“Yes. Rather quickly.”
“Oh, heck.” Meg blew out a breath, closed her eyes and did the very thing that had cost her so much in the past. She plunged in. “I’m not—I just can’t walk away when Edie and the others are at risk if there’s even a whisper of a chance that I can help. And…I don’t know how in the world anything I do might help save them, but I’ll try. I’ll do my part.”
“So, we have a deal.” He held out his hand. His very large, long-fingered masculine hand.
She hesitated, but only for a second. What was the risk, after all? She wouldn’t be foolish enough to start having romantic dreams about Etienne Gavard.
Meg placed her hand in his. The jolt she felt was expected. The extreme intensity of it was not. An unanticipated thrill ran down her arm, through her body and all the way to her toes. Every inch of her being felt as if it was humming. Were all French males this potent?
“I’ll see you in the morning, Meg,” he said. “I’ll pick you up at eight.”
“I know the way to Fieldman’s, Mr. Gavard.”
“Etienne. Call me Etienne. We’re partners in this venture, Meg. And we’ll be working side by side around the clock…on the Fieldman project and on your project as well. I’ll pick you up.”
He glanced down then, and Meg realized that Lightning had come out of the apartment onto the landing.
“You have a cat?” Etienne asked.
She laughed. “I’m not sure that I have a cat. Lightning has an attitude. Sometimes it’s more like she has a human than the other way around.”
“Lightning?” he asked. “She looks a bit lethargic.”
Meg shrugged. Lightning usually was lethargic, but knowing her cat’s moods, that wasn’t the term she would have used in this instance. Lightning was slowly, very slowly curling herself around Etienne’s leg in what could only be called an affectionate manner. “She doesn’t usually like men.”
“Ah. Then maybe you’ve simply been hanging around with a poor class of men.”
Meg couldn’t help herself then. She laughed.
“Did I say something amusing, Meg?”
“A little.” He’d also said something truthful. Besides Alan, Meg had experienced several other catastrophes with the opposite sex; men who flitted away when the next new and better woman came along. So…no more. She’d sworn off men. Fortunately Etienne was her boss. Despite her no men policy, bosses didn’t count. They were allowed.
“Someday I’ll ask you to explain why you laughed. I’ll see you tomorrow,” Etienne told her as he left.
When he was gone, the hall felt suddenly empty, bereft of those broad shoulders and all that overwhelmingly male anatomy. The right type of male if her cat was to be believed. Lightning sat on the top stair as if waiting for him to return.
“Forget it,” Meg told her cat. “He’s not for us. Not ever. And we’d better both keep that in mind. In just a few months he’ll be wooing women across the ocean. Gone forever. This is strictly business, I am not his type and you and I are not to allow ourselves to get attached in any way. Period.” So why did she feel as if she wanted to join Lightning and sit there waiting for tomorrow when Etienne would return?
Etienne lay back on the bed of his penthouse suite and tried not to think about a pair of worried caramel eyes. Why was he doing this? It was obvious that Meg Leighton wasn’t exactly thrilled about going back to Fieldman’s, and who could blame her? Her departure from the company had clearly been less than pleasant. Given what little he’d been able to glean about the Fieldman family, at least the sons, they had been users lacking not only business sense but also consciences.
He wondered why Alan Fieldman had fired Meg.
Not that it mattered. He could tell, just from their brief conversation and just by looking past her to her wildly decorated but thoughtful apartment and at the array of books on her shelves, that she had a brain and a desire to learn. The topics ranged from history to philosophy to various how-to books.
She obviously had gumption. She’d tried to keep him from steamrolling her. He felt a twinge of guilt at having used her friends’ financial situation to convince her and wondered for a second if he was any better than Alan Fieldman.
Probably not. He knew his flaws and his shortcomings all too well. But he was different. He was going to do everything in his power to keep Meg and her friends from getting hurt. And he was going to do his very best to fulfill the promise he’d made to Meg to help her carve out her own place in the business community. When he left in a few months—and his whole goal was to do his work and move on to the next job—she and her friends would, he hoped, be happy and smiling.
At the word smiling, he thought of Meg’s lips. She was a plain woman but her eyes and her lips were amazing. Just a slight twitch of those lips spoke volumes and called up unexpected heat in his body.
“Enough,” he told himself. “You know the rules. You never get to stay. You never get to take anything away other than a brief respite from the pain and a sufficient amount of money to move on to the next project.” Socializing with the subjects wasn’t allowed. Ever.
CHAPTER TWO
“WHERE is everyone?” Meg asked as they entered Fieldman’s Furnishings the next day.
Etienne looked around the big, empty office with weak sunlight filtering in through the streaked and dusty windows high overhead. It shone on the mottled blue carpeting that was worn thin in places. There was a crack in one of the walls, and despite the fact that people still worked here, the place smelled of neglect. “I gave them the day off,” he said.
“Excuse me? You did what?” Meg turned to him, her brown eyes open wide. She was wearing some wild red and white thing that hid a lot of her body, but wasn’t camouflage enough to hide the fact that she was shapely and generously curved.
He frowned at her reaction. “I sent them home. With pay,” he clarified. “Don’t worry, Meg. I didn’t turn your friends out without compensating them.”
Meg shook her head. “I didn’t mean that. I wasn’t accusing you of cheating Edie and the others. And I know this is so out of line, but I was just…The company is dying and you sent the workers home? Why would—I’m sorry for asking, but I just don’t understand why you would do that.”
He smiled suddenly. “Meg, see what a great help you’re going to be. Look, you’re already questioning my methods.”
Instantly she looked contrite. A lovely pink crept up from the neckline of her white blouse. “Don’t,” he said suddenly. “There’s no need to be embarrassed about the fact that you’re questioning me. It’s a good thing.”
She frowned. “I’m not embarrassed.”
“You’re blushing.”
“I never blush.”
But she was. And in a very pretty way. The bloom continued to spread, the faint rose accenting the full curve of her cheeks. Etienne raised one brow. “Yes. You’re blushing. If we’re going to work together, we need truth between us.”
Almost as if she couldn’t help herself, Meg reached up and touched her face. The pale, almost indiscernible scar that ran three inches from the corner of her lip toward her ear was now the only part of her face that wasn’t a delightful pink. There was something very…erotic about that small white scar, something that made a man think about placing his lips against that thin line and moving outward, kiss after kiss.
Etienne caught himself again and stopped that train of thought as