Texas Temptation

by Kathryn Brocato

  He noted suddenly she was wearing a pair of shorts and a pink T-shirt, although her hair and makeup looked perfect, and she was already wearing the purple contact lenses. “Why aren’t you getting dressed?”

  “My appointment isn’t until nine, and it won’t take me but twenty minutes to get dressed. Besides, I don’t want to get bacon grease on my fancy new suit. Wait till you see what I’m going to wear, Tyler.” She flipped the bacon. “You’ll love it.”

  “That probably means I’ll forbid you to leave this apartment.”

  Tyler got down a couple of plates from the meager supply of dishes his mother had given him when he got his first apartment. They had been used so seldom, he had to take them to the sink and wash dust off them.

  Berry gurgled with laughter that held a nervous edge. “You might, but think what a waste it would be, with no one besides you to appreciate me.”

  Tyler watched her fry eggs and reflected that keeping her to himself wasn’t such a bad idea. In fact, the thought of Felix gazing down or up her dress made him want to fight. He was definitely heading for trouble.

  When Berry pranced out of her bedroom to give him a preview of her interview outfit a little later, his throat went so dry he couldn’t speak.

  “Well?” She twirled before him. “What do you think?”

  She wore a pink linen suit with an oversized jacket and a very short, fitted skirt along with dark pink high, high heels, a masterpiece of sexy fashion that made vague pretensions at being business wear. She wore no blouse with it, and in the deep neckline, the fake two-carat phony diamond radiated splashes of colored light against her golden skin.

  Any man looking at her would know exactly what to think of her secretarial skills. Tyler sighed and rubbed his forehead. He’d give almost anything to be there when Berry presented herself at the Farley Brothers main office.

  So he could drag her out if Felix Farley so much as laid a hand on her, he admitted to himself.

  Berry pursed her lips at him. She had painted on lipstick in a way that made her mouth look full and pouting for a man’s kiss.

  “I wish you were going with me,” she said. “I’m so scared, I can hardly breathe. Everything depends on my getting this job. Everything.”

  Tyler suddenly realized he had a splitting headache and no wish to show up at his office. But he had quarterly reports awaiting him, and he’d definitely be an intruder if he behaved like some sort of glowering bodyguard at Berry’s side when she entered Felix Farley’s domain.

  “Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll call Felix’s office later this morning. Maybe we can meet for lunch. In the meantime, send me a few texts if you can. I want to know how it turns out.”

  Berry brightened. “I will. Lunch would be wonderful. Maybe I can give you my preliminary report.”

  “Your what?” The thought of meeting Berry for lunch improved his headache considerably.

  “You’ll be able to help me most if I keep you informed of everything I learn from the very beginning. By noon, I should have some idea of who the main players are, don’t you think? You can guide me toward what I need to access next.”

  “I’d be amazed if you do,” Tyler said drily. “Give yourself a few days at least, Berry. Starting a new job is hard enough.”

  “I don’t have a few days.” Berry clenched her fists as well as she could around the long, pink nails. “There’s no telling when they might check the facts on my resume and find out Mary MacGregor doesn’t exist. Or worse, that she does and she’s nearly ninety years old.”

  “I thought you said your college roommate is giving you a glowing reference.”

  He stared at her feet. It should have been impossible to walk in heels that high, but Berry managed it.

  “She is, but Farley Brothers might have an overzealous personnel manager.”

  Tyler still couldn’t quite believe Berry intended to follow through with her investigation. But when he stood beside his car and watched her drive off in Daniel’s Mustang, he realized abruptly that she was really going to do it. In the few short days he’d known her, he’d received a whole new outlook on feminine courage and imagination.

  He sighed and rubbed his forehead again. He was late for work, and he didn’t care. Worse, he had become so interested in Berry’s assault on Farley Brothers he wanted to join her.

  He looked up, eyes narrowing, as a dark sedan with tinted windows that had been parked on the street nearby suddenly took off in the same direction Berry had taken.

  He told himself he was imagining things, but the car looked a lot like the same car he’d seen cruising past last night.

  He firmly dismissed the thought. The direction Berry had taken was a widely traveled one leading directly toward the downtown area. Most of the cars driving past were headed there at this hour of the morning.

  Tyler climbed in his car, thinking hard. There had to be something he could do to further Berry’s cause. He certainly didn’t want her quitting her investigation anytime soon. Not when just being in her presence restored his energy and his interest in life.

  • • •

  Berry drove herself to the office building that housed Farley Brothers, Inc. and parked in a nearby parking garage. By keeping her mind blank, she maintained her poise until she reached the eighth floor of the building and approached the glass door marking the entrance to the Farley Brothers suite.

  Her control was only shaken once, when a businessman on the elevator stared admiringly at her and asked how much she charged.

  “More than you’ve got,” she asserted, lifting her chin.

  Her heart pounded so loudly, he was sure to hear it. Clutching her small leather purse in both hands, Berry ignored his comeback and hurried toward the door. She resolutely pushed it open and walked inside, head up and chest leading.

  “May I help you?” a woman asked. She didn’t sound interested in helping, but Berry had expected that reaction from any female employee.

  Repressing a gasp, Berry tried to look nonchalant. “I’m—Ber—Mary MacGregor. I have an interview with Mr. Felix Farley at nine.”

  She had almost ruined everything by giving her real name. If she didn’t get her control back, she’d blow her own cover. She took several deep breaths while the woman tapped some keys and studied her computer screen.

  The receptionist looked like an executive. To Berry’s surprise, the woman’s cool, brown eyes were filled with something resembling bleak dislike when they rested upon her. She squelched a strong desire to text Tyler for encouragement.

  “Mr. Farley will see you now, Miss MacGregor,” the woman said, curling her lip. “Please come this way.”

  Berry, hyperventilating, followed the darkly beautiful woman down the corridor to an office at the very end. The woman held open the door, announced, “Miss MacGregor,” in ultra-refined accents then closed the door behind Berry.

  She had no time to wonder what lay behind the receptionist’s hostility. Berry gulped and stood blinking for a moment in the center of the dark, oak-paneled office. She forced herself to walk toward the man at the huge, mahogany desk that dominated the room, an office her research called a “power office.”

  “Good morning, Mr. Farley.” She tried for borderline flirtatiousness. “Thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy schedule to see me. And for your wonderful kindness Saturday night in welcoming a new arrival to Houston.”

  Felix Farley contemplated her in silence. Berry’s heart pounded with a strange mixture of horror at her own ditzy speech and fright at facing Felix Farley alone. Now was a really poor time to discover she hated her own speech.

  As her eyes adjusted to the gloom, she realized Felix’s gaze assessed her with lewd frankness. She felt a twinge of a new kind of nervousness when his bold stare rested on her chest. What had given her the idea that she could go through with this?

  “I’m sure you’ll suit me just fine, Miss MacGregor,” he said. “Just fine. You seem … very competent. Your resume is quite imp
ressive.”

  His drawl gave his words a second meaning, and Berry shivered inside when he gestured toward the straight chair beside his desk. She swayed toward it, feeling like a beauty contestant on parade, and sank onto it with relief—until she noticed that his gaze focused hopefully on her upper legs.

  Felix’s gaze rose reluctantly when Berry kept her knees pressed modestly together. She managed somehow to keep from tugging her short pink skirt down.

  “Well, Miss MacGregor,” he said. “With the high recommendations of your previous employers, I have no questions at all about your ability.”

  Berry smiled prettily while she forcefully kept herself from collapsing with relief. “Thank you, sir. That means everything coming from you.”

  For a moment, Berry thought he was going to lean forward and place his hand on her knee. Instead, Felix leaned back when the door opened upon a knock and the receptionist entered.

  Berry suppressed her smile of gratitude and studied the woman, noting her air of competence, from her dark pageboy to her dress-for-success tan suit to her plain brown pumps. Although the woman was strikingly beautiful, Felix Farley accorded her a frowning glance of total disinterest.

  “I’m terribly sorry for interrupting, Mr. Farley,” the woman said, “but Mr. Corrigan insists on seeing you about the inventory figures for the Westheimer number two store. He’s on his way over.”

  Her voice was so full of meaning, Berry paid attention in spite of the many impressions crowding her mind.

  Felix scowled. “Tell him he’ll have to come back tomorrow. I’m late as it is. Will you have Miss MacGregor fill out the necessary papers? I’m sure she’s going to suit me perfectly.”

  Felix turned away as he spoke, and Berry noted an incredible expression on the receptionist’s lovely face, one composed of cynicism and—of all things—unrequited love.

  Berry suppressed a gasp. She must have stumbled into a veritable hotbed of human passions, and all within her first five minutes on the job. Motives for murder suddenly beckoned from everywhere.

  Berry’s morning was a hectic jumble of new faces, papers to be filled out with her carefully planned and memorized falsehoods, and strange instructions her most thorough research hadn’t prepared her to follow. Although she tried to stay alert for overtones and nuances, it was all she could do to keep the players straight as she sat behind the big desk just outside Felix Farley’s office and tried to look as if she knew what she was doing.

  A chunk of blue-quartz granite, cut and polished to show off the quartz inclusions, held a place of honor on her desk. It was literally the only thing about Farley Brothers that she felt she understood.

  She herself had given it to Daniel after a geology field trip to the Llano uplift near Llano, Texas. Somehow it had missed being included in the box of Daniel’s belongings that Farley Brothers had sent her after Daniel’s death. Berry considered finding it on her desk an omen of her ultimate success.

  She sent Tyler a surreptitious text message as soon as she was able and told him she had gotten the job.

  A moment later, the telephone on her desk buzzed discreetly, and Berry searched for the instrument. It didn’t even look like a telephone. “Mr. Farley’s office. Miss MacGregor speaking.”

  “Ah, Miss MacGregor. I see you’re already manning a desk.”

  Berry quivered with irrational joy at hearing Tyler’s deep voice. “I am, thank you,” she said. “Remind me to tell you all about it.” After the morning she’d put in—all thirty minutes of it—she wanted nothing more than to get away from Farley Brothers for a while.

  “I’ll pick you up at noon,” he said. “Be waiting at the curb in front of the building.”

  Tyler hung up, and Berry went back to her current task of searching the computer’s address book program. No wonder people talked about stress in the workplace. She hadn’t been here an hour, and already her blood pressure had likely skyrocketed.

  The morning grew more surreal by the minute. The job of locating Bernard Warren’s telephone number soon proved impossible and she had to ask the beautiful woman, whose name was Concetta Tomayo, how to find it.

  “Try looking under Westheimer number two,” Concetta said, with crisp contempt. “Mr. Warren is the manager.” Which any idiot ought to know, her tone said.

  “Oh, thank you.” Berry simpered and went back to the computer.

  Sure enough, she found the correct phone number under the “Westheimer #2” heading, but before she could call the number, another interruption occurred.

  “I demand to see Felix Farley,” a short, redheaded man snapped as he skidded to a halt before her desk. “If I have to wait all day, I will.”

  “Mr. Farley left the office a little earlier, sir,” Berry said apologetically. “But I was instructed to call Mr. Bernard Warren—”

  “Warren!” the little man said, breathing fire. “It looks to me as if Bernard Warren is most of the problem. If Mr. Farley doesn’t care to talk to me, then I’ll have to take my concerns to—”

  “Mr. Corrigan,” Concetta Tomayo said, approaching from Berry’s other side. “Mr. Warren is on his way here. Isn’t he, Miss MacGregor? Mr. Farley said Mr. Warren would be happy to answer all your questions on his behalf.”

  “Bernard Warren is, at most, an unreliable source of information,” Mr. Corrigan said in precise tones. “Furthermore, I’m beginning to believe Mr. Farley is just as unreliable.” He glared at Concetta. “As are you, Miss Tomayo.”

  Berry succeeded in entering Bernard Warren’s phone number, but when he finally answered, she literally could not hear him, nor could he hear her when she requested his instant presence in Mr. Felix Farley’s office.

  Over her head, Mr. Corrigan shouted accusations and Concetta Tomayo countered them with accusations of her own. Berry ignored Bernard Warren’s repeated demands for her to speak up in favor of memorizing the insults that flew back and forth. She didn’t understand much, but she hoped Tyler would be able to decipher the mess.

  In the meanwhile, the only thing she understood was that she had stumbled into a hornet’s nest of some kind of skullduggery. She just wished she knew what it all meant.

  “Nepotism!” Corrigan shouted. “Nepotism of the most suggestive kind!”

  “I’ll have you know that I was hired because of my training and ability,” Concetta yelled back. “How dare you say otherwise!”

  “Never mind,” Bernard Warren said, into Berry’s left ear. “I think I see the problem. I’ll be there shortly.”

  Berry started. She had forgotten about Bernard Warren on the other end of the phone line. “Thank you, Mr. Warren,” she said, with heartfelt gratitude. “That would be most appreciated.”

  And how, she reiterated inwardly. She pretended she was totally deaf and got on with typing a batch of letters Felix had given her. At the same time, she thought on ways she could listen in on the conversation between Bernard Warren and Mr. Corrigan. Perhaps she could suggest she take notes on the proceedings.

  But Bernard Warren never showed up, and Concetta Tomayo soon stormed back into her own office and slammed the door.

  Mr. Corrigan planted himself on a chair beside Berry’s desk. “You seem to be the only person in this office not connected with this farce,” he observed. “Do you think you can locate Mr. Felix Farley? Tell him that he can talk to me now, or he can talk to me later, but if he talks to me later, I can guarantee he will not like what I have to say.”

  “Certainly, Mr. Corrigan,” Berry said respectfully. “I’ll do my best.”

  “That’s all I ask,” Mr. Corrigan said, and leaned back in the manner of one willing to wait an eon or two. “He’s been dodging me for two days now. If he doesn’t meet with me today, I’ll have no choice but to turn in a report he won’t like at all.”

  Berry quivered with eagerness. She pulled up the company contact list once more and plowed through it with determination.

  “We can’t have that,” she said brightly. “Don’t worry, Mr. Corri
gan. I’m sure I can make him understand the importance of your visit.” She hoped.

  Well, Daniel, she said inwardly and touched the rock gently, I hope you weren’t planning on making Farley Brothers your life’s work. I don’t know what’s going on here yet, but I’ll bet it’s both illegal and underhanded.

  By the time she blanked her computer screen and left the tiny anteroom that protected Felix’s office to go to lunch, Berry had confirmed her opinion of Farley Brothers as a bastion of illegitimate activity. She just hoped she could remember the morning’s events accurately enough to relate them to Tyler in an orderly fashion.

  He awaited her at the curb in front of the building as he had promised. Berry slid swiftly in beside him, conscious of an overwhelming urge to fling her arms around him and kiss him.

  “So how’d it go?” He glanced at the diamond in her cleavage, then her legs. “Have you hidden a sheaf of confidential documents in your undies already?”

  “I’ve never seen so much sticky human passion in my life,” she said, heaving an exaggerated sigh. “Believe me, Tyler, there’s enough going on in that place to motivate a dozen murders. You won’t believe what I’m about to lay on you.”

  Tyler smiled at her enthusiasm. “I can’t wait to hear it. But first, I’ve just checked out Farley Brothers’ most recent financial statements. I’ve got a friend who holds stock in the company. He emailed them to me this morning.”

  “Wow. The people accountants know.” She shook her head. “It just goes to show. Not even a police detective could help me as much as you have, and in just three days. We’re a team, Tyler, and together we’re going to find out who killed Daniel.”

  “No doubt I’ve now gone completely whacko, because I really, really want to believe you, Challoner.” He frowned at the busy street ahead. “However, the company appears to be doing better than ever. Just thought I’d mention it.”

  “Tell me about it,” Berry said, with considerable feeling. “I spent the morning typing gloating letters. Felix is getting back at every single person who ever told him he’d never amount to anything.”