“One hundred and fifty,” she said.
Marco raised one dark eyebrow.
“One hundred fifty thousand dollars a year. Holidays and sick leave of course. Health insurance. Six weeks’ paid vacation. A review at the end of six months. If you’re not satisfied with my work, I get three months’ severance pay. If you are satisfied, I get a title—Special Assistant, Vice President, something like that. And a twenty-five thousand-dollar raise.”
He narrowed his eyes. “Are you telling me you’ll take the job?”
“What does it sound like?”
“One hundred and fifty thousand dollars is a lot of money.”
It surely was, especially since she’d failed at every job she’d ever held, but why tell him that?
Emily gave what she hoped was a take-it-or-leave-it shrug.
“I’m worth every penny.”
They stared at each other. Finally, Marco held out his hand. She took it, gave it a brisk shake, but he didn’t let go. What now? Was she supposed to engage in a silly tug-of-war?
“Eight tomorrow morning. Charles and I will pick you up.”
She nodded. His gaze swept over her.
“Don’t bother packing more than a handful of things. You’ll need to shop.”
She felt her face burn. “If what I wear doesn’t suit you—”
“Do you have cocktail gowns? Evening gowns? Whatever women call those things.”
Emily pictured Jessalyn the night before. The gorgeous dress. The little jacket. The shoes that cost at least two months’ rent.
“No,” she said coldly. “I don’t.”
His smile was as cool as his voice. “As I said, don’t bother packing too many things. A corporate credit card is a perk of the job, remember?”
“Fine. But
you
remember something, too.” Color swept into her face again but her eyes stayed steady on his. “This is business. There won’t be any—any personal nonsense.”
He wanted to laugh. Was that really what she thought had happened between them?
“It isn’t funny,” she snapped.
He nodded. “No. It is not.” His hand tightened on hers. Slowly, he drew her toward him. “So we need one last thing beyond the handshake.”
She read his intention in his eyes but it was too late. A second later, his arms were hard around her and his mouth was on hers.
Her hands came up. She fisted them against his chest.
He gathered her closer.
Warmth cascaded through her blood.
Desire blossomed in her breasts, her belly.
She rose to him, leaned against him, gave him her mouth.
An eternity later, he raised his head. Her eyes opened, looked into the infinite night of his.
“We agreed.” Her voice shook; she hated herself for it. “No personal—”
“We did. But I never walk away from unfinished business.” His heartbeat was rocketing but it meant nothing. Why would it? The only thing special about this woman was her list of skills. “I kissed you. You kissed me. And now, now what happened is over.
It is
finito.
”
The phone rang. Marco let go of her and reached for it. “Frederica,” he said pleasantly, “how are you? Yes, I was going to call you…” Talking, smiling, he looked over at Emily and gave an imperious wave of the hand.
Dismissal, pure and simple. Such arrogance! She could almost feel her blood pressure rise.
“No,” he said into the phone, “this is a fine time to call. I was just ending a conversation with an employee.”
Not just dismissal. Dismissive dismissal, and never mind the stupid redundancy. Better that than the four letter words flooding her brain, especially when she never used four letter words. Well, hardly ever. As for foreign curses—they didn’t count.
The man brought out the worst in her. But he was going to lift her out of poverty. Six months. If she couldn’t tolerate him after that, goodbye and good luck.
“So, how have you been, Frederica?”
Emily turned her back, marched from the office and closed the door behind her, although “closed” was too benign a description for a door she slammed hard enough to make her wince.
Someday, she thought grimly, someday Mr. Arrogance would go too far. Somebody would leave his office and shut the door hard enough so that it fell off its hinges.
On the other side of that door, Marco jumped at the cannon-like bang of wood against wood.
He sank into the chair behind his desk.
“Sorry, Jane. No, I realize now that it’s you. We, uh, we must have had a poor connection.”
Had he come to a decision about Emily Madison? Jane Barnett wanted to know.
“I have,” he said.
And wished to hell he understood what, exactly, it was that he had decided.
The apartment was empty. Nola had left a note propped up on the kitchen counter.
Had to leave right away. Not to worry. Rent paid. Will keep in touch. XOXOXO
Emily sighed and put the note down. She’d send her share of the rent to Nola as soon as she received her first paycheck. Right now, she had things to do. Leave a message for the silent-movie buffs, telling them that she wouldn’t be available if they needed her. Locate her passport. Pack. Yes, but what did you pack for a trip to Paris?
Paris? Had she actually agreed to accompany Marco to Paris? Maybe the better question was, had she actually agreed to work for him?
He was going to pay her a lot of money.
That was the good news.
The bad news was that she didn’t know a thing about him or his company or what a personal assistant or an administrative assistant was supposed to do. Why hadn’t she asked?
“Not smart, Emily,” she said briskly. “Really. Not terribly smart.”
She needed advice but where to get it?
Not from Caleb. He was a lawyer and lawyers saw things in black and white. From Jake, maybe. He ran
El Sueño
. He’d know all about what a PA was supposed to do. Or Travis. He ran his own financial empire…
Brilliant.
Ask one of her overly-protective big brothers about the job she’d agreed to take and he’d cut straight to the chase, find out that she was going away with a man she’d just met.
Forget that.
Nola had worked in offices but Nola was on a tour bus someplace between New York and Timbuktu. Lissa? No good. She’d never worked in an office. Jaimie? Yes! She’d worked at an accounting firm before she’d decided her future wasn’t in Excel but in real estate. And Jaimie was smart about life. About men.
Emily checked her watch. Jaimie was in D.C. That meant she was in the same time zone as New York. She grabbed her cell phone and hit a speed dial button.
Jaimie’s phone rang. And rang. And…
“Em?”
Emily let out a sigh of relief.
“You’re there.”
“I’m here. But I’m, um, I’m kind of busy.”
“All I need is five minutes.”
A pause. Then Jaimie sighed. “Give me a second.”
Jaimie must have put her hand over the phone. Emily could hear only bits and pieces. A man’s voice. Then Jaimie’s.
“… my sister. Of course it is. Why would I say…”
“Jaimie?”
More whispering. Then Jaimie was back.
“Sorry,” she said briskly.
“Everything OK?”
“Yes, fine. What’s up?”
Emily hesitated. “It’s complicated.”
“Yeah. Life generally is.”
“Hey, I’m the one who studied philosophy, remember? But you’re right. Life is complicated. And this…”
This what? What was she going to say? That she’d accepted a job anyone sane would kill for—just as long as you left out a few small details, starting with the fact that she had no idea what the job called for and ending with that kiss?
“Em. Honey, I hate to rush you, but—”
“Fine. Right. Of course. I just thought, you know, we’d talk, have some coffee…”
It had become a ritual, having coffee or tea while they Skyped or talked on the phone. Anything to make it feel more as though they were in the same room.
Jaimie sighed. “You’re right. Let me get something. Maybe a glass of wine…?”
“Excellent. I’ll get one, too.”
Emily put down the phone, hurried to the kitchen alcove, opened the joke of a fridge and peered inside.
Yogurt. Cottage cheese. Milk. Leftover Chinese. Leftover Thai. Leftover something that looked like a biology experiment gone bad.
Wine. Wine…
There. Half a bottle of cheap Chardonnay. She grabbed it, bumped the fridge closed with her hip, snagged a water glass from the drainer on the sink and poured an inch—what the hell, poured two inches of the pale gold liquid, hurried back to the sofa and grabbed the phone.
“James?”
“Yes. What took you so long?”
“Sorry, sorry.” Emily took a healthy swig of the Chardonnay. “So, how’ve you been?”
“Emily. You called me.”
“So?”
“So, something’s up.”
“Why should something be—”
“Because it is. I can tell. You just called me ‘James.’“
“It’s your nickname.”
“It only became my nickname when you or Lissa had a math problem you couldn’t handle.”
“That’s not—”
“Remember the year you took calculus? I was James before every exam.”
Emily sat down, sighed and drank a little more wine.
“OK. I have a problem.”
“Somehow,” Jaimie said dryly, “I’d bet it doesn’t have anything to do with math.”
Emily laughed. “See? That’s one of the reasons I called you. You’re so smart!”
“That’s me, all right. Smart.”
“Jaimie? Is this a bad time? You sound, I don’t know, weird.”
“Just tell me your problem. Let the genius go to work.”
“OK.” Emily cleared her throat. “I have a—a decision to make.”
“About?”
“I got a job.”
“A real job? Damn! Sorry. I only meant—” Jaimie sighed. “Look, Lissa and I figured it out months ago. You don’t really work for a private art collector.”
Emily thought of arguing. Instead, she moaned.
“No. I don’t.”
“See, one of Lissa’s friends was in New York. She met you once… Anyway, she was at Bloomie’s to buy mascara ‘cause she’d forgotten to bring hers and she was pretty sure she saw you working at the Dior counter.”
Hell. Emily tried for casual. “She could have said hello.”
“Lissa had told her you lived in New York, that you were working for a rich guy with a private art stash.”
Emily winced. “Don’t tell Travis or—”
“We’re your sisters, Em. Not the cops. And there’s nothing wrong with selling makeup.”
How about playing piano in a bar? Emily thought, but she didn’t say it.
“So, tell me about this new job. Is it at a museum? A gallery?”
“Not exactly.”
“Then where?”
Emily raised the glass to her lips, frowned when she found it empty. Back to the kitchen, snatch the bottle of Chardonnay from the counter, tuck the phone between shoulder and ear, fill the glass…
“Em? Where are you going to be working?”
“It’s not a where, it’s a who. I mean, it’s with who. With whom.”
“Someday,” Jaimie said with a little laugh, “I’m going to murder Jake. Just because he’s the grammar maven doesn’t mean the rest of us have to be. So? Are you going to explain?”
“I took a job as a personal assistant.”
“A personal trainer? But you—”
“A personal
assistant
. A PA. An administrative assistant.”
“Got it. To who?”
“To whom.”
“Jesus, Em… Fine. To whom?”
“A man.”
“Well, that narrows the field.”
“His name is Marco Santini. Owns his own company, makes buckets and buckets of money.”
“Like Travis.”
“I guess. But he’s in construction, not finance. “
“And?”
“And, I’m not sure I should have taken it. The job.”
“Why?”
“Well—well, I’m not really a PA. I don’t do shorthand.”
“Except for court reporters, who does? What else?”
“I’m not even sure what a PA does.”
“Didn’t the headhunter who sent you to this Santini guy give you a description?”
“I didn’t go through a headhunter.”
“The agency, then. Didn’t they—”
“I didn’t go through an agency, either. “
“You applied online?”
“No.”
“Then, how’d you get the job?”
Emily licked her lips. It was a good question. Too bad the answer wasn’t.
I met him when I was standing in the rain after I was fired from the bar where I played piano.
“Emily?”
“I, uh, I went to apply for a different job. The woman who interviewed me looked at my application and thought I’d be a better candidate for PA than for the job I’d applied for.”
“I assume Santini interviewed you, too.”
“Yes.”
“Well, what’s the problem? If the interviewer thinks you’re right, if the guy you’ll be working for agrees, why question it?”
Why, indeed?
“Em?”
“Well—well, I really don’t know him.”
“How could you? You just started working for him.”
“Actually, I haven’t. Not yet. My first day is tomorrow.”
“So you’ll know more after that.”
“Right. Right.”
“Emily? Is there more to this than you’re telling me?”
“What more could there be?”
“I don’t know. You tell me. Is this guy unpleasant?”
“No.”
“Is he dirty? Does he smell?”
Only in the best possible way.
“Em?”
“No. No, he doesn’t smell.”
“Did he do anything inappropriate?”
He kissed me. And I kissed him back. Does that count?
“Emily. Can you hear me?”
“No. Nothing inappropriate.”
“Then, what’s the problem?”
The problem is that he’s self-centered and oh so sure of himself and I know that’s not the end of the world but wanting to climb into bed with him probably is not a good thing.
Oh God. Was that the truth?
“Emily? Emily? Hello?”
Emily gulped down the rest of the wine.
“Yes,” she said, “yes, I’m here.”
“Are we on the same page with this or is there something missing?”
“No,” Emily said with blithe assurance. “Why would there be something missing?”
“I don’t know, Em. That’s just the point. Why would there be—and how come it sounds as if there is?”
Emily uptilted the glass, recovered the final two drops of wine with the tip of her tongue.
“Just give me your opinion, OK? Should I take the job?”
“How’s the pay?”
“Excellent.”
“The bennies?”
“Terrific.”
“Then why all this second guessing?”
True. Completely true. Why all this second-guessing?
“Em. Honey. You never give yourself enough credit. You’re smart. You’re talented. Take the job. If it doesn’t work out, so be it.”
So be it, Emily thought as she sat on the stoop outside her apartment building at 7:45 the next morning.
A job was just a job.
Marco Santini was just a man.
That she found him attractive meant nothing. Especially when, mostly, she found him irritating.
Be ready at eight.
A command, not a request.
Don’t bother packing more than a handful of things.
Another command.
And then that last Directive From On High, delivered like an edict.
I kissed you. You kissed me. And now, now what happened is over. It is finito
.
At least he was right about that.
What had happened was over. Of course it was because, really, nothing had happened. A couple of kisses. Big deal. A night’s rest, a little time to think, and she’d realized that.
He’d caught her off guard, was all. Caught her when she was vulnerable, first saving her from the rain and the possible dangers of the street, then offering her a job anyone with a functioning brain would kill for.
The Knight Errant.
Except, he wasn’t.
He was accustomed to being the king. What did that make her? A peasant? Be ready at eight. Fine. Not a problem. He was her boss. He had the right to tell her when the workday began. But he had no right to tell her things were or were not
finito
when she had already decided that for herself, and he had no right to tell her what to pack or rather what not to pack.
Emily looked at her suitcase, standing beside her. Nola had once described it as the third room in their two-room apartment.
OK. So it was… large. What good was a suitcase if it wasn’t?
This morning, it was stuffed to the brim. Marco had said he would pay for the special clothes she’d need for formal work-related functions. Not a problem there, either, but the clothes she wore every day would be her own.
Right now, she had on jeans, sneakers, a T-shirt, a cashmere cardigan left over from her college days. They were flying to Paris. Well, this is how she’d have dressed if she were flying there alone. For comfort, not for style. He’d undoubtedly show up in one of those custom-made suits. So what? She would change when they reached the hotel. She had suits. Blouses. Shoes. Everything she could possibly need.
The Knight Errant. Sir Arrogant. He would surely not approve but that was not her problem, it was his.
Actually, his arrogance was his problem.
Emily snorted.
Carrie Bradshaw had Mr. Big.
She had Sir Arrogant.
The thought made her laugh. What a perfect title! Sir. Arrogant. Not Marco Santini, CEO. Not Marco Santini, Employer. Not Marco Santini, Studly Hunk…
Because he was. A studly hunk. How come she hadn’t mentioned that to Jaimie?
“Woof!”
Something rubbery, wet and cold jabbed at her hand.
Emily looked down. The owner of the something rubbery, wet and cold looked up. It was a small gray mop of a dog with bows in its hair, polish on its nails, a nose that sniffed at everything nonstop, and the desire to pee on the entire world.
Like her suitcase.
“No,” Emily said firmly.
The Mop bared its teeth. The gesture, combined with the bows and polish, turned it into a virtual clone of its owner, Emily’s downstairs neighbor and the premier neighborhood gossip, Mrs. Flynn.
The dog inched closer to the suitcase.
“Forget it,” Emily said, shooting to her feet and grabbing the case by the handle. Not that that would help. She’d had to bump the thing down the stairs.
“Precious only wants to mark his territory,” Mrs. Flynn said.
“The suitcase is my territory.”
“Then you have no right to leave it where… Oh my! What-is-THAT?”
Emily followed the woman’s stare.
“That” was Sir Arrogant’s limo, pulling to the curb. Last night, it had looked big. By daylight, it was the size of a yacht.
The little dog woofed and trotted down the steps with Mrs. Flynn hanging on to the end of the leash.
The rear passenger door opened. Marco stepped from the car.
Mrs. Flynn gasped.
Who could blame her? Emily thought, as her mouth went dry.