“Pipe’s a phallic symbol, you know,” Sam said

“Is not,” Hope said at once.

“Is, too.” He nodded. “All these years you’ve been working at Palmer Pipe you’ve been substituting pipe for penises.”

She half rose, reached behind her and grabbed up a pillow. “I have not!” She raised the pillow over her head.

“Hey, don’t yell at me. I’m not the one with pipe envy.” Sam rolled smoothly off the bed just as she slammed the pillow into the spot where he’d been lying.

At the doorway to the bathroom, in all his naked masculine glory, not at all shy the morning after, he turned to give her a wicked smile. “Don’t move,” he said. “I’m going to brush my teeth and get fresh supplies, and then I’m coming back to relieve your need for pipe. Forever.”

Barbara Daly lives and writes in New York City. She loves it most of all during the holiday season, when the lights, the department store windows and the first snow of winter falling on the shoppers as they struggle down the crowded streets add to the festive feeling. What better setting for a love story?

She is a newcomer to feng shui, but is rapidly putting mirrors in strategic places and flutes on the beams and is convinced it’s going to change the life she shares with her husband and Cairn terrier.

She once had a cat like the one in this book—and suspects she might not live through a second one.

A Long Hot Christmas is just the first of three books featuring the Sumner sisters. Don’t miss Barbara’s special Duets #69, You Call This Romance!? and Are you for Real?, coming to bookstores in February.

Books by Barbara Daly

HARLEQUIN DUETS

13—GREAT GENES!

34—NEVER SAY NEVER!

A Long Hot Christmas

Barbara Daly

www.millsandboon.co.uk

For Helen Daly, my mother-in-law, best friend and lifelong card partner. I love you for loaning me your son—and for letting me win once in a while.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

1

HOPE SUMNER’S sisters were ganging up on her again.

“I was thinking a cat,” she informed them. “I do not need a man.”

“Just to go places with,” Faith said.

“An escort, nothing more than that,” Charity said.

“Because the holidays are coming up,” Faith added.

Hope rued the day she’d taught them to make a conference call. With Faith in Los Angeles and Charity in Chicago, for a time they’d had no choice but to attack her separately. One-on-one, she was invincible. Against the two of them, she had to fight for her life. Or in this case, her lifestyle.

And what was wrong with her lifestyle? Nothing. She loved living in New York. She was a successful career woman who could afford elegant clothes, when she managed to find time to shop, luxurious vacations, if she ever found time to take a vacation, and an apartment with a fabulous view—where she rarely was, nor was she at the moment.

“Lana says he’s a very nice man,” Faith persisted.

“Lana? The punk-rock movie star? Lana dates leather jackets on motorcycles. You told me so yourself.”

“That’s how she met him,” Faith said as though this made everything clear. “Her latest leather jacket is actually a software genius. The Shark defended him against the big software company.”

“The Shark?”

“His real name’s Sam Sharkey,” Charity supplied helpfully. “They just call him The Shark.”

“Oh. Did he win?”

“Well, of course,” Faith went on. “And while they waited for the judge’s decision, they got to talking, and Shark said he was sick of being the ‘available bachelor’ on everybody’s list, but he’s nowhere even close to wanting to get married, not until he makes partner at his law firm.”

“Anyway,” Charity interrupted, “Lana’s leather jacket told Lana and Lana said, ‘He sounds like Faith’s sister Hope, and she’s in New York, and The Shark’s in New York,’ and one thing led to another.”

That’s how bad it was. Her own sisters were shopping her around to lawyers who represented leather jackets accused of software plagiarism. The cat was sounding better every minute. A calico with pretty markings. Or maybe something with long, soft hair she could run her fingers through.

She liked her life. She loved her work. All she wanted was to be the first female, and at twenty-eight, the youngest person, ever to make vice president at Palmer. Then she’d be ready to enter the next phase of her life, which would include love and happiness, a man with thick, silky hair she could run her fingers through…

She’d been quiet too long. They might assume she was thinking it over, which she certainly wasn’t. “Hey,” she said in a “let’s negotiate” tone, “I really appreciate what you’re trying to do for me, but a man to take to parties isn’t what I need to get me out of this little slump I’m in.”

Her gaze darted to her monitor. She swiftly dragged a black seven onto a red eight, smiling when the elusive ace of diamonds appeared from beneath the seven. It was after nine at night. She was still at the office. She’d come to a stopping place at eight, unable to move forward effectively without input from colleagues who’d already left.

Even her nemesis, whom she privately referred to as St. Paul the Perfect, had gone home to his lovely wife and children. She knew he had, because he’d poked his head through the door to see if she was still there, and when he saw she was, had been forced to make up an elaborate excuse for his early departure. Some nonsense about rehearsal for the church pageant in which his tiny son had the lead role—Baby Jesus—and his daughter was head angel.

No reason for her not to go home, yet here she sat, playing solitaire.

She’d drag the ace later. “What I think,” she went on, “is get a cat and cozy up the apartment a little bit. Sheila’s sending me this decorator she says everybody’s raving about. Her name’s Yu Wing.”

Tiny shrieks came at her from the receiver. “You’re using a decorator Sheila recommended?” Charity squealed.

Being orphaned in early childhood had made Hope and her sisters unusually close. Even now, strung out from one coast to the other, they got together often, monitored each other’s activities and knew each other’s friends. Sometimes this was a good thing, sometimes not. “Yes a decorator Sheila recommended,” Hope said, feeling defensive. “She uses feng shui. Sheila swears that she…”

“Sheila’s insane,” Faith declared.

“Lana isn’t?”

There was a short silence before Charity said, “The last time I saw Lana I thought she’d matured considerably.”

“Love has made all the difference,” Faith said in her dreamy voice. Faith had always been a dreamer. She was thirty now, and Hope thought it was about time she found a man whose feet were firmly planted on this earth. Now that might make a difference.

“As it does for so many people,” Charity said. Whatever Charity’s tone indicated, it was not dreaminess. The youngest sister and the family beauty, she had a brain like a Pentium chip. She was twenty-six, and so far she hadn’t found a man—lover or employer—who was able to see past her pretty face, although Hope could hardly blame the male population for that particular weakness.

“Just because love makes some people happy…”

“Who said anything about love?” Charity said.

“We’re just talking about an arrangement,” Faith said.

“To get you through the holidays,” Charity said. “You have all those parties to go to and you hate going alone. I can hear it in your voice.”

“Lana says he does, too,” Faith said, “hates going alone, that is. Having women treat him as if he’s up for grabs.”

“So you and The Shark can go out together as protection for each other,” Charity concluded in the voice of one who is confident she has built a solid argument.

“If you like him, of course,” Faith said.

“Whether I like him wouldn’t matter, would it, if we’re just talking about an arrangement,” Hope said unwisely.

“So you’ll meet him? See if you two can make a deal?” The tiniest show of interest from Hope, and Faith moved in for the kill.

“He likes the idea.” That was Charity, sneaking up from the rear.

“You already set it up?” Now that was going too far.

“Of course not. We just gave him your number.”

“Numbers,” Charity clarified. “Home, office, digital…”

“You told him I was interested?” Hope was already halfway out of her chair, grabbing for her coat and briefcase. To hell with the ace.

“Well, sort of,” Faith admitted.

“She had to get the ball rolling,” Charity said in her reasonable way. “We knew you wouldn’t.”

“I’m cutting you two out of my will!” Hope yelled.

“You have a will?” she heard Faith say before she hung up on them.

THE NEXT NIGHT, Wednesday night, Hope was home at seven. Usually, Thursday was the only night she came home at seven, but Sheila had made the appointment with the decorator, Yu Wing, for Thursday, forcing Hope to do her Thursday routine on Wednesday.

While she wouldn’t admit it to Faith and Charity, she was pretty annoyed at Sheila for her highhanded behavior. It had disrupted her schedule and had gotten her Palm Pilot in a tizzy while she shuffled everything around.

But she was trying to be more flexible. Wasn’t that what really worried her sisters, that she was sliding into a routine that was presently going to harden like concrete until she could never break free from it?

Good grooming, to Hope, was simply part of the image she had to maintain, that of a successful corporate woman. The “routine” she followed religiously on Thursday and Sunday evenings involved a quick dinner, after which she applied a masque to her face and gave her feet a good soak in a foot spa that vibrated. While invisible hands massaged her arches, she gave herself a manicure. When her fingernails were dry, she did a pedicure, and, at last, removed the hardened masque and with it, anything resembling dirt, toxins, flaking skin and incipient blackheads.

She shed her navy suit and navy silk shell and put on a white terrycloth robe. It felt good, warm and cozy, unlike the atmosphere of her apartment. Padding into the kitchen in matching terry slippers, she ran through her collection of TV dinners and selected Chicken Marsala with pasta and green beans, which she tossed into the microwave.

It had been a big decision whether the second grooming should be on Wednesday or on Thursday. Once she’d settled on Thursday, though, it had become a habit, and she intended to tell Sheila it was pretty darned unsettling to have to…

She suddenly felt more cross with herself than with Sheila. “Stop it,” she said aloud to the sterile white-and-chrome kitchen, and the microwave answered with a “ping.”

A MIRACLE HAPPENED to Samuel Sharkey that evening. The client he was scheduled to meet for drinks came down with a virus of the tree-felling variety and Sam found himself with a window in his schedule. He had a full hour and a half before he had to meet a group of clients for dinner, time enough to get a bothersome little detail out of the way.

He’d enjoyed defending Dan Murphy against the big company who alleged that Dan had lifted a program of theirs and gotten it on the market before they did. And he’d liked the cute, funny actress Dan was dating. Lana, that was her name. When Dan had started talking about Lana, it had somehow led Sam to tell Dan about his love life, which was a vacuum. It was Dan who’d come up with the—Sam couldn’t help smiling as he searched through a stack of cards for the one with all the phone numbers on it—quirky, creative notion that The Shark needed another shark to swim with.

This woman was the perfect companion shark, Lana had promised him. Sam didn’t believe it for a minute, but he was willing to go as far as to check it out for himself.

He found the card. He dialed the office number. When he got her voice mail—a cool, professional voice, he observed—he tried her digital phone. More voice mail, same cool voice. He glanced at his watch. Seven-twenty. If she was already at home, she might not be the kind of woman he was looking for. Still, he had started it, he might as well finish it. He dialed.

HOPE ATE the Chicken Marsala without tasting it, which was probably all to the good.

Now the routine. Heavy-duty conditioner on the hair, wrap the hair up in a towel. Put on the masque. She spread the green paste on carefully. The label promised miracles, and expensive as it had been, it had better deliver. She was rinsing her hands when the phone rang.

“Hope Sumner?”

“Who’s calling?”

“Sam Sharkey. Lana West got your number from Faith…”

“Oh, yes,” said Hope. The lawyer, the one who had to make partner before he made a proposal. He was calling so soon? She hadn’t really made up her mind yet, or actually she had. She’d decided to say no.

“I have a free hour or so I wasn’t planning on. Wondered if I could come by and meet you. This is a pretty crazy idea, but I promised Dan I’d give you a call.”

“Dan. The…”

“My client. The boy wonder of software.”

“Oh.” Lana’s leather jacket. “Well, I agree it’s a crazy idea,” Hope said tightly. No other way she could say it. The masque was hardening rapidly. “Maybe we could just tell whatzisname we talked and decided against it.”

“Actually,” he said, “I’ve been thinking about it some.”

“I guess I have, too,” Hope said, “but I can’t see you tonight. I’m wearing a masque.”

Sam stopped himself just in time to keep from saying, “Hey, kinky.” When his intelligence kicked in, he realized she wasn’t talking a Little Bo Peep mask but that stuff women put on their faces—why, he didn’t know. The masque explained the change in her voice. Now she sounded uptight.

“It has to stay on for forty-five minutes,” she went on. “Otherwise, I might consider at least discussing an arrangement with you. Briefly.”

So she was thinking about it. They must both be desperate. “Don’t worry about how you look,” he said. It was going to make him crazy if he couldn’t fit this obligation into the free time that had dropped into his lap. “She already told me you were presentable.”

“My sister described me as ‘presentable’?” The voice dripped ice.

Sam cursed himself. He was a lawyer. He was supposed to know how to choose his words, and if he couldn’t choose the right ones, to keep his mouth shut. “No, I didn’t talk to your sister. I asked Dan’s girlfriend if you were presentable and she said sure. She said it in a positive way,” he added for good measure. “Not like, ‘sure she is.’ More like ‘she sure is!’” He winced just listening to himself. Come on, Hope Sumner, say yes. We’re wasting time.

“We’re wasting time.”

Sam dropped his brand-new phone. Sweeping it up off the icy pavement, he heard Hope’s, “Hello? Hello?”

“Sorry about that,” he muttered.

“I was just saying, we might as well get this taken care of one way or the other.”

“My thoughts exactly. I’ll see you in—” He looked up at the number on the canopy that sheltered the entrance to a large, modern Westside apartment building “—a couple of minutes.”

HOPE OPENED the door and peered out. What she wanted to do next was slam the door in his face and lean against it until her knees stopped trembling.

She’d been prepared for an attractive man. Good clothes and neat grooming had to be just as important in the legal world as they were in the corporate world, and this man had told Leather Dan right up front that he was aiming for the top. She’d expected him to be smart, well-educated and career-driven. What she was not prepared for was six two or three or four of bone and muscle, of shoulders and long legs, of sheer male power in a black overcoat. For short, thick dark hair, the kind of rich, deep tan she couldn’t get even if she did throw skin health to the four winds and give it a try, and a pair of very blue eyes that examined her with thinly veiled curiosity.

It would be so, so wonderful if her face weren’t green.

On second thought, she was grateful to have the masque to hide behind. His masculinity was overpowering. This was a man a woman could actually want to be with. And that wasn’t the deal at all.

In fact, they didn’t have a deal yet, and they weren’t going to make a deal. A man like this could affect her attention span.

But she couldn’t slam the door, and she couldn’t take time to recover. “Sam?” she said briskly, hoping somehow he wouldn’t be, that he was a totally different man who’d come to the wrong door. “Alias ‘The Shark’?”

“That’s me,” he admitted.

With a strong feeling that she was doing the wrong thing, she opened the door wider and waved him in. “I’m sorry about the mudpack,” she said. “If I’d known…”

“No problem,” Sam said, shrugging out of his overcoat and revealing a dark pinstriped suit. “I’ve got sisters. I’ve seen them with green faces and cucumbers on their eyes.”

He smiled. His smile wasn’t anything like the calculating curve of a shark’s grin. It was warm and compelling. It sent out powerful vibes, although she had a feeling he had no idea his testosterone had sprung a potentially explosive leak. Hope’s knees buckled again, but she locked them in place and said, “I’ll take your coat. Please sit down. Would you like a glass of wine? I’m afraid I can’t join you, because I still have…”

“No, thanks,” he said simultaneously. “I still have…”

“…work to do,” they finished together, and Hope couldn’t resist the temptation to smile back at him. Feeling her face crack sobered her up at once, but it didn’t slow down her pulse rate, still the pounding of her heart or lessen her sudden awareness that under the sexless terrycloth robe she was wearing—nothing.

She didn’t need her Palm Pilot to tell her it was time, definitely time, to pull herself together and direct her thoughts to a higher plane.

“That’s our problem.” She let out a rounded sigh that settled the masque back into place. “At least my sisters think it’s a problem.”

“Liking your work?” Sam The Shark took a look around the room. “Great view,” he murmured. Then he aimed himself half-heartedly at one of her plump, velvety armchairs, seemed to give up on that goal, glanced at her deeply cushioned taupe sofa and finally slid onto it, carefully bypassing the knife-sharp corners of her smart glass coffee table.

“Loving it,” Hope said. She couldn’t help noticing that he didn’t look any more comfortable on the expensive Italian design statement than she felt. She’d paid extra to have it stuffed with down. How much more comfortable could you get?

She made a mental note to ask the interior designer what the problem might be. For the first time, she thought she actually needed a decorator.

If she wasn’t careful, she’d start thinking she needed a man. Noticing that she was still milling around her own living room, she took the armchair that sat at a right angle to Sam Sharkey. That way she could get another look at his profile, his long, elegant nose and his to-die-for lashes.

“I don’t even know if I love my work,” Sam said, looking thoughtful. “I don’t have time to think about it. All I know is that I’m determined to succeed at it.”

“Well. Me, too,” said Hope. The words “vice president” lit up in her mind like a Times Square theater marquee. She gave Sam a closer look, wondering if “partner” had just lit up for him.

“Tell me about your job,” he said, and turned the full force of his riveting dark-blue gaze on her.

The “vice president” sign faded as another, quite disturbing message lit up inside her. The impact was powerful enough that she had to dig deep for the name of her company, but it finally surfaced. “I’m at Palmer. In Marketing.”

“Palmer. It rings a bell. I should know what Palmer does, but…”

She’d just drifted into a vision of Sam parting her robe to move his hands sinuously across her breasts when it all came back to her, her job, her true love, the real object of her deepest desire.

“Pipe,” she said.

SHE SAID the word the way another woman might say pearls or Pashmina, pâté or Porsche. She all but licked her lips.

“Pipes? Meerschaums? Briars? Hookahs?”

“Pipe. Copper, plastic, cast iron, galvanized steel. Life flows through pipe. Pipe runs the world, and Palmer Pipe runs it better.”

He gazed at her, feeling stunned. “Is that original with you? That ‘Pipe runs the world’ line?”

“Of course not,” she said. “It came from the ad agency.” She paused. “I picked the ad agency.”

She looked at him so expectantly she reminded him all of a sudden of one of his sisters’ kids wanting approval for a dive he’d just done or a basket he’d just made. And he did his best to make them feel good about each small victory.

He’d been lying about seeing his sisters in mudpacks and cucumbers. He’d seen them in curlers, no makeup and one of Dad’s wornout shirts, but his sisters didn’t have the time or the money to take care of themselves the way a woman like Hope did. They considered it a major victory to get their hair washed and their kids in shoes.

It was up to him to change all that, change their hand-to-mouth existences, turn them into upwardly mobile middle-class citizens, educate those kids—

He’d assigned his family a compartment in his mind that he visited when he needed to, but he never enjoyed the visits. Right now wasn’t the time to go there.

“It’s a good slogan,” he said in an approving tone. If it had been one of his nephews, he’d have said, “You did good.”

“Thank you. It’s working. That’s all that matters. And you? I mean, your work. I know you’re a lawyer, but…”

“An associate at Brinkley Meyers.”

“Brinkley Meyers? Your firm is representing Palmer in the Magnolia Heights case.”

Sam snapped his fingers. “That’s why it sounded familiar.”

“Are you involved in the case?”

“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.” He smiled. “I’m in litigation. My department won’t get involved unless the case goes to court.”

“Oh, it won’t,” she said with obvious confidence. “Now. You were saying you’re an associate at Brinkley Meyers…”

She meant, “Let’s get to the point.” He leaned forward, meeting her green face head on to be sure she understood the seriousness of his situation. “A single associate. Who’s determined to make partner. This year, preferably.”

Something he said had gripped her attention. A pair of green eyes—really nice green eyes, he noted in passing—gave him their full attention. “So you’re the ‘fresh meat’ at every party. You’re the one they invite because they have a daughter, a friend, somebody they’re sure they can match you up with. And you can’t refuse, because you don’t want to offend anybody who could influence your future.”

“You’ve been there.”

“I live there,” she said, lowering her green face and balancing it on her fingertips. Thick, dark lashes fluttered down to brush the surface of the masque. “You just described my entire social life. I’m determined to make vice president for Marketing when August Everley retires in January, which means every move I make right now has a direct influence on my future.”

He fell silent, taking a minute to wallow in self-pity and feeling that Hope was in there wallowing with him.

“If you don’t show an interest it makes them mad,” he went on when he felt they’d wallowed enough. “If you do show an interest and don’t follow up on it, it makes them madder.” He paused for a frustrated sigh. “A person who doesn’t understand, somebody like your sister Faith, let’s say, wonders why you don’t just find a real man friend and cut through all that nonsense.”

Hope raised her head and visibly stiffened her backbone. “Or your sisters,” she said. “They probably don’t stop to think about the time it would take to find a woman you really enjoyed, time you don’t have, and then the time that woman would demand from you once you’d found her.”

“Time and commitment.”

“Which neither of us is ready for.”

“You got that right.”

“What we’re talking here is the possibility of a no-strings kind of escort arrangement. I go with you to your parties, you go with me to mine.”

“We act friendly enough to make people think we’re already spoken for.”

“Right.” Hope bit out the word and gazed at him with suddenly flashing eyes. “But let’s get one thing straight. If we make this ridiculous arrangement, don’t even think about calling me ‘arm candy.’”

He struggled to keep his mouth from twitching, and when he’d gotten it straightened out, he narrowed his eyes. “Same thing goes for you,” he said. “If we make this extremely practical arrangement, I’m not your ‘arm candy’ either.”

IF HE’D FELT like expressing his true feelings, which he didn’t, Sam had concluded that Hope Sumner would do fine. He liked the spunk she’d just shown. Without the green face she’d be attractive enough. One of those women who knew how to distract you from their flaws with expensive haircuts and makeup. She was well-spoken. She’d make a decent impression on Phil, the Executive Partner he reported to, and Angus McDougal, senior partner in Litigation, and she’d rear their children—one girl, one boy—with energy and intelligence.

But he was getting way, way ahead of himself. Five years ahead, maybe. The token girlfriend was for now, the suitable wife not until he’d made partner and collected a few years of percentages of the law firm’s profits. Not until he felt invulnerable, professionally and financially.

The green eyes, spectacular green eyes, actually, gazed at him out of a matching face, and there seemed to be a lot of brown hair tucked under the institutional white towel. Brown hair, green eyes, average American coloring. You couldn’t go wrong with that. She was a little taller than average—maybe five seven—but as tall as he was, that was fine. He couldn’t tell what was tucked under the hotel-style white terry robe, except that the sash outlined a small waist and the robe hourglassed promisingly above and below it.

None of that mattered much. Just gravy. Yes, she’d do. Sam wished he could say so and get back to work, but unfortunately it was also necessary to convince her he’d do. Plus—he had one more question to ask her.

She blinked a couple of times, apparently adjusting to the idea that he didn’t want to be arm candy either, and glanced openly at her watch. Sam took this as a good sign. “Well, Sam, it seems we’re in agreement so far. Now that we’ve met each other, let’s give the arrangement a little further thought before we touch base again.”

Sensing that he might have passed muster, he relaxed, as much as he could in this room. It wasn’t the sofa. The sofa was cushy. The apartment was cushy. Mentally he compared it with his own Spartan digs. Weird he’d feel more comfortable there. She wouldn’t, though, and he’d never take her there, not even…

He tensed up again. “One more thing,” he said. “How do you feel about sex?”

She froze. The word hung in the air like an especially acrid room deodorizer. Mesmerized, Sam watched a crack widen in the green masque, starting at the bridge of her nose and forking off to both temples. He suspected she’d tried to raise her eyebrows.

“I don’t mean now,” he assured her, “or even soon, not until we trust each other. But sex is one of the important things I don’t have time for.” Her steady unblinking stare was starting to make him nervous. “I mean time to develop a relationship to the point that…” He didn’t get this rattled when a judge was staring him down in court. “I thought maybe you had the same problem, and we could include it in…” He halted. “Or maybe you don’t…”

“Like sex?” she said. The crack deepened. “Want sex? Need sex? Of course I do, Sam. I’m a perfectly normal woman. But surely men have ways to… I mean, I know they… But of course, it’s not the same as…”

It was her turn to be rattled. But only for a moment. The gleam suddenly returned to her eyes, and Sam had a feeling she was seeing a whole new market for pipe.

“Add it to your list of things to think about before we talk again,” he said, regaining his calm.

“Shall we say early next week?”

Sam strode down the hall toward the elevator, bemused by the final question she tossed at him as they traded business cards. “Are you allergic to cats?” she’d asked him.

He wasn’t, but he was curious to know why it mattered to her. His interest was short-lived. A few minutes later he had his laptop up and running in the bar of the restaurant where his clients would soon join him, doing the only thing he really felt comfortable doing. Work.

2

“MISS YU WING to see you.”

“Send her up,” Hope told the doorman. She checked out her apartment one more time. The magnificent view of Central Park and beyond it, the lights of the Upper East Side and the towers of midtown glittered through the huge plate-glass windows in both the living room and the bedroom. Bed made, aluminum foil from TV dinner in trash, pillows plumped, desk neat…she didn’t know what an interior designer, even one of Yu Wing’s reputation, could find to change.

The bell jangled, she flung the door open in a hospitable manner—and took in a quick, startled breath.

The small, thin woman who waited in the hallway had the biggest head of bleached-blond hair Hope had ever seen. The coat she carried appeared to have been made from a number of Afghan hounds. She fluttered a Stetson from one hand like a Victorian lady fluttering her hanky.

It was obvious why she was holding her hat. She’d never have gotten it on top of the hair. The ice-blue eyes that sparkled out at Hope from a narrow, sharp-featured, weatherbeaten face held a quick intelligence, though, that got Hope’s attention.

A white Western-style shirt, faded blue jeans that stretched over her bony hips and high-heeled, tooled boots completed the picture.

The hallucination.

“Yu Wing?” Hope said. She didn’t smile. She was poised to slam the door at any moment.

The woman breezed right past Hope into the living room. “Actually, sugah, the name’s E-w-i-n-g, Maybelle Ewing, but folks expect a feng shui expert to have a kinda Asian name.”

Hope glommed onto the one thing the woman had said that she understood. “Feng shui?” she asked in a high, thin voice. She cleared her throat. “You are the decorator.”

“Sure am. A licensed interior designer and feng shui goo-roo.”

Hope was translating Maybelle Ewing’s deep Texas drawl into normal New York-speak as fast as her mind could function.

“Oh, my land!” Maybelle shrieked suddenly.

Of course. Ms. Ewing had noticed the view, the reason the small apartment was so expensive. All the chairs faced it. Her bed faced it. It didn’t matter how you furnished an apartment when you had a view like this one.

Hope was so surprised she jolted backward when Maybelle’s hand pressed against her forehead. The hand was dry and as bony as the rest of the woman. “You could make yourself sick in a place like this,” Maybelle said in a hoarse whisper. She frowned. “You don’t feel feverish. You been havin’ any of them psychological problems?”

“No,” Hope snapped. “Look, Yu Wing, I mean…”

“Just call me Maybelle.”

“Look, Maybelle, all I want is to make this place a little cozier, make it look a little more lived-in.”

“It will, hon, when you start living in it.” Maybelle’s voice grew softer, lost its shrill quality. “I bet you hate coming home, am I right?”

Hope stared at her.

“Well, don’t you worry about it no more, because Maybelle’s going to fix everything.”

How? Rope and tie it into submission? “Of course I would need an estimate from you before we enter into any sort of agreement,” Hope said. Recalling one’s purpose in engaging in a dialogue was a good way to keep from getting rattled. “Or perhaps you’d rather I gave you a budget.”

“Whatever,” Maybelle said with an airy wave of her hand. “We’re not to that point yet. Let’s see what I can do for a couple hundred dollars first. Mind if I take some pictures?”

“Yes,” Hope said. The cool, serene African head on the stand in one corner had cost as much as she earned in a month. The huge bowl, a piece of glass art, was worth almost as much. Good investments, both of them. For all she knew, this insane woman was here to case the joint.

Maybelle wouldn’t have a problem getting the bowl out, either. All she had to do was wear it over her hair. Then she could put the Stetson on the African head and…

“Please sit down,” she invited Maybelle. Remembering one’s manners—that was another good way to fight down rising hysteria. “May I get you a drink?”

“Sure,” Maybelle said. “Some coffee’d be real tasty about now with bedtime coming up.”

“Decaf?”

“Not if you’ve got the real stuff.”

Hope headed for the kitchen to start a small pot of Hawaiian Kona, trying not to breathe the fumes in case they were enough to keep her awake. When she got back to the living room with Maybelle’s cup of deadly insomnia in hand and a glass of sparkling water for herself, she found her new decorator circling the room.

Hope fell into step behind her. It was interesting the way they circled a while before they chose seats. Last night Sam Sharkey had done the same thing. The few times she’d entertained, her guests had done it, too, as though they were looking for a more comfortable spot from which to enjoy the view.

Just now, she was feeling a quite surprising need to make Sam comfortable. But not necessarily to enjoy the view. Something unfamiliar pinged inside her.

She quickly sat down, arbitrarily choosing one of the squishy taupe chenille armchairs and perching uneasily on its edge. Back to business. “Where exactly did you get your training?” she asked, narrowing her eyes.

“A correspondence course,” said Maybelle. She deposited her cup on an end table. “Give me a hand with this, hon.” She seemed intent on dragging the other armchair across the room where it faced the door with its back to the view.

Hope closed her eyes briefly, then hurried to help, just to save the floors. A correspondence course interior designer. Her sisters were right. Sheila was crazy, and if she ever saw her again, which she never intended to, she’d throttle her. “How did your interest in decorating come about,” she said faintly, lowering her side of the chair to the floor. Thank goodness she hadn’t signed anything yet.

“Well,” the woman began when she’d settled into the chair, “first off, I was stuck down there in Texas on my husband’s family ranch when he up and died.”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Hope murmured.

“Don’t be,” Maybelle assured her. “It was him or the bull and the bull had a hell of a lot more character. Cuter, too, in his way.” Her gaze grew thoughtful.

Hope’s mouth formed an O. Her eyes sought out the phone on the end table beside her. How fast could she dial 9-1-1? She was already reaching for the receiver when the phone rang. She grabbed for it. Maybe the police were calling to warn her that a madwoman was on the loose.

“Hope? Sam.”

“Sam?” Hearing from Sam wasn’t on today’s agenda. In fact, she’d assumed Sam would hear from her, not the other way around. That way she would have been prepared for the sound of his voice. This way, she hadn’t been, and she was annoyed by the stab of heat, the sudden heaviness in the pit of her stomach. She locked her knees tightly together and sat up very straight. “We’re scheduled to talk next week, I believe. I entered it in my Palm Pilot and synchronized it with my desktop calendar. The decorator is here now, so…”

“This’ll just take a minute. It’s an emergency.”

He didn’t sound as if he were dying, unaided, on a lightly traveled road. Hope drew her brows together. “What kind of emergency?”

She’d spent her hypothetical lunch hour—ten minutes eating yogurt and an apple at her desk—trying to imagine having sex with him as a purely therapeutic measure. “Have sex twice and call me in the morning if you’re not better.” And she’d decided—maybe. Or maybe not.

Out of the corner of one eye she watched Maybelle shaking her head and tsk-tsking. Meanwhile, Sam was delivering a staccato message into her left ear.

“The firm’s executive partner is having a dinner party tomorrow night. One of the guests met his Maker this afternoon. The partner’s wife is deeply moved, but she’s committed to the party. The problem is two empty spaces—the widow’s not in a party mood—at a table set for sixteen at two-hundred-fifty dollars a plate.” He paused. “Are you following me?”

“Closely,” Hope said. “The caterer’s going to charge for sixteen regardless. As a junior member of the firm you have to fill those two spaces.”

“You’re familiar with the system.”

“Intimately.” In fact, that was one of the reasons she might actually need Sam, or even better, somebody like him who didn’t mention sex in their first meeting.

She had to admit she’d like it if this new man, the one who didn’t mention sex in their first meeting, had a voice like Sam’s. It was warm and deep, and it rolled over her like a soothing wave, although the way he sounded now was more like being in a stinging shower.

Maybelle wasn’t in her chair any longer. Hope paced around with the phone until she sighted her in the bedroom, exploring the apartment uninvited and still tsk-tsking.

“Will you fill one of those spaces?”

“What? Oh.” She refocused on Sam. “Is this important to you?” She’d read the books, gone to retreats, attended seminars at company expense, and she knew what questions to ask. She’d almost said, “Is this a step toward your goal?” but somewhere in her head she heard the echoes of her sisters’ exasperated sighs.

“Real important. The boss’s wife is after me.”

“Your hostess tomorrow night?” She was pretty impressed with herself for following the conversation. Maybelle was in the kitchen now, thumping the walls, looking for joists.

“So far she’s only managed to signal me by wiggling her eyebrows and running her tongue over her lips. But those big Connecticut estates have pool houses, conservatories, butlers’ pantries. Imagine what could happen if I said yes to her. Imagine what could happen if I said no to her.”

“Screwed,” Hope said. “Either way. You, I mean, not her. I mean…” She was glad he couldn’t see her blush. Maybelle did, though, and gave Hope a knowing look before she trotted into the bathroom, brandishing a wrench.

“Will you come? Be my bodyguard?”

Hope could tell his problem was a serious one. So was hers. She had to get back to Maybelle before the woman started disassembling the plumbing. “Okay, I’ll help you out. We’ll call it a trial run.”

“Pick you up tomorrow at five.”

“Five o’clock? In the afternoon?” Even Maybelle faded from her mind. Hope did her best work after five.

“Lots of traffic on Friday. Long way to Connecticut. Party starts at seven. Can’t be late.”

She thought about it. “Okay, then. Pick me up at the office.”

He was silent for a second. “It’s black tie.”

“No problem,” said Hope.

“Five.”

“The 48th Street entrance.”

“I’ll be there.”

It was sort of a relief knowing she could delay coming home tomorrow. What was it with this apartment?

What was it with Maybelle and all that tsk-tsking? “Sorry for the interruption,” she said, settling down again and feeling relieved when Maybelle followed suit. “Let’s see, we’d gotten past the bull…”

“Yeah. Anyhoo,” Maybelle said, picking up the thread without difficulty, “I got right bored that first winter after he was gone, what with nobody to fight with and only three channels on the television. But one morning I was watching this arithmetic program, Geometry, they call it—”

Hope’s eyes widened.

“You know, one of them college courses they do on TV? Anyway, right after that they was advertising these University of Texas—” She pronounced it “Tegzis.” “—correspondence courses and I sent off for the catalog. Whoo-ee, what a lot of junk you could learn without setting foot off the ranch!”

Hope felt her brain whirling in slow ellipses. Getting a little closer to Earth, then spinning way out into space. “So you sent off for a Geometry course.”

“Calculus. I’d pretty much gotten the hang of Geometry and the catalog said take Calculus next.”

“Oh.”

“Then a course in lit-tra-chure.”

“Contemporary American literature?”

“Nope, Mid-yeeval. You know, them sexy Canterbury Tales? Whoo-ee, they sure made me wish I had Hadley back for a long weekend. Then I said to myself, ‘Girl, your hands are way more bored than your head.’ And that was the truth, what with the ranch hands doing the outside work and their wives coming in to clean and cook. So I took a beautician course.”

“A correspondence course in hairdressing?” The ellipse lengthened dramatically.

“Yeah. Well, that was a bust, with nobody but the sheep to practice on. The ranch hands’ wives wouldn’t let me get anywhere close to them with my shears. But I can do my own hair real good,” she said cheerfully. “Saved me many a penny, let me tell you.”

“I can see that,” Hope murmured. “How long did it take you to finish all those courses.”

“Almost six months! Them courses was hard!” Maybelle’s gaze shot over her shoulder, then flitted from one corner of the room to the other. “Honey,” she said suddenly, “have you got an extry mirror I could hang over there on that wall?”

“Mirror? Well, no, all the mirrors are sort of attached to things, or doing their various…”

“No matter. I’ll bring some by tomorrow.” She frowned. “Don’t want to wait long, though. Anyways, next thing I did was try my hand at making dishes and stuff. Old man Abernathy brung the kiln out to the ranch in his big truck and I did that until the ladies got to complaining about dusting all the new crockery. Then landscape design, but I couldn’t get nuthin’ much to grow out there in West Texas but cactus. This place sure could use some greenery,” she added.

Hope wondered if Maybelle could be trying to hypnotize her. This was the most outrageous—at least the most different—face it, the most interesting conversation she’d had in ages. And she didn’t have to say a word, just listen to Maybelle’s chirping voice, which went so well with her chicken-like appearance. She could listen to Maybelle and think about Sam Sharkey. She was going out with Sam tomorrow night. No, not really going out with Sam, just accompanying Sam, protecting him from the boss’s wife, but still…

“…feng shui,” she heard Maybelle say.

Hope switched gears.

“And I said what the heck is that? So naturally I had to find out. And you know what I found out?” The question was clearly rhetorical, because Maybelle forged on. “If I’d known all that stuff before, Hadley and me might of got along a sight better.”

“How.” It wasn’t a question, just a polite murmur. How could anybody get along with this idiot savant? Poor Hadley must have thought he’d died and gone to everlasting steam heat turned way up by the time the honeymoon was over. He’d apparently been desperate enough to engage in combat with a bull. Didn’t that say something about the mood the man was in?

“That’s what I’m going to show you, hon,” Maybelle said with another of those abrupt softenings of her usual shrillness. She shot up out of the armchair, shouldered a brown leather purse that reminded Hope of a feedbag and got the Stetson twirling on one finger. “Can I have the run of the house for a coupla weeks?”

Absolutely not! Hope got up, too. “First I really do insist on having an—”

“—estimate. Budget.” Maybelle sighed. “Honest to gosh, if you yuppies could get your minds off money for a split second…”

She was moving rapidly toward the door with Hope in her wake. “…and credentials,” Hope said firmly. “Was the correspondence course the end of your professional training?”

Maybelle spun. “Lands no! I spent two years in Chiner and Jap-pan learning everything they had to teach me, then I come up here and got me the kind of degree you young folks understand. The Parsons School of Design. So don’t you worry none about my credentials.”

“Well. Okay, here’s a key.” The voice that uttered those utterly reckless words was strange, yet familiar. It was her own voice. That’s why she recognized it.

Hope promised herself she’d call the insurance company first thing in the morning. Have an art appraiser out. Determine the current value of the African head and the glass bowl. Adjust the insurance accordingly. And when this nonsense was over, she’d hire a proper Manhattan decorating firm to undo the damage.

She would never see Sheila again.

And tomorrow night she was going out with Sam Sharkey.

A little thrill shot straight down through the center of her body just thinking about it.

SAM GUESSED he’d been looking for a brown-haired woman with green eyes and a face to match.

As he stepped out of the luxurious Lincoln he’d hired for the evening, he scanned the crowd surging through the doors of the office building into the blustery wind of December and didn’t find anyone who fit that description. The woman who waved and stepped briskly toward the limo was something else again.

“Hope?”

She smiled. “Am I late?”

“Right on time.”

First thing, her face wasn’t green. Of course he hadn’t really expected it to be. He wasn’t prepared, though, for creamy skin or full, glistening lips, for the even thicker, darker lashes that framed her eyes—still green, thank God. And her hair. Why had he thought it was brown? Must have been wet. This woman had hair the color of copper pipe.

Maybe she’d dyed it to match her product.

Under a thick, soft-looking cape, she was wearing a tuxedo. So was he, but the only similarity was their satin lapels. Hers had a short skirt, for one thing, and some kind of low-necked black-lace top under the jacket instead of a white shirt and bow tie. And the jacket poofed out at the top and in at the waist in a way that almost made him forget the reason she was with him in the first place.

For a second he felt like somebody had gut-punched him.

He slid into the car first and let the driver help Hope in beside him. He helped her shrug off the cape—cashmere, by its feel—and pretty soon she was showing him a pair of long, long legs with smooth, slender knees in sheer black stockings. Something bubbled up inside him that was supposed to simmer, covered, for another five years or so, until he really got his feet on the legal ground.

The next thing she was showing him was a laptop. “I hope you don’t mind,” she said, perching it carefully on top of those pretty knees. “I was into something important when I realized it was time to change jackets.”

“Be my—” he paused to clear his throat “—guest. I brought work along, too.”

Even before he got to that last line he was looking at her profile, at a big emerald earring on a really cute ear that had a thick bunch of shiny hair tucked behind it, at slim hands with long fingernails painted a sort of ginger-peachy color that matched her lipstick, fingernails that went tap-tap, tap-tap-tap on the computer keys.

Wondering if this had been a really bad idea instead of a really inspired one, Sam reached down for his briefcase.

For a time they rode—sat absolutely still, rather, in the crosstown traffic—in silence except for her taps and the rustle of the brief he was scanning.

Hope knew it was a brief because she’d let her gaze stray once too often in his direction, sweep up and down the considerable length of him. Lord help her, he was glorious in black tie! Black tux, onyx studs in the buttonholes of a dazzling white shirt, black hair, black lashes…she wouldn’t mind having a brief of her own to fan herself with.

She’d set up her laptop at once in order to have something to focus on besides him, but she wasn’t getting a lot done. For one thing, she was concentrating on hitting the laptop keys with the pads of her fingers, not her nails. Clear polish was definitely the way to go, and that’s the way she usually went, but for some reason she’d wanted to look especially, well, pretty tonight.

But only because she wanted to be sure she left the right impression with the boss’s wife. Lick your lower lip at somebody else. He’s mine!

“How do you want me to act tonight?” she said. She’d been thinking about it, but she hadn’t meant to say it aloud.

“Oh, I don’t know.” Sam rolled the brief a little in his hands and frowned. “Like a girlfriend, I guess.”

Wonder how a girlfriend acts. I haven’t been one since… She couldn’t remember since when. That was pathetic. Her sophomore year in college, she thought, when she’d dated a pimply philosopher.

“Like…smile up at you, and…”

“We should use terms of endearment,” Sam said. “You know, ‘Sam, darling, would you fetch me one of those adorable caviar canapés.’ That kind of thing.”

“I take it I can put ‘that kind of thing’ in my own words,” she said, giving him a sidelong glance.

“Whatever makes you comfortable.”

Comfortable? She was already not comfortable and she hadn’t even begun acting yet. “We shouldn’t try to pretend we’ve been together a long time,” she said to get back on track. “I’m popping up for the first time, and these people know you. You’d have said something about having a girlfriend.”

The thoughtful look that crossed his face told her that maybe he would’ve, maybe he wouldn’t. What he said was, “Could we claim love at first sight?”

“What about—” she did little quotation marks with her fingers “—fourth or fifth date, but we feel this really strong attraction?”

He nodded. “That’s the attitude. The overdone ‘how can I make you happy’ stuff, like ‘are you cold, here’s your cape, are you hot, let’s go out on the balcony, are you thirsty, I’ll get you a drink.’”

“Very good,” Hope said. “Then we do the sudden looks of appreciation at discovering something new about each other we’d never known before, like ‘you sail? Oh, my goodness gracious! I simply lo-ve sailing.’”

“That’d be you,” he said, looking uncertain for the first time, “saying ‘my goodness gracious, I simply lo-ve…”’

“Probably not,” said Hope. “But better me than you, now that I think of it. Incidentally, is there something you do that I should know about?”

“I work.”

“Well, yes, but…”

“That’s it. I work. Just say ‘he works.’ Anybody you’re talking to will know we’re well-acquainted.”

There was a faint bitterness in his tone, or had she imagined it. Must have, because almost immediately he turned to her with a quick, flashing grin. “Then there’s the ‘isn’t she wonderful’ face,” he said. “For me, that’d be a sappy smile.” He demonstrated.

“Yuck. You look like a lovesick gander. For me,” she said, “it would be a sort of parted lips, widened eyes kind of thing.” She demonstrated, embellishing her act by pouting out her lower lip as if it were swollen with lust.

He cleared his throat again. She hoped he wasn’t getting a cold. “By George, I think we’ve got it.”

“Sorry I interrupted your work,” Hope said.

“No problem,” he said.

She returned to her laptop and he returned to his brief. But first he had to flatten it out, he’d had it rolled up so tightly.

“CHARLENE.” Sam bowed slightly. “Phil. This is Hope Sumner.”

“I’m sorry about the circumstances that brought us here,” Hope said, looking properly funereal, “but thanks for letting us join you at the last minute. Sam has told me so much about you.”

Sam gave her a look. Where did she learn to do that, get all the right words into one receiving-line sentence?

“We’re delighted that you were willing to join us on such short notice,” said Charlene. A pair of huge blue eyes shot daggers in Hope’s direction, then Cupid arrows at Sam. He pretended not to notice, but it was hard not to notice that Charlene’s dress went down to here and came up to there, and that she was as voluptuous here as she was slender there.

Silicone at the top and liposuction at the bottom? He’d ask Hope what she thought.

“Please come in,” Charlene went on. “Make yourselves comfortable. You know almost everybody.”

“Yes, yes,” Phil murmured. “Sad time for all of us, but I know Thaddeus would have wanted us to go on with our—Harry!” he said, putting a manicured hand forward. “Great to see you. How’s the golf?”

Sam gripped Hope’s elbow and propelled her forward into the Carrolls’ magnificent reception room, a marble-floored space with twenty-foot ceilings and fifteen-foot windows. They ran directly into Cap Waldstrum. “Cap,” he said heartily. “This is Hope Sumner.” He paused. “You remember Hope.”

“No,” Cap said, “and I promise you I would’ve.” The caressing gaze of Sam’s colleague—his opposite number in the Corporate Department, the man who might edge Sam out of the partnership—slid down to Hope’s cleavage. This drew Sam’s gaze in the same direction, toward creamy breasts just barely peeking out above the lace.

He had a brief, satisfying daydream of socking Cap in the jaw. And not merely because Cap was apparently an early invitee to this dinner party while he, Sam, was just filling in. This was bad news.

He’d decided to try bluffing Cap about Hope, but as direct as lawyers were, subtlety was out of the question. He’d have to hit Cap over the head with the message to back off.

“I’ll get you a drink, darling,” he said.

“I’d love some sparkling water, angel,” she answered him, giving him the sappy smile he’d thought he was supposed to use. “With lime. I do better if I start out slowly,” she was explaining to Cap as Sam made a beeline for the bar, “especially during the holidays.”

The bar being a mano-a-mano scene, he barely got back to Hope in time to hear her say, “Pipe. I’m in pipe.”

“Not Palmer,” Cap said, sounding amazed. “What a coincidence. Our firm—”

“She knows,” Sam said abruptly. “Small world, huh?”

“So how did you two meet?” Cap was looking increasingly interested.

“I met Sam through…” Hope began.

“…mutual friends,” Sam interjected smoothly. “And for once, the friends had heads on their shoulders.” He gave Hope a replay of the sappy grin she’d blatantly stolen from the script they’d agreed on.

“Well, so nice to meet you.” Cap The Snake slithered off into the crowd to offer his apple to someone more vulnerable. Sam The Shark decided to let him go…this time.

“Two down,” Hope hissed. “Who’s next?”

“Not a new player,” he hissed back. “Charlene’s coming back for a second match.”

“Sam,” Charlene purred, “you’re my dinner partner this evening. Your friend…”

“Hope,” Sam supplied. “Hope Sumner.”

“Hope Sumner,” Charlene said, “will sit across from you between Cap—you’ve met Cap—” her gaze flitted briefly in Hope’s direction “—and Ed Benbow.”

“So it’s time to go in to dinner?” Sam said, relieved that Charlene hadn’t yet invited him to dally with her in some “private” location until the soup was on.

She gave him a mischievous look. “Soon, you impatient boy. Ed,” she said, “come and meet…”

“Hope,” said Hope.

“Sumner,” said Sam.

“Sad occasion we’ve got here,” said Ed. He did some appropriately lugubrious head shaking.

Hope turned suddenly to Sam, “Daring, I didn’t ever meet…”

“Thaddeus,” Sam supplied.

“Fine man,” Ed rumbled. “Salt of the earth.”

Sam slid a possessive arm around Hope’s shoulders. “We poured him into our opponents’ wounds,” he murmured.

It was important, of course, to behave as if he and Hope were lovers. About to be lovers, at least. But when she leaned into him, when he felt her shiver of pleasure, he wondered if putting his arm around her and whispering so directly into her ear, a small, very pretty ear, had been a good idea. That shiver had been disquieting, had awakened the sleeping monster inside him again. Except it wasn’t inside him. It was right out there in front for all the world to see. And for all he knew, Hope was just ticklish.

“How long have you known our boy Sam?” Ed asked Hope.

“Just a few weeks.” Hope smiled prettily. “Long enough to know all he does is work.”

“That’s Sam, all right,” Ed agreed.

Sam had let his hand begin to move against Hope’s shoulder in the most natural lover-like way—just testing for signs of response from her—when to his annoyance he felt something tugging at his other arm.

“Sam,” Charlene said, “I want to show you my new orchid.” She dug her spiky little heels into the floor and tightened her death grip on his elbow. “We can give Ed and…”

“Hope,” said Sam, sending a desperate glance in her direction as he slid away from her.

“Hope a chance to get acquainted.”

“I’d love to see your orchids,” Hope said warmly. “You, too, Ed? You interested in orchids?”

“My wife is,” Ed said. “Tanya?”

A stunning blonde half Ed’s age left the group she was visiting with and came over to him. “What, honey? Hi,” she said, holding out her hand to Hope, “I’m Tanya Benbow. Hey, Shark! What’s up?”

“We’re going to see Charlene’s orchids,” Ed said. “Knew you wouldn’t want to miss that.”

The merry party set out for the conservatory, led by Charlene. Earlier, her slim hips had swung seductively inside her lace sheath. Now she gave the impression of a woman on a forced march.

Sam caught Hope’s eye and winked.

3

SNUGGLED IN HER CAPE, standing on the crescent-shaped entryway to her apartment building, Hope said, “Tonight worked out pretty well, didn’t it?”

“Don’t sound so surprised.” He smiled reminiscently. “When Charlene’s toes were climbing up my leg and you attacked them with your foot…that was your finest hour.”

“It was a stretch from where I was sitting.” She watched his smile widen. It set her heart to pounding. “I think I gave Ed a little thrill with my knee, but it was worth it.”

“That look you gave Charlene.” He shifted into a generic-female falsetto that didn’t sound a bit like her, but did sound pretty cute coming from him. “‘Find your own leg to climb, you hussy.’”

She remembered the moment entirely too well. She’d had to work steadily at her computer all the way home to distract herself from the sensation that had climbed up from her toes as they caressed Sam’s muscular calf beneath the table, a tingly feeling that had made her wriggle against the seat of the dining chair. “Yes. Well worth it,” she murmured. “But she does do great orchids.”

His low laugh was like warm syrup in the cold night.

“So thanks for a really interesting evening,” she said.

He took her hand, held it lightly. “I hope we’ll have more of them.”

She hesitated. “Let’s take it a step at a time, okay? Tonight was successful. Now let’s try my milieu.”

His smile grew warmer. “Sure. When?”

“Next Wednesday night. My boss and his wife are having their big holiday party then.”

“Will you be wearing a mask?” His mouth twitched at the corner.

She really wished he’d stop doing that. It had a strange effect on her, made her twitch in turn somewhere deep down inside in a way that was distracting and unnerving. “Of course not. What do you mean, a… Oh. The masque.” The pressure of his hand sent an arrow of heat up her arm. From her shoulder it would spread to her throat, across her breasts. “No,” she said abruptly. “The masque is Thursdays and Sundays.”

“But…”

“Don’t start with me about my schedule.” There had to be a way to get her hand back without making a scene. But his hand felt so warm around hers. “So good night, Sam. See you Wednesday.” She tugged a little, got free, felt relieved, then deserted and a bit chilly.

“I’ll pick you up here.” He paused, looking thoughtful. “You did a great job tonight. I don’t suppose there’s a manual on arm-candy skills…” He took a look at her face. “No, I guess not.”

With a wave he slid back into the limo. Before he vanished behind the tinted glass, he flashed her a thoroughly wicked smile.

Hope turned toward the apartment entrance. Her feet were killing her. Funny, she hadn’t noticed while Sam was still around.

“Night, Rinaldo,” she said to the doorman as she hobbled into the lobby and summoned the elevator. Almost home, such as it was.

She hadn’t been acting. It had been fun being Sam’s clinging vine for an evening. He was a hunk with charm and brains and a goal in life. He’d been a sparkling conversationalist during dinner. The boss’s wife wasn’t the only woman to send an envious glance in Hope’s direction.

She felt she was close to agreeing to the arrangement, throughout the holiday season, at least.

But only if she could keep her emotions under control. When their knees accidentally touched, when he cradled her elbow or she took his arm, when their shoulders brushed and a warm, fuzzy feeling began to fluff up inside her, when his utterly charming smile came in her direction, seeming to be for no one but her, she’d wondered if she could keep her quick response to him in perspective. What woman wouldn’t respond? He was a very good-looking, a very masculine man.

But when he’d put his arm around her, caressed her shoulder, whispered words into her ear… Even now, she could feel the warmth of his breath, the ache that had spread through her, had made her snuggle into him, wanting more. The sense of urgency she’d felt had led her to ditch wondering about perspective and leap directly to worrying. Especially about the sex thing. He hadn’t brought it up again. Maybe it had slipped his mind. She wished it would slip hers.

As soon as she opened the door of her apartment, the night view of the New York skyline greeted her through the windows across the room. It always calmed her, made her feel serene and happy. Actually, what it did was justify the savings she’d plundered for the down payment, her huge monthly mortgage and the maintenance expenses.

She didn’t turn on the light at once. She wanted to relish the quiet of the moment, give herself time to think about the evening, to think about Sam.

She tossed her briefcase over the top of the sofa as she always did, then reached down to pull the shoes off her aching feet and heard the heart-stopping, stomach-clenching, career-ending clang of a five-thousand-dollar-extra-long-life-battery laptop hitting a hardwood floor.

With a shaking hand, she flipped on the light switch and screamed. An intruder was in her apartment, a creature swathed entirely in black!

A second later she slumped against the door. What a relief! It was herself she was seeing, reflected in the mirror that hung beside the window, a mirror which hadn’t been there this morning.

The sofa was gone, though. No, the sofa wasn’t gone, it was just in a different place.

Maybelle had made a preemptory strike. But it didn’t look as though she’d stolen anything. It looked like she’d added stuff.

Hope came to sudden attention. How could she have forgotten her laptop for even a second? Kicking off her shoes, she grabbed up the briefcase, whipped out the injured team member and ran with it to the sofa. She put it down on the coffee table, sent up a brief prayer and turned it on.

The computer did all its usual beeps and lights, and there was her marketing presentation, safe and sound. The breath she’d been holding whooshed from her lungs. She thanked her lucky stars she’d sprung for the optional two-hundred-dollar computer case with the shock-absorbing extra padding built in. With her next breath, she almost suffocated from the scent that rose from her briefcase.

The laptop had survived, the bottle of Shalimar in her makeup kit had not. But what was a quarter-ounce of Shalimar compared to the product of fifty hours of work?

Strong, that’s what it was.

With a feeling of having survived an attack from all sides, Hope collapsed against the sofa. Ummm. She wiggled her toes. Then she looked at the room.

She frowned. The sofa was on the diagonal, facing the little foyer. That was dumb. People came to her apartment to see the view, not the front door. The two squashy taupe armchairs flanked the sofa, also facing the front door.

At least the other two chairs, the antique ones the dealer had called fauteuil, the ones he’d warned her were not really for sitting in but were a terrific investment, faced the view. Great, Maybelle, just great.

Feeling rebellious, Hope struggled up from the sofa, which seemed to cling to her just as she’d clung to Sam. She crossed the room to sit in one of those chairs whether it liked it or not. Yes, the two chairs faced the view. It was also true—she moved to the other chair just to be sure—that each one looked directly into one of two mirrors that flanked the huge picture window. The mirrors not only reflected her, but also the front door. And the kitchen door. And the bedroom door.

What was this door fetish?

For a minute she sat there, bolt upright, which she’d assumed was the only way you could sit in a fauteuil, then felt herself start to settle in, lean a little against one of the sculpted wooden arms, rest her head against the faded, faintly dusty, original needlepoint upholstery.

What did the antiques dealer mean, a fauteuil wasn’t for sitting in?

Enough of this. She was exhausted. She emptied her briefcase and set everything out in her office, a small alcove off the living room, to air. The Shalimar had to fade by Monday. If it didn’t, she would have to announce a new marketing trend—the scented memo.

The message light was blinking on her phone-fax-copier-scanner-answering machine—next year’s model would probably have a built-in curling iron. She pushed “Playback.”

“Hey, hon! Maybelle!”

Maybelle was one person who didn’t need to identify herself on the phone. Hope reeled at the screech, then turned down the volume.

“I made a good start today,” the shrill voice continued. “Didn’t get no further than the parlor, because I was wanted by the police…”

Hope stiffened.

“…department to juggle the Chief’s office around a little.”

Hope relaxed. The New York Chief of Police was into feng shui? She hoped the Daily News didn’t get wind of it.

“Anyhoo, I got them mirrors at the Housing Works Thrift Shop, so you’re only out fifty bucks so far. Don’t give it a thought. We’ll settle up later. I sure hope you’re not one of those people who throws stuff onto the sofa soon’s she walks in the door, because I moved it. Throwing stuff on the furniture isn’t good for you speeritch-ully anyways. We’ll talk more about that later.

“Well, you try to get some rest. Soon’s I get the Chief and a coupla other clients squared away I’ll be back to work on your bedroom, have you sleeping good pretty soon. Oh, would you puh-leeze tell that doorman of yours to let me in next time without putting me through all that hassle?

“Night, hon.”

The message had come, her machine-which-never-lied said, at 11:00 p.m. Maybelle sounded like a woman who’d had a whole lot of fully leaded coffee.

Hope went to her bedroom, took off her clothes and hung them up. She’d left her daytime black-and-white tweed jacket at the office. Thank goodness. If she hadn’t, it would be permanently Shalimarred just like her briefcase.

She put on a soft flannel granny gown, washed her face, brushed her teeth. She turned down the bed, then stared at it. It stood against the wall just inside the door, facing the view. Nighttime Manhattan twinkled at her from a picture window like the pair in the living room. Already, the week after an early Thanksgiving and not even December yet, the Empire State Building was red and green for Christmas.

About to slip between the sheets, she paused. As tired as she was, it would be lovely to wake up to coffee set on a timer and already made. Yes. She’d sit on the sofa in the living room and have coffee while she read the newspaper.

And stared at the front door.

She tried it out on the way to the kitchen. Weird.

She passed the sofa again on the way to her bedroom, walked over to it, plumped it with her hand.

Maybe she’d pick up one of the magazines that had come today and just rest here a minute before she actually went to bed. She felt so wired, it might get her in the mood for sleep. She’d get that soft mohair throw to put over her feet. And a real pillow from the bed.

It seemed no more than a second later when she woke up to the slap of the New York Times against her door and the smell of freshly brewed coffee. Her body buzzed a little with sleepy warmth and something else, something deeper, something achier. She realized she’d been dreaming of Sam.

WHEN SHE ran into Benton in the hallway on Monday, he got as far as, “Morning, Ho—” before deep coughs racked his body and he hurried away with his face buried in his white handkerchief.

At noon on Tuesday, when she went into the executive café in search of an iced tea, she discovered a sign posted on one side of the dining area: “Perfume-Free Zone.”

At two that afternoon, a group of her colleagues made shadows outside her door without really showing their faces. “Has to be Hope’s office,” one said much too loudly. She recognized the oily-smooth tones of St. Paul the Perfect.

“She does have a certain aura about her,” said a feminine voice, which then dissolved into a giggle as the shadows vanished.

Ha, ha. Now that she’d become the office joke she’d have to break down and buy a new two-hundred-dollar padded case. The current one had soaked up Shalimar like a femme fatale dying of thirst in the desert.

It was only good-natured kidding, of course. But Paul Perkins, his real name, wanted this vice presidency as much as she did, and Palmer vice presidents were not office jokes. If she told them what happened—she’d brought the perfume to the office because she was spending the evening being arm candy, then broken the bottle because she’d tossed her briefcase onto a sofa a Texas-born-and-bred feng shui decorator had moved—she could think of that vice-presidency as nothing more than…

Ah. Yes. A pipe dream.

But perfume problems faded from her mind in the middle of the afternoon when her computer, which had performed several random tricks during the day, gurgled twice and froze. So much for the two hundred dollars worth of padding. Resigned to the inevitable, she picked up the phone.

“Tech Support.” The voice was laconic, sending the message, “Just try to get tech support out of me.”

“I’d like to report a homicide,” she said briskly.

“Desk or laptop.”

“Laptop.”

“Bring it down.”

“Wait!”

Silence. “Yes?”

“I can’t just hand it over to you. I need it. I can’t do without it.” She was having a panic attack just thinking about it.

“Then you shouldn’t have beaten up on it.” Sigh. “Bring it down, we’ll put your stuff on a zip disk and give you a loaner to use.”

“Oh. Oh, well, okay. Wait!” she yelled again.

“What!” Testy this time.

“Aren’t you supposed to do the traveling around the building with the computers and the zip drives and the…”

“How soon do you want it?”

“Immediately.”

“You better come on down.”

She wouldn’t take this kind of cavalier treatment from anyone else in the company. But the tech support group—an ungovernable collection of green-haired, jeans-clad cretins, some of whom had yet to be persuaded that deodorant is our friend—were different. They were geniuses. The entire company relied on them totally and treated them rather like rebellious can’t-teach-them-a-thing-but-we’d-never-give-them-away pets.

Grumbling, Hope slid back into her shoes, straightened her black skirt and cream blouse and picked up the laptop. Forget the case. She couldn’t take the kind of grief the tech group would give her about the Shalimar. Peeking into the Marketing Department reception area, she found the shared administrative assistants looking not merely busy, but somewhat harried. Okay, she’d take it down herself.

“THIS IS THE LOANER?” she said, gazing in disbelief at the battered object Slidell Hchiridski had just shoved across a counter toward her. The case he shoved along next, which must have cost in the neighborhood of fifteen dollars, appeared to be covered in cat hair. But with an instrument like this one, she supposed it didn’t matter.

“Yep,” Slidell said. “Works fine. Abusers can’t be choosers. Your computer looks like you threw it at somebody.” He gave her an accusing glare.

“It was a terrible and tragic accident resulting from circumstances beyond my…” Oh, shut up, she told herself. These were hardly the pearly gates and Slidell was hardly St. Peter. He’d gelled his hair into purple spikes, for one thing, turning himself into a Statue of Liberty with attitude. The company had assigned him to the front desk because of his interpersonal skills. It made Hope shudder to think what lurked behind the double doors that hid the computer lab where the real work got done.

“It’s twice as heavy as mine,” she protested. “It’s a generation older.”

“Mr. Quayle didn’t gripe when he used it.”

“Benton Quayle used this computer?”

“Yep. Until his new one came in.”

“Was it in this case?” Hope picked gingerly at the cat hair with two Sunday-night-manicured fingertips.

“Nope. The cat had her kittens in this case.”

“You have a cat back there?” She peered around Slidell hoping to get a peek at it.

“Want to make something of it?”

“No.” She paused. “I just wanted to see it.” She paused again. “I’m thinking of getting a cat. If yours has kittens…”

“The kittens have been assigned to caring homes.” He removed a zip disk from the drive, slapped it into a case and shoved it at her. “Person treats a computer like you do shouldn’t be trusted with a cat.”

Thoroughly humiliated, Hope slunk back to her office to engage in the subclerical task of copying files from the zip disk onto the loaner.

The words of her favorite professor in the MBA program came back to her verbatim: Turn each challenge into an opportunity.

Not a day went by that she wasn’t grateful to Professor Kavesh. Those words alone had pressured her through more than one elbow joint and whooshed her up to her present level in the company. So instead of griping about her broken computer, she’d take this opportunity to look at her old files and delete the ones that were just using up space.

A directory titled “Magnolia Heights” caught her eye and she opened it first. The file in front of her now was her part of a presentation to the City of New York, the general contracting firm and a major plumbing contractor—Palmer’s bid to supply the pipe to plumb the Magnolia Heights Project.

Magnolia Heights was a middle-income housing project in the Bronx. Palmer had examined the situation in the thorough, plodding way Benton favored and had come to the conclusion that lowering their bid in order to win it would bring the company enough public relations points to offset the reduction in profits.

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