Buch lesen: «Totally Tempting»
Three of our sexiest, most successful bachelors!
Totally Tempting
Three powerful romances from three
fabulous Mills & Boon authors!
Totally Tempting
THE MAN MEANS BUSINESS
ANNETTE BROADRICK
TOTALLY TEXAN
MARY LYNN BAXTER
THE TEXAN’S FORBIDDEN AFFAIR
PEGGY MORELAND
MILLS & BOON
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THE MAN MEANS BUSINESS
ANNETTE BROADRICK
To Ralph and Betty Carruthers,
who believe that family comes first,
for which I’m extremely grateful.
One
“Man your battle stations! Incoming! Incoming!”
Jodie Cameron grinned at the innovative way the receptionist notified her that the man she worked for had finally arrived at the office on this gloomy winter day in Chicago.
“Thanks, Betty.” Jodie cleared her computer screen, brushed a wisp of hair that had escaped the tidy knot at the back of her neck away from her face and waited for him.
Jodie knew something was up with Dean Logan. In the five years she’d worked for him Dean had never come to work this late in the morning. He generally was already there when she arrived.
Earlier she’d checked his calendar to see if he was scheduled to go out of town, but he had nothing written down. She had wondered if he’d decided not to come in since it was Friday and he planned to go on a week’s vacation starting on Sunday. But that didn’t seem likely. He would have called to let her know.
This would be the first vacation he’d taken since she’d been his secretary, and she looked forward to having the time to clean out files, set up subfiles and work uninterrupted.
At least Betty had warned her that he wasn’t in the best of moods. Dean was moody at the best of times, but no matter how cranky he was this morning, she could put up with him for one more day.
She waited at her desk for him to enter her office.
Dean was an astute businessman and he’d worked hard to build his electronic security business. She had no idea why he didn’t appear content with what he’d accomplished during the past fifteen years.
The man looked more like a football player than the head of a multimillion-dollar corporation. Too bad he rarely smiled. As far as she could recall, she’d never heard him laugh.
He was not the jovial type.
His face looked as if it had been carved out of granite and his nose had been broken at some point. His heavy brows and piercing silver-blue eyes would never get him selected to a list of America’s sexiest bachelors.
Not that his looks stopped the bevy of beauties who flocked around him. Each hoped to have the distinction of becoming Mrs. Dean Logan.
From what Jodie could tell, he neither encouraged them nor discouraged them. Rachel Hunt was his latest arm candy. He’d been seeing her for almost three months now, which was close to a record for him.
Jodie knew when he started seeing someone new because he had her take care of sending flowers, ordering gifts, obtaining tickets for various events and, at times, listening to his comments about the women who came and went in his life.
He knew that most of the women were more interested in his money and connections than in him. He listened cynically to confessions of undying love and a yearning for a commitment he refused to give.
Hence the number of women who came in and out of his life.
There were times when Jodie saw the loneliness in his eyes. At some point, long before she’d come to work for him, Dean must have made the decision not to allow anyone to get close to him. She found that to be very sad. Not that she’d ever let him know that she pitied him. No, she listened when he needed to talk and kept her opinions to herself.
Of course, her sister would never believe that, since Jodie was known for expressing her opinion on myriad subjects at any given moment. She smiled at the thought.
Dean moved silently, and she had grown used to his suddenly appearing in her doorway. As he did now.
“Good morn—”
“No, it definitely is not a good morning.” Dean stopped in front of her desk, pulled an envelope out of his coat pocket and handed it to her. “I won’t need these.” He started into his office. “Would you mind getting me some coffee, please? I have a hellacious headache.”
“Sure,” she replied absently. She picked up the envelope and looked inside. The envelope held the airline tickets to Hawaii that she’d ordered for Dean and Rachel. Had Rachel changed her mind about going?
She stood and walked over to the coffeepot, filled one of the large mugs she kept nearby and followed him into his office.
Dean stood with his hands in his pockets looking out the window. She set the cup on his desk and sat in her usual chair.
“What happened, Dean?”
He didn’t answer right away. Instead he stared out at the spitting snow and occasional ice blowing against the glass. She waited.
After several minutes of silence, he turned and sat down behind his desk, reaching for the coffee. “Do you have any aspirin?”
“Certainly.” She went to the small bar behind a sliding door and poured him a glass of water before she picked up the aspirin bottle and set it in front of him.
He really was in a ferocious mood. His frown, always intimidating, was firmly in place. No wonder people were wary of him. She didn’t think he realized how gruff he sounded…and that was on one of his good days.
When she’d first gone to work for him, Jodie knew she had replaced a string of four women who had attempted to work for him and left after only a few weeks. So she’d been warned.
However, she was made of sterner stuff. She’d been raised with three brothers and she and her sister had learned to hold their own with the boys.
After several minutes of silence, Dean looked at her with a puzzled expression. “Why are you here?”
“I work here,” she replied with a straight face.
He closed his eyes. “Sorry. I’m not in the best of moods.”
No kidding. And he’d actually apologized! She must mark the day on her calendar.
“How long have you worked for me?”
“Five years.”
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“If I’m such a disagreeable person, why do you put up with me?”
“Who said you’re a disagreeable person? I find you extremely agreeable as long as you get your own way,” she replied lightly.
“Rachel says that everyone in this office is intimidated by me. But you aren’t.”
“I wasn’t aware that was part of my job description. Is that what’s bothering you this morning?”
“No.”
“Do you care what people in the office think of you?”
“No. Well, except for you. What do you think of me?”
She sat back in her chair and considered her answer. Finally she looked him in the eye and said, “I think you’re a brilliant man who is impatient with people, a man who has single-handedly built this company into a thriving corporation by ignoring the naysayers and following your own vision.”
“Hmph.”
He took the aspirin and drank the water. Then he picked up his coffee and sipped.
They sat in silence for several more minutes.
Finally Dean said, “Rachel broke up with me last night.”
She couldn’t hide her surprise. That must be a first for Dean. He was generally the one who broke things off any time a woman wanted more from him than he was willing to offer.
“Because you wanted her to go to Hawaii with you?” she asked, her disbelief plain.
He grimaced. “Actually she didn’t give me a chance to surprise her with the tickets before she informed me that she never wanted to see me again.”
Jodie was caught off guard by his admission. “Oh? I didn’t realize you’d planned the trip as a surprise.”
“Well, I did. Turns out I was the one surprised.”
“What in the world happened?”
“I forgot we had tickets to the opera last night. I worked late to clear my desk and I’d forgotten to put the opera on my calendar.”
“Oops.”
“By the time I checked my cell phone messages on the way home, I was an hour late picking her up.”
“Uh-oh.”
“She was furious when I arrived at her place. I pointed out that we could still get there before intermission. It wasn’t as if we didn’t know the story, after all. However, the opera no longer mattered as far as she was concerned.” He scrubbed his face with his hand. “She handed me a sack with the things I’d left in her apartment since we’ve been seeing each other and told me to get out.”
“Rachel was obviously upset at the time,” Jodie said. “Why don’t you call her today and tell her about the trip you’ve planned? I’m sure you’ll be back in her good graces once she discovers your surprise.”
He was shaking his head before she finished. “I’m not going to do that. She made it plain she wanted no part of me, so why should I bother?” His mouth turned up at the corners. “I’ll admit my ego might have been bruised a little and I went home to sulk, but she made it clear that we were through. I can accept that.”
He nodded toward the envelope she’d placed on his desk. “So,” he said with a shrug, “I won’t be needing those.”
Oh, dear. She’d promised herself never to offer her opinion unless he asked for it—and then any question he asked invariably had to do with business.
She wrestled with her conscience for a long moment but could no longer remain quiet. “I disagree,” she said bravely, bracing for his response. “I believe you need the time away whether Rachel is with you or not. You know you love Hawaii and it’s been three years since you acquired the condo there. I think you should go and spend some time on the beach. Forget the business for a few days. Catch up on your sleep. Once you’re there, I know you’ll enjoy it.”
He leaned back in his chair and stared at her. She waited for his salvo telling her to mind her own business. Jodie was surprised when instead he asked, “Do you think I’m married to my job?”
She eyed him uncertainly. This man had never questioned himself in front of her before. Now that he’d asked her opinion, she wondered how candid she could be while he was in this unusual mood. “Maybe,” she said cautiously.
He lowered his brows and stared at her. “Gee, thanks.”
She might as well continue. “Look at it this way. You needed to put in long hours when you first started the company and you got into the habit of spending most of your time here. Now you’ve hired people you can rely on to take care of the day-to-day business. Maybe it’s time for you to discover other things you might like to do with your life besides work.”
He rubbed his chin. “I suppose.” He shook his head. “I still can’t get over how angry Rachel was when I arrived. What did I do that was so bad, please tell me? She could have called a cab when she couldn’t reach me and been able to see the whole thing.”
“Did you by any chance call her after you listened to her messages?”
“Why? I was on my way to pick her up by that time.”
She coughed to hide her amusement. “My guess is that her irritation was the result of an accumulation of times when you’ve been late or forgotten to call or gone out of town without notice. Some women can find that sort of behavior off-putting.”
“You don’t.”
“You pay me quite well not to notice. Besides, I’m your secretary, not your girlfriend.”
He studied her in silence for a moment. “That’s only going to last another few months,” he said, not sounding at all pleased. “You’ll be moving over to Frank’s department in June.”
She grinned. “All thanks to you.”
“You caught me in a rare moment of gratitude for your hard work. You graduate with your degree in business this spring, don’t you?”
“That’s right. I wouldn’t have been able to take the night classes without your paying for my tuition.”
“I didn’t pay it,” he growled. “The company did. It was strictly a sound business decision. With your knowledge of the company and your quick grasp of things, it would be foolish to hold you back from exercising your full potential.”
He rubbed his forehead as though the headache was hanging on. “Of course, that means I’ll go through hell finding someone to work for me.”
“No, you won’t. I’ll do the screening. If I think someone—male or female—will be able to work with you without running the first time you raise your voice, I’ll set up an appointment for you to meet them.”
“I suppose that might work.” He didn’t look happy at the thought.
His decision to promote her had been quite a sacrifice for him and she knew it. Beneath that tough, gruff exterior was a very fair man.
Of course, he was clueless about women, but what man wasn’t?
“Do you socialize much?” he asked, surprising her again. He’d never shown any interest in her personal life. He was definitely in a strange mood today.
“I date occasionally. Of course, going to school three nights a week and studying takes up most of my spare time.”
“I work you too hard.”
She offered him a cheerful smile. “Comes with the territory.”
“The only reason I planned the trip was to appease Rachel, even if I was a little late in doing so. However, there is a man I’d like to meet in Honolulu. Steve Furukawa owns several businesses in the islands, and I’d like to offer our services to him.” He studied her for a moment. “In case he’s interested, I’d need you to help me make a presentation to him. I think we should both fly out there. We’ll spend a day or two on business and the rest of the time we’ll be on vacation.”
“Me?” She almost strangled on the word. “I can’t do something like that!”
“Why not?”
She stared at him in disbelief. Didn’t he understand? Obviously not.
“I’m in the middle of classes, for one thing. And it just doesn’t look right, our going to Hawaii together.”
“It will be a business trip.”
“You’ve never needed me on one before.”
“Jodie, you’re a very competent secretary and levelheaded. As for school, I doubt missing a week’s worth of classes will cause you to flunk. Will it?”
“Well, no, but—”
“Then I don’t see a problem.” He ruffled through the stack of files on his desk. “Would you check with accounting and see if they have the latest figures on the Malone file? I’d like to see them before lunch if possible.”
Two
“What did you say to him?” Jodie’s sister, Lynette, asked her that evening after dinner.
Jodie had a standing invitation for dinner at Chuck and Lynette’s home every Friday, but she’d never had such earthshaking news to share as she did tonight.
Chuck had called earlier to say he’d be home later than normal and for them not to hold dinner for him. Jodie hadn’t mentioned Dean’s plan when she’d arrived. Instead she’d helped with dinner and then made certain that her nephews, Kent and Kyle—seven and six respectively—got their baths and were ready for bed.
It was only after she’d joined Lynette in the living room while she nursed eight-week-old Emily that Jodie dropped her bombshell.
“I think I muttered something but don’t remember what. I was reeling.”
“You’re going, of course.”
“He practically ordered me to go,” Jodie wailed with a laugh.
“When are you supposed to leave?”
“The tickets are for Sunday morning. Early Sunday morning.”
“So his latest darling finally had enough of your romantically challenged boss, did she? She lasted longer than the others, though.”
“I think what got to him was that she was the one who broke things off. He usually has the privilege of doing that. At least he got a taste of what rejection feels like.”
“I can’t believe she turned down a trip to Hawaii. I would have gone and then broken up with him,” Lynette said with a grin.
“She didn’t know about his plans. He’d kept the trip a surprise.”
Lynette shook her head with disbelief. “Doesn’t the man know anything about women? The anticipation of going is part of the excitement.”
“We’re talking about Dean Logan. Of course he doesn’t know anything about us. For a brilliant businessman, he’s unnervingly obtuse about the opposite sex.”
“Well, who cares, if you get a free vacation out of it?”
“I’ll be missing three classes.”
“So? You’ve aced all your tests, you can easily catch up.”
The door opened between the garage and kitchen, and Lynette peered over her shoulder. Chuck was home.
“Good evening, all,” he said, sauntering into the room. He was a police detective for the city and looked good in his sports jacket and slacks. “How are my three favorite women doing?” He leaned over Lynette and gave her a leisurely kiss that made Jodie’s toes curl to watch.
When he straightened, he brushed his lips across the top of Emily’s head. Emily ignored him. Dinner was more important at the moment.
“Your dinner’s in the fridge. Just put it in the microwave.”
“How are things going for you, Jodie?” he asked casually as he turned to go back into the kitchen.
Before Jodie had a chance to answer, Lynette said, “Her boss has invited her to go with him to Hawaii for a week.”
Chuck stopped in his tracks and spun around. “Are you serious? Logan asked you to go away with him? Wow. Aren’t you the sly one? I had no idea you two were an item.”
“We’re not! Believe me, there is nothing going on in a romantic sense. The girl he’s been seeing broke up with him. He had the tickets. I suggested he should take the vacation anyway, and he decided to meet with a prospective client while he was there. He said he could use my help. So it will be a working vacation.”
Chuck grinned. “And you believed him.”
“Of course. Why shouldn’t I?”
Chuck, his dinner forgotten, sat down next to Lynette. “Jodie. Honey. Let’s get real, okay? A man doesn’t invite his good-looking secretary to go away with him to a tropical isle without some strictly male motive. He’s going to do his best to get you into his bed. Count on it.”
“Chuck!” Lynette kept her voice soft but emphatic. Jodie wondered how she did that. “Not every man has sex on the brain like you do.”
He gave her an intimate smile. “Oh, yes, they do. Some just hide it better than others.”
Jodie said, “You’re probably right, Chuck, but Dean is a definite exception. I’ve worked for him too many years not to know that he doesn’t notice me as a woman. I’m an efficient machine to him and that’s fine with me.”
“If you say so. When do you leave?”
“Sunday morning.”
“Have you ever been to Hawaii?”
“No.”
“Then go and enjoy yourself. I would guess he’s picking up the tab for your accommodations.”
“Actually he acquired a condo there a few years ago. It was part of a business deal he made. He went over to check it out and that’s the last time he was there. There are three bedrooms and three baths. I think the company he bought it from used the condo for the executives to, quote, get away, unquote, for some relaxation.”
“So he’ll have you right where he wants you for a leisurely seduction,” Chuck replied, twisting his imaginary mustache with a grin.
“Nothing wrong with your imagination, that’s for sure,” Jodie replied, laughing. “If you’d ever met him, you’d see how far off base you are.”
“Why? Is he some kind of monster?”
“Let’s just say he takes some getting used to. Once his business is completed he’ll probably forget that I’m there.”
Lynette said, “Now that’s carrying the platonic bit too far, sis. There’s bound to be a middle ground between what you’ve imagined and what my crazy husband came up with.”
“So you two think I should go ahead and plan to go?”
They answered in unison. “Yes.”
“But what about the talk around the office?” Jodie asked. “Won’t that give everyone the wrong idea?”
“So what?” Chuck answered. “It will give them something to gossip about. Probably improve morale. The office employees will start a betting pool as to when you’ll announce your engagement.”
“You’re a big help,” Lynette said, shaking her head at her spouse. “The idea here is to give her reasons to go, not make up stuff.”
“Well, since it looks as though I’m going, I’ll need to go shopping for beachwear tomorrow.”
“Great idea. Buy some things that are colorful and tropical. No business suits.” She eyed her for a moment. “You’ve said you never have time to get your hair cut. Why don’t you get it trimmed tomorrow, as well?”
Jodie nodded. “I could do that.”
“And get plenty of sunscreen. You know how easily we burn, thanks to our Scandinavian ancestors.”
Jodie looked at her arms and ruefully shook her head. “I hope to come back with at least a little more color. I’ll slather myself with the stuff and see what happens.”
Lynette lifted Emily to her shoulder and rubbed her back until she gave a very unladylike belch, causing the three of them to laugh. “I need to put her down,” Lynette said. “I’ll be right back.”
“I need to go, you guys. It’s been a long week,” Jodie said, rising. “And it looks like I’ll be spending tomorrow shopping.”
“Poor baby,” Lynette consoled with a grin. “That’s your favorite hobby in the entire world, and we both know it.”
“True. And buying summer things in the dead of winter will be just the thing I need to get into the spirit of the trip.”
Later that night while Jodie prepared for bed, she thought about the comments she’d heard tonight from Lynette and Chuck. She scrubbed her teeth and removed her makeup before looking in the mirror.
“Are you going to be brave and treat this as a chance in a lifetime to see Hawaii with all expenses paid?”
Here image stared back at her with sparkling eyes.
After a long pause, she sighed and said, “You’re no help. You want to see Hawaii. Will the trade-off be worth it? Hawaii with all its pleasures weighed against a week with a man who’s a workaholic? Knowing Dean, he’ll have us working the whole time we’re there.
Then again, we’re bound to find some time to enjoy the sun and sand.
She smiled as she crawled into bed.
