The Bedroom Business

“Is that the reason you kissed me?” she said quietly.

“Yes. No. Dammit, Em—” Jake drew a ragged breath. “Look, I can help you. I can teach you about men. What they want from women. The male-female thing, the thing you don’t seem to understand at all.”

Emily stared at Jake. He was right. He could teach her. He already had.

“Is that what you want to do?” she said huskily.

It seemed a long time before Jake answered. When he did, his voice sounded low and far away, even to his own ears.

“Yes. Yes, I do. And I promise you, Em, I’ll teach you all you need to know.”

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The Bedroom Business

Sandra Marton

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER ONE

JAKE MCBRIDE was a man under siege.

A woman who’d spent the past couple of months on his arm and in his bed, couldn’t accept the fact that their relationship was over.

“You don’t love me,” she’d wept, just last night.

Well, no. Jake didn’t. He’d told her that days ago, reminded her that he’d never said he loved her, never even hinted that he might love her someday. He knew there were guys who said it in an attempt to score, but he wasn’t one of them. Jake was always honest about his intentions. He made it clear that love, marriage, the “something old, something new, something blue” thing just wasn’t on his agenda.

Besides, the immodest truth was that he didn’t have to.

He was a healthy, heterosexual, thirty-year-old American male. He was six foot three with broad shoulders, a deep chest and a hard, flat belly, thanks to his passion for tough, sweaty workouts at his gym. His hair was dark, thick and wavy; his eyes were what one besotted female had called the color of the Atlantic in midsummer, which even now made him smile because he hardly ever noticed his eyes—what man would?—except when he happened to see them in the mirror while he shaved. He had a square jaw and a firm mouth set beneath a nose that bore a small bump, a souvenir of the year he’d spent working a jackhammer in a Pennsylvania coal mine.

He found it amusing that women seemed to like the faintly misshapen nose. The same babe who’d said his eyes were like the sea had told him it made him look dangerous.

“Whatever turns you on,” Jake had said with a husky laugh, as he rolled her beneath him.

And he had money. Hell, why dance around the issue? He was rich, richer than he’d ever dreamed he could be, and he’d earned every dime himself, transforming a propensity for numbers, a talent for reading the market and a love for taking risks into a career in venture capitalism that was light-years away from the life he’d been born to.

Wasn’t all that enough to make a woman happy? Yes. Yes, it was. He never had difficulty finding a woman.

The trouble was getting rid of them.

Jake winced.

It wasn’t a nice way to think about it but it was the truth.

What he was going through with Brandi wasn’t exactly new. It had happened to him before. A woman would agree, at the start of their affair, that she was no more interested in forever-after than he was. Then, for some unearthly reason, she’d change her mind a few weeks later and get that oh-how-happy-we-could-be gleam in her eye even though any fool could tell that marriage was not man’s natural state.

The whole turnaround was beyond his comprehension but yeah, it happened. And it was happening again, despite his best efforts.

The only person who could save him from disaster was his personal assistant, Emily.

Emily, Jake thought gratefully. What would he do without her? She was smart, efficient, always on her toes. Emily not only kept his office running smoothly, but she protected him from the predations of women like Brandi. It didn’t happen often, thankfully, but when necessary, Emily fielded unwanted calls, kept away unwanted visitors.

Jake wasn’t unkind. That was the reason he’d told Emily to show Brandi into his private office yesterday, even though he knew it was a bad idea. He was right. It had been a miserable idea. All Brandi had wanted to do was tell him that she loved him but he didn’t love her.

“You don’t,” she’d cried, “you don’t, Jake!”

Why would he deny it? “No,” he’d said, “I don’t” He’d handed her his handkerchief. “But I like you,” he’d added earnestly. “A lot.”

Jake sighed, sat down at his desk, leaned his elbows on the gleaming oak surface and massaged his aching temples with his fingertips.

So much for being honest. Brandi had gone from weeping to sobbing while he stood there, feeling like an idiot for not having seen it coming but then, he really never did.

“Hell,” he muttered, and shot to his feet again.

He really did like her. Why else would he have spent the last, what, two months seeing her? Exclusively, of course. He wasn’t into sharing his women and besides, he was always faithful for as long as a relationship lasted. But he wasn’t ready to spend the rest of his life with one woman. Not now, not in the foreseeable future, maybe not ever.

Life had only just begun to open for him in the past few years. Jake had grown up poor, lost his father in a mining accident when he was ten, lost his mother to a stepfather who believed that sparing the rod spoiled the child when he was twelve. At seventeen, he’d quit school and gone to work in the same mine that had taken his father’s life. A year later, after almost dying under two tons of coal, Jake put down his hammer and scrubbed the black dust from his skin even though he’d known he’d never quite get it out of his blood. Then he’d headed east. It had taken a while but a quirky combination of luck, guts and a hard-won university degree had turned his life into a dream.

It was a life he liked, just the way it was.

He had an office in Rockefeller Center, an apartment on Park Avenue, a weekend house in Connecticut and a vintage Corvette.

He had Emily.

Yes, life was good…except for this current mess, with Brandi.

Jake groaned, kicked back his chair and put his feet up on his desk. How come he hadn’t read the signs? Her career was all that mattered, she’d told him, but it wasn’t true. First she gave him a key to her apartment. He hadn’t asked for one, hadn’t offered her the key to his, but she handed hers over, anyway, with a casual smile that would have made him look like an ass not to have accepted it. Then she bought him a tie at Bloomingdale’s. Nobody bought Jake ties except Jake, but she said some hotshot actor had been wearing one just like it when she’d posed in an ad with him, and how could he possibly turn down such a simple gift?

And then, last week, the final touch. He’d taken her home, was in the process of saying good-night—he hadn’t felt like spending the night with her which, in retrospect, he should have recognized as the beginning of the end—when she reached into her pocket, pulled out a pair of airline tickets and waggled them at him.

“Surprise,” she’d said gaily, and explained that she was flying home to Minneapolis for the weekend and he was going with her.

“It’s my parents’ thirty-fifth anniversary, Jake. They’re having the whole family to dinner and they’re just dying to meet you!”

The tie around his neck—the very one she’d bought him, which he hated but had worn that evening because she’d asked him where it was—suddenly felt like a noose, growing tighter and tighter until he stabbed two fingers under the knot and yanked it away from his throat.

“I can’t go,” he’d said, and she’d said yes, yes, he could, and he’d said he couldn’t and she, with her lip trembling, said he could if he wanted to and finally he’d said well, he didn’t want to…

“Oh, Jake,” she’d whispered, and the next thing he’d known, she was crying into his shirt.

What did women want, anyway? Well, not all women. Not the Emilies of this world but then, Emily wasn’t a woman. Not a real one. She was his P.A.

Jake sighed, rose from the chair behind his desk, walked to the window and looked out. Forty stories below, people crowded the street. He hoped Brandi wasn’t one of those people. She’d been there this morning, waiting for him.

“Jake?” she’d said, and before he could decide what the heck to do, whether to pretend he didn’t see her or hustle her into the lobby and up to his office before she started bawling, she’d thrown her arms around him and tried to kiss him.

“Hell,” he whispered, and leaned his forehead against the cool glass.

Still, he had no desire to hurt her. He didn’t want to say anything cruel or unkind…

“Mr. McBride?”

Because she was a nice woman. And even though it was time to move on, that didn’t mean—

“Mr. McBride? Sir?”

Jake swung around. Emily stood in the doorway. For the first time in what felt like hours, he smiled. If only all women were as pragmatic, as sensible, as she.

“Yes, Emily?”

“Sir, I thought you’d like to know that I sent that e-mail memo to John Woods.”

“Fine.”

“His reply just came in. He says he likes your suggestions and hopes you’re free to fly to San Diego to meet with him next week.”

“Am I?”

“Yes, sir. You’re free Monday and Tuesday. You have a meeting Tuesday afternoon but it can be easily postponed.”

Jake nodded. “Make the arrangements, please. What else?”

“A fax from Atlanta. Nothing important, just a confirmation of your conference call.”

“Good, good. Anything else?”

Emily looked down at the notepad in her hand. “You’re having a late lunch with Mr. Carstairs tomorrow at the Oak Room.”

“Ah. Thank you for reminding me.”

“Yes, sir. And you have a dinner appointment this evening. Eight o’clock, at The Palm. You asked me to remind you to mention that new oil field opportunity in Russia.”

Jake smiled and shook his head. “What would I do without you?” he said pleasantly. “You’re the epitome of efficiency.”

“Being efficient is my job, Mr. McBride.”

“Jake, please. I don’t think we need to be so formal. You’ve been working for me for, what, a year?”

“Eleven months and twelve days.” Emily smiled politely. “I’m comfortable calling you Mr. McBride, sir. Unless you find it uncomfortable…?”

“No,” Jake said quickly, “no, that’s fine. Whatever you prefer is okay with me.”

It sure as hell was. He’d never had an assistant like this one. When he looked ahead, he could see Emily Taylor by his side well into the distant future. Emily wouldn’t find a man, get married and quit her job. Her career meant as much to her as his did to him.

He was fairly certain she never even dated.

He supposed he ought to feel guilty for being happy she didn’t, but why should he? Emily was just one of those women who wasn’t interested in men. There was a long and honorable list of them, going back through the centuries. Betty Friedan and the women’s libbers. The Suffragettes. Joan of Arc. They’d all devoted their lives to Causes, not to men.

How could a man feel badly if a woman made a choice like that?

Emily wasn’t even a distraction.

Some of the women he’d interviewed before hiring her had been stunners, but the word for Emily was “average.” Average height. Average weight. Average face. Average brown hair and average brown eyes.

“A little brown sparrow,” Brandi had said after meeting her, with what Jake had recognized as a little purr of relief.

An accurate description, he thought. On his runs through Central Park, he saw lots of birds with flashier plumage but it was the little brown sparrows who were the most industrious.

Emily, Jake thought fondly. His very own little brown sparrow.

He smiled again, folded his arms and hitched a hip onto the edge of his desk. “Emily, how much am I paying you?”

“Sir?”

“Your salary. What is it?”

“Eight hundred a week, Mr. McBride.”

“Well, give yourself a hundred bucks more.”

Emily smiled politely. “Thank you, sir.”

Jake smiled, too. He liked the no-nonsense way she’d accepted her raise. No little squeals of joy, no bouncing up and down, no “Oooh, Jake…” But, of course, she wouldn’t call him “Jake” any more than she’d squeal. Squealing was for the women he dated, who greeted each bouquet of long-stemmed roses, each blue-boxed Tiffany trinket, with shrieks of delight.

“No.” Jake strolled towards her. “No, thank you, Emily.”

He clapped her lightly on the back. That was another thing he liked about his P.A. Her posture. She stood ramrod straight, not slouched or with her hips angled forward. So many women in New York stood that way, as if they were about to stalk down a runway at a fashion show.

Not his Emily.

Idly, he wondered what effect Emily’s perfect stance had on her figure. Did it tilt her breasts forward? He couldn’t tell; summer and winter, she always wore suits. Tweed, for the most part, like this one. Brown tweed, to match her brown hair, with the jacket closed so that her figure was pretty much a mystery. For all he knew, her breasts were the size of Ping-Pong balls. Or casaba melons. Who knew? Who cared? Not him. Yes, it was a definite pleasure to work with a woman who was both efficient and unattractive.

“I mean it,” he said. “You’re the best P.A. I’ve ever had.”

Emily cleared her throat. “In that case, sir…”

“Yes?” Jake grinned. Evidently, the raise he’d just given her wasn’t enough. That surprised him a little; Emily was never pushy but if she thought she deserved more money, she could have it. “Give yourself two hundred more a week. Is that better?”

A light blush suffused her cheeks. “One hundred is fine, Mr. McBride.” She stepped back, her chin lifted, her eyes on his. “But I would much prefer to be called your E.A. instead of your P.A.”

“Huh?”

“Your executive assistant, instead of your personal assistant. It’s a more accurate description of my duties.”

“My exec,” Jake mused. “Well, sure. You want to be called my E.A., that’s fine.”

“Thank you again, sir.”

‘‘You’re welcome.” Jake smiled. “Just as long as you assure me you aren’t changing your title to make your résumé look better.”

“Sir?”

“You’re not thinking of going job-hunting, are you?”

Emily looked horrified. “Certainly not, sir. I merely want an appropriate title.”

Well, well, well. His little sparrow had an ego. Nothing wrong with that. Nothing at all.

“And you deserve it.”

Oh, the sickly-sweet benevolence in his tone. Emily smiled, not an easy thing to do when what she felt like doing was throwing up on Jake McBride’s shiny black shoes. The egotistical goon. If only she could tell him what she thought of him. But she couldn’t. Jobs as good as this one were impossible to find. She had lots of responsibility; the pay was excellent; and, she supposed, as men went, McBride was easy enough to work for. She just wondered if he had any idea, any actual idea, of how invaluable she was to him. Of what a mess he’d be in, without her.

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, av-erage-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.”

His hand slid to her elbow. “Go home,” he said gently, as he propelled her towards the door. “Take a nice hot bath. Make yourself some tea.”

“Honestly, Mr. McBride…”

“Do it,” he said, with a polite, teasing smile, “or I’ll take you home and do it for you.”

An image swam into her head. McBride, in her tiny apartment, so big and masculine against her chintz-covered furniture. McBride, smiling down at her, his hands warm and gentle as he unbuttoned her tweed jacket, unbuttoned her silk blouse. Or, perhaps, his hands not so gentle. Hard, in fact. Rough, maybe, as he ripped the blouse from her and took her into his arms…

Color flooded her face as she stepped back.

“That won’t be necessary, sir. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of myself.”

“I know you are,” he said. For one awful minute, she was afraid he was going to pat her on the head. “Now just run along home, Emily. Take that bath, have the tea, pop some vitamin C and get a good night’s rest.”

“But it’s only four forty-five.”

McBride gave her another of those I’m-So-Wonderful-and-You’re-So-Lucky-To-Be-Working-For-Me smiles.

“I can do without you for a little while, I promise. Now, go home. I’ll see you in the morning.”

“Thank you, Mr. McBride.”

“Good night, Emily.”

“Good night, sir.”

Jake shut the door and sat down at his desk. Damn, what dedication. He’d almost had to carry Emily out of the office. Well, that would have been simple enough. She was small. Slender. She’d be light, just like one of those little sparrows. He could carry Emily up the steps in his duplex, to his bedroom, set her down on her feet and find out just what, exactly, lay hidden under all those woolly layers of clothing…

He frowned, pulled a blank pad towards him. What crazy thoughts. Jake chuckled softly. Amazing, the things a man’s brain could conjure up at the end of a long day. Better to spend the next couple of hours profitably, writing some memos to leave on Emily’s desk for her to tackle first thing in the morning.

He worked for a while, went from the memos to sketching out an idea that had just come to him about that meeting in San Diego…

A knock sounded on the door.

Jake looked up, then checked his watch. It was after five. Emily was gone. Nobody else would…

Somebody would.

Brandi, he thought unhappily. She’d called earlier, when Emily was at lunch. He’d picked up the phone just as the answering machine did and he’d heard that little whisper that had once driven him crazy with lust and now just drove him crazy, begging him to see her tonight.

The knock came again. Maybe if he just sat it out, pretended he wasn’t here…

“Jake?”

The door swung open. Jake, caught between deciding whether to duck for cover or tell Brandi to get lost, looked up and grinned in surprise.

“Pete?”

Pete Archer, a guy he’d worked with his first year in New York, opened the door wider and stepped inside.

“Jake, you old son of a gun. What’s the matter? You afraid I’m a bill collector or something?”

Jake got to his feet. “Or something.” He came forward and the men shook hands. They’d never been close friends but it was great to see someone from the past. “Why didn’t you call me? If I’d known you were going to be in town, I’d have rolled out the red carpet.”