‘How kind of you to take an interest’ one.”
“You read my TeenSpace page?” Amazement tinged her voice. It beat panic, hands down.
“Well, Evie lectured me on my BlackBerry usage, so I thought I should check on the etiquette laws.”
“I think I’m flattered.”
“You should be.” He smiled. At least she was starting to calm down. “Now, are you finished hyperventilating over this?”
“I guess.” Gwen sighed. “You don’t sound very upset over Tish’s rumor mongering.”
“I learned a long time ago to ignore speculations made about me and my private life. Tish just hasn’t gotten the hint yet.” Although with Evie on the scene, he should probably make clear that his willingness to ignore was very limited when it came to his sister.
“I thought you’d be livid. Or angry. Or at least irritated.” Gwen’s outraged sails seemed to have lost their wind, and her voice lost the last of its bluster.
“Oh, I’m irritated all right. It just doesn’t do any good. That said, I try to avoid being fodder for Tish—or anyone else—as much as possible.”
Gwen sighed again. “I guess I can make do with the minimum amount of excuses. Whether anyone will believe them is a different animal entirely.”
“Good. Now can we talk about something else?” He leaned back and propped his feet on his desk.
“Don’t you have work to do?”
His e-mail pinged. “Of course, but I have a few minutes for you.”
“Now I am flattered.”
“You should be. I’m a very busy man,” he teased.
Gwen’s chuckle sent heat rushing through him and all of his blood south. It was hard to believe just a week ago, he hadn’t known this woman existed. Seven days later, he was ignoring HarCorp just to talk to her.
“Well, I happen to be a very busy woman. You may have time to chat, but I have clients to soothe and teenagers to counsel.”
Will was oddly disappointed. “Good luck with that. I’ll see you tonight.”
“Bye.”
With the phone in its cradle, he opened his e-mail. Another file on Japanese business practices and culture from Nancy. He sighed; he really needed to get Gwen to help him with his language lessons.
Gwen spoke Japanese. That sparked a memory from Gwen’s first dinner. What had she said? Something about a degree in International Affairs? Yeah, and a special interest in Asian culture.
Why hadn’t he made the connection before? Because at first you were only focused on Evie, and then you focused too much on Gwen.
He’d ask Gwen if she’d be willing to help him with this meeting with Hiramine. That would save him a ton of work. Less work also meant more time with Gwen. Plus, the time he spent working with her on this project…well, that line between business and pleasure he’d bragged about was getting thinner by the minute.
CHAPTER NINE
THE next few days passed in a blur for Gwen. Sometimes it seemed like a rainbow-colored blur, so perfect she felt she’d stepped into someone else’s much-more-exciting and perfect life.
First had been Will coming home on Monday with a business proposition for her: consulting on the upcoming meeting with the Japanese company HarCorp wanted to join with in its Asian expansion. She’d wanted to squeal with the excitement.
Suddenly there weren’t enough hours in the day to be Miss Behavior, Evie’s etiquette tutor and Will’s consultant and Japanese tutor. But both Harrisons managed to excel at whatever she threw at them.
Gwen never had a doubt Evie would shine socially, but the surprise came as Evie took an interest in the family business and quickly showed business savvy was an inherited trait. Family dinners moved from the basics of table manners and polite conversation to proper discourse on current events and HarCorp company business. Evie managed to retain her natural exuberance and charm while acquiring a polish fine enough for the most critical of society’s elite. With her good looks and intelligence, Evie was destined to set Dallas on fire.
While Will picked up Japanese with a speed that impressed her, he chafed against the strictures of Japanese etiquette, his frustration at not being able to “cut to the chase” more than evident. But Will was a consummate businessman, and he didn’t need any help in that department. Aside from a reminder to put the BlackBerry on silent, of course.
Both Evie and Will would be great successes on her résumé.
But for someone who’d always measured her happiness by professional success, Gwen couldn’t deny that the best part of her day now came after Evie went to bed. Once Evie’s door closed, Will transformed from charming boss and loving big brother into a bedroom-eyed Romeo intent on charming her in every way—including in her bed.
And she wasn’t naive enough to believe Evie was ignorant of her and Will’s relationship. No fifteen-year-old went to bed that early on a regular basis. Although she and Will tried hard not to make the physical side of their relationship blatant, Gwen knew Evie intentionally gave them privacy in the evenings.
Gwen didn’t know where she and Will were headed—if they were headed anywhere at all—but she told herself she didn’t care. Will never mentioned a future beyond the end of her contractual obligations, but they were all so focused on the events of the next few weeks, she couldn’t read anything into it. She was living in the minute—enjoying what she could while she could. Gwen adored Evie, and her feelings for Will got more complicated every day, but she was taking her sister’s advice to just take one day at a time. So far, that plan was working quite well.
Only one small problem flawed her otherwise halcyon existence—Tish’s innuendos. She hadn’t mentioned the column to Will or Evie since Monday night, but the fallout from Tish’s gossip hadn’t been pleasant. Two clients had backed out of their contracts already—one for a series of classes at a private elementary school and the other for a military wives’ event. It took fancy footwork on her part to calm the sponsors of two of the debutante clubs that formed the backbone of her deb business. Half-truths and cajoling—and a little questioning of Tish’s sanity and sources—managed to pacify the most conservative of her clients, if only temporarily.
She’d taken the opportunity to instruct her TeenSpace readers on the inappropriateness of speculation and evils of spreading gossip. She was also ignoring Tish’s e-mails outright.
By Friday, the furor caused by Tish’s column had calmed for the most part. Life was good. And when Evie returned from her afternoon swim with an enormous smile and an even bigger favor to ask of Gwen, she just couldn’t say no.
At seven forty-five—the first time Will had worked late in two weeks—Gwen finally heard the front door open and close and the rattle of Will’s keys as he dropped them on the hall table.
“Anybody home?”
“In here,” Gwen called from the den where she’d been nursing a glass of Merlot for the last half
