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A Little Moonlighting
Raye Morgan
Carter James simply could not conduct business without Amy Pendleton.So when his indispensable - utterly alluring - associate quit to play temporary mommy to her sister's brood, the take-charge tycoon decided that if he couldn't get her to the office, then he'd take the office to Amy! But he'd never bargained on risking his heart in the process….Amy couldn't believe the audacity of her overbearing, impossibly sexy boss. Still, wasn't this what she'd been dreaming of all these years - a house full of kids and the man she was hopelessly in love with? Well, it was too bad Carter wasn't the marrying kind, because if he wanted her back he'd have to make her an offer she couldn't refuse!
“I quit.”
Amy winced, feeling suddenly emotional. She loved this job. She’d even come pretty close to loving her boss a time or two. But if she was going to have any sort of life at all, she was going to have to leave this all behind. “I—I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to work here anymore.”
Carter gave her a long-suffering look. “What do you want, Pendleton? A raise? A new title? More responsibility?”
“I want…” She hesitated. She’d never really told him this before, though she’d hinted at it often enough lately. “I want a home. I want a husband. I want babies, and a cat, and long mornings in bed and walks on the beach.”
“What?”
Dear Reader,
Summer’s finally here! Whether you’ll be lounging poolside, at the beach, or simply in your home this season, we have great reads packed with everything you enjoy from Silhouette Romance—tenderness, emotion, fun and, of course, heart-pounding romance—plus some very special surprises.
First, don’t miss the exciting conclusion to the thrilling ROYALLY WED: THE MISSING HEIR miniseries with Cathie Linz’s A Prince at Last! Then be swept off your feet—just like the heroine herself!—in Hayley Gardner’s Kidnapping His Bride.
Romance favorite Raye Morgan is back with A Little Moonlighting, about a tycoon set way off track by his beguiling associate who wants a family to call her own. And in Debrah Morris’s That Maddening Man, can a traffic-stopping smile convince a career woman—and single mom—to slow down…?
Then laugh, cry and fall in love all over again with two incredibly tender love stories. Vivienne Wallington’s Kindergarten Cupids is a very different, highly emotional story about scandal, survival and second chances. Then dive right into Jackie Braun’s True Love, Inc., about a professional matchmaker who’s challenged to find her very sexy, very cynical client his perfect woman. Can she convince him that she already has?
Here’s to a wonderful, relaxing summer filled with happiness and romance. See you next month with more fun-in-the-sun selections.
Happy reading!
Mary-Theresa Hussey
Senior Editor
A Little Moonlighting
Raye Morgan
This one is for Val Payne,
good friend and fellow water polo mom
RAYE MORGAN
has spent almost two decades, while writing over fifty novels, searching for the answer to that elusive question: Just what is that special magic that happens when a man and a woman fall in love? Every time she thinks she has the answer, a new wrinkle pops up, necessitating another book! Meanwhile, after living in Holland, Guam, Japan and Washington, D.C., she currently makes her home in Southern California with her husband and two of her four boys.
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter One
“Pack your bags, Pendleton. We’ll be dining in Paris tomorrow.”
Amy Pendleton looked up from her desk with a worried frown, her sleek blond head tilted to the side as she regarded her boss, Carter James, who seemed all too cheerful with his news.
“Paris, France?” she asked, a slight hint of desperation in her tone.
“Of course,” he replied, waving papers at her before he dropped them on her desktop. His clear blue eyes shone with anticipation. “Ah, the Seine, the Champs-Élysées, the streetside bistros…”
Her pretty face twisted as her brows pulled together. “Weren’t we just in Paris last month?” she asked, wondering why he never seemed to notice that her enthusiasm for these constant business trips had waned in recent months. “Or was that Amsterdam?”
“Both,” he said happily, dropping to sit on the corner of her desk, one leg swinging. “And don’t forget that great steak dinner we had in Madrid on that trip. Too bad the meeting in Copenhagen lasted so late into the night that we had to settle for herring sandwiches.”
“Herring sandwiches,” she echoed, her voice hollow, her eyes glazed over. Absently, she picked up a pencil and held it in her hands. “Another cross-Atlantic flight. Cardboard airplane food.” She snapped the pencil in two and let the pieces drop onto her desk as she stared into a grim future. “Hour-long waits at ticket counters.” She picked up another pencil and snapped it, too. “Wearing clothes so wrinkled they look as though you’d slept in them.” Snap went a third. “No sleep. Jet lag. No way to keep track of the days.”
A deep sigh shuddered through her. “I just want to spend three consecutive nights in my own bed,” she said wistfully.
“Remember that little café where we had that great Turkish coffee the last time we were in Paris?” Carter said, his eyes focused on a distant memory.
His handsome face was relaxed, content. The picture of the successful businessman, his wide shoulders filled out his impeccable Italian suit as though he’d been born to wear the style. His thick dark hair was combed back in a slight wave off his forehead, but perfectly controlled, as was most of his life. “We’ll go there for breakfast on our first morning…”
She stared at him. He wasn’t paying any attention. But that was hardly new. He never paid any attention to her! Another pencil bit the dust.
How had she ever been so crazy as to dream about someday marrying this man when, after two long years of working together, he barely knew she existed outside of her performance as his administrative associate? He went on, rhapsodizing about Paris in the spring, and she marveled at him. How could he be so absolutely adorable and at the same time, so darn self-involved?
Marry him? Ha. Now that would be the height of insanity. First she would have to get him to think about something other than business or food long enough to notice she was a woman. And that seemed to be asking a little too much.
Although, she’d tried. Oh, yes, she’d certainly tried. She’d done all the normal things—brought in home-baked brownies, laughed at his jokes, smiled a lot, sat around looking doe-eyed and feminine.
And when that didn’t seem to jolt a response in him, she’d tried a more direct approach. She’d asked for advice from friends and—much to her later chagrin—had taken it. The short skirts hadn’t done anything noticeable to stir his blood. But she’d pressed on, donning dresses that emphasized her attributes, wearing her hair loose and casually shaking it in his face when she bent close to look over plans he was explaining to her.
“Pendleton, you’re going to make me sneeze,” he’d said, grimacing. “Can’t you do something with that hair?”
She remembered well the incident when she’d tried out the new perfume her friend Julie had told her was a surefire attention-getter. She’d stood very close to Carter and wafted the scent around her in his general direction whenever she got the chance. And suddenly, it seemed to work. He was sniffing the air.
“What’s that smell?” he asked her, frowning.
But before she could answer, while she was still busy producing her most flirtatious smile, he decided he knew.
“Someone’s ordered in pizza,” he said decisively. “My God, I’m hungry as a bear. Hold down the fort, Pendleton. I’ll go get us something to eat.”
Being mistaken for a freshly baked pizza was something a girl just didn’t get over all that quickly. That had been the last straw. She’d pretty much given up now.
And here he was going on and on about Paris as though this trip was going to be something special. Well, not for her.
“I’m not going,” she announced when he paused for breath.
He looked at her as though he wasn’t sure he’d heard right. “What are you talking about?” But before she could answer, he noticed the shattered remains littering her desk. “Pendleton, why are you destroying your pencils?”
She glared at him. “Because I am slowly going mad,” she told him grimly. “And that is why I am going to quit.”
She pulled open a desk drawer with a flourish and took out a sheet of paper that had her resignation printed on it. She’d been holding it there for weeks, waiting for the right moment. That moment seemed to have come.
“Here. Take it. I think it covers all the bases.” She winced, feeling suddenly emotional. She loved this job. She’d even come pretty close to loving her boss a time or two. But if she was going to have any sort of life at all, she was going to have to leave this all behind. “I—I’m afraid I’m not going to be able to work here anymore.”
He glanced at the paper, read a line or two, and gave her a long-suffering look. “Rubbish,” he said, and he dropped it into the trash can. “What do you want, Pendleton? A raise? A new title? More responsibility?”
He really didn’t listen. Suddenly she felt so tired.
“I don’t want any of those things. I want…” She hesitated. She’d never really told him this before, though she’d hinted at it often enough lately. But what good were hints to a man who never listened? Taking a deep breath, she launched into her new anthem of need.
“I want a home. I want a husband. I want babies, and a cat, and long mornings in bed and walks on the beach and…”
He laughed. Far from being offended, she stared at him in wonder. He didn’t often laugh right out loud, and when he did, the effect on her pulse rate was astounding. His brilliant white teeth gleamed against his tanned skin, his blue eyes sparkled against the thick, dark lashes, and his face softened for a moment. Laughing made him look so human, so approachable…so sexy. Her heart skipped a beat and a familiar longing rose in her chest, a longing she’d been beating back lately. But it just wouldn’t seem to die.
“Pendleton…” Reaching out, he took her chin in his hand and smiled into her eyes.
She smiled back, yearning for him, savoring his touch. That didn’t happen very often. He seemed to avoid it most of the time. But maybe he was waking up. Maybe he’d finally seen something in her to care for.
And his gaze did darken as he sobered. He looked more deeply into her eyes and for a moment, he seemed almost puzzled by what he saw there.
“Don’t you know that I can’t do without you?” he said softly.
Her heart was thumping in her chest. Had he finally noticed?
“You’re my other half,” he went on. “Without you I’m pretty good at this business. But together, we knock ’em dead.”
She sighed, shoulders sagging. Business again. She should have known. It was always business with Carter.
“You and I were made for this line of work,” he told her, dropping his hand from her chin but maintaining his hold on her gaze. “You know I’m right. You’re a born negotiator. I’ve seen your eyes light up when you see a chink in the opposition’s armor. I know how cool and silky you get when you know you’ve found a negotiating ploy that’s going to leave the other side gasping. I’ve seen your elation when we get a settlement that favors TriTerraCorp.” He grinned at her, very sure of himself.
He was right. They were very important to their company. TriTerraCorp was a large real-estate development firm with ongoing projects all over the world. The four-story, steel-and-tinted-glass headquarters here in the California central coast town of Rio de Oro was an imposing structure as was fitting for such a consequential corporation.
“And we always get a settlement that favors TriTerraCorp,” Carter was reminding her. “Because we’re the best.”
They were the best. He was right. She was good and he was better. He was so good, in fact, that he knew there was a good chance he could manipulate her. She knew it, too.
But she wasn’t going to give in that easily this time.
“I’m thirty-two years old, Carter,” she told him earnestly. “I’m edging into the zone of no return. If I don’t get started on finding someone to have a family with, I won’t ever have one.”
“Why do you have to quit your job in order to start a family?” he asked her, quite sensibly. “Lots of women keep working.”
“Your average job may allow for such things,” she said, shaking her head. “Being your sidekick is a little too nonstop for that. I barely have time to breathe. I don’t think I could fit in finding a mate and popping out a couple of babies while marking up contracts at the same time with my free hand.”
“Babies.” He shuddered. “Believe me, you don’t want to get mixed up with any of those. Messy, smelly, noisy things. A few all-nighters with a baby will sap all the fight right out of you.”
She turned her palms up. “That’s exactly what I’m telling you. I can’t do both.”
Rising from the desk, Carter began to pace restlessly, his hands shoved deep into his pockets. She was being more tenacious than usual. She might actually mean it this time. He couldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t lose her. Somehow over the past two years, their work patterns had become so intertwined, he couldn’t imagine setting up a series of important negotiations without her.
He looked at her sideways. Why hadn’t he seen this coming? He made it a practice to keep his distance, even from Pendleton. He’d learned early in life that human relationships always ended badly. It didn’t pay to let your heart get involved, not if you wanted to avoid getting it broken. Life was so much safer when you cruised the surface instead of plunging down into the deep.
He’d made a promise to himself never to let anyone become so important that his happiness depended upon keeping them in his life. Bad things happened when you did that. And yet, here he was, on the verge of losing her, and scared it just might happen.
Oh, what the hell! He could go on without her. He could get another associate, train her just the way he’d trained Pendleton. It would work out fine. No one was indispensable.
And then he turned and looked at her, took in her porcelain-fine profile, her beautiful blond hair, her trim figure, the graceful curve of her neck, and something seemed to quiver deep inside him. He couldn’t lose her.
“Not so fast, Pendleton,” he said calmly. “I don’t think you’ve thought this through. There are things in the works that could change your mind.”
She shook her head. “There will always be something coming up that would tempt me to stay,” she admitted. “I love working here and you know it. But my full nature isn’t fulfilled with work. I need more.”
He nodded dismissively and his face took on a pensive look.
“I talked to the Joliet Aire people this morning,” he told her with exaggerated casualness. “And Monsieur Jobert has agreed to meet with you.”
Her head snapped up and she stared at him. “What?” Monsieur Jobert was an illusive contact she’d been going after for six months. She jumped up, facing Carter and beaming. “You’re kidding!”
He nodded, gratified by her delighted surprise. “It’s true. That is exactly what we’re going to Paris for. He finally read one of your letters and wants to meet the lady behind the persuasive words.”
“I knew I could get to him eventually,” she said, eyes shining with triumph, her hand tightened in a little fist. “Now, to make sure I’ve got the right ammunition to convince him once we meet face-to-face…” Her voice trailed off as she realized what she was saying.
He studied her closely, one eyebrow cocked. “One more trip to Paris, Pendleton,” he said softly. “Come on. You know you can’t pass this one up.”
She turned away, thinking hard. He’d won again. But still, an interview with the famous Monsieur Jobert!
Carter watched her, his eyes filled with worry now that she wasn’t gazing into his. The last thing in the world he could afford was to lose Amy Pendleton. Together they were a well-oiled machine. Their successes were legendary at TriTerraCorp.
Besides, there was a part of him, deep down, a tiny part he didn’t often allow to surface, that would miss her in other ways. No, he couldn’t do without her. His throat tightened as he thought of it. He’d already lost too much, dammit. This was someone he wasn’t going to let walk out of his life.
“All right,” she said, turning back to look at him with stormy eyes. “One more trip to Paris. But after that…”
