Hired Wife. Karen Van Der Zee
again managed to get Sam on the phone, telling the slew of secretaries that she was his sister, Yasmina, calling internationally from Jordan on urgent family business.
“Sam, all I want is a moment of your time,” she said hastily as he answered the phone.
“Kim,” he stated, unsurprised. “I thought you were my sister, Yasmina.”
“You don’t have a sister, Yasmina,” she informed him.
“Yes, I know,” he said dryly.
“But that army of people you’ve got protecting you from the vultures preying on your precious time, don’t know that,” she continued smugly.
“I must speak to them.” His tone held humor, which was reassuring. She didn’t want anyone fired.
She sucked in a deep breath, fortifying herself with oxygen. “Sam, I’m calling to invite you out to dinner.” So there, she’d done it, brazen woman that she was. “Any night this week, whenever it’s convenient for you.”
There was only the slightest of pauses. “I’d be delighted to have dinner with you,” he said then, “but on one condition.”
Her heart sank. He was going to tell her not to discuss the job. “What condition?”
“That you’ll allow me to take you to dinner.”
She laughed, relieved. “Sam—”
“I know what you’re going to say, but let’s not have a big argument over it, shall we?”
“Okay,” she said obediently. It didn’t matter to her who took whom. What mattered was that they sat at the same table and that she had his undivided attention.
“Excellent,” he said. “How about tonight?”
Tonight. He wasn’t wasting any time. “Tonight is good,” she said.
His sister, Yasmina, indeed. Sam grinned as he put down the phone, still hearing the echo of Kim’s bright, singsong voice. He’d known it was her, of course—Marcus’s gregarious sister with the wild blond curls, the Renaissance woman who was comfortable in cyber space, who was not afraid of snakes and who could cook “real” food. And, reckless and impulsive as ever, she wanted to come to Java and set up house for him.
It wasn’t going to happen.
He glanced down at the file on the desk in front of him and couldn’t for the world remember what he had been doing before her call had come through.
Ever since he’d seen her in Marcus’s office a few days ago, she’d been on his mind, which he’d found distracting in the extreme. He was busy and it had interfered with his concentration. When she’d called the first time, asking about the job, he’d been short with her, mostly because he’d been irritated with himself for his inability to stop thinking about her.
And now she had called him again and he knew he wasn’t going to get her out of mind.
Marcus’s lovable, feisty little sister, all grown-up.
It hadn’t taken great powers of observation to see she hadn’t changed much. Spontaneous, vivacious and as charming as ever.
And tonight he was having dinner with her. It would certainly be interesting.
Kim stood in front of her bedroom closet and scrutinized the kaleidoscopic contents in despair. Her clothes were all so hopelessly unsuitable, but she had no time to run out and buy something new.
She loved clothes, but not the formal variety, which were fortunately not required for her work as a freelance commercial designer. She preferred fun, casual clothes, bright colors, playful designs. But for dinner tonight she needed something seriously sophisticated. She groaned with frustration as she rummaged frantically through the hangers hoping to find something halfway acceptable.
And there it was, in the very back: a neat little black suit—sober, proper, bought for the funeral of Great-Uncle Amos last year. She lunged for it with a sigh of relief and put it on the bed. From the back of the closet she excavated a pair of black pumps. Her jewelry box yielded simple gold earrings and a matching chain necklace, a birthday present from her conservative father. She was set.
Now her hair. She’d wear it up, out of her face. She grinned at herself. Boy, was she going to impress Mr. Samiir Rasheed with her businesslike image!
He came for her in a long, sleek limousine.
She was waiting outside the door to her building. The ancient cage elevator was out of order and she wanted to spare him climbing the stairs to the top floor.
The uniformed driver held the door open for her with a flourish and she slipped in beside Sam, taking in the television, computer, phone, fax machine, refrigerator and bar. A company vehicle, designed so the busy executives could continue doing their business while being transported from airports to offices to hotel suites, or perhaps their girlfriends’ apartments.
“Hi,” she said, trying not to sound too bright and peppy. Wearing conservative tan slacks and a deep blue blazer, he managed to look stunning, setting all her nerve endings atingle. She imagined that Sam would look stunning no matter what he wore.
She was sitting close enough to see the fine lines next to his eyes, to notice that his square chin was freshly shaven. Close enough to see sparks of mirth in the depth of his dark eyes.
“I hardly recognized you,” Sam said. “You, in black.”
“Actually I hardly recognized myself.” Kim smoothed her skirt over her thighs. “I only wore this suit once, to a funeral and—” She stopped herself, and heard him laugh.
“A funeral? I hope wearing it now is not an indication of how you feel about having dinner with me.”
“Don’t worry,” she assured him. “I hardly ever feel funereal about anything. It’s too depressing.”
“And you’re not a depressed sort of person,” he commented. “At least you weren’t as a girl.”
“No.” This was dangerous territory. She didn’t want him to think of her as the silly girl she’d been, the naive girl madly in love with him. That girl would no doubt have worn red tonight. Kim had the perfect dress in her closet—a deep, rich passionate red to express her real feelings about having dinner with Samiir Rasheed, the man who gave her foolish little heart the flutters, the man who rescued her from a tragic death in her fantasies. Of course they’d never been out to dinner together then, not just the two of them. They’d hardly ever been alone together anyplace, except that one time, in the garden of her parents’ house, at night.
Not a good train of thought. She pushed it aside and glanced out the window at the neon lights, the billboards, the buses and taxis and people rushing along, all of it like a silent movie behind the dark glass of the air-conditioned limousine. An oasis of calm in the turmoil of the city.
Only she didn’t feel calm. She had never before been aware of the power of the past, the pull of memories. It made her angry with herself. She’d been a stupid teenager, for Pete’s sake! What she had been feeling then had no relevance to the present; she was no longer the same person. She was a grown woman now and she was not romantically interested in this cool, enigmatic man in his expensive clothes—no matter how drop-dead attractive and sexy he appeared. At the time Sam had been exotic to her, a volcano of controlled passion, ready to erupt….
She was aware of the faint scent of his aftershave, aware of sitting very close to him. It would be so easy to touch him—his arm, his hand, his thigh. Oh, good Lord what was she thinking? He was just another rich, workaholic businessman, a man who only knew about making money and had no talent for warm, intimate relationships with friends and lovers. He was most likely just a boring human being, a man without a wife and without a social life. He probably played solitaire at night while watching the stock market news on CNN.
Sure, a little voice teased her.
Mercifully