Sharing Sunrise (3 page)

Marian’s green eyes flared with temper. “How nice for her. Can she type? Can she file? How’s her telephone manner?”

“I didn’t ask. I figured if Jeanie sent her to me, she was worth hiring. I … trust Jeanie’s judgment.”

“No kidding.” With her toes, Marian turned her left shoe over and stepped back into it, found her right and donned that, too, giving herself the advantage of a few more inches of height. Gathering up her scattered pins from Jeanie’s desk, she let them trickle from her hand into her purse.

“No kidding,” he agreed, his green eyes fixed on her profile. “I trust her judgment about you, too, Marian. I want you to come and work with me.”

Slowly, she turned. Just as slowly, she lifted her gaze to his face. After several silent moments, she said again with utterly no expression, “No kidding.”

His mouth twisted up at one corner. “Oh, hell,” he said. “You told me you’d forgiven me.”

She snapped her purse closed. “I lied.”

“Marian …”

She walked to the door, opened it, stepped through and closed it behind her, very, very quietly.

He caught her just as the elevator opened and stepped in after her, pushing the Close Door button, then the one for ground floor, his finger still on the first one.

“What do I have to do?” he said. “Grovel?”

She considered that. “It might help.”

“I’m groveling. I’m abject. Forgive me.”

She continued to ponder, her chin on her fist, her elbow resting on her other hand. Finally, she nodded. “I’ll try. You’ll buy me lunch?”

He grinned. “I’ll buy you lunch every day for the rest of the month.”

“If what?”

“If you forgive me.”

“And?” Her eyes sparkled as she met his gaze.

His mouth twisted to one side again. There was, it seemed, no way out of it at all. “And come to work at the marina.”

Her smile was radiant. For an instant, he felt its impact deep inside where he was most a man. Briefly, he recalled the sharp stab of desire that had clenched his innards this morning, watching her walk toward him along the wharf. Of course, the second he recognized Marian with her new hairstyle and color, it had died. But in those first moments, he, like every other man who’d watched her passage, had felt desire for a beautiful, enchanting woman. Dammit, the first time he’d experienced this response to Marian had been at Max and Jeanie’s wedding. It had happened again at Jeanie’s sister’s wedding. Like a tide-rip it rattled his rigging and he didn’t like it. Now, as he had the other times, he clamped down on it. This was Marian, for heaven’s sake. He couldn’t go responding to her the way he did to a datable woman.

It just wouldn’t be right.

“For a three-month trial period,” he added.

“Okay,” she said. “It’s a deal.”

“Shake,” he said, reaching out to enfold her hand in his, surprised to discover that she was trembling slightly. Hell, the poor kid really had wanted the stupid job. Oh, well, what were three months out of the whole scope of his life? He’d let her stay that long. At the end of that time, maybe even before, she’d be tired of it. Of course she would. She never stuck with anything. Look at her, the last time he’d seen her, her hair had been red and her eyes blue. Now, she was a green-eyed blonde. Next week, she’d probably be a brown-eyed brunette and the month after that, who knows? All he knew was she’d probably be gone, and then he could get on with finding the right man for the job. And get over this extraordinary response his body persisted in having to her subtle yet unforgettable scent.

He sighed and let the elevator door button go. Max might think it was his phone-call that had gotten Marian the job. He might believe that it was his veiled threat to withdraw his investment capital out of the marina if Rolph didn’t hire Marian—or someone—to take up some of the slack and hence protect Max’s investment. He didn’t need to know, nobody needed to know that Rolph’s mind had been made up before Max’s call.

It had been that little sheen of tears in Marian’s eyes just before she stormed out of his office that had done him in. That, and an indelible memory of a moment of forbidden enchantment.

Curling an arm over her shoulders, he led her out to where he had parked his car.

“Now,” he said, “where does my new assistant want to go for lunch?”

“Why don’t you pick up a couple of sandwiches for us,” she said, shrugging his arm off and turning to her own car, parked three slots over. “I’ll meet you at the office and we can eat while we talk about business.”

Clearly, if he suddenly found Marian enchanting, she found him less so. She didn’t even want his arm around her shoulders, though it had been there a hundred times before.

Right, he thought, getting into his car. That was the way it should be. Businesslike. Cool. Controlled. Because not only was Marian his employee, she was an old family friend and a smart guy didn’t mess around with a relationship like that. Especially a smart guy who wanted some permanence in his life. The last thing he needed to be attracted to was a top-drawer, well-bred, first-class … hobo.

“You’ve been contracting out interior design on the refit jobs, haven’t you?” asked Marian, brushing bread crumbs from her lap and flipping through several pages of material before her. This was their tenth working lunch in two weeks. True to his promise, Rolph had bought her meal for her every day.

Rolph looked up from a report he was writing. “Yes, but since we’re a brokerage business, not a shipyard, I contract out the entire refit. It only makes sense. Why have someone on staff who can do interior design?”

“But you do have. Me.”

He gave her a startled look that switched to good-humored scathing. “Come on. I’ve seen your apartment, remember? All zebra strips and spears, with boars’ heads sticking out of the walls.”

Marian shuddered at the memory. “That was when I was in college, for goodness’ sake! I was nineteen years old and going through an African phase. Besides, the interior of a yacht takes a whole different technique than the interior of a home. When I was in New Zealand a couple of years ago I worked for a company that did the interiors of ocean-going yachts for several different builders. Did you know that blues and greens are avoided in upholstery and other fixtures, that the preferred shades are taken from the earth-tones of the spectrum?”

“I didn’t know, but now that you mention it, I’ve noticed a lot of browns and reds and yellows in boat interiors.”

“That’s because when a crew spends months at sea, the eye grows weary of the blues and greens of ocean and sky. The sailor needs a rest for his eyes, a change from the ordinary, just as people do in all walks of life.”

“Uh-huh.” He grinned. “Like boars’ heads and spears.”

Marian laughed tolerantly. “My tastes have changed.” She crossed one leg over the other, swinging her neatly shod foot. “Haven’t yours over the years? Didn’t you like things ten years ago that you think now are outrageous, and vice versa?”

He thought about it. “Yeah, I suppose so.” Then, with a grin, he said, “Yes. Definitely. Ten years ago I was in love with a woman whose only expression of emotion, be it satisfaction or disgust or pleasure or pain was a faint, weak little ‘wow’ … I thought she was fantastic because of all she could convey with that one little word. That was before I figured out that it constituted nearly her entire vocabulary.”

This was not an opportunity to be missed. Apart from that day of the interview, when he’d confessed that he didn’t think he knew what women wanted, or how to treat them, he’d kept their conversations strictly on business. She hadn’t minded for the most part. There was so much to learn and she was an eager student. She thought, sometimes, that she had surprised him with her greed for knowledge. But if he were willing to move into a more personal mode now, she was all for it.

“Hmm,” she said. “And what are your tastes in women today?”

He shrugged. “Oh, I don’t know. It’s hard to put something like that into words.”

“Pretend you’re writing a companions ad.”

He stared at her. Did she know he’d done just that on two occasions? No. Of course she didn’t. He said, “Wanted, SWF, sexy, cheerful, eager for experiences. Must like outdoors, sailing, hiking, skiing. Some culture okay.”

“Some culture?”

“Yeah. You know, a little bit intellectual, but not overdone. I’d hate to spend all my time in museums and art galleries or attending the symphony, though those are fine sometimes. And she’d need to like books and movies, but not just high-brow stuff. The real things that real people read and enjoy. Spy stories, mysteries, romance, adventure. You know. Escapism.”

“So a brainy woman is out.”

He shot her a sharp glance, remembering just how brainy she, herself had proved to be. A dull woman wouldn’t have achieved a business degree backed by one in sociology in addition to multiple languages. “I didn’t say that. There’s nothing wrong with intelligent women. I’d just prefer one who didn’t take herself too seriously all the time. I like a woman with a mind of her own, one who doesn’t let other people make decisions for her.” He hesitated, drawing his brows together. “Unless they’re the right decisions, of course.”

“Of course,” she said dryly. “Such as the ones you’d make for her.”

He pondered, then laughed shortly. “I guess you’re right about that. But I believe most women secretly like the idea of the man’s being the man, being in charge, at least of … some things. You know, I’ll be the captain, you be the mate.”

“Me Tarzan, you Jane.”

He shrugged. “Something like that. Not that it matters. I don’t think my ideal woman exists and if she did, she wouldn’t want me. What about you? What kind of man are you looking for?”

Tall, lean, blond and green-eyed. Somewhat blind when it comes to what’s good for him. Stupid, you could say, at least about some things, things that should be staring him right in the face.

“What makes you think I’m looking for a man?”

“Every single woman is looking for a man.” His tone was impatient, as if he were stating the obvious for an idiot.

“I’ve been married.”

He rolled his eyes. “I remember. You broke your parents’ hearts with that little episode, baby-doll. Elopement from college and six weeks together! What kind of marriage was that, anyway?”

“One that taught me a great deal.”

“Like what?”

“That he was much too old for me, that some of the things he thought were normal I found disgusting, and that my taste in men was as lousy as my judgment.” And he taught me never to show a man exactly how much I love him, to tell him how desperately I want him, until I know those feelings are returned one hundred percent. A man has too much power over a woman that way.”

“I’m assuming that must have changed in the what … three, four years since you were married?”

She shook her head. How come she’d paid so much attention to his life when he had no idea what hers was all about? “Eight years, Rolph! I was twenty. He was twenty-eight. We were worlds apart, even in—We weren’t compatible. And yes, of course my taste and judgment have both changed, but I’m not certain that means they’re any better, either of them.” How can they be, when I can’t help being attracted to a man who treats me with the all affection he’d offer a St. Bernard puppy?

Rolph was surprised, and in an odd way, touched by the genuine uncertainty in her tone. “You’re young and beautiful,” he said gruffly. “You shouldn’t have any trouble finding the right guy.”

“Maybe not,” she said teasingly, “except that my boss makes it difficult.”

He stiffened, got off her desk and straightened a framed lithograph of Earle G. Barlow’s White Ghost on the wall. “I didn’t mean to make things difficult for you,” he said, returning to his own desk. “I simply reminded you that we were meeting with clients that evening.”

“Funny,” she said, propping her chin on her fist as she gazed at him. “But neither the clients nor I knew we were seeing them that night. They thought the meeting was for the next evening—with you alone—and were on their way out when we arrived.”

“All right, so I made a mistake about the date. It saved you from making a worse one. Talk about someone too old for you! Kevin Durano is forty-five years old, thrice-married and likes to think of himself as a playboy.”

She could have said that what was true for a girl at the age of twenty was not necessarily so for a woman of twenty-eight. Then, eight years had been close to half a lifetime. Now, even the seventeen years separating her from the “thrice-married playboy” didn’t seem such a great gap. Not that she would be the slightest bit interested in Kevin Durano, whether he was two, eight, or all those seventeen years her senior, except in a casual way. But Rolph certainly took him seriously. Maybe that was good. At least Kevin had made him aware that other men were aware of her as a woman.

“I don’t know if he’s my type or not, but he did say that when he got back from the business trip he’s on he’d like to take me to Estevan’s.”

Rolph’s green eyes flared. “The hell he did!”

“Why shouldn’t he? It’s reportedly the top place in town for seafood and, as a private club, it’s hard to get into. The waiting list for memberships is a mile long; even with his membership, Kevin told me, he sometimes has to wait days for a table. I’m looking forward to dinner there.”

“Fine. Then that’s where we’ll take the Mastersons when they’re in town tomorrow. I hold a membership. A charter membership,” he added pointedly, “so I can get reservations with only a day’s notice.”

Marian’s heart did strange things in her chest. This was the first time he’d asked her to attend a business meeting other than the one with the Levines, which she liked to believe he’d dreamed up on the spur of the moment out of pure jealousy. “The Mastersons?”

“Clients. They’re flying in from Barbados to look at a couple of boats we have listed. I think
Windrider
will be the one they prefer, but I’m going to show them
Neo Cleo
as well. It’ll be too late when they arrive to show them around, so I plan to wine and dine them, tell them about the boats, let them sleep on the information then take them over both boats in the morning when they’re feeling well-rested.”