She hesitated. “Not like you mean, no, but I guess I’m about to have a first time. I hope I don’t turn green.”
“Me, too,” he teased. “And Eden?”
“Yes?”
“Thank you,” he said as he turned to leave.
“Jeremy?”
He turned back.
“Have you ever been on a skateboard?” she blurted out. “Or in-line skates?”
A low laugh escaped him. “Not that I can remember. Maybe when I was wild and drank too much in college, but probably not. I played hockey. A lot. And I won’t let you get hurt, Eden,” he said softly. “In any way. I promise.”
“Isn’t that supposed to be my job?” she asked.
Slowly he shook his head. “Your job is just to be beside me and to yell at me if I make any false moves. No tough stuff for you. I want your help and I want your company, but I intend for you to be safe. I won’t put you in harm’s way.”
But as she watched him walk away and realized that she had just committed herself to an even closer relationship with him, she knew that she was very much at risk. Jeremy might protect her body, but he couldn’t protect her heart.
She was going to have to be smart and do that herself.
“I don’t think I’m going to be very good at the skating thing,” Eden said a bit breathlessly.
“You’ll be fine,” Jeremy said with a laugh as he finished lacing up his skates.
“How do you know?”
Jeremy gave her that trust-me-sweetheart look that had slain better women than she was. “I mentioned that I used to play a lot of hockey. Despite the difference between metal blades and wheels, much of the concept is the same. Now, let’s make sure you’re ready.”
He gave her that slightly sideways look that she was beginning to get used to. Heck, she was even beginning to think of it as sexy, since it always meant that he was studying her. Except it also made her heartbeat speed up, and her breathing and…
“Why are you frowning at me?” she asked.
“You’re not wearing knee pads.”
“Neither are you.”
“Yes, but I like to live dangerously. You don’t,” he said. “And I don’t want you getting hurt on my watch.”
Eden opened her mouth to protest. And then she closed it. Jeremy already lived with enough guilt, and he had a strong need to push back at fate. She put on the knee pads. “Show me what to do,” she said.
“Push off like this,” he told her, demonstrating. She tried a few tentative steps, her movements jerky and slow.
“Not bad,” he said.
“You’re just saying that because you can’t see how awful I am or that my eyes are rolling back in my head.”
He froze. “I’m sorry,” she said.
“I’m not,” he said with a smile. “I love that you do that, that you feel comfortable enough to tease me about it.”
“I didn’t mean to be insensitive. I was just so nervous and afraid of falling that I struck out in a very bad way.”
He skated close and cupped his hands beneath her elbows. “Shh,” he said. “Don’t do that. Don’t be careful with me. Just be natural. If you need to strike out, do it. I can take it. I don’t want to be coddled or treated differently. All right?”
She nodded. “Yes.” His hands were rubbing slow, gentle circles on her skin. Her heart was slamming around inside her chest. “Yes. All right.”
“Were your eyes really rolling back in your head?”
“A little. No, a lot.”
“That’s a shame. We really need one good pair of eyes between us.”
She smiled and leaned forward, her mouth almost touching him. “All right. I’ll be the eyes. You be the skill.”
“That sounds like a great plan.” He backed away, and then he reached out and took her by the hand. “Let’s let the wind blow through our hair, Cinderella. Lead on.”
“We might wobble a bit at first.”
“Wobbling works. It leads to other things. Sliding. Racing.”
“Never.”
But before she knew it, with Jeremy’s hand holding hers tightly, Eden was moving around the circular drive. When she slipped, he held on and lifted her. Sometimes he slowed them down until she found her bearings but then they were off again.
“A pebble straight ahead,” she said, and Jeremy swung them wide.
“We’re at the turn,” she directed and he showed her how to crossover her skates so that they went around the bend relatively smoothly.
“This is amazing!” she said, even though her ankles bent in ways that ankles were never meant to bend and she was moving at turtle speed half the time and still wobbling a lot. “I can’t believe we’re doing this. I can’t believe I’m doing it. I’ve always had two left feet.”
“No, not true. You just didn’t have opportunities to practice. You had to get your bearings. We’ll have to try a rink someday,” he said in that low, seductive voice that caught her off guard and kept her breathless all the time.
“A rink? Why would we want to do that?”
“Music,” he whispered. “And dancing, Cinderella. You can even wear one of those frothy skirts that flow out behind you and be Cinderella on blades.”
It sounded wonderful. But later, when Mrs. Ruskin called Jeremy in to take a business call, Eden had time to think, and she knew that the Cinderella part wouldn’t happen. This was only a very temporary position. Once they located any children and made contact, she would be gone, back to the only life she could really trust, one where she was alone and running the show, reliant on no one but herself. And Jeremy would be on to his next female companion. She might be in the picture now, but once he had gotten past this mission, he would get back to the rest of his life, and there would always be women in Jeremy’s life.
And those women wouldn’t be employees pretending to be fairy-tale goddesses. They’d be the real deal. Born-to-this-world rich princesses who fit into Jeremy’s lifestyle perfectly. Remember that. Don’t daydream about him anymore, she thought.
That was excellent advice. Someone ought to take it.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“MS. BYARS, it’s very nice to meet you.” Jonathan DeFray, CEO of the company whose account Jeremy was trying to win, took Eden’s hand in his own. “Mr. Fulton tells me that you’re an invaluable assistant.”
She smiled despite a bad case of nerves. Her duties today were simple, but Jonathan DeFray was one of those businessmen so successful that he was a local household name. This was a major account, and every second today mattered. “Well, Mr. Fulton is very easy to work for,” she said. “He knows exactly what he wants and that always makes his employees’ jobs easier.”
The man laughed even though Eden knew she hadn’t said anything funny. “A perfect answer, Ms. Byars. Talk up your employer. Be loyal. I like that.”
He made it sound as if she were acting, but she wasn’t.
“Okay, Fulton, let’s get down to business,” the man said. “Show me what you have for me. And by the way, thank you for inviting me to your house. This is pretty darn impressive, even for the rich and famous.”
“What can I say? The Fulton forefathers liked things big and showy,” Jeremy said, in that casual, teasing way he had.
The man laughed. “So do I.”
“Well then, let’s see if I can follow through on that premise today. Shall we get started?”
“Can’t wait to see what you have for me.”
Jeremy nodded. “Eden?”
She knew what to do. “Mr. DeFray, please sit here so you can see better,” she told him, seating him in a chair that had been placed to give Jeremy a relatively good view of the man. There was a monitor hanging on the wall that Jeremy faced. It was attached to a laptop, and he held a pointer. Eden knew that while Jeremy was perfectly capable of carrying out his business with visual aids, he didn’t want to use them today and when he faced the screen head-on he couldn’t see the complete details of what was there. He also couldn’t see a
ll the details of the man he was trying to sell to.
But he had trained himself well. He’d memorized the placement of what was on each slide. Now as he moved through his presentation, he pointed out details perfectly. “I’ve done an assessment of your company, Jon, and frankly, for the moment your system is sufficient for what you need it to do. The question is what you’ll want it to do two years from now, five years from now and beyond.”
Eden looked at Jonathan DeFray and saw the surprise in his eyes. “You’re telling me that if I said I wanted to hire your company but not expand, I could sit tight and you’d be totally fine with that? In spite of the fact that we both know I can afford to buy anything I want to?” His hands tensed ever so slightly on the pencil he was holding. This was obviously an important question.
“You could pretty much do nothing and you’d still be fine. Other than the usual minor updates of systems to keep up with current technology you could make only minimal changes in the short-term,” Jeremy said.
“Oh yes, always those minimal changes.”
“I’m not going to lie to you, yes. The world of computers always involves change.”
“Hah!” the man said with a laugh. “I like your attitude. It shows strength of character that you didn’t try to tell me I could get by with absolutely no outlay of cash at all. Lots of people would do that and then they’d sell me a bill of goods. Are you going to sell me something else?”
Jeremy grinned. “I don’t know. Am I? I’d say that depends on what you want. You can stay put and we’ll make sure that you don’t fall behind, keeping you up to date on the current technology with a minimal outlay on your part, or if you want to dress things up and add some sparklers or some heavy-duty fireworks to light things up and go for the big, showy, impressive display, we can do that, as well. Your call.”
Eden looked toward the client. He looked as enchanted as any woman who had ever set her sights on Jeremy. His mouth was open, and he was leaning forward. Then, he turned and winked at Eden. “Fireworks? Your boss has obviously done his homework. It’s a bit of a secret that I’m into amateur pyrotechnics. And it’s always good to do business with people who are thorough, know exactly who they’re dealing with and don’t just sit back and wait for things to happen. Your boss is a bit of a legend in the business,” Jonathan DeFray told her. “Because he knows which buttons to press and how to seduce clients over to his side. All right,” he said to Jeremy. “Now that I know a bit more about how you operate, let’s get down to the basics. Let me tell you what I really want and you tell me whether you think it’s doable.” He began to spill out his wish list.
Eden took a deep, silent breath and glanced at Jeremy who looked completely casual and at ease despite the fact that she knew he didn’t want Jonathan DeFray to know that he was dealing with a man whose eyesight had moved beyond merely failing to on-the-road-to-being-legally-blind. This was where she came in. Jeremy repeated the names of the catalogs that would most likely contain the products that would fulfill the wish list. Eden stepped to the table in the corner where Jeremy had everything organized. She pulled out the huge tomes and carried them over to a table Jeremy had invited DeFray to move to. She did her best to merely look like a minion doing the grunt work, when in fact her duty was to make sure Jeremy had the right book without having to fumble through the stack.
“The Scarsdale collection,” she said, placing one of the tomes in the center of the table.
Jeremy didn’t blink. “I think you’ll find the large-scale wall-mount monitors on page 211 might meet your needs, DeFray,” he said. “Let me show you.”
Eden opened the book to the place Jeremy had indicated. “The Fulton 3000?” she asked, indicating that she had the page on display.
“Exactly. Look at this, DeFray. What do you think?” Jeremy reached out and ran a hand over the page, stopping at one of the models illustrated there. His movement was more of a careful measured slide down the page than anything, and Eden wondered if Jonathan DeFray noticed that Jeremy was using a hand span to figure out how far down the page the item was, but the client was simply staring at the monitor Jeremy was indicating.
“If you’re looking for a full-scale computerized operation and you have the room for something this size, this could be what you want,” Jeremy told him. “With these and the necessary cams, networking between offices or even between the cafeteria and an office would be possible at the drop of a hat. These are large enough that no one in the room will have to strain to see what’s going on. They’re big enough to have impressive demos when you have visiting clients, and if you really want to go all out, I have a gallery I work with that creates framed work to place over these so that your offices have more ambiance if the screens aren’t needed for a while.”
The two men began to discuss the pros and cons of various systems. Jeremy always mentioned the name of the catalog and the page the item in mind was located on so that all Eden had to do was move things around and locate the pages.
Within a short time the table was littered with catalogs, and Jonathan had made some preliminary decisions. He had rolled his chair over to the display table and now left it to look at a mock-up Jeremy had called up on a computer screen, complete with the products the man had selected. When Jeremy began to follow him, the wheel on the chair protruded slightly and was directly in his path. Eden automatically reached out and placed her hand on Jeremy’s arm.
The slight movement caught Jonathan’s attention, and she could feel herself blushing. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to step in your way,” she said, acting as if she had touched Jeremy’s arm in order to catch herself. “I’ll just put these catalogs away.” She slid the chair out of Jeremy’s path, making as much noise as was possible with a well-oiled chair.
Jonathan chuckled. “Fulton, if I didn’t know better, I’d say that your Ms. Byars was interested in you,” he said. “Especially the way she’s blushing. I love a woman who blushes. It’s positively erotic.”
Eden had her back to the men now and she expected Jeremy to react with his usual, laid-back, casual humor. Instead the room was silent. She turned around.
“I hope you didn’t mean that the way it sounded, DeFray,” Jeremy said. “Because Eden is entirely professional. She’s here to help make this meeting flow more smoothly and she’s done so. She deserves our respect. I’m afraid I don’t take kindly to people making insinuations about my employees.”
Suddenly the room was supercharged. What on earth was Jeremy doing, Eden thought. He’d spent days, maybe weeks preparing for this meeting. He had used all the skills he possessed to present himself as a strong, in-charge, no-flaws businessman, and Jonathan DeFray was on the verge of emptying multiple treasure chests to buy the equipment and expertise of Fulton Enterprises. But all of that could end right here and now if DeFray took offense.
“Eden is my employee and yes, she’s also a friend,” Jeremy continued. “In fact, I’ve known her since we were children. I won’t sacrifice that kind of genuine friendship for business, ever. A man needs to know what is important in life. This woman is more important than an impressive new account.”
For a minute the room felt frozen. The men faced each other. Jeremy seemed to be staring directly at the man, his face an unforgiving mask.
Then the other man smiled. “My apologies. You’re right that I was out of line, Fulton. I spoke without thinking and there’s no excuse for that. Furthermore, I like a man who knows what matters and doesn’t back down. Ms. Byars, forgive me if I offended you in any way,” he said turning to her. “I need to watch my thoughts and my mouth at times.”
“No offense taken,” she said mildly, returning to her work. Her entire body was on alert. Her hands were unsteady. Jeremy had risked a major account just because the client had said something mildly suggestive about her, and she needed time to put that in perspective. She needed not to let herself make too much of that or be too affected by it. It was just Jeremy’s way, like the event with her dog. He had been
treated unjustly by his aunt and so he was a strong believer in justice. That was all it was, and she had to let it pass and not let her heart melt over the incident.
“Let’s write the whole darn package up, Fulton. Get Ms. Byars to do the honors and set the wheels in motion.”
Now she was outside her sphere. Jeremy did have a wonderful secretary, but Arrabelle Quinn couldn’t seem to manage a meeting like this without staring at Jeremy constantly or trying to help him around the room. It bothered Arrabelle terribly to see him fading this way, so she was waiting for the paperwork to be handed to her, when she would then work her own miracle completing a stunning presentation package. Then DeFray could go back and show his people all the pretty new toys he had bought and what he was spending and how this was going to make them all happy and make their jobs easier. In her own way, Arrabelle was a sales team of her own.
Still, the woman couldn’t be here now, so Eden sat down and scribbled the basics on paper. “This will be typed up and sent off as soon as possible,” she assured DeFray. “Mr. Fulton has a full staff to handle it.”
Which seemed to make the man very happy. “Good. Every successful businessman needs to have lots of strong and talented worker bees.” Then the man sighed. He ran a hand through his hair. “You know, for all the money and power I have and despite the fact that I know computers are a necessity, I hate buying the darn things. Talking about them makes me nuts. Having to spend money on them makes me even crazier, and I really wasn’t looking forward to this meeting. You made it easy, though, Fulton, and pretty painless. Come on, let me take you to lunch to celebrate the fact that we’ve come to terms. My secretary gave me the name of a great restaurant in the city.”
Eden wanted to groan. With success so close at hand, Jeremy wouldn’t want to take a chance on going out in public where he wouldn’t automatically know the lay of the land and might chance appearing weak in his new client’s eyes.
She cleared her throat tentatively. “Mr. DeFray, that’s an excellent idea,” she said, “except I know that Lula, Mr. Fulton’s cook, is really hoping you’ll stay to lunch here.” Where Jeremy would be in his own safe territory, where he could negotiate with ease.
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