Authors: Diana Palmer
Love by Proxy
When Amelia Glenn walked into Worth Carson’s boardroom wearing a trench coat and a belly dancer’s outfit, Chicago’s most powerful construction magnate was fit to be tied. But that didn’t stop Amelia from performing her entire act for the swarthy chairman of the board—complete with shimmering sequins and jingling bangles. So after Worth had Amelia fired, the last thing she expected was to be offered a job as a companion for his mother. But Worth hadn’t ignored her startling beauty. Now he was determined to bid for her on his own terms.
Diana Palmer
Love By Proxy
Dear Reader,
Little did I know that when Amelia Glenn walked into my boardroom dressed as a belly dancer, that day would become the turning point in my life. Always a loner, content to keep my distance from people, Amelia’s personality opened my heart wider than her costume had opened my eyes.
It wasn’t hard to become attracted to this woman. After all, her smile could warm the chilliest Chicago winds. Not only was she beautiful, but there was something inside her—a quality so precious it has no name—that turned a solitary bachelor into a man seeking forever. But winning this woman was a task harder than any business deal I had ever made.
She didn’t look upon my wealth as a wonderful thing. She’d have rather driven her broken-down car than let me give her a new one. Amelia didn’t want handouts, she wanted my heart. And giving that to her was the riskiest thing I could ever do. But it was also the safest. For with Amelia, I knew my heart was under a very precious lock and key.
Worth Carson
Table of Contents
One
A
melia Glenn tugged her beige trench coat closer around her body and tried not to giggle as she got off the elevator on the fourteenth floor of the Chicago office building. If only her fellow office workers at the agricultural equipment company could see her like this! The way that deathly dull job had been going lately, this was more a holiday than a favor for a friend.
She heard her bangles bunch at her wrists with a metallic ring and had to stand very still until they stopped, aware of curious stares from the two businessmen who’d come up with her on the elevator. Wouldn’t they pass out if they knew what was under her coat!
She walked down the hall looking for office suite 1411, where she was due to deliver a special message. Ordinarily, Kerrie did this particular one, but she was out sick and Amanda had been recruited by her friend Marla Sayers to fill in. Marla’s boyfriend was going to play a joke on his associate. It was only one message, after all, and Amelia did have the body for it, or so she was assured.
She was lean and tanned from head to toe, with a figure that could have modeled bikinis year-round. Her long, dark hair swung thickly as she walked, and her pale, dancing eyes were framed by black lashes, in a face whose features were as perfect as a cameo. She could have passed for a teenager.
There was, oddly, no one at the receptionist’s desk when she walked in. Perhaps she was at lunch. Amelia laughed and started toward the office door. She gathered her nerve, because she’d never done this particular stunt before, pinned a smile to her full lips and breezed in.
Apparently there was a small conference going on. A big, very cold-looking man in a patterned shirt and no jacket was leaning over a graph of some kind on a huge oak desk. Around it were two shorter, paler men, hanging on every word. Amelia hadn’t expected Wentworth Carson to be so big. He was as formidable as Marla’s boyfriend had described him. All business, ice cold, nothing in him to attract a woman. Yes, she could have recognized him in a crowd. He wasn’t handsome, not one bit. He had a big nose and bushy eyebrows and a pugnacious chin, and he looked more like a wrestler than an executive. He fit her nebulous image of a construction magnate all the way down to his big feet.
“Yes?” the big man asked coldly, looking up with eyes that were every bit as dark as the straight black hair that fell forward onto a broad forehead.
Amelia smiled wickedly. “Message for you, sir,” she said. And she let the coat drop.
The two men grouped around the desk stared, gaping, with appreciative smiles and big eyes. The bigger man stood erect and looked angry.
Amelia had a passable voice—no threat to the Met, of course, put passable. She began to gyrate in her outlandish belly dancer’s costume to the tune of the birthday song, inching slowly closer to the big, dark man.
He didn’t look very receptive. In fact, he looked as if he’d like to pitch her out the window. That was even better. She laughed huskily as she went closer, her hips twitching, her skirts flying, her arms uplifted with the small cymbals on her fingers to show the high, soft curve of her breasts in their metallic casings.
“Happy birthday, honey,” she added at the end, and just for pure spite, she went on tiptoe to kiss him full on his hard, chiseled mouth with as much enthusiasm as she could muster.
He kept his eyes open. His big body was rigid and he didn’t move, not an eyelash, not a finger, not a breath. His mouth was hard and slightly cool, and totally unresponsive. He allowed the blatant caress for an instant, and then his huge, warm hands caught her bare waist and set her roughly on her feet. They released her immediately, as if he didn’t like the feel of her taut, warm skin.
“What the hell kind of joke is this?” he asked coldly.
“It’s a birthday greeting,” she said, trying not to show how she really felt. Most people reacted in the spirit of fun that the messages intended, but it was a fact that this man wasn’t going to appreciate the offbeat humor of his partner. She almost felt sorry for him. But she had to tell. It was part of the job.
“From whom?” he persisted, oblivious to the amused looks of his co-workers.
“Your partner, Andrew Dedham,” she said.
“Then the joke is on him,” he said coldly. “Because today is not my birthday.”
She glared at him. “Then why didn’t you say so at the beginning?” she challenged. “You surely didn’t think I came in off the streets selling magazine subscriptions!”
His heavy brows lifted. “I wouldn’t buy that kind of magazine,” he said curtly.
Her eyes narrowed icily. “Why not, you look as if you could use some tutoring,” she returned. “Frozen clean through, are we?” she added with a cold smile.
He seemed to grow three inches. “Whatever I am is none of your business. And if you aren’t out that door in three minutes flat, I’ll have you arrested for soliciting.”
“I am not a prostitute,” she told him, sliding into her coat. “But if I were, honey, you wouldn’t be rich enough!”
“I wouldn’t be desperate enough,” he corrected. “Out.”
Just like that, as if she were a dog! She stared holes in him, but he only folded his arms over his formidable chest and glared back. Her eyes fell. She’d never encountered anybody like this giant dead fish, and she never wanted to again. From now on, Marla could do her own messages!
“When you do have your birthday, Mr. North Pole,” Amelia said at the door, “I hope your birthday cake explodes in your face!”
“Just make sure you don’t jump out of it,” he returned coldly.
“I couldn’t,” she replied with a sweet smile. “The heat from all the candles would burn me alive!”
And she closed the door with a hard slam. Her hands trembled as she refastened the coat.
The receptionist came back in with a tray of Styrofoam cups obviously filled with coffee. She smiled in a friendly way. “Are you waiting to see Mr. Carson?” she asked. “Sorry I wasn’t here, I just sneaked out to get them some coffee.”
She remembered belatedly the name of this building. “The…Carson Building…wouldn’t be…?” Amelia faltered.
“Yes, it would. Named for the late Angus. Did you want to see Mr. Carson?”
“I already have,” Amanda said with a rueful laugh. “His poor wife.”
The receptionist blinked. “Wife?”
Amelia was already at the other door, but she turned. “Isn’t he married?”
“Not him,” came the laughing reply. “There isn’t a woman anywhere brave enough.”
“I understand exactly what you mean. So long.”
Two
A
melia was stoked up and fuming like a steam engine when she got back to Marla’s office. She was dripping from the combined temperatures of Chicago in the summer and the winter trench coat she’d been wearing over the flamboyant belly dancer’s costume.
Marla looked up, an elf with blond hair and blue eyes. “Well?” she asked, all wide smiles.
“Wentworth Carson,” she began as she stripped off the trench coat and fumbled in Marla’s office closet for her neat gray suit and blouse, “is a giant dead fish. He has the sense of humor of a giant dead fish, and he looks like a giant dead fish.”
Marla, who’d known Amelia for almost a year, as long as the Georgia girl had been in Chicago, had never heard her fume before. She stared. “Andy said he had a sense of humor,” she began.
“Where is it, visiting relatives in New York?” Amelia demanded.
Marla burst out laughing. She couldn’t help it. “Oh, darling, I’m sorry, I know Andy didn’t mean…”
“It wasn’t his birthday,” Amelia continued as she dragged on her slip and blouse and skirt with quick, methodical fury. “He said so. He accused me of being a prostitute. He threw me out of his office. He said not to jump out of his birthday cake. I hate him!”
Marla had long since buried her face in her hands on the desk, and her thin shoulders were shaking.
“What did you do?”
“I kissed him.”
The laughter got worse.
“It made him furious, of course,” Amelia said. She fumbled for a small brush in her purse and dragged it through the tangle of her hair. “I couldn’t resist it, he looked so almighty arrogant. He should have tried to enjoy it, I can’t imagine that he’s ever been kissed by any woman who was actually willing and didn’t have to be paid!”
Marla was just now catching her breath. “He did make an impression, didn’t he?” she gasped. “I’m so sorry! If Kerrie hadn’t been sick, you’d have been spared.”
“I wouldn’t go near that man again for anything,” she grumbled. “He’s a…a…a…”
“Giant dead fish?”
“Yes!”
“Andy will die when I tell him.” Marla sighed. “I hope Wentworth Carson is a forgiving man, or my poor Andy will be out looking for work again.”
“What possessed Andy to pull such a joke on a man like that?” Amelia asked. “He obviously has no sense of humor, and it wasn’t even his birthday!”
“Maybe Andy didn’t know that,” Marla said comfortingly. She studied the older woman, dressed now in her familiar staid business clothes, her hair neatly arranged in a French twist. No one who saw her now would believe her capable of pulling off a joke like that.
“This is not how I want to spend my next hard-earned day off,” Amelia said.
“Well, thanks a million for helping me out,” Marla said and hugged the taller girl affectionately. “Andy will be thrilled, even if you aren’t.”
“I hope so. Tell him it was a sacrifice I’ll never make again, will you?” She waved as she went out the door.