Emily: Sex and Sensibility (7 page)

“What I mean to say is that I have a job for you. A one-day job. Playing piano.”
Stupido! What else would it be?
“At the ceremonial opening of that building we talked about, Twenty-two Pascal. You’ll get some good publicity out of it. Press, TV, that kind of thing. We’d intended to fill the atrium with flowers but that fell through and we thought, my designer thought, candles and some flowers and a piano, a white Steinway grand…”

Marco clamped his lips together. Talk about information overload!

“If you are interested, please call my Human Resources manager, Jane Barnett, at 212-555-1740 She is the person who will handle the arrangements. You will meet with her. You will not see me at all…”

He rolled his eyes as he let his pathetic little speech trail off. Then he said a brisk
“Ciao”
and ended the artless call.

******

Wasn’t this supposed to be the age of the paperless office?

It wasn’t, and without his PA to sift through reports and memos and cull the ones that didn’t require his attention, he never got around to compiling the documents he needed for tomorrow’s trip to Europe.

Just before noon, he made an attempt at involving the girl sitting in for his former PA. Bad move. Within minutes, she was in tears. When he asked—calmly, he was certain—what the problem was, she said that he talked too fast, wanted her to do too many things at once, and what on earth did he mean when he said “Tell Moscow that I agree.” Tell whom in Moscow? And to what did he agree?

Marco started to explain, heard his voice rising, wondered, albeit briefly, if any of this could even remotely be the reason so many assistants flew the coop abandoned that as nonsense and shooed the girl from his office.

He had lunch at his desk—the temp grew so flustered at the idea of phoning in his order that he did it himself. A green salad with oil and that special vinegar on the side. No, he did not know the name but how many types could there be? Cheese on a roll. Not just any cheese. The one his PA’s, all of them, always knew to order. And not just any roll. The long one without seeds and,
Cristo,
why would he know what it was called?

The deli clerk who took his call was new—was this a day of new-to-the-job fools? So it was no great surprise that when his lunch arrived, it was the wrong roll, the wrong cheese, and the salad on the side was all wrong.

He stuffed everything back into the bag it had come in and tossed it into the wastebasket.

Coffee. At least he could have coffee. His PA always made it and no way would he ask the trembling girl outside his door to do so.

Marco pushed back his chair and got to his feet. Surely they made coffee in the staff room. The sight of him would probably send everybody scuttling but his mood was going from bad to worse and, frankly, he didn’t give a damn whether they scuttled or not.

His phone rang. He grabbed for it and snarled, “What?”

It was the garage, with the first good news of the day. His Ferrari had not been stolen. It had been misplaced.

“Misplaced?”

Misplaced. The manager launched into an explanation. Marco cut him short, thanked him, hung up the phone and made a note to find a different garage.

The phone rang again. “It’s Jane Barnett,” his HR manager said.

“Mrs. Barnett. Jane. I meant to call.”

“Actually, I’ve been trying to reach your PA.”

Marco shuddered. “Yes. So have I. She seems to have disappeared. What of those candidates you were going to interview? How has that worked out? Please tell me you’ve found one who is suitable.”

“Uh,” Jane said carefully, “well, I may have found one who is just about perfect.”

The second good news of the day. Marco beamed happily as he sank into his chair.

“Do you mean it?”

“She speaks four languages. She’s traveled. She’s bright. I’m sure she can write up reports. Fairly complex ones, I suspect. As I said, she’s just about perfect.”

Marco wanted to pump his fist in the air but not yet, not yet.

“Did you explain that she’ll have to be prepared to leave the country tomorrow?”

A pause. Then, “Uh, not exactly.”
“Because?”

“Because this isn’t precisely the job she came here to fill.”

“Didn’t the agency explain the situation to her?”

“Uh…”

“What are you telling me, Jane? Is she not interested in the position? Did you explain how well it pays? Seventy-five thousand a year? Health insurance? Vacations? Pension?”

“Uh, I thought you might want to talk with her yourself, Mr. Santini. See, this is a bit confusing. She was here to interview for one thing and I ended up offering her another.”

Marco shut his eyes. Good news, but with an edge.

“Wonderful. I have been dealing with incompetence all morning and now we add the incompetence of a headhunting agency that sends a person to the wrong job. But if this woman is suitable…”

“I believe she is, sir.”

“And what about Ms. Madison? Has she called?”

“Uh…”

Dio,
another “uh”?

“Never mind. One thing at a time. Send this paragon of efficiency to my office
rapidamente.
”

“That’s why I’m calling, sir. I tried to reach your PA—”

“My temp,” Marco growled. “God forbid she might ever be anyone’s PA.”

“Yes, sir. Right. The point is, she didn’t answer. So I called Executive Reception to tell her that, uh, the candidate is on her way.”

“And?”

“And, uh, before you meet with her I wanted to explain that, uh—”

“Jane,” Marco said through his teeth, “if there is something to explain, explain it.”

“I’m trying to, Mr. Santini, but it’s a little complicated and, uh—”

It was the final “uh” that broke the camel’s back—that, and the tap on his door that told him his terrified and definitely temporary assistant was about to step into his office.

Marco swung toward the door as it opened, his patience, what little remained of it, shot to hell.

“What in the name of God do you want now?” he roared at his PA. Except it wasn’t his PA.

It was the woman who had kept him awake most of the night, the woman he’d hoped he’d never see again.

Emily Madison.

Emily’s day had got off to a truly hideous start.

Well, why wouldn’t it? Her night had certainly been a mess.

She still couldn’t believe what she’d done. Losing her temper, losing her job…

Nola wasn’t home. She had a boyfriend, an actor, and she often stayed at his place. That was fine with Emily but last night; she’d have given anything to have Nola there so she’d have had someone to talk to. She’d have told her about the disaster at the Tune-In. And she’d have broken the news that she wasn’t going to come up with her half of this month’s rent.

The sooner she got that over with, the better.

And then there was what had happened with that man. Marco Santini.

That kiss.

Exhausted as she was, Emily still hadn’t been able to fall asleep. She’d gotten up, made a cup of tea, paced the tiny apartment, turned the TV on, stared at it blankly and then paced some more.

At five, she’d crawled into bed, dragged the blanket over her head and decided she just wasn’t going to think about any of it. If she just got an hour’s sleep…

Which was why she’d pretended not to hear Nola come in and climb into her bed on the other side of the curtain they’d hung between the two beds in the pathetic pretense that they each had more than four feet of privacy.

Within minutes, she’d heard Nola’s breathing turn slow and even.

If only hers would do the same, but then, she had weighty things on her mind. No money. No job.

Marco Santini.

And wasn’t that ridiculous?

He had kissed her. So what? She wasn’t a child. She’d been kissed before.

But not like that.

Or maybe the truth was that no kiss had ever affected her that way. She liked kissing. Liked sex. Even though she’d always thought it was a little overrated.

Lissa and Jaimie sometimes teased her about her attitude.

Or her lack of one.

Always gently, of course, because they were her best friends, but she had never been the one to come home after a date flushed from what had gone on in the back seat of somebody’s Chevy.

On the other hand, she had never been the one to sob from the pain of a broken heart.

“Why would any woman in her right mind get involved with a man?” Jaimie had demanded in a tight voice during a three-way Skype session a couple of weeks ago.

“A damned good question,” Lissa had said.

Emily had looked at her computer monitor, from one sister’s face to the other’s.

“Uh, you guys want to talk about it?’ she’d finally asked.

The answers had been
no
and
no
, and when the call ended, Emily had shaken her head the same way she had in the past and wondered how her bright, beautiful, talented sisters could be such fools when it came to men.

Right.

And now, after—what?—one kiss from a stranger, she was suddenly an expert on what men and sex were all about?

“Ridiculous,” she muttered. And flinched. Because
ridiculous
wasn’t even close to describing what had happened last night.

She had humiliated herself.

He’d kissed her. OK. People kissed all the time. She could have stood still and let it happen. She could have turned her face away. She could have said, with Victorian indignation, that driving her home did not entitle him to take liberties.

Instead, she’d—she’d wrapped herself around him like an octopus. He’d had to peel her off. Then he’d mumbled something polite and escaped as fast as was humanly possible.

Humiliating didn’t come close to describing it.

Emily groaned and burrowed deeper under the blankets.

“Stop it,” she whispered. “Just—just put it out of your mind. You’ll never see him again so why keep thinking about what an absolute fool you made of yourself?”

What she needed was sleep. A couple of hours, anyway. The day looming before her was going to be tough enough to handle without adding in a brain drained by exhaustion. She’d have to face Nola. Call Max Pergozin and if he had nothing for her, start the horrible thing known as searching for employment. And as what? Who would employ her? The city was filled with women like her, their heads packed with useless academic nonsense.

Emily yawned. Yawned again. And drifted, mercifully, into sleep. And, unmercifully, into a dream about a tall, gorgeous hunk of masculinity, with dark hair, dark eyes and a sexy accent, who kissed her and then didn’t stop at kissing her.

She was moaning when the piercing ring of the telephone jolted her awake.

Let voice mail take the call. She’d just lie here, close her eyes, see if she could recapture the dream.

At the sound of the tone, please leave a message.

“PICK UP THIS PHONE, MADISON! YOU HEAR ME? PICK UP THE GODDAMNED PHONE!”

Emily shoved the covers aside, flew to the wall of ancient, Lilliputian-sized appliances that passed for a kitchen and grabbed the receiver.

“Mr. Pergozin?”

“YOU ARE FIRED, GIRLY. FIRED! YOU GOT THAT?”

Emily winced, propped the phone against her shoulder, opened the cupboard and searched for a bottle of aspirin.

“Mr. Pergozin. I know you’re annoyed but—”

“ANNOYED? ANNOYED?”

“Please. If you could just lower your voice—”

“Fine. I’ll lower my voice. Is this low enough? YOU WILL NEVER WORK IN THIS TOWN AGAIN!”

Emily wrenched open the aspirin bottle, dumped three tablets on the counter, turned on the water in the sink, popped the tablets into her mouth, bent down, angled her head, slurped at the water and swallowed hard. The tablets stuck in her throat and she coughed, dragged in a breath and said, “Look, I don’t know what Gus told you but—”

“He told me what I already suspected. That you’re a dainty prima donna with no more brains than a cockroach!”

“If you’d just listen—”

“Didn’t you hear me? You are fired!”

Emily stood straighter.

“You can’t fire me. I’m your client. I’m the one who does the firing.”

“Do I give a crap how you say it? You are done. Got that? D-O-N-E. Done!”

Emily could feel her mouth trembling. “This isn’t fair! Whatever Gus said—”

“I just told you what he said. Want me to tell you again?”

“Gus owes me money for—”

Max laughed.

“He owes me! I worked four nights and—”

“Fine. Sue him.”

“Mr. Pergozin. Please. There were extenuating circumstances—”

“That’s it. Use big words. Try and impress me with that fancy degree. You don’t got the brains you were born with; blowing a job my other clients would have killed for.”

Really? she thought, but she forced herself not to say that. Instead, she bit the bullet and said that what had happened was unfortunate, and that she would take any other gig he had…

Max laughed and laughed and laughed.

“I take it that’s a no,” Emily said with all the poise she could muster, and then she slammed the phone back into its cradle. “Stupid, horrid, miserable, awful little man!”

“Problem?” Nola said carefully.

Emily swung toward her. Her roommate held out a mug of coffee. She grabbed it and took a long swallow.

“That was my agent.”

“Uh-huh.”

“He, ah, he’s not happy.”

“No kidding.”

Emily sighed. “I lost my job at the Tune-In.”

“Oh, sweetie! That’s too bad.”

“Yeah,” Emily said unhappily. “And Max said—”

“Never mind Max. How are you for cash?”

Emily felt her face heat. “Not good. In fact, I hate to ask but—”

“Not to worry. I’ll take care of this month’s rent.”

“Oh, that’s lovely! Thank you. As soon as I find something else, I’ll—”

“Actually—actually, there’s something I have to tell you, too.”

Nola was biting her fingernails. After a while, you knew how to read a roommate. Nola’s biting her fingernails was not a good sign.

“What?”

“That part I auditioned for last week? The second lead in the touring company production of
Coming up Roses
, remember? Well, I got it!”

“Oh, wow! I’m so happy for—”

“Yeah. But the thing is, we head out next week. And we’ll be gone for six months. So—so—”

The floor seemed to tilt under Emily’s feet.

“You’re moving out?”

“See, they offered the role to somebody else and she said
yes
but then something went wrong and she had to back out and that’s why they only just contacted me and—”

“That’s fine. No, really, I mean it. That’s why Max called. He, ah, he’s got something even better lined up.”

“You sure? ’Cause it didn’t sound as if—”

“Oh he’s all bluster. He’s going to call me back with the details.”

By the time the phone rang again, Nola had left for the theater. Emily was in the shower. Her pulse soared. Maybe it really
was
Max.

By the time she skidded to a stop in the tiny kitchen, the call had gone to voice mail.

“Emily?” a husky voice said. “Pick up if you’re there. It’s Marco. Marco Santini.”

Her heart thudded.

She hadn’t expected him to call. Why would she? She’d made a fool of herself, and if she’d had any doubt about that, all she had to do was remind herself that he hadn’t even asked for her number. He hadn’t mentioned seeing her again. If anything, his last words had struck her as not just “goodbye” but “goodbye and it’s been nice knowing you.”

Her face heated at the memory.

So, why was he calling? How was he calling? He didn’t have her number.

She reached for the phone. Changed her mind. Stared at it. Waited for him to speak. Finally, he did.

He spoke briskly. Impersonally. He was offering her a job playing piano at the opening of that building, the one she’d told him she lived in because common sense had told her not to let a stranger know her address.

Too bad common sense hadn’t told her not to let him kiss her.

Not that it had meant anything. The proof of that was hearing his crisp assurances that she would have no involvement with him whatsoever. She would not see him or deal with him. She would be interviewed by a Jane Barnett in his company’s Human Resources Department.

The message ended.

Emily slumped against the wall.

There had to be a better word than
humiliating
.

What, was she his charity deed for the week? Saving her from the elements. Finding her a job.

“To hell with you, Mr. Santini,” she told the telephone. “You can take your big-deal offer and—and—”

And offer it to somebody else.

She scowled.

Was she nuts? A job was a job. Who gave a damn if it came from him? She wouldn’t have to see him, speak to him, have anything to do with him.

Of course she’d take his offer.

She grabbed the phone, replayed his message, scribbled down Jane Barnett’s name and telephone number. Two minutes later, she’d arranged for a one-thirty appointment at MS Enterprises on Madison Avenue.

She’d moved quickly after that.

By twelve thirty, she was dressed for corporate America. Thank goodness for the clothes she’d brought from Texas to New York. Cream silk blouse. Gray wool suit. High-heeled black pumps. A pair of small gold hoop earrings.

She looked in the mirror. Good. Fine. Demure but stylish.

She was ready.

She took the N train to Fifth Avenue and 53
^rd
Street, walked to Madison Avenue, checked the numbers of the buildings…

Her jaw dropped.

She’d figured out that Marco Santini was rich and powerful but this was more than she’d imagined. MS Enterprises was not housed in a touch-the-clouds skyscraper—it
was
the skyscraper.

This job, a one-day gig for a corporation like this, could be a lot more important than all those miserable weeks at the Tune-In.

Back straight, shoulders squared, she went briskly through the doors and to the lobby reception desk. She identified herself, one of the receptionists made a call, smiled pleasantly and directed her to the tenth floor.

At Human Resources, another smiling individual handed her a stack of papers and a pencil. She spent ten minutes filling out the usual stuff required for corporate job interviews, not just her name and address but, basically, her life story: schooling, degrees, skills, etc. It seemed a waste of time, considering they were going to hire her for one day and only to play the piano but she’d gone this route before, even when she’d applied for a waitressing job at a fancy Upper East Side restaurant.

At precisely one thirty, she was ushered into Jane Barnett’s office.

“Ms. Madison,” the HR manager said pleasantly, “I must be honest and tell you that I don’t know very much about music and musicians.”

Emily smiled just as pleasantly.

“Then I must be equally honest and tell you that I don’t know much about MS Enterprises.”

Polite laughter on both sides. Then Jane Barnett motioned her to a chair opposite her desk and began reading Emily’s application.

Emily waited, feet placed neatly together, hands folded in her lap. She’d been through this before, often enough to know that the reading would take perhaps two minutes.

Wrong.

Barnett started by skimming the document. Midway through, she stopped, looked at Emily and then went back and started at the beginning. She read more and more slowly, looked up, stared at Emily, looked down, looked up…

Emily gave a discreet cough. “Is there a problem?”

Barnett put down the application, removed her glasses, then put them on again.

“Impressive,” she said. “Four languages?”

“Well, yes. But—”

“A degree in art. Dean’s list. Graduated with honors.”

“Did I give too much information? I only meant to answer the quest—”

“I’ll bet you loved academia,” Barnett said, leaning forward. “You know, doing research, writing papers, taking notes, that sort of thing.”

What, Emily thought, did any of this have to do with her skills as a piano player? Unless… Her mouth went dry. Was this leading to a request for references? Max wouldn’t give any. Gus wouldn’t, either. In fact, he’d probably do his best to —