The Playboy's Protegee

“You want me to refuse to be your mentor. Not going to happen.”

Megan’s mouth dropped open. “What!”

Harry arched an eyebrow. “Did I stutter? It’s not going to happen. You shouldn’t have messed with me when you first came to work here.”

She gestured wildly. “Are you insane? We can’t stand each other! You’ve done nothing but pick apart my performance since I got here. Let me have a different mentor.”

Megan drew a deep breath as if trying to calm herself. Her suit jacket gaped open. She was wearing white lace. Harry’s throat went dry, and his words simply disappeared.

“No.”

The Playboy’s Protégée

Michele Dunaway

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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For Uncle Bizz (’cos it already is)

AUTHOR’S NOTE

In the story, Megan’s mother suffers from multiple sclerosis (MS). My cousin Stacey lives daily with MS, and she was an invaluable source of information. Any errors in the story are mine. For more information about this disease, contact The National Multiple Sclerosis Society, 733 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017. www.nmss.org.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

In first grade Michele Dunaway knew she wanted to be a teacher when she grew up, and by second grade she wanted to be an author. By third grade she was determined to be both. Born and raised in a west county suburb of St. Louis, Michele recently moved to five acres in the rolling hills of Labadie. She’s traveled extensively, with the cities and places she visits often becoming settings for her stories.

Michele currently teaches high school English, raises her two young daughters and describes herself as a woman who does too much but doesn’t want to stop.

Michele loves to hear from readers. You can visit her Web site at www.micheledunaway.com or write to her at P.O. Box 45, Labadie, MO 63055.

Books by Michele Dunaway

HARLEQUIN AMERICAN ROMANCE

848—A LITTLE OFFICE ROMANCE

900—TAMING THE TABLOID HEIRESS

921—THE SIMPLY SCANDALOUS PRINCESS

931—CATCHING THE CORPORATE PLAYBOY

963—SWEEPING THE BRIDE AWAY

988—THE PLAYBOY’S PROTÉGÉE

Jacobsen Stars Program: Corporate Strategy for Future Marital Team as Created by Grandpa Joe

The Key Players:

Megan MacGregor: Ambitious businesswoman, excellent mind, easy on the eyes. Perfect for Harry.

Harry Sanders: My ornery grandson who needs a swift kick (but most of all, a good wife).

Strategy:

Make them work together as a team, thereby encouraging opportunities for covert mingling, which will lead to marriage and happiness.

Obstacle to Strategy:

Megan and Harry hate each other.

Way around Obstacle:

Lock them in a hotel suite together, with all the usual amenities, i.e., champagne, strawberries, chocolate and terry-cloth bathrobes.

Motto:

Grandpa Joe will pave the way for Harry and Megan’s happy day!

Contents

Prologue

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Epilogue

Prologue

Jacobsen Enterprises Internal Memo

From: Joe Jacobsen, CEO

To: Harry Sanders

CC: Andrew Sanders, president

Re: Jacobsen Stars Program

Harry,

I just wanted to give you a heads up on the newest Jacobsen Enterprises program to recruit and retain upper-level management.

With your sister now in New York for the past year, it is imperative for the overall growth and stability of the firm that we keep any management talent we develop. My proposal will be instituted in two weeks, and a copy is attached. I would like you to personally consider being a mentor. If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact me.

J.J.

Jacobsen Enterprises Internal Memo

From: Joe Jacobsen, CEO

To: Andrew Sanders, president

Re: Harry/Jacobsen Stars

As you can see from my previous memo, I have informed your son about the Jacobsen Stars program and have indicated that I would like him to be a mentor.

My personal choice for him to mentor is Megan MacGregor. I will drop in on him Monday morning to tell him. She’s in Mergers and Acquisitions.

J.J.

Jacobsen Enterprises Internal Memo

From: Andrew Sanders, president

To: Joe Jacobsen, CEO

Re: Harry/Jacobsen Stars

You old coot. The only merger you really want is for your grandson to get married. But setting up Harry with Megan MacGregor? She’ll eat him alive. Don’t you ever stop matchmaking?

A.S.

Jacobsen Enterprises Internal Memo

From: Joe Jacobsen, CEO

To: Andrew Sanders, president

Re: Harry/Jacobsen Stars

No.

J.J.

Chapter One

Even though it was a Monday, it had all the makings of a wonderful day. As the only person in the executive elevator, Harry Sanders whistled the entire journey to his office on the twenty-second floor of the Jacobsen Enterprises world headquarters.

“You’re chipper this morning,” Peggy, his secretary for the past five years, commented as he strode over the plush carpet. Ten minutes before 9:00 a.m., she had already sorted his memos and mail.

“Absolutely,” Harry said taking the stack of papers without stopping to look through them as he usually did.

He registered Peggy’s words as he entered his office, “There’s one from your grandfather.”

There had better be. Harry smiled as he entered his corner office, and he took a minute to look out the window. Even though it was a beautiful May day, his office faced west and south, giving him a boring view of Highway 40 as it wound toward Jefferson Avenue.

The eastern-facing offices of the Jacobsen Building looked down Market Street, the view encompassing Memorial Plaza, Union Station, the Mississippi riverfront, the Old Courthouse and the Gateway Arch.

No, his office view was not quite the best, or even on the top floor, that was the twenty-fifth floor, but all that was about to change.

And it was about time.

He pushed a strand of blond hair off his face. He’d been waiting for the past two years, and with Darci happily out of the way, it was finally Harry’s time to shine.

He took a minute to think about that. Don’t get him wrong, he loved his academically brilliant sister with the Harvard MBA. However, three years his junior, Darci had held a higher title and position in Jacobsen Enterprises before her resignation and subsequent move to New York City to be with Cameron O’Brien, her now-husband of one year.

Darci’s fast rise through the company still rankled Harry, that and the fact that after she’d resigned, he hadn’t been promoted into her spot. But given his grandfather’s eccentricities and obvious favoritism toward his granddaughters, no one had been too surprised to see Darci’s job left unfilled. The vice president of development position she’d held had just sort of faded away.

“Good, you’re here early.” Speaking of the devil. The voice that startled Harry from his reverie belonged to none other than Joe Jacobsen, and Harry turned to see his grandfather standing in the office doorway.

“I’m always on time,” Harry replied. It was the truth. One thing Harry managed was timeliness.

Standing there looking like a thin version of Santa Claus, Grandpa Joe didn’t even blink at Harry’s answer. Even though the blue-eyed gene was recessive, every Jacobsen grandchild, including Harry, had the same blue eyes with a rim of dark blue that their grandfather had.

“Didn’t say you were late. I know your schedule,” Grandpa Joe said in the tone that meant no excuses, boy. “Did you read my memo yet?”

“No,” Harry said.

So much for it looking to be a good day with a promotion on the horizon. A sense of foreboding filled Harry. He knew his eccentric if not business-brilliant grandfather too well. And although at six foot two Harry often towered over other men, the dynamic Grandpa Joe still made Harry occasionally feel like a small wayward child.

Harry began to sort through the papers Peggy had given him. As he found the memo, he said, “Here it is.”

Grandpa Joe nodded, his thin white beard bobbing slightly. “Why don’t you take a minute to read it.”

As Harry scanned the memo he read the words aloud. “I just wanted to give you a heads up on the newest Jacobsen Enterprises program to recruit and retain upper-level management.”

He looked up at Grandpa Joe, who was staring out the window. Harry’s gaze flew over the rest of the memo outlining the new Jacobsen Stars program. A worried thought started in the pit of his stomach as he looked over at the spiral-bound presentation folder that was with the other mail on his desk. The sinking feeling quickly spread through the rest of his body.

“You want me to be a mentor?”

Grandpa Joe slowly turned around, his face a neutral mask. He gave a curt nod. “Absolutely.”

Harry stared as his grandfather continued. “I quite like my idea, and given your position in the company, it will be a good way to expand your horizons and help out the Jacobsen team. I think it will be a good experience for you.”

“A good experience for me?” Incredulity filled Harry’s voice. “From the way you were talking two days ago, I thought you were going to fill the vice president of development position.”

Grandpa Joe rolled his shoulders. “I’m still not sure about that yet.”

At that moment, business relationship be darned. This was personal, this was family. Whatever his grandfather had up his sleeve a few days ago, it hadn’t been this. “You’re going to promote someone else over my head, aren’t you? How is that a good experience for me?”

The neutral expression on his grandfather’s face never changed. “No one said anything about promoting people. Stop putting words into my mouth. This program is all about keeping top talent in the company. We don’t want them lured away by any of our competitors, especially after we’ve put so much investment into training them.”

“What about me? Where do I fit into all this?”

Grandpa Joe blinked. “That’s obvious, Harry, my boy, you’re going to be a mentor. In fact, that’s why I’m here. I’ve got the perfect person picked out just for you. She’s a recent hire. Well, I guess a year ago isn’t too recent. We hired her after Darci left. You know Megan MacGregor. She’s in Mergers and Acquisitions. An absolute gem that girl is, and I want to make sure she stays with us. She has raw talent, and I think you can help develop it.”

Megan MacGregor. Harry bit back the bile that immediately came to his throat upon hearing her name. He certainly did not want to mentor her. “I develop business opportunities and future growth,” he said. “I do not develop talent in females.”

“Your playboy reputation tells me that you at least try to develop something with females,” Grandpa Joe said. There was hard steel underlining his voice. “And let me remind you that Working Mother named this company one of the best places to work in America. At Jacobsen Enterprises we take pride in knocking down the glass ceiling. But don’t worry. You don’t have to participate, Harry. After all, you are family, and you will always have a place in the company. I made that promise to your mother when you graduated high school and went off to Vanderbilt.”

Wonderful, Harry thought. Grandpa Joe had wanted Harry, his oldest grandson, to go to Princeton. Accepted at both colleges, Harry had wanted to stay closer to Saint Louis. So he’d chosen Vanderbilt in Tennessee instead of the Ivy League Princeton in New Jersey, much to Grandpa Joe’s disappointment. Grandpa Joe had graduated from Princeton.

And by his grandfather bringing up Harry’s choice of alma mater, Harry knew that once again he’d displeased Grandpa Joe.

Which probably meant that Harry was about to be passed over again for a better spot in the company. In reality, being family didn’t even mean that much. Everyone knew that Grandpa Joe favored his granddaughters over his grandsons. Look at poor Shane, the youngest of all the grandchildren. Grandpa Joe didn’t even want him around, and hence Shane didn’t work anywhere in the company. Instead, he lived in his parents’ pool house and sponged off his trust fund. All the grandchildren had gotten a trust fund at age twenty-one, and Harry had tripled its value already.

Not that Grandpa Joe had ever mentioned that feat, a formidable accomplishment given the current stock-market crisis.

Heavy silence fell as Harry contemplated his options. How to get out of this situation gracefully? “I’d prefer that if I was going to mentor someone it be someone other than Megan MacGregor,” Harry said finally. “Someone male preferably. I don’t need to even get close to putting myself into a potential sexual harassment case.”

“So you think Megan MacGregor is a sexual harassment case waiting to happen?” Uh-oh. That tone again.

Harry squared his chin. He knew Megan’s type, but he should have kept his mouth shut about his opinion of her kind. Too late now. “Yes. Yes, I do.”

“Interesting,” Grandpa Joe said. He tilted his head as if he was contemplating a new electronics purchase. “You may be right. I’ll have to see what I can do. I have just about everyone else assigned, so it might take some juggling to move people around. If it won’t work out, you just won’t mentor. Let me get back to you.” And with that said, Grandpa Joe left the office.

Harry blinked. Just like that, Grandpa Joe was really gone. Had Harry missed something? Where had the night-and-day change in his grandfather come from?

Or had there really been a change? Harry leaned forward. The leather chair thumped his back as he picked up the spiral-bound Jacobsen Stars binder. He thumbed through it, skimming the highlights of the program.

He tossed the binder down. The program was like handing Megan MacGregor the keys to the Jacobsen kingdom. Couldn’t his grandfather see through her? She was a piranha both in business and her personal life. Although he hated listening to office gossip, according to the grapevine, she’d landed a man twenty years her senior for her fiancé. He’d been seen in her office.

Even the former floor receptionist, before she’d left, had blasted Megan MacGregor. No, Harry didn’t want anything to do with her. She was the type that would stop at nothing to get what she wanted, even if it meant crawling over his dead body to do it.

The real claw was that Grandpa Joe obviously adored Megan. He’d discovered her, so to speak, and had personally overseen her Jacobsen career. Megan had replaced Darci. That meant Harry really needed to be on his toes. He couldn’t let his guard down, especially when Megan MacGregor was involved.

FOR A MONDAY, it wasn’t really that bad of a day. Megan MacGregor looked around, satisfied. Work that she’d thought would take two days had been miraculously finished in one. Not yet three in the afternoon, Megan discovered she could even see the bottom of her wood inbox.

She slid a report into an interoffice-mail envelope and tossed it into her outbox. A creature of habit, she’d clear that out later, around four.

“Can I come in?”

Megan glanced up, seeing none other than Joe Jacobsen, the company founder and CEO standing at the entrance to her cubicle. A small knot of nerves clenched and she took a breath to calm herself.

“Why, of course, Mr. Jacobsen. I was just finishing up the Montana report.”

“Good, good. Come sit down, and call me Joe. Everyone does.”

Everyone perhaps but her. Megan tried not to appear too flustered as he took a seat at the small table, which was really no bigger than a card table.

“So I bet you wonder what brings me by,” he said.

Megan folded her hands into her lap to keep them from twitching. “Actually, I’ll admit that I do, although in the year that I’ve worked for you, I’ve discovered you do wander your company and pop in on people all the time.”

“Keeps them on their toes and I learn more that way,” Joe said. “Sometimes it’s good, sometimes it’s bad, but it keeps the company humming.”

“It’s a good company,” she said, mentally kicking herself for how lame and obvious that sounded. Joe Jacobsen didn’t seem to notice.

“Of course it’s a good company. I’ve been building it all my life. Now, as my delightful wife, Henrietta, reminds me, it’s time to start looking toward the future. Not that I’m planning on retiring, mind you. I’m nowhere ready to do that. But what I am doing is starting a new program called Jacobsen Stars. Let me tell you about it.”

Megan listened in fascination as he began to outline the entire program. A flicker of hope began inside her, and bloomed fully as he said the magic words. “I’m going around personally inviting people to participate in the program. You, Megan, have been chosen. What do you say?”

“Yes,” she managed to stammer out. Then her voice became stronger. “I absolutely would be delighted to participate.”

And she was. This was the opportunity of a lifetime, the type of opportunity she’d been slaving for when she’d put in all those years in night school earning her MBA. Her mother and Bill would be so proud.

“Of course, there is a little glitch,” Joe said. His blue-eyed gaze caught hers, and something about the tone of his words brought her back down a little to reality.

“A glitch?”

“A glitch,” Joe repeated. “Right now you are without a mentor.” He sighed and ran his finger thoughtfully against his white beard. “With your credentials and talent I want someone perfect, someone who can bring out the best in you. And I’ve found just that person.”

Lyle McKaskill, Megan thought. The fifty-year-old man was a wizard in the company, and she’d love to pick his brain. He’d forgotten more than she’d ever learned. Maybe the glitch was that Lyle’s wife was having surgery in a month. Lyle would be taking family medical leave to be with her.

Grandpa Joe leaned back in the chair and folded his hands. “But don’t despair. I have to admit I did spring the Jacobsen Stars program on him. Thus I expect that my grandson Harry will see the light in a day or two and agree to be your mentor.”

“Harry?” The word, said in absolute appalled disbelief, came forth from her lips before she could bite it back. Please let her have heard Joe Jacobsen wrong.

Not Harry Sanders. Harry hated her. He’d never seemed to like her, and ever since that meeting a year ago—when she’d questioned the validity and rationale of his ideas—he’d made it perfectly clear that he’d fire her the first moment he could.

“Harry,” Joe confirmed without noticing Megan’s stunned silence. “Now don’t take it personally, but Harry turned down the idea of being your mentor. It has nothing to do with you; he’s just a little bogged down with this New York merger, the chain of Evie’s Pancake Houses that we’re bringing under the Jacobsen Enterprises umbrella.”

Joe paused before continuing. “Harry has agreed to think about it, but if he can’t work you in, then I’m going to find a replacement mentor for you. However, let me be frank, I really don’t want to consider that as an option except as a last resort. I’ve learned in business that when you know a decision you’ve made is the right one, you stick with it.”

Megan forced the smile to remain on her face. So there it was. Joe Jacobsen had handpicked his grandson Harry Sanders to be her mentor. The joy that had originally seeped through Megan had ebbed fully. Then she drew herself up. Lemonade from lemons. If Harry wouldn’t do it, Joe Jacobsen was prepared to find her another mentor. She’d hope for that.

“Anyhow, the program won’t officially start for two weeks. That should give me plenty of time to convince Harry to change his mind. You two could really benefit each other.”

Right. Of course they could. The only benefit Megan could see for Harry is that he could be one step closer to finding reasons to have her fired. As for her, the benefit to her career could be summed up in four words: nada, nothing, zero, zilch.

Joe reached for Megan’s personal copy of the Montana report that she’d placed earlier in the middle of her table. “You know, I thought of sending Harry to Montana once,” Joe said. “Then I wondered what he’d do with all that fresh air. He’s such a city boy. Never wants to stray far from home. But he loves this company, I’ll say that for him. Don’t worry, Megan. He’ll just need a little convincing to be your mentor, that’s all. In fact, why don’t you pay him a little visit today? He never leaves until five, and perhaps if you go personally and tell him how excited you are about having him mentor you, he’ll understand how important I think this is.”

Megan managed a faint smile. She’d go visit Harry all right, but only to convince him to back down so that someone else would have to be her mentor. Now there was a plan. “I could do that.”

“Good.” Joe stood, his business suit hardly wrinkled. She wondered how he managed to do that. Within an hour of arriving at the office, her conservative blue suit had crumpled from simply sitting in her chair and doing her work.

Joe Jacobsen gave her a big encouraging smile. “You’ll find the complete Jacobsen Stars program in a package that will be delivered to you tomorrow morning. I’m glad to have you on board. Have a good afternoon, Megan.”

Megan watched him go. Then a thought hit her. She poked her head out the cubicle and started after his retreating figure. “Mr. Jacobsen!”

He stopped and turned. She caught up to him. “What if Harry refuses and you can’t find someone else? Am I out of the program?”

Joe gave her a reassuring look. “Oh no. I’ll find you someone. But don’t worry. I just know Harry will agree.” He turned and walked away.

As Megan stared at Joe Jacobsen’s retreating back, determination stole over her. She didn’t want Harry Sanders as her mentor probably any more than he wanted her as his protégée. So all she had to do was convince him that it was in his best interest to say no. She went back to her cubicle to begin rehearsing her speech.

GRANDPA JOE WHISTLED as he stepped into the executive elevator. He pushed the button for the twenty-fifth floor. Whereas most corporate headquarters went skyward, Jacobsen Enterprises had sacrificed height for width. Although this was the main building, the complex sprawled several city blocks. It was one of the most valuable pieces of real estate in the city.

Not that he’d want a tall building anyway. He hated elevator rides. The trip to the top of the Sears Tower in Chicago, even though under two minutes, had about done him in. And to think he was a combat veteran.

He stepped out on his floor, and headed toward Andrew’s office. Then thinking twice, he bypassed it. He loved his son-in-law as much as his own son, Blake, but unlike Blake, Andrew thought Grandpa Joe was a constant meddler. Perhaps he was, Grandpa Joe conceded, but after all he was so good at it. Andrew’s marriage to Lilly was a perfect example, as was Darci and Cameron’s.