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“I’ll keep that in mind. I’ll also pick you up tonight at six.”
Jessie got to her feet, correctly assuming she’d just been dismissed.
“Six will be fine. And please don’t change.”
Max frowned slightly. “Why not?”
“Because I want the kids to see what a real employer looks like. In fact, you can give a couple of practice interviews, if you would,” she said hopefully.
“All right, but be warned that I haven’t interviewed anyone for an entry-level job in fifteen years.
“Until tonight, then.” Max held his office door open for her, and Jessie hurried through, feeling as if she were escaping from a relentless force of nature.
She didn’t begin to relax until she was safely outside the building on the sidewalk. She spent the bus ride home trying to sort out her impressions of Max Sheridan and the job she’d taken on. Having met him, she wasn’t surprised at his unorthodox method of choosing a wife instead of waiting for love to strike as most men would.
Jessie frowned, trying to remember if he’d said anything about love. She was almost positive he hadn’t. Did that mean he didn’t expect to find love in his marriage? Or did it mean that he didn’t think his emotions were any of her business? It could be either. Or neither. She had no way of knowing.
But even if his marriage started out as a cold-blooded bargain, she very much doubted that it would stay that way for long. She swallowed as she remembered the sensual line of his mouth, and the strength in his long fingers as they had gripped hers. Max Sheridan was a compulsively attractive man, and his attraction owed nothing to his net worth.
Jessie got off at her bus stop and walked down the block to her apartment house.
Letting herself into the lobby, she picked up her mail and sorted through it on the elevator ride up to her apartment on the fourth floor. She bypassed the bills and flyers in favor of a pale-pink envelope with her address neatly typed on it. Curiously, Jessie studied the uneven keystrokes. It looked as if it had been typed on a typewriter and not a computer.
Ripping it open, she pulled out a single sheet of pink stationery. When she saw the handwriting, a volatile mix of pain and anger swamped her, making her want to throw up.
She closed her eyes and took several deep breaths, willing her stomach to behave. When she finally felt marginally in control, she forced herself to read the words on the paper. What she really wanted to do was rip it to shreds and then stomp on the pieces.
The elevator doors opened and she got out, automatically heading toward her apartment, her movements feeling stiff and unnatural.
Once she was inside, she went into the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee. She desperately needed a strong shot of caffeine to counteract the shock she’d just had.
Kicking off her heels, she set the letter in the middle of her gray granite countertop and then stood there, staring down at it as if it were a snake about to strike.
“Damn!” she muttered. “How could she write to me? And why now? Why not last year when she first got out of prison?”
Too agitated to sit still, Jessie began to pace as she waited for her coffee to brew. She didn’t want to hear from her mother. They didn’t have any good memories to share. Not a single solitary one. Thanks to her mother’s alcoholism, Jessie had had a childhood straight out of a Kafka nightmare. And now her mother had the nerve to write to her and suggest meeting, as if nothing had ever happened.
Hell would freeze over before she’d ever have anything to do with her mother again, Jessie thought grimly. She had built her own life. It was a good life. A normal life. And there was no place in it for her mother’s destructive presence.
No place at all.
Chapter Two
Jessie tensed, automatically checking the kitchen clock when she heard the entrance buzzer sound. Exactly six o’clock. It had to be Max. Anticipation poured through her, jerking her to her feet.
Hastily she shoved her feet into her black slingbacks, wincing slightly as the fashionable shoes pinched her toes. Someday she was going to have enough money to retire somewhere peaceful and rural where she’d never wear anything but comfortable walking shoes again.
As she grabbed her purse off the counter, the pale-pink letter lying there caught her eye. Why had her mother written? Was she hoping to con Jessie into paying for her liquor? A surge of anger coursed through her as she remembered how her mother used to steal her babysitting money to buy alcohol. She’d been there and done that and she wasn’t going back. Not ever again.
All she had to do was to stand firm, she told herself as she got into the elevator and punched the button for the lobby. Once her mother realized that she wouldn’t allow herself to be used, she’d go away. At least, Jessie sure hoped she would.
The elevator came to its usual jerky stop on the ground floor, and Jessie stepped out. Her breath caught in her lungs as she caught sight of Max standing on the street outside. Even through the thick plate glass of the door she could see the impatient glitter in his blue eyes. As if he had worlds to conquer, and she was delaying him.
Max watched Jessie cross the small lobby toward him. Her face was composed and remote as if her mind was far away, occupied with more important things that having dinner with him. For some reason her preoccupation annoyed him. He wanted to swing her up in his arms, find the nearest bed and make love to her until she lost that infuriating aura of self-control that she radiated.
And the fact that he knew he couldn’t act on his sexual attraction for her only made it worse. Maybe what they said about forbidden fruit really was true, he thought wryly. Maybe it really did taste sweeter.
Hopefully his reaction to Jessie Martinelli would fade as quickly as it had appeared. It was much too intense not to burn itself out relatively quickly. All he had to do was to keep his mind firmly focused on what she could do to help him achieve his goals.
Praying the excitement she felt wasn’t visible in her face, Jessie pushed open the street door and stepped out into the warm summer evening.
“Hi,” she said, trying her best to sound impersonally pleasant.
Max gave her a brisk nod and said, “I’ve got reservations for six-fifteen at a restaurant not too far from here. I brought the car since taxi service can be chancy at this time of night.”
Jessie glanced at the shiny black Mercedes parked at the curb. Its dark, impenetrable windows added to its air of aloofness. The car fit him perfectly. Both were elegant, solidly built and expensive, with an underlying power that could squash the unwary.
“You get points for being on time.” She hoped that focusing on the reason why they were together would dampen the excessive pleasure she felt in his company.
“Don’t tell me. Promptness really is a virtue?”
“It’s also becoming very rare,” she said.
“I refuse to waste my time waiting for people to show up, so I extend the same courtesy to others.”
“A commendable attitude,” she murmured, surprised at his words. Most of the high-powered businessmen she worked with saw nothing wrong with keeping small-business people like herself waiting indefinitely to see them.
“I’m glad you approve,” he said dryly.
Taking her arm, he headed toward the car and opened the rear door. Hurriedly she climbed into the car and scooted across the leather seat to make room for Max.
“Jessie, this is Fred. Fred, Ms. Martinelli,” Max said, introducing his driver.
“Evening, Ms. Martinelli.” Fred pulled into traffic with a deft turn of the powerful car’s steering wheel.
“Good evening, Fred,” Jessie said, wondering how long Fred had worked for Max and how well he knew him. This job had one interesting side benefit. She had the perfect excuse to ask all kinds of questions that normally would be considered none of her business.
Unfortunately, the most burning question she had was one Max couldn’t answer, and that was why she reacted to him like he was the embodiment of her every masculine fantasy when her mind knew perfectly well he wasn’t. Her fantasies had always been about lean, debonair, sophisticated men. Maybe it was a result of her passion for vintage black-and-white movies, but from the time she’d been old enough to understand what sexual attraction was all about, her physical ideal had been men like Cary Grant or Sir Laurence Olivier. Sometimes she had the feeling that she’d been born out of time. She would have been much happier back in the twenties.
“I have reservations at a restaurant called Saretts. Have you been there before?” Max asked, curious about where her dates normally took her. If this were a real date, he’d take her to a five-star restaurant for dinner. Followed by a Broadway show and afterward he’d…
“No, I’ve never heard of it,” Jessie said. “Which is hardly surprising. Sometimes I think New York is wall-to-wall restaurants.”
Did that mean that she ate at a lot of them? Max wondered. And if she did, did she go with someone? A male someone?
“I intend to monopolize your time over the next six weeks or so. I hope no one will be upset.”
“No.” To his annoyance Jessie deflected his question without telling him anything. No could mean anything. It could mean that she was involved with someone who was willing to put up with her heavy workload. Or it could mean that she wasn’t involved with anyone on a personal level at the moment. Max felt an intense surge of frustration engulf him at his lack of any real personal information about her. Sam had rhapsodized for twenty minutes about her competence, her trustworthiness, her ethics and her solid record for results, but at no time in the conversation had he said anything about her personal life other than the fact that she had never done anything that would leave her open to blackmail.
“Here we are, sir,” Fred announced as he pulled up in front of the restaurant.
He could slip in a few personal questions over dinner, Max decided. He’d never found it particularly hard to get a woman talking. In fact, usually he couldn’t get them to shut up.
“I’ll page you when I want to be picked up, Fred,” Max said as the driver opened his door. Outside, he waited while Jessie got out, then took her arm and began walking.
“Is Fred the modern-day equivalent of an old family retainer?” Jessie asked.
“No. There is nothing old-fashioned about Fred. He comes from a security firm that specializes in drivers who know how to kill in unarmed combat.”
Jessie stopped dead on the sidewalk and stared at him in shock. “He what?”
“There are a lot of dangerous people out there, and a wise man takes precautions.”
Jessie shivered at the reminder of just how perilous the world had become, and at Max’s casual attitude toward it. “I never thought of it before, but there are distinct advantages in not having much money. Have you been threatened?”
“No, but I started taking precautions after an Italian friend of mine was kidnapped last year. Kidnapping seems to be a way of life in Italy these days, and I do a lot of business over there.”
“What happened?” Jessie asked.
“His son and I rescued him. We couldn’t take the risk they’d let him go after the ransom was paid.”
Opening the door, he ushered her into the restaurant. Despite it being early, the place was almost full.
“I have reservations for two under the name of Sheridan.”
“Of course, Mr. Sheridan.” The hostess gave him a bright, professional smile. “If you’ll just follow me.”
The woman led them to a booth set along the wall opposite the front window, and Jessie slipped into the plush velvet seat.
“Your waitperson will be with you shortly.” The hostess handed them each a menu and then left.
Jessie opened the menu and then asked, “Do you normally open doors for women?”
Max looked at her in surprise. “Why? Is there something wrong with that?” he asked.
“Manners aren’t a question of right and wrong,” Jessie said. “Think of them as the grease that lubricates the friction of living in close proximity with other people. As far as I’m concerned, having a man open doors for me is a plus. However, some women feel that a man doing something for them that they can do for themselves is patronizing. It will turn them off. If you want to marry a woman who thinks like that, then you need to practice letting women open their own doors.”
Max stared off in the middle distance for a long moment and said, “Opening doors for women is just habit. I grew up in the South, and manners there tend to be a bit more traditional. But I have no real opinion either way.”
“Good,” Jessie said. “Once you focus in on a woman you intend to court, you can simply follow her lead.”
“Yes,” Max said as he tried to imagine what his final choice would look like. But the only image that formed in his mind was of Jessie. Proximity, he told himself.
“What would you like to eat?” Max asked.
“I’m still thinking about it,” she said.
“Well, think faster. The waitress will be here in a minute.”
“Waitperson. Political correctness is very important with the social crowd you’ll be moving in. Or, at least, lip service to it is.”
Max eyed the waitress serving the couple at a table about ten feet from them. “My imagination isn’t equal to the task of thinking of someone like her in sexless terms,” he said.
Jessie turned to follow his gaze and found herself staring at a tall blonde wearing slim black pants that highlighted her long, slender legs and a white blouse that fitted snuggly over her well-developed breasts.
As Jessie watched, the woman turned slightly and aimed a dazzling white smile at the man at the next table. Not only was the woman built like a Playboy centerfold, but she was gorgeous, too.
“I see the problem.” Jessie tried to get a handle on her own feeling of inferiority in the face of such blatant feminine perfection.
“Is that what you envision your future wife looking like?” Jessie asked.
Max took a second look at the waitress, his eyes lingering on the sexy pout of her collagen-enhanced lips. He tried to imagine her holding a wiggling toddler in her arms and failed utterly. She’d probably be too afraid the kid would mess up her hair. Even worse, she’d undoubtedly object to spoiling her figure by having a baby in the first place.
“Not particularly,” he said. “Besides, beautiful women tend to be very high maintenance. Over the long haul that would get real old real fast. And marriage is for the long haul.”
“You wouldn’t know it to look at the divorce statistics these days. Half of all marriages fail.”
Max studied the somber shadows in her eyes, wondering what had put them there. Could she have been married herself and gone through a messy divorce?
“Look at the bright side. That means that half of all marriages are a success,” he said.
Jessie grinned at him, and Max had the oddest feeling that he’d just stepped out of the shadows into brilliant sunlight.
“Let me guess,” she said. “You’re one of those people who see the glass half full instead of half empty?”
“No, I’m one of those people who immediately starts negotiating for water rights so I don’t have to worry.”
Jessie’s grin dissolved into a chuckle. “Practicality is so much more appealing.”
“Not to everyone,” he muttered, remembering his last girlfriend’s numerous complaints about his lack of romantic gestures. “Some women infinitely prefer the romantic approach.”
“But what’s romantic varies depending on whom you’re talking to. Personally, I think a man who can provide the necessities of life is very romantic, but then, I’m willing to admit that I have a practical bent of mind. You just need to find a woman who thinks like you do.”
“You don’t believe in opposites attracting?” Max asked.
Pain speared through her as she remembered her mother’s many lovers. “Take it from one who has been there, it’s much too risky. Offbeat habits that seem endearing at the beginning can become major stumbling blocks later on.”
“I’ll have the Dijon chicken with a tossed salad, house dressing on the side, and a glass of white wine,” Jessie said, changing the subject as the waitress approached their table.
Surreptitiously Jessie studied the waitress’s perfect features, searching for a flaw. She couldn’t find one. If anything the woman looked better up close than she did from a distance.
Jessie tensed as the woman addressed Max by name.
“I’m so honored to meet you, Mr. Sheridan.” The woman gave him an adoring look that made Jessie want to gag. “I’ve seen your picture in the paper many times, but I never thought I’d get to meet you in person.” She gave a throaty laugh that Jessie would have been willing to bet she practiced three times a day in front of a mirror.
Jessie ignored such blatant behavior in favor of watching how Max responded to the woman. To her surprise he didn’t react. At least, not outwardly. He simply nodded as if to acknowledge her words, and proceeded to order.
Undaunted by his reserved manner, the waitress continued to flirt with him. Almost as if she couldn’t believe that he wasn’t captivated by her looks.
