Prelude to a Wedding (2 page)

The soft chuckle Dada left behind puzzled
Bette as much as her words. Neither prepared her for Paul Monroe,
who started talking the minute he came through the door.

"Hi. Whew, what a day. And this is only the
middle of the week! I don't know if I'll make it to Friday at this
rate. Hard to believe when people spout off about
you-really-should-have-a-family they're talking about putting you
through this 2.5 times. Once is enough to cure anybody."

Before Bette could rise from behind her desk
to greet him properly, he'd crossed the room and flopped into the
padded armchair. Eyes closed, legs extended, arms dangling over the
arms of the chair, he looked as if he didn't have a bone in his
compact body. At least not a self-conscious bone. He acted as if
they'd known each other for years.

She swallowed her surprise. On second
thought, he did look as if he'd had a rough day. In fact, he looked
as if he'd spent it re-enacting
Romancing the Stone
.

His dark gray suit was top quality, but the
jacket—now critically rumpled—was dangling from two crooked
fingers. His slacks bore multiple creases and seemed oddly wrinkled
at the knees. The knot of his silk tie rested at midchest, and his
limp shirt showed a coffee stain on one rolled-back sleeve. The
third button from the top had been matched with the second
buttonhole, giving him a lopsided air.

His shining chestnut hair would do a
racehorse proud, but any self-respecting Thoroughbred would demand
a better brushing than this mane seemed to have gotten, she thought
with a private grin.

"Sure, go ahead and laugh at someone who's
been through eight of the nine levels of hell today," he said.

At the sound of his voice, she stifled a
start and killed the grin. Great. Nothing like laughing at a new
client to impress him. He'd opened his eyes, but only halfway, as
if he could manage no more. When she met his look, however, she saw
his eyes were dancing. She'd always thought that was only a figure
of speech, but his truly did. The green flecks that showed against
a gray background performed something lively and agile. If he'd
been through eight levels of hell, well, she could believe he'd
brought a bit of the devil back with him.

"You're the most cheerful martyr I've ever
heard," she surprised herself by saying.

His grin widened in satisfaction—with
himself, or her, or both, Bette didn't know. "That's the only way
to go— singing at the stake."

"A variation on singing for your supper, I
suppose."

"For my sup—? Ah, I get it. Stake turns to
steak, as in charbroiled. I see why Jan picked you. I'll have to
mind my P's and Q's—and I'm not talking vegetables."

Bette shifted at the reminder of why he'd
come. Word-play was fun, but this was business. "Yes, well... Uh,
how is Jan? And the baby? Your call ended rather abruptly."

"Both doing fine. A boy. Edward, Jr. Eight
pounds eight ounces, all parts fully operational. Especially the
lungs. Although his father's a little worse for wear at the
moment." He held up a palm as if to forestall her, his first
movement other than raising his eyelids. "And yes, before you ask,
he does look worse than me right now."

"You mean he was there? I thought…"

His eyes narrowed and she felt as if she'd
had a spotlight trained on her. "Of course he was there. And what
did you think?"

"From your appearance, and from what you
said, I thought…" Hesitating, she met his gaze and came to the
conclusion that evasion was not a viable option if she wanted to
stay on good terms with this man. "I thought you must have been in
the delivery room somehow."

His eyes popped wide open. "The delivery
room? Good Lord, woman, are you crazy?" His body seemed to sag in
reaction to the energy he'd expended in astonishment. "It was bad
enough in the waiting room. I never would have made it in the
delivery room!"

She tried not to laugh. She really did. It
was no use. In the end, she had to wipe moisture from her eyes and
take three deep breaths to get her voice under control.

"I see." Another deep breath might get rid of
the final quiver of amusement in her words, so she gave it a try,
avoiding Paul Monroe's gaze. She had a feeling his dancing eyes
would surely pave the road to relapse. "I imagine the hospital
personnel wouldn't let you in there."

One eyebrow rose in a quizzical expression
that invited her to share his amusement. "Actually, they all
presumed I was Jan's husband at first, and for once in her life Jan
was too preoccupied to straighten out the mess. I filled out some
forms they shoved in my hands, then they kept telling me to follow
this corridor and turn that way and check in with this desk and see
that nurse. Ed arrived just in time. I tried to explain, but they
were making threatening noises about my scrubbing and joining my
wife in the labor room when he showed up. When they realized he was
the father, they got all huffy, as if I'd been trying to worm my
way into some secret place, and they kicked me out to spend the
rest of the miserable afternoon in the waiting room."

"That must have been very difficult for you."
Bette had had time to damp down the laughter, but apparently he
didn't fall for the straight face she'd assumed.

"It was," he said in a tone that had just
enough humor to escape self-pity. "I can see you think I had the
easy role in this whole thing, but let me tell you, waiting rooms
can really take it out of you."

She fought a grin. Business. Get back to
business. "I'm sure they can. I'm glad everything went well in the
end. It all turned out fine. Now—"

His groan cut her off. "Went well? Are you
crazy, lady? Midway through my day I had a woman walk into my
office and tell me she was in labor, and it went downhill—fast—from
there. Went well?"

"I see your point. One expects one's
secretary to better arrange such matters."

She regretted the teasing words as soon as
they were out. Nine out of ten men didn't appreciate having their
egos pricked by a sharp tongue, even in jest. Not the best way to
win prospective clients. She could feel her hopes for entree to
Centurian fading as fast as the October daylight. Then she saw the
glint of appreciation in his eye, and sighed in relief. Paul
Monroe, apparently, was the tenth man. Still, she'd be on safer
ground if she got the conversation back to the matter at hand.

"That's right," he said mildly. "A secretary
should do this sort of stuff on her own time."

"I can guarantee you that none of the six
candidates I have selected for you to choose from will pose a
similar problem for you—at least not for the next few months."

He sat up, and she became aware of the way
his chest filled the misbuttoned shirt and his forearms swelled
below the rolled-back sleeves. She swallowed, and remembered the
things Jan Robson had told her about this man. Not her type. Not at
all.

"I sort of hoped you'd be my secretary."

The words to slash his presumption that any
woman in an office was automatically a secretary welled up in her
throat. She caught the gleam in his eyes just in time. The sort of
gleam a kid's eyes had as he waited for the teacher to open the
desk with a frog hidden in it.

He'd baited the hook and cast it out there
like an expert. And she'd almost fallen for it.

"I don't have the credentials to join the
Mission: Impossible team," she said smoothly. She tapped the folder
on her desk. "But these people do. Why don't you look at the
profiles tonight and let me know in the morning whom you would
like. Someone will fill in there tomorrow, then your selection
should be available, say—" she checked the thick appointment book
spread open on her desk "—Monday morning. Is that
satisfactory?"

"Very efficient." He said the right words,
but his tone didn't have the note of appreciation she might have
hoped for. She could feel the "but" coming before his mouth even
formed the word. "But I don't think I'm in any shape tonight to
give these profiles the consideration they deserve. I'd hate to
gloss over them, but I'm afraid that's what would happen."

Despite his politely tailored words, Paul
Monroe was being a smart aleck. She should be irritated at him for
not taking her work seriously, but he obviously didn't take himself
any more seriously. That glint in his eyes seemed to invite her to
find a joke to share with him.

She gave her head a tiny shake. Jokes? She
couldn't afford to think about jokes. Business. "What do you
propose, then?"

He grinned.

Uh-oh. She'd made the mistake of giving Paul
Monroe the perfect opening, and she'd been caught.

He sat up, slinging his jacket over one
forearm and tucking the folder under his elbow. "As long as you
asked, I think it would be a wonderful service of Top-Line
Temporaries if you came and told me all about these candidates over
dinner. An oral report instead of making me wade through the
written report."

"Dinner?"

"Dinner." He stood, and tipped his head as he
examined what she feared was the incredibly stupid expression on
her face. "You do eat, don't you?"

"Of course I eat."

"Yeah, I guess you don't look really
anorexic, but you do look a little thin. My mother would love to
get her hands on you and fatten you up some."

"Your mother?" What was he doing talking
about his mother? He was a client. A client. He'd proposed a
business dinner. A little unorthodoxly, perhaps, but a business
dinner nonetheless.

"Yeah, Mom's a throwback to the old days.
You'd think a Lake Forest matron who does charity luncheons and
supports the symphony would have followed the trend into alfalfa
sprouts and organic tomatoes, wouldn't you?"

Bette was vaguely aware that his hand under
her elbow, warm and firm and so very much
there
, was
supposed to encourage her to rise from her chair. She rose. He
handed her her briefcase and she accepted it. He steered her toward
the door and she followed. Too preoccupied by his comments, she
paid little attention to where she was going.

So he was from Lake Forest, from the North
Shore, where suburbs were pristine and upbringings well-to-do.

"But no alfalfa sprouts for Mom. She got fed
up on that sort of thing as a kid herself." Surely alfalfa sprouts
hadn't been big when his mother was a girl, so he must mean
something else, but she had no idea what. Though she could swear
she'd seen something like a grimace flicker across his face before
being replaced by a grin. "She sticks to the basics of my
childhood. And I'm happy to say my childhood was filled with double
chocolate brownies and triple-decker sandwiches. All my buddies
used to come to my house after school, just for the food. I don't
think even now she's ever served granola in her life. Thank God.
G'night."

He waved to Darla, who stared as they made
their way through the outer office. "You're leaving, Bette?"

"She's leaving," Paul Monroe answered firmly.
"We're going to dinner."

"Great!"

Bette cringed a little at Darla's enthusiasm,
which made it sound as if Bette hadn't gone to dinner with a man in
a year. And she had. Doug Burton, last winter. Once.

She tried to slow her pace against the tug on
her elbow.

"Uh, maybe I should wait . . . lock up."

"Don't you worry. I'll lock up." So much for
Darla's help. Her dazzling smile lit her face. "You two go on and
have a nice dinner. Have fun."

The last two words might have qualified as an
order.

"We will," Paul promised.

* * * *

Paul liked the smooth scratch of Bette
Wharton's wool tweed suit jacket against his palm, which he'd
cupped under her elbow to guide her footsteps. To him the contact
seemed all the stronger for the silence that rested easy around
them.

Top-Line Temporaries occupied a neat,
efficient suite in a neat, efficient building in the area bounded
by Michigan Avenue and Lake Shore Drive, the river and Oak Street
Beach. He was heading to a different neighborhood, not many blocks
away, but where the mood could swing from class to crass, glass to
grit in the time it took to walk from one door to the next.

That very variety drew him to the Rush Street
area. You could wait to make up your mind until the very last
minute and still be within walking distance of just about anything.
And if something more appealing came along before you got there, so
much the better.

But he knew exactly where he was going to
take Bette Wharton tonight. He'd known it nearly from the
start.

When he first walked in and saw the cloud of
dark hair, the eyes as deep a blue as Lake Michigan and the
individualistic mouth with its tilted-back top lip, he'd liked her
looks well enough, but not the expression of stern concentration
she'd worn. He was all too familiar with that look.

Then he'd seen her grin when she thought his
eyes were closed.

It changed her. That intrigued him. Nobody
with a mouth like that should be so serious.

She obviously didn't agree. One bit of
flippancy escaped her and she looked appalled. He'd watched her
stiffen into seriousness, and had become determined to lure out
that spark of mischief again.

That was when he knew he'd take her to Mama
Artemis's Restaurant. Bette Wharton's exterior, with her
conservative suit in of gray wool heathered by faint blue, sensible
heels and unfrivolous gold lapel pin, might match her office's
neighborhood, but that glint in her eye screamed of Mama
Artemis's.

"Do you know where we're going or are you
making turns at random?" she asked as they rounded yet another
corner.

They could have walked four blocks straight
west then five north, but he preferred to mix it up with a turn
here and a turn there. "I know where we're going."