Love By Proxy. Diana Palmer
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glared at him. “You mean I look older. I was twenty-eight last month, in fact,” she said. “About half your age…?” she added pointedly.
“I’m forty,” he replied.
“Twelve years your junior,” she corrected smugly. “I do feel a mere child by comparison.”
He scowled blackly. She wondered if he ever smiled. He put his hands into his slacks pockets and stared at her openly.
“Miss Sayers tells me you don’t work for her.”
“No, I don’t.” She turned back toward the kitchen. “You’re welcome to join me if you like tuna fish,” she said over her shoulder.
He closed the door and followed her into the kitchen, pulling out a chair at the small table. “Is this called Southern hospitality, or do I look underfed?”
She couldn’t help the laughter. “Underfed, my foot. I’d hate to have your grocery bill.”
“I have to watch what I eat,” he said frankly. “Even then, I work out at the gym to keep from looking like a walking beer barrel.”
She laughed again, and reddened. “Sorry.”
“No offense taken. What do you do for a living?”
She poured coffee into two handmade pottery cups, her eyebrows asking if he drank coffee, and he nodded.
“I’m a clerk typist for an agricultural equipment firm,” she said.
His eyebrows arched.
“Well, I am,” she grumbled. “What do I look like?”
He actually smiled. Or it could be a muscle spasm, she thought wickedly. “I expected a more exotic occupation,” he returned.
“I grew up working in a print shop. The most exotic thing I’ve ever done in my life I did this afternoon, to help Marla out.”
“Andy Dedham started working for me last month,” he said as she sat down and shoved a platter of sandwiches between them on the table. “He doesn’t know me very well yet, but he’ll learn. I am going to pay him back in kind, and you’re going to help me. In costume, of course.”
She froze. “How?”
“His mother,” he replied, toying with his cup of black coffee, “is from Boston. She is a saintly widowed lady with impeccable manners, and once a month she comes to town and takes him to La Pierre for an elegant dinner.”
“Oh, no.” She shook her head. “Oh, no, I couldn’t, not there! All those people…! And Marla would never forgive me!”
“Where’s your spirit of adventure, Miss Glenn?”
“Under the table, hiding,” she returned. “I can’t! Furthermore,” she added with hauteur, “I won’t!”
He considered that, watching her with pursed lips. “Suppose I had a male stripper appear for you, at your sainted place of work?” he asked pleasantly.
She went violently red, gaping at him. “Oh, no, you couldn’t. Mr. Callahan would fire me on the spot!”
He smiled, very slowly. “Would he, really?”
“You wouldn’t!”
“Get in your rig, Cleopatra, be at La Pierre tomorrow night at exactly 7:00 p.m. and ask for Carlos when you get to the door,” he said. “Everything will be arranged. If not,” he added, studying her carelessly, “the morning after, you will have a particularly nauseating visitor, G-string and all.”
She buried her face in her hands. “I’d die!”
“My, my, aren’t you a paradox?” he murmured on a deep chuckle. “You seemed to enjoy your role enough, when the shoe was on the other foot.”
“I didn’t embarrass you,” she countered. “That can’t be done!”
“That’s true enough,” he affirmed. He leaned back in his chair, all blatant masculinity, big and dark and frankly sexy, with that shirt unbuttoned just enough to make her wonder what was under it. Dark hair peeked out of the opening, and a deeply tanned throat. He was as sensuous as any man she’d ever encountered, and twice the size of most of her dates. She would have found him fascinating under other circumstances.
Her quiet eyes were frankly appraising, and he lifted a dark eyebrow.
“Do I fascinate you, Miss Glenn?” he asked on a laugh. “Or are you looking for an appropriate place to plant a dagger?”
She raised her chin to show him she wasn’t intimidated. “I was just thinking how amazing it is that the chair hasn’t collapsed under your weight.”
He laughed softly, laughter that had a frankly predatory sound. “Were you? I’m not that big.”
“No,” she said with mock sincerity, “you’re just a small mountain, that’s all.”
His dark eyes narrowed as they appraised her, and she wanted to back off and run. He disturbed her.
“I am not on the menu,” she said boldly.
“Pity,” he murmured. “You might taste better than you look.”
She lifted her cup and cocked her head to one side.
“I wouldn’t,” he said calmly. “You’d have to spend the evening washing up.”
She sighed angrily. “I don’t like you.”
He smiled slowly. “If I hadn’t learned so much about your sex the hard way, I might be tempted to make you like me,” he said very quietly. “But fortunately for you, I’ve lost my taste for it. An occasional night out satisfies me very well these days.”
He sounded and looked as if women held no more secrets for him, and she felt vaguely grateful that he wasn’t interested in her. A man like that, with his obvious experience, could make mincemeat of her.
“Excuse me while I get down on my knees and give thanks for that saving grace,” she told him and offered him the sandwiches.
He took one and studied it carefully.
“Looking for something?” she asked as she lifted one for herself.
“Arsenic,” he said bluntly.
She burst out laughing. “I used the last on the bus driver who let me off a mile from my stop,” she promised. “Honestly, it’s safe.”
He bit into it, finished it and smiled. “Not bad. I didn’t know tuna could taste so good.”
“It’s the pickled peach juice,” she murmured dryly. “Dad taught me how to make it. He does most of the cooking. My mother can burn water.”
“What does she do?”
“She sets type for my father, who runs the print shop. She’s very good at that, and dealing with customers, but she isn’t domestic. I learned to cook or starve at an early age.” She finished her own sandwich and took a sip of coffee. “How long have you been in construction?” she asked politely.
His broad shoulders shrugged as he finished his second sandwich. “I think I was born doing it. My parents died when I was just a child. My grandmother raised me, pushed me into finding a profession I liked instead of just one I took for money.” He smiled faintly. “I found I enjoyed building things. She prodded me until I called up a cousin who was an architect and asked him point-blank how I could get into the business. He was impressed enough to hire me on the spot. I worked for him between college classes. When I graduated he gave me an executive position.” His eyes grew wistful. “He had no immediate family, and he hated most of his distant relatives. When he died, I inherited the company. I’ve expanded it, enlarged it. Now it’s almost too big for me. I have a board of directors and every damned decision I make, I