HOW TO BE THE PERFECT GIRLFRIEND

by Heather MacAllister

  The two men nearest Hayden glanced at her, and then at each other. Hayden peered at their badges. "Hi, George from Pensacola and John from Dallas. Why, Dallas is just up the road. That makes us neighbors." She laughed. They didn't. Undeterred, she continued, "I'm Hayden and this is my friend Sara."

  Sara smiled widely to overcome the I'd-like-to-be-anywhere-else feeling currently residing in her stomach. Or was her Wonderbra too tight? Either way, she didn't want to talk to George from Pensacola or John from Dallas. It looked like they didn't want to talk to her, either.

  Hayden caught that. "Well, welcome to Houston, y'all. Hope you have a good time." She nudged Sara away.

  "Okay, that's it," Sara muttered as they walked toward more convention attendees. "This is not working."

  "That was just a warm-up. Look at all these lovely men." Hayden happily gestured around them. "I'll give Missy points for finding prime hunting ground." She looked at Sara. "Sara, for pity's sake, smile! Now, let's mingle."

  It was definitely a one-sided mingle, Sara thought. The more resistance Hayden got from the men, the louder she laughed and the bigger her gestures became. At one point, she took a sip from a man's drink and gave him a wink. When she tried to give his glass back, he declined and moved away.

  On the other side of the room, Missy was surrounded. Sara tried to slink over her way, but Hayden steered Sara toward the restrooms.

  "I can't figure it out," Hayden said. "What's wrong with these men?"

  "They know prostitution is illegal in the state of Texas." The bartender was waiting for them in the corridor leading to the restrooms, and cutting off their way.

  "I beg your pardon!" Hayden gave him the kind of look that usually had men knocking back a shot of tequila to numb the effect.

  "I don't want any trouble." The unsmiling bartender crossed his arms over his massive chest.

  "Good, because we don't either." Hayden pushed open the women's restroom door.

  The bartender stopped her. "Ma'am, I'm going to have to ask you to leave the premises."

  "What?"

  Sara had never seen Hayden completely flabbergasted before.

  "You and your friend need to leave now."

  "Well, I—is this about the drinks? You didn't give us a chance to pay for them!"

  "Drinks are on the house, ma'am."

  Hayden smiled. This was familiar territory for her. "They usually are."

  Drinks weren't usually free for Sara, and Hayden's self-satisfied expression triggered a mental recap of their conversation and recent actions. And then she filtered it through the bartender's eyes. And then she understood. And wished she didn't.

  "Come out the back, please."

  "Oh, no. This—"

  "Hayden." Sara swallowed dryly. "He thinks we're … working girls."

  "Well, we are."

  "Not that kind. Prostitutes."

  "He does not!" But one look at the bartender's face and she gasped in outrage. "I demand an apology!"

  "Are either of you registered at this hotel?"

  "No, but—"

  "Out the back."

  He took hold of Hayden's arm as she tried to jerk it away. "Let me go! I demand to speak to the manager. How dare you! Is this the way you treat unescorted women? I'll report you to the Better Business Bureau and the Houston Convention and Visitors Bureau. And … and … that group that fights for women's rights. This is the twenty-first century! I can't believe that a woman in this day and age—"

  The bartender set Hayden out the emergency fire exit. Sara followed meekly behind her. The heavy door banged shut.

  Hayden paced in front of it. "I don't believe this. Do you know what just happened?"

  "Yes. We were mistaken for hookers." Sara squashed down her hair and buttoned her blouse all the way to the neck, but the top button kept slipping out, probably due to the strain of all her new cleavage, so she finally just left it undone.

  Hayden gave her an anguished look. "Do I look like a hooker?"

  "Not a cheap one," Sara said.

  Hayden's expression changed. "You're jealous."

  "No, I'm embarrassed and my feet hurt." They started walking and Sara pointed to the convention center down the street. "We're in a hotel bar near the convention center and we're trying to pick up men. Can you blame the guy?"

  "Yes," Hayden snapped. "Where are we going?"

  "I don't know about you, but I'm going back to tell Missy where we are."

  Hayden narrowed her eyes. "I will never set foot in the Stratford Oaks again. Furthermore, I will see to it that no client of mine is ever booked at the Stratford Oaks. And I will put out the word to my colleagues that they shouldn't book anyone in the Stratford Oaks." They reached the street entrance of the parking garage. "This is where we part company."

  Fine with her. Sara figured she shouldn't have any trouble getting back into the bar unaccompanied by Hayden in the tight red dress. "Okay, I'll tell Missy."

  "Just call her."

  "She doesn't have her cell turned on. Says it breaks her concentration." Sara waved at Hayden as she headed down into the parking garage, muttering about revenge plots and the downfall of the Stratford Oaks.

  Sara decided she wouldn't think about the Stratford Oaks; she would think about eating ice cream and soaking her feet.

  She could have done without this extra hike because she had some spectacular blisters. What was with that? Stupid shoes. She tried adjusting her gait and putting weight on different parts of her feet until she reached the heavy brass-and-glass doors of the bar entrance. She pulled open the door and welcomed the whoosh of air conditioning.

  She did not welcome the unsmiling man blocking her way. He wore a liverylike uniform meant to evoke old English gentry or guards or some such thing. The point was, he wasn't moving.

  "Excuse me." She tried to walk around him.

  "I'm sorry, miss. You can't come in here."

  "It's okay. I need to tell my friend—"

  "You don't have any friends in here."

  "Yes, I do, she's—" Sara broke off. "I don't believe this." Had word gone out? Were she and Hayden on some call-girl watch list like the one for hot check writers?

  She held up her foot. "Don't you see my shoes?"

  "Yes, ma'am. They were one of the first things I noticed."

  Quality, right. Three hundred bucks down the drain. "Look. I'm not a … a—"

  "Sara?"

  That voice. She knew that voice. Slowly, Sara turned and looked into the yummy chocolatey eyes of Simon Northrup.

  * * *

  5

  « ^ »

  Simon had started thinking about women again. Not that he hadn't been thinking about women before, but the women who had been on his mind recently were Kayla—more of a woman-in-training—and her mother, Joanna, so he hadn't been thinking of women in the usual way. The, well, carnal way.

  Of course, he'd once been madly, passionately in love with Joanna, and her betrayal had hurt. He'd moved on, although he'd be lying if he didn't admit noticing that Joanna still tried to push a button or two when it suited her purposes. Tall, haughty blondes hiding a molten center were his type, and she knew it.

  But now there was Sara. She wasn't tall and she wasn't blond and he didn't know about any molten cores, but she'd become his new type.

  Simon felt as though he'd been hibernating through a long female-less winter and it was now spring. Things were stirring once more. He was noticing women again, noticing everything about them. Their clothes, their shape, their hair, their perfume, their shoes and the way they walked. Whether they looked like Sara or not.

  The woman walking just ahead of him on the sidewalk outside the hotel, for example, reminded him a little of Sara—or Sara in an alternate universe. This female's glorious legs flashed in and out of the long slit in her skirt while her hips swayed as only a women wearing a tight skirt and high-heeled shoes could sway them. Not Sara's style, but enjoyable.

  Instead of paying attention to the conv
ersations of the men he'd gone to the builders' convention to meet up with, he murmured politely as he watched the woman turn into the doorway of the Stratford Oaks. His interest quickened.

  He needed this account. He was hustling for this account. And yet, he was ready to ditch the men and the account and pursue the woman just because she reminded him of Sara.

  She was talking to the doorman as Simon and his group arrived, and then he caught her voice.

  "Sara?" Though it couldn't be.

  But it was. The legs … the walk…

  She turned around and his mouth went dry. "Hi, Simon."

  Breasts. She had breasts. He'd known that, but somehow, he'd missed their magnificence when he'd been killing space aliens with her.

  So that had been Sara's walk and those were her legs and her mouth and her eyes and her … hair. There was more of that than he remembered, too. The best thing about her hair was that it was clipped back on one side to reveal the side of her neck and one perfect shell of an ear, waiting to be nibbled. Waiting for him to touch the tiny pearl stud with his tongue—

  "Do you know this woman, Mr. Northrup?" the doorman asked.

  Apparently not. "Yes. Sara works at my company. What are you doing here?" He'd completely forgotten the men behind him.

  Her eyes were wide. Huge and dark and smudgy, as though she'd awakened after a night in his bed. Lord, she was sexy. Talk about molten cores. He stared at her, mesmerized.

  "I'm … researching. Helping research, actually. I was here with Hayden Jones, one of our marketing account supervisors," she tossed back at the doorman, "and Melissa Morgan who's working in travel. We book a lot of business clients at this hotel and … well, we've heard things that concerned us, and rightly so," again to the doorman. "We came to see the hotel for ourselves." She gave Simon a brilliant smile. A blinding smile. A smile that rendered him mute.

  "Hayden had to leave and I seem to be having trouble getting back inside to tell Missy. It seems unescorted women aren't welcome at the Stratford Oaks."

  "Consider yourself escorted now." Simon took her arm, grateful for the excuse to touch her.

  The doorman's face went professionally blank. "Ma'am, there seems to have been a misunderstanding."

  She clutched Simon's arm. It felt good. He leaned against her.

  "Oh, I understand," she was saying. "I understand that we'll recommend our female clients be booked elsewhere."

  "I say, it's a bit warm out here," said one of the men on the sidewalk behind Simon.

  Jolted out of his lustful Sara haze, Simon introduced her to them, finishing with, "And this is the sort of attention to detail you can expect from Avalli Digital."

  "Well, I must say that I'm very impressed with the details." The man who had spoken leered at Sara.

  She shrank back.

  Simon caught his eye and drilled him with a look that made it clear that the woman next to him was no-leer territory.

  They walked inside and Simon noticed that the doorman was conferring with the bartender and both were looking his way. "There's a story here, I'm thinking," he murmured to Sara.

  She followed his gaze. "And I'm thinking I don't want to tell it to you."

  He let it drop for now. "Have a drink with us?"

  She was looking around. "I do need to talk to Missy … but I don't see her. Thanks for the offer, but I know you're busy."

  "Stay." He didn't let go of her arm. The other men had staked out a table in the crowded room, waiting while the glasses and napkins left by the previous occupants were cleared away.

  "I—"

  "Please." His voice was low with a husky catch at the end. Or maybe that was desperation. All he knew was that he needed to be with her just now. He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt this way.

  She was so … something. Simon found himself wildly attracted to her in this incarnation. She was hot. Totally hot. Look-at-me hot. And Simon looked. He couldn't stop looking. He needed to pay attention to the men. He'd persistently courted them and the negotiations had reached a delicate stage at which the slightest thing could make them go either way. He'd already lost two accounts this week. Losing this one after all the time the account team had invested in the pitch would not be good for the bottom line.

  And all he could think about was that directly above them were floors filled with many, many beds. He only needed one.

  That was a gleam in Simon's eyes if ever she saw one. It was a hot gleam and it made Sara shiver. Against her better judgment, she heard herself order a Scotch rocks and then she sank onto a leather chair. Simon and his hot gleam sat in the chair next to hers. Oh, boy. No. Oh, man. She had captured all his manly attention. And he was a lot more man than she usually attracted, that was for sure. For the first time, she understood the term "man's man."

  "So, lass, would you be workin' on our account?"

  Sara dragged her eyes away from Simon. Who were these—right. They were with Simon. He'd introduced her, but she hadn't paid attention. She hoped there wasn't going to be a quiz.

  Account… She glanced at Simon and saw him carefully watching the men, then glance her way. Would her working on the account be a good thing? A white-jacketed waiter wearing gloves set their drinks on the table.

  Sara hefted hers and answered the man. "In a manner of speaking."

  "A Scotch drinker. What a woman." The other men raised their glasses to her and everybody took a drink.

  But not everybody wanted to spit it right back out the way Sara did. She forced herself to swallow and endure the burn all the way down. Vile, vile, vile. She munched on a few cheese crackers, but her tongue was numb and she couldn't taste anything.

  Scotch, a martini or gin and tonic. She was going to get Missy for this—assuming she could find her and that Missy was still speaking to her when she did.

  Speaking of speaking, nobody was saying anything. They were all looking at her. "So, have y'all ever been to Houston before?"

  Two of the men had, but it was the first visit for one.

  "I thought I was going to be dodging horses," he said. "Nobody told me it was the bloody tropics!"

  Sara laughed politely and shot a quick look toward Simon. He gestured with his eyes toward the men, which Sara interpreted to mean that she was to stay and chat.

  Cool. She'd never been the female entertainment before. But uncool being mistaken for a hooker. And she was pretty sure that most of the men at the Stratford Oaks, with the exception of Simon, were still laboring under the impression that she was a lady of the evening. Nevertheless, she channeled some Missy with a dash of Hayden and acquitted herself well, if she did say so herself.

  But when they rose to go to dinner, she declined to go with them. "I know you boys have business to discuss." Oops. Too much Hayden.

  Simon looked at his watch. "I'll give you a chance to unload the conference materials and meet you in the lobby in, say, ten minutes?"

  One of the men leaned toward him. "Do ya think that's enough time to persuade yon lass to come with us?"

  "Yon lass has other plans," Sara said, smiling her best Missy smile as she said it.

  After the men left, Simon walked her past the bartender—with whom she exchanged a significant look—and opened the door for her.

  "Thanks, Sara."

  "For what?" She should be thanking him.

  "You charmed those men. Thanks to you, I have every expectation of coming to an informal agreement with them over dinner tonight." The words were businesslike, but the way he said them was a warm caress. He took a step toward her.

  In all honesty, she could have taken a step backward, and probably should have, but she didn't. He was looking down at her in such a lovely, manly, entirely inappropriate, gleaming way.

  "I appreciate it," he said, still looking down at her, still standing a bit too close.

  "You're welcome," she whispered. Oh, okay, she might have leaned a little toward him. Just in case he, you know, might be thinking of, well, kissing her.

 
; Kissing Simon. Her hormones had quit prickling and had gone into complete meltdown. She could feel them pooling deep within her, sending little messages to her brain. "You're a woman. He's a man. We're ready. We're ready now. We've been ready."

  Was she nuts? This couldn't be for real. She and Simon worked, if not exactly together, for the same company. A major no-no. He probably thought she expected a goodbye kiss and was just being nice so she wouldn't feel embarrassed.

  But … there was that wonderful intense gleam in his eyes, and the way he focused on her and only her, compelling her to focus on him and only him. If she could just know what it was like to feel his mouth against hers, to be wrapped in his arms and pressed against his chest…

  His head moved, tilting ever so slightly. Desire crackled between them. "Sara," he breathed.

  She didn't even see his lips move. She closed her eyes as his hand skimmed around her cheek and cupped the back of her neck. She may have made a slight sound. She certainly tilted her chin.

  His lips settled gently over hers in a questing, exploratory kiss. Sara knew he was judging her reaction, trying to figure out if they were both on the same page and what she wanted to do about it if they were. It was the perfect first kiss, especially considering they were in the outer entrance of a hotel bar in which she'd recently been mistaken for a hooker. It was the kind of first kiss that made her forget that Simon wasn't on her list of possibles.

  As Simon broke the kiss, his hand slowly fell away and the look he gave her made her feel as though the U.S. Olympic gymnastics team was practicing in her stomach.

  Oh, would it really be so bad to just forget about that little quibble she had with him? The one about his sis—

  The unmistakable sound of a ringing cell phone echoed loudly in the glass vestibule. Both Sara and Simon checked their phones. It was his.

  He pressed the talk button. "Kayla?"

  Sara exhaled quietly. Simon shook his head at her to stay, then broke eye contact to concentrate on what his sister was saying. "But I told you I had a dinner meeting tonight. You should have checked with your mother. You'll just have to…"

  Okay, it was a not-so-little quibble and a very timely reminder. She should leave. After all, Simon had already left her. Sara slipped out the door wondering if it was a good thing or a bad thing that Kayla had interrupted them.