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 tier, 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 the 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 m 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 sea, 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 the eyes and successf
ul, why were they running these ads She knew better than to fall for all those adjectives. In f if she had to come up with the name of a gorgeous, sex successful man, the only one she’d be able to muster w 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 me nothing wrong with indulging in coitus with a variety of partner. There’s a particular pygmy tribe—”
The Bedroom Business Page 3
