Her Man Friday

by Elizabeth Bevarly

  The rest of the family—except for his mother, of course—had always kept their distance from Leo in one way or another, simply because he wasn't much like the rest of them. This in spite of all his efforts to fit in, efforts which had, one after another, backfired bigtime. Still, he thought, of all the things that might cause alienation among family members, smarts wasn't a very bright one.

  And speaking of not very bright, that reminded him of something else he wanted to ask her about.

  "And just what, exactly, is it that you do for Mr. Kimball, Miss Rigby?" he asked, voicing what was really uppermost in his thoughts today. "Aside from stealing his sangria recipe, I mean."

  She had bitten into the pink cookie, but gagged a little as he completed his question. The gag, however, resulted in a gasp, the gasp segued into a cough, and the cough turned into a full-blown dry hack. With no small effort, she reached for her tea and downed a hefty swallow in an effort to halt what was fast becoming a serious respiratory failure.

  Okay, Leo was fully aware that he made women nervous sometimes. He was bigger than the average guy, and, all modesty aside, not a bad-looking sort. It wasn't unusual for a woman to react to him with some degree of attraction, mixed with a healthy dose of wariness. But he couldn't ever recall making one gag and hack until tears squeezed from her eyes.

  "Miss Rigby?" he asked, standing. He reached across the desk and opened his hand over her back to give her an idle pat.

  But instead of helping, the action only seemed to increase her discomfort, because she jumped up from the desk and took a few steps backward in retreat. Holding up one hand palm out in surrender, she enjoyed another healthy sip from her tea. Gradually, she got her coughing under control, then she dragged a finger beneath each eye to swipe away the moisture that had collected there.

  "I'm sorry," she mumbled roughly. "I… That bite just went down the wrong way."

  "Boy, I'll say it did."

  She cleared her throat one last time, then returned to her seat on the desk. This time, however, she tugged her skirt down before sitting.

  "I'm, uh… I'm Mr. Kimball's social secretary," she said, her voice still a little ragged from all the coughing. "I'm sorry. Didn't I tell you that earlier? I could have sworn that I did."

  "Oh, you told me your title," he said. "I just wasn't sure what all that involved. Why a social secretary would be any different from a regular secretary and everything." He sipped his coffee and waited for a reply. When he didn't receive one, he added, "I mean, just how many secretaries does a man need, you know?"

  Lily eyed Mr. Freiberger with what she hoped was a benign expression. However, benign was the last thing she felt at the moment. For one thing, considering his aptitude in finding Schuyler's top secret sangria recipe a few minutes ago, this man was obviously no ordinary lowly bookkeeper. He clearly knew his way around a computer better than the average pencil pusher. She'd spent the better part of the summer trying to figure out where Schuyler had hidden that recipe, and she'd never been able to find it.

  Of course, neither had Schuyler, when she'd asked him to locate it, but that wasn't saying much. Schuyler frequently misplaced his files, especially the really important ones. In fact, his master's thesis from college was still out there in cyberspace somewhere, where he had accidentally jettisoned it shortly after completing it—he had been trying to access an adult-oriented bulletin board at the time. Fortunately, Lily had had the foresight to store the work on diskette before allowing Schuyler use of the modem. For someone who was so astoundingly brilliant, Schuyler Kimball had absolutely no idea how to get around a basic home computer.

  But there was more than Mr. Freiberger's amazing facility with computers that bothered Lily. She still couldn't shake the feeling that he wasn't presenting himself in a way that was particularly, oh… honest. His frumpy awkwardness had only lasted as long as it had taken him to overrun Schuyler's office, and now, suddenly, he was like a man who was in total control. Of his professional role, of his thoughts, of his surroundings. Somehow Lily couldn't quite put aside the sensation that he was trying to overrun her, too.

  But what was genuinely mind-boggling was that, truth be told, she really wouldn't mind being overrun by the man. And that, furthermore, she kind of wanted to overrun him in return. It made no sense. Certainly she had experienced immediate attractions to men before, and she'd enjoyed one or two intimate relationships in her life. But those relationships had come about after she'd gotten to know the men in question, not the moment she had opened the door to them. She didn't know the first thing about Leonard Freiberger, except that she didn't think he was being honest about something. Yet she found herself responding to him on a level that was anything but professional.

  And now he was asking the oddest questions. Wanting to know the most unusual things. Giving her looks that went well beyond suspicious and into outright accusation. What on earth was going on?

  When she remembered that he was still awaiting a response to his question about what she did for Schuyler—and how could he have possibly made such an inquiry sound so blatantly sexual?—she lifted one shoulder and let it drop in what she hoped looked like a careless gesture. Even though careless was the last thing she felt at the moment.

  "I run things for Mr. Kimball here," she said simply. "I keep things organized, keep track of what needs to be taken care of. Although he also has a secretary at his office who attends to the things that come up there, I make sure that all the things that need to get done here at Ashling do in fact get done. And sometimes, when it's needed, elsewhere."

  "Elsewhere?"

  "At Mr. Kimball's other residences," she clarified. "As I mentioned, I do travel with him from time to time. This time of year, however, with the holidays coming up, I tend to keep close to Ashling."

  "Mr. Kimball celebrates in a big way, does he?"

  "You could say that."

  "Lots of parties?"

  "Well, lots of guests," she said, evading the question.

  "And just how did you… oh… get this position with Mr. Kimball?"

  Once again, he'd made a simple word like position sound sexually charged, and it finally, finally hit Lily that Mr. Freiberger thought she played a much different role in Schuyler's life than social secretary. She almost laughed out loud at the suggestion, so appropriate was it in its own strange way. Still, she supposed that the kind thing to do would be to set him straight. Well, straighter, anyway. There was no reason to tell him the entire truth. It would only serve to get her into trouble.

  "Mr. Kimball and I have known each other for some time," she began. "Since college, in fact. I met him, oh, let me think… It was twelve years ago, I guess. I was nineteen at the time, trying to beat the Xerox machine in the school library into submission because it had stolen my fifteen cents. Schuyler came up behind me and fixed it in a snap. I was immediately taken with him. He's a very arresting individual on first contact. And, naturally, I was impressed by how mechanically capable he was."

  "Oh, I bet that was what impressed you."

  She narrowed her eyes at Mr. Freiberger's tone of voice. But his expression was completely impassive, so she had no idea if he had just made a disparaging comment or not. Deciding to give him the benefit of the doubt—for now—she continued.

  "We remained friendly throughout college—"

  "Oh, I'll bet you did."

  "—and when he started up his business," she continued crisply, pretending—but not very hard—that she hadn't heard his comment, "Schuyler was nice enough to offer me a position."

  "A really interesting position, too, I imagine."

  "And since I had few other prospects at that point," Lily continued on valiantly through gritted teeth, "I was happy to take him up on his offer."

  "And what an offer it must have been."

  There, she was finished. And she congratulated herself for not slapping Mr. Freiberger silly during all his adolescent commentary. She'd explained her history with Schuyler all nice and simple and
to the point, and she'd done it truthfully. She was rather proud of herself for that. Well, pretty truthfully, she amended. She may have left out one or two little things. But she'd covered all the major points. Well, most of the major points, anyway.

  Before Mr. Freiberger could demand a more thorough explanation, not to mention ask her another question she really didn't want to answer, Lily leapt up from the desk again.

  "And speaking of my work for Mr. Kimball," she said, "I really should be getting back to it. I'll be happy to leave the tea things here for you, if you think you'll be wanting more."

  "Oh, I'll definitely be wanting more, Miss Rigby."

  There it was again, she thought. That tone of voice that let her know he was talking about something significantly different from what she was talking about herself.

  But all she said in response was, "Fine. Then I'll just… leave these here, shall I?"

  "Fine."

  She turned to go, but something made her hesitate. Not that Mr. Freiberger said anything that might have halted her progress, but she sensed somehow that whatever business the two of them had was by no means finished. So she pivoted easily around again to face him, and wasn't exactly surprised to see him lift his gaze from where it had been—right at fanny level.

  "Was there something else?" she asked.

  He shook his head slowly, his expression a complete blank. "Why no, Miss Rigby. Not today. Did I give you the impression that there would be something else?"

  She opened her mouth to respond, then decided she'd be better off if she kept quiet. So with a silent shake of her head, she turned again and made her way out of Schuyler's office. Somehow, though, she was beginning to suspect that Mr. Freiberger's stay at Ashling was going to result in a lot more than a simple discovery of some minor income tax infraction. And furthermore, somehow, she got the distinct impression that income taxes were the last thing he'd come to investigate anyway.

  She only wished she could figure out what it was, exactly, that he was looking for. And she wondered if she should alert Schuyler to the fact that there was something funny going on. Immediately, she dismissed the idea. Schuyler would tell her she was being silly. And, perhaps, she was. In many ways, he had always known her better than she knew herself.

  Even when the two of them had been students, Lily had known, as had everyone else who had ever come into contact with him, that Schuyler Kimball wasn't normal, that he knew things, could see things, could understand things, that no normal human being would be able to process. His IQ was off the charts, his brilliant mind the eighth wonder of the modern world. Only one thing had ever even come close to equaling it—his ambition. These days, people referred to Schuyler as driven. As a student, however, he'd been consumed.

  As a student, he'd also been very poor. Then again, so had Lily. Back then, neither of them had been able to afford any more than the basic necessities of life, and often, they'd gone without even those. In fact, their shared poverty had probably been what had initially bonded them so quickly, even though it was something else entirely that fueled their friendship today.

  But by the time Lily had met him, poverty had been a constant companion of Schuyler's, from the day he was born. She, on the other hand, had enjoyed all the benefits of excessive wealth until shortly after her sixteenth birthday, when her father's business had failed—miserably—and the Main Line Rigbys had lost everything. She and Schuyler had often joked about how they'd both come from entirely different backgrounds only to end up in exactly the same place—with less dollars than sense.

  In spite of that—or, perhaps, because of it—he had always placed infinitely more importance on money than she ever had. He had determined early on that he would make a fortune someday that was truly obscene, and that he would spend it entirely, frivolously, selfishly on himself. Lily, in turn, had pointed out that the billions he intended to keep as his own, the billions with which he intended to indulge himself so shamelessly, could instead be used to feed and clothe and make warm people who needed and deserved it far more than he did. But whenever she reminded him of that fact, Schuyler had always scoffed at her, had always responded the same way.

  "Lily. Darling," he had always said on those occasions. "Someday, if someone puts billions of dollars into your hands, then you can take it and spend it on all the bleeding-heart social programs you want to spend it on. But until that day comes…" He had always left his statement unfinished, his meaning clear.

  And always, in response, Lily had offered up the same reply. "Fine, Schuyler," she had always told him then. "Someday, if someone puts billions of dollars into my hands, then maybe I'll do exactly that."

  Her steps slowed as she thought again about Leonard Freiberger and the work he claimed to be doing here at Ashling. And for just the briefest, slightest, most faltering moment, something else to worry about nudged its way into her brain. And for that moment, Lily wavered a bit in her conviction.

  No, she finally decided. Mr. Freiberger would never uncover all of that. Although she still questioned his reasons for being at Ashling, whatever he was up to, Lily could handle him.

  * * *

  Chapter Five

  Although he would have sworn such a thing would be impossible, Leo's second day at Ashling turned out to be even stranger than the first. Not just because he was slowly coming to realize that Schuyler Kimball's files were, as Miss Rigby had readily assured him, a mess—even for an eccentric billionaire—but because Leo met the rest of Kimball's family and constituents, starting with the illustrious, the mysterious, the felonious… Chloe.

  "I'm up!" a female voice shouted from outside Kimball's office as Leo struggled to break into one of the billionaire's many booby-trapped personal files. "Lily?" the girl continued, her voice moving into double-digit decibels. "Did you hear me? I said I'm up!"

  She rounded the office door just as she shrieked out that last bit, coming uncomfortably close to shattering Leo's eardrums. The potential loss of hearing, however, didn't concern him nearly as much as the prospect of being arrested did. Arrested for the crime of… of… of being in a room with a minor who wasn't dressed the way a minor should be when she was in a room with a man who wasn't a minor.

  Or something like that.

  Because Chloe, in addition to being all the other things Leo had begun to suspect she was, was also, evidently, an exhibitionist. Fourteen, he reminded himself as he took in her attire. She was only fourteen years old. That didn't stop her from dressing like a Frederick's of Hollywood model, though. Or perhaps, more accurately, undressing like one.

  Normally, Leo would consider something like red vinyl, platform thigh boots to be pretty much the focal point of a woman's ensemble. Unless, of course, they were paired with the other thing that Chloe—almost—had on. What appeared to be a dress was made—sort of—from something brief and purple that looked like what Leo's sister called crochet. From waist to neckline, the garment should have been laced up the middle with red satin ribbons, but Chloe had evidently gotten bored with that particular chore before completing it. Because the laces hung free, the dress open, well below the neck.

  But Leo barely noticed that particular aspect of her attire, because the moment he realized it, he jerked his gaze back up to the girl's face. Unfortunately, moving his gaze to her face made him no less uncomfortable. Because Chloe, he realized much to his distaste, was into that body piercing thing. Big time. Each ear sported a good half dozen earrings… and things. A silver circle winked from her left nostril, a gold one from her right eyebrow. For a moment, he wondered why she hadn't bothered mutilating her lips, too, then he realized that they were probably too full to be pierced with anything smaller than a Hula-Hoop.

  Her hair was an absolute riot of mahogany curls that she clearly had trouble containing, and her face was obscured by far too much makeup—enough so that, had he not already been told she was fourteen, he would have sworn she was in her twenties. All in all, Chloe was absolutely nothing like he would expect a fourteen-year-
old-girl to be. Unless, of course, she was involved in activities like, oh, say, leaving pigs' spleens on the beds of unsuspecting nannies.

  She seemed to be as surprised by Leo's appearance as he was by hers, because she stopped dead in her tracks the moment she laid eyes on him, an expression of stark, raving terror overtaking her features. Before he had a chance to wonder why a girl who'd jabbed her own face repeatedly with sharp objects would be afraid of him, her fear evaporated, to be replaced by an attitude of… well, attitude.

  "Who the hell are you?" she asked.

  Nobody spoke to Leo with such utter disregard. Nobody. He rose from his seat behind Kimball's desk, flexed every muscle he possessed, and glared at her with all the lack of concern he could muster. It was a pose he'd affected many times with excellent results, always reducing his victim to full, blithering idiot status. Yet Chloe didn't so much as flinch. Amazing.

  "So?" she spurred in a tone of voice one might use when addressing a cabbage.

  "Fri… Freiberger," he said. "Leonard Freiberger." Then, showing her the same total disrespect she'd shown for him, he asked, "Who the hell are you?"

  But instead of answering his question, she said, "No, I didn't mean who the hell are you. I meant, who the hell are you?"

  Leo bit back a growl and reminded himself that she was nothing more than a mouthy fourteen-year-old girl, and that he was, for all intents and purposes, nothing more than mousy little bookkeeper Leonard Freiberger. And although Leo Friday wouldn't tolerate this kind of crap from some teenage girl—even if she did sport more hardware than Sears—Leonard probably would. So he forced himself to relax a little.

  "I'm a bookkeeper for Kimball Technologies. And you are?" he tried again, already pretty certain of the answer he would receive. She had to be either Chloe or a harbinger of ill fortune. And his money was on the former. Pretty much.