“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
