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Chapter One
India
Ben whispers into my ear, “Hunk alert, Indi.” I keep my eyes down on the dull pile of annual report copies I’m collating. Ben leaves, headed for the counter, but not before a whispered triumphant sing-song, “This one’s for me.”
In our little branch of Copy Copy, we have a strict rule, at least between Ben and I. When uncommonly hot, sexy, attractive, or otherwise swoon-inducing male customers turn up, and miserably few of them do, Ben and I take turns to serve them.
My last had been a detective in a big raincoat with a big gun and a hard stare. Turned out he was an actor on a low-budget TV shoot. He dashed in to copy a script. Still hot. But, as it turned out, he happened also to be very married.
I let him take me out to dinner. It was sheer luck that when he took out his wallet and made a show of giving the pretty waitress a big tip, I spotted the picture of him with his wife.
Any belief that I still had in love by then was crushed out like a cigarette butt on a rainy street corner.
Ben is always telling me, “Indi, you need someone who will love you for who you really are.”
Fat chance of that. From all the books I've read—and heaven knows I’ve read enough of them—I won’t be appreciated or loved until I can love and appreciate myself. I don’t know if I believe that. I’m pretty sure I don’t want to believe it. I look in the mirror in the mornings and I’m not falling head over heels.
But is it too much to ask for someone to love me a little bit, to point the way? Is it too much to want to be swept away, so lost in passion, to spread out and say, ‘Take me’? Could I just once watch a fiery sunrise over the Mississippi and the Quarter, after a night of delicious sin in the Hotel Monteleone?
Who am I kidding? Where am I going to find anyone who’s worth loving in the first place? There are people I could maybe see having fun with, fireworks on a back seat, maybe. But, love? Seriously? I think it’s a big lie.
Still, our little game makes the working day more fun for me and Ben.
Or it always has. Until this time. Now, I think our rule of taking turns is a terrible idea, and it’s completely stupid. If Ben wasn’t such a great friend, I would calmly wrestle him and knock him to the ground, leave him in a heap under a desk, maybe even stand on him to put on my best bright smile for the customer.
A smile as fresh, as pure and as innocent as my love life to date.
The gray, thousand-watt eyes of the masterful hunk who strides purposefully in under the shop’s tinkling bell drops my stomach down a bottomless well. He’s twice your age, Indi. Don’t even think about it.
But a deal is a deal, so with my lips pressed tight together, I went back to collating a stack of slate gray reports. Fortunately for me, I can manage the day’s longest and most tedious task without the use of my brain. Which is just as well, because it’s fully occupied with images of what Mr. Wattage keeps underneath that gorgeous suit.
I can feel those eyes, insistent, probing, burning up my curves, relentless and merciless in their detailed examination of every fraction of an inch of my generous curves. Even with my back to him. Well, I imagine that I can.
Soon, though, Ben stands behind me and his voice is in my ear again.
“I believe this customer needs your editorial services.”
The store has a strict policy about work that involves editing customers’ material. The proprietor had a bad experience once with some German translation, one angry customer, and a long, expensive lawsuit.
Copy Copy won the case, but now they insist that any editorial or secretarial work is undertaken separately and freelance, between the staff member and the client, leaving the company out of the loop and free of any liability.
I whisper back to Ben, “You can do that just as well as I can.”
“True,” Ben’s whispered voice lowers in pitch. Without turning to look, I know his eyebrow will be curling. “But it’s not my ass that the gentleman customer’s eyes are presently fixed on, and they’re not my curves that he’s practically drooling over.” He clears his throat and adds, “More’s the pity.”
Then he raises his voice, theatrically. “Are you free, Ms. Corrigan?”
“No, Ben,” I say, putting on my broad how-can-I-help-you smile as I turn, “I’m wildly expensive. But I am available.”
I turn and step up to the counter, smartly and efficiently. My knees tremble, my breath rolls and falters in my throat, and my tongue feels three sizes too large. Not to mention the insistent, squirmy heat throbbing in my pants; I may be feeling less smart and efficient than I would like. But I do what I can not to let it show.
“How can I help you?” As I look into the liquid pools of his eyes and I take in the scent of his cologne, I make my voice as light and breezy as I can. Who am I kidding? My voice jumps around like a kitten in a bathtub. I’m lucky to get any of the words out intact.
“I need someone to look over this.” He holds a binder with about fifty pages. “It needs corrections.” His eyes spark with an amused twinkle.
“That should be no problem,” I tell him. I can’t keep my tongue from licking around my lips to moisten them.
“I need it tonight, though.“
