Beneath the Surface (3 page)

“You can’t be serious about hovering over my shoulder while I do this.”

“I most assuredly am. You’ve already proven you can’t be trusted.” She lowered the magazine to peer at him. “I’m here to make sure you finish the profile and send it along so we can move to the next step.”

The in-person interview. Like he could forget about it. “Is it really necessary?”

Evelyn gave him a sympathetic look, but he wasn’t fooled for a minute.

Underneath the soft hazel eyes was a sharp businesswoman waiting to pounce on any weakness. She hadn’t succeeded more than a decade on Wall Street for nothing.

“Personal shopping is a process, and Tabitha needs not only to know about your lifestyle, but to see how you live, what you wear. She has to meet you so that you two can establish rapport.

9

Gracie C. McKeever

You wouldn’t want to hand over your credit card to just any old body, now would you? A certain level of trust is absolutely necessary.”

He saw her point, but was loath to admit it.

Why did this entire process feel like a total invasion of his privacy? The woman hadn’t even set foot in his house yet.

EJ spent the next forty-five minutes going through the survey, filling it in as completely as possible—favorite color, favorite materials, favorite foods, zodiac sign, hobbies…he felt like he was filling out an online dating survey—before hitting Send.

Maybe it wasn’t too late to call Jade back.

Evelyn was behind him in a flash, leaning over his shoulder as if she’d heard his thoughts.

“See, now was that so difficult?”

“Painfully.”

“Wise-ass.” She cuffed him again, then threw her arms around him in a bear hug.

“You won’t be sorry, I promise you.”

EJ watched her head for the front door, followed her and was at the threshold as she slid back into her coat and shouldered her bag. “You’re leaving so soon?”

“My work here is done for now.”

“What a relief.”

“Next comes the face-to-face.”

“I can’t wait.”

“Expect Tabitha to give you a call soon.”

“I’ll be right here with bells on.”

Evelyn smiled, reached up to muss his hair before heading down the stairs.

EJ closed and locked the door in case his sister got any second thoughts about how he needed to spend the rest of his Thursday afternoon, then ran for his cordless, hoping it wasn’t too late to make amends to the luscious Jade. It had been too long since he’d gotten some. He deserved the release now more than ever after the harrowing experience he’d just had filling out that questionnaire with his older sister looking over his shoulder and making him feel as if he were still a creative with a print deadline hanging over his head.

He had a sneaking suspicion Evelyn had gotten a real kick out of him squirming, probably liked getting back at him for all the times his mother had made her and his other siblings sit through one of his one-man shows as he’d acted out his stories as a kid.

He smiled at the memory of his teenage sisters and older brother putting off playing and dates to be a captive audience to a seven-year-old imagination.

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t just hang up on you?” Jade answered her cell.

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Beneath the Surface

“I can give you several. If you’ll come over, I could give you full-fledge pitch,”

EJ said and listened to her sultry chuckle drift over the phone line. “Am I forgiven?”

“We’ll see once I get to your place.”

* * * *

He reached for the cordless instead.

“Who’s calling at this hour?”

Jade’s question made him check the LCD on the clock, his frown deepening.

Seven o’clock! He’d kill Evelyn if she were calling him with some more bullshit about that profile. He’d sent it already, give him a break!

EJ snatched the receiver out of its base. “Hello,” he rasped.

A barely audible gasp greeted him before a long pause.

“Who is this?”

“I’m sorry if I woke you. This is Tabitha Lyons of
Lyons Style, Inc.
Have I reached Eric James Vega?”

God, no one addressed him by his full name like that except bill collectors or his mother when she was at the end of her rope with him and that hadn’t happened since he’d been a teenager. Otherwise, his family and most of his friends called him EJ. And EJ

Vega was the pseudonym he used for his writing.

“No, but you’ve reached EJ Vega.”

“Mr. Vega, as you know, I require a face-to-face meeting with all of my potential clients before I take them on.”

“So Evelyn told me. Does anyone ever call you Tabby?”

“Not if they want to live to tell the tale.”

He laughed, liked her quickness, and didn’t need to hear her gritting her teeth to know she was angry. He could feel the irritation in her silence, but came up against a solid wall when he probed for more of her thoughts and feelings. Not a surprise since he’d never met her and wasn’t in physical contact, but it never stopped him from reaching out and trying to read someone, especially after what had happened with Sinclair. A needless tragedy he had yet to get over. “I’ll make a deal with you. I won’t call you Tabby if you don’t call me Eric.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Vega, I don’t operate that way.”

“So we’re back to Mr. Vega.”

“We never actually got away from it.”

He smiled, unperturbed. “Okay, it’s killing me, but I’ll compromise. How about I call you Tabitha, and you call me Eric.” He could almost picture her ramrod straight 11

Gracie C. McKeever

posture as she sat trying to decide how much to give in or if she should give into him at all.

A ball-buster, like he thought, and obviously a workaholic. Seven-freaking-o’clock-in-the-morning!

Expect Tabitha to give you a call soon.

Well hell, it wasn’t like Evelyn hadn’t warned him.

“Eric and Tabitha will be fine,” she stated, her tone so cool and formal, EJ

pictured pursed lips and a highborn retrousse nose.

“Now that we have that out of the way, when would you like to meet, Tabitha?”

He couldn’t help digging, knew that his familiarity, even with her previous permission, stuck in her craw. Good. If he had to suffer at such an ungodly hour, then why shouldn’t she?

“How’s Wednesday next week sound? My office at…” she paused for a moment, and EJ closed his eyes, imagined her consulting an electronic calendar. She probably had a BlackBerry or some other handheld or laptop chained to her hip when she wasn’t at her computer—God, how he did not miss that aspect of his nine-to-five—because Ms. Lyons always had to be on point, and definitely wouldn’t double book herself. That would be a business faux pas.

“Since you’re not much of a morning person, Eric, how about afternoon, say two?”

He grinned at her emphasizing his name and her allusion to his before-noon fetish, liked that she could give as good as she got. “Sounds good to me.”

She gave him the address and directions, made sure he repeated them before she prepared to sign off. “Good, I’ll see you then, Mr. Ve—Eric.”

“Old habits hard to break?” He chuckled. “I’ll see you Wednesday.” He hung up the cordless before she could respond and turned to Jade who was leaning up on her elbow, chin poised on her palm, intently staring at him. He tumbled her onto her back, eliciting a soft whimper and shudder when he slid a finger into her vagina, cupped her mound and found her wet. Good. He needed to relax and this was one of the best ways created he knew of to do that.

“Who was that calling this time of morning?” Jade asked, smiling as he straddled her.

EJ was already hard, just her hands on his waist had him ready again. Or it could have been the phone call for all he knew, Tabitha Lyons’ low seductive voice ringing in his ear, the memory of her irritation still shivering down his spine.

He wasn’t sure which had him so aroused, just knew he had to feel a woman’s warmth surrounding him, feel her soft flesh surrendering to his hardness in ecstasy.

And Jade was here. Jade was so here.

He reached inside the top drawer of his bedside table and extracted a brightly colored foil packet from the party batch of condoms Jade had brought over. She liked 12

Beneath the Surface

colors. EJ didn’t care as long as it did its job. He quickly ripped open a bright red one—

Jade’s favorite—donned it in record time, then slowly slid his penis inside her, rolling his hips as soon as he was balls-deep in her wet cunt.

“Well?” She lifted a perfectly waxed brow, but gasped at his powerful thrusts that almost made her forget what she wanted to ask him. She unconsciously arched her hips to take him deeper. “Who was that?” She clenched her pussy muscles around his cock as if to emphasize her question, made him groan.

“That was my personal shopper.” He leaned in to bury her lips beneath his, dipped his tongue into her mouth in a scorching French kiss. He’d seen the follow-up questions written all over her features and didn’t want to discuss Tabitha Lyons with her.

She belonged to him. A gentle mysterious secret he wanted to hold close to his chest for a while, revel in the knowledge of their subtle tenuous connection and imagine what it would be like when he met her and tried to remove that very big stick from her ass.

13

Gracie C. McKeever

Tabitha re-read Eric’s dossier—she still wasn’t used to calling him that, especially since she had yet to meet the man—for the fifth time since she’d received it, sat back in her executive swivel chair and grumbled.

EJ Vega. The perfect name for a former ad man. Slick, like his butter-melting voice.

Slick men didn’t usually intimidate her, she didn’t allow them to. But she could only imagine what she was getting herself into with Eric, especially if he looked as slick as he sounded, especially if he resembled his older sister in any way. Tabitha expected a totally arrogant and spoiled Lothario. How could he be anything but, the youngest of six children, four of whom were sisters who’d probably doted on him in typical big-Italian-family fashion?

She was beginning to dread the upcoming face-to-face as she had no other business meeting.

Thirty-three, Single, Freelance Writer, Sagittarius, forty-four inch chest, thirty-one inch waist, six-three, one-ninety-five, blue eyes, black hair, bronze complexion, big
dimples…
Great, a class clown and a procrastinator to boot.

Sheesh, the man sounded like a male model, and she didn’t need to see his smart-ass mention of the dimples to think this. She only had to picture a taller, bigger, masculine version of Evelyn.

Okay, reality check. The man was, or would soon be, one of her many paying clients, and she would treat him with all the respect and dignity befitting all her clients.

No special treatment. No favoritism. No nepotism.

Tell that to Evelyn.

Already Tabitha had made several concessions, pushing Eric’s application through channels and to the top of a slowly growing waiting list. She never did that, and if it weren’t for how she felt about Evelyn—a modicum of affection and cautious 14

Beneath the Surface

friendship, more than she felt for most people—she never would have broken protocol now.

After a full morning of shopping for one of her well-established clients, and rushing back to the office to have a few minutes to reintroduce herself to Eric on paper, she was now eager to meet Evelyn’s brother, if for no other reason than to appease her curiosity.

And find out if the crack about big dimples was true.

She wondered what else on him was big, then immediately castigated herself for the errant thought.

This wasn’t like her, never had been. She had no time for frivolous attachments, or even more frivolous wet dreams and fantasies. She most definitely didn’t have time for a too-sexy-for-his-body Italian Stallion Dr. Phil wannabe.

Okay, that was a little harsh, especially since she’d read and enjoyed his articles and advice columns in various magazines. She particularly found his articles in
Prevention Magazine
about suicide and suicide prevention along with body language informative and riveting. She hadn’t expected someone with his background to sound so insightful and sensitive.

She’d instantly liked his voice, surprised that his writing interested her since she wasn’t usually on the receiving end of advice, self-help or how-to. She was more a doer than a follower; all the help she’d ever gotten throughout her life coming from herself before Dr. Phil and his brethren had come onto the scene.

So fine, he could write, turned an evocative phrase and inspired. Tabitha could almost see how he’d landed a big time New York contract. She just didn’t want to have to deal with the ego that was probably attached to the writing talent that had wrought a seven-figure book deal.

She tapped her solid gold Mont Blanc pen on the glass table as she glanced at the wall clock across her office. Tabitha wanted to get out all her nervousness our of her system now before he arrived, put her best foot forward, her only foot, the triple C’s—

calm, cool, collected. No weaknesses. All business.

Difficult promises to keep when she remembered his voice on the phone.

Once she had gotten past her shock at the smoky, sleep-touched voice, she’d settled down to typical business mode. Her initial reaction—a liquid warm feeling low in her belly—had lingered throughout her conversation with him, intermittently rising and falling with the sound of his deep baritone, reacting in kind to the gentle earthy rhythm of his masculine timbre.

Tabitha stood and paced across the office aware that if Eric had arrived her secretary Cynthia would have let her know. She peeked out of her office door anyway and found an empty reception area. Well, except for Cynthia intently typing at her computer.

15

Gracie C. McKeever

She surrounded herself with individuals as hardworking and organized as herself.