Читать книгу The Bedroom Business - Сандра Мартон, Sandra Marton - Страница 8

THE city awoke to snow the next morning.

Heavy wet flakes drifted down from the skies.

Fine, Jake thought. Let the sky turn to lead, for all he cared. He was in a mood almost as foul as the weather. Snow that would soon turn to gray slush was just about right this morning.

The doorman greeted him cheerfully. Jake muttered a response, waved off his offer of a taxi. Traffic in Manhattan always verged on gridlock; it would be even worse in weather like this. Besides, walking to work might be a good idea. He figured that the cold air, a brisk pace as he headed crosstown, would improve his mood.

It didn’t.

Some bozo trying to get his truck through a blocked intersection sent a spray of wet, dirty snow flying onto the sidewalk and over Jake’s shoes; a guy on Rollerblades—Rollerblades, on a day like this—damned near rode him down.

By the time he reached Rockefeller Center, Jake’s mood had gone from glum to grim. He gave a cursory look around as he strode into the building but he knew Brandi would be a no-show on a day like this. Not even her sudden determination to keep their affair alive would stand up to the possibility that her hair or makeup might get damaged. It was an unkind thought but, dammit, he was in an unkind frame of mind.

That was what staying awake half the night did to a man. Left him ill-tempered and mean-natured, especially when there was no good reason for him to have spent more time pacing the floors than sleeping.

It had to be the caffeine, Jake thought, as he stepped from the elevator onto the pale gray marble floor and walked to his office. The health food pundits made him edgy, with all their doomsaying. He liked coffee, and steak, and if he’d ever accidentally consumed a bite of tofu in his life, he didn’t want to know it.

Still, what else could have kept him up until almost dawn, if it wasn’t caffeine? Or maybe that Chinese takeout he’d picked up for supper had done him in. Not that he’d eaten much of it. Jake frowned as he reached his office. A hell of a night he’d put in, not eating, not sleeping…

The kid who delivered the mail came skidding around the corner.

“Morning, Mr. McBride,” he said cheerfully. “Here’s your mail.”

Jake, in no mood for cheerful banter or a stack of mail, scowled at the kid.

“What’s the matter?” he growled. “Don’t you deliver it anymore?”

“I am delivering it. See?” The kid shoved an armload of stuff at Jake, who took it grudgingly.

“This goes to my P.A., not to me.”

“Your what?”

“My P.A. My E.A….” Jake’s scowl deepened. “My secretary,” he said. “You’re supposed to hand her the mail.”

“Oh. Emily.”

For reasons unknown, Jake felt his hackles rise. “Her name,” he said coldly, “is Miss Taylor.”

“Uh-huh. Emily, like I said.” The kid grinned. “Nice lady. Pretty eyes.”

What was this? Did every male who walked in the door have to make an appraisal of Emily? What about her eyes? She had two of them. So what? Most people did.

“I always hand the mail right to her. But the door’s locked. It looks like nobody’s home.”

Jake’s scowl turned to a look of disbelief. He shot back the cuffs of his Burberry and his suit jacket, checked his watch and looked at the kid.

“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course someone is home.” He grabbed the doorknob. “It’s after nine. Miss Taylor’s always at her desk by—”

The knob didn’t move. The kid was right. The door was locked.

Jake’s mood, already in the cellar, began digging its way towards China. He shifted the armload of envelopes and magazines, dug out his keys and let himself into his office.

“If Emily is sick or something,” the kid said, “when you talk to her, tell her that Tommy sends—”

Jake slammed the door, stalked across the office and dumped the mail on Emily’s desk. It was, as always, neat as a pin. Even when she was seated behind it, not so much as a paper clip was ever out of place. Still, he could tell she wasn’t there. Her computer monitor stared at him with a cold black eye. The office lights were off, too, and there was no wonderful aroma of fresh coffee in the air.

E.A. or not, Emily had no feminist compunction against making coffee every morning.

Jake turned on the lights, marched into his private office, peeled off his wet coat and dumped it on the back of his chair.

Sick? Emily?

“Ha,” he said.

She hadn’t been sick a day since she’d come to work for him. Yeah, she’d said she felt as if she were coming down with a cold yesterday afternoon but it couldn’t have been much of a cold because not an hour later, she’d leaped at Archer’s invitation to dinner like a trout going after a fly.

“Sick,” Jake muttered.

Sleeping off her big night out, was more like it. Who knew where Archer had taken her for dinner, or what hour he’d gotten her home? Who knew how much wine she’d had to drink or how late she’d gone to bed or if she’d gone to bed at all…

Or if she’d been alone when she got into it.

Not that he cared. What she did, who she did it with, was her business. He’d tell her that, when—if—she deigned to show up this morning. The only question was, should he tell it to her before or after he told her she was fired?

From executive assistant to unemployed, in less than twenty-four hours.

The thought did wonders for his disposition. But why wait for Miss Taylor to put in an appearance? He could just as easily fire her right now.

Jake smiled coldly as he reached for the telephone but his smile changed, went back to being a frown. What was her number? For that matter, where did she live? In the city? In the suburbs? In one of the outlying boroughs? He had all that information. She’d filled out a form when she’d come to work for him. Actually, she’d filled out a zillion forms, thanks to all the tax information everybody required, but he’d be damned if he could remember anything about Emily’s private life.

Why would he? Until Archer stirred things up, she’d been the perfect employee. He’d never had reason to think about her, once he was away from the office. And now he was wasting time, thinking about her instead of sitting down and doing all the things that needed doing today. Not that he was actually “thinking” about Emily. Where she’d gone with Archer. Whether she’d had fun. Whether Archer had come on to her. Whether she was late because, even now, she was lying in the bastard’s arms…

“Son of a bitch,” Jake said, under his breath.

He thumbed open his address book, ran his finger down the list of T’s. There it was, Emily Taylor, the phone number written in Emily’s own, careful hand. Her address was there, too. She lived in Manhattan. Good, he thought grimly as he punched the phone number into the keypad. Then, she could damned well get her tail in here, pronto, and never mind what she was in the middle of doing with Archer.

Let her trudge through the snow. Then, he’d fire her. In person, where he could watch her face become pale as he told her to get out of his life.

Jake waited, tapping his foot impatiently as the phone rang. And rang. And—

“Good morning, Mr. McBride.”

“I’m happy you think so, Miss Taylor,” he said coldly…and suddenly realized that Emily’s voice wasn’t coming from the phone in his hand, it was coming from behind him. Slowly, he put down the telephone and turned around.

She stood in the doorway. Snowflakes glittered in her hair—brown hair, he thought, but with a warm, golden glow that made a man think of dark maple syrup on a winter morning….

Jake’s mouth turned down.

“You’re late.”

“I’m aware of that, sir. And I’m sorry.”

She didn’t sound sorry. Not the least bit. There was a chill to her voice that had nothing to do with the weather.

“And you’re late because…?”

“The trains are running behind schedule.”

“Really.” Jake smiled thinly and folded his arms. “I wonder if that could be because it’s snowing.”

He was gratified to see a light flush color her cheeks. “I’m sure it is, Mr. McBride.”

“In which case, Miss Taylor, you must also know that the trains always run late when it snows. Half the city runs late—or is that news to you?”

Emily looked down and brushed the snow from her coat. Her ankle-length, tweed coat, Jake thought irritably. Was tweed the only item in her wardrobe? Was he ever going to see her legs?

“I know what snow does to New York,” she said calmly. She lifted her eyes to his. “I allowed for that contingency.”

“Ah. You allowed for it.” Jake glanced pointedly at his watch. “Interesting, since you’re almost an hour late.”

Damn, he sounded like an ass. Well, so what? He was the boss. He was entitled to sound like an ass, if he wanted.

“I’m twenty minutes late, sir.” Emily still sounded calm but there was a bite to the “sir.” “And I did allow for the weather. I left my apartment twenty minutes earlier than usual. If I hadn’t, I’d be later than I already am.”

“Does that mean you got out of bed twenty minutes earlier than usual?”

Emily’s eyebrows brows rose. “I beg your pardon?”

“It’s a simple question. I asked if you set your alarm back twenty minutes.”

“I don’t see what that has to do with anything.”

Neither did Jake. What he really wanted to ask was if she’d had to set the alarm back or if something else had awakened her this morning. Somebody. Archer, for instance, moving above her, in her bed…

Hell!

Jake frowned, cleared his throat, went behind his desk and sat down. He reached for his appointment book and looked at the page. Letters and numbers danced before his eyes.

“Never mind,” he said brusquely.

“Never mind, indeed.” Her voice was frigid now; he could almost see the icicles forming on each word. “Perhaps we need to establish some boundaries, Mr. McBride. My private life—”

“So you said, last evening.” Jake waved his hand in dismissal. “I left the mail on your desk. Go through it, see if anything needs my immediate attention and then come back and I’ll dictate some notes.”

She hesitated. He didn’t look up but he didn’t have to. He could all but feel her counting to ten, taking deep breaths, doing what she could to hang onto her composure. Well, wasn’t he doing the same thing? The nerve of her, holding him up for a pay raise and a new title one day and coming in late the next.

“Of course, Mr. McBride.”

The door snicked shut. Jake looked up, glowered at it, and closed his appointment book.

Of course, Mr. McBride, he thought furiously. As if nothing had changed, as if she hadn’t shown up late, been insubordinate, done exactly the opposite of what he’d told her to do and gone off with a man who was only after one thing…

Jake closed his eyes. “Hell,” he said, but with no heat whatsoever.

Emily was right. Her life, outside of the office, wasn’t his business. Who she dated was up to her. What she did with who she dated was up to her, too. Why should he care, as long as she did her work?

Still, it was only human to wonder where she’d gone last night and whether she’d had a good time. He could just ask her. He’d known Emily for almost a year now. They were friends. Well, they were business associates. And he’d been the one who’d put Archer in her path.

Was it so strange he should be vaguely curious about how things had gone last night?

Emily, he could say, I was just wondering, did you have a nice evening? Where’d Archer take you for dinner? Did he take you home? Did you invite him in? What time did he leave?

He did leave, didn’t he?

Jake rubbed his hands over his face.

Not only was her private life none of his business, but even thinking about it was none of his business.

The kid was right, though. She did have nice eyes.

A muscle knotted in Jake’s jaw. He wondered if Archer had been right, too. About her legs. Were they great? He couldn’t tell, not with that coat going straight down to her feet, and he’d certainly never noticed her legs in the past. Why would he? Emily was his P.A. Check that. She was his E.A. She was a well-oiled, well-educated, well-paid employee. Her looks were none of his business.

She was a quiet little sparrow.

His little sparrow.

Jake shoved the appointment book halfway across his desk, swiveled his chair towards the window and gave the falling snow the benefit of his scowl. He knew it was foolish to bristle, but bristling was precisely what he felt like doing.

And it was all Emily’s fault.

Emily took off her coat, shook it briskly and hung it in the closet. Then she sat, bent down and began tugging at her left boot while she told herself that bristling would get her nowhere.

Still, bristling was exactly what she felt like doing.

And it was all McBride’s fault.

The great man was not in a good mood this morning. Too bad. Perhaps he’d had another run-in with the twit, desperate to tell him how wonderful he was.

“Idiot,” Emily said, and gave the stubborn boot a whack.

Or was he still annoyed that she hadn’t let him tell her what to do last night? Don’t go, he’d said, as if he owned her, and the hell of it was she should have listened to him because her evening with his pal had been a disaster. A total, unmitigated disaster. Mr. Peter-Aren’t-You-Fortunate-To-Be-With-Me Archer was so full of himself it was a wonder there’d been room for her at their all-too-cozy table for two in the restaurant he’d chosen.

Emily hung her head and groaned.

Oh, what an awful evening. The wine he’d ordered, even after she’d politely declined a drink. The way he’d leaned close and breathed moistly on her neck. The way he’d tried to feed her a bite of his meal from his fork. Yuck. As if she would want to take the fork into her mouth after it had been in his. And then all that smarmy, double entendre stuff which she’d been too dumb to recognize as smarmy and double entendre, until the waiter happened by just as Archer, the slimeball, said something that made the hapless waiter almost pour the coffee into her lap.

Emily attacked the boot again.

And this man, she reminded herself grimly, this—this human octopus, was Mr. Jake McBride’s friend. His oldest, dearest, closest friend.

So much for thinking her boss was a nice guy even if he was dense. Nice guys didn’t have lifelong buddies like Peter Archer.

Damn this boot! Why wouldn’t it come off?

To think of McBride’s gall, that he was angry with her. Whatever the cause of it, how dare he take it out on her? She’d been, what, fifteen minutes late? When she thought of all the times she’d come in early without McBride so much as saying, Why, Emily, how good of you to be here before nine.

But why would he? She was his personal property. He expected her to be there, at his beck and call.

“The Emperor McBride,” she said, under her breath, and tugged harder. What was with these boots? They might as well be glued on.

“Uh,” she said, and tugged again. “Uh…”

“Having a problem, Emily?”

She sat up so fast that her heel slammed against the carpeted floor. McBride was standing in the doorway, watching her. His arms were folded and one of his dark eyebrows was lifted in what looked like amusement.

“No problem, sir,” she replied briskly.

Of course it was a problem. She’d been bent over, tugging at her boots, and her face was flushed with rosy color. Her hair—a few strands of it, anyway—had come loose of its clip at the nape of her neck and curled gently at her ears. Emily’s hair was curly? He’d never noticed. She always wore it back, and straight.

Jake frowned.

“Here,” he said, advancing towards her, “let me help you.”

“It isn’t necessary. I can—”

Too late. He was already squatting before her, lifting her foot into his lap and tugging.

“Really, Mr. McBride…”

Jake pulled off the boot. No wonder it had been hard to remove. Her boots were made of thin black leather and she was wearing heavy socks. Heavy wool socks, over feet that were attached to long, slender legs.

Oh, yeah. Archer, the bastard, had called it right. Her legs were good. Excellent, as a matter of fact.

“Thank you,” Emily said.

Jake lifted his eyes to her face. “You’re welcome.” He cleared his throat, looked down at the foot, still in his hands, and tried to think of something intelligent to say. “You’re wearing socks.” Brilliant, he thought trying not to wince, just brilliant, McBride. “I mean—you’re wearing—”

“Socks,” she said stiffly. “Wool socks. Double knit. I guess that’s the reason the boots are so hard to get off. I wore them because I thought I might have to walk at least part of the way home, if the snow keeps up, and these boots aren’t really warm…”

Her voice trailed to silence. Why was she telling him all this? He was holding her foot in his hands, looking at it as if he’d never seen a foot before. And she was explaining why she was wearing wool socks, as if it mattered.

“Socks,” he murmured, and looked up at her again. He had such a strange look on his face. That darkness in his eyes.

Maybe he thought she was going to walk around the office in heavy wool socks all day.

“Yes. But I’ll take them off. I have panty hose underneath…”

Oh, good. Now she was telling him about her underwear. Emily colored and pulled her foot from Jake’s hands.

“Thank you again,” she said briskly. “I’ll get to the mail immediately.”

“Not without taking that other boot off.”

“I can manage.”

“I doubt it.”

“Honestly, Mr. McBride—”

Jake knew he could get the boot off with one quick tug but considering the condition she’d put him in, with that comment about her underwear, he figured it was best to take his time.

“There,” he said, when it was safe. He dropped the boot beside its mate and rose to his feet. “All done.”

Emily nodded. “Thank you,” she said again.

“You’re welcome.”

He looked as if he were going to say something more. A few words of apology, maybe, for the way he’d snapped at her before? No such luck. He gave her a quick nod, swung away and went back inside his office.

The door closed silently behind him.

Emily sat motionless. Her feet were tingling. Not the way they’d tingle if the circulation were coming back after they’d been freezing cold. She’d felt that, once, when she was a little girl and she’d missed the school bus and ended up walking home in the snow. No, they were tingling in a very strange way. As if they were still in McBride’s lap. As if his big hands were still holding them. As if he were still looking up at her with his eyes all dark and hungry…

The room seemed to tilt.

Emily dragged air into her lungs. Then she took off her socks, slipped her feet into the shoes she’d brought with her, and got to work.

Hours later, she sighed, blinked owlishly at her computer screen and pushed back from her desk. It was almost one o’clock. Time for lunch, she thought, and rose from her chair. She gave a ladylike stretch, opened the drawer to get her purse…and saw the copy of GOTHAM, still opened to the personal ads.

She made a face, picked up the magazine and dumped it into the wastebasket.

“Goodbye and good riddance,” she said, and dusted off her hands.

Last night had cured her of even thinking about going out for an evening with a man she didn’t know anything about.

On the other hand, choosing a date from the Personals would be different.

She might not really “know” the man, but she wouldn’t go into it blindfolded. At least, she’d have some information about her date beforehand. And she wouldn’t have to waste an entire evening. She could suggest they meet for lunch, or coffee, or for nothing more complicated than a walk in the park. She could control the character of this kind of date and not end up finding out, as she had last night, that the only thing the man in question wanted was to get into her pants.

Emily plucked the discarded magazine from the wastebasket, opened it and laid it on her desk.

Handsome, sexy, successful male, 40, D, Br & Br, ISO beautiful, sexy female, preferably br&br, too…

Handsome, successful, sexy, Romeo, 33, S, BL and bl, looking for his beautiful, sexy Juliet…

Sexy, handsome guy, 38, ND, blond and blue, very successful, ISO sexy, beautiful lady, preferably Br&B…

It was like reading a code. ISO for “in search of.” D for “divorced,” S for “single,” ND for “newly divorced.” B’s for hair and eye color. Unless you had red hair. Or gold. Or…

Oh, this was ridiculous. Advertisements by men for women. Reading them was a joke. They were so phony. If every guy who was dateless in New York was sexy, easy on the eyes and successful, why were they running these ads? She knew better than to fall for all those adjectives. In fact, if she had to come up with the name of a gorgeous, sexy, successful man, the only one she’d be able to muster was that of Jake Mc…

Emily’s heartbeat stumbled. Quickly, she grabbed the telephone, punched in the Personals number, listened impatiently as a recorded female voice offered available options.

To reply to a LoveNote, the voice said nasally, please enter the number of the LoveNote you’ve selected.

Emily entered a number. She waited, heard a husky male voice say “hello,” listened to what was, more or less, a repeat of the ad in the magazine, and waited for the ad to end and the tone to sound. At last, it did. It was time to leave a message for Mr. Handsome, Sexy and Successful, 40, D, brown and brown.

Her mouth was dry as sand. She thought, fleetingly, of the sad red geranium sitting at home on her kitchen table, which she kept forgetting to water…

Beeeep!

Emily swallowed, licked her lips and took a breath. Sound sexy, she told herself.

“Good afternoon.” Great. Just great. She sounded about as sexy as a Girl Scout trying to sell cookies. “Hi,” she said, trying for perky, if not sexy. “Uh, I’m calling to say—to say that I think I might be just the Brrr and Brrr—uh, the Brown and Brown you’re looking for.” She hesitated, checked the ad again. Sexy, it said. And beautiful. Emily chewed on her lip. “Well, maybe not. I mean, I have brown hair. And brown eyes. But I’m not exactly sexy. Or beautiful.” Her voice cracked. “But, really, is that so awful? ‘Beautiful’ means having qualities that delight the senses. I know that because I had to look it up once, in the dictionary. I wanted the exact meaning because I was writing a term paper on Shelley. The poet, you know? Anyway, I’m just saying that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and handsome probably is, too. So even if you’re not as handsome as you say you are, that’s okay because I’m not…” She groaned, put her hand to her forehead. “As for sexy, well, what does ‘sexy’ mean, anyway? Different things in different cultures. For example, when I was studying anthro, I learned that sexual attractiveness varies enormously from tribe to tribe in the Amazon. Some view nudity as the norm. Others, perhaps after they’ve had some contact with the outside world, disdain nudity but see nothing wrong with indulging in coitus with a variety of partners. There’s a particular pygmy tribe—”

A large male hand slammed down on the telephone cradle, breaking the connection. Emily jerked her head up. McBride was standing over her, looking down and glaring.

“Just what in the Sam Hill are you doing?”

Dear God, Emily thought, what was I doing? The telephone buzzed in her ear like an angry bee.

“Miss Taylor?”

“You’ve—you’ve always called me Emily.”

“A mistake,” Jake said coldly, “considering that I’m starting to realize I don’t know the first thing about you.”

He folded his arms over his chest. It was, she thought foolishly, a formidable chest. He’d taken off his suit jacket, loosened his tie, undone the top button of his white shirt and rolled back his sleeves. He did that often; he’d once said he felt choked in a suit and tie. Why was it she’d never before noticed that his arms were dusted with dark, silky-looking hair? That his chest was the width of The Great Wall of China?

“Well, Miss Taylor? What were you doing?”

Emily put the phone down, folded her hands in her lap and tried not to think about how long he might have been standing there.

“I was—I was making a call,” she said carefully.

“To whom?”

“To…” She frowned as she looked up at him again. “It was a personal call, Mr. McBride.”

“Yes.” Jake shot her a predatory smile. “I imagined it was. Somehow or other, I didn’t think you’d be discussing pygmy sex practices with any of my clients.”

She could feel the heat flash into her face. “I was not discussing pygmy sex practices.”

“What were you discussing, then?”

“Would you step back, please,” she said coolly, “so I can stand up?”

“Answer the question, Miss Taylor.”

“I don’t have to.” She could feel her courage rushing back, swirling through her blood in a wave of heat. “As I said, it was personal.”

“Did you ask me if you could make personal calls?”

She blinked. “No. No, I didn’t. But you never said—”

“You never asked.”

Emily glowered up at Jake. “I’ll pay for the call,” she snapped.

“I don’t want your money. I want to know why you were talking about pygmy sex practices, and with whom.”

“Dammit!” She shoved her chair back and shot to her feet, her flushed, angry face lifted to Jake’s. “I wasn’t talking about pygmy sex practices. I told you that. I was leaving a message on an answering machine.”

“An answering machine at the Museum of Natural History?”

God, that infuriating smirk on his face! How had she survived it, all this time?

“An answering machine at a man’s apartment,” she said tightly. Well, it wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t an apartment but Handsome, Sexy and Successful would probably phone in for his messages from his apartment.

“Well, well, well.” Jake’s dark green eyes narrowed. “You’re just full of surprises, Miss Taylor. No wonder ol’ Pete was so eager to take you to dinner last night. He read you just right.”

Emily flung her hands on her hips. “And what is that supposed to mean, Mr. McBride?”

“Never mind what it’s supposed to mean. I’m waiting to hear who you were phoning.”

“Oh, for goodness sake!” She swung away, grabbed the magazine and shoved it into Jake’s flat belly. “You won’t be satisfied until you wring the truth out of me, will you? Okay. Okay, here’s the truth, McBride, and I hope you enjoy getting the last laugh.”

She swung away from him, trembling with anger and humiliation. She could hear Jake reading the ads aloud in a soft, disbelieving voice. There was a long silence before he spoke again.

“You were answering an ad in the personals?”

“Yes.”

“You were telling one of these men you’d go out with him?”

“Yes.”

“You were going to meet a stranger, an asshole who identifies himself as sexy, successful and handsome with…What in hell is Brrr and Brrr? A description of the weather? A new liqueur?”

Emily spun around and faced Jake. Her eyes were huge, her face flushed, and he fought back the sudden, insane desire to take her in his arms and soothe her.

“It’s brown hair and brown eyes,” she snarled. “And for your information, lots of people meet through ads like this.”

“To do what?” Jake said, his eyes getting that narrowed, intense look again.

“To—to go out. On a date. To have dinner together. Take in a movie. Just—just spend a little time with another person…”

Her voice broke. Jake looked bewildered. She thought, for a second, he was reaching towards her and she shook her head and stepped back.

“I don’t expect you to understand. You’re never home alone, unless you want to be. You never have to look at the calendar and say, look at that, it’s the weekend and I don’t have a thing to do except clean my apartment and wash my hair.”

Holy hell, Jake thought.

“That’s what this is all about?” he said slowly. “That you don’t date?”

“That’s what I just said.”

“You don’t have any, uh, any men in your life?”

Emily’s chin lifted to a dangerous angle. “Are we going to have to go through this, line by line?”

“So, that’s why you accepted Archer’s invitation last night? Because you’re lonely?”

“I’m not lonely,” she said defiantly. “I have friends. Hobbies. I have a canary.”

“You’re lonely,” he said. “That’s why you went out with that snake.”

“Are you deaf, Mr. McBride? I am not…” Emily frowned. “You think he’s a snake?”

“Of course.”

“That’s what you’ve always thought?”

“Yes.” Well, it was true if you figured “always” referred to yesterday evening, when Archer had sneaked up on Emily. “I tried to tell you that, but you wouldn’t listen.”

“You didn’t try to tell me anything, except how to run my life.” She cocked her head. “Pete Archer said you and he are best friends.”

“Ha.”

“He said you’ve known each other forever.”

“Only if forever means a year working for the same brokerage firm, a long time back.”

Emily puffed out a breath. “He lied to me.” She looked at Jake. “You’re right, by the way. He is a snake.”

Jake’s face darkened. “Did he—”

“Oh, I can handle men like Pete Archer.” A smile ghosted across her lips. “When I was sixteen, one of my sisters dated a guy who was into karate. He taught me some great moves. I still remember them.”

“Ah.” Jake moistened his lips. “Let me get this straight. You, uh, you’d like to date. To meet some nice guys and go out. Is that it?”

What was the sense in trying to pretend otherwise? Jake McBride knew virtually everything about her now, from her shoe size to her sexless sex life.

“Yes.”

“Well.” He ran his hand through his hair again, turned away from her, paced back and forth, back and forth. “I’ve got it,” he said, and swung towards her. “I know a lot of people. Some of them are nice guys, too. I’ll introduce you.”

“Oh, no. I couldn’t ask you to—”

“You haven’t asked, I’ve volunteered. Look, it’s no big deal.”

Emily collapsed into her chair. “What are you going to do,” she said, with a nervous laugh, “go to a meeting and say, ‘oh, by the way, my personal assistant would like to have a date this weekend’?”

Jake grinned at her. “My executive assistant,” he said. “And I’ll be subtle, I promise. For instance…well, I go to lots of cocktail parties. Business stuff. From now on, you’ll go with me.”

“Mr. McBride, really—”

“I’ll introduce you as my good right hand, you’ll circulate, network…Emily, don’t look at me that way. It’ll work, I know it will.”

“It won’t. I’m—I’m not good at this male-female thing, Mr. McBride.”

“Jake.”

“Jake,” she said, because it was silly, really, to go on with such formality now. “Look, I appreciate your offer but it’s pointless. I’ll feel ridiculous.”

“More ridiculous than you’d have felt if you’d left your number on that answering machine?”

Emily bit her lip. “Even if something came of it…For one thing, I don’t know how to make small talk. ”

“There’s nothing to it. I’ll teach you.”

“Yes, but…” She waved a hand. “It’s more than that. I don’t dress right. My sisters used to tell me I had no idea of style.”

Jake took a step back, looked her over slowly from head to toe. “We can take care of that with ease.”

“I don’t even know how to—” she blushed “—how to handle the, uh, the end of the evening thing.”

“The…?” He colored. “Oh.”

“Exactly. I mean, it was simple enough, last night. When your friend—”

“Archer’s no friend of mine,” Jake said grimly.

“The point is, when he, uh, when he tried to, you know, kiss me, I just put my hands up, the way you do in karate—”

Jake began to laugh. “I’d have given anything to have seen that.”

“But—but if a man tried to kiss me and I wanted him to, I’d just mess it up. I’d—”

He felt his body tighten. “You mean you’ve never…” He cleared his throat, did a mental ten-count, reminded himself that Emily was a sparrow, not a thrush, and his lifelong preference was for songbirds. “Well,” he said briskly, “never mind. I’ll teach you everything you need to know. How to talk with a man. How to dress for him. How to make him want you, and only you.”

“I don’t know. It all seems to—so—”

“I’ll teach you all you need to know, Emily.” Jake’s voice roughened. “Including how to conduct yourself at the end of the evening.”

Color swept into her face. “I can’t believe I told you that,” she whispered. “I feel so foolish!”

“I’ll teach you,” Jake said gently. He reached down, clasped her shoulders and lifted her to her feet. “You’ll see. I’m an excellent teacher.”

So saying, he bent his head, took Emily’s face in his hands, and covered her mouth with his.