Sandra Marton - The Bedroom Business

“Just what in the Sam Hill are you doing?”

Dear God, Emily thought, what was I doing? The telephone buzzed in her ear like an angry bee.

“Miss Taylor?”

“You’ve—you’ve always called me Emily.”

“A mistake,” Jake said coldly, “considering that I’m starting to realize I don’t know the first thing about you.”

He folded his arms over his chest. It was, she thought foolishly, a formidable chest. He’d taken off his suit jacket, loosened his tie, undone the top button of his white shirt and rolled back his sleeves. He did that often; he’d once said he felt choked in a suit and tie. Why was it she’d never before noticed that his arms were dusted with dark, silky-looking hair? That his chest was the width of The Great Wall of China?

“Well, Miss Taylor? What were you doing?”

Emily put the phone down, folded her hands in her lap and tried not to think about how long he might have been standing there.

“I was—I was making a call,” she said carefully.

“To whom?”

“To…” She frowned as she looked up at him again. “It was a personal call, Mr. McBride.”

“Yes.” Jake shot her a predatory smile. “I imagined it was. Somehow or other, I didn’t think you’d be discussing pygmy sex practices with any of my clients.”

She could feel the heat flash into her face. “I was not discussing pygmy sex practices.”

“What were you discussing, then?”

“Would you step back, please,” she said coolly, “so I can stand up?”

“Answer the question, Miss Taylor.”

“I don’t have to.” She could feel her courage rushing back, swirling through her blood in a wave of heat. “As I said, it was personal.”

“Did you ask me if you could make personal calls?”

She blinked. “No. No, I didn’t. But you never said—”

“You never asked.”

Emily glowered up at Jake. “I’ll pay for the call,” she snapped.

“I don’t want your money. I want to know why you were talking about pygmy sex practices, and with whom.”

“Dammit!” She shoved her chair back and shot to her feet, her flushed, angry face lifted to Jake’s. “I wasn’t talking about pygmy sex practices. I told you that. I was leaving a message on an answering machine.”

“An answering machine at the Museum of Natural History?”

God, that infuriating smirk on his face! How had she survived it, all this time?

“An answering machine at a man’s apartment,” she said tightly. Well, it wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t an apartment but Handsome, Sexy and Successful would probably phone in for his messages from his apartment.

“Well, well, well.” Jake’s dark green eyes narrowed. “You’re just full of surprises, Miss Taylor. No wonder ol’ Pete was so eager to take you to dinner last night. He read you just right.”

Emily flung her hands on her hips. “And what is that supposed to mean, Mr. McBride?”

“Never mind what it’s supposed to mean. I’m waiting to hear who you were phoning.”

“Oh, for goodness sake!” She swung away, grabbed the magazine and shoved it into Jake’s flat belly. “You won’t be satisfied until you wring the truth out of me, will you? Okay. Okay, here’s the truth, McBride, and I hope you enjoy getting the last laugh.”

She swung away from him, trembling with anger and humiliation. She could hear Jake reading the ads aloud in a soft, disbelieving voice. There was a long silence before he spoke again.

“You were answering an ad in the personals?”

“Yes.”

“You were telling one of these men you’d go out with him?”

“Yes.”

“You were going to meet a stranger, an asshole who identifies himself as sexy, successful and handsome with…What in hell is Brrr and Brrr? A description of the weather? A new liqueur?”

Emily spun around and faced Jake. Her eyes were huge, her face flushed, and he fought back the sudden, insane desire to take her in his arms and soothe her.

“It’s brown hair and brown eyes,” she snarled. “And for your information, lots of people meet through ads like this.”

“To do what?” Jake said, his eyes getting that narrowed, intense look again.

“To—to go out. On a date. To have dinner together. Take in a movie. Just—just spend a little time with another person…”

Her voice broke. Jake looked bewildered. She thought, for a second, he was reaching towards her and she shook her head and stepped back.

“I don’t expect you to understand. You’re never home alone, unless you want to be. You never have to look at the calendar and say, look at that, it’s the weekend and I don’t have a thing to do except clean my apartment and wash my hair.”

Holy hell, Jake thought.

“That’s what this is all about?” he said slowly. “That you don’t date?”

“That’s what I just said.”

“You don’t have any, uh, any men in your life?”

Emily’s chin lifted to a dangerous angle. “Are we going to have to go through this, line by line?”

“So, that’s why you accepted Archer’s invitation last night? Because you’re lonely?”

“I’m not lonely,” she said defiantly. “I have friends. Hobbies. I have a canary.”

“You’re lonely,” he said. “That’s why you went out with that snake.”

“Are you deaf, Mr. McBride? I am not…” Emily frowned. “You think he’s a snake?”

“Of course.”

“That’s what you’ve always thought?”

“Yes.” Well, it was true if you figured “always” referred to yesterday evening, when Archer had sneaked up on Emily. “I tried to tell you that, but you wouldn’t listen.”

“You didn’t try to tell me anything, except how to run my life.” She cocked her head. “Pete Archer said you and he are best friends.”

“Ha.”

“He said you’ve known each other forever.”

“Only if forever means a year working for the same brokerage firm, a long time back.”

Emily puffed out a breath. “He lied to me.” She looked at Jake. “You’re right, by the way. He is a snake.”

Jake’s face darkened. “Did he—”

“Oh, I can handle men like Pete Archer.” A smile ghosted across her lips. “When I was sixteen, one of my sisters dated a guy who was into karate. He taught me some great moves. I still remember them.”

“Ah.” Jake moistened his lips. “Let me get this straight. You, uh, you’d like to date. To meet some nice guys and go out. Is that it?”

What was the sense in trying to pretend otherwise? Jake McBride knew virtually everything about her now, from her shoe size to her sexless sex life.

“Yes.”

“Well.” He ran his hand through his hair again, turned away from her, paced back and forth, back and forth. “I’ve got it,” he said, and swung towards her. “I know a lot of people. Some of them are nice guys, too. I’ll introduce you.”

“Oh, no. I couldn’t ask you to—”

“You haven’t asked, I’ve volunteered. Look, it’s no big deal.”

Emily collapsed into her chair. “What are you going to do,” she said, with a nervous laugh, “go to a meeting and say, ‘oh, by the way, my personal assistant would like to have a date this weekend’?”

Jake grinned at her. “My executive assistant,” he said. “And I’ll be subtle, I promise. For instance…well, I go to lots of cocktail parties. Business stuff. From now on, you’ll go with me.”

“Mr. McBride, really—”

“I’ll introduce you as my good right hand, you’ll circulate, network…Emily, don’t look at me that way. It’ll work, I know it will.”

“It won’t. I’m—I’m not good at this male-female thing, Mr. McBride.”

“Jake.”

“Jake,” she said, because it was silly, really, to go on with such formality now. “Look, I appreciate your offer but it’s pointless. I’ll feel ridiculous.”