What Are Friends For?. Naomi Horton
a split second, Andie was seriously tempted to plant her open palm across his cheek with every bit of strength she possessed just to see if that would shake him up a bit. But even as the urge hit her, it vanished again, leaving her struggling not to laugh with the sheer impossibility of the man. “No wonder women fall all over themselves to marry you, Connor Devlin,” she finally said. “You’re the most romantic devil I’ve met in years!”
Still laughing, she turned and left him standing there with a perplexed expression on his handsome face, suddenly afraid that if she stayed in the room with him for even another instant, she’d burst into tears.
* * *
Four hours, three cups of coffee and a crisis or two later, Andie was still having trouble concentrating, the memory of Conn’s strong, muscled body pressed intimately against hers just a little too vivid for comfort.
She’d be fine for a while, her mind focused on work with its usual laserlike intensity, but then she’d remember the warmth of his breath on her throat or the way his roughened palm had cradled her breast. Without warning, her breath would catch and her thoughts would go leaping off into all sorts of inappropriate directions, and she’d find herself sitting at her desk, staring blankly at some piece of paper, or look up and see someone looking down at her expectantly and realize they’d asked her a question she hadn’t even heard.
“If I didn’t know better,” her secretary finally said with an all-too-shrewd look, “I’d say you’d spent the night in the sack with some seriously bodacious guy, drinking champagne and making love until the sun came up.”
“Champagne gives me the hiccups,” Andie replied with a laugh, tossing down a handful of papers, “and I never make love until sunup the night before I have to put the finishing touches on a buy-out offer worth millions.” She grinned. “Seriously bodacious, huh? From that, am I given to understand that your daughter is home from college for spring break?”
Margie Bakerfield grinned back. “Like, for real, dude. It’s been three days now, and I haven’t understood a word she’s said. It’s frightening when you think about it. I’m spending several thousand dollars to send a perfectly normal, well-spoken girl to the best college in California. And she comes back speaking in tongues, with no visible tan line and a boyfriend whose main interests seem to be food and surfing.”
“Oh, to be young and in love, Margie. Let her enjoy it. When I was eighteen I thought the world would stay a magic place forever. Now I’m almost thirty, and the only magic I seem able to conjure up is time-shifting old movies on my VCR.”
“That Frenchman of yours looks like he should be able to conjure up a thing or two,” Margie said slyly. “He called this morning and wants you to call him back. The number’s here on your desk somewhere.”
Andie nodded absently, leafing through a thick computer printout. “Has Finance sent down their revised estimates on this Becktron deal yet? Conn and I are going head-to-head with Desmond Beck and his head bean counter on Friday. We need to have a solid handle on how much their patents are worth before Conn goes in with his final offer.”
Margie reached across Andie’s desk without saying anything and tapped in a couple of commands on the computer. It flashed a Working message for a moment or two, then spilled a multicolored display of figures across the screen.
Andie gazed at it in silence, then glanced up at Margie with a rueful smile. “I knew that.”
Margie just nodded, a tiny smile playing around her mouth. “Come over to supper some night this week, okay? You and Krista can swap stories about college life—she thinks I’m too old to remember back that far.”
Andie gave a sputter of laughter. Margie was all of thirty-eight. “Sounds good—pick an evening and tell me when.”
“Thursday. Right after work.”
“I thought you were going to the symphony on Thursday night with that new guy in Product Design.”
“Brad?” Margie made a face. “We went out twice. The first time, he took me to a romantic restaurant and spent the entire evening telling me all about his ex-wives. The second time, we went to a computer show and he spent the entire day telling me all about his mother. The third time he called, I told him I was washing the dog. He hasn’t called again.”
Andie groaned, laughing. “Oh, Margie, I’m sorry! I sometimes think all the unattached men in this city come in two flavors—weird and seriously weird.”
Margie smiled dryly. “You got that right.” The smile faded. “And the ones who aren’t just don’t seem to be able to see what’s right in front of them.”
She could have been talking about Conn, Andie thought, but she wasn’t. Only Frank Czarnecki could put that look of gloom on Margie’s usually cheerful face. “You could ask him over to dinner,” she said gently. “Or to a movie.”
“I know,” Margie said with a sigh. “If only he wasn’t so shy! I think he’s interested, Andie, I really do. But he doesn’t seem to know what to do about it. Until I met Frank, I didn’t know what a computer nerd was! It’s all he seems to care about.”
“Back when Conn and I were in college, most of his friends were just like Frank,” Andie said sympathetically. “If a girl even looked at them, they’d stammer and drop things. Most of them started their own computer companies and are bazillionaires by now, but they still have the social skills of fungi. It goes with the territory.”
“Except for Connor.”
“Except for Connor.” Andie smiled. “He always did have more going for him than a triple-digit IQ. He went from grade school charmer directly to corporate tycoon and bypassed the nerd stage altogether.”
Margie paused, as though wanting to add something. Then she just smiled. “Thursday evening, then. Mexican?”
“Love it.”
“Good. I’ll stock up on salsa and chili peppers and make it a night to remember. Krista’s boyfriend, Tad, will be there, but he’s an easy conversationalist. One grunt means no, two means yes and a shrug means he doesn’t know.”
“He doesn’t talk?”
“Who knows? I’ve never seen him with his mouth empty long enough to find out.”
“I can hardly wait to meet him. He sounds like some of the guys I used to date when I was Krista’s age.” Laughing, Andie pushed back her chair and got to her feet, grabbing up a handful of reports from the corner of her desk. “I have to go over these with Conn. Hold my calls—unless it’s someone from Becktron.”
“Did, um...?” Margie winced. “I saw that official-looking envelope from his lawyer in yesterday’s mail....”
“His divorce decree. Signed, sealed and as final as they get.”
“So, he’s single again. I suppose that means that Woodruff female will have her claws in him.” Margie’s eyes glittered. “For months now, she’s been hovering around like a vulture waiting for an accident to happen. You can practically hear her salivating at the prospect of hauling in the catch of the day.”
Margie’s metaphors may have been mixed, but they made their point. “If she’s serious about landing him, she’s going to have to bring in the heavy-duty tackle,” Andie said quietly. “One sign she’s getting serious and he’ll head for open water.”
“Let’s hope you’re right.” Picking up a handful of letters she’d brought in for Andie to sign, Margie turned and headed back to her own office.
Andie stared blindly after her for a moment or two, then gave herself a mental shake and walked across to the door leading to Conn’s office. Olivia Woodruff. Interesting thought.
Shrewd, beautiful and as cold as ice, she headed up one of the most successful corporate law offices on the West Coast. She’d wooed Conn for almost a year before he’d shifted