Tempted In Texas

“Why shouldn’t I make myself look good to him?”

“You will be.”

Gwen dutifully typed his suggestions. “I also know to analyze the work and find something that needs to be done, then volunteer to do it, but I can’t figure out anything that needs to be done that I’m capable of doing. Kwik Koffee seems to run an efficient operation.”

“Think small, but visible. Oh, yeah.” Alec gestured for her to continue typing. “Think cost-cutting. Companies love it when you save money.”

Gwen knew that, but she added it to the list to humor him. He was really getting into this corporate competitiveness.

“Reprice supplies or something. Then you can send a memo detailing what you found. Don’t forget to print out your e-mail.”

“Right, a paper trail.” Gwen made a note to check prices on environmentally friendly coffee filters. They were a great idea, but had been too expensive in the past. Maybe the price had come down enough so that Kwik Koffee could reap the public relations benefit of a switch.

“Do you miss your job?” she asked as she typed. Alec had never gone into detail about his life before he came to live at Oak Villa Apartments, but Gwen got the impression that he’d been fairly high on the corporate ladder in a family-owned company.

He laughed. “I miss the salary! But this experience has forced me to look at life differently, which was no doubt what my granddad had in mind.” He grimaced. “I suppose I’ll have to admit it to him, too.”

Gwen met his eyes. “Were you…fired?” she asked hesitantly.

“No! Hey, didn’t I tell you about Granddad’s big challenge?”

“You just told me you were trying to start your own business.”

Alec took a deep breath and settled back on the sofa. It looked like it was going to be a long story. But that was okay. Gwen liked having Alec around. He wasn’t any trouble. At least not much.

“Granddad came to this country with something like forty bucks in his pocket—I don’t know, the amount is less every time he tells the story. But he started a little lunch-cart business, which grew and now we all work there. My dad and uncle really expanded the company. It was just strictly local and they worked their butts off taking it national.” He stopped talking and looked off into the distance. Gwen had never seen him this somber before.

“Dad wasn’t around much when I was little,” he said, exhaling heavily.

“It must have been rough on your mother, too,” Gwen said.

“I guess so.” The way he said it told Gwen that he’d never considered his mother’s point of view before. Well, he was now.

But apparently only for a second or two. “The thing that gets to me is that Granddad doesn’t even acknowledge what his sons did or what any of us are doing. According to him, we’re all just leeches benefiting from his hard work. And dad just…takes it. Drives me and my cousins nuts.”

“So you quit?”

“Only temporarily. We want to develop the Web site and maybe open some stores in the malls, but Granddad won’t listen to us, soooo…” Alec paused when the buzzer on the oven went off.

Gwen headed for the kitchen. “Keep talking. I can hear you.”

“So we decided that one of us would start a business from the ground up under the same conditions—or as close as we could get—and prove to the old guy that we’re not complete write-offs.”

“And you lost?” She glanced through the bar as she got out plates.

Alec stared down at the beer in his hands, then looked up at her with a half smile. “No. I won.”

Which was a pretty good insight into the male psyche, Gwen told herself. They liked challenges. Enjoyed them, even. She should start thinking that way about her promotion campaign.

“It’s been tough, I won’t kid you. I can’t imagine how desperate and scared my grandfather must have been. At least I’m in the same country—the same city, even.”

Gwen was cutting the pizza and trying to do so quietly so she could hear Alec, but managed to burn her thumb on hot cheese. She dropped the piece halfway between the plate and the cookie sheet and stuck her thumb in her mouth. Part of the topping was on the slice of pizza, the rest was on her counter. She nudged it into place, sort of, then looked up to find that Alec had left the sofa and was leaning his elbows on the bar as he watched her.

“Not much of a cook, are you?” He grinned.

“Like this never happened to you.” She handed him the plate with the good pieces on it.

“Actually, no. Your mistake was in using plates. I just eat from the pan.”

“Barbarian.”

“Bad pizza cooker.”

“That’s the worst thing you can call me?” Gwen sat down and shoved her papers aside, then propped her Scooby-Doo slipper clad feet on the coffee table.

“My brain is running on low.” Alec added his feet to the table, slouched down and propped the pizza plate on his stomach. His flat stomach. “I’ll think of something after a few bites. In the meantime, speaking of Scooby-Doo—”

“Were we?”

“No, but we are now.”

“Why?”

“Well, I’ve heard rumors of a New Year’s Eve marathon.” He gave her look out of the corner of his eye. “Got any party plans?”

Gwen’s heart gave an extra thump. If only he’d stopped right then and there, but no, Alec continued.

“’Cause if you’re going out, I wouldn’t mind keeping an eye on your television for you.” He grinned hopefully.

“I’m sure you wouldn’t.” Not, hey Gwen, let’s spend New Year’s together but I want to watch cartoons on your TV. Gwen took a moment to give herself a mental kick—she’d given up men. This was one of the reasons why.

“Won’t charge you, either.”

Oh no, not that smile, not the one he knew charmed women. She gave him a look to let him know she wasn’t charmed. “Don’t you have any plans? What about your friends? Have they abandoned you?”

Instantly, the smile faded and he looked down at his pizza. “They’re all going to the Uptown Women’s Center benefit ‘gala.’” He used his fingers to make quote marks. “My girlfriend is on the steering committee. It’s occupied her every waking moment since October.”

Girlfriend? Girlfriend? Alec had a girlfriend? Not that it mattered to Gwen. It shouldn’t matter to her. Wouldn’t. Didn’t.

“Have you noticed how nobody just throws a party for the sake of a good time anymore?” Alec was speaking rhetorically, which was a good thing since Gwen had frozen beside him. He hadn’t noticed, which was also a good thing.

“It always has to benefit some organization. Why should we justify wanting to have a good time?”

“The Women’s Center is a very worthy cause,” Gwen managed. She also managed to sound tight-lipped. She wrapped her tight lips around the beer bottle and swallowed.

“Of course it is,” Alec grumbled. “That’s not the point here. The point is guilt-free partying.”

“And so, what? You’re boycotting?”

He mumbled something.

“What?” Gwen cupped her hand around her ear. “Is that a tiny tantrum I hear?”

“No.” He shifted until his head was resting on the back of the sofa. “Stephanie—”

“That would be your girlfriend.”

“Maybe, maybe not. Who knows anymore?”

“Well…this is just a thought…but if I spent hours and hours working on one of those charity things, I might be the teensiest bit put out if my boyfriend refused to go.”

Still leaning against the sofa, he rolled his head to face her. “I can’t afford to. My tux is back at my town house, along with my car, and I don’t have the money to rent either. So no gala-going for me this New Year’s.”

“Wait a minute—you mean you own a car and you have a town—”

Alec held up a hand. “Technically, yes—”

“Is there any other way?”

“My grandfather didn’t have a fancy place to live or his own—”

“It’s fancy?”

“Well…it’s…my cousin’s wife is a decorator and she did the place for me, so it’s okay.”

“It’s just okay.”

“Okay, better than okay.”

“Wood floors?”

“Yeah.”

“Fireplace?”

“Yeah.”

“Dining room?”

“I gotta eat someplace.”

“Whirlpool tub?”

“Aren’t those standard these days?”

“BMW or Mercedes?”

He gave her an exasperated look. “Beemer. Gwen, it doesn’t matter. My grandfather wouldn’t have had any of that stuff, so I can’t either right now. That’s why I traded places with the guy who used to live in the apartment here. Brad’s living it up at my place, and I’m here with his damn cat.” Apparently thoughts of the cat were worth two swallows of beer.

“I see.” She crossed her arms and stared straight ahead. In her line of sight was a framed poster—Alec was no doubt used to original art—and put-it-together-yourself shelving displaying her Scooby-Doo memorabilia, which up to this point she’d thought was charmingly quirky. But now it looked kitschy and cheap.

“Gwen?” There was a hint of uncertainty in his voice, no doubt carefully calculated to elicit the most sympathy. “You understand about all that, don’t you?”

“I’m feeling used,” she declared. “Before, I felt used, but it was for a good cause.”

“I’m still a good cause.”

“You’re a hopeless cause.”

“And you’re as bad as Stephanie.”

Gwen bolted upright and gasped. “What a vile thing to say!”

Alec’s lips quivered and then he started laughing.

She hadn’t been serious, but he shouldn’t have figured it out so quickly. Shaking her head, Gwen cleared away their plates. “At least that explains the cat. You have never struck me as a cat person.”

“Armageddon is not a cat. Armageddon is demon spawn from hell.”

“Poor kitty. With a name like Armageddon, what do you expect?”

“He earned the name. Thirty seconds at my place and he’d sprayed a white silk sofa.”

Gwen rolled her eyes. “No real person has a white silk sofa.”

“I do, or I do if the cleaners did their job. But Army came to the apartment with me that day and has avoided me ever since. He lives under the bed until I go into the bedroom. The rest of the time, he plots his escape.”

Gwen rinsed their plates and put them in the dishwasher. “From what I remember, he’s had a couple of successes.”

“Yeah. Brad comes over and lures him back, though.”

“The poor little thing.”

“Don’t feel sorry for Brad.”

“I was talking about the cat and you know it. He just doesn’t understand.”

“He’s not the only one,” Alec muttered darkly.

Gwen returned to the sofa. “Is that an oblique reference to Stephanie and New Year’s?”

He nodded.

“She doesn’t quite see why you have to maintain the purity of the quest.”

“Or words to that effect.”

“I’ll bet.” Gwen stared at her Scooby-Doo slippers. They stared back. “Your grandfather could have shopped at secondhand stores, right?”

“Oh, yeah. Wearing clothes from the church’s charity box is always a featured part of the story. But if you think—”

“Buy your tux from Brad.”

“What?”

“Offer him five or ten bucks for it. He’s not going to be wearing it and you know it fits.”

“That’s…” Gwen could see the possibilities occur to Alec.

He gave her a slow, admiring smile. “That’s brilliant.”

“I thought so. And if you give me a ride over to my parents’ house, then you can borrow my car.” Sometimes she was too brilliant for her own good.

Alec kissed his fingers toward her. “Gwen, you are a prince among women.”

“Is that anything like being a queen among men?”

He hesitated briefly, but tellingly. Very, very tellingly. “I didn’t mean it to be.” He laughed. If a forced chuckle could be called a laugh.

Gwen could attribute the hesitation to him being slow on the uptake, but Alec wasn’t slow. No, for just a moment there, he’d considered the possibility that they were both sexually oriented in the same direction.

Was this what she was going to have to face? If a woman didn’t want to be with a man, then…then… And just because she wasn’t Alec’s type didn’t mean she wasn’t somebody’s type.

She’d show him. She’d…she’d go put on the skirt, that’s what she’d do. Gwen jumped up. “Hey—I got a new skirt I was thinking of wearing on New Year’s. How about a man’s opinion?”

“Danger. Warning. Woman requesting clothing opinion. Alert, alert.”

“Oh, stop.” She headed for the bedroom. “I just want to know what you think.”

“What I think is that nothing I say will be right,” Alec called after her.

Gwen grabbed the skirt, hanger and all, and went back to her living room. She unsnapped the clamps, then held up the skirt. “I’ll be with Laurie, so…you know.” She hoped he’d fill in the blanks about at least holding her own beside Laurie.

And speaking of blanks—Alec stared at the skirt, then met her eyes. “It’s…it’s just a black skirt. It doesn’t look all that short or tight.”

“So you’re saying that to appeal to a man, a skirt has to be short and tight?”

“Not…yes. Yes, it does.”

She walked closer so he could see how the light made it shimmer, maybe even feel the fabric.

He was clearly unimpressed by shimmer. “Well, Gwen, it’s a nice skirt.”

Nice. Kiss of death.

“I don’t know what you want me to say.”

I want you to be overcome with lust, that’s what. So much for the skirt’s man-attracting potential.

“The sweatpants make it look lumpy. Why don’t you put it on?”

“All right, I will.”

Gwen returned to the bedroom, suspecting that the reason she hadn’t put the skirt on in the first place was because if Alec was overcome with lust, she’d forget that she’d given up men and men like Alec were exactly the reason why. He’d talked about Laurie being high-maintenance, but if he took off his shirt—a pleasant, but distracting prospect—he’d have “high-maintenance” tattooed across his chest.

Already, she’d offered him her car and helped him with his love life—a love life that didn’t include her. Now, she was putting on the skirt after she swore she wouldn’t just so he’d find her attractive. And she’d just cooked dinner for him. Hadn’t she?

Gwen stepped into the skirt, thinking that she probably ought to put on panty hose, and pulled it up. Pulled…now more of an easing…sucked in her stomach…more…gave up on fastening the hook until after the zipper was zipped…zipped two inches and…

And staring in horror as her white, pizza-filled belly remained exposed because her hips and thighs had taken up all the room in the skirt.

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