The Erotic Secrets of a French Maid (3 page)

"As good as I'll get, apparently. You'll ask her today?"

Russ raised an exasperated brow. "Don't push me."

"Just didn't want you waiting until next year. The sooner you do it, the sooner I'll stop asking you about it."

"Tell me again why I keep you working for me."

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"Because I'm the only one not afraid of your sour temper."

"Get out of here," Russ said without heat.

"
''Emma, my lovely Emma
...' " Kevin sang as he left the room.

His

sour temper. Russ grimaced. Was that how people saw him now, as a grouch?

Was that what Emma Mayson had seen? He mentally reviewed their tour through the house, remembering how brusquely he had answered her small-talk remarks. She'd been lobbing him conversational softballs and he'd swatted them to the ground one after the other until she gave up. She'd probably thought him a grumpy tight-ass, instead of what he really was: a geeky guy who'd never learned to relax around an attractive woman.

Emma Mayson was young and beautiful and socially at ease, and completely out of his range. She probably went to nightclubs and... and ... whatever people her age and type did with their free time. He'd never moved in socially active crowds. Social activists, yes. But no dance-till-dawn club hoppers. Emma and he probably didn't have a thing in common.

He pulled her business card out of his wallet, absently running his finger up and down the edge. He could call her right now and pass on Kevin's request.

The imaginary conversation flowed through his head. Him, awkward and embarrassed to be playing high school go-between. Her, uncomfortable being put on the spot, forced to decide whether or not to reject a man she'd met for only a moment, and not sure if her decision would impact her job at Russ's house.

He tossed the card on his desk; he couldn't think about it now.

He spun around to stare out the windows. Instead of passing motorboats, however, it was Emma Mayson he saw, pulling the sheets off his bed and examining them for signs of "activities."

Yikes! Appeasing his sister was one thing. Beautiful young women washing his underwear was another.

He had to put an end to it right now.

He reached for the phone and quickly dialed Emma's cell number, hoping she'd pick up before he could think twice, since the second thoughts were already creeping in— Pamela's disappointed face gazing sad-eyed at him. On the fifth ring, Emma's breathless voice answered.

"Hello?"

"Emma? This is Russ Carrick."

"Oh, hi! I was wondering who it could be. The caller ID said 'TrackingTech.'"

"Yes, that's my company."

"What do you track? Stolen cars? Wild animals with radio collars?"

"Nothing so exciting. We design software for tracking inventory."

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"Oh."

Oh,

she'd said.
Oh, how boring.
"You'd be surprised how big an industry it is. Everything from apples to the chemicals used in producing drugs has to be tracked by companies."

"Oh!" she said again, and he could hear her effort to sound fascinated.

He pressed the heel of his hand against his forehead, shutting his eyes against the embarrassment of trying to impress her with inventory software. "Yes, well, the reason I'm calling—"

"You're taking me up on my offer to cook for you?" she said, hope and excitement in her voice.

"No, I uh ..." Christ, firing someone was always so hard.

"Oh." A world of disappointment in that one sound. She didn't say anything more, the soft crackling of the cell connection filling the space between them.

Ah, dammit. She probably needed this job. He sighed.

"Yes?" she said timidly.

He rubbed his face. It wouldn't kill him to let her clean his bathroom for a month or two—he'd just be sure to clean it himself, first, so there wasn't anything embarrassing for her to find. "I'm, er... calling about Kevin, the man you met at my house. The one with the Jaguar."

"Oh?"

He smiled. Who knew that one vowel sound could convey so many different things? "This is awkward.

He asked for your phone number."

There was a short silence, and then she said warily, "I'm assuming by your tone that he didn't want it in order to hire me."

"No."

"Ah."

"How about I give you his number, and you can call or not as you please? There's no need for you to give me any sort of answer."

"No, let's not do that," she said.

Conflicting emotions tumbled through his chest. Glee that she would not be dating Kevin, and embarrassment and a twinge of pain on Kevin's behalf.

Her tone turned brisk. "If he wants to ask me out, he should do it himself. None of this junior high 'he said, she said' nonsense, and
I'm
certainly not going to call
him
for a date. Go ahead and give him my number."

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A shot of disappointment went through him, along with envy that Kevin had had the nerve to make an overture toward her. Russ would never have guessed that she would find Kevin attractive; that he would be her type. "So you're going to say yes?"

She was quiet for a long moment. "I don't know. What would you do?"

"If Kevin asked me out?"

She laughed. "You know the guy. Is he a good person? Does he treat people well?"

"I've no doubt he'll make an excellent husband. For the right woman," he qualified.

"No telling whether that's me, though, is there? But I'm not looking for a husband at this point in my life,"

she went on. "Is he looking for a wife?"

"I'd have to let him answer that."

"But your impression?"

"My impression is yes, he's ready to settle down and start a family."

He heard the breath of a sigh at the other end. "I'm twenty-six," she said. "How old is Kevin?"

"Kevin's thirty-three."

"And you?"

"I'm a little older."

"Thirty-four, thirty-five, forty?"

He grimaced. "Thirty-six."

She laughed. "Yeah, you're positively decrepit."

"Maybe this isn't a good idea, your going out with Kevin," he said. Somehow it was easier to talk to her when he couldn't see her; when her lively eyes weren't upon him and he wasn't distracted by the silky locks of her ponytail hanging over her shoulder and down over the curve of her breast. Or by the way her low-cut jeans molded to her pert backside, as if inviting a man to put his hands on either side of her hips and pull her back against him.

"No, let him call me," she said. "You never know, we might hit it off. Maybe something unexpectedly good will come from it."

His heart sank. "Expecting the worst and hoping for the best?"

"It seems a reasonable approach to life." She laughed. "But it usually turns out to be neither the best nor the worst, does it?"

"How so?"

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"It usually turns out to be Option C, the outcome you never considered. The one you never saw coming."

His own laugh was tinged with sorrow. "That's more true than I'd like to admit."

"Eh," she said, a shrug in her voice. "It keeps things interesting."

When the call was over he stared out his windows for a long time, watching the boats and thinking about Emma Mayson and her blithe spirit.

James would have liked her. She was a solstice bike rider, untouched as yet by the asphalt of life.

He hoped she stayed that way forever.

Emma shut her cell phone off, glared at it, then turned it back on again, threw it on her bed, and blew out a breath of exasperation.

Why, oh why, had she said that Russ's friend could call her?

The prospect of turning Kevin down made her sweat each time the phone rang. Rejection was crushing on the receiving end, but it was little better for the one who rejected.

Would she have been so quick to reject Kevin if she hadn't seen him standing next to Russell Carrick, looking like a poor shadow? Looking smaller, clumsier, less confident, like an adolescent instead of a fully grown man?

Or maybe she would have thought Kevin a potential boyfriend if she hadn't spent five minutes talking to Russ on the phone, enjoying the sound of his deep voice. If she hadn't heard him be more expansive than on the stiff tour of his house. If he hadn't sounded a little sad, hadn't shown a hint of humor, hadn't so obviously been trying to protect both Kevin's and her feelings.

Ah Foolishness, thy name is Woman. Witness her initial thought that Russ had called to ask her out.

And foolish she still was, because what had she been doing all evening except looking up Russ Carrick on the Internet?

She almost wished she hadn't. It wasn't as much fun to fantasize about a man who was the primary shareholder of a company listed on the NASDAQ at $150 a share. It put him at a far different stage in his life than she was; far different than she'd
ever
be. She didn't want to ride on a man's coattails of financial success, or to feel inferior to him based on her earnings.

And then there'd been the article about his brother's death. She knew something of bereavement from her childhood, when her father had died of a heart attack, and from her teen years, when her grandmother had died. Memories of those feelings didn't give her any clue of what to say to someone else experiencing grief, though: all she knew was that there
were
no words of comfort.

She didn't know how to relate to a man like Russ Carrick. She didn't know how to read him. Didn't know how to anticipate his reactions like she would with a gooberish boy her own age.

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Still, he had a nice ass. And she liked his voice. His eyes. The width of his shoulders ...

God, she'd love to have him pin her naked beneath him and—

"Hey, Ems, whatcha doing?" her roommate, Daphne, said, sticking her head inside Emma's open doorway.

"Nothing! Just thinking."

Daphne came in and sat on the edge of the bed. Her highlighted blond hair looked freshly flatironed and sprayed, her eye makeup set to "evening." She was wearing a turquoise silk halter top and gold hoop earrings. "You're always thinking. Give it a rest, and come out with me and Derek."

Emma grimaced. "And be the third wheel? No thanks."

"We're meeting Josie and Ken at the Palomino bar, then going dancing. Come on, you might have fun!"

"I'd really rather not. I want to keep studying the building codes." She patted the fat binder on her desk.

Daphne blew a raspberry. "You
never
go out. How are you going to meet someone if you never go out?"

"I don't want to meet someone right now. I've got other things to worry about, like finding a real job."

Daphne rolled her eyes. "You're not going to miss out on a job opportunity by going out for one night."

"It's just not my cup of tea."

She shrugged and got up. "Have it your way. But socializing is good for job seekers, you know. Friends hooking you up with friends of friends who know the right people."

"I'd love to schmooze my way into a job, but I'm no good at schmoozing, so why try? I have more faith in presenting a solid knowledge of building codes."

"You don't give yourself enough credit. My friends all think you're charming. You could schmooze with the best."

Emma perked up. "Who thinks I'm charming?"

"All of them! And they don't understand why you stay home every night."

Emma gave her a suspicious look. "I seriously doubt they spare a moment's thought for me."

Daphne grinned. "Some of the guys do, believe me."

"Mmm." Emma tried to sound uncaring but she was flattered, and it prompted her to share, "Someone asked for my number today."

Daphne plopped back down on the bed. "Yeah? Who?"

Emma shrugged. "An older guy, kind of geeky."

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Daphne wrinkled her nose. "Oh. Are you going to go out with him?"

"I don't know."

"What type of car does he drive?"

Emma laughed. "A new Jaguar. He'd be glad to know you asked."

"It's a valid question! You can tell a lot about a person by their car."

"Can you?" she said, thinking of Russ's hybrid.

"Well, not about
you"
Daphne said, waving away the comment. "A case of false advertising, there."

Emma had bought her souped-up Honda from her brother, whose pregnant wife had demanded that the street racer be put out to pasture. It was a difficult and ornery car, with stiff shocks, a primer-coated hood and fender, and a frightening red button on the shift for setting off the nitrous system power booster.

Emma expected that someday the car would run off with her like a spooked racehorse.

Daphne added, "But I've always wondered if there's a secret wild side to you."

"I doubt it," Emma said, with less than the ring of truth. She was too sensible to act on the impulses for spontaneous lunacy that sometimes swept over her.

Daphne nodded knowingly, eyes narrowing. "I think there is. And someday it's going to spring out and scare the living shit out of you."

"Maybe when I'm eighty-five and senile."

Daphne stood and headed from the room, pausing at the door to smile back at her. "Don't make it wait that long. You're only young once. Use that body while you have it!"

Emma brooded on that parting remark for the next hour and a half, thinking about her sexual dry spell.

Common sense and caution did have a way of taking the fun out of life.

Or maybe it wasn't caution that held her back from bursts of ecstatic lunacy, but caution's evil twin: cowardice. That worry had haunted her since one of her professors, an architect whose skills and talent she deeply respected, had commented that her designs were "safe." Adequate and buildable, unlike some of her classmates' impractical designs, yet there was little about her work that would inspire anyone to build it. But there were small flashes of creative genius, he'd told her. Here and there, in the treatment of a staircase or a roofline, he saw a glimmer of what she was capable of.