“Jane again?”
“Oh, no. Jane goes home to a husband and three lovely children.”
“And you?”
“I go home to cost-effectiveness reports.” Emily opened the door. “I have a very tough budget adviser.”
She didn’t turn around as she walked down the hall, but she could feel him watching her all the way to the elevator.
“How did it go?” Jane asked, following her into the office.
“Not well, but not badly, either.” Emily kicked off her shoes. “I really hate panty hose. They itch.”
“Back to Richard,” Jane said firmly. “What happened?”
“I tried to compromise. He told me what to do. He likes telling people what to do. He listened part of the time. At one point, he looked down my blouse and blushed. He asked me to dinner.”
“Wear something sexy.”
“I’m not going. I told him I had a previous engagement. He thought it was with you, but I told him you were happily married. That’s about it.”
“Go out with him.” Jane sat down and folded her arms on Emily’s desk. “Sleep with him.”
“Sell my body for a perfume campaign?” Emily shook her head. “Not likely.”
“No.” Jane leaned back, disgusted with her. “The hell with the perfume campaign. Share your body for a wonderful experience. He looks like a wonderful experience. Did you see his hands?”
Emily frowned. “I must have, but I didn’t pay attention.”
“He has great hands. And he’s really very charming. He’s a little obsessive about getting his own way, but he’s not a Hun.”
“No.”
“Listen, Em.” Jane leaned over the desk again and caught Emily’s hand. “I’m worried about you. You haven’t had a serious relationship since you dumped that fool Croswell in R & D. That was two years ago. You’re not getting any younger. You’re obsessive about your work, and that’s not going to change. You’ve just met a truly beautiful man who is also obsessive about his work, but who has focused his eyes on you long enough to ask you to dinner. You could build a life as obsessive executives together. You could have great obsessive sex together. You could have little obsessive children in suits together. This is the man for you. Go buy that pink lace bra and seduce this guy before you’re too old to wear pink lace.”
“I will never be too old to wear pink lace,” Emily said.
“Are you wearing any now?”
“What do you mean?”
“Do you have anything sexy or fun in your whole wardrobe?”
“I have some white lace. Sort of.”
“You may already be too old to wear pink lace. Mentally you’re already in gray flannel long johns.”
Emily sighed and thought about what Jane was saying because she always thought about what Jane was saying. Then she shook her head. “I could never be serious about somebody who told me what to do all the time. Telling people what to do is this guy’s reason for living.”
“So change him.” Jane leaned back again. “He has one tiny fault and the rest of him is perfect. Teach him not to boss you around.”
“Maybe.” Emily thought about it.
“That’s a start.” Jane got up to go. “Keep an open mind. I bet he can make love like crazy.”
Change him, Emily thought. No, better yet, change me. I’m in this position because I’m modest, cooperative and polite. Because I’m modest, cooperative and polite, I’m working for a vain, obstructive, rude man like George. And as if George wasn’t enough, now I have Richard Parker, the Budget Hun.
A Hun who can make my knees go weak when he smiles, dammit.
Well, no more of that, she told herself. I’m tired of being told what to do. Starting tomorrow, Richard Parker treats me like a partner, not a slave. Starting tomorrow, I am going to make that man listen to me.
And starting tomorrow, my knees are going to stiffen up, too.
CHAPTER TWO
“THAT MAN IS GOING to listen to me,” Emily told Jane the next morning. “I am going to be courteous and cooperative, but still forceful and demanding.”
“This should be interesting.” Jane looked skeptical.
“I will stun him with my competence.” Emily stuck out her chin. “I will keep an open mind.”
And during the week that followed, Emily did her best, but she was doomed. Richard kept ordering her to send him files, ordering her to meet him for meetings and ordering her to arrange conferences until she was ready to throw the whole campaign in his face. When she came into the office on Friday morning and Jane told her that Richard wanted her in the conference room, she broke.
“Too damn bad!” She slammed her briefcase down on her desk. “I have things to do.”
“Courteous and cooperative.” Jane handed her a folder. “Here’s his cost estimates. You won’t like them. I think it’s showdown time. Be nice to him, but let him know he can’t dictate to you. You know, forceful and demanding.”
“What happened to marry him and be obsessive together?”
“You can do both. Hey, I did the same thing with Ben. I was nice to him, but I let him know he couldn’t dictate to me.”
“Ben never dictates to you.”
“See?” Jane grinned at her. “It works.”
* * *
EMILY WAS RUNNING DOWN his cost estimates when Richard met her in the conference room.
“Here.” He tossed a small black bottle at her. “Put some of this on.”
She caught it and glared at him.
“It’s the product.” He dropped some folders onto the table and sat down, opening one. “Let’s see what it smells like.”
The hell with you, Emily thought. She held it out to him. “You put it on. We’ll see what it smells like on you.”
“I tried it last night.” He sorted through the folder without looking at her. “It took me two showers to get it all off before I came to work.”
“Then you know what it smells like.” She put the bottle on the table and returned her attention to the estimates.
“Put it on.” He pulled a legal pad for notes out of his briefcase. “See what you think.” He looked over at her for the first time and waited for her reaction.
Courteous and cooperative.
Emily sighed and pulled the stopper out of the bottle, putting her fingers over the opening and flipping the bottle over to release a few drops. She tapped the drops behind her ears and on her wrists, then replaced the stopper. “It’s nice.” She picked up the estimate report again.
“Just nice?” he asked.
“I’m not much for perfume,” she said, and he laughed.
“You’re responsible for selling four million dollars’ worth of perfume. I should think you’d be interested.”
“Look.” Emily dropped the report, exasperated. “If you got a job selling tampons tomorrow, you’d work hard so you’d be successful, right? Even though you personally aren’t much interested in tampons?”
Richard lost his smile, taken aback by