The Bedroom Business

Why wonder? She knew that he didn’t. He was as dense as every other man she’d ever known, as foolishly arrogant as the endless succession of idiots who’d trooped through the house when she was growing up, every last one of them thinking he knew what he was doing and why he was doing it when, in reality, her gorgeous sisters had been leading the jerks around by their ... hormones.

Jake McBride was just like those silly stud puppies. He might be rich, he might be handsome—assuming you liked the type, which she certainly didn’t—but he was as much a victim of his hormones as the tongue-tied idiots who’d filled her sisters’ teenaged lives.

His problems with the latest twit was proof of that.

McBride had broken things off. No surprise there. Emily had sensed it coming, long before he had. And, she had to admit, he’d done it with his usual flair. Roses. A little brace­let from Tiffany’s that she knew-after all, she’d placed the order-set him back six thousand dollars. But the brunette with the ditzy name wouldn’t, couldn’t, accept The End. She sent gifts. Notes. She phoned. She’d even taken to dropping by the office.

I’m here to see Jake, she’d whisper, in a voice Marilyn Monroe would have envied.

And Emily would pick up the phone, tell her boss that Miss Carole was here. And McBride would say, oh Lord, just get rid of her, please, Emily.

Emily almost felt sorry for the woman. She certainly didn’t feel sorry for Jake. As if she had nothing better to do than clean up after his messes. Bad enough she’d cleaned up after messes that involved her sisters.

Em, are you sure Billy hasn’t called? Or, Em, I’m so un­happy. Jimmy’s dating another girl. And then, after they both got married, she’d been expected to soothe them through their other disasters. Em, I think Billy’s fooling around. Em, Jimmy just doesn’t love me the way he used to...

They hadn’t learned anything, either, not even after mar­riages and divorces and affairs...

Ridiculous, the way women set out to snare men and ended up in the trap, themselves.

That had never been what she wanted out of life. A man? A lot of embarrassing slobbering to be endured and then, maybe, a wedding ring and promises of forever-after that wouldn’t even last as long as it took a slice of good-luck wedding cake to go stale, and for what?

For companionship, Emily. For those long winter nights when you think you’ll die if you have to curl up with another book...

Emily bit her lip.

Okay. So, maybe she wasn’t getting any younger. Maybe it might be nice to know what it was like to go on an oc­casional date. To have some man send her flowers, the way McBride—correction. The way she sent flowers, to his women. It might even be nice to get to see all those elegant New York restaurants from the inside, instead of just tele­phoning to make reservations for her boss and his latest in­terest.

What would such an evening be like? To have a man smile across the table at you, have him pick up your hand and bring it to his lips? Even if she really wanted to find out, where would she find a date? Lately, she’d started reading through the Personals in the back of GOTHAM magazine. Just for laughs, of course. She couldn’t imagine ever bringing herself to answer an ad. Or running one. What would she say?

Average-looking mouse searching for gorgeous, sexy, ex­citing man but will settle for plain, nonsexy, unexciting, av­erage-looking rat...

No. That wouldn’t do at all. Then again, neither would the truth.

Average-looking female interested in average-looking male. Object: to find out what a date is like because said female hasn’t had one in forever. In fact, not since the night of her senior prom, when one of her beautiful sisters conned a would-be boyfriend into being said female’s date and ev­erybody knew it and laughed...

“Emily?”

Okay. That was it. She would run an ad. After all, she wasn’t eighteen anymore. She wasn’t Serena and Angela Taylor’s poor little sister, the one with all the brains and none of the looks. She wasn’t one of Jake McBride’s women, ei­ther, with the kind of face and figure men dreamed of, but she could still manage to find herself a date­—

“Emily? Are you okay?”

A large, warm hand settled on her shoulder. Emily blinked, focused her eyes on her boss. He was standing a breath away from her, staring at her with a little furrow just between his eyes. And what eyes they were. Dark. Deep. So deep...

“Are you all right? For a minute there, you seemed to drift away.”

“I’m fine,” she said briskly. “Just, uh, just a cold coming on, perhaps.”