supposed she should have known better. Philip was never idle, so why should his staff be? Besides, being busy made the day go faster, and it felt like she got home to Erin sooner.
By the time the elevator doors opened and he emerged, she was engrossed in a prospectus from Philip to the members of a joint venture interested in buying one of his companies. It should have been dry, dull work—inputting numbers into a spreadsheet, typing a long document from one of the tapes Philip had claimed to hate. Instead, she was intrigued.
“I thought I told you to sleep in.”
Madalyn wished there had been a more teasing quality to his voice. “You did, but I’m not very good at that. It was hard enough waiting until nine to get here.”
“Oh, well, yes, I appreciate your dedication. Listen, Madalyn...”
“Yes?”
“You see, about last night, I—”
The phone rang and she hesitated, picking it up when he gave an exasperated nod toward the phone.
“Mr. Ambercroft’s office,” she answered in a crisp, professional tone.
There was no response.
“Hello? May I help you?”
“Who is this?”
Madalyn told herself not to be put out by the imperious tone in the woman’s voice. “I’m Madalyn Wier, Mr. Ambercroft’s assistant.”
“Of course,” the woman said slowly. “Is my son in his office?”
“One moment please.”
He raised an eyebrow as she put the call on hold.
“It’s your mother,” she said, answering his silent question.
Philip rubbed his forehead for a moment and when he dropped his hand, she thought she saw weariness in his incredibly blue eyes.
“I’ll take it in here.”
He disappeared into his office, shutting the door behind him. She understood his reaction. She loved her own mother dearly, and worried about her increasingly poor health, but no one on the face of the earth could exasperate her faster. She was grateful that her mother’s visit had only produced one argument so far on Madalyn’s single status. It was the only real source of contention between them. Their usual argument consisted of Madalyn trying to get her mother to move to Dallas so they could see each other more.
Philip came back out sometime later, and asked her about a file she had waiting for him. She stopped him when he turned to go back into his office.
“Was there something you wanted to say to me before we were interrupted?”
He looked at her for the longest time, the intensity of his gaze making her decidedly uncomfortable. It was almost as though he were battling himself, and she wondered if her own anxiety was what someone felt when facing a firing squad.
“No,” was all he said before he shut his door behind him.
She didn’t have to be hit on the head to understand that whatever subject he had been about to bring up was now closed and off-limits.
Philip leaned against his door, unaware until he looked down that he was crushing the file Madalyn had given him. After tossing the papers on his desk, he sat with controlled movements and leaned back.
First, he’d surprised himself by telling his mother more about Madalyn than that she was a temporary secretary. It had somehow slipped out that she had worked for Price Manufacturing, and even more startling, he’d said something about her amazing skills.
His mother’s pause had spoken volumes. She was obviously as taken aback as he was to be discussing such mundane details with her. They weren’t usually chatty.
Then he’d felt doubly foolish to hear his mother admonish him to not let his emotions interfere with his business sense. Since when had he needed his mother’s advice? Not that she was ever hesitant to give it, but Philip had drawn the line years ago to remind his mother that not only was he nearly forty years old, but he was more than capable of making decisions without his mama’s help.
He took responsibility for his actions, mistakes and all. Some lessons had been hard learned, such as losing his heart to Hannah Hollingsworth in college. That vivid lesson had made clear the fantasy of love conquering all. He hadn’t thought it mattered that the Ambercrofts couldn’t trace their roots to the Mayflawer. They’d been proud, self-made Americans... even if they glossed over the fact that Grandfather Ambercroft was the one who had really boosted the family fortune by bootlegging whiskey during Prohibition. As for himself, Philip thought his grandfather had been a hell of a guy, and he remembered listening intently to the stories the man had told about his youth. Philip suspected his grandfather had told the stories to irritate his mother as much as anything else.
But Hannah’s family had a decided lack of humor, and put exorbitant pride in their mostly blue-blood ancestry, but he’d foolishly believed that wasn’t enough to keep them apart. He’d begged her to run away with him, to marry him, and then they’d force her parents to accept him. But Hannah had been unable to defy her parents for a man they had considered well beneath them on the social register.
Philip was sure the day she’d refused him was the day his heart had frozen solid, as so many people believed to be true, and he’d vowed never again to let his emotions override his common sense.
Since then, he’d never let anything interfere with his goals. Now, all of a sudden, he’s about to give up a lucrative business deal just because his new secretary—his temporary secretary—gave him a hard-on? Not bloody likely. He was going to get his brain and his libido under control and remember what he’d planned. He had no intention of doing anything illegal, or even immoral. When the time was right, he was going to flat-out ask her about Price Manufacturing. That was hardly diabolical.
He smoothed out the papers he’d wrinkled and sat down to put his mind to work with a ruthlessness that had made him the success he was. His eyes lost focus as his mind began to whirl. Price Manufacturing wasn’t his pressing issue at the moment, so he set it aside. His present goal was McConnally Machinery.
He picked up the phone and punched out a number with quick, hard jabs.
When he’d finished his conversation, he felt a stiffness in his neck, but he ignored it as he hit the intercom. “Madalyn, would you come in here, please?”
“Yes, sir?” she asked a moment later from his doorway.
“Sit down.”
She did as ordered and he was impressed at how well she hid her curiosity. Her demeanor was relaxed, her hands folded in apparent calmness, her expression open with a proper amount of question in her eyes.
He was going to go with his gut on this, for more than one reason, but he was depending on her experience as a high-level assistant in assuming she could maintain the poker face she’d displayed. If he was wrong, he might just kill two plans with one foul-up.
“Once again I’m springing something
