phil supposed she could see the humor in it but somehow today she just didn’t feel like being taken for a ride.

  “Please, lady, don’t you wanna buy a pencil?” the boy begged, tilting his head appealingly. Sighing, Phil reached into her pocket. Why should today be any different?

  BB&D was located at the top of the Continental Bank Tower, a large silver building that rose forty-seven stories to loom over downtown Tampa. Phil stepped into the elevator and pressed the button for her floor, trying not to see the defeated look on her face in the mirrored walls of the elevator. She stepped out onto the plush maroon carpet that complimented the pale pink walls of the office.

  One of the senior partners had hired a color expert to remodel the entire space a few years back who had claimed that soft pastels on the walls were both soothing and invigorating—supposedly making people more focused on their work. In Phil’s opinion, the “expert” had probably just had about fifty gallons of pale pink paint to use up because she felt neither soothed nor invigorated when she hit the doors of BB&D. Instead, she felt like she was stuck inside the middle of a giant seashell and she couldn’t get out. But maybe that feeling had less to do with the color scheme and more to do with her job.

  Once at her cubicle, she stuffed the useless pencil in her desk drawer along with about a hundred others and put her purse on the shelf. A look at the calendar told her that Atwood Dickson Junior, her boss, had a big day in court this afternoon and she was willing to bet he wasn’t half done with the files she’d sent him home with that weekend. Just another day in paradise.

  “Phil? Hello, Earth to Philomena. Come in Philomena.” It was Kelli, the paralegal who sat in the cubicle beside Phil’s, practically shouting in her ear.

  Phil suppressed another sigh. If she had been quicker, s