The Bedroom Business

Emily, he could say, I was just wondering, did you have a nice evening? Where’d Archer take you for dinner? Did he take you home? Did you invite him in? What time did he leave?

He did leave, didn’t he?

Jake rubbed his hands over his face.

Not only was her private life none of his business, but even thinking about it was none of his business.

The kid was right, though. She did have nice eyes.

A muscle knotted in Jake’s jaw. He wondered if Archer had been right, too. About her legs. Were they great? He couldn’t tell, not with that coat going straight down to her feet, and he’d certainly never noticed her legs in the past. Why would he? Emily was his P.A. Check that. She was his E.A. She was a well-oiled, well-educated, well-paid em­ployee. Her looks were none of his business.

She was a quiet little sparrow.

His little sparrow.

Jake shoved the appointment book halfway across his desk, swiveled his chair towards the window and gave the falling snow the benefit of his scowl. He knew it was foolish to bristle, but bristling was precisely what he felt like doing.

And it was all Emily’s fault.

Emily took off her coat, shook it briskly and hung it in the closet. Then she sat, bent down and began tugging at her left boot while she told herself that bristling would get her no­where.

Still, bristling was exactly what she felt like doing. And it was all McBride’s fault.

The great man was not in a good mood this morning. Too bad. Perhaps he’d had another run-in with the twit, desperate to tell him how wonderful he was.

“Idiot,” Emily said, and gave the stubborn boot a whack.

Or was he still annoyed that she hadn’t let him tell her what to do last night? Don’t go, he’d said, as if he owned tier, and the hell of it was she should have listened to him because her evening with his pal had been a disaster. A total, unmitigated disaster. Mr. Peter-Aren’t-You-Fortunate-To-Be­-With-Me Archer was so full of himself it was a wonder there’d been room for her at their all-too-cozy table for two In the restaurant he’d chosen.

Emily hung her head and groaned.

Oh, what an awful evening. The wine he’d ordered, even after she’d politely declined a drink. The way he’d leaned close and breathed moistly on her neck. The way he’d tried to feed her a bite of his meal from his fork. Yuck. As if she would want to take the fork into her mouth after it had been in his. And then all that smarmy, double entendre stuff which she’d been too dumb to recognize as smarmy and double entendre, until the waiter happened by just as Archer, the slimeball, said something that made the hapless waiter almost pour the coffee into her lap.

Emily attacked the boot again.

And this man, she reminded herself grimly, this-this hu­man octopus, was Mr. Jake McBride’s friend. His oldest, dearest, closest friend.

So much for thinking her boss was a nice guy even if he was dense. Nice guys didn’t have lifelong buddies like Peter Archer.

Damn this boot! Why wouldn’t it come off?

To think of McBride’s gall, that he was angry with her, Whatever the cause of it, how dare he take it out on her? She’d been, what, fifteen minutes late? When she thought of all the times she’d come in early without McBride so much as saying, Why, Emily, how good of you to be here before nine.

But why would he? She was his personal property. He expected her to be there, at his beck and call.

“The Emperor McBride,” she said, under her breath, and tugged harder. What was with these boots? They might as well be glued on.

“Uh,” she said, and tugged again. “Uh...”

“Having a problem, Emily?”

She sat up so fast that her heel slammed against the car­peted floor. McBride was standing in the doorway, watching her. His arms were folded and one of his dark eyebrows was lifted in what looked like amusement.

“No problem, sir,” she replied briskly.

Of course it was a problem. She’d been bent over, tugging at her boots, and her face was flushed with rosy color. Her hair—a few strands of it, anyway—had come loose of its clip at the nape of her neck and curled gently at her ears. Emily’s hair was curly? He’d never noticed. She always wore it back, and straight.

Jake frowned.

“Here,” he said, advancing towards her, “let me help you.”

“It isn’t necessary. I can—”

Too late. He was already squatting before her, lifting her foot into his lap and tugging.

“Really, Mr. McBride...”

Jake pulled off the boot. No wonder it had been hard to remove. Her boots were made of thin black leather and she was wearing heavy socks. Heavy wool socks, over feet that were attached to long, slender legs.