“Why don’t we go over the contract?” she suggested.
Nope, Nick didn’t want to do that, but they had to talk about something or he was going to do something they’d both regret—all right, he wouldn’t regret it, but he’d probably get slapped. “Who’s Roger and why do you have to replace him?” he asked, seizing on the first thing that popped into his head that didn’t have anything to do with his job. Or hers.
“Roger was my fiancé.”
“Was?”
“He backed out of our wedding.”
“So you came here to replace him?” Nick asked, not wasting his time on sympathy since she didn’t sound too upset. “Maybe you should play the field a little before you jump into another serious relationship. I could help you with that.”
“Lindy was only joking,” she said. “And even if she wasn’t, you’re a client and I never mix business and personal. And you were late.”
“Late would have been after the wedding.”
She frowned at him and even that was cute. Odd, Nick thought, that he should have this strong a reaction to a woman he’d only just met, but the more she tried to set a professional tone for their conversation the more determined he was to get some sort of personal response from her.
“I’m sorry I was late,” he said, realizing belatedly that he should probably apologize. “Time kind of got away from me.”
She reached across the table, and took his hand—not to mention his breath. She pushed his sleeve up and brushed her fingers across the back of his wrist. Little black spots danced in front of his eyes.
“Buy a watch,” she said.
“Huh?” he croaked.
“You’re not wearing a watch. It’s hard to be on time if you don’t actually know what time it is.”
Nick pulled his arm back. “How do you know it’s not on my other wrist?” And how was she not affected by touching him?
“You’re right-handed, which means you wear your watch on your left wrist.”
She sounded calm and efficient. But she wasn’t meeting his eyes anymore. Further investigation revealed the pulse pounding wildly in the hollow of her throat. His ego did a few cartwheels. Until he reminded himself that she was clearly a woman who made a decision and stuck to it. And she’d decided not to be interested in him that way.
So he’d have to change her mind.
“About your business, Mr. Porter…”
“We’re not going to have any fun at all if you don’t call me Nick.”
There she went, frowning again, as though she didn’t know what fun was or how to have it. Maybe she didn’t resemble an efficiency expert on the outside, but she definitely had the inner workings of one. “Look, Emmy, I’m a pretty laid-back guy most of the time. But my dad left me that business, and I…promised him I’d keep it going. It was suggested that I hire an efficiency expert, and you came highly recommended.” By a guy who held Nick’s fate in the palm of his hand. In truth, she’d been foisted on him, Nick decided, because foisting was what happened to you when you had no choice. Nick decided to keep that to himself, though, verbally and, he hoped, expression-wise. It wasn’t much of a challenge, since having Emmy foisted upon him didn’t feel like such a hardship.
She studied his face for a moment, then, apparently convinced of his sincerity, she opened a ruthlessly organized briefcase and extracted two copies of the contract they’d drawn up and traded via fax. “‘Streamline assembly operations,’” she read. “‘Redesign workflow, organize the office.’ That’s what we agreed on, correct?”
Nick chewed on all that for a moment. To a man who didn’t so much as plan his next meal in advance, Emmy’s sense of order was astounding. And just a little scary.
Scary or not, his decision had already been made. He pulled the contract over in front of him, searched his breast pocket and came up empty—probably because there wasn’t any pocket. After a brief and futile internal debate he plucked the pen out of her hand.
She watched him calmly, and when he slid the paperwork back to her she looked at the illegible scrawl that passed for his signature beneath her precisely written name. “Here’s your copy,” she said, returning one of the signed contracts to him, “and this one is for my files,” and back it went into her briefcase.
Nick rubbed his damp palms on his thighs and put the contract out of his mind, and so what if it felt as if he was hiring her under false pretenses? They were both getting something out of the deal—his loan, her consulting fee. And more importantly he got to see her again, because as little as he was looking forward to having an efficiency expert underfoot at Porter and Son, having Emmy Jones under…No, he probably shouldn’t finish that thought, or the mental picture that went along with it. As it was, it would be hard enough to face her on Monday morning. In more ways than one.
Chapter Two
Promptly at 8:00 a.m. the following Monday Emmy pushed through the door of Porter and Son, Inc., Practical Jokes and Everyday Gags, and presented herself at the desk of the receptionist. Her name plate said Stella, the expression on her face said she sampled the company’s products on a regular basis and found them highly entertaining, and she was eager to help, which she displayed by saying, “Can I help you?” and folding her hands together as if she were praying Emmy would say yes.
She was so bubbly Emmy took an involuntary step backward, worried the woman might overflow cheerfulness all over her new gray suit. “I’m here to see Nick Porter,” she said, and she handed over a business card—which was where the day began to go south.
Emmy knew her day had just headed south because this was the point at which her first day on a new job always began to go south. The instant they found out who she was.
Stella read the card, then turned it over as if she expected to see a smiley face on the back. And when she didn’t find a “just kidding,” or a disclaimer, or a mitigating explanation of any kind, she looked up at Emmy, mouth agape, eyes wide and filled with horrified fascination, not quite believing anyone was brazen enough to walk bald-faced into a perfectly respectable place of business with a card that read—
“Efficiency Expert,” Stella said, her personality morphing from bubbly to…another word that started with b. “Mr. Porter isn’t here.”
Emmy consulted her watch. Eight-oh-five. No surprise there. “I’ll wait,” she said, hoping Nick would make an appearance soon. Stella looked as though she was sucking on a pickle, and she’d already proven herself the kind of woman who didn’t come equipped with a filter between her feelings and the rest of the world.
“It could be some time before Mr. Porter shows—uh, arrives,” Stella said, frowning when Emmy appropriated one of the faux-leather lobby chairs for her briefcase and the other for her backside. “In fact, I’m almost sure Mr. Porter is out of the city this morning. Far out of the city. Visiting our rubber supplier.”
Emmy lifted her eyes from the paperwork she’d pulled out of her briefcase. “Rubber supplier?”
“Whoopee cushions, balloons, paddle balls. Rubber. What did you think I was talking about?”
A joke that took nine months to get to the punch line. “Nothing,” Emmy said.
“Perhaps