Holly paced in the country club lobby, taking deep breaths to calm her down. She had agreed to meet with Roger in his room to talk things over. He had originally suggested that they meet at her place, her territory, but she felt that her house was too loaded with the memories of their last encounter. She could have insisted on meeting in a public place, like Towers, but the truth was, she wanted to be alone with him to hear what he had to say.
Staring at the elevator door, she recalled his words before hanging up the phone the day before. "I have so much to tell you." She nervously ran her hands up her hair and called down the elevator. Well, here goes nothing, she thought.
Her light blue dress caught in the elevator doors and she yanked it in at the last minute. She looked at her reflection in the mirrored panels. Had she done too much, she wondered, looking at her tousled hair, her make-up and the lacy underwear peaking from her décolletage when she bent a little.
Getting off on the last floor, she collected herself before knocking on Roger's door. To her surprise, a woman opened the door. A very, very beautiful woman, Holly noticed, in a very, very red dress.
"I am sorry", she began, taken aback, "I must have the wrong room."
The woman tossed her black hair back and smiled pleasantly. "It depends. If you're looking for Roger Thorpe, you found the place. However, he just left for the evening," she lied trough her perfectly aligned teeth.
Meanwhile, Roger was hurrying out of Tiffany's, cursing himself for being late for his meeting with Holly. "This cannot be happening," he fumed.
He had left hours ago to buy a ring for Holly. An engagement ring. Not that he presumed that she would take him back so soon, or ever for that matter, but he wanted to be ready, just in case.
Looking trough the glass cases, he had peered at more rings than he cared to remember, but none of them seemed good enough for Holly. The clerk, smiling respectfully but probably wishing he could eat his own head, had kept pulling out more and more for him to see, only to get his suggestions rejected. Roger had finally chosen a gold band set with an oval yellow diamond. Understated and yet breathtaking, its beauty reminded him of Holly's. He had given the instructions to the clerk for the engraving before rushing out.
Glancing at his watch, he now cursed again, this time out loud. Then he started running.
"Who are you?" Holly asked the woman, feeling unsettled.
"I am Megan, his personal assistant," Megan replied, insisting on the word "personal", a fact that did not go unnoticed by Holly.
Holly gave her the once over, getting crankier by the minute. Was this smug goddess the thing that Roger had wanted to discuss? Was she the change in his life that he had been referring to? Could Roger be as cruel as to get all the way back to Springfield just to tell her he was in love with someone else? The old Roger could, she shuddered. But if so, she was going to bleed him like the pig that he was.
"Well, I must have gotten the time of our meeting wrong," she said, managing to keep her alto voice smooth and silky. "Tell him to call me when he gets back." She mustered a smile and turned to leave.
Megan called after her. "Who should I say came to see him?"
Holly turned back and appeared to be thinking for a few seconds. "His ex-wife. He should be able to figure out which one."
Megan closed the door behind her, gleeful. Getting the key from the drooling clerk at the front desk had been easy enough, she thought, but then again, when a girl looks like I do, everything is like a ride in the park.
She grabbed her purse and headed to the next room, which was hers. Roger could not find her in his room or he would get suspicious. She would simply surprise him later and tell him she had to come down to Springfield to discuss important business matters with him, which happened to be true. Of course, she had no intention of delivering his ex-wife's message.
Lying on her bed and recalling Holly's face, she frowned. She certainly was not as beautiful as herself, but she had to admit that there was something mesmerizing about this woman. She could turn out to be serious competition.
It had not taken Megan long to decide to follow Roger to Springfield. She did not know the story between Holly and him, but she figured that she had a better chance at keeping them apart then at breaking them up. Therefore, the key to success was to act fast.
She had managed to get rid of the redhead for now, and with a little luck, she might have made her jealous or mad enough never to come back. She pondered on the possibility that she might get caught by Roger.
The risk was worth it. Getting Roger was worth it.