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Especially one with her boss.
Even if he did have the bluest eyes in Chicagoland.
But then again, it was just a dance. No big deal….
He held out his hand. She settled the light chain strap of her bag more securely on her shoulder and put her hand in his. His lean fingers closed around hers. Warm. Strong. Good.
Too good.
It was another slow one. Hank seemed to have picked all slow ones. A real romantic, that Hank.
Tom pulled her into his arms. Shelly tucked herself into him—not too close, just enough that she could feel his body’s signals as he led her.
Neither of them said a word. That suited Shelly just fine. It was…lovely. A few brief moments out of time. One hand enclosed hers, the other fitted itself possessively on the curve of her lower back. Shelly closed her eyes and cleared her mind of thought, enjoying the sweet strains of the old, romantic song. And even better than the music was the heat of Tom’s body, so close to hers, the light caress of his big hand at her back, the occasional rough brush of his cheek against her temple.
It was over much too soon. A fast number came on next.
Hank groaned, “What about my list? That one’s not on my list.”
Everybody laughed, more of them crowding forward onto the floor, fast-dancing to the heavy rock beat of the new song.
Tom dropped his hand from her back. But he didn’t let her go. The fingers of his other hand stayed firmly wrapped around hers. He led her off the floor.
She was far too content with going wherever he felt like taking her. Not smart, and she knew it. Professionally speaking, she really ought to break up this twosome they somehow seemed to have formed. It was one thing to spend a little social time with her boss.
And something else altogether when it started feeling like a date, when she found herself imagining what it might be like to kiss him, to walk down a summer street in the heat of the evening, holding hands with him. To…
Uh-uh. Enough. Not going there. No way.
She slowed her steps and gently pulled her hand free of his. He turned back to her with a questioning frown.
“Ladies’ room.” She mouthed the words and stuck a thumb back over her shoulder.
He shrugged and nodded.
She turned and left him, quickly, before she found some excuse to stay.
In the ladies’ room, she freshened her lip gloss and brushed her hair. It didn’t take long. But if she went back out too soon, Tom could be waiting where she’d left him.
She entered a stall, feeling kind of silly, but wanting to give Tom plenty of time to find someone else to hang with. When it finally got too ridiculous just standing in there, she emerged and washed her hands.
As she was reaching for a towel, Lil came out of one of the other stalls.
“Hey, Shel. Havin’ fun?” She put the oddest emphasis on the word fun.
Was it some kind of dig? But the other assistant met her eyes in the mirror, a friendly smile on those plump red lips.
“Yeah,” Shelly said. “I am. A real good time. You?”
“Fabulous.”
Out in the bar, the party was still in full swing. Shelly caught sight of Tom, over at a corner table with some of the other execs from the finance department and a couple of guys she was pretty sure were from down in accounting. She started to turn and go the other way, but Tom spotted her and signaled her over.
She went to him, aware of a rising feeling in her chest, wishing she wasn’t so glad that he’d caught her before she made her escape. The others made room for her, leaving the chair beside him empty.
Shelley sat down next to her boss.
“I was beginning to wonder if someone had kidnapped you.” He leaned close as he spoke to her, though he didn’t really need to.
The noise level seemed to have faded down a few notches in the last half hour or so. The bar wasn’t so crowded. People had left to catch their trains home, and those that remained talked more quietly—over at the bar, and around the tables.
She smiled at him, her widest, warmest smile. “Nope. Not kidnapped. Right here, safe and sound.”
“It’s a relief. I can’t afford to lose another assistant. I might not be so lucky next time finding a replacement.”
They looked at each other, the eye contact drawing out longer than she should have allowed it to.
Then Jessica Valdez, one of Tom’s managers, brought up the interior-design issues they were having at The Taka San Francisco. The rest of them started talking at once—offering complaints, suggestions and even a few solutions. The guys from accounting really got into it. Riki, the internationally acclaimed designer, was on everyone’s bad side.
“Never trust a guy without a last name,” grumbled one of the accountants.
“Maybe Riki is his last name,” joked a junior finance exec.
“Two names,” said one of the finance managers. “A guy should have two names. First and last. It’s fiscally irresponsible to try getting along with one. Not to mention damned pretentious.”
Tom called a halt to the subject after a while. “I know it’s an issue. And you all know I’ll be dealing with Riki face-to-face on Monday. And Thursday, I’ll get with Robby.” Robby Axelrod was in charge of construction on the Kyoto site. “See what we can do about the cost problems there.”
A few minutes later, Verna and Hank came over to say goodbye. Shelly got up and gave Verna a hug. “Send me a postcard.”
Verna grinned. “I promise. I’ll keep in touch. And thanks for the party. It was terrific.”
Tom got up, too, and walked the couple to the door of the bar. When he came back to the table, everyone else started making going-home noises.
Since Shelly had taken charge of the party when she moved up the date, she went ahead and played hostess. She stuck around till the last stragglers called it a night. Finally, she flipped out her shiny new TAKA-Hanson credit card and paid the tab.
Tom took the padded bench in the vestibule and waited for Shelly to head for the door.
She seemed surprised to see him there. “Hey. You didn’t have to wait.”
He rose. “Can’t have my favorite assistant wandering out onto Clark Street alone.”
She gave him a laugh. He really liked her laugh. “I think it’s totally safe, Tom.”
“You never know.”
She lifted her slim wrist and glanced at her watch. “It’s not even nine.”
“Almost dark. Could be dangerous.”
“The biggest danger isn’t the kind you can protect me from.” Her brandy-colored eyes teased him.
He took her arm and turned her for the door. “Tell me all about it.”
“Michigan Avenue. It’s in walking distance and I’ve got plastic. Blocks and blocks of great stores. I could end up spending a whole lot of money I don’t even have.”
“So I swear I won’t take you shopping. Whew. Another bankruptcy averted. Aren’t you glad I’m here?”
She smiled again. He loved her smile. “Okay. I’m glad. Happy now?” She looked worried, suddenly. “Where’s your jacket?”
“You’re a hell of an assistant. Nothing gets by you.”
“If someone’s walked off with your suit coat…”
“I left it—along with my tie—at the office.” He guided her through the door into the warmth of the evening. “Nice out.” He kept her hand wrapped around his arm and headed north on Clark, for no other reason than that staying on the move seemed a good way to keep her with him.
They were going to be working closely together from now on and it never hurt to get a little social time with his assistant. No, he’d never walked arm-in-arm up Clark Street with Verna. But then, Verna was fifty-four and happily married. Different assistant, different approach.
Tom wanted to know more about Shelly. That seemed perfectly reasonable to him. He liked her and she was a colleague, a colleague who interested him. A lot.
In no time, they’d reached Washington Square. They walked around the park, admiring the elaborate masonry buildings erected by Chicago’s elite after the famous fire at the end of the nineteenth century. Then he led her on the path that ran diagonally through the center of the square.
He said, “I thought we ought to get to know each other better.”
She paused on the concrete walk. “How well is ‘better’?”
“Well, I don’t know. Better than we know each other now.” He guided her forward a few steps.
But she only stopped again and pulled her arm from his. They stood exactly in the middle of the square of park, facing each other. “I want this job, Tom. I love it already.”
“Good.”
“And I need it. I don’t want to do anything that could potentially screw it up.”
“I don’t see how you could screw it up. You’re very good, Shelly. Smart. Efficient. With strong office skills.”
“I’m not talking about how good I am at my job.”
Tom gave up finessing her. He looked at her steadily. “Of course you’re not.”
She caught her lower lip between her pretty white teeth. “I… This is so awkward. And I’m scared that you’re going to get offended—or worse.”
“I’m not. I promise you.”
She laughed, a nervous sound. “Men do, you know?”
He wanted to touch her. But he kept his hands to himself. “Not me.”
She pressed those soft lips together and nodded. “Well. Good. Sometimes…office romances work out fine.” She spoke slowly. Thoughtfully. “But sometimes —probably more often than not—they end with someone hurt. Or someone angry. Then working together becomes too difficult. I can’t have that happen. I really can’t.”
He got the message. Loud and clear. It was a reasonable argument, and he could understand her fears. He wanted to tell her not to worry, that no matter what, she wouldn’t lose her job as his assistant. But he had no right to promise such a thing. In the end, there really were no guarantees.
“Come on.” He touched her arm, but didn’t take it. She went with him the rest of the way through the park to a row of iron benches on the edge of the square, facing the imposing facade of the Newberry Library.
For a while they just sat there. Tom let the silence spin out. It was full dark by then, the streetlights blooming bright, the fountain in front of the library bubbling away, making those happy splashing sounds as the water shot upward and tumbled back into the fountain’s bowl. An old couple strolled past, the man frailer than the woman. He held her arm and leaned heavily on a cane. And there were others, most walking fast, in a hurry to get wherever they were going.
“You live in Forest Park, right?” he asked after a while.
She sent him a glance.
He put up both hands. “Don’t shoot me. It was on your résumé.”
An unwilling smile broke across those full lips. She shook her head. “Do you ever give up?”
“Persistence. Key to success. Tell me about your place.”
“Tom…”
“Come on. It’s getting-to-know-you time. Totally innocent.”
“Hah.”
She had him pegged. It wasn’t innocent. Tom knew that. Not innocent in the least. He was drawn to Shelly. Powerfully. She made him want to take the kind of chances he’d long ago stopped taking.
He knew he should respect the boundaries she’d just set. But when he looked into those brown eyes of hers, well, what he should be doing seemed of no importance.
“About your place…?”
She blew out a breath. “Oh, all right. It’s got three bedrooms and two baths. My parents helped me buy it. It’s small, but it’s mine.” She turned to him. In the glow of the streetlamp a few feet away, her eyes were dark velvet and her skin shone like pearls.
Tom smiled to himself. He knew she liked him. Maybe more than she wanted to like him. He’d take it a day at a time. Anything might happen.
As a rule, he would never consider seducing his secretary. But he was considering it. More than considering it. It felt…right, somehow, with Shelly. He wanted her. And he liked her. That seemed a rare thing to him. As each day passed, Tom was only more certain that, between him and Shelly, the rules didn’t apply.
She said, “You realize I know almost nothing about you.”
“Is that an accusation?”
She sighed. “Well, yeah. I guess it is. Where do you live?”
“I’ve got a great condo on East Randolph.”
“Right in the Loop.” The Loop was downtown, so named because the train system looped in a circle around it. Living space there was at a premium. She went on, “I might have guessed. And you can see Grant Park from your balcony, right?”
“Yeah. I can see it.” He nudged her with his elbow. Gently.
She shot him a wary glance. “What?”
“We could go there right now. I’ll show you my… view.”
