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“Knock, knock.”
He looked up and saw Samantha walking into his office. She looked from him to Arnie.
“Am I early or late?” she asked with a smile.
“Neither,” he said. “Right on time. You’re joining our meeting in progress.”
Now that she had the job, she’d obviously decided there was no need to dress conservatively anymore—at least her definition of it. Gone were the black slacks and black-and-white jacket. In their place she wore a long skirt in a swirl of reds, greens and purples. A dark green sweater hung loosely past her hips. She had a patterned scarf draped over one shoulder, a half-dozen bracelets on each wrist and earrings that tinkled and swayed as she walked.
“This is Arnie,” Jack said, pointing to the man sitting across from him at the conference table. “He’s from IT. He’ll be working with you on the Internet expansion. You tell him what you want and he’ll tell you if it’s possible. Arnie, this is Samantha.”
The other man rose and wiped his palms on his jeans, then held out his hand. His mouth opened, closed, then opened again.
“Ah, hi,” Arnie said, his eyes wide, his cheeks bright with color.
“Good morning.” Samantha beamed at him. “So you’re going to be my new best friend, right? And you won’t ever want to tell me no.”
Arnie stammered, then sank back in his seat. Jack did his best not to smile. Samantha had made another conquest.
He wasn’t surprised. She walked into a room and men were instantly attracted to her. He was no exception. She was a weakness for which he’d found no antidote. Even now he found himself wanting to pull her close and run his hands through her curly hair. He wanted to stare into her eyes and feel her tremble in his embrace.
Not on this planet, he reminded himself. She hadn’t been interested ten years ago and he doubted that had changed.
Okay, she’d been interested once. Apparently once was enough where he was concerned. She’d made it more than clear she didn’t want a repeat performance.
“Don’t let Samantha push you around,” he told Arnie. “She has a tendency to do that.”
Samantha looked at him and raised her eyebrows. “Me? Are you kidding? I’m the picture of complete cooperation.”
“Uh-huh. Right until someone gets in your way. Then you’re a steamroller.”
Samantha sat next to Arnie and patted his hand. “Ignore him. Jack and I went to grad school together and he seems to remember things very differently. I’ve never steamrolled anyone.” She paused, then smiled. “Well, at least not often. I can get tenacious about what I want, though. And I’ve read different reports from your department, Arnie. People have been pushing for this expansion for a while.”
That surprised Jack. “I hadn’t heard that.”
Samantha looked at him. “His boss is the reason why. I also read memos from Roger explaining why it was all a bad idea. Apparently he had some backing on that.”
She didn’t specifically say by who, but Jack could guess. He doubted his father had been a fan of growing technology.
“That was the past,” he said. “Let’s focus on the future. You two need to get together and talk about specifics.”
Samantha jotted down a note on her pad of paper. “I’ll e-mail you, Arnie. You can let me know what works for you. I tend to put in long hours. I hope that’s okay.”
Arnie’s pale eyes practically glowed. “It’s fine. Sure. I’ll be there.” He stood and nodded. “Anytime. Just e-mail me.”
“Thanks for your help,” Jack said.
“Oh, yeah. No problem.”
The other man left. Jack waited until the door closed, then turned to Samantha.
“You’ve made a friend.”
“Arnie? He’s very sweet, or so I’ve been told. I think we’ll do fine together.”
Jack told himself that she would never be interested in the other man and even if she was, it wasn’t his business. He didn’t care who Samantha wanted in her life as long as she did her job. He very nearly believed himself, too.
“What have you got?” he asked.
“Lots and lots of great ideas,” she said with a smile. “I had an extremely productive weekend. I went over the existing Web site. It’s pretty basic. There’s so much room to improve and that’s what I want. I want to start with kids twelve and under as our first target audience and I want to dazzle them.”
She set a folder on the conference table and opened it. “We’ll deal with the teens later, but first, let’s get some buzz going. I want us to be the Web site the kids are dying to go to the second they get home from school. I want to do more than help them with their homework. I want us to be the coolest place on the Web. We can talk about sports and clothes and music. Movies, TV, trends. I was thinking we’d have an ‘Ask Annie’ kind of column.”
He stared at her. “Who’s Annie?”
She laughed. “I mean an advice column. Ask the resident expert. Annie, Mark, the name isn’t important. But here’s the cool part—it will be real-time and interactive. Like a chat room. I have a lot of ideas for developing all this. But our biggest concern is security. We’re going to have to go state-of-the-art so the kids are totally safe on the Web site.”
“I like it.”
“Good.”
Her smile widened and he felt it punch him right in the gut. Ever-present need growled to life.
“You don’t need to run all this by me,” he told her, doing his damnedest to ignore the blood rushing to his groin. “I trust you to run your department.”
“I know, but this is big stuff. I’m talking about huge changes.”
“That would be the reason I hired you.”
She studied him. “You really trust me with all this?”
“Of course.”
“Wow. Great. I guess I’ll get my team to pull it all together and then we’ll have a big presentation.”
“I look forward to it.” He leaned toward her. “That’s how I run things, Samantha,” he told her. “Until someone screws up, he or she has free rein.”
“I would have thought you were more the control type.”
“Because I wear a suit?”
“Sort of. You’re a lawyer. That doesn’t help with the image.”
“What if I went into environmental law?”
She grinned. “Did you?”
“No. Criminal.”
“So it’s not just suits. It’s designer suits.”
“Mostly. But even at the law firm, I give my people room to grow and make mistakes. One screwup isn’t fatal.”
She tucked her hair behind her ear. “That sounds so balanced.”
“I like to think of myself that way.”
“You were less balanced in grad school. Much more.”
He looked at her. “Stick up the ass?”
Her mouth threatened a smile, but she held it back. “I would never have said that.”
“But you were thinking it.”
“Maybe a little. You had that study schedule.”
“It kept me on track and freed up my weekends. I had plenty of time for fun.”
“I remember,” she said with a laugh. “Okay, I’ll let it go. You weren’t that rigid. I think you were just so much more together than any other guy I met. It scared me.”
He wondered if that was true. Had he made her uneasy in ways he hadn’t understood? Did it even matter now?
“You were the most unstructured successful person I’d met,” he said.
“I was kind of crazy back then,” she admitted. “I’ve calmed down some.”
“I hope not. I liked you crazy. Remember the time we spent Christmas eve in a stable because you wanted to know what it was like?” he asked.
She laughed. “Yes, and you kept telling me that I needed to pay attention to geography.”
“I was right. We were in Pennsylvania in the middle of winter. Not exactly the Middle East.”
Despite the cold, they’d had a great time huddled together. He’d wanted her with a desperation that had made him tremble more than the cold. The next morning, he’d driven her to the airport so she could fly home to spend Christmas Day with her mother.
Speaking of which … “How’s your mom?” he asked.
Samantha’s smile faded. “She passed away about three years ago.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I really liked her.”
“Thanks. I miss her. It was hard to lose her. She’d been sick for a while, so it wasn’t a big surprise. We were able to say our goodbyes, which made things better.” She collected her papers. “Okay, I’m going to let you get back to work. I have to put my presentation together so that you’re dazzled, too. You will be, you know.”
“I don’t doubt it.”
He walked her to the door, then returned to his desk. Only a crazy man would continue to want what he couldn’t have, he told himself. Which made him certifiable. It was the human condition, he thought.
And now she’d caught Arnie in her web. Jack could almost pity the guy. The difference was Arnie would probably fantasize about happily-ever-after while Jack only wanted Samantha in his bed. He’d learned a long time ago to concentrate on the physical and ignore the emotional. There was no point in engaging his heart—people who claimed to love quickly got over the feeling and then they left.
Samantha hadn’t been sure what to expect when she’d signed up for “executive housing,” but she was pleasantly surprised by all her condo had to offer. There was a spacious living room with a semi-view, a dining area and plenty of room in the kitchen, especially for someone who made it a point to dirty as few pots as possible.
Her bedroom held a king-size bed, a dresser and an armoire with a television. The closet was huge and she’d already soaked her troubles away in the massive whirlpool tub in her bathroom. There was even a workstation alcove with a desk for her laptop, good lighting and high-speed Internet connection.
The only downside to the space was the fact that it felt … impersonal. The neutral colors were so bland and the furniture so functional. There wasn’t anything funky to be found.
Still, the condo worked for now and it was about double the size her New York apartment had been. As she stood in front of the slider leading out to her small balcony and considered take-out options for dinner, she felt a whisper of contentment steal over her.
Coming to Chicago had been a good idea, she thought. She’d needed to leave New York. Despite loving the city, there were too many Vance memories around, and she’d needed to get away from them and him. Here she could start over. Build new memories. There were—
Someone knocked on her door. She crossed the beige carpet and looked through the peephole.
“Jack?” she asked as she pulled open the door.
“I’m presuming,” he said, holding up two brown bags. “I come bearing Chinese food. I have wine, too. Sort of a welcome-to-the-building thing. Interested?”
She was delighted, she thought, stepping back and motioning him to enter. Instead, a black-and-white border collie slipped by Jack and stepped into the apartment.
“This is Charlie,” Jack said. “Do you like dogs?”
Samantha held out her fingers for Charlie to sniff, then petted him. “I love them.” She crouched down in front of Charlie and rubbed his shoulders. “Who’s a handsome guy?” she asked, then laughed as he tried to lick her face.
“He likes you,” Jack said. “Smart dog.”
She laughed. “Okay, now I really want to have dinner with you. Come on in.”
She led the way to the kitchen where Jack opened the wine and she collected plates for their dinner. As she opened the bags and began pulling out cartons of food, she noticed a bright red plastic bowl and a box with a big C on it.
“This is interesting,” she said, holding up both.
Jack grinned sheepishly. “They’re for Charlie. He loves Chinese, so the place I go mixes up a special rice dish for him. It’s beef and chicken, rice, vegetables, light on the salt and spices. He loves it and the vet approves. It’s kind of a special treat.”
Samantha did her best to reconcile the straitlaced lawyer she knew Jack to be with a guy who would special order food for his dog.
“Now I know who’s really in charge,” she murmured.
“Yeah,” Jack said easily. “He’s the boss.”
He helped her carry the cartons to the table. Charlie was served, but he waited until they sat down before digging in to his dinner.
Jack held out his glass of wine. “Welcome to the neighborhood. I hope you like it.”
“Thank you.” They touched glasses, then she took a sip of the red wine. “Very nice. All of this.”
“No problem. I thought you might still be feeling out of place.”
“Some. I like the apartment, but it’s weird because nothing in here is mine. Like these plates.” She held up the plain cream plate. “I would never have bought these.”
“Too normal?”
