Laura Wright – Cinderella and The Playboy (страница 2)

“Too aggressive.”

“What about that actress you were seeing?”

Tanner chuckled and stood up. “And have every conversation reduced to liposuction and fat grams?” He walked over to the bar and poured himself a glass of water. “This woman can’t be anyone I see socially, Jeff. I don’t want my female friends thinking marriage is ever an option with me. I need a simple woman, sweet, elegantly dressed. Educated, but not snobbish. No party girls.”

Jeff muttered an oath. “This is L.A. Where are you going to look? The library?”

Tanner drained his glass. “Why not? I can turn a sparrow into a swan if I have to.”

Jeff laughed. “Hell, if you’re looking for a sparrow, why not try your mail room?”

Tanner’s head came up with a snap. “What’s in the mail room?”

“My secretary informs me that the hardworking ladies down there run a sort of daily Tanner Watch. Most of them have quite a crush, apparently.” With a snort, he added, “Well, all except for one, she says.”

Tanner sat down on the edge of his desk, fascinated by Jeff’s knowledge of the downstairs machinations of Tanner Enterprises. “Oh, really? And who does your secretary say that one is?”

“Abby something-or-other.” Jeff chuckled.

A redhead with killer green eyes and a soft mouth snaked through Tanner’s mind. Polite and shy, the pretty lady who brought him his mail never tried to catch his eye like most of the women in the office. She wore frumpy, conservative clothes to hide whatever she felt she had to hide, but Tanner had always had a sneaking suspicion that what she was hiding was worth a look.

But he’d never know. The woman had a demeanor—a look he could spot with accuracy—that had “home and hearth” written all over it. And he stayed a million miles away from women like that.

“You know,” Jeff began, a light glowing in his eyes that made Tanner nervous. “She’d be perfect, boss.”

“Perfect for what?”

“To play the role of your wife. I hear she’s sweet and simple and smart. And she’s definitely not someone you see socially.” Jeff’s grin widened. “There’s also no chance of her wanting more from you because, hey, according to the office scuttle, she doesn’t like you at all.” He chuckled. “Hot damn, I never thought I’d see the day when a woman could resist the great C. K. Tanner. I think I might be in love with this girl myself!”

A scowl found its way to Tanner’s face. “I’ll tell you what, Jeff. How about if I give you two minutes to get back to work before I fire you?”

Jeff laughed, stood up and headed for the door. “All right, all right. It was just a thought. I guess you don’t need my help if you’re going on a wife hunt, anyway. You’ve always done just fine with the ladies on your own.”

“Damn right I have,” Tanner muttered as the door closed. But still, the idea lingered.

He leaned back in his chair. How about enlisting a woman who didn’t like him? No strings, no calls afterward. Strictly business. That would make things pretty neat and tidy when it was time for a “divorce,” wouldn’t it?

His gaze flickered to the Swanson file that lay open on his desk. Challenges made a great life even better. If his first challenge was to persuade the head of Swanson Sweets to sell him his company, why not enlist the help of the second challenge to do it?

With a satisfied, confident smile, Tanner flipped through the file as he awaited the arrival of his daily mail with grossly uncharacteristic anticipation.

Funky Latin music reverberated off the cold, white walls in the mail room of Tanner Enterprises. Abby McGrady salsa’d her cart, piled high with packages and letters, toward the elevator, grazing the edges of a few desks on her way, mumbling a “sorry” to the chipped paint.

“Say hi to my boyfriend,” Dixie Watts called from the sorting area. “Let Mr. Tanner know that he can pick me up on the loading docks at seven for our date.”

Balancing several cups of coffee on a tray as she walked past Abby, Janice Miggs put in her two cents. “And since he changes women every week, tell him I’m available next Friday.”

“Every week?” Mary Larson laughed. “Try every hour on the hour.” Then she waved over at Abby. “That certainly doesn’t mean I’m not free next hour or the hour after that.”

“Stop teasing her,” Alice Balton said. “You know how she feels about him.”

Dixie raised an amused brow. “And she knows how we feel about him.”

Laughter filled the large, windowless room. Several of the girls hooted and catcalled, while John, the mail room’s manager, rolled his eyes.

Abby danced into the elevator with a good-natured grin, calling back, “I’m here to save you from yourselves, ladies. He’s just not good enough for you.” But as the doors closed and she depressed the button for the penthouse, her smile faded.

Admittedly, C. K. Tanner was one of the most gorgeous men she’d ever seen, but he was also one of the most arrogant. He barely acknowledged anyone who didn’t have a title attached to their name, and probably hadn’t spoken more than two words to Abby in the year and a half she’d been bringing him his mail.

But her opinion of him came from more than just his lack of polite communication. C. K. Tanner was a grown-up version of Greg Houseman, the terribly charming rich kid who’d stolen a poor girl’s teenage heart, taken her virginity, then dumped her flat. She knew from painful personal experience that men like C. K. Tanner could be Sir Lancelot one moment and Blackbeard the next. And she would never forget that one rarely came without the other.

She sighed heavily. Lord, she had bigger things to think about than the workaholic Midas who hardly knew life existed below the thirty-first floor. Like how on earth she was going to open her art school on the shoestring her budget would afford her. Granted, her job in the mail room paid her full benefits and allowed her flexible hours—she was out of the office and working on her canvas by two o’clock each afternoon—but the amount of savings she’d amassed wasn’t even close to what she needed.

Every day she was receiving more and more calls from parents who desperately wanted their children in an art class but couldn’t afford the steep tuition at any of the art schools in town. The community center where Abby taught didn’t have programs for kids, and they’d told her emphatically that if she wanted to start one it would have to be held somewhere else. Now she had a waiting list a mile long and only a few thousand dollars saved.

It was beginning to look as though her dream would just have to wait a little longer.

The elevator dinged and she pushed the cart down the hall. No spirit-lifting music played on the executive floor, only the low tones of deals being made came from behind the closed doors and throughout the busy hallways. She paused in front of Mr. Tanner’s corner office, plastered on a smile, smoothed her hair back, then cursed her Irish ancestry for giving her the thickest, curliest red hair on earth as she knocked lightly on his door.

“Enter,” came that same husky command that she’d heard every morning for the past year and a half.

Briskly and with purpose, Abby opened the door and moved into the room. “Good morning, Mr. Tanner.”

He glanced up and smiled. “Good morning.”

She hesitated, her brows knitting together. She couldn’t remember him ever looking at her before, let alone smiling. Swallowing the lump that had just come into her throat, she placed his mail in the wire mesh In basket on the edge of the desk and tried to ignore the spicy scent of his cologne, which always seemed to throw her for a loop whenever she got too close. “Your mail, sir.”

His smile widened and warmed. “Thank you, Abby.”

She froze. Abby? She had no idea that C. K. Tanner even knew her name. What was going on here? And why was he giving her that smile—that unnerving, sexy and very Lancelot-like smile?

Blackbeard, Abby. Think Blackbeard.

“Well, have a good day, sir,” she said, turning quickly to go. But the sleeve of her blouse had other plans, catching itself on the wire basket. Laughing nervously, she tugged on the stubborn fabric, trying to free herself. But it wouldn’t budge. She gave it one last swift pull, but only managed to send the basket of mail flying. On a gasp, she lunged to catch it, hearing her shirt tear as she landed gracelessly.

With her heart slamming against her ribs and a shaky smile plastered on her face, she raised the basket up in a sad show of victory, only to catch C. K. Tanner’s more customary hawk-like stare. Ah, that was more like it, she thought as she leveled her gaze with his own. Trying to pretend that she was calm and unruffled, she stood and set the basket down firmly.

Right onto the lip of his coffee cup.

Suffocating her gasp behind her hand, she watched the dark stain spread menacingly across his desk.

“Ohmigod,” she breathed, hearing him rush up beside her. “I’ll clean this up right away.”

“It’s not a problem.” His strong hands were on her shoulders, pulling her close to his side and away from the hot liquid, even as he rang for his secretary with the push of a button. “Helen, send housekeeping with some paper towels.”