in Chicago?”
“Some of the time.” Abby pursed her lips and looked across the bedroom at her collection of tiny crystal animals on the bureau. She’d had some of them since she was in seventh grade, and her parents still added a new one every birthday and Christmas. No matter where she’d lived, even in the dorm at school, they’d been with her. “He travels a lot, keeps offices on the West Coast, in New York, and entertains at his villa in Bermuda.”
“No way.”
“I swear. I’m supposed to accompany him, set up his receptions and parties, play hostess wherever he goes.”
Dee solemnly shook her head. “Definitely a tough life…”
Glaring at her roommate, Abby raised a warning finger. “You’re laughing at me.”
Dee winked. “Now would I do that?”
The phone rang before Abby could heave a pillow at her. Reaching across her rumpled sheets, she picked up the receiver.
Before Abby could answer, a voice boomed through the line. “I want your answer now.”
“Lord Smythe!” Self-consciously, Abby yanked the sheets up over the front of her thin nightdress…then felt silly when Dee laughed at her knee-jerk gesture of modesty. “I haven’t really had a chance to thi—”
“You’ve slept on my proposal,” he stated. “If you don’t know your own mind by now, you won’t know it any better twenty-four hours from now.”
Abby shot a desperate look at Dee, who blinked, looked amused, and was no help at all.
Abby cleared her throat. “Working for you would mean a lot of changes for me. I told you, I’ve never considered leaving Chicago and—”
“Do you have family here?” he asked.
Was she imagining a gentling of his voice? “Not in the city. But my parents live thirty miles away. I have no brothers or sisters.”
“Your parents are in good health?”
“Yes.”
“You have a boyfriend?”
“No,” she answered automatically, although she would have told any other person interviewing her for a job that such information was none of their business.
“No one serious in your life,” he murmured. “And you have no personal commitments. I see.”
What does “I see” mean? she thought frantically.
“Then tell me, Abby,” he asked in a rich baritone that sent curls of warmth through her center, “what is keeping you cemented to this city?”
What indeed? she asked herself. Perhaps it was just that she’d never considered living elsewhere. She felt safe here, comfortable within familiar surroundings. Chicago had never seemed a big city to her, even though she’d grown up on a dairy farm. She loved the distinct neighborhoods of the windy city. She had friends in Greektown, shopped the Arab fruit markets and Jewish bakeries and ate in Polish restaurants. She had never considered needing a larger canvas on which to paint her life. Everything she needed to be happy was right here.
Or so she’d always thought.
“Nothing,” she whispered into the phone. “Nothing keeps me here. It’s just my home.”
He was silent on the other end, and she could tell this was a silence calculated to let her think about what she’d just said. She did think. She considered the advantages he was offering her…and the dangers. Far more risk was involved in working for Matthew Smythe than she’d ever dreamed of taking. Her stomach felt tied in a knot.
Dee nudged her, hard. When Abby looked up, her friend was mouthing the words—Take it! Take it! Take it!
Abby drew a long, deep breath, then let it out very slowly. “I need to give my boss notice.”
“I want you to start today.”
“But I—”
“Monday morning we’ll leave for New York. You’ll need the weekend to familiarize yourself with the company’s products and the accounts we’ll be working on. I’ll want you in my office by noon today.”
Abby covered the receiver and whispered, “I’m negotiating with Attila the Hun!”
Dee chuckled. “Honey, aggression’s bred into ’em.”
Not into every man, Abby thought. They weren’t all as arrogant and bent on having their own way as the entrepreneur aristocrat. Every instinct told her to say no. Just to spite the man. But by doing so she would hurt only herself. There were hundreds…thousands of young women who would leap at the chance to work for Smythe, travel the world and be paid far more than they were worth.
Through the line she thought she could hear another voice. A woman’s. Abby’s ears perked up, but she couldn’t make out the exact words.
Then Matt was back on the phone, his tone noticeably gentler. “If you accept the terms of our agreement and the salary suits you, Paula will be here at the office to brief you. She says just to let her know a convenient time, and she’ll make sure she’s available.” He sounded like a schoolboy who’d been taken to task by his teacher. So there was someone who had found a way to muffle his bark. Interesting, Abby thought.
“I can’t leave my boss at the Cup and Saucer without any help,” she responded cautiously. “If I’m able to find someone today to fill in for me until a full-time replacement is hired, I’ll come to your office as soon as possible. If not, I’ll let you know when I can make it.”
Matt hung up the phone and sat staring at it, considering the conversation he had just had. Abby had never actually said she was taking the job. She simply informed him she would come if and when she could. It was almost as if she was still wrestling with him for control. Control over what, though? He’d always thought that employer–employee relationships were pretty clear-cut. He was the one who was supposed to be the boss!
After Paula left the room, he slid lower in the high-backed Scandinavian chair, clunked his heels on the polished teak desktop and thought about all of this before remembering a scene he’d witnessed recently while jogging through Lake Shore Park. He had been running his usual five miles when he spotted a toddler in a bathing suit, standing at the water’s edge. She was testing the temperature with the toes of one bare foot, giggling and running back from the lapping wavelets, then touching them again, and again—until she finally worked up the courage to wade in up to her ankles, then her knees, then finally to her waist. At which point she had turned and grinned triumphantly at her parents who were watching with amusement from the shore.
Abby was eager to succeed, and bright, he had no doubt of that, but eternally wary.
Caution was a foreign concept to him. Matt supposed his lack of fear came from never having to worry about failing. His family’s money had always provided an excellent safety net. No doubt his brothers felt it, too. When several million sat snugly in a London bank account with your name on it, you didn’t worry about making mistakes. What was the worst that could happen? Your latest business venture would flop. Then you’d have to try
