Millionaire Boss, page 4
Oh, yes, you can, a voice insisted—a voice that sounded suspiciously like her friend Suzy’s. And you’re going to make Erik Thompson’s eyes pop right out of his head.
Clutching the dress to her breasts, Penny headed for the bathroom, repeating under her breath a phrase from the story “The Little Engine that Could,” which her niece Rachel loved Penny to read.
“I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.”
Erik tipped back his head and drained the champagne from the glass, then plunked it down on the tray of a passing waiter. He glanced toward the ballroom’s entrance for about the zillionth time since entering the room and swore under his breath when he still didn’t see a sign of his missing secretary. Scowling, he stuffed his hands into the pockets of his tuxedo slacks and headed for the buffet table.
“Hey, Erik!”
Balancing a plate on his palm, Erik glanced over his shoulder and saw his old friend Buzz Kenney bearing down on him. Relieved to find a familiar face among a sea of strangers, he plucked another skewer of grilled shrimp from the tray. He used his teeth to drag one off its end, before dropping the skewer to his plate and turning to greet his friend. “How’s it going, Buzz?”
“Can’t complain.” Buzz slapped a bear-like hand against Erik’s back. “How ’bout you?”
Erik’s eyes bugged as the force of Buzz’s greeting made the shrimp he’d just swallowed hang in his throat. He gulped, swallowed hard, forcing it down, then slipped a finger behind his shirt’s starched collar and craned his neck. “Fine,” he croaked, “until you came along.”
Buzz tossed his head back and boomed a laugh. “You always were a bit on the puny side.”
Erik shot his friend a frown. “And you were always an overgrown bully.”
“Now, Erik,” Buzz chided. “Surely by now you’ve forgiven me for shoving you buck naked into the girl’s locker room when we were in junior high?”
“Oh, I’ve forgiven you all right,” Erik replied dryly. “I just haven’t forgotten the incident. Nor will I.”
Chuckling, Buzz draped a companionable arm along Erik’s shoulders and turned to survey the room. “Mmm-mmm. Have you ever seen so many gorgeous babes gathered under one roof?”
Erik chose a bacon-wrapped mushroom from his plate and popped it into his mouth, not bothering to look up. “Yeah. One too many times.”
Buzz clasped a hand over his heart. “Oh, man. Don’t tell me the great Erik Thompson has lost his appetite for beautiful women?”
Erik lifted an indifferent shoulder. “If you’ve tasted one, you’ve tasted ’em all.”
“Then you haven’t been samplin’ from the same buffets I’ve been feedin’ from.” He dug an elbow into Erik’s ribs, then boomed another laugh when the dig sent Erik staggering sideways a step.
Frowning, Erik rubbed a hand over a rib he was sure would be sore the next day. “Why don’t you go beat up on somebody else for a while?”
“And leave you all alone?” Grinning, Buzz folded his arms across his chest and rocked back on his heels, trolling the room with his gaze again. “Caught that pesky hacker yet that’s been givin’ you grief?”
Irritated by the reminder, Erik plucked a filled champagne glass from the tray of a passing waiter. “No.” He tossed back half the bubbly liquid.
“Boy Wonder, isn’t it?” Buzz asked, angling his head to look at Erik for confirmation.
“Boy Worrywart, would be more like it. The guy’s becoming a royal pain in the ass, ducking in and out of systems, nosing around where he hasn’t any business.”
Buzz arched a thick brow, leveling a pointed look at Erik. “Sounds like a kid I used to know.”
In spite of the years that separated him from his crimes, Erik felt the heat crawl up his neck. “Yeah, but I was just a kid. Didn’t know any better.”
“Maybe Boy Wonder’s just a kid, too. His name suggests he might be.”
Erik’s frown deepened. “No kid is that good.”
“You ought to know,” Buzz replied, and turned his gaze back to the room. “You were the best.” He puckered his lips in a silent whistle. “Whooee. Would you look at that?” He gave the points of his bow tie a gleeful tug. “Ultimate babe at three o’clock.”
Erik rolled his eyes, amazed that a man Buzz’s age still reverted to locker-room lingo when confronted with a good-looking woman. “Are your hormones always on red alert?”
Buzz grinned as he headed toward the redhead who had caught his eye. “Wouldn’t want ’em any other way.”
In spite of himself, Erik found himself chuckling as he watched Buzz move in for the kill. He pitied the poor woman his buddy had zeroed in on. The woman didn’t know it yet, but she didn’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell of resisting Buzz’s killer charm. The man had more moves than a Ryder truck and more come-on lines than a drunk in a bar at closing time. Erik knew because he’d seen the man in action more times than he cared to remember.
Shaking his head, he started to turn for a second helping from the generous spread of hors d’oeuvres, but spun back, every muscle in his body tensed in denial.
No, he told himself as he stared at the woman smiling shyly up at Buzz. It couldn’t be. He took a step toward the couple, but stopped, sure that he was wrong.
No, he told himself again. The hair color was right, but the style was all wrong. Mouse wore her hair twisted up in a tight, spinsterish bun, not swinging at shoulder length and mussed as if she’d gone a fast round in bed with an overly zealous lover. And there was no way in hell that woman’s body could possibly belong to his secretary. Not that he had a clue what his secretary’s figure looked like. Not when he’d seen her in nothing but those stupid, sexless suits favored by so many executive-type women.
In spite of his doubts, he found himself taking another step toward the couple. Then another. And another until he’d reached Buzz’s side. He slapped a hand against his friend’s back. “Hey, Buzz,” he said, turning on a killer smile that he knew from experience most women found hard to resist. “Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?”
“And chance losing her to a smooth talker like you? Man, I’m not that—”
Whatever else Buzz had to say on the subject was lost to Erik as the woman turned to fully face him. “Damn,” he gasped weakly, bracing a hand against Buzz’s arm for support as he found himself staring into all-too-familiar green eyes. He dragged his gaze from her face and down her front, nearly choking when he encountered the mounds of creamy flesh that the bustier-style bodice pushed above the dress’s heart-shaped neckline. “Penny?” he asked, forcing his gaze back to her face. “Is that you?”
Though her smile remained in place, he saw the uncertainty in her eyes, recognized the level of nerves in the tremble of the fingers she smoothed down her thighs—thighs that the dress’s brief hemline barely covered.
“Yes,” she said, then caught her lower lip between her teeth and dropped her gaze, nearly making him groan at the provocativeness in the demure gesture. “I’m sorry I’m late,” she murmured. “I was…detained.” She peeked up at him through a web of lashes. “You aren’t upset with me, are you?”
“Upset?” he repeated, when upset was much too mild a word to use to describe his earlier dark mood. “No,” he lied. “I was just worried that you’d gotten lost or that something might have happened to you.”
She laid a hand on his arm. “I’m so sorry to have worried you,” she said with a contriteness that he would expect from the Penny he’d gotten to know over the last twenty-four hours. But he wasn’t sure he knew who this new Penny was…or if he even liked the change.
He frowned, eyeing her suspiciously. “What’d you do to your hair?”
She caught a lock between her fingers and twisted self-consciously. “I had it cut this afternoon. Do you like it?”
He deepened his frown. “It’s all right…I guess.”
Her disappointment was instantaneous and blatantly obvious, even to a man as self-possessed as people claimed Erik to be.
Buzz stepped between the two. “I like your new hairstyle just fine,” he assured Penny, then gallantly offered her his arm. “Now how ’bout that dance you promised me?”
Penny looked up at Buzz, her hesitancy to accept his invitation evident in her wide, green eyes. She glanced at Erik, then quickly away, and forced a smile as she slipped her arm through Buzz’s. “I’d love to.”
Erik stood where they had left him, watching the man he’d once considered his oldest and closest friend steer his secretary toward the dance floor. When they reached the area and Penny stepped into Buzz’s arms, Erik whirled for the bar, muttering curses under his breath about playboys and innocent lambs being led to the slaughter.
It was well after midnight when Erik unlocked the door to their hotel suite and gestured impatiently for Penny to enter before him.
Her cheeks flushed with excitement, she swept past him on ridiculously high heels, trailing a provocative scent that had Erik lifting his nose and sniffing the air, in spite of his current disgust with his secretary.
She tossed a glittery purse the size of a small envelope onto the sofa, then spun, her hand clasped beneath her chin. “Wasn’t that the most wonderful party!”
Disgusted by her exuberance—as well as by her behavior for the last couple of hours—Erik shrugged out of his tuxedo jacket and threw it toward the sofa. It landed on the floor about two feet shy of his mark. “It was all right,” he muttered.
“All right?” she repeated, then laughed gaily and flung her arms wide. “I can’t remember when I’ve had such a marvelous time. The orchestra was absolutely divine, and your friend, Buzz, such a skillful dancer. I’ve never swing danced before, but he was so patient with me, so kind to offer instruction.”
Erik cut a glance at her, then frowned as he emptied the contents of his pockets onto the bar, resenting her good mood, but unsure why. “We’re here to work,” he reminded her. “Best you remember that.”
Her eyes widened in alarm. “Oh, I haven’t forgotten.” She quickly stooped to scoop his jacket from the floor, then straightened, holding it against her chest as she smoothed the wrinkles from it.
But not before Erik had gotten another good look at the luscious mounds threatening to spill over the top of her dress.
He tore his gaze from the tempting sight and ducked behind the bar, suddenly finding himself in dire need of a drink. Selecting a miniature bottle of bourbon, he dumped its contents into a glass, started to add water, then decided against it and tossed the drink back, neat. He inhaled sharply as the bourbon hit the back of his throat, gulped it down, then hissed a breath as the liquor burned a path all the way to his stomach.
He glanced over to find Penny staring at him in horror.
“What?” he snapped impatiently.
“You aren’t intending to get drunk, are you?”
He scowled and reached for another bottle. “Might. What’s it to you, if I do?”
She took a step toward him, then stopped, hugging his jacket against her breasts. “Nothing. It’s just that…well, you did say that we have a lot of work to do while we’re here.”
He dumped the bottle’s contents into the glass, then lifted it, swirling the amber liquid lazily around the glass’s sides as he met her gaze. “Don’t worry about me. I can take care of myself. While you,” he added, gesturing at her with the glass, “are going to require close supervision.”
“Me!” she cried. “Whatever for?”
He tossed back half the bourbon, then dragged the back of his hand across his mouth, firming his lips against the heat that seared his throat. “You’re like the country mouse who went to the big city. All wide-eyed innocence when confronted with the big bad wolf.”
Her brow pleated in confusion. “I think you have your stories mixed up. There wasn’t a wolf in the tale of the country mouse and—”
He waved away her explanation as he began to pace across the room. “Doesn’t matter who was in which story. The moral’s the same. You’re in way over your head.”
“Way over my head?” she repeated, clearly baffled by the conversation. “I’m not sure I know what you mean.”
He whirled to face her, his face flushed with fury. “Buzz, you blind, country mouse! He’s a playboy! Gobbles up women like you every day of the week, then tosses them aside when he’s done with them.”
She jerked up her chin. “He was kind, a perfect gentleman and did nothing whatsoever to make me question his integrity or his intentions.”
“Hah!” he cried triumphantly. “That just proves what an innocent you truly are. I saw the way he held you when y’all were dancing. The way his hands rode low on your butt. And you!” he accused, thrusting the glass in her direction again. “You were wound around him tighter than poison ivy on an oak tree.”
Her mouth dropped open, then snapped closed with an angry click of teeth. “I certainly was not!”
“Yes, you were. And if I hadn’t peeled you off him and hauled you back to our suite, you’d’ve ended up in his bed.”
Her face paled, then flushed an angry red. “I most certainly would not! I haven’t saved myself all these years to toss away my virginity to the first man who shows me a little attention.”
She clapped a hand over her mouth, her face draining of color. Then, with a strangled sob, she threw his tuxedo jacket at him and ran for her room.
Erik caught the jacket before it struck his face, wincing at the furious slam of her door.
A virgin? Had the mouse just confessed to being a virgin?
He turned for the bar, the bourbon slowing his ability to absorb the full meaning of her confession. After fumbling open another bottle of bourbon, he tossed it back, not even bothering with a glass this time. Shuddering as the liquor seared his throat, he braced his hands on the bar and stared at his secretary’s door.
A virgin? he asked himself again, then laughed.
Hell, he hadn’t thought there was one left in the entire world.
Erik lay flat on his back, his fingers laced over his chest, staring at the hotel bedroom’s ceiling. Moonlight spilled through the wide window and across his chest, a reminder that he’d forgotten to pull the drapes before crawling into bed.
A virgin, he thought again, unable to shake Penny’s startling disclosure from his mind. His secretary was a virgin. He frowned, trying to recall the details of the résumé Mrs. H. had faxed to him while he was in Japan. She was in her late twenties, if he remembered correctly.
He shook his head, unable to believe that a woman could reach that age with her virginity still intact.
How? he asked himself, shifting his mind easily into an analytical mode. And why? She wasn’t bad looking…or, at least, she wasn’t when she got all dolled up. Surely there had to be at least one man in her past with whom she’d had a physical relationship.
He shook his head and rolled to his side, punching his pillow beneath his head. No way, he told himself. She couldn’t be a virgin. Not with a body like that.
At the thought, an image pushed itself into his mind of her standing in the ballroom in that poor excuse of a dress, her breasts straining against the formed cups of stiff satin that were all that kept those delectable mounds from exploding right out the top. The way the clingy, glittery fabric hugged her body like a second skin, accentuating a slender waist and full, sensuous hips. The brush of carrot-red hair against creamy, smooth shoulders. Moist, full lips, glossed to invite a man’s kiss.
He groaned and rolled from the bed and to his feet, knowing he’d never get any sleep now. Not when he knew a virgin slept in the room across from his. He swayed drunkenly a moment until the spinning room stilled. “A drink,” he told himself, and staggered to the bedroom door. “Another drink and I’ll be able to sleep.”
He stepped into the living room and braced a hand against the wall for a moment to steady himself before pushing himself on toward the bar.
He twisted open another bottle of bourbon, lifted it to his lips, then froze, listening. Frowning, he lowered the bottle and turned to peer at Penny’s closed bedroom door, sure that the muffled sound had come from behind it. Was she crying? he wondered, his gut knotting in dread.
He set aside the bottle and started for her door. He stumped his toe against a leg of the sofa, swore ripely, then limped his way across the remaining length of the room. Leaning a shoulder against her bedroom door, he pressed his ear to the wood and listened. For a moment he heard nothing but the rasp of his own labored breathing…but then distinctly heard again the muffled sound of sobbing.
His heart twisting in his chest at the mournful sound, he pushed open the door, not bothering to knock. Unlike him, his secretary had remembered to pull the drapes in her room, leaving only a strip of light leaking from beneath the bathroom door for illumination. Wondering if she’d slipped in the tub and hurt herself, he tiptoed to the closed door.
He pressed his ear against the wood, heard her soft sobbing and reached for the doorknob, intending to only test to see if it was locked. “Penny?” he called uncertainly. The knob gave in his hand and the door opened a crack. He stared at it and weighed his options, knowing full well he ought to turn right around and head back for his room.
A virgin, he thought again, and pressed a palm against the door, pushing it open, her innocence calling to him like a siren in the night.
She lay in the tub with her head tilted back against its sloped end and bath bubbles nudging at her chin. She had her arms raised above the water, her hands pressed tightly over her face—a failed effort to hide the sound of her crying from him, he was sure. Lighted candles lined both sides of the marble tub, completely surrounding her, their flickering, golden light giving her bare skin an ethereal glow.
Unsure if it was the pitiful sound of her sobs that drew him or the knowledge that she was naked beneath the bubbles, Erik eased closer to the tub. “Penny?”
At the sound of his voice, she snatched her hands from her face and twisted her head around, her tear-drenched eyes widening in alarm when she saw him. He took a step closer, and she slid lower beneath the bubbles, flattening her hands over her breasts. The protective action only served to push the bubbles away, revealing more bare skin and the pinkened bud of one nipple peeking from between her spread fingers.
