Читать книгу Emmy And The Boss - Penny McCusker - Страница 10

Lindy twisted around in her chair, and saw what Emmy saw, Nick, standing in the vestibule, chatting with a beautiful, voluptuous redhead wearing barely enough clothing to keep her assets covered.

“Damn,” Lindy said, “it would take three of my bras to corral those things.”

Emmy wasn’t much interested in the redhead. “Scum is probably not the word you’d choose,” she said to her best friend, “but—”

“I don’t know, Em.” Lindy swung back around, not looking nearly convinced enough of Nick’s scumhood to suit Emmy. “I think he’s just talking to her, being friendly.”

“Yeah, he’s a friendly guy,” Emmy muttered. “Not too choosy, but hey, nobody’s perfect.”

“Trying to find something wrong with him, are we?”

Emmy set her jaw and kept her eyes firmly averted.

“Whatever’s going on with you, Emmy, you need to get a grip because he’s headed this way. Alone.”

Emmy couldn’t help herself. She looked up and there was Nick, making a beeline for their table. He caught sight of her and smiled full-out. She’d braced herself, but it didn’t do her much good. First her face flushed, then the warmth sank all the way to her curling toes, leaving behind some very notable hot spots. She picked up her water and took a long drink, the icy coolness of it sliding down into her stomach, which wasn’t one of the body parts currently in need of temperature adjustment. Tearing her gaze off Nick helped a little; unfortunately her eyes landed on Lindy, who was smirking knowingly at her. Emmy refused to be embarrassed, which was easy considering she had other things to think about.

Like what the heck was Nick doing here anyway?

Either he read her mind or he saw the question on her face, because he said, “I couldn’t help but notice where you were planning to have dinner tonight.”

“That’s what happens when you read over someone’s shoulder,” Emmy replied. “Stella was snooping in my day planner,” she explained for Lindy’s benefit, “and then Nick picked up where she left off.”

“Looking for industrial espionage?”

“Just being nosy,” Nick said, Lindy’s sarcasm doing a flyby, probably because he had yet to take his eyes off Emmy, and men weren’t known for their ability to multi-task. It was a wonder the man could stare and talk at the same time, but somehow he managed it.

“You still haven’t told us why you’re here,” Emmy said to Nick.

“The real question is, why am I still here?” Lindy was out of her seat before Emmy could do more than sputter out a reminder that she’d already ordered dinner. “Which I didn’t really want in the first place,” Lindy pointed out. “I’m sure Nick will love it—whatever it is.” And she was gone.

Emmy watched her run the gamut of unattached wolves at the bar. When she turned back, Nick was in Lindy’s chair. “Déjà vu,” she said. “Except this time you weren’t invited.”

“You want Lindy to come back and protect you from me?”

No, Emmy thought, I wanted Lindy to come back and protect me from myself. Nick was sitting there, all handsome and smiling—a little scruffy, sure, but she was even beginning to like the two-day stubble. She wondered how it would feel if she ran her fingers through it, if it would be soft or scratchy against her cheek, and her lips—

“Tongue-tied?” he asked. “Anything I can do to help?”

Great, more mental pictures she had no business viewing. “We’re not going to talk about me,” she said, and she definitely wasn’t thinking about her body parts anymore, especially not in any context that involved Nick.

“Okay,” he said as the waiter arrived, “let’s talk about me.”

“Exactly what I had in mind.” Emmy sat back a little so her meal could be set in front of her. The waiter hesitated, clearly disappointed, then he placed Lindy’s plate in front of Nick. It was some sort of fusion cuisine in keeping with the trendy restaurant, a bristling tower comprised of asparagus, something white and mashed that may or may not have been potatoes, and what appeared to be thinly sliced beef. The whole thing was drizzled with some sort of brown sauce, and swirls of the same sauce decorated the white plate.

Nick turned it in a full circle, studying the tower from all sides, then picked up his fork and knocked it over.

No finesse, Emmy thought, but it wasn’t his eating habits that offended her. “Don’t have a lot of patience, do you?”

“Not when it’s something I really want.”

“Then I guess that means you don’t really want to save your father’s company.”

Nick put down his fork, slowly, his face for once blank. Emmy had a suspicion that she’d said something wrong, but she couldn’t imagine what.

“You’ve got me all figured out,” he said, his smile teasing. “Lindy help you with that, or were you studying more than my work flow this past week?”

“Lindy’s a lawyer. She’s learned to read people pretty well.” Not to mention she’d had enough psychoanalysis to be able to sum up anyone in a couple of sentences. But Lindy’s past was none of his business, and neither was Emmy’s present. “I didn’t need Lindy to tell me about you. You’re obviously attached to your company, and the people who work there. You said yourself it’s like a family.”

“And that’s bad?”

“Of course not,” Emmy said, even if the concept of family was foreign to her—at least the concept of a happy family. “The problem is, you own the place, and that makes you responsible for everyone else who works there.”

Nick abandoned his meal again, crossing his arms on the table and focusing intently on her. “I still don’t see the problem.”

“It’s like being a parent. You can be a friend to your kids on occasion, but not all the time. Somebody has to provide stability and control, make the hard decisions even though it means the people affected by those decisions may be resentful or unhappy. That somebody is you, but you seem to be happy letting them run the show.”

“Some of those ‘kids’ have been with Porter and Son since I was in grade school. They know the business better than I do.”

“They know the back end—production and shipping. It’s the front end of the business that’s suffering, Nick. Sales, purchasing, product placement, advertising. That’s your job, and you haven’t been doing it very well. Hiring me is a good first step—”

“At least from eight to five.”

Emmy sat back in her seat. She’d noticed his slight hesitation at signing the contract, and then promptly forgotten about it. There was no knowing what was going on in Nick Porter’s head, but she’d taken it for granted that he’d faced the fact that Porter and Son was in trouble. It appeared, however, that he wasn’t entirely comfortable accepting help to rescue his company. She’d forgotten that some clients were like that, even after they’d hired her. She should have been more tactful, but she hadn’t edited her opinions, and now he was on the defensive. “I’m sorry. I tend to get caught up in my work.”