Deceptive Nights (7 page)

Jacoby could tell Lawrence was not in a good
mood anymore, but for the life of him he couldn’t imagine Lawrence
actually being jealous that Jacoby had taken advantage of the
opportunity that had just practically fell in his lap last
night.

As they proceeded to the office, Lawrence
decided to interrogate Jacoby trying to sound as nonchalant as
possible, but Jacoby knowing Lawrence all too well could tell there
was some hidden motive behind his questioning. “Did you get her
digits?”

“
Yes and I told her when I
was in town again I would look her up.”

“
So she lives in the city?
What’s her name?”

“
April.”

“
April what?”

Jacoby became defensive and annoyed. “I
didn’t ask for the last name.”

Desmond intervened. “You sleep with an
incredible woman and you don’t even know her whole name.”

“
It’s nothing new,
Desmond,” Jacoby snapped. “Just because you’re getting married
doesn’t mean you have to act so high and mighty. Before you met
your woman, you were sleeping around like a wild mutt.”

Desmond snickered. “Then maybe you both need
to find a woman like mine to understand how sick all of this
sounds.”

Lawrence and Jacoby gave Desmond a lethal
glare, clearly telling him to keep his opinions of the lifestyle
they chose to himself, but of course Desmond wouldn’t take either
one of them seriously.

“
Jez, you guys, why don’t
you lighten up and get some rest. You’re both acting as if someone
rained on your parades,” Desmond encouraged them.

At this time, they arrived at the office and
that skinny guy with the pretty eyes greeted them again.

“
Glad to see you finally
came, Mr. Ripley,” Mr. Bowen said. His voice was full of sarcasm,
but that didn’t get Lawrence out of his moody
disposition.

“
I just came to get this in
the system then I’m out of this city with the quickness, Mr.
Bowen,” Lawrence gruffly.

Mr. Bowen led them back to the server and
left them to do what they had to do. Desmond, who had assisted
Lawrence in writing the program assisted in the upgrade and the
testing. The whole process took about ten minutes. Upon completion,
they were all eager to leave. Jacoby hadn’t said one word to anyone
and still looked a bit peeve at Lawrence. Lawrence was still moody
about the latter conversation they had discussed out in the hallway
before entering the offices. Desmond seemed amused about the entire
situation.

Jacoby could have stayed in the limousine
while they did all this and waited until they were done with the
upgrade, but he knew the office manager would be up in the office
today and he really wanted to met and speak with the mother of
those two beautiful children. Plus, all the nice things Lawrence
had said about the office manager had piqued his interest and she
sounded like a very interesting person. Lawrence had never met her
personally himself, but had spoken to her over the phone and found
her to be a very vivacious professional, hardworking person. She
had single-handedly whipped the failing transcript division into
shape and was working like a horse to keep it on track. Jacoby
found women like her to his liking and even though she did have
extra baggage, he still wouldn’t mind trying to see if he could get
to know her better since he would be moving here.

She seemed like a nice woman he could spend
some dinners with her, while he was in town while he spent his
nights with April. The thought of last night flowed into his mind
and he became semi-hard thinking of her. Closing his eyes and
concentrating, he tried not to think about it, but found that
difficult to do.

He should have asked for the office assistant
to take him in to meet the manager, but he didn’t want to seem too
overzealous to meet her when he hoped that she would at least make
an appearance with Lawrence and Desmond there. Plus, he had always
known he had a formidable presence and being alone with her might
intimidate her.

Once Lawrence and Desmond were done, they
found Mr. Bowen in the front of the office and Lawrence handed his
bill to the office assistant. Mr. Bowen held up his hands as if he
were at gunpoint.

“
My manager would kill me
if I took those from you, sir.”

“
Then who the hell should I
give them too?” Lawrence snapped.

Desmond intervened again. “Calm down, Law. He
didn’t sleep with your girl, Jacoby did. You’re jumping down the
wrong man’s throat.”

Jacoby stepped to Desmond as if he were about
to do some bodily harm. Desmond stepped back immediately.

“
Remember we’re suppose to
be professional gentlemen,” Desmond quickly reminded both of his
friends. “Let’s act like this until we are at least in private.” He
took the papers from Lawrence’s grip and turned to Mr. Bowen. “If
you aren’t suppose to handle it, then who do we give this paperwork
too, sir?” he asked politely.

Mr. Bowen narrowed his eyes distrustfully at
all three men as if he couldn’t believe the way they were acting.
“I was about to let Mr. Ripley know before he jumped down my throat
that I’m to instruct him to give them to the office manager as soon
as he is done with the upgrade. She’ll be back any second now. She
just called from the elevator. She got tired of waiting around for
you to come and went downstairs to get her something to eat. I just
spoke to her from the elevator on the phone.” He looked down at his
watch.

“
What if I don’t have a
second to wait?” Lawrence snipped.

“
You were late, Mr. Ripley.
As I said, she’ll be here any second. The rest of the office
personnel have gone home as you can see because it is after five.”
He looked at Lawrence very disapprovingly. “We thought you would be
here before quitting time.”

“
I didn’t expect the delay
I had, but I didn’t have an appointment set in stone.”

Mr. Bowen looked like he wanted to argue more
about the subject, but decided against it seeing Lawrence wasn’t in
the mood and looked quite dangerous.

“
So you’ll be leaving?”
Desmond asked.

“
Yes. I was on my way out
the door as you were coming in, but I trust you in the office alone
until she returns.” Mr. Bowen looked past the three men out the
glass lobby doors and smiled relieved. “Ah ha, there is she
stepping off the elevator now.”

All three men turned around to look at the
voluptuous woman walking tall and straight with an air of
confidence about her that one couldn’t help but to notice.

“
Damn she’s fine!” Desmond
noted out loud. “That’s the beauty Madeline’s been bragging
about?”

“
Yes,” Mr. Bowen said
proudly. “She’s the office manager.”

Desmond looked over at the shocked
expressions on Lawrence and Jacoby’s faces. “Now that’s the woman
you should have slept with Jacoby,” he teased.

Lawrence gave him a look as if he had lost
his mind. “You dumb ass that is the woman he slept with! Don’t you
recognize her?”

Desmond’s eyes grew wide like saucers as he
now gave the office manager a second look. “Well I’ll be damn!

Chapter 9

Stepping off the elevator, she gave the glass
office doors a brief glance to see the three tall men with their
backs to her. They stood over poor Simon’s short height like giants
and she couldn’t believe how incredibly big they were even from
behind.

Someone called her name to the right of her
to say good-bye and she looked over that way seeing it was one of
her typist coming down another hallway. She waved to them just as
she was two feet from the glass door entrance into the office.

Immediately, she dragged her eyes to those
gorgeous framed men who had now turned around to greet her and she
stopped dead in her tracks dropping her food to the floor as her
eyes grew wide as saucers.

She couldn’t move as she meet those beautiful
intense cinnamon brown eyes that just twelve hours ago was
ravishing her visually. Lord no, he was not standing there looking
as though he wanted to choke her.

Simon stepped in front of the three men with
a wicked smile on his lips and opened the door for her. “Ms. Green,
the computer expert is here. He’s all done.” Simon bent down and
picked up her dropped sandwich. When she still didn’t move, he took
her arm and pulled her inside the office.

One of the other men with friendly handsome
features, who was the only one smiling out the three, said, “This
is quite awkward, isn’t it?”

“
Awkward?” Lawrence
sneered. “Jacoby, did you know she was the office manager
here?”

Jacoby finally broke eye contact with Phoebe
to look at Lawrence. “Does it look like I knew?” He looked back at
Phoebe even more angrily. “You lied.”

“
I never lied,” Phoebe
defended herself. “We never got into our jobs.”

“
How could you do this?!”
he asked incredulously.

“
That’s none of your
business,” she stated angrily.

Jacoby looked at his friends and then looked
over at the office assistant, who was soaking this up like a soap
opera. He grabbed her arm and dragged her into the nearest office
slamming the door behind them to give them some privacy. Once the
door was closed, she snatched out of his grip and whirled around at
him.

“
You told me your name was
April,” Jacoby accused her.

“
It’s my middle name,” she
defended.

“
I don’t believe this! I
don’t believe that you’re the same woman I slept with last night.
How could you accept money for sex?”

She stood akimbo. “That’s none of your
business, Mr. Knight. I have my reasons.”

“
Do you do this
often?”

“
No and you know I don’t,”
she snapped offended.

He shook his head. “That’s the point. I don’t
know anything about you. I didn’t until last night. I heard about
you running this office, but I can’t put you being the same woman I
was with last night together. That’s two different women.” He said
it as if that was an impossible fact.

“
Does the fact that I’m the
office manager here bother you or the fact that I accepted money
for sex bother you?” she asked confused.

He ran a frustrated hand through his head.
“Both,” he admitted calming down. “Because I still want you.”

Those words were like fire to Phoebe’s senses
igniting heat to her groin. Turning away from him to gather her
equilibrium, which had been thrown off by his words, she said in an
unsteady voice, “I didn’t have any intentions of seeing you
again.”

He moved up behind her and gently rested his
hands on her shoulders, speaking softly near her ear. “But you gave
me your number,” he pointed out.

Her voice was stronger and full of sarcasm.
“It’s not my number. It’s a dummy number. I lied.”

Jacoby turned her around. She really expected
to see him angry at her deceit, but he looked amused down at her.
Even with her heels on she still had was a couple of inches shorter
than him. In this light, he was a nice deep almond shade that her
fingers and mouth long to just touch, taste…

“
Then it is fate, Phoebe
Green that I came here today,” he declared, smiling as if he knew
what she really wanted to do to him.

Breathlessly, she said, “There’s no such
thing as fate for me, Mr. Knight, only bad luck.”

He chuckled huskily, looking as if he wanted
to eat her alive. “I can stay in town tonight for you.” His arms
moved around her waist and molded her body against his.

She gasped at his hardness that she could
feel through his clothing on her stomach.

“
We could have watermelon
and whip cream.” He raised a hopeful dark brown brow and those
cinnamon eyes were tender, making her insides feel jittery with
excitement.

Trying to keep a straight face, she said,
“You are crazy.”

“
Only about you right about
now, Phoebe.” His warm lips pressed up against hers molding to
them.

It felt so sinfully right kissing him like
this and Phoebe wanted to take him up on that offer so bad, but the
thought of giving herself to him was so wrong. Breaking the kiss by
turning her head away and pressing her hands against those broad
thick shoulders, she fought to control the situation. “No.”

“
Speak up you two!” Desmond
muffled voice shouted on the other side of the door. “We can’t hear
you.”

Jacoby cursed loudly and released her, seeing
she was again in control of her wits when he wasn’t. Again he ran
another frustrated hand through his hair. He released her not
wanting to force her. “I want to see you again, Phoebe.”

“
No!”

“
You’ve got to be kidding
me, dammit.”

“
Don’t you curse at me. I’m
only making the right decision for the both of us.” She went to the
door of the office and opened it.

Lawrence, Desmond, and Simon almost fell in.
Phoebe gave his friends and her office assistant an exasperated
look before turning back to Jacoby to say, “This conversation is
over with, Mr. Knight. Don’t try to contact me. There are no
strings attached to our business.” She took the papers from Desmond
and snatched the pen from behind Simon’s ear.

Looking at Lawrence and Desmond as she handed
the papers back, she said, “Thank you for your service, Mr. Ripley.
Madeline is grateful to have you as a source for our computer
needs.”

“
We’re glad to be your
source, Ms. Green,” Desmond said highly amused.