Buch lesen: «Plain Jane Marries The Boss»

Chapter One

He entered the office humming. Humming! After all the stress he’d been under in the past couple of months, the pensive silences and long hours burning the midnight oil? Jane Miller couldn’t have been more surprised if her boss had carried a lamp post to swing himself around.

“Tonight’s the night, Jane.” He smiled broadly. She loved his teeth. Even, white teeth, made more charming by a slight crookedness in his smile.

In his French-tailored charcoal-gray suit, which Jane had noticed long ago picked up a light in his gray eyes and made his glossy dark hair look as black as pitch, he looked every inch the distinguished executive. Terrence Breckenridge III. Not many people were regal enough to carry such a name, but it fit Trey like a fine leather glove.

Most of the people in the offices of Breckenridge Construction said he should be a movie star. Jane agreed that he had the looks and the charisma to draw millions of fans, but she also knew he would never be interested in that sort of fame. Fortune, yes, but fame, no. He was too private for that. It was one of the things that attracted her the most about him during the five years she’d worked as his administrative assistant.

“Tonight’s the night,” he said again, and reached down to pull her out of her chair, whirling her around in what was probably a good imitation of Fred Astaire dancing with a coat rack.

“I—I have an important message for you,” Jane said stiffly, fixing her glasses and trying to regain her balance. Truthfully, though, her wobbly knees had more to do with his proximity than the fact that he was whirling her around the floor like a top.

“A message.” He pulled her close, as if to begin a tango. He smelled wonderful, she noticed—clean as spring but with a vague hint of sultry autumn—and the warmth of his body aligned with hers made her dizzy with excitement. “What’s the message?” he asked dramatically. He was joking with her but his mouth was so close to her ear that his low voice sent tremors down her spine.

She pulled away gracelessly, afraid that if she didn’t get some distance quickly she might try to get closer and make a real fool of herself. “One if by land, two if by sea,” she said with a smile, but her voice was thin with nerves. She smoothed back strands of her long auburn hair which had come loose from the heavy braid she wore down her back.

He clicked his tongue against his teeth. “Really, Jane, you’re going to have to start getting my messages to me sooner. That one’s already in the history books.” He smiled again and cocked his head toward his office. “Come on in, and have some coffee.”

She took a steno pad and pen off her desk. “As long as I bring it myself with a cup for you too, right?”

“Isn’t that part of a secretary’s job?”

“Administrative assistant.”

He lifted an eyebrow persuasively. “Girl friday?”

“Administrative assistant,” she said again, but she couldn’t help smiling.

“Ah.” He nodded. “In that case, can I get you a cup of coffee?” He started toward the machine across the room. “How do you take it? Just cream?”

A flush of pleasure washed over her. He knew how she liked her coffee. That tiny fact made her feel almost giddy. Immediately, she pushed the feeling away, remembering what she had to tell him. She glanced at her desk, at the While You Were Out…message pad. Dread niggled in the back of her mind. She wasn’t sure how he’d feel about this.

As well as she knew him, as thoroughly as she could predict his reactions in business, she had never been able to figure out his emotions or private life. Heaven knew she’d tried.

He was humming again. She hated to stop him, but there was no time to waste.

“Trey, seriously, I have a message for you.” She swallowed. “From Victoria.”

He stopped and was very still. Without turning around, he said, “Don’t tell me she’s canceling,” in a tone that suggested this would be a major calamity.

Jane fought the disappointment she felt at the fact that he cared so much. Thanks to the sheen of nervous perspiration on her face, her glasses slipped down the bridge of her nose and she pushed them back hastily.

He turned to face her and she knew she must be a terrible sight compared with the mental picture of Victoria he undoubtedly had right now. “Look, Trey, why don’t we go into your office so I can explain?”

“Tell me she’s not canceling on me tonight,” he repeated, the blood draining from his handsome face in an almost cartoon-like fashion.

Her heart beat a furious rhythm. She couldn’t believe she had to say this to him. She heaved a shuddering breath. Five years. For five years, nearly six, she’d wanted nothing more than to be with Trey, romantically. Not only had that not even come close to happening, but now she had to break up with him for someone else! “I’m afraid it’s worse than that.” She drew in a breath and let it out slowly. Just say it, she told herself. Get it over with. “She’s…she’s getting married.”

Trey stared at her in apparent disbelief.

“To someone else,” Jane added, unnecessarily.

“What, tonight?” Trey said at last. His tone was steeped in incredulity. “She’s getting married tonight?”

“Yes.” Jane took a steadying breath. Trey and Victoria had been going out together for exactly six months, one week and three days. Surely he had had an idea that there was someone else in Victoria’s life. “She said to tell you that someone named Bill had finally asked her and she wasn’t taking any chances by waiting and letting him change his mind.”

He raked a hand through his hair. “She’s waited three years for this guy—couldn’t she wait one more night?”

“You know about him?”

“Of course. Bill Lindon from Cosbot Technologies. Very big fish in a big ocean.” He gave a dry laugh. “She’ll make a good socialite.” His face darkened. “Which was exactly what I wanted her to do tonight.”

Jane’s heart, which had been pounding furiously, suddenly seemed to stop. “What do you mean? You’re not upset that she’s getting married, just that she’s doing it tonight?” Her heart rose. That she should feel hopeful at the idea that he didn’t love Victoria was as silly as a teenager being hopeful that a rock star was available. But she was hopeful nevertheless.

“Why should I be upset that she’s getting married?”

Jane frowned. “Because she’s your…aren’t you two…” She took a breath. “I just thought you two were an item.”

His expression lifted momentarily. “An item?” He gave a laugh. “I don’t think either one of us has time for that sort of thing.” He hesitated. “At least, I don’t.”

“Then you’re not involved?” The words came out in a rush and she instantly regretted being so transparent.

He looked at her with a puzzled expression on his face. “No. She was an actress, trying to get herself known in the same circles I have to socialize with now and then. We just went out together sometimes when the occasion called for couples. Served us both well, although she’s benefitting more than I am at the moment.”

Jane couldn’t help smiling broadly. He was free. Her pulse raced. There was no woman in his life at all. “Then don’t you find it romantic that she’s running off to get married?”

Trey gave a derisive snort. “Romantic for her, maybe, but damned inconvenient for me.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I was planning on taking her to dinner tonight. I was counting on it. What am I going to do now?” He turned to walk toward his office, dazed.

Jane followed at a careful distance. As well as she knew him, she didn’t understand this reaction at all. “Couldn’t you take someone else to dinner instead?”

He turned and looked at her with a helpless expression that she’d never seen on his face before. “Where am I going to find someone to say she’ll marry me at the last minute?” He walked to his desk and flopped into his mahogany leather chair looking so much like a discouraged child that Jane felt the urge to wrap her arms around him.

“Marry you,” she said in a rush of breath. She sat down opposite him and tried to keep her face from showing the devastation—not to mention confusion—she felt inside. “I don’t get it. You were planning on marrying Victoria?”

He looked at her blankly. “I wasn’t really going to marry her.”

“But you just said…”

“Nah, we were just going to say that.” He tipped the Ocean in a Box on his desk and watched the waves swell left and right. “I just needed to create that illusion. Just for tonight.”

Jane pinched the bridge of her nose to ward off a rapidly impending headache. “Why?”

“My father is in town briefly and I think he’s ready to sign over his shares of the company to me, if he believes I’m settling down into family life. When he does,” he held his arms out expansively, “I will finally have a controlling interest in this company.”

“You ought to,” Jane agreed. Trey had taken Breckenridge Construction from being a small-time contractor to being the most prestigious construction and building renovation company in Dallas. Maybe even in all of Texas. “But is it really all that urgent for you to hold control of the company? It’s just on paper, after all.”

“That’s the point. It’s not just on paper. If my father keeps putting the kibosh on jobs he doesn’t approve of, you know what we’ll be?”

“No, what?”

“The biggest school playground builders in Dallas. That is, until we go broke. Which wouldn’t take long.”

“But we’ve got the Davenport contract. That’s worth millions.”

“Exactly.” Trey jabbed a finger in the air. “If my father gets wind of that contract he’ll vote it down in a heartbeat.”

“He doesn’t know about it?”

Trey gave a dry laugh. “No way. The Davenport hotel chain was started by a man who was a staunch supporter of a political candidate my father couldn’t stand.”

“Does that matter?”

“It shouldn’t. But my father and Gutterson nearly came to blows over politics twice that I can remember. For twenty-five years now my father has refused to have anything to do with the company, even though Gutterson himself is long gone.”

“I see.”

“So we’re walking a tightrope. My father’s here for three days, during which time he has to not hear about the Davenport contract and sign the controlling shares of the company over to me.”

Jane nodded. “But I don’t quite understand what being a family man has to do with running the company.”

She was almost sure his expression softened when he looked at her. “Neither do I, but those are his conditions. He’s always had this weird thing about wanting me to settle down and, as he says, get my priorities straight before taking on the whole company.”

She didn’t think that was so weird, but decided it would be best if she didn’t say so.

“So I sort of led him to believe that I was in a serious relationship, headed straight for the altar.” He absently touched the ring finger on his left hand.

“Ah, I see.” Finally she was beginning to understand. Victoria was an actress. She wasn’t really Trey’s girlfriend, but she played the role as part of an agreement between them. In a strange sort of way it made sense. It certainly explained why they had so often asked Jane to get Victoria on the phone at the last minute when an event came up. It also explained why he usually had Jane arrange for a car to pick Victoria up and take her wherever it was they were going, rather than picking her up himself.

How ironic that Trey had asked someone else to play the role of girlfriend for him when Jane wanted the job so desperately herself. But he couldn’t see that. And she couldn’t show it.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?” she asked, instinctively raising a hand to her face.

“Like I’m the devil himself.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You know, I do have the company’s best interest at heart here.” He shrugged. “It was a harmless lie, good for my father, good for me and good for the company.”

“Everyone wins?”

“Exactly. You do realize that if we keep going the way we are, with no solid leadership, we’re going to have to do some downsizing? That means people will lose their jobs. I could prevent that, if I had control.”

“Can’t you just buy more shares yourself?”

He shook his head. “I’ve done everything I could to get more shares, and our other investors, at least the ones I can identify, just aren’t budging.”

Jane began to calculate the worth of her own shares, then stopped. It wasn’t even close to what he would need. She was saving for her eventual retirement, so her interest was based on the forty-year savings plan, not controlling shares. “But if your father is willing to sign over his shares—”

“That’s just it. If he’s willing. But now…” He made a gesture of futility. “Unless Victoria shows up, he’s going to go back to Europe and leave me here with my piddly eighteen percent. I mean, telling him I’m serious about a relationship and then losing the girl looks worse than never having been serious in the first place.”

“I see.”

“Though it wouldn’t necessarily have to be Victoria…” He tapped his fingers on the desk. “It could be anyone.”

Jane’s mouth suddenly felt dry. “Doesn’t your father know who Victoria is?”

He shrugged. “Actually, no. I never said her name. He lives in Tuscany—”

“The south of France,” Jane corrected automatically, still thinking about the fact that Victoria wasn’t really a contender after all.

“What’s that?”

She returned her attention to the conversation. “It’s the south of France, not Tuscany.” She’d heard the stories of how the elder Terrence Breckenridge had suddenly abandoned the business he’d founded to move to a quiet life near Provence. It was Jane’s fantasy that someday she, too, would have that kind of nerve, so his destination had stuck in her mind.

“South of France, that’s right.” Trey looked impressed. “When we spoke, it was a bad phone connection, I just told him we’d talk about it when he got here.” Optimism was lighting his eyes. “And now that he’s here, I need a girl. Fast.”

Jane sensed disaster in that plan. “Can’t you just tell your father the truth?”

“No way.” He gave a spike of humorless laughter and leaned back in his chair. “This is harmless enough and—you’re looking at me that way again. What’s wrong?”

She shook her head. “It’s none of my business.”

“But?”

She shrugged. How could she tell him all the things that were running through her mind, about him and marriage and love? “I just take the idea of marriage seriously.”

“So do I. That’s why I don’t want anything to do with it.” He leaned forward. “I have a theory that nothing kills all hope for future happiness like getting married.”

Her heart sank. “That’s a depressing thought.”

“I know it is, but it’s true. I don’t know of one lasting union that’s turned out happy.” He paused. “Do you?”

“Many,” she answered quickly. Immediately she questioned herself. Could she say her parents? Her father had died when she was eleven, but until then they had seemed happy together. Her mother had certainly been unhappy once he was gone.

“Name one.”

“I could name several, but no one you know.”

“Hmm.” He obviously didn’t believe her.

“Can’t you think of even one?”

“Not one.”

“How about your parents?” It was a mistake, she realized immediately.

Trey’s expression froze. His mouth was still turned up in the suggestion of a smile but the humor had left his eyes. “In my opinion, marriage is an institution that doesn’t work.”

Very bad subject. She made a mental note of it. “Okay, so does your father know you feel that way about marriage?”

He shook his head. “Nope. Unfortunately, I’ve got to play his little game if I want to win.”

“All to get the company?”

His eyes hardened. “I’ve worked damn hard to build this business, and if you get right down to it, the old man’s not exactly playing fair by ransoming it for a promise of marriage.”

“Do you really feel marriage is such a bad thing?” She gathered her courage. “Or do you think you just haven’t met the right girl yet?”

He considered her for a moment. “Let me put it this way, my relationship with you is the longest relationship I’ve ever had with a woman.” He gave a half smile. “I don’t think that’s going to change. But if I create the impression that I’m involved and heading toward the altar to make the old man happy, it’s not so bad, is it?”

“I guess not.” But she wasn’t sure.

He straightened up. “Then you understand.”

“I think I do.” She wasn’t sure at all.

He heaved a breath. “Victoria was perfect for the job.”

Meaning, Jane supposed, that not only was she an actress, but she was gorgeous. Looks were almost all that were required. She looked down, privately wishing, for the thousandth time, that she could have just a week of being perfect in the way that blond, petite curvaceous Victoria Benson was. Just to see what it felt like.

At five feet eleven and skinny as a rail, Jane had always felt awkward and conspicuous. Some people might have reveled in that, but she was also so painfully shy that the fact that her height called so much attention to her was the cruelest irony.

So for most of her twenty-six years she’d tried to blend in, to be as unnoticeable as possible. She kept her straight hair pulled back, wore plain black-rimmed glasses, neutral functional clothes and no makeup. It worked. People hardly noticed her, especially if she wasn’t right next to them.

She was, in the most literal sense, a plain Jane. The old-fashioned name which had been her grandmother’s suited her well.

Across from her, Trey cocked his head and looked at her intensely. “Jane, you wouldn’t…”

She frowned. “Wouldn’t what?”

He leaned forward in what she recognized as his pitch position. “Jane, you know I’d never want you to do something you’re uncomfortable with.”

Her heart lurched to her throat. “Like making coffee for my boss?” She tried to make her tone light but her voice was barely more than a whisper.

He smiled. “How about pretending you’re engaged to your boss?”

Had she heard him correctly? Or had she slipped into a dream? “You want me to—”

“You’re right, it’s completely outside the bounds of your job description. I have no right to even ask, but I’m asking anyway. Will you even consider it?”

Jane felt the heat of self-consciousness creep into her cheeks. “Trey, who would believe you’d marry me?”

“Why not?” He looked genuinely puzzled and for that she felt more affection for him than she ever had before.

Her chest warmed into an ache. “Well, I’m hardly a glamour girl.”

He leaned back in his chair and appraised her. “I don’t even know what that means. You’d do just fine.” He must have realized how unenthusiastic that sounded because he immediately added, “You’d be great. Probably even better than Victoria.”

Jane gave a laugh. “There’s no way you’re going to make me believe that.”

“Please consider it,” he said soberly. “Please.”

“It would never work.”

“It has to.”

She took a slow, calming breath. “Well…”

“Is that a yes?”

“If you really think this can work…”

“Is that a yes?” he pressed again. “Please say that’s a yes.”

She shrugged. “I guess it is.”

He smiled broadly. “Jane, Jane, Jane, you are a lifesaver. I don’t know how to thank you.”

“Just doing my job,” she said, in what she had intended to be a joke.

He scoffed. “This goes well beyond the call of duty. Obviously I’ll pay you overtime for this.”

“Pay?” she echoed in a whisper. “I was only kidding. You wouldn’t need to pay me.”

“Of course I would, it’s work. I’ll give you time and a half. No, double time.”

“That’s really not necessary. I’m honestly glad to be able to help.”

He gave a long sigh that was clearly relief, and looked at her with unabashed pleasure. “There aren’t a lot of girls like you in this world.”

She raised an eyebrow and started to speak, but he interrupted her. “Women,” he corrected. “People. There aren’t a lot of people in the world like you.”

She smiled. “Or like you.”

His smile dimmed fractionally and he looked at her with serious eyes. “What on earth would I ever do without you?” The intensity of his gaze, as well as his words, made pleasure coil like a snake in the pit of Jane’s stomach.

He appreciated her. She actually meant something to him. Until today she had never really been sure of that.

She glanced down, practically circling her toe on the ground in front of her. “You’d do fine, Trey. You always do.”

Trey watched Jane as she walked away from him. After she closed the door, he slumped down in his chair and let out a long breath. Had he really asked her to play the part of his fiancée tonight? Was he insane?

Maybe she was right. Maybe people wouldn’t believe him and Jane as a couple. They were so different from each other. He saw the big picture not the details. He tended to create a lot of clutter in his quest to achieve his goals. Jane, on the other hand, was practical and no-nonsense. She was incredibly efficient, and always behaved in a prim and proper manner. In her own way, he realized, Jane was no more the marrying kind than he was.

Which, actually, made her perfect for him.

He blew air into his cheeks, then sighed it away. Jane. She wasn’t always prim and proper. In fact, there were aspects of her that were undeniably…sexy. For example, there was the subtle sway of her slender hips as she’d walked away. He hadn’t been able to ignore that. Of course, it had caught his eye because he rarely saw a woman who wasn’t consciously doing it and he knew Jane wasn’t. It was interesting, that was all. It wasn’t really what you would call lust or anything.

He rubbed his eyes and tried to shake the thought out of his head. Jane would be horrified if she had any idea he was thinking this way. She’d probably even quit. He could picture it now, Jane sitting before him, in her high-necked blouse, hands folded in her lap.

I’m sorry, Trey, but I’m unable to work with you under the circumstances. I’m sure you’ll understand why I feel…What would she say? Probably something delicate and old-fashioned. I feel we must part.

He shook his head again. What was he doing, wasting his time thinking about this? He had much more important things to worry about now that the problem of tonight’s dinner was patched up.

He looked at the door to make sure it was closed all the way, then took a key ring out of his pocket and opened the side drawer of his desk. What he needed was right on top. It was a composition notebook he’d picked up at the drug store for a buck. Something about the informality of the book was comforting to him, like its contents weren’t necessarily serious.

He opened to the first page and it hit him full force. The contents were serious all right. It was a list of employees’ names, beginning with those who were most expendable, if such a word could really be used for people. He trailed his finger down the list looking for…For what? For young, single, independently wealthy people whose lives wouldn’t be devastated by the loss of their job? There weren’t any. Most of the names were familiar. Good, reliable, loyal workers who had worked for the company for over ten years. He’d hate to lay any of them off.

After several long minutes, he put the composition book back and took out the spreadsheet his accountant had done. There was a dip in November two years ago, right about the time Trey’s father had voted against bidding on a job for a company he felt was too commercial. He said the company “didn’t nurture the community spirit that Breckenridge Construction had built its good name upon.”

That had been Trey’s first real clash with his father. Up to that point, they had lived in peaceful estrangement. They were acquaintances, little more. All that changed that November, though. Trey had first tried reasoning with his father, pointing out that the company had to grow in order to justify retaining the existing employees. That had been met with blame for “overspending” by “overemploying.” So Trey had changed his tactic, insisting that limiting the company that way would endanger its very existence.

He believed the word his father had responded with was, “Hogwash.”

Finally Trey had demanded that they go forward with the bid. His father had called an emergency Board meeting and vote. His shares had easily won the vote, as he knew they would.

Trey looked back at the spreadsheet and saw where something similar had happened in February the next year, and May after that. In July his father had finally relented and they’d gotten a semi-large contract for an undeniably commercial health club. The renovation work was up for an award. Trey shook his head. You’d think that would persuade the old man this was the right direction but, no, he was still dragging his feet.

He moved the spreadsheet aside and looked at the company assets and liabilities. He scanned down the numbers to the bottom of the page. The bottom line. When he saw it, he winced. Breckenridge Construction was in trouble. Big trouble.

If Trey didn’t get control of the company in time to take the Davenport job, not only would the people listed in the composition book be without jobs, but most likely Trey, himself, would be too. And Jane. There was no way he could let that happen. He’d do whatever it took to save their jobs for them, and the company for himself.

After all, it was really all he had.