In Bed with the Boss

“Never trust a guy without a last name,” grumbled one of the accountants.

“Maybe Riki is his last name,” joked a junior finance exec.

“Two names,” said one of the finance managers. “A guy should have two names. First and last. It’s fiscally irresponsible to try getting along with one. Not to mention damned pretentious.”

Tom called a halt to the subject after a while. “I know it’s an issue. And you all know I’ll be dealing with Riki face-to-face on Monday. And Thursday, I’ll get with Robby.” Robby Axelrod was in charge of construction on the Kyoto site. “See what we can do about the cost problems there.”

A few minutes later, Verna and Hank came over to say goodbye. Shelly got up and gave Verna a hug. “Send me a postcard.”

Verna grinned. “I promise. I’ll keep in touch. And thanks for the party. It was terrific.”

Tom got up, too, and walked the couple to the door of the bar. When he came back to the table, everyone else started making going-home noises.

Since Shelly had taken charge of the party when she moved up the date, she went ahead and played hostess. She stuck around till the last stragglers called it a night. Finally, she flipped out her shiny new TAKA-Hanson credit card and paid the tab.

Tom took the padded bench in the vestibule and waited for Shelly to head for the door.

She seemed surprised to see him there. “Hey. You didn’t have to wait.”

He rose. “Can’t have my favorite assistant wandering out onto Clark Street alone.”

She gave him a laugh. He really liked her laugh. “I think it’s totally safe, Tom.”

“You never know.”

She lifted her slim wrist and glanced at her watch. “It’s not even nine.”

“Almost dark. Could be dangerous.”

“The biggest danger isn’t the kind you can protect me from.” Her brandy-colored eyes teased him.

He took her arm and turned her for the door. “Tell me all about it.”

“Michigan Avenue. It’s in walking distance and I’ve got plastic. Blocks and blocks of great stores. I could end up spending a whole lot of money I don’t even have.”

“So I swear I won’t take you shopping. Whew. Another bankruptcy averted. Aren’t you glad I’m here?”

She smiled again. He loved her smile. “Okay. I’m glad. Happy now?” She looked worried, suddenly. “Where’s your jacket?”

“You’re a hell of an assistant. Nothing gets by you.”

“If someone’s walked off with your suit coat…”

“I left it—along with my tie—at the office.” He guided her through the door into the warmth of the evening. “Nice out.” He kept her hand wrapped around his arm and headed north on Clark, for no other reason than that staying on the move seemed a good way to keep her with him.

They were going to be working closely together from now on and it never hurt to get a little social time with his assistant. No, he’d never walked arm-in-arm up Clark Street with Verna. But then, Verna was fifty-four and happily married. Different assistant, different approach.

Tom wanted to know more about Shelly. That seemed perfectly reasonable to him. He liked her and she was a colleague, a colleague who interested him. A lot.

In no time, they’d reached Washington Square. They walked around the park, admiring the elaborate masonry buildings erected by Chicago’s elite after the famous fire at the end of the nineteenth century. Then he led her on the path that ran diagonally through the center of the square.

He said, “I thought we ought to get to know each other better.”

She paused on the concrete walk. “How well is ‘better’?”

“Well, I don’t know. Better than we know each other now.” He guided her forward a few steps.

But she only stopped again and pulled her arm from his. They stood exactly in the middle of the square of park, facing each other. “I want this job, Tom. I love it already.”

“Good.”

“And I need it. I don’t want to do anything that could potentially screw it up.”

“I don’t see how you could screw it up. You’re very good, Shelly. Smart. Efficient. With strong office skills.”

“I’m not talking about how good I am at my job.”

Tom gave up finessing her. He looked at her steadily. “Of course you’re not.”

She caught her lower lip between her pretty white teeth. “I… This is so awkward. And I’m scared that you’re going to get offended—or worse.”

“I’m not. I promise you.”

She laughed, a nervous sound. “Men do, you know?”

He wanted to touch her. But he kept his hands to himself. “Not me.”

She pressed those soft lips together and nodded. “Well. Good. Sometimes…office romances work out fine.” She spoke slowly. Thoughtfully. “But sometimes —probably more often than not—they end with someone hurt. Or someone angry. Then working together becomes too difficult. I can’t have that happen. I really can’t.”

He got the message. Loud and clear. It was a reasonable argument, and he could understand her fears. He wanted to tell her not to worry, that no matter what, she wouldn’t lose her job as his assistant. But he had no right to promise such a thing. In the end, there really were no guarantees.

“Come on.” He touched her arm, but didn’t take it. She went with him the rest of the way through the park to a row of iron benches on the edge of the square, facing the imposing facade of the Newberry Library.

For a while they just sat there. Tom let the silence spin out. It was full dark by then, the streetlights blooming bright, the fountain in front of the library bubbling away, making those happy splashing sounds as the water shot upward and tumbled back into the fountain’s bowl. An old couple strolled past, the man frailer than the woman. He held her arm and leaned heavily on a cane. And there were others, most walking fast, in a hurry to get wherever they were going.

“You live in Forest Park, right?” he asked after a while.

She sent him a glance.

He put up both hands. “Don’t shoot me. It was on your résumé.”

An unwilling smile broke across those full lips. She shook her head. “Do you ever give up?”

“Persistence. Key to success. Tell me about your place.”

“Tom…”

“Come on. It’s getting-to-know-you time. Totally innocent.”

“Hah.”

She had him pegged. It wasn’t innocent. Tom knew that. Not innocent in the least. He was drawn to Shelly. Powerfully. She made him want to take the kind of chances he’d long ago stopped taking.

He knew he should respect the boundaries she’d just set. But when he looked into those brown eyes of hers, well, what he should be doing seemed of no importance.

“About your place…?”

She blew out a breath. “Oh, all right. It’s got three bedrooms and two baths. My parents helped me buy it. It’s small, but it’s mine.” She turned to him. In the glow of the streetlamp a few feet away, her eyes were dark velvet and her skin shone like pearls.

Tom smiled to himself. He knew she liked him. Maybe more than she wanted to like him. He’d take it a day at a time. Anything might happen.

As a rule, he would never consider seducing his secretary. But he was considering it. More than considering it. It felt…right, somehow, with Shelly. He wanted her. And he liked her. That seemed a rare thing to him. As each day passed, Tom was only more certain that, between him and Shelly, the rules didn’t apply.

She said, “You realize I know almost nothing about you.”

“Is that an accusation?”

She sighed. “Well, yeah. I guess it is. Where do you live?”

“I’ve got a great condo on East Randolph.”

“Right in the Loop.” The Loop was downtown, so named because the train system looped in a circle around it. Living space there was at a premium. She went on, “I might have guessed. And you can see Grant Park from your balcony, right?”

“Yeah. I can see it.” He nudged her with his elbow. Gently.

She shot him a wary glance. “What?”

“We could go there right now. I’ll show you my… view.”

She laughed. “I think you’re dangerous.”

“Who, me?” He did his best to look harmless.

“Let me guess. You’re from somewhere back east. You went to Yale. You were on the rowing team…”

“Princeton. Coxswain, heavyweight men’s crew. I had a full ride.”

“In the rowboat?”

He chuckled. “I meant scholarships. They covered everything, tuition, fees, living expenses. I never would have gotten near the Ivy League otherwise.”

A frown crinkled her smooth forehead. “Not from a rich family? Not from Pennsylvania or Massachusetts or upstate New York?”

“I was born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma. My dad was a janitor and my mom worked in a dentist’s office. They were older. My mom was forty-five when she had me. I was their only kid.”

“Was?”

“Yeah. They died years ago. My dad went first. Heart attack. My mom followed not long after.” He didn’t say the rest, that the stress of his arrest and the trial for insider trading had really taken it out of them. Dan Holloway died while Tom was in prison. Tom got out in time to be at his mother’s bedside when she went.

Shelly’s big brown eyes were soft. “Wow. That’s tough. How old were you when you lost them?”

“Twenty-four.”

“I can’t imagine getting along without my parents.” She put her hand on his arm. It felt damn good there. Warm. And steady. “I’m sorry, Tom.”

He looked into her eyes and felt like a fraud. They died because I broke their hearts.…

He had the craziest urge right then, to tell her everything. All the gory details. His apprenticeship in greed, ambition and corruption under a master manipulator, his long free fall from grace.

It was an urge he had little trouble resisting. He wasn’t going there. He liked Shelly. He wanted to get to know her better. A lot better.

But some ugly stories were better left unshared.

He lowered his arm from under her touch. “You do what you have to do. I went into the army after they died.”

“Time for a change, huh?”

“You could say that. When I got out, I got my MBA on the GI bill from the University of Texas. I worked in Dallas and Atlanta, then Dallas again. And then back to New York. And now Chicago.”

“Back?”

“Excuse me?”

“You said you went back to New York.…”

Way to blow it, Holloway. He tried to act casual as he covered his ass. “I had a job in New York before my parents died.” And he went right on before she had a chance to ask him what kind of job. “What else? My favorite color is orange and I’m becoming a Cubs fan. I hate Thai food, love Italian. Two serious relationships.”

“Marriages, you mean?”

“Uh-uh. Never went that far. Now you. Come on. It’s only fair. Favorite color?”

“I love blue.”

“And about the Cubs?”

“The Cubs are tops with me. I like Thai food, like Italian better. I have a thing about tuna fish. Love it.”

“A little mercury. What’s the harm?”

“Exactly. Never been married, either—and I see those questions in your eyes.”

“Busted. Your son’s father…?”

“Okay. Since I feel like we’re almost friends—in a strictly professional way…”

He made a circular, move-it-along motion with his hand. “Yeah?”

“I got pregnant in college. The boy didn’t want anything to do with being a dad. He agreed to sign papers giving up his rights to Max. I haven’t seen him since.”

“That’s cold. Signing away your own kid.”

She shifted on the bench, turning her body toward him. “Honestly, I’m not bitter.” She looked so…earnest. And damn it, he wanted to slide his fingers under her hair, hook his hand around her neck and pull her close for a kiss.

But he played fair—for now—and held himself in check. “I like your attitude, Winston.”

“Hey. Thanks.”

There was one of those moments. The fountain across the street burbled away and people hurried past a few feet from the bench and Tom and Shelly grinned at each other like a couple of lovestruck fools.

Lovestruck…

Strange choice of words. Yeah, he liked her. He wanted her. But it was way early to be using the word love.

He made himself break the eye contact.

After a few seconds, she said, “It’s worked out all right for me and Max. It…wasn’t meant to be, between Max’s dad and me. And Max is smart and funny and happy. And loving. He doesn’t need a dad who’s not one hundred percent there for him.”

“I want to meet this kid.”

“Just don’t give him your phone number.”

“What?”

She laughed. “Oh, nothing. It’s his thing lately. He’s discovered the wonder of the telephone. He likes to make phone calls—you know, dial the number all by himself—and then talk your ear off.”

Tom grinned. “Definitely. Need to meet him.”

“Well, he’s with his grandparents until the first of July. So you’ll just have to wait.” She rose before he could reach out a hand and stop her. “This has been great, Tom.…”

He resisted the strong urge to grab her hand, to hold on until she sat back down beside him.

With a shrug, he stood. “At least I know your favorite color now.”

She tipped her chin up to meet his gaze. The fountain lights made those brown eyes of hers gleam golden. “Yeah. Top priority. Knowing that your secretary loves blue.”

“You never know when information like that will come in handy.”

“Oh. Right.” Her voice was breathy. In spite of her insistence that she wouldn’t get involved with him, her eyes begged for a kiss. “And that I like Italian food. That’s so important.…”

Her full lips tempted him. One kiss. What could it really hurt? Two kisses. Three.

A night full of kisses. He wanted that. With this woman. He wanted it bad.

Time to hail a cab. He saw one coming and raised a hand. The cab slowed and stopped at the curb.

Two steps and Tom was pulling open the door. He gestured her in.

She hung back. “Uh. No. Really, I’ll just catch the train. It’s no problem.”

“Shelly. Get in.”

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