Love, Your Secret Admirer

In Matt’s opinion, Sarah was much too good for this coward.

Penny reverently whispered, “She must really like him.”

Carmella only smiled.

Matt felt as though somebody had punched him in the stomach. He couldn’t believe that Sarah had fallen for somebody and that he hadn’t noticed. He couldn’t believe the man she’d fallen for was a spineless idiot who didn’t know how to make a decent move. A move that involved admitting who he was. He couldn’t believe Sarah falling for someone bothered him more than the fact that the guy was a spineless idiot. But he did know it probably wasn’t wise for him to be the person going to her apartment right now.

“A woman should do this.”

“I have a salon appointment,” Carmella said. “Penny lives across town. Besides, she has kids to go home to.”

“I can’t take these to her!”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not that sensitive. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to get her to accept these flowers.” And he wasn’t even sure he wanted to. That was the tricky part.

Carmella sighed. “Matt, what day is it?”

“August 29.”

“What’s Monday?”

“September 1.”

“What happens on September 1?”

“It’s Labor Day, but on Tuesday my staff goes to work on the quarterly report.”

Carmella handed him the vase of roses. “A wise man who had a quarterly report due would want his executive assistant at her desk on Tuesday morning. Sarah looked pretty mad when she left. You don’t want her to spend her long weekend brooding and be too tired or too upset to come in.”

Matt groaned.

“Take these flowers to her, make her understand that it doesn’t matter who sent them. What matters is that somebody cares about her.”

Matt shook his head, as affronted as Sarah. “Then why couldn’t he sign his name?”

Carmella shrugged. “Haven’t you ever been so tongue-tied with someone that you watched from a distance because you couldn’t go up to her and talk?”

Matt swallowed. He did know what it was like to be so tongue-tied with someone that he watched her from a distance rather than make real contact. It wasn’t a lover or potential lover. It was his mother. And he had been ten at the time.

“Think of this guy like that. Somebody who is inexperienced or somebody who likes Sarah so much that he’s afraid to make a mistake.”

Matt stared at the flowers. His situation wasn’t anything like the situation Carmella was describing, but she had struck the right nerve. The feeling was the same. He’d never approached his mother back then because the fear of rejection was stronger than the hope that she’d welcome him with open arms. He knew this flower-sender’s emotions like the back of his hand.

“When you give the flowers to Sarah explain that somebody who doesn’t know how to admit it likes her and she should be flattered.”

“And you think that will cheer her up?”

Carmella and Penny simultaneously said, “Yes.”

“Fine,” Matt said, turning to go into his office for his briefcase. “Get me her address.”

Forty minutes later Sarah opened her apartment door and there stood her boss, holding the purity flowers he had sent her because he felt sorry for her. Heat scalded her cheeks as her blood pressure and anger rose.

“Hi.”

She drew a long breath, not sure what to say that wouldn’t contain a curse word. Pure. Ha! If he pushed her she would show him pure.

“Carmella was right. You can’t just leave these at the office over the weekend.”

“Sure I can.”

“Well, it’s physically possible,” Matt agreed, “but it’s not right.”

“Sure it is.”

“No, it’s not. Let me in so I can explain these flowers to you.”

For three seconds Sarah only stared at him, blown away by his very casual admission that he had sent the roses. How else would he be able to explain them?

Too curious to hear what he had to say to reject him out of hand, she said, “All right. Come in.”

Sarah saw him glance around as if trying to waste some time before delving into the explanation he probably suspected would get him punched. As he looked at the solid khaki sofa and chair, accented by fat floral pillows and thick wood end tables with brass lamps, she didn’t say a word.

He set the roses on her coffee table. “I figured out why you’re mad about these.”

She tossed her head and crossed her arms beneath her breasts, shifting her braid over her shoulder and bunching the bulky material of her skirt at her waist. She felt like Mother Hubbard. “Did you?”

“Yes. You’re upset that someone can like you but be too cowardly to sign his name to a card when he sends you flowers.”

Though that wasn’t it at all, Sarah considered his explanation. At the core of it was an admission that he liked her. Of course, he could be saying that he liked her as a friend, but if that was all it was, he could have signed his name.

“What else?”

Matt shook his head. “What do you mean? What else?”

“You’re the expert here. I’m just the person who got the flowers.”

“I’m not sure I’m an expert, but I do understand this guy’s feelings.” He caught her gaze. “Haven’t you ever liked somebody enough that you stood across the street and stared at their house, too afraid to approach them?”

“I grew up on a ranch.”

“Okay, have you ever called somebody and then hung up when they answered?”

“Not since caller I.D.”

“You’re not helping, Sarah!”

“I don’t want to help you. I want to understand.”

Matt sighed. “I’m not sure I understand it myself.”

“Well, if you don’t understand,” Sarah shouted, angry again. “How the hell am I supposed to understand?”

Matt’s face lit with enthusiasm. “Now, see, there’s one thing right there. Saying hell isn’t such a big deal, but it reminds me that you grew up with a bunch of men, and when you get angry you can curse better than most of my friends.”

“And that’s a reason to send me purity flowers?”

“Maybe the person who sent the flowers sees there’s another side to you?”

Because Matt was still talking about the flower sender as if he were a third party, Sarah realized that there had to be an explanation for why he couldn’t talk about this directly. She fell to her sofa in exhaustion, and decided that for now, going along would be the easiest thing to do.

“I’m confused. He doesn’t like my cursing so he sent me flowers to let me know he thinks I’m pure?”

“No, he sent you flowers because he’s telling you that he sees something about you that nobody else sees.”

“Why not just tell me with words?”

“Maybe he’s shy.”

Sarah narrowed her eyes at Matt. “Shy?”

“All right, you don’t like shy,” Matt said, clearly exasperated, further confirming that he hated talking about this directly. “How about this? To have your name and business address, this guy has to be somebody you know. Probably somebody you work with.” He caught her gaze. “That means there’s a relationship of some sort already in place that he doesn’t want to lose. So, he’s not going to make a move until he sees how you and everybody at Wintersoft react to these flowers.”

Dumbfounded, Sarah only stared at Matt, realizing she should have thought of this herself. Cautious Matt would never get involved with a woman he feared might reject him. Especially not someone he worked with. There was no way he’d jeopardize their good boss/assistant relationship, particularly since he would also be risking the embarrassment of being snubbed in front of the entire staff of Wintersoft.

“So, what am I supposed to do?”

“You can’t control the reactions of everybody at Wintersoft, but you could at least send this guy the message that you’re interested in him too.”

“I can’t just tell him?”

“You don’t know who he is, remember?” Sarah squeezed her eyes shut, focusing herself on the project as he wanted it because he was calling the shots. “Right. So what do I do?”

“Well, he sent you flowers to let you know he’s interested. You have to send him a signal that you’re interested.”

“Send him a signal?”

“Yeah, you know,” Matt said, motioning with his hand. “Dress up or something.”

Sarah frowned. “Dress up? Are you saying I don’t dress right?”

Matt shook his head. “No. You dress fine for the office. But what you wear to the office isn’t going to tell a guy you’re interested.”

“So I need to dress prettier?”

“More like feminine. You’re an attractive girl, Sarah. But you hide that. In the office, that’s not a big deal because you’re supposed to be focused on work not the way you look. But if you want to show a guy you’re interested, the short route would be to bring out your feminine side.”

“My feminine side,” Sarah repeated, staring into Matt’s beautiful blue eyes. She was flooded with something soft and warm, yet also exciting. He wanted her to bring out her feminine side—which meant he saw she had a feminine side and might even have daydreamed about that part of her the way she’d daydreamed about his kisses.

Suddenly feeling female and desirable, she removed her glasses and smiled demurely at Matt.

And Matt’s heart flip-flopped. He had always seen the pretty face behind the glasses, and, just like her secret admirer, Matt knew there was another side to her, a more feminine side. But unlike her secret admirer, he couldn’t do a darned thing about it.

He rose from her sofa. “So, you understand about the flowers then?”

She nodded. “Yeah. I get it.”

“Good,” Matt said, walking to her door. He tried to tell himself that he wasn’t upset that she was about to get involved with someone, but he was. Unfortunately, he also knew that as her immediate supervisor, he wasn’t allowed to be attracted to her, so he would have to get over it. And he would. With a quarterly statement that had to be done before October fifteenth, he couldn’t let disappointment over a woman divert his attention.

He grabbed the doorknob, but didn’t open the door. Instead, he faced her. “And I’ll see you Tuesday?”

“Yes,” she said, smiling again.

Looking at her beautiful smile and her pretty green eyes, Matt’s heart jerked to double time. He had an almost irresistible urge to kiss her, or at the very least ask her out. After an entire year of being good friends, suddenly he felt entitled to be the guy who got to know the other woman he knew she was hiding in there.

But he couldn’t. She was his assistant. And if that wasn’t enough to keep him in line, he also had a life plan. It didn’t exactly prevent him from dating, but it did preclude him from doing anything that messed up his source of income and his career. He needed his salary and bonuses to fund the investments he had chosen to reach his goal of being a multimillionaire before he was forty. Forty was young enough that he would still have plenty of time to get married and have children. Plus, that gave him nine more years to fund his investments, which—because he was a savvy speculator—were earning interest and dividends and growing on their own. Everything was going according to plan, so now was not the time to turn into a risk taker. Dating his executive assistant was definitely a risk.

Besides, after she sent the message to her secret admirer that she was interested, she would be dating somebody else.

Matt left Sarah’s apartment and she all but danced for joy. She couldn’t believe it! He liked her! He’d sent her flowers, explained why when she misinterpreted them and then told her how to respond.

She paused in her dancing.

Dear God. All Matt had really told her was that he wanted her to be more feminine.

Though Sarah knew she cleaned up well and also knew she could easily never swear again, she had to admit she wasn’t in touch with that other side of herself Matt claimed to see. And that was the part he liked. If she wanted to prove to him that their office romance could work, she not only had to uncover the part of her that he liked, she really had to become that woman.

Realizing this was beyond her, she fell to her sofa trying to think of someone who could help her. Two of her Wintersoft coworkers, Ariana Fitzpatrick and Sunny Robbins, immediately came to mind, but she discounted both because Ariana was pregnant and Sunny was busy with law school. Sarah didn’t want to impose on either of them. Especially not on a Friday night when both were probably up to their ears in well-deserved bubble baths!

Besides, what she needed was the help of someone who truly understood men and woman and romance.

Men, women and romance?

A thought struck her and she reached for her portable phone and the little book of telephone numbers on her end table.

No one knew more about romance than Carmella Lopez.

Chapter Two

After a long Labor Day weekend of visiting salons, shopping and long discussions over choices at the makeup counter, Sarah sat on the fat khaki chair in her living room across from Carmella Lopez and Emily Winters, daughter of Lloyd Winters, owner of Wintersoft.

When Sarah had called Carmella Friday night, Carmella had suggested they enlist Emily’s help with Sarah’s makeover because Emily bridged the gap between Carmella’s and Sarah’s generations. And she had been correct. Using bits and pieces of the experience of three females of varying ages, they had turned Sarah into a stunning woman. With a closet full of new clothes, a new hairdo and just the right makeup, she now had as much confidence about her looks as she had about roping cattle.

“So, are you nervous about tomorrow?” Carmella asked, setting her teacup on the wooden coffee table, right beside the vase of white roses that had started all this.

Sarah looked lovingly at the white blooms. “Surprisingly, no. I know I asked for your help as part of a plan to show Matt I could be feminine, but something else happened. I feel like I’ve finally found the real me.”

“Finding the real you is actually the point of a makeover,” Carmella said with a short laugh.

“And simple and sensual is definitely you,” Emily agreed. A satisfied smile curved her lips, and her sapphire-blue eyes sparkled with approval. “You look great.”

“I feel great. I feel confident enough to conquer the world.”

Carmella frowned. “I hope this doesn’t mean you’ve changed your mind about Matt!”

“No!” Sarah said. “I really like Matt. If he’s interested in me, I want a chance with him, too.”

“Well, if he doesn’t get that message from your new look, then he’s blind,” Carmella said, rising from the sofa.

“Right,” Emily agreed as she also rose. “We’ll see you tomorrow. Remember, come to work a half hour early. The weather report says rain, so you may want some time to pull yourself together before you make the walk down the hall to your office.”

Already at the door, Carmella asked, “Are you sure you’re not uncomfortable making an entrance?”

Sarah laughed. “I think it’s what I need to do. Go for the shock value, get my new self out in the open right off the bat and see how he reacts.”

“I think so, too,” Carmella said and squeezed Sarah’s hands. “We’ll see you tomorrow.”

Sarah let her new friends out of her apartment, then closed the door behind them, wondering if she would get any sleep. She wasn’t nervous about seeing Matt. But she did know he might not react the way Emily and Carmella believed he would because she hadn’t exactly done as he had asked her to do.

For the first time since she’d received the flowers, she was glad for the secret admirer cover. Just as Matt had used it to get his point across to her, Sarah planned to use it to get her point across to him. Looking for her femininity had brought out a sexy side of her personality that even Sarah hadn’t known she had. But when she considered her natural boldness, she knew being confident about her sexuality was her true personality, a part of who she was, and she couldn’t change that. If Matt didn’t want her as she really was, it would break her heart, but at least they would have the cover of anonymity so no one besides Carmella and Emily would know the exchange had occurred.

Matt looked up from his desk Monday morning and the sight that greeted him caused his breath to catch and his mouth to fall open in awe. Sarah walked up the aisle to her workstation, her head high, a smile on her lips.

Her long red hair had been cut and her braid had been replaced by a hairdo that could only be described as sensual. Fat locks of looping curls cascaded to her shoulders and bounced with every step she took.

Her cinnamon-colored suit looked like suede. The skirt was short and Matt could see enough of her legs to realize she hadn’t been hiding just a feminine woman beneath the bland skirts and jackets she usually wore. She had been hiding a goddess.

He rose from his seat and cautiously made his way to the workspace she shared with Sunny Robbins.

‘Sarah?’

“Oh, good morning, Matt.”

She greeted him as if there was nothing different about her appearance today, and for ten seconds Matt couldn’t decide if he should say something or let it alone. He knew he had been the one to tell her to change the way she dressed, but he hadn’t expected she would turn into a completely different person, and he wasn’t sure his real reaction to her new look would be appropriate. What he wanted to do was whistle.

She bent to toss her little brown purse into her desk drawer and Matt’s gaze traveled the curve created by her shapely derriere, down the long length of leg to brown high heels of stiletto proportions and he felt as if his heart stopped. His common sense, boss instincts and attraction all got jumbled and before he knew what was happening, he gasped, “What did you do to yourself?”

Sarah straightened quickly, a stricken look on her face. “You don’t like it?”

“Like it? Dear God. You’re going to give half the men on staff coronaries.”

Her face brightened. Her well-painted lips curved into a smile. “So, I did okay?”

“Okay? Sarah, you look like a totally different person.”

Her stricken expression returned. “I hope you mean that in a good way.” She paused and bit her bottom lip. “Because this is the real me.” She caught his gaze. “And I want my secret admirer to see the real me.”

The quivering that had set up residence in Matt’s abdomen turned to a rock of misery. He might have been the one to instruct Sarah to change a bit for her secret admirer, but, at the time, the guy had seemed more theory than a real person. With that comment, Sarah turned Matt’s “theory” into a living, breathing male. No longer a concept, but competition. “You did this for your secret admirer?”

“You said I needed to be more feminine.”

“I said feminine,” Matt argued, not because he didn’t like her look, but because he did. He really did. But he couldn’t have her. Some other guy would be the recipient of all this femininity. “I didn’t say…”

“Sexy?” Sarah said, interrupting him. Her enthusiasm returned and she smiled broadly. “That was my idea.”

“Why?”

Sarah walked around her desk and stood directly in front of him. “Because after talking to Carmella and Emily on Friday night, I realized that feminine for me would be sexy.”

Matt’s brow furrowed. “Carmella Lopez and Emily Winters?”

“Yes. After our discussion about the roses I decided I needed some help with my makeover, I called Carmella and she brought Emily. But we didn’t run to a store the minute they arrived at my apartment. We talked first, and they told me that feminine could mean a lot of things.”

Not at all willing to hand over this Sarah to another man, Matt said, “Yeah, like flowered dresses, little white purses and lace-trimmed gloves.”

“I’m sure there are proper ladies in the South who would agree with you.” She took a step closer and smiled the smile that made Matt’s knees weak. “But I’m not like one of those ladies and I believe my secret admirer needs to see the real me.”

“And this is the real you?”

Holding his gaze, she nodded.

Matt stifled the urge to tug at his shirt collar because with her standing about a foot in front of him, smiling her confident, positive, sexy smile, the room was suddenly very warm. “You’re sure?”

She nodded again. “Carmella says it’s all about confidence and this is the most confident I’ve felt in years. If I were in a dainty dress with little white gloves I would feel like a fake.”

She shifted away from Matt so she could hit the switch to turn on her computer monitor and Matt took the opportunity to loosen his collar so he could catch his breath.

“But the plain suits weren’t me, either,” she continued. “So we experimented with a few looks until we got to this one and, voilà,” she said, facing him again. “Suddenly I felt like me.”

“Holy cow!” Sunny Robbins, paralegal to Grant Lawson, Wintersoft’s in-house counsel entered the office. Her chin-length sun-kissed brown hair had been tossed about by the September breeze and her black pantsuit was rain-splattered.

Matt quickly glanced back at Sarah. She hadn’t worn a coat or a rain hat. Yet her suit was dry and her hair was perfect.

Sunny stopped beside Sarah and ran her gaze from the top of her head to the tips of her perfectly dry, brown, high-heeled sandals.

“Holy cow!”

Sarah laughed. “Thanks. I think.”

“Oh, my ‘holy cow’ definitely deserved a thanks,” Sunny said as she rounded Sarah’s desk and tossed her purse onto her chair. “You look great.”

“I feel great! I feel terrific!”

Sunny laughed. “I would feel terrific, too, if I looked like that! What brought this on?”

Matt glanced at dry, perfectly coifed Sarah again. Something was wrong here. There was no way she got from the bus to this building without getting wet. She must have stopped somewhere and fixed herself up before stepping into the office. If he didn’t know better, Matt might think she had actually made an entrance.

His voice slow and cautious, Matt said, “Sarah has a secret admirer.”

Both of Sunny’s eyebrows rose. “Really?”

“Yeah, he sent me flowers late Friday afternoon,” Sarah said. Hearing the odd tone in Matt’s voice, she glanced at him, saw the confused expression on his face and decided that look was the final nail in the coffin. From the second she’d arrived, he’d been sputtering and arguing with her choices. Now his quiet voice and unhappy expression confirmed what she’d guessed all along. He didn’t like her new look.

The thought made her stomach churn and her knees shake like two leaves in the wind. Worse, her breath wanted to come out in quick panting gasps, but just as Carmella had taught her over the weekend, Sarah controlled all that. Because, deep down inside, she genuinely believed what she had told Matt. This was the real Sarah Morris. If Matt didn’t like the real her then she had to move on, find a guy who would like her, exactly as she was. No matter how much it hurt that it wasn’t Matt.

“I left the flowers here, Matt brought them to my apartment and we got to talking about why someone would send me flowers anonymously,” Sarah said, watching as Matt disappeared into his office. “Matt guessed that the guy wanted some kind of signal from me that I was interested in dating, and this is what Carmella, Emily and I came up with.”

Sunny shot her a skeptical look. “Matt told you that changing your look would signal the secret admirer to ask you out?”

“Yeah.”

Sunny laughed. “Just goes to show what he knows! The truth is, Sarah, secret admirers are usually friends trying to cheer you up.”

Sarah frowned. She had thought exactly that. Right from the beginning she’d decided that if Matt had sent her those flowers it was to boost her morale.

“But in your case, I think Matt took advantage of the flowers to go one step further.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” she said, pointing at Sarah. “Look at you. You look wonderful. One of your friends might have sent you the flowers, but Matt used them to get you to come out of your shell. Lots of guys are going to ask you out. He did you a huge favor.”