Sugar And Spice (43 page)

One minute later, Tim’s wizard fingers had given her a new instant messaging ID, one that cloaked her real identity. She logged onto the system and hit Jake’s name. The little window popped up. Natalie poised her fingers over the keyboard—and froze. Doing this was so out of her normal range of activity that, for a second, she panicked. She reached for her mouse, about to shut the program down, when she stopped herself.

When had living on the sidelines ever gotten her anywhere? She was stuck in a job she hated, in a too-small apartment, and she was about to spend her third Christmas in a row alone, considering Steve had found it convenient to break up just before any and all gift-giving holidays. She hadn’t dated a man in six months because no male in his right mind found a woman who sounded like a stuck record sexy.

And to be honest, she hadn’t gone after another job because the entire interview process was a major stress. Worrying that she might stutter in the middle of a meeting with the CEO or get stuck on something simple like her name. Only through lots of deep breathing and calm focus had she been able to get through the last set of interviews a year ago.

About the only person in the world with a life worse than hers had been Quasimodo.

Conjuring up every romance novel she’d ever read—and a few episodes of Real Sex from HBO—Natalie composed an IM and hit Send before she could stop herself.

The game was on. The problem?

Natalie wasn’t so sure she had the guts to see it through.

Jake had been trying to get Dena to leave for the last ten minutes. The woman seemed determined to stay, and the quiet phones hadn’t helped the situation. He prayed for a phone call, a visitor, a meteor to drop from the sky—anything that would get the chatty receptionist out of his office.

He didn’t mind talking with women; he just preferred the kind that had something to say.

“And so then, I told that woman at Macy’s I was not going to pay full retail for something I knew was so last season. I read my Vogue, you know.”

“Uh-huh.” He pulled his keyboard in front of him, then clicked his mouse, sending his screensaver scurrying away. “I have work—”

“Like she even knew the difference. She was clearly wearing a knockoff Donna Karan. Who does that when they work at Macy’s, for God’s sake? It’s the Mecca of fashion.” Dena drew in a breath, which only served to rev her mouth engine. “And then…”

But Jake had stopped listening. The interoffice instant messaging program had popped up, along with a greeting from someone named “SpiceGirl,” the same one who’d been texting him from three different phone numbers, a trick he admired for the way it threw him off her identity. He looked up, glanced around the office, but no one looked guilty.

Thinking about me? SpiceGirl wrote. Because I’m thinking about you.

Hell, yeah, he was thinking about her. Had been since last night. And the night before that. What are you thinking? he typed.

That there’s more to you than meets the eye.

And when I meet you, what will I see?

There was a long pause. He waited, fingers at the ready on his keyboard, Dena still going on about Macy’s in the background. A minute passed, the hand on the desk clock she’d given him sweeping around, as if mocking him.

Another minute. A third.

Not what you expect, came the cryptic answer. Before he could respond, another IM popped up. I had a dream about you last night, SpiceGirl said. Want to know what you were wearing? Or rather, not wearing?

His fingers hesitated over his keyboard as the receptionist continued her litany against the fashion world. Unless Dena had telekinesis, she wasn’t the one sending him the messages.

“Picking out a purse is like choosing a career,” Dena was saying. “I mean, being a receptionist is a really hard job. You can’t have just anyone answer the phones. Just like I can’t use my credit cards to buy something made,” she waved her hands vaguely, “somewhere across the Specific.”

Okay, definitely not Dena.

l’ll bite, he wrote back. What was I wearing?

Mmmm, SpiceGirl wrote back. Nibble on me anytime.

The temperature in his office climbed a couple of degrees.

You had on a bow, she continued. A big, red, gorgeous bow. And nothing else.

And what about you?

It was a hot dream, so I was hot too. Very hot. I had to take everything off, except this teeny tiny lace—

“Hey, Jakey, I necessitate you in the conference room,” Brad called. “Monumental client crisis.”

Damn Brad’s timing. Reluctantly, Jake left his office, leaving the IM program up and running in case SpiceGirl had more to say. Dena sure did; she didn’t stop talking even as he said he had to go and headed into the conference room.

SpiceGirl, he’d noticed, was a woman of few words. But every single one had one hell of an impact. At first, he’d been intrigued, but now, the curiosity to meet her—and see what she meant by teeny tiny lace—had consumed his every thought.

Before the twelve days were up, he was going to figure out who his Secret Santa was. And take her up on her offer.

If he was smart, he’d go for SpiceGirl, and her no-strings attached offer, rather than knit himself up anymore with Natalie. He was already pretty damned tangled up, considering how often Natalie crossed his thoughts—and had him considering the very thing he shouldn’t be.

Commitment.

It was the tenth day of Christmas, or at least it was in Brad’s strange little world, and Natalie’s nerves were shot.

She’d texted. She’d IM’d. She’d written letters that were a combination of seduction and conversation.

And in the last couple days, she’d even gotten a few messages back from Jake. He’d enjoyed the letters, he told her, found her to be a juxtaposition of brains and sass, and he looked forward to finding out who she was…and taking her up on her offer.

She never had sent the threatened coal, because deep down, she was having fun with her SpiceGirl persona, keeping Jake on his toes, doing and saying all the things she’d never had the guts to do in her daily life, afraid the words would come out wrong and that he would laugh.

When this had started, all she’d imagined doing was priming the pump with the Secret Santa gifts, then, at the end, revealing her identity, enjoying one very hot and sexy night with Jake Lyons and then moving on.

“Let’s meet, today,” Jake had written this morning in a reply to her text, this time sent from her new cell phone, a number Jake didn’t have. “I can’t wait any longer.”

Neither could she. She started to type a message back, then stopped. There was still one little problem.

Actually a b-b-big problem. There was no way she was going to tell Jake who she was and try to launch a one-night seduction scene while she was still master of the Porky Pig impersonation.

No wonder her sex life had been about as exciting as a congressional memo.

Natalie turned and noticed a large, wrapped box addressed to her, sitting on the floor by her chair. Her Secret Santa.

A thrill of anticipation rocketed through her. She still had no idea who her mystery giver was and found she was looking forward to the beginning of each day, to finding out how he—or she—would surprise her.

Each gift from her Secret Santa had been right on target, as if it were from someone who knew her well.

The only one here Natalie had gotten close to had been Angie, who was suffering in her own private hell after drawing Sam the Suck-Up’s name and hearing him broadcast each of her gifts to the whole office.

Angie had finally stopped his bullhorning by presenting him with a lifetime supply of edible underwear.

Today’s box was the biggest yet for Natalie, the wrapping clearly not done by a professional, because the edges weren’t exactly square and there were seven pieces of tape on one end. Natalie chuckled.

Clearly, her Secret Santa had Scotch tape issues.

As always, her name was inscribed across the front in neat handwriting that looked awfully familiar. She fingered the tag for a moment, thinking. She knew this tight cursive hand, had seen it a hundred times.

But where?

Then she drew back the paper and opened the box.

And knew.

The box was filled with children’s books, all the classics that she’d read as a little girl, the kind she loved sharing with the kids at the shelter. Where the Wild Things Are, The Cat in the Hat, The Wizard of Oz…the pile was huge, a veritable collector’s library, and then, at the bottom, an autographed and highly valuable copy of the first Arthur book, with a note that read, “You know who would love this the most.

Give him a smile this Christmas.”

A tear slipped down her cheek. And as it did, the pieces fell into place.

So did another problem. The one complication she hadn’t thought of when she’d started this whole game.

That she might fall in love.

Natalie picked up the Marc Brown book, clutched it to her chest, then headed into Jake’s office and shut the door. “It’s you, isn’t it?”

Jake looked up from his work, his blue eyes a mixture of tease and, she hoped, a little joy at seeing her.

“It’s me…what?”

“You’re my Secret San-san-santa.”

He grinned and wagged a finger at her. “Now, you know it wouldn’t be a secret if I told you.”

She could just pretend to go along with the joke and drop the subject before it went too much further.

But the book was hard against her palms, a solid reminder of this man and his simple gift. A gift that hadn’t been about books but about who Natalie Harris really was, and what mattered to her.

Without even knowing, Jake had upped the stakes. And taken this into a realm Natalie hadn’t considered. Inaction simply wasn’t an option, not while every inch of her was craving the next step.

She skirted his desk and slipped into the space before him, not caring if the entire office was watching.

Her gaze met his, locked onto those deep blue eyes.

There wasn’t any doubt. Natalie Harris had fallen in love and fallen good.

Before she could think twice, Natalie leaned forward and placed a soft, tender kiss on his lips. “Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome.” A smile crossed his face and he pulled her closer, brushing his lips against hers, then giving her a kiss that whispered a promise. Of more. Of a night she’d never forget. Of a man who knew very well how to take care of a woman.

After a long, sweet second, he drew back. “If I’d known books would get this reaction, I would have bought you a Barnes & Noble.”

She laughed, then sobered, connecting again with his steady gaze. “I’m glad it was y-y-you.”

Damn that stuttering. If she could have cut off her own tongue, she would have. How the heck was she supposed to seduce a man with a mouth like this?

“I’m glad it was me, too.” He reached up, caught a tendril of her hair in his hand, exposing the silver stars dangling from her lobes. A long, heated second passed, filled with anticipation that maybe, just maybe, she wasn’t alone in these feelings and the one-night stand she’d planned would turn into two, three, a hundred.

He swallowed, then that familiar grin appeared on his face. “It was fun being your Secret Santa,” he said, with about as much emotion as a car wash. “I’ll have to thank Velma for picking out such great gifts.”

Velma had done all the shopping? He’d sponged her gifts off onto Brad’s assistant?

What had she expected? Jake Lyons had done nothing more than live up to his reputation. Stayed exactly the same as he had been when she’d launched this plan to get the man she wanted.

Only now, she wanted more.

He released her, stepping back as he glanced down at the present on his desk, the very one Natalie had wrapped early that morning and slipped into his office before he arrived. “Now, if I can just figure out who my Secret Santa is, I’ll be all set. I know it’s not Velma.” That grin again, but for the first time, his smile seemed to put distance between them.

Here was her opportunity. To tell him, to grab that sleigh by the reins and finally take Jake Lyons on the ride to her bedroom. She opened her mouth, intending to do just that, and all that came out was, “I-I-I…” like a record stuck on the alphabet song.

Because the only words that wanted to come out were “I’m falling in love with you.”

For once, her mouth was smarter than her brain.

“Brad told me it was Dena,” Jake said, “so I took her out—”

Thunder crashed in Natalie’s head, rocks slammed against her heart, obliterating the rest of Jake’s words. Of course he’d think it was Dena. Any man with a pulse would. Dena of the big breasts and the smooth, albeit limited in vocabulary, speech.

Before he could finish the sentence, she was backing up, leaving the office. “S-s-sorry, work to do,” she said, then ducked out of there before she could make a total fool of herself.

She’d already hit 98 percent in that department. No need to go any further.

Natalie feigned a fatal attack of intestinal issues and went home for the day. She turned off her phone, didn’t answer her doorbell and didn’t budge from the sofa except to refill her ice cream dish.

It wasn’t until Angie practically beat down the door that Natalie finally opened up. “What the hell happened? I saw you kissing Jake Lyons just before you ditched and claimed instant flu.” Angie plopped onto the couch.

“He’s my Secret Santa.”

“Really? How cool! Did you tell him you were his?”

She shook her head. “He thinks it’s Dena. He’s dating her.”

“No, he’s not. They only went out the one time; she told me all about it when I waved a Godiva bar under her nose. Apparently, there wasn’t much chemistry there, on either end, and by the next day, she was already getting cozy with Eric on the fourth floor.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Natalie said, stabbing her spoon into a pint of Ben & Jerry’s. Her voice sounded as thick as the ice cream. “I’m not going after him.”

“Why not?” Angie leaned forward, then tipped Natalie’s chin up and caught a tear on her finger. “Aw, hell, Nat. You fell for him, didn’t you?”

“He was a really good Secret Santa,” Natalie sobbed.

“What’d he give you? The Hope Diamond?”