by Susan Meier
Drat. She’d hoped Olivia wouldn’t notice that tricky maneuvering use of “we” to make her think she had company for the subway.
Tucker caught Olivia’s hand to get her attention. “Ricky’s leaving.”
Eloise turned to see the guy who had tried to tell her stealing crackers was okay. He had dark hair and dark eyes, and he looked amazing in a tux. Sexy.
She sucked in a breath. Noticing he was sexy had been an accident. She refused to notice any guy until she was financially stable.
Olivia stood on tiptoes and kissed his cheek.
All right. He was tall. It was hard not to notice someone was tall.
He straightened away from Olivia, and Eloise frowned. It was also hard not to notice smooth, sexy brown eyes that had a sleepy, smoldering way of looking at a woman. And that hair? Dark. Shaggy. So out of style she should want to walk him to a hair salon. Instead, she was tempted to brush it off his forehead.
Wow. Seriously? What was wrong with her? She had not intended to take note of any of that. But the guy was simply too gorgeous not to notice.
“Good night, Ricky. Thanks for coming to the party. I hope you enjoyed it.”
“It was great.”
He kissed Olivia’s cheek, and Eloise stood there like an idiot, realizing her mistake. When he’d walked over, she should have taken advantage of Olivia’s preoccupation and slipped into the elevator. Nothing was worse than the guilt of a former roommate who hadn’t just found the love of her life but also her calling. While Eloise and Laura Beth floundered, Olivia had hit the life lottery and was married, pregnant and a manager for young artists. And now she couldn’t stop worrying about her former roommates.
Eloise didn’t want to be anybody’s burden. She was smart, educated. With the right job, she could be happy as a clam. It was finding that job that seemed impossible. Until she did, she’d be poor. And Olivia would worry.
Olivia glanced at Eloise and, as if just seeing the obvious, she gasped. “You’ve met Eloise, right?”
The guy named Ricky looked over at her. “I bumped into her by the fireplace.”
“She’s on her way home, but her friend left early.” Olivia winced. “Talking business with one of Tucker’s employees.”
Eloise supposed she shouldn’t be angry because that might lead to a better job for Laura Beth, but she knew the next words coming out of Olivia’s mouth before she even heard them.
“You have your limo, right?” She put her hand on her tummy, looking beautiful and Madonna like, the kind of woman no man could refuse. “You wouldn’t mind taking Eloise to her apartment, would you?”
Eloise immediately said, “No. I’m fine.”
At the same time, Ricky said, “Actually, I think I owe her a favor.”
Olivia beamed. “Great.”
The elevator doors swished open.
Ricky smiled at her and motioned to the door. “After you.”
She stepped inside. As the doors closed, she waved to Olivia. “Thanks again for inviting me.”
Tucker and Olivia waved back, looking like the perfect couple. “Thanks for coming.”
The doors met and the little car began its descent.
“So...your friend dumped you.”
“We’re both trying to find jobs that pay better than what we have so we can afford our rent. She was talking business with one of Tucker’s executives. I can’t fault her for that.”
“How long have you been in New York?”
“Three years.”
“That’s a long time to still be scraping by.”
“We were fine until Olivia left us.”
Even though she had a good excuse for her poverty, embarrassment rumbled through her. She might have been born into money, but she’d gone to the school of hard knocks. Paid her dues. Gotten her education in spite of her grief and confusion. Now all she wanted was a job.
Was that really so much to ask?
* * *
Ricky waited in silence as the elevator descended. From the tension crackling off Eloise Whatever-Her-Last-Name-Was, he could tell she wasn’t happy that he was taking her home. Actually, he could tell she wasn’t happy period. Her financial situation was abysmal. Her friend Olivia was living a great life. Her other friend had deserted her.
She had a lot of pride. Which he couldn’t argue. He had a bit of pride himself. But he wasn’t going to let a pretty single girl ride the subway alone after midnight. Especially not one who had made him laugh.
The elevator door opened and she sped out into the frosty cold night. He ambled behind her. When she reached the sidewalk, she stopped dramatically.
He wasn’t the only one who had called for his limo. Four long black cars sat in a cluster in front of the building. No way for her to pass. No way for her to hail a cab.
He paused behind her, slid his arm around her shoulders and pointed at the third one down. His fingers accidentally brushed the back of her neck, and the tips tingled at the feeling of her soft, soft skin.
He cleared his throat. “I’m number three. Just accept a ride.”
She straightened regally. “All right.”
When they reached his car, Norman, his driver, opened the door. She slid inside. He slid in beside her. A minute later, Norman’s door closed and the engine hummed to life.
“Wanna give me your address so I can tell the driver where to take you?”
She told him, then sat staring at her coat while he used the internal intercom system to inform Norman.
The next five minutes passed in silence. Finally, unable to bear her misery anymore, he said, “I really was as poor as you when I moved to the city. I don’t mind taking you home. This isn’t an imposition. It isn’t charity. It’s a happy coincidence that we were leaving at the same time. Please, stop feeling bad.”
To his surprise, she turned on him. “Feeling bad? I don’t feel bad! I’m mad. I’m sick of people pitying me when all I want is a decent job. I’m educated enough to get one, but no one seems to want me.”
“What’s your degree in?”
“Human resources.”
“Ouch. You know human resources functions can be folded into administration or accounting. And that’s exactly what happens in a recession.”
“I know. Lucky me.”
She had enough pride to fill an ocean. But she also had a weird sense of humor about it. Enough that he’d almost laughed again. Twice. In one night. Both times because of her.
“Now, don’t get snooty. Surely, there are other things you can do.”
“I’ve waitressed, and apparently a degree can also get you a lot of temporary secretarial work because right now I’m in a six-week gig at a law firm.”
“That’s something.”
She sighed tiredly. “Actually, it is. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. I know others have it a lot worse.”
He was one of those people who had it worse than she did. But he didn’t share that—not even with people who almost made him laugh. She’d go from treating him normally to feeling sorry for him. And for once, just once, he wanted to be with somebody who didn’t feel sorry for him.
He glanced at the floor and was nearly struck blind by the glitter of her shoes. His gazed traveled up her trim legs to the black cape she wore. Her shiny gold dress peeked above the coat’s collar.
For a struggling woman, she dressed very well. Of course, her clothes could be old. Or she could have gotten them from a secondhand store.
But even if she’d gotten them from a thrift store, she’d known what to choose and how to wear it. Actually, if he thought about it, she had the look of every socialite he’d been introduced to in the past year.
Except she wasn’t one. She didn’t have any money.
“What Laura Beth and I really need is
another roommate.”
He spared her a glance. “That shouldn’t be too hard to find.”
“Huh! We’ve tried. We never seem to pick someone who fits with us.”
He turned on the seat. “Really? Why?”
“The first girl we let in had a record we didn’t know about until her parole officer called.”
He chuckled, amazed that she’d done it again. So easily, so effortlessly, she could make him laugh. “I dated somebody like that once. Turned out abysmally.”
“Yeah, well, Judy took my coffeemaker when she left.”
“Ouch.”
“The references for the second one were faked.”
“You need Jason Jones.”
“Excuse me?”
“That’s the search engine I created. Well, I came up with the idea. Elias Greene actually wrote the programs. It investigates people.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. It’s great. It’ll tell you things you never even realized you wanted to know.” He smiled politely. “I’d let you use it for free.”
She squeezed her eyes shut in distress. “I don’t want your handouts. I don’t want anybody’s handouts!”
Yeah. He could see that. He didn’t know where she’d come from, but she had guts and grit. She wanted to make it on her own.
“We could bargain for it.”
She gasped and scrambled away from him. “Not on your life.”
He laughed. Again. Fourth time. “I’m not talking about sex.”
She relaxed but gave him a strange look. “I don’t have anything to bargain.” She petted her coat. “Unless you’re into vintage women’s clothes.”
“Nope. But you do have something I want.”
Her gazed strolled over to his cautiously, wary. “What?”
“Time.”
“Time?”
“Yeah. I have ten Christmas parties, a wedding and a fraternity reunion coming up. I need a date.”
CHAPTER TWO
ELOISE STARED AT Ricky Whatever. “I don’t even know your last name.”
“It’s Langley.” He smiled at her. Those silky brown eyes held her prisoner. “And yours?”
“Vaughn.”
He reached out and shook her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Eloise Vaughn.”
“So you have twelve places to go for Christmas and you want me to go out with you?”
“No. I want you to be my date. Big difference.”
She eyed him askance. “I’m not sure how.”
“There’d be nothing romantic between us.” He winced. “Except to pretend that there is. I need space. A reason to bow out of conversations. Bringing a date to parties has a way of giving a guy options.”
She studied him, realized he was serious and said the thing he was dancing around but wouldn’t quite say. “And you want people to stop fixing you up all the time. With someone at your side, they’d leave you alone.”
“It’s more complicated than that. Really what it comes down to is easing myself back into the world and into my social circle. A date at my side would be like a living symbol to my friends that I’m fine, and they can all stop worrying about me.”
Eloise got comfortable against the supple leather seat. He talked like a guy coming off a bad relationship. Nobody wanted to have to go to parties when they were smarting from a breakup. He probably didn’t want to have to explain where his ex was. Or, worse, have to flirt or be flirted with.
“So you’re looking for ways to be able to go to parties without being social.”
“I don’t mind being social. I just don’t want to have to be too social. Look, I’m not in the market for something romantic, so you’d be perfectly safe. You might even enjoy yourself. Meet some new people. Make some work contacts.”
Yep. Anybody who wasn’t in the market for something romantic was still hurting over a bad breakup. But he’d also said the magic words. Work contacts. The employment market was so tight she couldn’t even get interviews. But if she could meet the higher-ups of some companies, she might impress them and maybe open a door for herself.
“And I don’t have to do anything but smile and be polite?”
“And pretend to like me.”
She already sort of liked him. He was handsome and just a little bit scruffy, the way a man was when there was no woman in his life. And he was honest. So pretending to like him wouldn’t be hard.
“We’d need a story.”
“A story?”
“How we met. Why we’re dating.”
“Why don’t we just say we met at Olivia and Tucker’s party and hit it off?”
“It’s only half a lie. We did meet at the party. But we didn’t exactly hit it off. We barely spoke.”
“We’re talking like two friends now.”
She thought about that. “Yeah. I guess we are.” She sucked in a breath. “And you’d help me find a job?”
“You don’t want to use Jason Jones to find a roommate?”
“A roommate is temporary. I want a permanent solution. I want a career.”
His brow wrinkled. “Are you asking me to hire you?”
She gaped at him. “God, no! I don’t want to be the girl in the office who got her job by dating the boss. Sheesh! Talk about instant pariah. I want you to get me job with one of your friends.”
“I can’t get you hired, but I could help you make contacts.”
She shook her head. “If I’m going out with you—” She did the math in her head...ten parties, one wedding, one fraternity reunion “—twelve times, then I’m getting twelve dates’ worth of help.”
“What do you want me to do? Run an ad saying that someone should hire you?”
“I don’t care what you do. Pick your friends’ brains to see who’s looking for an HR person and get me interviews, and I’ll go out with you twelve,” she deliberately exaggerated the word so he’d see the significance of the big number, “times.”
His eyes told her he was doing a bit of mental calculating—proving he took her seriously—before he stuck out his hand to shake hers. “Deal.”
She took it. “Deal.”
They reached her apartment building. She slid out of the limo, and he did too. “You don’t have to walk me upstairs.”
“Someone could be hiding—”
She put her hand on his chest and was surprised that she met a solid wall. He was a lot stronger than he looked. Probably all muscle under that trim tux.
Now that they were going to spend a lot of time together, that meant something. She took in his handsome face. The fine lines that created his chiseled features. Those beautiful brown eyes.
A strange feeling worked its way through her. It took a second to recognize it, but it was attraction. Real attraction. Not just the I-think-he’s-handsome feeling. But more like the I-could-sleep-with-him-someday feeling.
Which would only wreck their deal and was the last thing in the world she wanted. She’d gone the route of love. Now she realized having a job was a more secure happily-ever-after. Plus, he’d said he wasn’t interested in anything romantic. She couldn’t be either.
She removed her hand. “This is where I draw the line. I’m fine walking myself upstairs. And you need to believe me.”
“But—”
“No.” With that she turned and strode into her building. He was handsome, but neither of them was in the market for a romance. And she needed their deal. She hadn’t been able to make job inroads for herself. He might be able to help her. She wouldn’t risk being alone with him outside her apartment door when there was so much goodnight-kiss potential. She might be strong, but she wasn’t perfect. She’d learned a long time ago that a smart woman didn’t tempt fate.
* * *
The next morning she woke confused. Or maybe disoriented. She hadn’t gotten drunk, so she didn’t have a hangover. But that meant she also didn’t have an excuse for agreeing to go on twelve dates with a stranger.
Although he wasn’t really a stranger. He was a friend of Olivia and Tucker’s. Someone Olivia liked enough that she’d gone up on tiptoes to kiss his cheek. Olivia would have the scoop on him.
She grabbed her phone from the bedside table and headed for the kitchen. After throwing together a pot of coffee in an old drip coffeemaker instead of her sleek one-cup one stolen by Judy, she speed dialed Olivia.
“Hi, this is Olivia Engle. You’ve reached my voice mail. Please leave a message after the beep.”
Drat. She’d forgotten Olivia and her family were leaving early for Kentucky. She wouldn’t have her phone on. Heck, she might not turn on her phone for the entire month of December. What had she said? She and Tucker would be having family time?
She tossed her phone to the table before she sat. So much for asking Olivia about Ricky Langley.
Laura Beth trudged into the kitchen. Her long brown hair lay in disarray on her shoulders. Her green eyes were barely open. “Who were you calling?”
“Olivia. I needed some insider information, but then I remembered she’s flying to Kentucky today.”
Reaching into the cupboard for a cup and a tea bag, Laura Beth asked, “What kind of insider information?”
“A little background on a guy. I think I may have found a way to get a job.”
Laura Beth’s eyes widened. “Really?”
“Yes. And, by the way, thanks for deserting me last night.”
“Sorry. Bruce heads Tucker’s newly created IT department. I went for coffee and got an interview.”
“Yeah, well, the guy I met last night wants a date for some parties.”
“Oh my God, you’re not—” Her eyes grew as big as two dinner plates and she couldn’t finish.
“Not that kind of date. Ricky Langley seems to be coming off a big breakup, and he doesn’t want to go to his Christmas social engagements alone. So he asked me to go to all his parties. In exchange, he’ll introduce me to influential people and pick their brains about job openings.”