The Bedroom Business

His life was fine, just as it was. Better than fine. He was free. He was doing things he’d never even dreamed of, when he was growing up. In other words, he was happy. Why did women think a man couldn’t be happy, unless the poor sap put a ring on her finger and she put a matching one through his nose? Even those who pretended otherwise, thought it. The ones who said they didn’t were just lying to them­selves...

But Emily hadn’t sounded as if she were lying.

Any woman who thinks love lasts longer than a roller­coaster ride ought to have her head examined because what happens in bed isn’t love.

Jake took another drink.

That was what she’d said. And it was true. He had always known it. But if Emily believed it, really, honestly believed, as he did, that love was an illusion, why had she gotten so ticked off? When you came down to it, she’d simply told him what he’d already told her, that forever wasn’t a viable plan.

Unless—unless it was him she didn’t want any part of, not just a relationship that might go on for a while. Hell, he hadn’t considered that, the possibility she hadn’t liked being with him.

No. Forget that possibility. She had. He knew she had. Those sweet sighs, when they made love. The way she laughed at his jokes, hung onto his every word. The touch of her hand on his, when they were talking...

There’d be no more of that, now. And he’d miss it. All of it, although how he could miss things he’d barely had were beyond him.

So, what was the bottom line here? Why would a woman walk away from an affair when it was still at the hot, electric start?

And “hot” was the word.

Lord, what a weekend. They were perfect together. Better than perfect. Emily was an incredible combination of inno­cent and sexy.

“Let me,” she’d whispered this afternoon, after he’d brought her to release with his mouth. And she’d knelt between his legs, touched him with her tongue, tasted him, pleasured him, and oh, the joy of it, the unbelievable pleasure because sex was different with his sparrow, everything was different, it was­—

“Dammit-to-hell!” Jake snarled, and slammed the empty bottle on the counter.

He was wrong. Nothing was different with Emily except, maybe, the way she played the game. Yeah, that was it. She’d lured him on. The shapeless suits. The pulled-back hair. The polite, impersonal way she spoke. “Yes, Mr. McBride.” “No, Mr. McBride.” Even those horrible personal ads she’d said she was going to answer. It was all part of the game, designed to­—

To what?

She’d worked for him for almost a year. And in all that time, she’d never looked at him as if he were a man any more than he’d looked at her as if she was a woman. She hadn’t been playing a game. If anyone had been playing games, it was him.

Oh, he’d explained, told her he was going to help her change into a woman men would desire but, in the end, he was the man who’d desired her.

Now, she could go out and practice what he’d taught her with someone else.

Jake felt as if a hand had torn open his chest and ripped out his heart.

His Emily, with another man?

No. No, he couldn’t let that happen. He wanted—he wanted...

He didn’t know what he wanted, and it was all Emily’s fault. She’d taken a perfectly simple thing, a weekend in bed, and turned it into an equation as complex as quantum me­chanics.

Jake’s jaw tightened. He switched off the kitchen light, strode into his bedroom, and got undressed.

He would tell her that, tomorrow morning. He had that California meeting but no way was he going to fly west until this was settled.

“Emily,” he’d say, “you overreacted. But because you’re new to all this, I’m going to give you another chance. We’ll forget all about that nasty little scene Sunday night. We can pretend it never happened...”

And if she laughed in his face, then what?

Jake got into bed, folded his hands beneath his head and stared into the darkness.

He could fire her. That was what.

He switched off the light, rolled on his belly and pum­meled his pillow into shape.

Half an hour later, he switched the light on, folded his hands under his head again and glared at the ceiling.

He wouldn’t fire her. How could he, when that was prob­ably exactly what she expected so she could call him a vin­dictive bastard on top of everything else?

Anyway, it wouldn’t come to that. She wouldn’t laugh when he offered her the chance to turn back the clock. She’d go into his arms, kiss him, and just that easily, they’d agree to keep the office business in the office and the bedroom business where it belonged.