Claire brought her thoughts back to business. “You want me to read up on your current projects before I tackle anything concrete?”
“Yes.” He brushed aside a dangling stem and unlocked the top drawer in one cabinet.
The stem he’d pushed aside belonged to an ivy. Not any ordinary ivy, however. This one sprawled across the tops of all four file cabinets like an invading army. Having claimed its immediate territory, the plant now had designs on the floor, judging by the way tendrils snaked down here and there.
A single red Christmas ball dangled from one of those tendrils. She smiled. “Don’t look now, but I think your ivy has eaten your files.”
“The damned thing won’t stop growing.” He pulled out one file folder, closed that drawer and opened another one. “Two years ago, when Sonia gave it to me for Christmas, it was in a six-inch pot.”
“Have you considered feeding it less?”
“I don’t feed it. Sonia does, though I’ve never caught her at it. She won’t let me get rid of it.”
The Iceman’s assistant wouldn’t let him get rid of a plant? Claire accepted the stack of files he held out. “I think it’s massing for an assault. You’d better be careful. Your desk is only a few feet away.”
He smiled. And her knees went weak. “It’s pretty fast as vegetation goes, but as a member in good standing of the animal kingdom, I’m faster. I think I can evade any sneak attacks.”
“Yes, of course.” And she was an idiot, chattering about the man’s plant and trying to keep from panting. Or grabbing him. What was wrong with her? She smoothed out her expression. “If you’ll show me to my office, I’ll start reading.”
“This way.” He moved to the opposite wall, where a door was nearly hidden in the elaborate wainscoting. “Pay particular attention to everything relating to the Stellar Security deal. I’ll be needing a report on one of the participants as soon as possible.”
She followed him into the adjoining office—and stopped dead.
There was a bed in the room. Well, in one section of a very long room, the half that wasn’t office. There was also a television, easy chairs and other furniture, with a tiny kitchenette tucked in one corner.
The other corner held the bed.
“Unfortunately my secretary is ill,” he was saying. “So— What’s wrong?”
“I, ah, hadn’t realized that my living quarters and my office were going to be one and the same.”
“I had this room converted when Sonia’s arthritis made using the stairs difficult. Is there a problem with it?”
“Oh, no. No problem. I was just surprised. It’s a pleasant room, actually. In a green sort of way.”
And it was, on both sides of the divider. The ten-by-twelve-foot office area held an L-shaped desk with the usual computer paraphernalia, a bright green swivel chair, a visitor’s chair, file cabinets, a bookcase and floor-to-ceiling shelves. And what looked like a couple hundred plants.
African violets basked under a special light in the shelves; several varieties of ferns snuggled into one corner, nearly hiding the bookcase. A ficus competed with a small palm and some other tropical plant for space in front of the window, while more plants that she couldn’t identify occupied every bare spot on the desk, shelves and bookcase. A relative of the ivy in West’s office was trying valiantly to cover the latticed screen that separated the office section from the bed/sitting room.
Claire shook her head wonderingly. “Sonia asked me to look after her plants while I was here. She didn’t mention that she lives in a jungle.”
“Sonia likes plants.”
“So I see. I suppose you have to count yourself lucky she’s only given you one.”
“I threatened to spray her room with weed killer if she did it again.”
“That’s a joke, right?” But there was no glimmer of amusement in those eyes…quite fascinating eyes, really, the sort that made a woman wonder what they looked like when—
“Would you mind if I called you Claire? I prefer to be on a first-name basis with my staff.”
A cowardly part of her wanted to say “the more formality, the better.” She suppressed it. “Of course—Jacob.”
He nodded. “Ada will give you a key to the front door and explain the security system. I prefer to leave the door connecting our offices open during the workday.”
She smiled. “So you can yell for me when you need me?”
“I don’t yell. When you’ve acquainted yourself with the basics in those files, I have some letters I need to get out.”
“Ah—letters?”
“You are familiar with the term?”
Her lips tightened. “I’ve heard of it. However, I’m an investment advisor. I prepare reports, in-depth summaries, financial evaluations. I don’t do letters. Or windows. And now, I suppose, I’d better start reading.”
A phone rang. There were two of them on her desk, one yellow, one green.
“The yellow phone is the office line. Answer it.”
She raised her eyebrows at his tone, but went ahead and picked up the banana-shaped receiver. “Jacob West’s office. Mr. West is…” She looked a question at him.
“Unavailable. Unless it’s Michael or Luke.”
“…unavailable right now. If you’d like me to take a message—yes, just a moment.” She took the message, hung up and swiveled. “Did you ever go to kindergarten?”
She had the pleasure of seeing him startled. “No.”
“I didn’t think so. The ‘please and thank you’ magic seems to have missed you.” She held out the message. “That was Bill Prescott. He’d like you to call back as soon as possible.”
“Later. I don’t want to talk to anyone today, unless one of my brothers calls.”
Claire had met Bill Prescott—William Prescott the Third, actually. He was the chairman of the board of a large electronics firm, among other things. He wasn’t a man accustomed to being kept waiting. “Am I supposed to screen your calls, then? And handle your correspondence?”
“Until my secretary is well, yes.”
“No doubt I can fit in any reports you’d like prepared in my spare time. Perhaps you want me to take dictation? Or get you a cup of coffee?”
“Do you take dictation?” he asked politely.
“It wasn’t a requirement for my degree in Economics.”
“Pity.” He studied her a moment. “I pay my staff well. In return I expect a great deal, even from temporary employees
