Fool for Love: Fooling Around\Nobody's Fool\Fools Rush In (15 page)

A
T THE SIGHT OF
Kate standing next to the valet station with her roll-along suitcase, Eric scrubbed his hand down his face. She was perfectly coiffed, perfectly beautiful in an orangey-colored jacket and long, swishy skirt that revealed her fine ankles. She hadn't yet noticed him and pulled back her sleeve to check her watch, her expression cool and calm.

Apparently she had slept well. He, on the other hand, had closed down the bar, then sat on his bed in his underwear and watched ESPN. It was supposed to have taken his mind off the fact that he was experiencing some strange feelings toward Kate that he shouldn't be having toward his boss. Feelings that he'd never had toward any woman that he could recall. Wait, there had been a woman in Vegas…

He frowned—no, that was
Kate.

She looked up and gave him a tight smile. “Good morning.”

“Are you always early?” he asked irritably.

Her eyebrows shot up. “Usually.”

He handed his ticket to the valet. “Hiya, Mick.”

“Hiya, Mr. McDaniels.” The man wagged his finger. “You really had me going last time—I really thought someone had been joyriding in your car.”

Eric started laughing and turned to Kate. “I went to a collision place and rented a wrecked black Porsche and switched it out with my car in the valet parking lot.” He laughed harder. “Mick here almost had a stroke when he went to get it.”

Mick laughed until they were both leaning on each other and wiping tears, but Kate seemed less amused.

“I guess you had to be there,” Eric said, his laughter petering out.

Kate smiled to humor him, he was sure, and he had another flash of irritation for the people in the world who couldn't take a joke. If a person couldn't laugh once in a while, what was the use in living? He gave Mick the “women—sheesh” look and the man jogged off to get the car.

“What's on the schedule today?” Kate asked, all business.

“We'll head on down to Jacksonville to meet with the buyer for Lincoln Toys.”

“They're a chain of independently owned toy stores?”

“Right.”

“How long will we be on the road?”

“Six hours, give or take, depending on traffic.” He walked out when the car arrived at the door, helped Mick to settle their luggage in the tight trunk, then gave the man a generous tip. When he slid into the driver's seat, Kate was already buckled in, a notepad and pen on her lap.

“Let's keep the top up today.”

Not a question—an order. He pursed his mouth and snapped his own seat belt into place. “Whatever you say.”

“Tell me about Lincoln Toys.”

Maybe it was because he hadn't had his second cup of coffee, but Eric didn't feel like talking about business. “What did you do last night after dinner?”

She looked surprised. “Me? I…went back to my room and got caught up on e-mail.”

He checked the smile that came to his face. He'd phoned Winston this morning, eager to know if Kate had indeed responded to the notes they'd concocted and, more importantly, if she'd revealed anything interesting, but he'd gotten his buddy's voice mail. “E-mail has definitely changed the way that people communicate, hasn't it?” he asked, keeping his tone offhand.

“Yes, although I admit I'm not as proficient at it as I should be.” She shrugged. “I guess I'd still rather hear the person's voice or talk to them face to face.”

Was she referring to communication in general, or to her secret admirer? He nodded, going along. “Nothing can replace personal interaction.”

Kate gave him a wary look and he realized that his words could be construed as having a more intimate meaning than he'd intended.

“In sales,” he added quickly, not sure why he was suddenly restless—innuendo had never bothered him before. He'd practically made a career out of it. Eric flipped on his signal, then eased into the choking rush-hour traffic heading south into the city. Feeling anti-social, he turned up the radio to fill the silence,
although with Kate sitting close enough to touch, he had a hard time concentrating on the driving. She seemed oblivious to his agitation, which aggravated him further.

The woman was driving him crazy. His attention span was nonexistent. His mind ran in circles and figure-eights, crisscrossing memories from six years ago with more recent impressions until he could almost believe they had slept together only last night.

While he concentrated on keeping space between his car and the cars around him, Kate returned calls on her cell phone. He told himself he wasn't interested, but he found himself strangely riveted. There was something voyeuristic about watching her while she was unaware, but he was shameless. And he was hoping she'd call that girlfriend of hers and mention something about her secret admirer.

The first call was to her assistant, Patsy—the one who hated him, he thought wryly. Kate went down a laundry list of items, giving succinct follow-up instructions with self-assurance and a well-rounded knowledge base that surprised him. John Handley had credited Kate with acquiring and reestablishing two defunct toys from the Mixxo lineup, but frankly, he'd thought the old man was being generous. He remembered Kate as being extremely beautiful and quietly intelligent, but not particularly driven.

Maybe he'd underestimated her. Or maybe she'd simply changed a great deal since he'd known her.

He liked listening to her voice, he conceded, her precise diction softened by the slightest accent. Her assistant must have said something funny because
Kate laughed, a surprising burst of happiness that lit her face and made him instantly want to hear it again.

The next few calls were to people whose names he recognized but with whom he had never worked directly. Some of the information she dispensed sounded out of her realm as VP of sales, then he realized that she was answering questions from former colleagues in other departments—product management and branding. They must have relied heavily on her if they were still calling for her opinions. She handled everything with aplomb and finesse, acting as arbitrator during one call that he gathered was a three-way conversation.

Her next call was to John, which gave him pause. He talked to John maybe once a quarter, and in between only when there was a problem. But Kate addressed John in a tone and with shorthand phrases that told him they spoke often—perhaps every day. And if he'd expected her to gush or to shrink to appease the boss, he was wrong; she handled John with the same composure and ease with which she handled peers and subordinates. Eric's respect for her nudged higher—maybe the lady knew what she was doing after all.

Suddenly, her tone changed and she looked in his direction. “Yes, he's right here…okay, let me activate the hands-free feature.” Then her expression changed. “Oh…okay.” She extended the phone. “John wants to talk to you.”

Panic blipped in his chest—had John somehow heard about him accepting the job at Mixxo? That didn't seem likely, and besides, some crazy part of him reasoned in a split second that if John knew and
fired him on the spot, there would be no obstacle to sleeping with Kate.

Well, except for Kate herself.

He took the phone. “Hello, John.”

“Hello, Eric. I wanted to congratulate you.”

His heart dropped. “On what?”

“Silverstein's voted you their sales rep of the year.”

One of his most hard-won accounts. He exhaled with relief and pleasure. “Wow, that's great. What did I win?” He glanced over and Kate was looking at him with open interest.

He liked it.

“A weekend in Vegas.”

“No kidding?”

“I'm not a practical joker like you,” John said with a chuckle.

“Thanks for the bulletin.”

“Sure thing. Oh, and Eric?”

“Yes, sir?”

The older man's tone ratcheted lower. “I probably don't have to say this, but…you will behave yourself around Kate, won't you?”

Eric scoffed. “Of course, John.”

“It's just that I can't afford to have my new VP made to feel…uncomfortable.”

“No problem.”

“I mean, I've heard that you're quite the ladies' man, and Kate
is
so lovely—”

“Say no more,” Eric cut in with a little laugh, despite the clench in his stomach. “Is that all, sir?”

“Yes. Tell Kate goodbye for me.”

“I will. Goodbye.”

Kate took the phone that Eric extended to her, burning with curiosity about their exchange. The men had worked together for so long, it was hard not to feel left out.

“John told me to say goodbye.”

“What was that all about?” she asked lightly.

“One of my accounts named me sales rep of the year.”

She smiled. “That's great.”

“And John is concerned that I might be misbehaving around you.”

Her smile faltered. “You mean the practical jokes?”

“Among other things.” He sighed with melodrama. “For some reason, he thinks you won't be able to resist me.”

Kate's stomach jumped. If John had concerns about her and Eric traveling together, why hadn't he mentioned it to her?

“That was a joke, Kate. John knows you'd never do anything inappropriate.”

She closed the phone, glad for an excuse to look away. “You make it sound like a shortcoming.”

He shrugged. “It just doesn't sound like much fun.”

“Maybe ‘fun' isn't my objective.”

“Maybe it should be.”

She looked up sharply and saw the glow of desire in his gaze before he adopted his trademark jauntiness and looked back to the road. Longing hit her midsection, and she hated herself for not being able to stop it. She shouldn't want him. The reasons to stay away from him were too numerous to count. Yet
she'd lain awake most of the night, wondering if he was sleeping alone, and berating herself for caring. For reasons she didn't quite understand, she was drawn to Eric with an intensity that suggested something deeper than a physical attraction. It was as if on some level she craved the very characteristics about him that she railed against, to counter her own extremes.

The air hummed with sexual awareness. He shifted gears and she was engrossed by the rippling of his thigh muscle beneath his dark slacks. Her chest welled with yearning to the point of pain, and she desperately tried to distract herself from a sinking realization that she very much wanted to sleep with Eric. The fact that she was entertaining thoughts that might jeopardize her job shook her to the core.

She flipped open her phone and dialed Lesley's office number, willing her friend to be at her desk. On the fourth ring, her friend answered. “Handley Toys. This is Lesley Major.”

“Hi, it's me.”

“Hey! I've been waiting for you to call.”

“I tried to get through last night, but the phone was busy.”

“Oh, Hank was on the Internet most of the evening. One of these days we're going to join the rest of the world and get DSL. How are things going?”

“Oh, fine.” She could feel Eric's heated gaze on her and strained not to look at him.

“Is McDaniels behaving himself?”

Kate swallowed, miserable she was the one having rampantly improper thoughts. “Yes.”

“Oh, he's right there with you, isn't he?”

“Yes. Did you get a chance to swing by my place?”

“Yeah, I stopped on the way home from our camping trip last night. Lenka seemed glad to see me, and all is well. I gave your fern a drink.”

“Thanks.”

“I saw Neil Powers this morning.”

Her mind flew to the anonymous notes. “Oh? Did he mention anything…out of the ordinary?”

“He asked about you and I told him you were out of town. Then he asked when you were coming back.” She made a cooing noise. “He seemed eager to see you.”

Kate squirmed in her seat. “I'm looking forward to having dinner when I get back.” She darted a glance toward Eric and even though he drummed his fingers on the steering wheel to the beat of the song on the radio, she was sure he was listening. “Look, I'd better go.” Before Lesley could plan an engagement party. “I'll talk to you soon, okay?” She disconnected the phone call and racked her brain for someone else to call—not her parents, unless she really wanted Eric to get an earful of her life.

“Sounds like you're missing out on something,” Eric remarked, nodding toward the phone.

So he
had
been listening. She stared at his profile for a few seconds, fighting a flood of desire and the urge to laugh hysterically and declare that, in fact, she was missing out on a lot and that he could help her fix that right here and now. A second later, sanity returned. She was an independent, accomplished woman entrusted with her company's revenue stream.

“I'm not missing anything I can't live without,” she returned, her tone more vehement than she intended. Then she pulled out her notepad, determined that the drive to Jacksonville would be productive. “So, like I said, tell me about Lincoln Toys.”

By focusing on work with laser concentration, she was able to push thoughts of Eric to the recesses of her mind and get through the day and through dinner. On impulse, she invited the Lincoln Toys buyer and store manager—both men—to dine with them, removing temptation to steer the conversation into personal territory. She felt Eric's gaze on her throughout the meal, but she studiously avoided all but courteous eye contact. When the meal ended, to avoid a private moment with Eric, she excused herself from the group and escaped to her room. After a quick shower, she prepared a cup of herbal tea and booted up her laptop to access her e-mail. When she saw a note in her electronic in-box from FoolforYou, her pulse picked up.