All Work and No Play... (In Bed with the Boss 3)

by Julie Cohen

  The interior of the art nouveau building was all elegant white lines and tall thin stained-glass windows. Crystal chandeliers in the shapes of flowers cascaded from the ceiling. But the people, dressed in dark suits and glittering flapper-style dresses, outshone the surroundings.

  Thom approached them, his arms and smile stretched wide. He was wearing a dinner jacket and a Hawaiian shirt, a fashion combination that Jane would associate more with teenage boys than a millionaire models’ agent, but on Thom, as usual, it worked.

  ‘How’s it going, my lovebird friends?’ he asked, flinging his arms around them both.

  ‘Brilliant,’ Jane managed, narrowly avoiding getting a mouthful of shaggy blond hair. ‘This party is amazing,’ she said when Thom let them go.

  Thom shrugged. ‘Not bad. It’s the people that make it beautiful. You look gorgeous, woman.’

  A compliment from Thom didn’t make Jane blush; she’d worked with him several times and she knew that, while he was sincere, he was also generous.

  ‘So do you,’ she said. It was a lame compliment, but Thom beamed as if she’d just given him the moon.

  ‘Thanks, babe, but I don’t have that new love glow like you do.’ A little cloud passed his sunny face. ‘I haven’t seen your friend Amy yet—did she decide not to come?’

  ‘She’ll definitely be here,’ Jane told him. ‘She hasn’t talked about anything but this party for days.’

  In fact, she’d been in Jane’s office that morning, worrying about her clothes and her daughter, who’d already been spending way too much time with a babysitter because of the extra hours Amy had been putting in on designing the Franco cologne advertisements. Jane hadn’t been able to be much help, but she’d reassured Amy as best she could. It was almost like the girly bonding Jane had always vaguely hoped for with Amy.

  ‘Okay, okay, cool. Listen, you need one of these.’ He dipped into a gold-covered box on a table next to him and handed them each a glittery disposable camera. ‘I want plenty of memories of tonight.’

  ‘I think we’re all going to remember this night for a very long time,’ Jonny said, taking a camera. ‘Smile,’ he said to Jane, and clicked a photo of her, though she was pretty sure she had her mouth half open and her eyes half shut.

  ‘No porno pics, now,’ Thom said to them with a wink, and then he turned to greet the next set of guests.

  Jonny took her hand again and led her forward into the glittering room. At first glance, Jane thought that about half the people in the room looked familiar. At second glance, she realised that was because the half she recognised were famous—and the other half probably were, too, only she wouldn’t know because she didn’t have much time to watch television or movies or read celebrity magazines.

  ‘Smile,’ she heard somebody say, and Jonny pulled her quickly to his side and pressed a kiss to her cheek as a camera snapped and flashed. The camera owner, a small blonde, giggled at them and moved on to take some more photos.

  ‘Perfect,’ Jonny murmured to her.

  ‘I’m not sure I like having my picture taken so much,’ she said, twisting her head around to check if someone else was going to ambush them.

  ‘It’s good,’ Jonny said, though his voice was a bit grim. ‘We’ve got documentary evidence. If we play it right, we can have our photo snapped together dozens of times tonight, every time being a perfect couple. Isn’t that the sort of thing you want?’

  ‘I’m—’ She clapped her mouth shut as another flash went off near them. She’d been about to say she wasn’t sure of that, either. But then that was ridiculous. Showing the world that she and Jonny were a perfect couple was exactly what she’d planned.

  ‘Jane,’ someone said to her, and this time she recognised the voice as well as the face: Hasan, from the office, with his wife, Sharon.

  Jane greeted them with the customary air kisses on both cheeks. ‘So good to see you,’ she said, and then turned to present Jonny. ‘Hasan, Sharon, this is Jo—’

  ‘Jay Richard,’ Jonny quickly and smoothly interrupted, and shook hands with the couple. Jane bit her lip at her near-mistake.

  ‘You’re the model working on the Franco cologne campaign, aren’t you?’ Hasan was acting merely polite and professional, but Jane caught an extra whiff of interest. Of course, he was the one who’d picked up on tension between her and Gary the other day … and in the office it was open season on gossip about the break-up and Jane’s new relationship.

  Sharon confirmed her thoughts by stepping slightly aside with her and saying, in a low voice, ‘I was so sorry to hear that it didn’t work out between you and Gary.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Jane said. Though she wasn’t sure what one was supposed to say in this situation. ‘Thank you’ didn’t seem quite appropriate, but then again nor did, ‘It’s none of your business,’ since Jane’s love life seemed to be being conducted in public and she couldn’t exactly blame people for talking about it.

  ‘Your date is very handsome,’ Sharon continued.

  Irritation flared through Jane, though again she couldn’t say why, because that comment was precisely the reason that she was at this party. She bit off the ‘thank you’ that seemed to be required again, and merely nodded.

  Sharon seemed to take that as encouragement to greater intimacy. She put her hand on Jane’s arm and leaned closer, her voice lower.

  ‘What’s it like to date a model? I’ll bet you get envious looks from every woman in the room.’

  ‘There is a bit of that,’ Jane replied, only just overcoming her irritation enough to avoid pulling away from Sharon’s insistent grip. She’d been to social occasions with Sharon before, once or twice as couples with her and Gary and Sharon and Hasan. Mostly Jane preferred to talk with the men, with whom she could discuss business. But of course she’d been expected to talk to Sharon, as the other female. As she remembered, her conversations with Sharon had been purely superficial, chat about things such as the latest big news item or the weather or property prices in London. There had never been anything as personal as this.

  But then maybe that was how female friendships worked, on an exchange of gossip and confidences. Jane smiled and tried for the same bright intimacy as Sharon.

  ‘You must be used to admiring looks yourself,’ she said. ‘Hasan’s a very good-looking man.’

  Sharon’s face immediately closed. ‘Yes, he is,’ she said, unmistakable hostility in her voice. She dropped Jane’s arm and put her own arm in Hasan’s, breaking eye contact with Jane to look lovingly at her husband instead as he chatted with Jonny.

  So that was it. It was common knowledge that Jane had hopped from one relationship to another with an incredibly good-looking man, and therefore she was a man-hungry threat.

  What on earth was she supposed to do? Women didn’t want to be her friend when she was in a steady relationship … and now that she was supposed to be excitingly dating, she was equally un-befriendable.

  Jane sighed. Better to be a threat than an object of pity. She put her smile back on as Jonny wound up his conversation with Hasan, which Sharon had now joined, and wandered off with him when he took her hand again.

  ‘That went well,’ Jonny murmured to her.

  ‘Exactly according to plan,’ she replied.

  He slanted a look at her. ‘You don’t seem very happy about it.’

  ‘It’s—’ She sighed again. ‘Oh, I don’t know. I just don’t know what people expect of me, that’s all.’

  ‘They expect you to be happy,’ Jonny said firmly. ‘So we’ll give them what they want.’

  ‘But I don’t—’

  I don’t know how to be friends with anybody. It seemed like such a pathetic admission to make.

  ‘You don’t what?’

  She tried half of it. ‘I’m not good with women. I’m not really sure how to behave with them so they’ll like me.’

  ‘Men are easier?’ He asked it with a tilt of his head and a half-smile, as if he found the idea amusing.

  ‘Y
es. I mean, look at Thom. What you see is what you get with him. He tells you exactly what he expects of you, and he’s happy when you’re happy.’

  ‘Yes. But Thom’s not exactly your usual bloke.’

  ‘True.’ She tried to think of how to explain. ‘I think it’s from having four brothers. I’ve always been more comfortable around men, if I can deal with them as equals. They don’t hide what they want.’

  ‘I wouldn’t count on it,’ Jonny said.

  He’d sounded as if he was saying it more to himself than her, but she responded to the comment anyway.

  ‘You’re probably right. I don’t really know what men want, either.’

  ‘Look out, camera.’

  Jonny swung her into his arms and without any warning, he was kissing her.

  Her body reacted before her mind even knew what was happening. She arched up into him and buried her fingers in the soft hair at the nape of his neck, parting her lips under his and feeling a delicious shudder go through her as his tongue touched the inside of her lip, and his mouth took control of every nerve ending in her body.

  There was a click. Jonny held the kiss for a second more, and then he let her go.

  Fortunately his arms were still around her, or else she would have tottered. The room was swaying and he was the only steady thing in it.

  ‘That was perfect,’ he said.

  It was more than perfect, she thought. Tender, passionate, and drenched with desire. She lifted her lips towards his for another kiss. One wasn’t enough. Never enough, when it was this good, and she and Jonny wanted each other so much.

  And then she remembered.

  It was perfect because it had been caught on camera.

  She hesitated, her head tilted towards his, her arms still around his neck, her mouth offered up to him. What was real here, and what was fake? Because you couldn’t fake a kiss like that, could you?

  ‘Jonny,’ she said, and searched his blue eyes for a sign.

  He put his fingers on her lips, so gently that it would seem to anyone else that it was a caress, part of their kiss.

  ‘No, Jane. Don’t call me that.’ His voice was low and smooth. ‘I’m Jay Richard tonight, remember? The model you had wild sex with on the first date. Not the normal man you’ve known for years.’

  He let her go, and stepped back from her. She noticed that his clothing was unrumpled.

  ‘I could use a drink,’ he said. ‘What would you like? Champagne?’

  She nodded, and he was gone.

  Oh, what a mess. Jane hauled in a shaky breath and leaned against a fortuitously placed column to prop up her unsteady, lust-ridden body.

  She really had no clue what men wanted, if Jonny could walk away from a kiss like that with nothing more than a reminder to her about what to call him.

  She looked around the room. It was full of beautiful people, beautifully dressed, laughing and talking and having a good time.

  Were they all putting on a show, too? Or did they have something that Jane lacked, something that let them connect with others, stop being self-conscious, stop second-guessing and just be?

  Jane bit her lip and fiddled with the smooth heart-shaped pendant on her chest. It was warm from her skin, most likely because Jonny’s touch and his kiss were heating her up.

  ‘Jane.’

  She recognised this voice, too; it was Amy, breathless from hurrying across the room, wearing a man’s tuxedo that had been altered to fit her small, curvy body. Despite the male clothing she looked incredibly feminine, with patent leather high heels on her feet and her hair piled in a jumble of glossy curls on her head. She held a half-full champagne flute of orange juice in her hand.

  ‘Can I lean here with you?’ she asked. ‘These shoes are killing me already. And if I sit down I’m afraid nobody is going to talk with me.’

  Jane made room beside her at the column and Amy joined her, leaning her back up against it with a sound of relief.

  ‘This is all so overwhelming, isn’t it?’ Amy continued. ‘The last party I went to was a birthday bash for one of Stacy’s school friends. It was in McDonald’s.’ She surveyed the room. ‘This is very grown-up. And have you seen the clothes on these people? Lots of them work in the fashion world and, boy, don’t they look it?’

  ‘I like your outfit,’ Jane said honestly. ‘It suits you.’

  ‘Oh. Thanks. I ended up ditching the thing I bought and going for this instead. I thought I’d be more comfortable, but all I can think of is the fact that I bought it for twelve pounds fifty on the Portobello Road four years ago and that it’s held together with safety pins.’

  Jane laughed, and Amy grinned back at her. Apparently she wasn’t touchy about her worries.

  ‘I keep on thinking about looking like candyfloss,’ Jane admitted.

  ‘No, you suit pink. It brings out your skin tone; you could wear it more. Besides, that’s not candyfloss, that’s rose.’

  ‘Is there a difference?’

  Amy rolled her eyes. ‘And this is why I’m a lowly art person while you’re the boss.’

  ‘And probably why I don’t wear pink more often.’

  Amy nodded and took a drink of her orange juice, looking around the room again. ‘Jane, you know what Thom Erikson’s like, don’t you?’

  ‘I’ve worked with him several times,’ Jane answered. ‘Why?’

  ‘Oh, he was just so nice when he invited me to the party. He seemed really friendly, you know. But tonight he basically said hello to me and then that was it. I was wondering if that’s the way he is, or if I’d done something wrong.’

  Jane only knew at that moment that she’d finally relaxed a bit, because she could feel the difference when she instantly tensed. Thom’s behaviour was her fault, because she’d told him about Stacy. Some friend she was.

  ‘I don’t think you’ve done anything wrong,’ she said.

  ‘Maybe he’s busy with his guests.’

  Jane debated whether she should tell Amy that Thom had said she was a ‘hot babe’, but then decided it would only make things worse. ‘Maybe you should find him and talk with him.’

  Amy seemed to brighten a little. ‘Yeah, maybe. It can’t hurt, right?’ She gestured towards Jonny, who was crossing the room towards them, a glass of champagne in each hand. ‘I should definitely take your advice. You’re my hero at the moment. You didn’t let yourself get down after your break-up with Gary, you went right out there and grabbed life with both hands!’

  Jane squirmed. ‘I wouldn’t say that was exactly heroic.’

  ‘Of course it is. I never would have the guts up to go out with a model. I mean, look at me—I can hardly get it together to talk to a millionaire!’

  Amy laughed but Jane couldn’t really share her mirth. Two minutes ago she’d been feeling comfortable, and now she was returning Amy’s easy confidences with the same lie she was giving to everyone else in the room.

  ‘Hi, Amy,’ Jonny said as he approached them. He handed one glass of champagne to Jane and offered the other to Amy, who shook her head. ‘Are you enjoying the party?’

  ‘Yes, very much, thanks, Jay. Jane was just giving me a little pep talk.’

  ‘It wasn’t much of a pep talk, I’m afraid.’ Jane twisted her necklace around her fingers, tight enough to hurt.

  ‘It was exactly what I needed. That’s a pretty necklace.’

  ‘Oh. Thanks. Jo—Jay gave it to me.’ She couldn’t help but catch Jonny’s eye as she said it, and she saw his slight nod of approval. It made her twist her fingers even more tightly.

  ‘Good taste,’ Amy told Jonny.

  ‘Definitely.’ Jonny put his arm around Jane’s shoulders and held her close to his side.

  ‘So will you try talking with him?’ Jane asked, stiffening a little in Jonny’s embrace. Right now it seemed too … possessive. As if by pretending to be having a relationship with her, he was pretending to own her, too.

  ‘Yes,’ Amy said decisively, and put down her juice glass on the tray of a
passing waiter. ‘I’m going to go find him now. Wish me luck.’

  ‘Good luck,’ Jane said, and Jonny echoed her.

  ‘What are we wishing her luck for?’ he asked, watching Amy stride purposefully across the room in her black suit and high heels.

  ‘Talking with your Californian friend. I think he’s avoiding her.’ Jane took a long drink of her champagne, feeling the bubbles in her nose and throat, where they did absolutely nothing to relax her. ‘Did I say that men are more straightforward than women? Because I was utterly wrong.’ She swigged again.

  ‘Jane.’ For the third time tonight, she recognised the voice saying her name. And this one was the one she’d been dreading.

  She swallowed her champagne, took a deep breath, and turned to face Gary and Kathleen.

  CHAPTER NINE

  HE’D never seen Gary before, but Jonny knew who he was instantly from the way that Jane’s body tensed before she faced him.

  Gary was good-looking. He was tall and fit and had brown hair and eyes and a masculine dimple in his chin, like Cary Grant. Jonny felt his stomach tighten and he realised he hadn’t given much thought to what Gary looked like.

  He drew Jane a little closer to his side, though she had pulled herself up so straight that it was difficult to do.

  ‘Hello, Gary,’ she said, and he found himself searching for some warmth in her voice. There wasn’t much there beyond civility, but he was still bothered. Bothered that she was suppressing her feelings, bothered that this man was still so important to her that she’d arranged this whole charade for his benefit, bothered that he himself cared that Gary was attractive.

  And he’d said that appearances didn’t matter.

  ‘This must be the model,’ Gary said, holding out his hand, and Jonny was bothered by that, too.

  ‘Jay Richard,’ he said, shaking Gary’s hand, and wishing he’d been quick enough to get his introduction in first. Gary gripped his hand hard, with sharp stabs of shakes. A challenge, not a greeting.

  ‘The face of Franco cologne,’ Gary said. ‘I hope you’re wearing it.’

  ‘I’m afraid not, but I’ve got boxes of the stuff,’ Jay replied as pleasantly as he could. ‘I’d be happy to give you a bottle or six.’