The Rebound Guy (3 page)

“Hello, Ms. Carpenter,” he said in a deep, smooth voice, exuding virility as if he’d cornered the market on it. Walking forward, he stretched his hand across her desk. “I’m Dexter Bryant.”

“Asia Carpenter,” she said, shaking his hand. She was surprised at the calluses she felt. The slightly roughened palm didn’t fit with the sleek business suit and professional demeanor.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Bryant,” Asia continued as she rose from her chair, “but I could not find anything showing that we had a meeting scheduled. Can you refresh my memory? What company are you with?”

“There is no company yet, just me.” His features relaxed into a smile that caused a bead of awareness to rush along her skin. “The meeting was set up by India Carpenter,” he offered.

“India? What could—” Asia stopped, a thought occurring to her.

Oh, no, she didn’t
.

“You’re that rebound guy, aren’t you?”

“I’m not a fan of that title,” he answered with a flash of very nice white teeth. “I prefer relationship advisor.”

She would prefer he leave her office.

Asia reined in the temper building like steam from a locomotive in her blood. She would save her fury for the person who rightfully deserved it: India Marie Carpenter.

Walking around her desk, Asia stopped a few feet in front of him and crossed her arms over her chest.

“I’m sorry for whatever time you’ve wasted coming here, but I did not request this meeting. It was my sister.”

His smooth brow furrowed. “Is she on her way? This is the time and address she emailed me.”

“No. Yes.” Asia shook her head. “I’m certain this is the address she provided, but she shouldn’t have. India thought I needed your services. I do not.”

“So, you haven’t just ended a long-term relationship?”

Her mouth dropped open. She quickly closed it and straightened her spine. “That is none of your business,” she said.

His hazel eyes gleamed as the small smile pulling at his lips widened. “So, you have.”

“Mr. Bryant, please leave. Your services are not needed, and I have a meeting.”

Asia ignored the tingle that traveled up her spine as his shrewd gaze remained on her for far longer than was comfortable.

With an almost imperceptible shrug, he turned and started for the door. He stopped just before the threshold and turned back toward her. Slipping a hand inside the front of his suit coat, he pulled out a square black card and set it on the credenza next to her door.

“Just in case you change your mind,” he said, then he flashed that hint of a smile again and walked out of her office.

Asia sat back against the edge of her desk and let out a slow, uneasy breath. Her heart was pumping and her skin felt flushed. She was downright appalled at her body’s reaction. She still wore another man’s engagement ring, for goodness sake.

And she was at work!

She had strict rules when it came to workplace conduct. On those rare occasions when Cortland happened to be in her area of the building, she wouldn’t allow so much as a quick peck on the cheek. There were things that were appropriate for the workplace, and things that were definitely not. The pleasurable tingle currently electrifying the area south of her waist fell firmly into the
not
category.

“I am going to kill you, India,” she said under her breath. The thought made her feel better.

Asia grabbed her laptop and headed for the conference room. The crisis-management department had several high-profile clients in the midst of media firestorms, and as head of the department, it was her job to make sure everything was being appropriately handled.

She was the first to arrive at the conference room, but the rest of the team quickly followed. Asia pushed her plans of committing parricide, along with her thoughts of Dexter Bryant—aka the relationship advisor, aka The Rebound Guy—out of her head and got down to business.

“Our number one issue right now is Noah Rochester the Second,” Asia started. “The Rochester Group is preparing to launch its campaign on family values in a few weeks. Backlash from the younger Noah’s incident at the Mandarin Oriental would undermine the entire campaign. It is our job to mitigate the consequences.”

She walked over to the electronic Smart Board and began writing. “Everyone knows the drill. We have the problem. What we need to figure out are the potential fallout, the solution, and contingency plans for the unknown.”

She pointed her dry-erase marker at Helena Cross, her media specialist. “We haven’t had media inquiries yet, but there will be once videos start showing up on YouTube,” Asia said.

“Do you know whether there
are
any YouTube videos?” Helena asked.

“There are always YouTube videos.” Asia capped the marker. “We need to keep legal abreast of the situation in case the housekeeper who was injured decides to press charges. I made her an offer for her pain and suffering last night, but the paramedics took her away before she had a chance to accept. Lance is at the hospital right now with a check and a waiver of liability form.”

“What about the hotel itself?” Martin Jackson, the lead researcher, asked. “Didn’t the room sustain damage?”

“That’s also being handled,” Asia answered.

“Sounds as if the one who needs handling is Noah Rochester the Second,” Helena commented.

Asia looked pointedly at each of the room’s occupants. “Leave him to me.”

***

Dexter jogged up the stairs of the Cortlandt Street Subway Station, carrying his garment bag over his shoulder. He’d decided to bring a change of clothes with him when he’d discovered how close he would be to the English pub where he and his former co-workers had met every month for the past four years.

After navigating the confluence of business-attired bodies bustling through the intersection at Cortlandt and Broadway, Dex ducked into the restroom of a McDonalds and shrugged out of his suit coat. He switched his pants for a pair of dark jeans, lost the tie, and rolled up the sleeves of his white button-down.

This was better. If he’d known his earlier meeting would turn out to be such a bust, he wouldn’t have bothered with a suit at all.

He and Alena would have to have a talk about this latest referral. Although Dex couldn’t place all the blame on his friend’s shoulders. When he’d spoken to India Carpenter on the phone this morning, her narrative had seemed credible. How could he have known that it would lead to a smack down? And Dex had no illusions about what had happened: Asia Carpenter had laid the smack down. Soundly.

In the five minutes he’d spent with her, he’d pinpointed her number one issue: denial. It was nothing he hadn’t seen before. It took some women longer to accept that things were over. And if there was any merit to what India Carpenter had shared about the dissolution of her sister’s engagement to her fiancé, Asia was most definitely in denial.

Frankly, Dexter wasn’t surprised. Another thing he’d deduced within moments of meeting her was that Ms. Carpenter was what his dad called an all-together woman. The high-powered business suit, the huge office. The woman even had a male assistant. She was the textbook definition of a ball buster.

He wasn’t doing backflips at the prospect of taking on that type of client. The ones who thought they had it all together often times took the longest to accept that they didn’t.

It was just as well that she “didn’t require his services.” Although he had to admit that staring at that face for a few weeks would have been a nice way to pass the time.

Dexter walked through the doors of the Pound and Pence English Pub and inhaled a deep breath, soaking in that hearty, yeasty smell. He checked his garment bag with the hostess and headed straight for their table.

They
would be the six former employees of the risk-assessment division at Reynolds and Locke, the investment firm where he’d worked his first six years after moving to New York from Atlanta. Thanks to a decision of Dex’s making, two years ago, the entire department had been obliterated and all six of them fired.

Regret knotted in his stomach just thinking about that day. Shit, that entire week had been hell. Only days before the implosion of his career, his ex-girlfriend, Ebony, had decided to leave him so she could get back together with one of her exes. Dex was still impressed that he’d made it out of all of that with his sanity intact.

The R&L Six, as he and his former co-workers referred to themselves, got together at least once a month to check in. Dex considered their ritual akin to the way soldiers who’d fought in combat together tended to keep up with one another. Although what had happened to the R&L Six could in no way compare to the atrocities of war, his former risk-assessment team members had sustained their own emotional battle scars, and it had kept them all connected, probably for life.

“There he is.” John’s booming voice carried from the back of the bar.

“Hello, hello, people,” Dexter greeted, slipping into the booth. He signaled a waiter and ordered his favorite dark ale from the tap.

“Both Jayson and Regina are out,” Melanie said. “Jayson took the family to the Grand Canyon and Regina’s in Tokyo on business.”

“Tokyo?” Dex’s brows rose. “That new position with IBM has her racking up enough frequent flyer miles to send us all on vacation.”

“I could use one,” Ray said. Raymond had started in the department just a few weeks after Dex had. Ray glanced around the table before averting his eyes and studying the beer he cradled in his hands. “Katrina and I called it quits.”

“Oh, Ray.” Melanie reached across the table and patted his arm.

“The guy she’d dated before we got together came back, and she started up with him again.”

“After two years?” John asked.

Damn. He’d been there
, Dex thought.

“Oh, Ray, you were her rebound guy,” Melanie said. “You know what I’m talking about. Tell him, Dex.”

His eyes widened, and his throat closed up. His co-workers didn’t know anything about his sideline gig. At least he didn’t
think
they knew about it.

He held his hands up, sweat breaking out across his chest. “What am I supposed to tell him?” He accepted his beer from the waiter and gulped down a third of it.

“You went through the same thing with that girl you were seeing when I first started at Reynolds and Locke. What was her name? Ebony?”

Ah. That’s right. Several of his co-workers had been around for the Ebony fiasco, or as he usually referred to it, the stupidly-loving-a-girl-who-didn’t-love-him-back period.

Melanie gestured toward him. “Dexter was his old girlfriend’s rebound guy. She had broken up with her high school sweetheart right before the two of you started dating, right?”

Dex looked over the rim of his glass and nodded.

“I thought so.” Melanie turned to Ray. “See, it happens to everyone. It probably had nothing to do with you, Ray.”

“We were together for
two years
,” the other man pointed out. “It doesn’t take two years to rebound.”

“It does for some people.” Melanie hunched a shoulder, snatching an onion ring from the basket on the table. “This will sound harsh, but she was basically using you to get over her ex. Sorry, Ray.”

“Man, am I happy I’m married,” John said. “Single people go through too much shit for me these days.”

“Tell me about it,” Ray said. “It would have been nice if I’d known I was being used before I spent two years of my life with her.”

“Why don’t you get yourself a rebound girl?” Dex suggested. All eyes turned to him. He shrugged as he leaned against the cushioned back of the booth. “What? If you’re both honest about it from the very beginning, no one gets hurt.

“It’s as Melanie said, everyone goes through it. The problems crop up when people dive into a relationship with unclear motives.” He reached for an onion ring. “Just find yourself a girl and be straight with her. Let her know that you’ve just gotten out of a long-term relationship and that you aren’t looking to jump back into another one. You just want to have some fun, have some time to, you know, heal.”

He dipped his onion ring in ketchup and bit into it. Dex looked up to find the other three occupants at the table staring at him with blank, confused expressions.

John was the first to speak. “Do you watch episodes of Dr. Phil when you’re not walking those dogs?”

“Yeah, Dex,” Ray said. “Maybe it’s time you got back into the finance game. You’re starting to scare me, man.”

“Don’t pay any attention to them,” Melanie said. “That is a very adult approach, Dex. You’re right. It would prevent a lot of hurt feelings if people were clear upfront that they were on the rebound.” She pointed at him. “A friend of mine just told me about this blog she read about a guy who actually does this for a living.”

Dex’s Pilsner glass froze halfway to his mouth.

In what could only be divine intervention, the waiter picked that moment to come over and take their orders. Dex spent an exorbitant amount of time perusing the menu, which had not changed in all the years they had been coming here.

Mercifully, by the time their orders had been taken, the conversation had moved onto other topics. As they dined on bangers and mash, shepherd’s pie, and some of the best fish and chips in the city, John regaled them with tales of his twin daughters’ senior year in high school and their decision to go cross-country to college at UCLA.

“I won’t lie. I was scared shitless when everything went down at R&L and I found myself without a job,” John said. “I had no idea how I was going to pay for college. But it’s all working out. The fact that both girls earned full scholarships helps, too.”

“I think we’ve all done pretty well for ourselves since getting the boot from Reynolds and Locke,” Melanie said.

“Yeah, even Dex is becoming known as the go-to dog whisperer,” Ray piped in.

Dex flipped him off, laughing. “I made sound financial investments during my time at R&L,” he said. “I can afford to walk dogs for a living for the foreseeable future. Speaking of dogs, I need to get back to mine. Roxie’s been stuck in the apartment all day.”