The Bliss Factor (11 page)

The steaming shower didn’t help, so she washed and rinsed in record time, then dressed in jeans and a cotton sweater. A low-cut, vee-neck, cleavage-baring sweater . . . Right, like that wasn’t a blatant invitation, and issuing an invitation to a man who invaded people would probably be a bad idea. Not that being invaded by him didn’t have its attractions. But it also had its repercussions, and a few moments of pleasure—Okay, she thought, picturing Conn and his . . . attributes, an entire night of pleasure wasn’t worth a moment of the hell she’d put herself through for getting dragged into her mother’s odd little world.

She whipped the sweater off, pulled on a square-necked camisole and replaced the sweater, checking to make sure there wasn’t even a hint of cleavage. She almost never left her hair down to air dry, but this situation definitely called for it, since primping seemed to fall under the heading of
actions with seriously misguided ulterior motives
.

“The bathroom’s all yours,” she said when she came out, careful not to look at him—or offer him help. If he didn’t know how the shower worked she wasn’t about to show him, not when the water wasn’t the only thing that might get turned on.

And then she had to get her mind off what he was doing in there. The only thing more dangerous than thinking of Conn was thinking of him naked and wet, soap suds rinsing down the long, lean lines of his body, muscles flexing as he bent—

She snatched up the portable phone, just the thought of calling her boss enough to drag her back from fantasy to reality.

“Hello, Mr. Putnam,” she said, not surprised to find him in the office, even though it was barely six A.M. She should have been there, too. Everyone worked twelve-hour days at quarter’s end.

Mr. Putnam’s silence told her he was thinking the same thing.

They can’t live without me
, she reminded herself. At least not in the short term. “I won’t be in today,” she said, flying high on self-delusion.

“Not ill, I hope,” he said with the same amount of sympathy he’d show a client past due on their bill.

“I’m fine, but something has come up.”

“What?”

“Well . . . it’s personal.”

“Then perhaps I should ask who?”

“Uh . . .”

“It must be something very important to take you from your work at one of our busiest times.”

She took a deep breath, blurting the rest of it out in a ripping-off-the-bandage kind of way. “I’ll need to work at home for the next week. Or so.”

Silence. Heat flooded her face, stress spiking her blood pressure high enough to blast the top of her head off.

“Problem?”

She swung around, coming face to chest with Conn, which took the heat out of her face—and sent it rushing elsewhere. Thankfully, Mr. Putnam had traded in the cold, disapproving silence for a cold, disapproving lecture, droning on about responsibility and accountability, not just to her clients but to her employers, since,
surprise
, her special request gave him another excuse to send the not-making-partner message.

And it all sank in. It just couldn’t compete with Connor Larkin’s bare, damp muscles. It took every ounce of willpower she possessed not to let her gaze wander down. She was pretty sure only a waterlogged towel stood between Conn and full frontal nudity, which would lead to complete carnal knowledge, and while that would be good—heck it would probably be mind-blowing—it wasn’t what she needed to learn about Connor Larkin. And who gave a damn, she thought, her willpower no match for her curiosity, not to mention the hot, melting desire to—

“Ms. Blissfield, are you still there?”

She whipped around, pried her tongue off the roof of her mouth, and said, “Yes, Mr. Putnam. I’m sorry, I understand this is a problem, but—”

“Is it one of your parents?”

“Um, no. Not directly.”

“Because I received your message that your mother called. Something about an emergency.”

Rae looked over her shoulder, then lowered her voice. “It’s, uh, my plumbing. In the basement.” And now she could never invite her boss to her house, because she didn’t have a basement. But she’d realized too late that he’d wonder how she could work from home with no plumbing. That was the problem with lies. They tended to multiply. “It’s a mess, Mr. Putnam, and I can’t let it go or it will just get worse. And I have to be here for the plumber. I know it’s a bad time, but I promise my work won’t suffer.” And she was rambling because her eyes had dropped to Conn’s chest again. She lifted her gaze to his mouth, found him smirking at her, and it took the wobble right out of her knees. “I’ll be in later to get my files.”

“Very well,” Putnam said and then hung up.

She disconnected as well, stifling a sigh of relief. Unfortunately, Connor Larkin was way too observant, and way too in touch with his inner Freud to miss her reaction.

“This man you spoke with has made you unhappy,” he said.

“Not in the way you think. I work for him. It’s our busy time. Under normal circumstances he wouldn’t let me take any time off.”

“So you lied to him.”

“I made up an excuse.”

“To keep me entertained.”

And out of trouble
.

“Can I make a suggestion?” Conn asked her. “About the entertainment?”

Rae let her eyes drift down to the towel. “No,” she said, pretty sure what his suggestion would be, and not all that sure she’d turn him down if he made it.

 

 

RAE SENT CONN OFF TO GET DRESSED. HE FOLLOWED instructions. Unfortunately, he chose to come back as a sixteenth-century armorer, complete with buff-colored suede pants and knee-high boots. And no shirt.

“Why are you wearing
that
?”

“You told me to put my clothes on, but I will gladly take them off—”

Rae brushed past him, stomping into the spare room. There, on the chair, were the jeans and T-shirt he’d worn the day before. She picked up the duffel from the floor. It was empty. “Mom,” she snapped out.

“Annie said there was no need to thank her.”

“I’ll bet.” Rae dropped the duffel and gathered up the jeans and T-shirt, tossing them to him. “Put these on.”

“But—”

“In case you hadn’t noticed, all the people who went to Holly Grove had shirts on.”

“Some of them just barely,” he said with a leer she didn’t find charming, or even amusing, probably, in part, because she knew he was thinking of the teens and twenty-somethings with their belly-baring, strappy, low-cut tops. Typical man, being led around by the codpiece.

“Get. Dressed. And make it snappy. I’ll be waiting in the car.”

He was barely thirty seconds behind her, and when he came out he was wearing the T-shirt and jeans, which wasn’t much of an improvement, considering the denim fit him almost as snugly as the leather. No relaxed fit for Connor Larkin. But then, he was going to get attention no matter what he wore. No way to avoid that. And she couldn’t leave him home alone. There was no telling what he’d get up to.

He opened the passenger door, but he didn’t get in. “Can I drive?” he asked her.

“No.” Then she turned to look at him. “Can you drive?”

“I think so.”

“That’s a no.” She fired up the Hummer. Conn climbed in, and she backed it down her narrow, curved driveway, inch by careful inch. It already had a bullet hole in it; no point in doing it any more damage. Or her house, for that matter. She didn’t have to look at Conn to know he was grinning. “I suppose you think you could do better.”

“I could try.”

“Still no.”

Conn flopped back in his seat, the grin morphing into a sulk.

“And buckle your seatbelt,” she added, giving in to a smile of her own as she headed the Hummer toward Troy, the second largest city in Michigan—based on property value. It was also home to the Detroit Red Wings’ training facility and a thriving center of business, including Putnam, Ibold and Greenblatt, LLP, Certified Public Accountants and Personal Financial Consulting.

Conn spent the trip gawking at the scenery. Rae spent it trying not to have a panic attack. She managed to talk herself out of turning back a dozen times, only to get to the parking structure of her firm’s building and find herself faced with a new dilemma.

She hadn’t wanted to leave Conn alone at her house, but she certainly couldn’t take him into her place of business. If she walked in with a man like him, her plumbing excuse would fly right out the window, taking her reputation—and her future—along with it. There was no way she’d ever make partner if Putnam felt he couldn’t trust her.

It was just past seven thirty in the morning, but the structure was pretty full. Rae took the first parking spot she found, luckily one that was around the corner from the other cars where it wouldn’t be easily seen from the elevator doors, muttering, “anal,” which was completely hypocritical since she’d have been at her desk if not for Conn.

“Anal?” Conn repeated.

She opened her mouth, but there just didn’t seem to be a frame of reference to bridge the gap between her century and his, at least not one she was willing to say out loud. The look on her face must have said it all.

He held up a hand. “That one I don’t want to know.”

“Stay here,” she ordered Conn. “Do not look at anyone, do not talk to anyone, do not get out of the vehicle for any reason.” She hit the door locks, walked a couple steps off, and stopped, letting her head fall forward as she gave in to the guilt. He wasn’t a child, and he wasn’t a puppy—a child she would have taken with her, and she’d at least have cracked the windows for a dog.

Then again, Conn already had the door unlocked and open before she turned around.

“I’m sorry,” she said to him. “I have to go all the way up to the top floor, but I promise I won’t be long, and then we’ll have lunch—the midday meal.”

“Bribery?”

“Is it working?”

He studied her face, long enough to let her know it wasn’t the promise of a meal that got to him, even though he said, “What kind of lunch?”

“No Scottish chicken, but I can promise there’ll be meat involved.”

“As long as there are no turkey legs,” he said. “I’ve had enough of them to last a lifetime.”

She knew exactly how he felt. Renaissance faires did big business in turkey legs, and the tourists didn’t seem to mind the smell of roasting fowl. But it was sickening when you spent day after day with it. On a whim, she handed him the keys. “You put it in the . . . right, like that,” she said when he slipped the key into the ignition, telling herself she was grateful he’d figured it out and she didn’t have to reach across him. “You know how to work the radio, right?”

He nodded, already reaching for the buttons, so she made her escape, trekking through the structure, then taking the elevator to the top floor. It was a shame she couldn’t bring Conn. He’d have loved the view.

He’d probably get a kick out of the lobby, too. Even a guy who thought he was a sixteenth-century armorer would take one look at the Putnam, Ibold and Greenblatt sign, the capital letters big and gold, and have a good laugh.

The joke had lost its luster for Rae, but she stifled an urge, as always, to shake her head. They could solve their unfortunate acronym problem if Mr. Putnam would stop being stubborn about having his name first. And since Putnam was being a putz, Ibold, the cofounder, refused to be named last. So they were P.I.G.

The G in P.I.G., Morris Greenblatt, met her at the door, opening it and ushering her in with a big, welcoming smile on his face. Mr. Greenblatt was the one and only partner who’d ever been added to the firm, and that had been twenty years ago. Probably that should have been Rae’s first clue that her hopes were doomed, but Putnam and Ibold were getting up there in age, and since neither of them had children to fill their shoes Rae had decided Italian leather pumps would do the job nicely.

It had seemed, at first, that they felt the same way. After all, she’d been chosen from hundreds of applicants, at the behest of the partners, she’d been told. Unfortunately, the two senior partners showed absolutely no inclination to either retire or expand the business, so what had sounded like the opportunity of a lifetime had instead turned into a treadmill workout. No matter how fast she ran she got nowhere.

“Mr. Putnam asked me to help you gather your files,” Mr. Greenblatt said, looking sheepish because he knew
help
was really
watch
.

“I don’t need anything from the vault,” she said.

Most of the accounting work was done on the computer, but the paper printouts were kept in a locked room called the vault, where files had to be checked in and out. Those files belonged to the big corporate clients of Putnam, Ibold, and Greenblatt, and while Rae had worked on every one of them from time to time, they weren’t her regulars. And even if they were, there was no way she’d be allowed to take them off site.

Mr. Greenblatt fell into step with her anyway, accompanying her into her office, which officially put it over the fire marshall’s maximum occupancy. The narrow window kept it from feeling completely claustrophobic.

“I’m sure I can be helpful,” Greenblatt said. Translation: He’d been instructed not to let her out of his sight. Just in case she’d turned into a raving criminal overnight.

Greenblatt took a step back, eyes on her face, sounding tentative when he said, “I hope everything at home is all right.”

“The plumber assured me it will be fine but, well, it’s an old house, you know?”

“Of course, of course.” He waved it all away with a couple nervous flutters of his hands. “Perhaps this time next year you won’t have to clear your work schedule with Putnam, or anyone else for that matter. Not if I have my way.”

“Thank you, Mr. Greenblatt,” she said, and meant it. “You know how much it means to me to make partner.”

“Oh, now, it’s nothing,” he said, looking over his shoulder in case, she assumed, Ebenezer Scrooge poked his head out of his cave. Or Jacob Marley, for that matter, because if Putnam was Scrooge, Ibold would be Marley—before Marley had died and gotten a clue. Not that she saw herself as Bob Cratchit. The pay was better, but mostly it was because she had goals, and she was only going to hang around there as long as she stood a chance of meeting them.