Drop Dead Gorgeous (3 page)

“Why'd you kick my mommy?”

Her gaze fixed on the mother, Madison explained. “Because
my
mother believed in free discipline, and consequently, I learned extremely bad manners.” She then turned to the child, who remained wide-eyed but immobile in her seat. “Keep your feet to yourself.”

If she'd only imagined it before, eyes were certainly on her now. The old lady's, mother's and child's, an elegantly suited woman's seated behind the girl, two men's standing in the aisle, their knees bending in rhythm with the movement of the train.

The old woman's hand crept across the seat and settled on Madison's, giving it a squeeze.

She wondered if T. Larry would approve of her unconventional yet effective strategy. Nope. He'd cross her off his list, as he'd crossed off Alison. Not that Madison would make his list in the first place. Not even if she were the last woman on earth of childbearing age.

Busy cataloging her friends for potential T. Larry material, by the time the train arrived at her station, Madison forgot all about that strange sensation of being watched.

“T. L
ARRY, ARE YOU DONE
checking yourself out in the bathroom mirror?” Madison's voice jumped through the speaker phone, interrupting Laurence's routine.

Laurence rolled his eyes. It had never been Madison's way to give a normal morning greeting. “What is it, Madison?”

“I've penned in Amy Kermit for seven-thirty on Monday.”

He moved to the side of his desk so he didn't have to shout. “Madison, I don't finish my workout until eight.”

“I said
penned
in, T. Rex. It can't be changed.”

She'd thought up a new name. God save him. “And it's Miss Kermeth, not Kermit.”

“Oh.” A pause. He was sure she was laughing. “She always answers to Kermit. Maybe you're wrong.”

“Madison—”

“Gotta run,” she cut him off. “By the way, does the
T
stand for Tax Crusader?”

She was forever trying to figure out his first name. He enjoyed the game too much to tell her. She sweet talked, he never relented. A subtle battle of the sexes.

“And Harriet wants to see you.”

Harriet Hartman. Damn, he'd forgotten. As hard as Harriet was to forget.

“She's mad.” Madison's voice dropped. “As mad as the time I accidentally flushed her diamond ring down the toilet.”

“That wasn't an accident.”

“I wanted her to see what a toad that guy was.”

Harriet had. The hard way. When her fiancé demanded she reimburse him for the lost ring, he took her to small claims court because she refused.

Sometimes Madison's meddling took a circuitous route to eventually working out for the best. Harriet had finally recognized the man for the toad he was. Though in the ensuing three years she'd never had another fiancé, either, as far as Laurence knew.

Laurence opened his office door just as Harriet beat on it with her fist. The blow landed on his chest, and damn if it didn't almost knock him off his feet with its unexpectedness.

She'd moved beyond Chicken Little and wore her Harriet the Harridan face. He was sure Madison hadn't used that name within earshot. Then again, Madison hadn't been the one to make it up.

“I demand an apology.” Harriet stormed past him like a hurricane and threw herself into the chair opposite his desk. Anger rose off her shoulders like heat off summer concrete. Laurence closed the door.

“What did I do?” he asked solicitously.

“It's not you.”

Laurence half turned the black leather chair that matched his couch and sat beside her. “Then who?”

“Zachary.” A bead of spittle spoiled her bottom lip.

Harriet Hartman had blue eyes and an abundance of blond hair. At least she had until she'd dyed it a ghastly shade of red a few months ago. She also had a pretty face and quite an attractive smile. When she did smile. Which was rare.

Unfortunately, in her own mind, Harriet had four strikes against her. She was a professional woman in a workplace dominated by men, she was five-foot-one, twenty pounds overweight, and she was three years past the age of thirty. Harriet hated being thirty-something and didn't take her weight, her height, her age or her gender with cheer. She took it out on everyone, especially Zachary Zenker.

Zach, on the other hand, had only one strike against him, if you didn't count his initials, which Madison had transformed to ZZ Top. Zach was excessively shy. He was also tall, well over Laurence's own six-foot-one, reasonably good-looking in an ordinary way and of moderately good build though on the thin side. He had all his brown hair, too, a fact Laurence had never held against him. He kept the length short, his shirts neatly pressed and all in all gave the impression of a good solid accountant. Even if he did stoop a bit to compensate for his height.

Harriet despised Zach, for reasons Laurence had never understood and thus didn't know how to combat.

“What did Zach do this time?”

“He said my dress was pretty.”

Laurence couldn't help it. He looked her up and down. The dress in question was neon pink and two inches too short for the workplace. Neon pink was probably not her best color.

“Not
this
one.” Two dots of spittle now clung to Harriet's lower lip.

“Oh.” Laurence didn't have an intelligent word to say.

“It was yesterday.”

For the life of him, he couldn't remember what she'd been wearing the day before and therefore couldn't reassure her. Morning sun slanted across a quarter of his office. Damn, it was getting hot in here, but he contained the desire to run his finger around the inside of his collar.

“Hmm. Yes. Well.” Words this time, but certainly nothing intelligent. Finally, he managed to get to his point. “I'm not sure I see the problem with that. If I'm not mistaken, it sounds almost like…yes, I'm sure it sounds just like…a compliment.”

Her lips pinched into a perfect round O which thinned her cheeks unflatteringly. Harriet was not a happy person, not now, and unfortunately, maybe not ever.

“Are you making fun of me?”

Laurence held out his hands. “No, no, no.” He searched for a way to handle this volatile situation.

“Zachary was making fun of me. That's why he did it. In front of Mike, Anthony and Bill.”

Mike, Anthony and Bill. That explained everything. They didn't like Harriet, and, Laurence suspected, made her life miserable on a job, despite the fact that she was the senior and they were only staff accountants. As Senior, Harriet had had the dubious honor of supervising them. A macho-thinking bunch, they didn't appreciate a woman being smarter than they were. And Harriet could be—what was the least derogatory word?—snippy if she caught the same mistake twice.

“I'm sure Zach didn't mean any harm.”

“They snickered. All of them.”

Why couldn't he remember what she'd been wearing? He was sure there was a clue there.

“I want an apology,” Harriet went on when Laurence failed to provide an immediate response. “It's sexual harassment.”

For Christ's sake. “He said he liked your dress.”

“He made a personal comment concerning my attire, and I was intimidated.”

Harriet intimidated? By ZZ Top? “You've got to be joking.”

Her eyes narrowed like the harridan she'd been nicknamed for. He'd said the wrong thing. He was a tax accountant. He knew numbers, rules and regulations. He hadn't the faintest idea how to defuse the situation. However, he did know she'd judged Zach unfairly. If Mike, Anthony or Bill had said her dress was pretty, then yes, the so-called compliment might well have been demeaning. Zach Zenker was a completely different page in the ledger, and Laurence felt honor-bound to stick up for him. God knew Zach wouldn't do it for himself.

Laurence stood, then launched into his unrehearsed speech. “He said your dress was pretty, Harridan, I mean, Harriet.” Damn. Bad slipup, he knew by the flare of her nostrils, but he forged on stoically. “He didn't ask you to go to bed with him. It was a compliment. You should thank Zach. You should be glad—” A little too much said. Christ, a lot too much said, nor did it come across in the benign way he'd meant it. He needed to be beaten upside the head.

Harriet rose, the top of her hair reaching to the second button of his shirt, but the flames in her eyes leaped six inches above his head.

His goose was cooked.

Harriet the Militant Feminist stomped from his office.

Laurence opened the door Harriet had just slammed, crooked his finger at Madison, then moved to sit behind his desk.

“You should have warned me,” he told her, though there was no use blaming Madison for his idiotic handling of the delicate meeting.

“I didn't know.”

It was a small office. Friction traveled fast. Everyone would know soon. “Tell Zach I want to see him.” Then he stopped, dumbfounded. “What are you wearing?”

Madison looked down at her outfit, arms spread.

She towered in spike-heeled pumps, a snug black skirt and formfitting red jacket that made her waist seem impossibly small. He shouldn't be noticing at a time like this. He shouldn't be noticing at all.

“What's wrong with what I'm wearing?”

“I didn't say anything was wrong.” Everything was too right.

“I have a date tonight, remember?”

That damn Dick person. “You dressed like that for a stranger?” His voice rose. “Close the door.”

She did, her backside swaying. It needed a good spanking. This thing with Dick had to be stopped. “Sit down.”

She did, her skirt riding up to reveal too much leg for his well-being. To his dismay, he couldn't stop himself from looking. What was happening to him? This date episode had somehow thrown him into a downward spiral of salacious thoughts.

“T. Larry, I think I understand what happened with Harriet.”

“Right now, I don't give a da—” After a deep breath, he started again. “Harriet's problem is not the issue at this moment. I want to reiterate our discussion of last night.” Good, he came off sounding like a concerned relative.

“Why don't you like Richard?”

His teeth ground. “I don't know the man. My point is that neither do you.”

She waved a hand. “If it will make you happy, I promise to be very, very careful.”

“I'll call you tonight. What time will you be home?”

Her eyes widened and her lips parted, luscious red lips. He had to stop noticing her physical attributes, at least not all the time. He was worse than Mike, Bill or Anthony.

“T. Larry, what's wrong with you?”

Yes, Laurence, what's wrong with you?
“I feel protective. You've worked for me for seven years.” In all that time she'd never noticed him as a man. Not that he'd wanted her to. It was simply that she'd gone too far out on a limb with this
date
thing for his peace of mind. “You can't meet a stranger in a bar.”

“It's a restaurant.”

He sighed. She was a menace to herself. As her boss, it was his duty to protect her. “You're twenty-seven—”

“Almost twenty-eight.” She pointed to his desk calendar. “In fourteen days. I have to fall in love before I die.”

He winced, but didn't comment on the reference. “If you want to meet him, I can't stop you. But I
can
at least make sure you get home safely. I'll call you.”

“How sweet.” She meant it. Madison didn't have a sarcastic bone in her body. “Now about Harriet. What did you say to her?”

At the reminder, he wanted to smack his head at what he'd let dribble out of his mouth. “I told her she should thank Zach.” He didn't tell her the worst, what he'd
almost
said, but which Harriet most assuredly grasped, that she should be glad a man had complimented her, which made it sound as if he thought Harriet didn't deserve admiration. His lapse was unforgivable.

Madison groaned.
He
almost groaned, for several reasons, most of which were highly inappropriate.

“I think perhaps you should have told her you thought her dress was pretty, and that you were sure ZZ Top meant it, too.”

“I did tell her Zach meant it. But I couldn't remember what it looked like.”

“You should have lied.”

“I don't lie.”

She rolled her eyes and pleaded. “It's a white lie to preserve someone's feelings. There's a difference. Complete honesty is
not
always the best policy.”

Good point, he hated to admit. “I'll have Zach apologize.”

She pursed her red lips. “It's too late for that.”

She was probably right. She was right about what he should have said, too, but there came a time when a boss—or a man—simply didn't know how to handle the delicate workings of the female mind. It took another woman to understand.

“I suppose at this point there's nothing else to do,” she went on. “I'll get ZZ Top.” She rose, smoothing her skirt down. He did
not
look. At least not for long. She was at the door when she turned, nearly catching him in the despicable act of observing her delicious backside. “By the way, I have someone I want you to meet.”

“Who? What are their qualifications? We don't have any openings at the moment.” She constantly recommended friends for jobs. To date, he'd hired—and fired—exactly two. He wasn't up to a third.

“This isn't for a job. It's a date.”

Laurence almost choked on his own tongue. “A date? With one of your friends?” Lord help him, now she was trying to set him up. “No,” he said before she had a chance to open her mouth.