How To Be the Perfect Girlfriend

“I think that’s been your problem. We should be talking about afterward before.”

“Huh?”

Missy reached into her wedding tote, withdrew a Palm Pilot and unfolded a keyboard for it. “You need a goal and a plan to reach it.” She looked at Hayden. “Am I right?”

“Yes.” Hayden crossed her arms over her chest and watched the parade of men coming down the escalator. “Much as I hate to admit it.”

Missy’s fingers were poised over the keyboard. “So, what do you want, Sara?”

Well, this was it and she’d better pay attention. “I want a man who’s interested in making a life with me.”

Missy started typing. “Marriage.”

Hayden snorted.

“Or at least long-term devotion. Long-term enough for me to decide if I want it to lead to marriage,” Sara added because she didn’t want to completely alienate Hayden with marriage talk. “Certainly a better caliber of man.”

“What kind of man do you want?” Hayden asked, as though it were that simple.

“The perfect man, of course,” Sara said flippantly.

“Then you’ll have to become the perfect woman.” Missy was serious.

“Oh, sure. Why didn’t I think of that? I’ll get right on it.” Sara slapped her hands on the table and looked around the atrium. “Anybody seen my fairy godmother?”

“Snippy, snippy.” Melissa typed something.

“Calm down, Sara.” Hayden stopped casing the escalator for men and closed her plastic salad container. “Perfection is the way you define it. Missy has her idea of the perfect man, I have mine and you should have yours.”

“And then you have to become his match.” Missy eyed her, then typed some more.

Sara eyed Missy right back. “Now, wait a minute—I am not becoming one of those women who completely changes herself for a man.”

“All we’re saying is if you want a pilot, you hang out around airplanes. You don’t want a bowler, then stay out of bowling alleys.” Hayden leaned sideways trying to see what Missy was typing.

“Oh.” That made sense.

“Good Lord, she’s started a spreadsheet.” Hayden grinned at Sara. “You should see what’s in the ‘improvements’ column.”

“Sara said she wanted to upgrade her men.”

“I just thought you’d teach me a secret handshake and tell me to wear a padded bra,” Sara grumbled. Why had she thought this would be as simple as a few tips over lunch?

“Excuse me!” Missy gestured to her chest. “There is nothing padded here. That’s…that’s false advertising.”

“There is nothing false about my advertising, honey,” Hayden snapped.

“Hello?” Sara waved her hands. “Me? Focus on me!”

Hayden grabbed her hands. “Nails.”

“Oh, I know,” Missy tut-tutted. “Acrylic?”

“Hmm.” Both Hayden and Missy looked at Sara.

She pulled her hands away and resisted the urge to sit on them.

Hayden laughed. “Let’s just go for groomed right now.”

“Oh, thanks a lot.”

“What about her hair?” Missy tossed her mane of one hundred and fifty dollar highlights over her shoulder. “Except I really shouldn’t fill that in if she wants a low-maintenance man.”

Sara wasn’t sure, but she thought there was an insult in there.

“Sara, you’re going to have to give us specifics on the kind of man you want.” Missy waited expectantly.

“Well…he should be kind, honest and have a sense of humor—”

“Yeah, yeah, we all want those.” Hayden made a hurry-up gesture. “Add sexy.” She smiled at Sara. “My little gift to you.”

“I’m going to type all those in,” Missy said. “Later, you’ll have to rank the traits.”

“What is this?” Even though she’d asked for help, she hadn’t expected them to be quite this helpful. “Are you running a dating service?”

Missy ignored her. “Possible professions?”

“I don’t know—professional.”

Missy typed. “More.”

“Probably older than me. Mature. Never married—or at least no children. I don’t want to do the stepmother thing.”

“Completely understandable,” Hayden agreed. “Go on.”

“I—” Sara thought of Bradley from Friday night. Why had she thought he was attractive? “Classy. Someone who enjoys dining occasionally, rather than just hitting all the fast food places in town. A man who might like to cook, even, or at least take a class with me. Someone who knows how to use all the silverware and doesn’t make jokes about the spork being the perfect utensil.”

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Hayden said. “What else?”

“Cultured. Refined. Elegant.” Now she was thinking of Ryan, her last boyfriend, who had been none of those things. She was describing the anti-Ryan. Well? Wasn’t that the idea? “A man who’d appreciate seeing a play, or going to the symphony, or…an art gallery. And money. I don’t want to have to lend him money. And his car should be nice. It doesn’t have to be expensive, it just has to work. And he should be the type of man who’d walk me to the door and pull out my chair and buy my mother a corsage for Mother’s Day because he’s just so damn happy she had me.”

Missy had stopped typing. Sara was aware that she and Hayden were staring at her. “What?”

“Anything else?” Hayden asked.

“He should dress well. You know, somebody who actually owns a suit and doesn’t need help tying his tie and isn’t color-blind. Oh, and he shouldn’t freak out when he sees a wine list in a restaurant.”

“Is that all?” Hayden wore a funny smile.

“Yes—no. He should know how to dance.”

“The Cotton-Eyed Joe?”

“No, real dancing.”

Missy gasped. “Bite your tongue!”

“Okay, he would be willing to dance the Cotton-Eyed Joe if we were ever in a place where people were dancing it. But I was just thinking that it would be nice if he knew how to dance the kind of dances that get played at weddings when the bride and groom get the first dance and then the bridesmaids have to dance and it’s really awful if your partner can’t dance because everyone is staring at you and you trip over the stupid dress.”

“I ran out of room,” Missy said. “I should have brought my laptop.”

Hayden studied Sara. “And is that everything about your ideal man?”

Sara thought. “He should be well-spoken and use correct grammar.” Hey, it would make her mother happy.

“Maybe even with a slight accent?” Hayden asked.

“Accents can be cool.”

Hayden laughed. “I guess so because, Sara, sweetie, you have just described Simon Northrup.”

2

SIMON NORTHRUP was having a bad day. He knew it when the highlight had been fixing a paper jam. The afternoon had gone downhill from there. Not one, but two, count ’em two, accounts had gone to rival companies. Yes, the paper jam had definitely been the best part. And the girl—woman, female or whatever the politically correct term was these days—was the sole reason the paper jam was a highlight.

Until he remembered that he wasn’t supposed to be having female highlights. He had enough trouble with the females in his life as it was. He needed to keep his eyes in front and his mind blank.

But he couldn’t. She’d had brown eyes. Soft brown hair. A quiet, conservative manner. Such a refreshing change from most Texas women who were all woman and let a man know it at every opportunity and expected said man to acknowledge their womanliness constantly. In-your-face-female pulchritude. For some men, sexual nirvana. For Simon, who had temporarily forsworn women, torture. Texas women were so much effort. As he had cause to know, they were well worth that effort. But restful they definitely were not.

The photocopier woman looked restful. Truthfully, in his more active dating days, he might have overlooked her. How ironic that now that he’d noticed her, it would do him no good to dwell on the eyes and the hair and the soft voice and the slim, discreetly covered body and the thought of finally finding a female who could just be and not feel compelled to fill the silence with chattering or discussing or arguing or commenting or complaining or fussing.

Simon hated it when women fussed over him. Some men really got off on that, but he liked to solve his own problems. If he wanted advice, he’d ask for it.

Simon took off his glasses and rubbed the places on either side of his nose where the pads fit. His new glasses were trendy, but uncomfortable. Wasn’t that always the way?

Sara from payroll hadn’t been wearing glasses, but if she had been, he imagined she’d go for comfort over style.

But he shouldn’t be thinking about her. Kayla gave him plenty to think about.

Simon exhaled. Were relationships supposed to be this much work?

As penance, he impulsively picked up the phone and dialed her number.

“Hey, Simon,” she answered. “What’s up?”

He hated caller ID. “I’m just checking in. Do you want to have dinner with me tonight?”

There was silence. Or rather, Kayla didn’t speak. Simon could hear loud music in the background, the kind Kayla liked to play in his car. The kind he didn’t like.

“Will you have any businesspeople with you?”

Kayla didn’t do well in the corporate entertaining arena. He was unlikely to make the mistake of bringing her along on business dinners again. “No, it’s just you and me, kiddo. But you still get to dress up.”

“Yeah, okay I guess,” she said at last. The way she said it told Simon she was in a mood. Lately, Kayla was always in a mood. At first, Simon had wasted a lot of mental energy trying to discover the source of these moods, but he had since learned that it was best to ride them out.

Or order two desserts. What was it about women not ever ordering their own desserts? Where was it written that dessert had to be shared? Simon had realized the key was to order a dessert, pretend not to like it and give it to Kayla. Then order another one and give up half of that, too.

It made Kayla happy and mellow and they had very good times together when Kayla was happy and mellow.

They made arrangements for her to meet him at his office. In the meantime, he could return phone calls and do some scut work so he wouldn’t have to come in so early tomorrow.

He grabbed a stack of expense account receipts and headed for the copy machine wondering on the way how Sara felt about desserts.

“SIMON NORTHRUP?” Sara shook her head. “No way.”

“Why not?”

“Well, he’s, well…he’s old.” She didn’t know how old, but she could find out if it became necessary.

“Not that old,” Hayden said chillingly.

Oops. Sometimes Sara forgot that Hayden was over thirty. She could find out how far over, if she wanted, but she wouldn’t. Hayden was a friend. Snooping wouldn’t be right.

Not to mention against company policy.

“I don’t know.” Missy stared at the tiny screen.

“Well, I do.” Hayden was in a huff.

Puzzled by the tone in her voice, Missy looked up, then batted her hand. “I meant that Sara said she didn’t want a man who had children and there have been rumors that Simon Northrup has been spending a lot of time with a woman who has a daughter.”

“An ex?” Sara shouldn’t have said anything.

Sure enough, Hayden’s eyebrow arched. “You should be so lucky. Simon doesn’t have an ex. Therefore, this is a current and fairly well-entrenched relationship, if he’s met her child. Too bad.”

“I wasn’t considering him anyway.” She knew nobody believed her. But she wasn’t, she told herself. Nope. But even she didn’t believe herself.

“Well, it makes sense that he’s already in a relationship,” Hayden said. “Since he was totally unresponsive.”

“To whom?” Missy asked with precision.

Hayden gave her a look.

“You went for him?” Sara grappled with the image of a Simon/Hayden pairing.

“Well, I—”

“And he rejected you?” Well, that was it. If Simon had rejected Hayden, Sara didn’t stand a chance. Not that she wanted a chance. Not really.

“Reject is such a harsh word. We didn’t click, that’s all.”

“Still, she can practice on him,” Missy said. “Talk to him and see what his interests are. Flirt a little.”

“What’s the point of that?” Sara asked.

“To see what his reaction is,” Hayden answered. “Then you’ll know how to approach men of his type. And, honey, you did describe his type.”

Had she? Had she described a man so out of her league as her ideal man? This was not looking good. “Do you really think I should practice on him?”

Hayden and Missy both nodded. At least they didn’t laugh.

“How am I supposed to approach him, anyway? He’s a vice president. It’s not like I’m going to run across him at Happy Hour or that he’ll have a sudden urge to get coffee from the twenty-fourth floor.”

“No, but there’s always the photocopier. You’ve set a precedent.”

“Won’t he catch on?”

“I hope not.” Hayden fanned herself.

“I am going to have to go to the twenty-sixth floor and copy something,” Missy said.

“You’re engaged,” Sara reminded her, not happy with the idea of Missy in Simon’s line of vision.

“So it’s settled,” Hayden said.

Sara didn’t feel settled at all. “If he’s uninterested, then how am I supposed to judge his reaction?”

“You’ll know,” Missy said. “He may not choose to act, but you’ll still know.”

Hayden smiled. “Just watch for the gleam in his eye.”

Okay, sure. She’d just watch for the old gleam in his eye. Had she ever seen a gleam in a man’s eye? Sara wondered when she was back at her desk. Men must look at Hayden differently than they looked at her. Even Missy had known about the gleam. Sara must be in worse shape than she thought.

She was sitting at her desk stuffing pay envelopes when there was a discreet knock on her cubicle wall. To her complete astonishment, she looked up and saw Simon Northrup.

That rotten Hayden must have said something to him. How mortifying.

“Hello.” Once more Simon’s accent—what little of it that could be squeezed into one word—washed over her.

That wasn’t the only thing washing over her. A gigantic blush began in her chest and bloomed upward.

He’d gotten better-looking in the last few hours. “Sara, isn’t it?”

Holy cow. Sara, tongue paralyzed, nodded. Do not think about cows. Flirt with Simon Northrup. Engage him in conversation. Oh, she was doing so well.

“I found this in the photocopier.” He held up a piece of paper.

And just as quickly as she’d blushed, she felt the heat drain away.

The paper Simon held was an original of one of the employee evaluations she’d been copying before lunch. The ultimate confidential material. And she’d apparently left it lying in the copier for anyone to see.

Such a mistake could cost her her job. Instant dismissal. No second chances. Simon had to have known and yet, rather than returning the paper to personnel and prompting an inquiry, he’d brought it to her.

She took the paper noting that the edges trembled. “This shouldn’t have happened. I feel terrible.”

He gazed down at her, his brown eyes—sans glasses—slightly warmer than polite, but definitely without a gleam. Not that she should be looking for a gleam right now. Or even thinking gleaming thoughts.

“No harm done. I discovered it sitting there on the glass, so I don’t think anyone else used the machine after you did.”

Sara exhaled, sagging with relief. Still dealing with the enormity of her confidentiality breach, she could only nod.

She never made mistakes like this. Never. She’d been in a hurry and she’d been thinking about Simon, or certain parts of him, and look what had happened.

Now she should say something, but it didn’t seem like the time to flirt.

Still, couldn’t she come up with something witty? She stared at the paper in her hands as though there would be something witty to share about Charles Lufkin, who, according to his evaluation, arrived at work promptly and left just as promptly and who performed with satisfactory adequacy.

A real firecracker, that Charles. Nothing like a reality check of the males currently out there to make her appreciate the one standing in front of her. She scoured her uncooperative—and certainly inadequate—brain for something to say. At this point, she’d abandoned any thoughts of wittiness.

She drew a breath and prepared to meet Simon’s eyes.

He was gone.

Oh, great. Fabulous. She almost started after him to thank him, but knew she’d better wait until she calmed down and thought up something to say to him.

Sara put Charles Lufkin’s evaluation on the stack she had yet to file. Imagine that: Simon Northrup, the legendary by-the-book Simon Northrup, had saved her job. He’d taken the time to hand deliver the paper. He hadn’t called her supervisor in the payroll department to come and get it. He hadn’t called her to come and get it.

He’d brought it to her, himself.

How incredibly kind.

Sara heard a faint mental “ding” and realized that kindness was a trait she’d ascribed to her ideal man. And he’d been kind to her twice today.

If she weren’t careful, she’d find herself with a big, fat crush on Simon. Today had certainly put him in a different, and much more attractive, light. How could she ever have thought him intimidating and stuck-up? Stuck-up people didn’t fix paper jams—real or manufactured—for others and they sure didn’t cover for an underling’s mistake the way he had.

By the end of the day, Sara was not surprised to recognize crush symptoms, which meant that flirting with Simon for practice was now out of the question. Practice flirting only worked when emotions weren’t involved. So, no flirting. At least for practice—no, no, no. No flirting at all. She’d have to find another man of that type for practice. With Simon, it was professional contact only. And maybe a lot of paper jams.

Since she hadn’t properly thanked him, Sara screwed up her courage and climbed up to the twenty-sixth floor to stop by his office and basically say, “I owe you.” Like he’d ever collect. Still, it was the professional thing to do.

The twenty-sixth floor was definitely more plush than hers, Sara thought when she stepped off the elevator. The carpet was thicker, the colors more modern and the furniture trendier. Client photographs and media stills lined the elevator bays. The receptionist appeared to have already left for the day. Sara knew where Hayden’s office was, but she wasn’t sure about Simon’s. He probably had an office with windows, which meant if she stuck to the outer perimeter, sooner or later she’d eventually stumble across it.

It was sooner rather than later and there was no stumbling involved.

She heard him talking on the phone and stopped to listen for a moment and gather her thoughts. There weren’t a lot of thoughts to gather, considering she’d had all day to think about what to say to him. “Thank you” was heartfelt and sincere, but once it was said and he responded politely, there wouldn’t be a whole lot left to say.

She heard him return the phone to its cradle and stepped into the doorway. “Mr. Northrup?”

He was standing behind his desk and there was a flash in his eyes. A flash, not a gleam, and it only meant he recognized her. “Sara.”

“I, uh…” Don’t say “uh.” “I—”

The phone buzzed. He frowned, let two buzzes go by then held up a finger indicating that Sara should stay.

She hated that, hated waiting around while someone was on the phone, pretending that she couldn’t hear, when of course she could. Even worse was when the conversation took an unexpected turn and she had to decide if she’d continue to pretend to be oblivious, or leave.

She really didn’t have much to say to Simon. She could just mouth her thank-you and make her escape except…

Except Simon had reached for the phone without breaking eye contact. How sexy was that? He didn’t mean for it to be sexy, she told herself. He couldn’t help it.

She swallowed.

Simon continued gazing at her as he spoke into the phone. If she had to describe his expression, she’d say it was watchful. The weird thing was that she didn’t feel at all uncomfortable or awkward about it.

So she gazed—it wasn’t really staring—back at him. Only at his eyes. Warm chocolate velvet eyes. Awareness crept over her. Awareness of him. Awareness of her. Awareness of what could be.

Awareness that she was probably making way too big a deal of this. But then people with big, fat crushes on other people did that, didn’t they?

“Yes,” he said. “Ask them to come up.” A pause, then, “How many?” He blinked for the first time. Just once. “I see. Yes, it’s all right.” He hung up the phone as smoothly as he’d answered it. “Sorry about that.”

“Oh, no. I know you’re busy. I just wanted to say thanks for not making a big deal out of finding the paper.” She thought about the way that sounded. “Not that it isn’t a big deal, and I know it. And I want you to know that I know it. Huge deal.” Babble, babble, babble. She should have quit after “thanks.”

He wasn’t saying anything. That was the problem. If he’d said, “It’s okay” or something she would have stopped babbling. But he merely watched her, his lips on the verge of a smile. On the verge. No smile. Important distinction.

Sara swallowed again, and attempted to end the conversation with some finesse. She linked her fingers together. “I wanted to reassure you that your trust in my competence has not been misplaced.”

There. That should be precise enough for him.

“Right.” He looked down at his desk. “Well, I’ll just delete this scathing memo to the head of Human Resources denouncing your…competence.”

He pressed a key on the open laptop on the desk in front of him and then closed it.

Sara forgot to breathe.

Simon smiled faintly. “I was joking.”

“Oh!” Sara giggled inanely. “I knew that!”

“No, you didn’t.”

“No, I didn’t.”

“A lot of people don’t get my jokes. I’ve always thought I was quite witty.” The line was delivered with the perfect deadpan expression. Despite his strait-laced reputation, the man clearly had a sense of humor. Don’t think about that.

Sara laughed, then wondered if she should have. “Maybe your jokes are just too subtle.”

“Chalk it up to my repressed boarding school up-bringing.”

“In England?”

“Yes.”

“You have a faint accent,” she told him so he wouldn’t think she’d been snooping in his file. And she hadn’t—not much.

“So does anyone who isn’t from Texas. I do try. I’ve been sprinkling y’alls and howdys throughout all my conversations.”

Sara tried to imagine a “y’all” passing Simon’s lips. Which made her look at his lips and the way they rested in that almost-smile position. His square jaw made him look strong, but the lips gave him a hint of vulnerability. All in all, it was a potent combination, especially considering his other body parts, which Sara had in no way forgotten.

He had a way of looking at her—maybe everyone—which made her believe that his entire attention was focused on her.

That was potent, too. It kept her focused on him and not on the fact that she should leave and he was being too polite to shoo her out.

Politeness was a lost art these days and highly underrated, Sara thought. Was it on her list of preferred male traits?

Voices erupted from the elevator. Female voices. Surely they were coming to meet with Simon. “Your visitors are here, so I’ll take off. Thanks again.”

He looked as though he was going to say something when Sara distinctly heard the sound of running. She was so surprised that she didn’t go anywhere. An instant later, two girls rounded the corner and headed straight for her. Sara stepped back into the office as the taller of the two reached out and slapped the door frame. “I won!”

“Kayla,” Simon said sternly.

Sara stood there, filled with an entirely inappropriate curiosity.

“This is a place of business,” he continued.

Kayla gave him a disgusted look. “Oh, chill.”

He took a deep breath that told Sara he’d taken many deep breaths in regard to Kayla. He turned to the dark-haired girl beside Kayla. “Howdy, Amber. How’re y’all doing?”