Love by Proxy

by Diana Palmer

  “You…look Roman.”

  His mouth curved a little, making the dimple pronounced. “So they tell me.” His hands contracted, bringing her closer, so that her face was under his, her mouth was under his, so that she could breathe the coffee he’d just swallowed. “Why did you take the job?”

  He was really unsettling her. She could feel the warmth of his breath on her lips, the steely strength in the hands that held her off the floor so effortlessly. “I…needed it,” she whispered.

  “There are other employers in Chicago,” he reminded her.

  “How…far would I get without a recommendation?”

  He searched her darkening blue eyes. “Not far,” he said, relenting. “Your eyes looked blue yesterday. Now they’re gray.”

  “Are they?”

  One corner of his mouth twitched. “Do I make you nervous, Miss Glenn?” he taunted in a voice like velvet. His eyes dropped to her lips.

  “Don’t play with me,” she whispered shakily.

  “But you said you wanted someone to play with,” he reminded her. “Only yesterday, in fact, as you were driving away in that yellow boxcar you own.”

  “It isn’t a boxcar. And I didn’t mean this kind of playing.”

  His mouth bent closer to hers as he eased her down to her feet again. “Didn’t you? Most women today play at love.”

  “I’m not most women, and I don’t know how to,” she said. She tugged against his hands. “Let me go.”

  “Afraid of me?” he chided gently.

  She met his dark eyes. “I’m not in your league, Worth. Don’t do this to me. I’m no threat to your grandmother, or to you.”

  “I’m not sure about the latter, Amy,” he said quietly, and the sound of her name on his lips had an oddly sweet sound. He bent a little more and brushed his hard mouth softly against hers, a whisper of sensation that tantalized more than satisfied. He lifted his dark, shaggy head, and studied her confused expression.

  “Where are we going, and what do you want me to do?” she asked.

  He let her go. “To the north side, to see a parcel of land I’m interested in developing. And I want you to take down some ideas and estimates for me. I can’t get the hang of dictating into a tape recorder. I don’t trust the damned things anyway. You can take dictation?” he added with a sharp glance.

  “Yes,” she said. “I can. But I don’t have a pad or pen….”

  “Come with me.”

  She followed him, taking two steps for every one of his, and feeling oddly like a midget beside him. He made her feel wildly feminine. It was a sensation she wasn’t sure she liked.

  He led her into a pine-paneled office with a huge oak desk and heavy furniture with leather upholstery. It had a stone fireplace and a thick beige carpet and dark brown curtains. A man’s room. It intimidated her, like its owner.

  He jerked open a desk drawer and produced a steno pad and two pencils and handed them to her. She tucked them into her shoulder bag while he watched her with narrowed, speculating eyes. She kept her eyes lowered so that he couldn’t see the confusion he’d caused. She had to remember that he didn’t want her there, and that he might use underhanded means to remove her. If only she didn’t view those means with anticipation as well as fear!

  When they got to the garage, he went immediately to the Mercedes and she gave him a quick glance. She’d expected him to get into the Rolls.

  “The Rolls belongs to my grandmother,” he told her with a knowing smile as he opened the passenger door of the Mercedes for her.

  “She likes elegance and style. I prefer subtlety and performance.” As he said it, he gave her own pitifully aging relic a hard glare.

  “The yardman told me to put it in here,” she said icily. “I guessed that you wouldn’t want it standing in your front yard. It might shock some of your friends.”

  “Most of my friends are dead or out of the country,” he said carelessly, getting in beside her. He cranked the car and reversed it smoothly out of the garage. “I thought you might appreciate having it out of the weather. I don’t give a damn if you park it in front of the mailbox.”

  She shifted restlessly. “Sorry.” Her eyes searched his profile, liking the strength of it. It wasn’t the epitome of male beauty, but it was a strong, earthy face, full of complexities. Like the man.

  “Are you an only child?” he asked as he drove.

  “Yes. Are you?”

  He shook his head. “I had a brother, two years younger. He was killed in Vietnam, about half a mile from where I was stationed at Da Nang.”

  “I’m sorry.” She stared at the purse in her lap. “It must have been hard on your grandmother, too.”

  “She grieved for a long time. Jackie was full of fun. He teased her, brought her flowers. He was always into something exciting. She lived through him.” His chest rose and fell gently. “I was never able to replace him in her eyes. I’m not as uninhibited. I work harder than I play.”

  “I can just see you, trying to break dance,” she murmured.

  He laughed. “I’d go through the floor,” he said with a dry glance in her direction.

  She measured the size of him and silently agreed. “What are you going to build?” she asked.

  “At the new site? A condominium.”

  “Another one?” she exclaimed. “But Chicago is full of condominiums.”

  “Not in this part of town,” he countered. “This one is specifically for elderly residents. A sort of low-cost condo.”

  “Don’t tell me you have a soft spot, too?” she teased gently.

  He glanced at her as they stopped for a red light. “Only for grandmother. So look out, if you have ideas in that direction. I gave up dreams of a wife and kids a long time ago. I’m not in the market for an over-the-hill virgin.”

  Her indrawn breath was audible over traffic. “What makes you think I’d ever be interested in you, Mount Everest!”

  “You like kissing me,” he said carelessly, and had the audacity to grin.

  “I like popcorn, too, so what?” she demanded.

  His dark eyes skimmed over her body before he moved into the throng of early-morning traffic again. “So you’re curious. Maybe I am, too.”

  “About what?” she had to ask.

  His mouth curved. “Sex.”

  She turned her gaze out the window at the skyscrapers and city traffic and blaring horns. “I imagine you’ve already forgotten everything I’ll learn for the rest of my life.”

  “I was a rounder in my youth,” he admitted. “And once or twice, things got serious. But I had great instincts for self-preservation.”

  There was an odd note in his deep, gravelly voice, and she turned her head in time to catch the tautening of his jaw. “And someone hurt you, really badly,” she said without thinking.

  The black scowl would have intimidated her if they hadn’t been moving. “Has grandmother been talking to you?” he demanded.

  “Not about your private life, no,” she returned. Her eyes fell to her lap. “I almost got engaged once. He was a nice guy. Very flashy, good family, old money.” She smiled bitterly. “We got on like a house on fire. I would have done anything for him. First love and all that. He was proper about it, though, he wanted to marry me, not seduce me. So he took me home to mother. I was nineteen and in my second year of college.” She stretched and studied the couple in a cab across from them as he made a turn.

  “Obviously you didn’t marry him,” he said, breaking the silence.

  “His mother was horrified. I was a little country girl from Georgia, and I looked it. I won’t bore you with the details. Suffice it to say that after a week at his home, suffering his mother’s contempt and getting a look at his way of life, I broke the engagement myself and came home. I quit college. I couldn’t bear the memories. It took me a long time to get over it.”

  “He was a mama’s boy, I gather.”

  She nodded. “I heard later that he married the heiress to a cosmetic company. A nice l
ittle merger.”

  “Too bad it didn’t work out.”

  “On the contrary,” she said. “I was lucky. He drank like a fish and did everything his mother told him. Retrospect is a wonderful thing. I’d have had a horrendous life. After the newness had worn off, I’d have died of neglect. He wasn’t even much as a would-be lover,” she added with a shy laugh. “He grabbed.”

  “Men can be taught,” he said with a sideways glance. “None of us know without being told what pleases a woman. Despite the fiction that says we should.”

  “I’d never be able to do that,” she said. Her long legs crossed as she shifted to face him. It was uncanny how easy he was to talk to. She might have known him all her life.

  “Why not?”

  She leaned her head on the seat, adjusting her seat belt so that she had enough room. The leather seat was plush and comfortable, and the air-conditioning made the already formidable heat bearable. “Oh, I’d be too shy,” she said, smiling dreamily. “I can’t imagine taking my clothes off in front of a man.”

  His heavy eyebrows lifted. “How do you imagine people make love, in dark closets?”

  “At night, of course, with the lights out,” she said.

  He looked up toward the headliner. “My God!”

  “Well, don’t they?”

  “I am not licensed to teach sex.”

  She actually flushed and quickly turned back toward the window. She hadn’t realized how intimate the conversation was getting. Flustered, she searched around for a safe topic.

  “How much farther is it to your building site?” she asked. “I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen anything in the planning stages. Do you have blueprints or…?”

  “Stop floundering,” he said gently. “I didn’t mean to snap at you.”

  The gentleness was unexpected. And unwelcome. It made her vulnerable, and she couldn’t let that happen. Her chin lifted. “No harm done. What about the building?”

  He pulled up at another traffic light and stared at her. “Fascinating,” he murmured. “I can actually see the wall going up. I thought I was the only one who did that.”

  “Did what?” she asked tightly.

  “Never mind.” He reached out and touched her hair lightly, noticing the way she tensed and the panicky look in the blue eyes that searched his accusingly. “Why are you nervous?”

  “It’s disturbing to sit so close to the enemy,” she countered.

  He smiled faintly. “Is it?”

  “The light’s changing,” she remarked.

  “Evasive maneuvers?” he taunted. But he turned back to the steering wheel, and the tension was broken.

  The building site was only minutes further along. He’d turned on the news and they’d listened to that for the rest of the drive.

  Amelia wasn’t sure what she’d expected to find. A nice level lot, probably. But what they found was a deserted tenement, old and crumbling, on a corner lot.

  “Where are you going to put your condo,” she asked, “under it or on top?”

  He laughed at her expression. “We’re going to take this building down and clear off the lot first.”

  “Isn’t that expensive?”

  “Of course. Construction always is.” He parked the car at the curb and helped her out, his eyes narrow and keen as he studied the lay of the land.

  “Have you already bought this?” she asked.

  “If I had, why would I be here looking at it, for God’s sake?” he shot at her.

  She drew herself up to her full height, still much inferior to his own. “You have a black temper,” she told him curtly.

  He folded his arms across his broad chest and studied her quietly. “Go ahead. Point out my shortcomings. Don’t be bashful.”

  “You’re overbearing,” she obliged. “Insolent, arrogant, insensitive…”

  He glanced at his watch. “I only have another hour before I’m due at a trustee’s meeting.”

  “…maddening and hardheaded,” she concluded agreeably.

  “Fine,” he replied. “Now. How would you like a thumbnail sketch of your own shortcomings?”

  “I don’t have any,” she informed him smugly. “I am courteous, friendly, kind, thoughtful, cheerful and an asset to the world.”

  He looked as if he was trying not to laugh, but the absurdity of the pat answer got to him. He turned away, his shoulders shaking.

  Amelia got out her pad and pen and tried to look professional. “Would you like to take notes?”

  He stuck his hands in his pockets and glanced down at her. “Why, am I supposed to write a testimonial for you?”

  “About the building site! That is why you brought me along, isn’t it?”

  “Oh. That.” He glanced up and around. “Let’s go walking.”

  He started off down the street. She almost had to run to keep up with him, aware of city smells and sounds, and longing halfheartedly for her home and the crash of the Atlantic against a shimmering white beach and the cry of sea gulls.

  “Where are you going?” she asked breathlessly. Her high heels were uncomfortable, much too high and spiked.

  He studied her feet. “Why do you wear those things? Do you like risking your neck every time you move?”

  “They’re stylish,” she defended.

  “They’re stupid. Next time, wear flats.”

  “How was I supposed to know I was going to be press-ganged into an expedition at the breakfast table?” she wanted to know.

  “I suppose you were looking forward to tea and cakes and polite conversation, with an occasional scribbled letter from grandmother to give you the illusion of working?” he prompted.

  “Your grandmother does need someone with her,” she said angrily. The morning was hot, and her temper wasn’t helping. She pushed at a loose strand of dark hair. “Except for the maid, most of the staff are almost retirement age. What if she fell?”

  His face hardened. “You aren’t a nurse,” he said.

  “I was a nurse’s aide,” she informed him. “I’ve done a lot of odd jobs in my life, and that was one of them. At least I know first aid. And surely she does need a secretary to help her do things?”

  He stopped in the middle of the block and glared down at her. He wasn’t contradicting her, though.

  “I can give you three or four character references,” she continued. “Two of them are ministers, one in the city and one back home. About the only illegal thing I’ve ever done in my life was to jaywalk. And in Seagrove, in tourist season, that is really an act of valor more than a crime.” Her blue eyes in her softly tanned face held his. “I’ll start looking for another job in the morning,” she promised. “Just let me stay with her until I find one. Is that fair enough?”

  “All right,” he said, relenting. His eyes narrowed.

  “I know.” She sighed. “You don’t trust me. My grandfather wouldn’t trust you, either,” she added with a grin. “He thinks Chicago is full of gangsters. He wouldn’t speak to Dad and Mom for days after I left home to come here. He even calls me sometimes to make sure I haven’t been the victim of a gang murder.”

  He smiled in spite of himself. “Flinty character, I gather?”

  “A real hell-raiser,” she agreed. “He was a fisherman until times got hard and he lost his boat. He retired and now he does odd jobs. He hasn’t been the same since my grandmother died. He said it took the color out of the world for him.”

  “What did she die of?”

  “A heart attack. It was quick. And kind of nice, if death can be called that, because she died working in her flower garden. It was what she loved most.” She smiled and had to fight tears. It had only been a year, and the hurt was raw sometimes. “My other grandparents, my father’s parents, died years ago. I never knew them. Mom’s parents have been like a second set for me. Dad and I could never talk the way Granddad and I can.”

  “Was it a happy marriage, your grandparents’?” he asked.

  She smiled. “They’d just celebrated
their fiftieth wedding anniversary. He took her to a drive-in movie afterward and they came home with the windows fogged up,” she added with a mischievous look. “You always had to knock before you went into the house. They liked variety, and once mama walked in on them in the living room.”

  “My God,” he said with a laugh.

  “They were very modern grandparents.” She walked along beside him, remembering. “Your grandmother is very like mine. I like her.”

  “So do I.” He pulled a package of cigarettes from his pocket and stared at it. The cellophane had never been opened.

  She glanced up. She didn’t remember seeing him with a cigarette. “Do you smoke?” she asked suddenly.

  “Yes and no.” He sighed and repocketed the package. “I’ve been off them for two weeks.”

  “Cold turkey?”

  He nodded. “I need something to do with my hands.”

  “You might take up knitting, I hear it’s very…no!” She dodged as he aimed a swipe at her. “Gentlemen don’t hit ladies!”

  “I’m from Chicago, not the South,” he reminded her.

  “I know,” she replied. “Your accent gives you away every time.”

  “I don’t have an accent.”

  Her eyebrows lifted wildly. “If I took you home with me, people would come from miles around just to listen to you talk.”

  “You’re one to talk about accents,” he chided with a mocking glance.

  “Well, I don’t have one,” she drawled. “Not in Georgia, at least.”

  He shook his head. His eyes were busy, staring around, measuring, calculating.

  “What are we looking for?” she asked.

  “I’ll tell you when I find it. Write this down.”

  He dictated and she scribbled as they walked. He noted locations of grocery stores, bus stops, drugstores, businesses, traffic lights, streets, until Amelia got lost in the tangle. As they got around the block and back to the potential site, he was still throwing out ideas.

  He looked up at the tenement and had her write down names of potential subcontractors, demolition people, city government officials, building inspectors. Then he made notes about the site itself, using terms she had to ask him to spell. It became obvious that he knew his business.