Apparently, he did.
He was.
"I don't believe you," she said in exasperation, staring at his bent head.
"Don't believe what?" He glanced up briefly, all innocence and strictly business, barely making eye contact before he turned his attention to the open folder. "That we have a lot of work to do here?"
"No. I can see there's a lot of work to do. What I don't believe is how you can just turn it on and off like that. How you can just pick up your pencil as if nothing happened. Just what am I supposed to think now that—" She broke off, aghast at what she was saying.
She should be happy that he was just going to drop it. Thrilled. Instead she seemed to be doing her darnedest to prolong the situation, to provoke him into shedding the mild-mannered Clark Kent business persona he slipped on with his glasses, and unleashing the stalking wolf again. Gina was always telling her she should learn to keep her mouth shut and leave well enough alone. This seemed like a good time to start practicing the skill.
"Never mind," she said.
But she'd pricked his conscience. What was she supposed to think, indeed? There were rules and he had broken them. Not bent. Broken. Under the circumstances, it was an unconscionable thing to have done.
He put his pencil down and took off his glasses. "It looks like I owe you another apology." He stared straight at her, manfully holding her gaze, the fingers of one hand playing with the stems of his glasses. "My behavior just now was entirely inappropriate. I had no business saying what I did to you. I don't know what made me do it."
Well, he did know, of course, but frustrated desire and male ego were no excuse for what he'd said to her. Not that he regretted saying it, exactly. He fully intended to have her lying under him naked and spread-eagle at some not-too-distant point in the future. What he regretted was the time and place he'd imparted that particular bit of information to her. He should have kept everything proper and aboveboard, and waited until their business together was concluded. "I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable, or frightened you in any way."
"You didn't frighten me," Zoe said, a bit insulted that he would think she was so easily cowed.
"But I did make you uncomfortable, and I'm sorry for that." He was feeling just the tiniest bit satisfied about it, too. More than a bit, actually, but he was far too intelligent, and far too interested in smoothing things over, to acknowledge the feeling out loud. He could pound his chest later, in private. "I hope you can forgive me for that, and I want you to know it won't happen again."
"There's nothing to forgive. Really," Zoe assured him, feeling a prick to her own conscience in the face of his sincerity. There was nothing perfunctory about this apology. He wasn't just mouthing the words to appease his great-grandmother; he meant every one of them. "I'm as much to blame as you are," she confessed contritely. "More to blame, actually." She looked down, fiddling with the rings on her hands, unable to hold his gaze while she made her confession. "I shouldn't have asked you to kiss me. It was unprofessional and stupid."
"Yes, it was," he agreed promptly.
She lifted her gaze to his face again, surprised by his ready agreement with her culpability. She'd have thought he'd be more … well, more gentlemanly and insist on taking the blame entirely upon himself.
"But it was even more stupid for me to have complied with your request," he continued. "This is my office. I know the rules."
"Rules?" Her surprise showed in her voice. And in her eyes. "You have rules about kissing women in your office?"
"It depends on the woman and why she's in my office. You came to see me today, in essence, to secure my approval for a loan," he explained, sounding just a bit pompous, even to his own ears. "To treat you with anything less than respect, or to suggest in any way that the withholding or granting of sexual favors might influence my decision, is not only inappropriate and immoral, it's also illegal."
"You didn't suggest any such thing!" Zoe protested, as shocked as if a third party had made the accusation. Her eyes narrowed. "Did you?"
"No, I didn't," he assured her. "What happened here a moment ago was an aberration. An unfortunate lapse of judgment on both our parts. Mine, especially." He leaned forward, as earnest and sincere as a Boy Scout. "I want to be absolutely sure you understand that you will or will not get your investment money strictly on the basis of whether I think you're a good risk with a viable business opportunity to offer."
Zoe nodded. "Yes, I understand that. The thought that it would be based on anything else never even crossed my mind. Not for a second," she insisted. "And as long as we're making a clean breast of it here…" She took a quick breath and steeled herself to say what had to be said. "I want you to understand that I wasn't trying to influence your decision in my favor by, uh … by seeming to offer you a sexual relationship in exchange for you okaying your great-grandmother's investment in New Moon. I know it might have looked that way because I asked you to kiss me but, believe me, it wasn't." She smiled sheepishly. "The words just kind of—" she shrugged and made a little fluttery motion with one hand "—popped out before I knew what I was saying."
Reed nodded understandingly. "We're agreed then." He slipped his glasses on and picked up his pencil, ready to get back to work. "Our sexual relationship has absolutely nothing to do with the business at hand."
Zoe blinked. "We don't have a sexual relationship," she reminded him.
He looked up at her over the top of his glasses, his eyes blazing with a sudden, intense heat. For the split second before he managed to snap the leash on it, she saw the wolf that lay in wait just beneath the surface.
"We will," he said.
* * *
8
« ^ »
"Can't you stick around for just a little while?" Zoe pleaded shamelessly as she followed Gina into the hall between their apartments. "Thirty minutes. Twenty, even. Surely you can spare twenty minutes to help out your best friend since the seventh grade?"
"Nope. Sorry. Not even five," Gina said cheerfully, unmoved by the blatant attempt at manipulation. "I've got a really full schedule today and if I don't get moving in the next two minutes, I'll be running to catch up with myself all day long." She paused at the top of the stairs, the handle of her massage table in one hand, her equipment bag slung over her opposite shoulder, her lips turned up in a sly grin. "If you're so afraid to be alone with him, why don't you ask Mama Marcella to come up while he's here? She'd love to play chaperon for you."
Zoe scowled at her friend. "Very funny. And totally off base," she lied, wondering why she even bothered. Gina had had the really annoying knack of seeing right through her since that first day in the seventh grade. "I'm not looking for a chaperon," she declared, pride demanding that she make the effort to save face, even if Gina wouldn't believe a word of it. "I'm not afraid to be alone with him, either. There's nothing to be afraid of."
"Except yourself," Gina said.
Zoe chose to ignore that remark as beneath her. "Reed is coming here on business, so he can see my operation in action," she said primly. "And that's all there is to it."
"Uh-huh." Gina remained unconvinced. "So why do you want me to hang around then?"
"So you can talk me up. Tell him how long you've used New Moon products and how good they are. How you use my different aromatherapy massage oils on all your clients and how much they tike them."
"You can tell him that yourself."
"But it would sound so much better coming from you," Zoe wheedled. "He's already heard me say how good my products are at least a dozen times. He needs to hear it from someone else. You know, a real live customer."
"Mama uses New Moon products, too," Gina reminded her. "And old Mrs. Umberto next door, and Michele Soleri at the pizzeria on the corner, and Carleen Purchio at the butcher shop across the street. I'm sure any one of them would be glad to come over here and talk you up." Her grin widened. "Any one of them could make sure you both behave yourselves, too."
Zoe gave it up as a lost cause. "Aren't
you late for an appointment?" she snapped, as if she hadn't just been practically begging Gina to stay.
"Not if I leave now," Gina said with a laugh as she turned and headed down the stairs. "Have fun today," she added heartlessly.
Zoe heard the massage table bang against the wall of the stairwell, followed by a colorful Italian curse and the protesting screech of the wrought-iron gate as Gina opened it. Zoe was just about to step into her apartment and check one last time to make sure everything was ready and in order—as if she hadn't checked a hundred times already!—when, unexpectedly, Gina's voice came floating back up the stairs.
"Oh, sure, go right on up," Zoe heard her say, loud enough so that Zoe would be sure to hear. "It's the apartment on the left."
Oh, God, he's here! Zoe felt her stomach clench and her heart leap into her throat, making it difficult to breathe. She swallowed convulsively, trying to clear the obstruction, fighting the instinctive urge to turn and run to the safety of her apartment. She closed her eyes instead, pressing a hand against her chest as if to quiet the wild beating of her heart and took a deep breath, trying to center herself the way she did before her morning yoga sessions. She let the air out of her lungs slowly, all the while telling herself to just calm down and act like a responsible, rational, reasonable businesswoman instead of a silly schoolgirl with a wild crush on the coolest, cutest guy in school.
Reed Sullivan's visit to her apartment this morning was all part of the evaluation process. He wanted to see, firsthand, how she made her skin care products. Wanted to go over the revised business reports—the P&L, the itemized categories and whatever else he deemed it important she have before he made any kind of decision. Wanted to show her how to use the new filing system he'd had set up for her.
Strictly business.
And that was exactly the way she wanted it. Of course it was.
She couldn't afford to let it be any other way, financially or emotionally. What she had at stake, business-wise, was much more important than what she might have if she let it get personal with him. Especially when she knew that all she'd really have with him was hot sex and the very real possibility of a broken heart and shattered dreams. She was pretty sure that no matter how hot the sex was, it wasn't worth the risk to her heart. She was positive it wasn't worth the risk to her dream of expanding New Moon.
She squared her shoulders and dropped her hand from her chest, smoothing it down the embroidered front of her blouse as if to make sure the soft linen fabric was still neatly tucked into the waistband of her paisley skirt. Not exactly business attire, true, but the eggplant suit was the only item of clothing she owned that fit that description, anyway. Besides, she'd been wearing the very same skirt and blouse when she made her first big sale to The Body Beautiful over on Newbury Street
. If the outfit was good enough for her biggest customer, it was certainly good enough for Reed Sullivan.
Plastering a cool, confident, businesslike smile on her face—the one she'd practiced earlier that morning in her bathroom mirror—she stepped forward to greet the man who held her future in his hands. And stopped stock-still as she saw who was ascending the stairs.
"My goodness. Don't move another step until I get there." Zoe hurried down the stairs, her long paisley skirt swirling around her ankles, her bare feet silent on the polished wood, to meet Reed Sullivan's very pregnant secretary halfway. "Let me help you," she said, reaching out to cup the other woman's elbow in one hand as she gathered up a fistful of her skirt with the other to avoid stepping on it as she turned and remounted the stairs.
Mary Ellen laughed softly. "Why does everyone insist on treating a pregnant woman as if she were either aged or infirm, or both?" she asked, tacitly accepting the offered support by leaning into the hand under her elbow.
"Probably because you look like you're about to burst open like that guy in Aliens," Zoe said, and then slanted her a teasing glance, mixed equally with concern. "Not to mention the way you're puffing like a steam engine. Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," Mary Ellen assured her. "Just a little out of breath. I haven't climbed many stairs lately." She smiled fleetingly and blew a puff of air upward, ruffling the smooth blond bangs that covered her forehead. "It takes a bit more effort than I thought it would. And if you tell Reed I said that, I'll deny it," she warned, only half-humorously. "He already fusses enough as it is. Almost worse than my husband does." She shook her head. "Drives me crazy."
"I won't say a word," Zoe promised, wondering where Reed was and why he'd sent his secretary in his stead without advising her of the change ahead of time.
It was a bit disappointing. Zoe was proud of what he'd termed her operation, and despite the risks of prolonged contact, she wanted to show it off to him. Somehow it just wouldn't be the same showing it off to his secretary. And besides, secondhand information was never as good as seeing a thing for yourself. How could he be impressed enough to okay Moira Sullivan's investment in New Moon if he didn't see what Zoe had already accomplished without it?
"Reed's parking the car," Mary Ellen said, anticipating Zoe's unasked question with the uncanny sixth sense of a really top-notch executive secretary. "The closest lot he could find was a good five blocks away. He dropped me off out front so I wouldn't have to walk it. He should be here any minute. In the meantime…" she paused at the top of the stairs, pressing a hand to the small of her back as she arched "…I could really use a bathroom. The baby seems to be sitting right on top of my bladder this morning."
* * *
Reed hoofed it down Salem Street
, briefcase in hand, his gait easy but purposeful, congratulating himself on the brilliantly simple strategy of bringing M.E. along to his meeting with Zoe. It wasn't that he was actually worried about being alone with Zoe in her apartment, but with M.E. along to chaperon, he wouldn't even have to think about the possibility—remote though it was, he assured himself—of giving in to temptation again.
And anyway, M.E. would be of real use. She could certainly explain the filing system to Zoe better than he could, since she had actually been the one to set it up. She could take any notes that might be necessary about Zoe's existing methods of operation, and she'd have a chance to sit down for more than fifteen minutes at a time. Besides, if providing M.E. the opportunity to sit down meant she'd also be available to provide that little extra impetus he needed to keep things on a completely business-like basis with him and Zoe Moon, so much the better. He was a great proponent of killing two birds with one stone.
Which was exactly what he was doing, he told himself, when he let the smell of fresh baked goods lure him into the open door of a bakery half a block down from Zoe's apartment. M.E. had a fondness for pineapple Danish. Zoe had evidenced a weakness for croissants. And he hadn't had breakfast. Which made three birds with one stone.
A propitious start to the day, he thought with satisfaction, despite the fact that the reason he hadn't had breakfast was because he'd been too distracted by the upcoming meeting with Zoe to take more than a bite or two of the fluffy egg white omelet his housekeeper had prepared that morning. A sorry state of affairs, but there it was. Just thinking about the delectable Miss Moon put him off his feed. And that had never happened before, not even when he was breaking his adolescent heart over the perfidy of Janice Hawkins. He didn't even want to venture a guess as to what it might mean.
The bakery was crowded with customers, the air inside fragrant with the yeasty smell of warm bread and sugary, cream-filled cakes and pastries. Reed took his place in line at the counter alongside two women conversing in an animated mix of English and Italian about the merits of the ricotta-filled tubes of cannoli versus the chocolate covered cassata. By the time his turn came he was debating the wisdom of adding a couple of rich, calorie laden delicacies to his own order.
"Zoe is very fond of almond biscotti with her morning coffee," one of the women said as he hesitated over his selection.
Reed broke off his perusal of the pastries to look at her.
She was plump and grandmotherly, with iron gray hair peeking out from beneath the edge of a flowered scarf tied under her double chin, and the most beautiful dark eyes he'd ever seen looking at him out of a face networked with hundreds of tiny wrinkles. The top of her head barely reached his breastbone.
"Beg pardon, ma'am," he said. "Were you speaking to me?"
"Yes, certainly, I am speaking to you," she said in heavily accented English. "You are the same man who brought Zoe home last Saturday, yes?"
"Yes, I am," he said, wondering if this might be Zoe's surrogate grandmother. The one who was none too pleased about his having hired a private investigator. "Are you Mrs. Molinari?"
The old woman chuckled, as if she sensed his trepidation. "No. I am Signora Umberto, from the dry cleaners next door to the ristorante." She flicked a hand in the direction of the woman standing beside her. "This is my granddaughter, Claudia."
Claudia glanced over her shoulder, acknowledging the introduction with a smile and a nod. "Pleasure," she murmured before turning back to the teenager behind the pastry counter.
"And your name is?" Signora Umberto demanded, tapping Reed on the arm to regain his full attention.
Reed reached out and took her hand in his. "Reed Sullivan, ma'am," he said. "It's a pleasure to meet you."
A wide, delighted smile split her face, deepening the web of wrinkles she wore. "Oh, such a nice boy. Such lovely manners." She lifted her other hand to capture his between her palms, patting it approvingly as she spoke. "I knew you would be a nice boy from the first time I saw you."
"When you saw me?" Reed questioned, wondering where all this was leading.
"When you brought our Zoe home," she reminded him. "By chance only, I happened to glance out the window—" she hunched a shoulder, pointedly ignoring the derisive snort that came from her granddaughter, who was now counting out dollar bills on top of the counter to pay for their purchases. "By chance only," Signora Umberto repeated. "I happened to glance out my window when you brought the girls home last Saturday, so I remember you. You drive a very fancy car. Very expensive." She slid one hand up his forearm and grasped the sleeve of his suit jacket, rubbing the material between her thumb and forefinger. "Nice suit. Good wool. Very expensive. That is very good." She patted his hand again. "You can afford to give Zoe the money for her company—" she jerked her chin for emphasis "—yes?"
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