Enchanted (3 page)

“I’ll make you a deal,” he said, keeping his voice calm in spite of the anger building inside. “We’ll talk about a promotion if this magazine lives up to all your projections.”

“Why don’t we talk about it now? I’ve been here a long time. You know my work, and this magazine
will
succeed. I deserve a promotion. A sizable one.”

He took a moment to ponder her words. He left his comfortable chair and stood where Kathleen had been moments before, the hot sunlight beaming down upon him through the window. Everything she said rang true. He had grown tired of the publishing world, but that had happened a long time ago. About the same time he realized Kathleen Flannigan had gotten under his skin. The same time he realized she was too young. The same time he went to Europe to clear his mind.

A year away had done the trick. He saw everything in a different light when he returned—especially Kathleen. Gone were the faded blue jeans and bouncing ponytail, replaced by those awful blue suits and that horrible bun. But the biggest change of all was the presence of a newborn baby, and no husband in sight. And those rumors. Those horrible rumors.

He remembered those days in Europe, and how he had wanted to come home and see her again. He had missed her—oh, how he had missed her. But all those feelings diminished the moment he saw the baby, the moment his father died. He refused to confront her, refused to find out the truth. It was easier to form his own opinions and avoid her. So he kept his distance, forcing Kathleen from his mind, but not completely from his heart. And now she was creeping back into his brain. Why, after so many years, did all those earlier desires have to reappear? He didn’t want her in his thoughts. He didn’t want her anywhere near. And the closer she got to the top at McKenna Publishing, the closer she got to him. But she was good. Damn good. Just as she had said. McKenna Publishing needed her, even if he didn’t.

His thoughts disturbed him. The quiet disturbed him. He felt her eyes boring into his back. He left the window and went to the marble-topped wet bar, opened the refrigerator, and took out a bottle of Molson. Turning to Kathleen, he twisted off the top, took a sip
of his favorite beer
, and stared into her frowning eyes.

“I might need someone to head up New Ventures.”

She didn’t waste a minute in responding. “That’s a start.”

“And what if you don’t succeed?”

“I will.”

She smiled.

He scowled.

Mac adjusted the thermostat one more time, trying without success to bring a hint of cool air into his exercise room. The oppressive heat and humidity didn’t keep him from his daily routine—no matter what, he never failed to put in an hour each day.

He wiped his brow with the back of his hand, climbed on
his
old and
long-used
stationary bike, increased the tension, and immediately had the speed up to twenty-five miles an hour, where he would keep it for at least fifteen minutes. Sweat glistened on his naked chest and back while he pumped the pedals at a furious pace. He shoved all thoughts of work completely out of his head. Work had its own time and place—the exercise room was off limits. Here he relieved his stress, regained his sanity, and kept his body in perfect condition, kept himself looking as he had twenty years before.

For the past half hour he’d been attempting to meditate, to clear his mind of everything but his straining muscles and the flow of tension out of his body. That’s how it usually worked when he entered the exercise room. But not today.

He’d been awake most of the night thinking about Kathleen, about her eyes, her smile, her legs, her child, and about her ridiculous goal. My God, he thought. A woman running McKenna Publishing. Preposterous. His grandmother may have run the company once upon a time, but a woman wouldn’t run it again. Besides, he had every intention of passing McKenna Publishing down to his firstborn son. Unfortunately, he didn’t have an heir, and at the rate he was going, his prospects of producing one were nil. He felt obligated to get married first, and that prospect, too, seemed extremely remote. But marriage and an heir had been uppermost in his mind of late. Of course, some people, like Kathleen Flannigan, didn’t let things like tradition keep them from producing an heir outside of marriage. That thought had been nagging him all day, too.

Kathleen didn’t do things in the conventional way. What had he ever seen in her? His tastes ran to the soft, feminine, sexy types—blonde hair, petite, and sophisticated. Like Ashley Tate, the woman who’d been his significant other for ten long years, and the biggest reason he’d run away from Kathleen.

No. That wasn’t the reason he’d run. Kathleen wasn’t his type. She was much too tall. And even though she kept her hair hidden in that prissy bun, he knew it was much too long, too curly, and too auburn. If he didn’t know better, he’d swear the woman had been educated at the FBI academy. She certainly dressed like a federal agent—didn’t she own anything besides navy and gray? Didn’t she know short skirts were fashionable again? The woman had legs—his eyes and brain zoomed to her legs whenever she entered a room. Long, slender legs. The best-looking legs he’d ever seen. There were a lot of things about Kathleen Flannigan that bothered him, but her legs disturbed him the most.

Again he tightened the tension on the bike and attempted to shove all thoughts of Kathleen completely out of his head.

But he couldn’t get her out of his thoughts. She had been just one of many things that had gone wrong yesterday. Even his housekeeper had quit. She gave him no reason, just said she’d gotten a sudden urge to travel. She didn’t know where. She didn’t even know why. She
simply
felt compelled to pack up and leave. A
premonition
, she called it.
I
nsanity
, was Mac’s conclusion. He told her he’d increase her salary, give her a bonus. She still wanted to leave. He asked her to stick around until he could get hold of the agency. In the end, though, he couldn’t talk her into staying. Now he had no one. To make matters worse, he’d been so upset by his conversation with Kathleen, he’d forgotten to have Grace arrange for a new housekeeper. He needed someone. It didn’t matter about references, he just wanted someone who could cook, clean, and iron. Any woman would do.

He looked at the Rolex on his wrist. Thirty seconds longer. Time to pour on speed. He stood on the pedals, leaned against the handlebars, and pumped with all his might. All thoughts but the increasing speed left his brain. He concentrated totally on pushing the speedometer to the farthest point. Just a little faster. Just a little more sweat.

Buzz!

“Get the door,” he gasped.

Buzz!

“Hell!” He’d forgotten about the housekeeper, or his lack of one.

He stopped pedaling right before reaching the ultimate speed, grabbed a towel to wipe the perspiration from his face, hands, and arms, dropped it over the handlebars, then stormed to the front door, clad only in sweaty gray exercise shorts.

The buzz sounded again just as his fingers reached the knob. He yanked open the door and startled the delivery boy who stood before him, eyes wide, clutching a long white box with a big blue bow.

“Are you Mr. O’Brien?”

He scowled. “Yes?”

“These are for you.” The boy gulped, thrust the box into Mac’s hands, and beat a hasty retreat, not even waiting for a tip.

Must be some mistake, Mac thought, closing the door and setting the box on the foyer table. He noticed the vase that usually sat on that table was empty.
Fresh flowers always filled the
vase, but not today. He had no one to arrange the flowers, no one to answer the door, no one to take care of all the things he took for granted.

He pulled the blue ribbon off the box, removed the lid, and smelled the sweet aroma of the long-stemmed red roses inside. He took them and the heavy crystal vase into the kitchen, filled the vase with water, and clumsily arranged the flowers. He searched the box for a card but found nothing. He assumed Ashley had sent them, then wondered why. She must want something.

Tonight they were going to the Pallenbergs’. She’d been trying for weeks to talk him into taking her to the social event of the summer. He hated going out on weeknights, but he’d finally relented, knowing she would hound him until he accepted. Ashley Tate—beautiful, sophisticated, and, to Mac’s dismay, a snob. He gave her everything money could buy. That’s all she wanted. At forty-two, she still didn’t want a husband. She definitely didn’t want children. If truth be told, she probably didn’t want him, either—just his money.

So why did he stick with her? Because he didn’t know what he wanted, or what he needed. Because he knew how to handle sophisticated people. He’d grown up with them, he socialized with them, he didn’t know anything else. And the thought of bringing a stranger into his world, or the thought of living in any other world, scared the hell out of him. He knew what to expect from Ashley, and, after ten years, it would be hard to start over with someone new.

The loud buzz of the doorbell startled him out of his thoughts. He carried the vase to the entryway, set it down on the table, and opened the door.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the delivery boy muttered. “I forgot to give you the card.”

“Thanks.” Mac stared at the unfamiliar writing, then at the boy’s retreat. “Hold on a moment,” Mac called after
him
.

“Yes, sir,” the boy said, turning around, fear written on his face.

Mac smiled. “You forgot your tip.”

The boy’s expression eased as he watched Mac fumble around in the drawer of the foyer table, the place where he always kept spare change for just such occasions. He pressed the money into the boy’s hand, then closed the door.

His brow furrowed at the words
Mr. O’Brien
scrawled on the envelope. Obviously not from Ashley, he surmised, tearing open the flap.
He pulled out the card and glared at the words:

Thanks for the promotion.

The furrowed brow turned to a frown, then to a throbbing headache
as he read the woman’s words
. Kathleen Flannigan had entered his brain, and it looked like she meant to stay.

oOo

Mac stuck his hand into the shower, testing the hot, hard-pounding spray. He dropped the towel he wore around his hips and stepped into the ebony-tiled enclosure. He started to close the door when he heard the doorbell’s buzz—again.

“Damn!”

He shut off the nozzle, grabbed the towel from the floor, wrapped it around his waist, and headed to the
front
door. How many more interruptions could he expect today?

Leaving a puddle of water on the bathroom floor, and damp footprints trailing across the thick cream-colored carpeting, he had made it only to the bedroom door when the buzz sounded again. “Hold your horses,” he mumbled. The towel slipped twice as he marched down the long hallway and through the massive living room, his anger building as he carefully struggled to secure his attire. The buzz sounded again.

“I’m coming!” he yelled. This had better be important, he thought, while inventing a barrage of swear words to use as assault weapons against the person or persons disrupting his shower.

Turning the knob, he stood behind the slightly opened door, and peered around the edge to speak to the caller, but the woman before him didn’t wait for his greeting.

“Ah, Mr. O’Brien. I’m so g
lad you’re home.” She was short and
round, with fluffy white hair she wore piled on top of her head. She spoke with an accent he couldn’t quite place, but he didn’t have time to make any further observations before she scurried inside and shoved the door closed behind her.

Mac shivered at the sudden drop of temperature. Did he imagine it, or had an icy gust of wind just blown into the room?

The stranger dropped two large, candy-cane-striped carpetbags, put her hands on her hips, and stared at Mac, who looked quite befuddled. “No, no, no,” she said, shaking a finger at Mac’s bare chest. “You’ll catch your death of cold walking around half-naked like that.”

Mac clutched the cold, damp towel to his body. “Look, lady. I don’t know who you are, but no one has the right to barge into my house.”