My Phony Valentine

by Marie Ferrarella

  There was something about the look in her eyes that had him retreating. He wasn’t sure from what, only that he needed to place some distance here.

  The solemn expression changed his appearance entirely. It stripped him of his humanity. “They don’t cost that much to produce. Besides, I presume you’re going to want to keep them if we do wind up giving the account to you.”

  If. Well, that certainly took the shine off any thoughts she might have entertained about Mr. Christopher MacAffee and his generous nature.

  “Yes,” T.J. replied with just a touch of coolness, “we will.” And then she saw Megan snuggle up against King Penguin. The ring of frost melted from T.J.’s heart. A good deed was a good deed, never mind about the ramifications. “Still, it’s nice of you to let Megan handle the merchandise.”

  Christopher turned and then had to grab hold of the doorjamb to steady himself. Damn flu. “You did that before I had anything to say about it,” he retorted with more gruffness than the situation warranted.

  He was like a wounded bear. A cute, wounded bear in a blue nightshirt. The grin was spontaneous. “Don’t you know how to accept a compliment graciously?”

  “I thought I was.”

  Deftly she hooked her arm through his, determined to lead him back to the bed he had vacated.

  “Maybe it’s the fever.” She touched his head. “You’re cool.” Now there was a surprise. Despite what Christopher had said at the airport, she figured he’d be ill for several days.

  He could smell her hair. What was that? Jasmine? He would have thought someone in her position would have been wearing perfume that cost a few hundred dollars an ounce, not cologne. Still, it had a certain pleasing. arousing quality.

  “Is that your medical opinion, or a social assessment?” he asked.

  He was still a little shaky on his feet, she thought, and hoped that he wouldn’t collapse the way he had yesterday. She glanced toward her room, then back at Megan. The little girl was busy with the stuffed animals.

  “I don’t know you socially.” The words would have easily fit into Theresa’s mouth, she congratulated herself. Theresa flirted whenever the opportunity presented itself.

  He fell into the coy game effortlessly. “I’m told you know a lot of people socially.”

  Christopher saw a very formidable-looking woman emerging from another room. Taller than he, she made no attempt to disguise the fact that she was eyeing him. He was outnumbered.

  This had to be the housekeeper, he thought. If anything, the nightshirt looked as if it might be too short for her.

  Think Theresa, think Theresa. “I do,” T.J. told him, “but you’re not one of them. Yet.” They were at her bedroom door. She coaxed him across the threshold. “Now why don’t you get back to bed and I’ll bring around some chicken soup? I think you’re up to eating that.”

  He did still feel a little shaky. Suddenly the bed looked incredibly inviting. Only when he got into it did he look at the woman he thought was Theresa Cochran, thunderstruck. “You’re kidding, right?”

  She grinned, relieved that he hadn’t passed out before she’d gotten him into bed. “I never kid when leading a man into my bedroom.”

  There was no sense in fighting it. “Any chance of some chicken in that chicken soup?”

  “Every chance in the world,” she promised with a smile, easing out of the room.

  So far, she thought, so good.

  4

  THE FRAGRANCE that seemed woven into her hair surrounded him, replacing the very air as she bent over his bed to remove the tray she had brought in earlier. It was all Christopher could do not to reach out and touch the dark strands, to see if her hair was as soft as the scent of it led him to believe it was.

  He fisted his hand around the sheet instead.

  “It was good. The soup,” he added when she turned her eyes up to his questioningly.

  And it had been. So had the company. She’d remained in the room while he was eating, talking about trivial things that somehow seemed important when coming from her lips. And somewhere along the line, as she talked and he ate, he realized that he was feeling a great deal more human than he had just a little while ago.

  He looked a little tense, T.J. thought. Well, that made two of them. Who would have thought that this charade would be so wearing on her? She didn’t like lying; it always tangled things up.

  Just like her stomach seemed to tangle up when he looked at her like that.

  “We aim to please,” T.J. answered as blithely as she could. She was about to whisk the tray away, but something kept her rooted to the spot. Deep, dark, green, the man’s eyes were more potent than Super Glue.

  Maybe it was the virus. He couldn’t blame it on the fever because that was gone. But something—he doubted it was inherent business sense, since this had nothing to do with business—told him she was sincere. That his comfort was of concern to her and that it went beyond the fact that he was a potential client.

  Or maybe he was just hallucinating. He tested the waters. “I believe you mean that.”

  T.J. cocked her head, as if that could somehow give her a better view of the inner workings of his mind. She would have been naive to believe that the toy business wasn’t as cutthroat as any other competitive business, but if she’d had her druthers, she would have wanted to believe that it wasn’t. Toys were the realm of children and nothing as jaded as cynicism should ever touch it.

  What sort of people was he used to dealing with? “Why wouldn’t I?”

  He shrugged. The ridiculous blue nightshirt swished against his shoulder blades. “Because I’m a stranger.”

  She leaned the tray against the bureau and smiled. “Not really. Your people have talked to my people.” Tongue in cheek, she teased, “In the nineties, that makes us practically family.”

  “Maybe.” He didn’t want her to leave. Not just yet. Christopher searched for something to say, for a way to make her remain just a moment longer. “You’re nothing like what I expected.”

  “Oh?” She took a breath, knowing she should stop right here, right now. There was no point in having him elaborate. It would be just asking for trouble. But she’d come this far, and curiosity was pushing the buttons. “And what was it that you expected?”

  He thought of the People magazine article his assistant had handed him just before he’d boarded his plane. Meant to supplement the report he already had on her, the article had been on Theresa Cochran and it was entitled “Beauty with Brains.” He was in complete agreement with the assessment, but it didn’t go far enough. Nowhere in the article did it mention the traits he’d been fleetingly privy to.

  Without thinking, Christopher reached for her hand. Wrapping his fingers around it, he continued. “Someone less nurturing for one. Someone who didn’t know her way around a kitchen.” He thought of the scene in the family room. “Or a child.”

  Did he realize that he was rubbing his thumb along the pulse in her wrist, or was he doing that unconsciously? Whichever it was, she wished he’d stop. She didn’t like the effect it was having on her knees.

  “Always Be Prepared, that’s my motto.” Tactfully she disentangled herself.

  Another piece of the puzzle presented itself to him. He tried to fit it in. Ordinarily he liked to know things about the people who worked for him only because then there was no room for surprises. He didn’t like surprises. Until now.

  “You were a Boy Scout?”

  “No, a Girl Scout.” A dimple flickered in the corner of her mouth. “Hey, we have Girl Scouts, even in Beverly Hills.” She had been a Girl Scout. Theresa, on the other hand, had viewed the idea of camping and selling cookies as beneath her.

  It occurred to him that he still didn’t know where he had been brought. “Is that where I am? Beverly Hills?”

  She didn’t know just how much he knew about Theresa. Her estate was in the most expensive section of Beverly Hills. Finances as well as preference had dictated that T.J. choose a far more down to earth are
a to settle in.

  “That’s where the office is, and we’re close to the office.”

  Was it him, or was she being deliberately vague in her answer? He decided that perhaps, in this case, he was being a bit too suspicious. He was accustomed to having to read between the lines. Rarely were things as aboveboard as they were here.

  Picking up the tray again, T.J. began to leave. “So, can I get you anything else?”

  The answer, “You” whispered along his mind like a soft spring breeze, surprising him.

  For a moment, he thought he’d said it aloud, but her expression hadn’t changed, so it must have been just his imagination. Something he was going to have to rein in. He hadn’t come here to play pattycake with a stunning woman. He’d come here to give or withhold his final seal of approval to a new advertising firm.

  But Christopher had to admit, if only to himself, that sick or not, the word merger was taking on a whole different meaning.

  He was getting better fast.

  There wasn’t even a television set in the room. And he was restless. More so now that she was in the room, bringing the scent of spring in with her.

  “I’m getting stir-crazy,” he admitted. He was used to doing things, not lying flat on his back.

  She smiled. “You’re getting better.” It took her only a moment to make up her mind. Any longer and she might have thought better of the idea. “How about if I let you graduate to the sofa?”

  “Excuse me?”

  Her tongue was getting ahead of her. He really was rattling her. “You can come into the family room and watch cartoons with Megan and me.” She saw that the suggestion wasn’t bowling him over, but if she was going to be around him, it was safer if she had something to divert her attention away from his eyes. Megan was the likeliest choice. “I have over twenty-four hours’ worth of tapes for you to choose from if the programs that are on don’t please you.”

  What the hell? He’d never watched Saturday morning cartoons, even as a child. His nannies hadn’t approved of “mindless animation.” It might be interesting at that. At least he could say he’d actually done it once.

  But something wasn’t quite right with the picture. “That’s an awful lot of cartoon tapes to keep for someone who doesn’t live with you.”

  The dossier he’d received on her hadn’t hinted that the woman who periodically turned up at parties on both sides of the Atlantic was someone who would watch cartoons or stock them for a niece. But then, it hadn’t led him to believe that she was capable of rolling around on the floor with a two-year-old, either. And he had seen that with his own eyes.

  The lady was full of surprises. Pleasant ones.

  She was going to have to remain on her toes. It made her feel weary. This, at least, was easy enough to explain away.

  “Megan’s here a lot. I send TJ. off regularly on business trips. She’s very good at what she does.” T.J. bit her lip, then decided that there was no harm in building herself up. What she said was, after all, all true. “She put together the campaign for MacAffee Toys.”

  He’d been told that, too. “I’m impressed.” He knew he wouldn’t have admitted that so readily if he wasn’t in the process of recovering. Praise from him was hard-won and he doled out it slowly. Otherwise, whoever he was dealing with could capitalize on that and hold him at a disadvantage.

  But somehow, slowjy didn’t seem to fit the situation here. “I’d like to meet her sometime.”

  Meet, as in return. The sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach was becoming a familiar sensation. “Oh, I thought this was just a one-time visit. You know, to look over the troops to see if they’re battle fit.”

  He thought he detected nervousness in her voice and thought it rather odd. “That’s the way I usually operate, but it’s not something written in stone.”

  “I see.” He wasn’t supposed to return. It was what she and Theresa were counting on. So why did the thought of his returning bring such a rosy warmth with it? She had no time to analyze it or to upbraid herself for having ambivalent feelings. “Well, as I told you, T.J. is away this weekend. But I’m sure she’d be flattered by your assessment of her work if she were here.”

  Time to retreat before she tripped herself up. T.J. nodded at the tray in her hands. “Why don’t I clear this away and see about getting things set up in the family room?”

  There had already been a lot of time lost. Given a choice, he didn’t want to waste any more watching cartoons. “We really should—”

  She knew where he was going with this. She also knew that she had promised Megan she’d watch TV with her. T.J. loathed to break a promise. “I promise to have your briefcase in full view the entire time.” She saw that Christopher’s brows drew together. Misstep. Maybe he couldn’t be teased about work. She reconnoitered. “No one’s going to take any points off if you kick back, you know.”

  And with that, she left the room.

  Well, so much for choice, Christopher thought. He didn’t realize he was smiling until he saw his reflection in the wardrobe mirror.

  WALKING INTO THE KITCHEN, TJ. sighed as she deposited the tray on the table. Mechanically she rinsed off the soup bowl before placing it into the dishwasher. That made it a full load, she noted.

  Cecilia stood silently watching her and wasn’t quite sure how to read what she saw. “Well, you certainly don’t look like a woman who’s got a hell of a handsome-looking man in her bed.”

  T.J. could feel a headache building just behind her eyes. “That’s just the problem.”

  Cecilia laughed and shook her head. “Never heard it called that before.” She jerked her thumb in the general direction of T.J.’s room. “That’s the kind of ‘problem’ most women pray for. Have you taken a good look at that man?” She covered her chest with her hand. “Makes my heart flutter just to think about him.”

  Notwithstanding the fact that Cecilia’s view of male-female relations could stand a bit of updating, TJ. laughed. She shut the dishwasher door firmly and set the dials. The sound of rushing water followed. “He’s too short for you.”

  At six-four, Cecilia had gotten used to the fact that most men were. “Good things come in small packages.”

  TJ. wondered how their houseguest would have reacted to being called small. And how he would react if he ever discovered that he was being duped.

  “Not this time.”

  T.J.’s voice was definitely too pensive. Placing her hands on the younger woman’s arms, Cecilia turned her around until they faced one another. “All right, give. What’s wrong?”

  Where did she begin? “He thinks I’m Theresa.”

  Cecilia’s eyes narrowed. “I thought the whole idea was that he was supposed to think you’re Theresa.” And then it hit her. Clear as a tide pool in Miami. “Hey, wait a minute, you don’t want him to think you’re Theresa, do you?”

  TJ. shrugged her hands away. Cecilia had a way of seeing too much. “I don’t like lying.”

  There was more to it than that and they both knew it. Or at least one of them did, Cecilia thought. “It’s all a matter of interpretation. Sometimes a little lie moves things along.”

  “Little?” T.J. echoed, then laughed shortly. “The man thinks I’m the president of C & C Advertising.”

  Cecilia didn’t see what the big deal was. “And if your father hadn’t dropped out of the business world and disappeared into the African jungle, you might have been.”

  “South American jungle,” T.J. corrected. An uncustomary impatience reared its head. “And I like my position at the firm just fine.” She had no desire to be at the helm of the company. P.R. was Theresa’s specialty, not hers. “That’s not the problem.”

  Cecilia was grinning at her like someone who had the answer to the question in the bonus round.

  “What?”

  “You like him, don’t you?” There was a God, Cecilia thought with relief. At one point, she’d despaired that T.J. would waste her life in what amounted to seclusion. The way she had. S
urrounded by people, but alone.

  T.J. wanted to deny it. Heatedly. But the truth was, she just didn’t know. “Whether I do or not doesn’t matter—” She made a futile attempt to discredit Cecilia’s assumption. “And he hasn’t been here long enough for me to form any opinions about him. I just feel like rm trying to walk across quicksand.”

  Cecilia wrapped one long, comforting arm around TJ.’s shoulders. “Everyone knows you don’t walk across quicksand, you sprint if you can’t get around it any other way.” She dropped her hand to her side. “Is he going to be eating dinner at the table with us?”

  Where the man ate dinner didn’t affect the quantity prepared. “If he feels up to it.” She looked at Cecilia suspiciously. “Why?”

  “No reason.”

  The expression on Cecilia’s face was entirely too innocent and made TJ. feel uneasy. She prayed the woman wouldn’t attempt to try her hand at match-making. The sooner Christopher MacAffee was on a plane back to San Jose, the better she’d feel.

  “If you want to look at him, he’s going to be sitting in the family room as soon as I find a tape to put into the machine.” T.J. turned to leave.

  Cecilia raised her voice, calling after her. “I could run to the video store and rent Wild, Passionate Nights for you.”

  TJ. hoped her houseguest hadn’t heard that. “We’ll probably be watching Mr. Duck Goes to the City, thank you.” It was Megan’s favorite.

  Cecilia’s mouth dropped open as she stared at T.J. incredulously. “A cartoon? You’re going to have a gorgeous, unattached man sitting beside you on the sofa and you’re going to be watching cartoons?”

  She wasn’t going to be drawn into a debate about this. “Yup.”

  Cecilia could only shake her head. “You don’t believe in opening doors when opportunity pounds on them, do you?”

  It was time to place kidding aside. “This is not an opportunity, Cecilia. I just want to get through this charade intact. The sooner he gets well and goes back to San Jose, the sooner I’ll breathe easy.”

  The problem with experience, Cecilia thought with regret, was that you couldn’t pass it on. No one wanted it secondhand. “I hear you, but I just can’t believe you.”