Sex By The Numbers
Marie Donovan
Dear Esteemed Clients, Please disregard any minor discrepancies in your holdings. We are working diligently to discover which of our trusted executives has his hand in the till. Sincerely, the Management.Accountant Keeley Davis has been hired to find out who's been bilking money from the well-respected Bingham Bros. investment firm. To do so, Keeley will have to don a disguise and work closely with tastier-than-homemade-cherry-pie controller Dane Weiss!As Keeley tramps herself up as Dane's personal assistant Cherry Smith her calculations start paying off big dividends–like when she serves up a hot plate of Dane ? la mode. But as things start to really sizzle, Keeley wonders whether she can keep her eyes on the bottom line. . . when all she can think of is keeping Dane in her bed?
“I think I have an idea of what you need…”
Dane sincerely hoped not.
“I’ll leave first,” Keeley said, picking up her raincoat. “We don’t want to be seen together.”
“Good idea.” Dane felt foolish about the cloak-and-dagger stuff, but that didn’t keep him from admiring her ass as she strolled away. She paused and looked over her shoulder to catch him staring. He gave a feeble little wave and her lips curved in a small smile.
Then she pushed out the cafå’s door and disappeared.
Dane exhaled loudly. Had Keeley tried to arouse him on purpose? If so, she’d done a good job. He did have big appetites, and not just for fine food, but for fine women.
And now he had the sneaking suspicion that he could eat a whole can of cherry filling off another woman’s body and it wouldn’t have the same impact on him as the earlier sight of Keeley’s pink tongue licking her finger clean thanks to that cherry tartlet….
Dear Reader,
Keeley Davis, the heroine of Sex by the Numbers, popped onto my computer screen as I was writing my previous book, Bare Necessities. One of the exotic dancers says she needs a costume receipt for her accountant, a former exotic dancer herself.
A stripper-turned-accountant intrigued me. I had no name, no physical description, only that she was a small-town girl determined to lift herself out of a difficult background. But I had just the man for her—ambitious, brawny Dane Weiss, a farm-raised, world-traveling business consultant.
Keeley is all those girls we vaguely wonder about after we leave high school—the girls of whom little is expected, except to drop out of school and work unskilled jobs. What if one of those girls surprised everyone by getting her education and a great career? A surprise to everyone except herself, because she always knew she was tough enough, smart enough and brave enough to succeed.
Here’s to all the girls who make it and the people who help them!
Marie Donovan
P.S. I’m delighted to hear from my readers. Visit www.mariedonovan.com to enter fun contests and learn more about my upcoming books.
SEX BY THE NUMBERS
Marie Donovan
TORONTO • NEW YORK • LONDON
AMSTERDAM • PARIS • SYDNEY • HAMBURG
STOCKHOLM • ATHENS • TOKYO • MILAN • MADRID
PRAGUE • WARSAW • BUDAPEST • AUCKLAND
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Marie Donovan, an award-winning author, is a Chicago-area native who got her fill of tragedies and unhappy endings by majoring in opera/vocal performance and Spanish literature. As an antidote to all that gloom, she read romance novels voraciously throughout college and graduate school.
Donovan has worked for a large suburban public library for the past nine years as both a cataloguer and a bilingual Spanish storytime presenter. She graduated magna cum laude with two bachelor’s degrees from a Midwestern liberal arts university and speaks six languages. She enjoys reading, gardening and yoga.
Books by Marie Donovan
HARLEQUIN BLAZE
204—HER BODY OF WORK
302—HER BOOK OF PLEASURE
371—BARE NECESSITIES
To my mother, a self-made woman,
whose bravery continues to this day,
and to all the girls she’s helped.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Epilogue
1
“ARE YOU SURE my breast implants aren’t tax-deductible?” The blond bombshell sitting across from Keeley Davis tapped her acrylic nails on the rich brown maple desk. “That exotic dancer in Indiana got hers deducted and they weren’t that much bigger than mine.”
Keeley turned away from her laptop screen, where she was reviewing Sugar’s tax return. Tax season was finally wrapping up, and none too soon for a poor, worn-out accountant. “Sorry, Sugar—it’d be a long shot. The tax court is cracking down on what they regard as frivolous deductions and I doubt we could get it past them. We can write off your costumes and the tinted latex nipple makeup, but that’s about it. No personal care like tanning, manicures or hair extensions.”
“And we can’t appeal? I only got the implants for professional reasons, you know.” Sugar pursed her pink glossy lips.
Keeley had known her friend and client too long to fall for her act. She peered over the tops of her glasses. “And you get no personal benefits from them?”
Sugar smacked her arm playfully. “Oh, all right, you naughty girl. I didn’t lose any nerve sensation from the surgery and my last boyfriend and I did enjoy them.”
“Thought so.” Keeley pushed her glasses back up her nose to focus on the computer again. “And if we make an issue over this, the IRS might want to look in to how much of your cash tips you’ve been reporting as income.” Keeley wasn’t a novice to IRS audits, but didn’t exactly enjoy them, either.
“Hmmph.” Sugar backed down, like Keeley thought she would. As a certified public accountant, Keeley couldn’t take part in tax evasion in the form of under-reporting garter or G-string tips, but she had a good idea that Sugar salted away her own personal cash stash, and who could blame her? Keeley would do the exact same thing in the same situation.
But Keeley was on the straight and narrow, just taking the figures Sugar gave her and plugging them into the tax program, although sometimes she raised an eyebrow at an obviously low figure. Sugar would revise it upward without blinking.
Keeley added in a couple of last-minute expenses Sugar had brought over today. Sugar, not one to sit still for any period of time, paced around the small office. Her long legs took her rapidly from one terra-cotta faux-painted wall to the other, the beige Berber carpet muffling her sneaker-clad steps. Like some dancers, Sugar had foot problems and only wore high heels onstage and on dates.
Keeley rotated her own brown-pump-clad foot under her desk. Her shoes matched her hair, her eyes, her jacket and her skirt. She was a big brown wren in comparison to her flashier blond friend, but accountants couldn’t exactly sport cleavage T-shirts and midthigh denim miniskirts.
Sugar stopped to eye a pair of watercolor prints of Florence, Italy. Keeley had never been there, but the red tile roofs matched the whole rich, Tuscan, trust-me-with-your-finances theme she wanted to emphasize. After all, accountants working in Renaissance Florence had invented double-entry bookkeeping.
Keeley printed the return and eyed it one last time before passing the pages to Sugar. “Read these over before I file electronically.”
Sugar sat and speed-read through the papers. She looked as if she was skimming, but Keeley knew she was tallying every number to the penny. She finally raised her blond head and smiled. “I suppose that’s as good as it gets without writing off the breast implants.”
Keeley shrugged, palms upward. “If you really want me to try…”
“No, I guess not. After all, pigs get fat, but hogs get slaughtered.” Sugar signed the bottom page for her own records.
“That’s right.” Keeley’d heard that saying more than once growing up in downstate Illinois. Not that there had been enough to even get slightly plump on. “Off it goes to Uncle Sam. Since you’ve made your quarterly payments, you don’t owe any more than usual.”
“Whoopee. I’ll have to schedule myself at Frisky’s a couple more nights to make up for it.”
“If any of your clients work for the IRS, charge them double.” And now that Keeley’s highest-earning season was almost over, she’d have to save her money to make it last as long as possible until next winter.
Sugar passed the papers to Keeley. “By the way, Keel, I recommended your accounting services to an old friend of mine.”
“Oh, who?” That might help tide her over while she built her client base.
Sugar grinned. “Binky Bingham.”
“Boy, when you said ‘old,’ you weren’t kidding. I thought he croaked last fall after hot-tubbing with that dancer from Chicago Gentlemen’s Club.” And why on earth would Binky Bingham, billionaire, need accounting services from her fledgling business?
“Alive and kicking. He’s still one of her regulars, in and out of the club.”
Keeley made a face. Binky fancied himself quite the ladies’ man and had the money to make it so. Sugar was Binky’s occasional arm candy, especially when he wanted to scare his children and grandchildren into thinking he was going to leave his money to her. He was lucky they hadn’t had him declared legally incompetent and locked him up somewhere.
Sugar laughed. “Don’t look at me like that. Aside from dancing for him at Frisky’s, I sure never spent any time naked with him, hot tub or no.”
“That’s a relief.” Binky Bingham was older than dirt and twice as ugly. Keeley was glad to hear Sugar hadn’t slept with the old goat.
“You’re telling me. Not even all of his money would be enough. For such a financial genius, he sure wasn’t thinking with the right head. Viagra, a hot tub and a previous heart attack? Why didn’t he just step in front of a bus? Potentially less fatal and definitely less embarrassing.”
“You know Binky is incapable of embarrassment.”
Sugar raised a perfectly French-manicured finger. “Personally, no. But professionally, yes. That’s why your name came up.” She leaned over the desk. “You absolutely cannot tell anyone what I’m going to tell you. Promise?”
Keeley narrowed her eyes. “I can’t be party to anything illegal, you know that.”
Her friend shook her head. “Not illegal—not so far.”
“So far? Sugar, this doesn’t sound good at all.”
“It’s about Binky’s company. He thinks one of his executives is stealing money from the trust funds.”
Keeley gave an astonished whistle. Bingham Brothers was the granddaddy of Chicago’s financial companies, managing hundreds of millions of dollars since before the 1929 stock market crash. “It’s possible, of course, but there are so many safeguards to theft. These huge companies have hundreds of people overseeing the books.”
“Binky grew up with those books, and he has a gut feeling they’re bad. He went into the office several times to poke around and says the atmosphere is pure poison.”
“Hmmm.” Keeley turned over possibilities in her mind. “Why doesn’t Binky call for an audit?”
“And flush his company’s reputation down the toilet? Not to mention his family’s reputation. Hot-tub hijinks are one thing, but missing money is unforgivable.”
Keeley nodded. A whiff of scandal and the company would bottom out. It had happened before to Chicago financial firms, usually involving bankruptcy, corporate dissolution and prison terms. “So what does Binky think I can do? I can’t exactly walk in off the street and look at the books. It would take months for a whole team of auditors to examine everything.”
“He has a smaller, specific group of accounts to audit first. When I told him you’d completed a certificate in forensic accounting, his wrinkly little face just lit up. He said his representative would be in touch to get you inside for a covert audit.”
“A covert audit?” Despite her misgivings, Keeley’s investigative antennae perked up. She loved digging for money, ever since she was a kid checking the couch for loose change.
“So you’ll do it? Binky knows absolutely everybody and can get you on the fast track if he recommends you to his friends. And you know you can bill him a bundle.”
Binky would probably expect her to bill a respectable hourly consultant fee. She wouldn’t gouge him, but she could legitimately bill more for doing the audit on the sly, and probably expert witness fees as well if it became a matter for the courts. Although she’d worked her way through school and had no student debt, she did have obligations. “I’ll listen to what his representative says. Did he say who that is?”
“No names were mentioned, just that he was one of Binky’s protågås and totally trustworthy.”
Keeley snorted and Sugar giggled. Men were so naive. Nobody was totally trustworthy, especially when large sums of money were concerned.
“I WOULD HAVE BEEN happy to come to your office, Binky.” Dane Weiss leaned over the small table to shout into his elderly friend’s ear over the pulsing rock music. “Or your condo.” Penthouse, rather, overlooking Lake Michigan and the rest of the city. Binky had an entire floor in Lakenheath Towers, one of Chicago’s most exclusive buildings.
But Binky preferred a different kind of penthouse—the kind with naked women in it. “And miss the lunchtime show at Frisky’s? At my age, I can’t stay awake for the evening show.” He cackled and gestured expansively to the nubile chicks cavorting above them on the runway. One flipped over and slid down a pole using just her thighs, and Dane winced. He’d never figured how they did that without friction burns, but probably some trick of the trade involving baby powder.
It wasn’t as if he were a stranger to these places, having worked his way through grad school as Binky’s driver/personal assistant, but he did his best to ignore the buffet of female flesh literally spread in front of him. He wasn’t there for a lap dance—not that Binky would mind if he did partake.
Although the lunchtime dancers weren’t quite the A-string team in their G-strings, Binky didn’t care. With his overtipping, he was the life of the party. “Here, sweetheart, this is for you.” He slipped a fifty into the nearest girl’s garter.
Dane tried to stop him, not because Binky had to watch his pennies, but because the other girls spotted Ulysses S. Grant’s bearded scowl and flocked to Binky like seagulls on a leftover sandwich. The other customers grumbled as all the entertainment clumped around the oldest and richest patron in the club.
Binky passed each of them a fifty, accepting their coos and cheek pinches. Of course the old reprobate knew them all by name.
Dane checked his watch. He’d do about anything for Binky, but sitting in a titty bar wasn’t the best use of his time. Besides, Dane’s fashion designer sister Bridget still occasionally made costumes for her stripper friends here and would give him hell if she caught him. Something about being a hypocrite for complaining how she had put herself through school sewing specially designed outfits for the dancers. Time to move this meeting along.
Dane raised his voice and gestured at the disgruntled mob across the runway. “Okay, girls, thanks for visiting, but we have business to discuss.”
His meaning was clear. Dane figured his blond bulk helped put the point across. The dancers slinked off, Binky staring wistfully after them, his white hair mussed and cheeks marked with five different sets of lip prints.
“Dane, Dane, Dane, my boy. There is no business so urgent that one must disappoint the ladies.”
Dane wanted to say that the ladies were only disappointed by not getting another fifty in their garters, but kept his comments to himself. “On the phone, you said this was urgent.”
Binky sighed, his shoulders drooping. “I did invite you here for a reason—besides the entertainment. This was one of the only places I go where I am reasonably certain that none of my staff attend.”
Dane nodded in agreement. Bingham Brothers was, to put it charitably, a traditional financial organization. Hidebound and stuffy were other less charitable descriptions. But despite its moldy-oldie air, it had an impeccable reputation. Binky was still the chairman of the board despite his semiretirement. “What’s up, Binky?”
His friend leaned in. “I think one of my executives is stealing from the funds entrusted to us by some of our oldest and most vulnerable clients.”
That jolted Dane out of his complacency. “The trust funds?” Bingham Brothers managed money for the richest families in the nation, not just Chicago.
Binky nodded, misery apparent on his quivering lip. “It might even be Charlie.”
“Charlie? Your Charlie?” Charles Andrew Bingham VI was Binky’s grandson and a total prick, but Dane had never figured him for a thief. “But he’s the chief financial officer. Why would Charlie steal from his own company? Doesn’t he make over ten million a year?”
“It may not be the money, Dane. Charlie’s always blamed me for his father’s death.” Binky sighed. “As if I ever had any control over Quint. Reckless, foolish boy. I thought having a son of his own would settle him, but sadly that was not to be.”
Dane blew out a long breath. For Binky this wasn’t only professional, it was personal. Damn. “Who else knows about this?”
“I asked a friend for advice. She’s very savvy and gave me the name of a forensic accountant who can audit the accounts, if it comes to that.”
“Can you trust this friend of yours not to blab?”
“Of course. Sugar Jones and I have been dear, dear friends for years.” Despite his low mood, Binky managed to leer convincingly.
“Sugar Jones?” Dane fought back a groan. Sugar’s mind was one giant business plan. She probably knew to the penny how much money Binky had stuffed into her garter over the years. Plus compounded interest.
“You know her?” Whoops, now Binky was getting territorial on him, like a miniature white poodle protecting a favorite squeak toy.
Dane held up his hands in a gesture of appeasement. “Purely business. She models for my sister’s lingerie company.”
“Lovely!” Binky beamed, his face crinkling into a map of wrinkles. Friends again. “I’ll have to get her to model for me.”
Dane figured modeling lingerie was more clothing than Sugar usually wore. “Binky, what do you want me to do?”
“Welcome aboard, you’re my new controller-in-training.”
Dane’s jaw dropped. “But you already have a controller. Do you think he’s involved in the missing money?”
“Glenn? No, of course not. He’s wanted to retire for some time now but hasn’t found a successor to his liking. Now he has.”
Dane nodded. Glenn would do whatever Binky wanted. After all, Binky was still the boss.
“You’re between consulting jobs, correct?”
As usual, Binky’s sources were accurate. “I do have some downtime.” But he planned on sleeping in for once in his life, seeing the sights of Chicago and getting laid. Not necessarily in that order.
A pretty brunette swiveled by, her legs going for miles and her long hair playing peekaboo with her firm brown nipples. She caught Dane’s eye and tossed her hair back to reveal a killer pair of high, round tits.
Binky nudged him and passed him a fifty. “On me, dear boy.”
Dane demurred but Binky insisted, and Dane found himself offering the bill to the stripper, who wiggled her hips to sit on her high heels. He slipped the money into her garter, his finger skimming across her firm thigh. She ran her tongue around her lips and blew him a sultry air kiss. “Later,” she mouthed and moved off when no more tips were forthcoming.
“I think she likes you!” Binky crowed.
Dane rolled his eyes. Of course she liked him, or rather liked Binky’s money. He shifted uneasily on the chair and adjusted his pants. Dammit, the naked girls were finally starting to get to him.
He gave the brunette stripper’s ass one last wistful gaze and turned to Binky. He owed the older man a great deal, and now was the time to pay him back. Maybe it would be a quick task to find the thief and then Dane could get to his personal business. “Okay, Binky. Tell me everything you know and how to get in touch with Sugar’s friend.”
Binky’s shoulders slumped with relief and his brown eyes misted over. “Thank you.”
Dane sighed and flipped open his BlackBerry. “You might not thank me if it turns out to be Charlie.”
Binky shook his head firmly, the fun-loving rouå replaced by the hard-nosed businessman. “No one steals from Bingham Brothers and gets away with it. Especially not a Bingham.”
KEELEY ANSWERED her ringing phone. Good thing Sugar hadn’t convinced her to play hooky after treating her to lunch at the bistro around the corner. “Hello?”
“Keeley Davis, please.”
“Speaking.” But just barely. The deep masculine voice on the other end of the phone was making her speech processes a bit fuzzy.
“My name is Dane Weiss, and some mutual friends suggested we get in contact.”
Ah, yes, Binky’s lieutenant. Geez, he was making it sound like a blind date setup. Although if he looked as good as he sounded…back to the cloak-and-dagger stuff. “How sweet of them.” She leaned heavily on the word sweet to see if he was quick enough to understand.
“Sweet as Sugar, if you can afford it.”
She smiled at his dry tone. He’d probably met Sugar before, especially if he was a personal friend of Binky’s. “And you can’t afford it?”
“There are certain things a man doesn’t need to pay for.”
Keeley sat back in her chair and fanned her face. How true. She was about ready to give it up for this guy and she’d only been talking to him for thirty seconds. For the sake of her now-staid, CPA self, she hoped he was married, twice her age or gay. Or bald. No, bald would be fine as long as he kept talking. Well, somebody needed to keep talking. She realized their conversation had tapered off into a long, awkward pause while she’d been panting over him.
He seemed to realize the sensual bent of his words and hastened onward. “I’d like to meet with you to discuss this project. Where would be good for you?”
She could think of several places where Dane Weiss might be good for her but shoved those thoughts to the back of her mind. “You’re more than welcome to come to my office.”
“I’d rather we met in a social setting. This is quite sensitive material and I don’t want to be seen visiting an accountant’s office.”
“Sure, I understand. Let’s meet at the coffee shop a few blocks from my office.” She gave him directions to her favorite place.
“Sounds great. How about three o’clock?”
“Today?” It was already past one.
“Definitely. I want to meet you as soon as possible.”
Woof. Down, girl. “All right, three o’clock. How will I know you?” Now it really sounded like a blind date.
“I have a white shirt and red tie on today.”
Yawn. So did every other businessman in the city. “What, no rose in your lapel?” Oops, her smart mouth went off again.
“No, I’ll have it between my teeth.” His deadpan comeback startled her into laughter. “How will I know you?”
“I have brown hair in a bun, a brown suit and glasses.” Boy, that sounded boring. She frowned at her outfit. No time to go home and change. Oh, well. She was near the end of tax season and didn’t have much clean laundry anyway.
“Okay, Keeley. I’ll see you at three.”
“See you, Dane.” She hung up and drummed her nails on the desktop. No time for a manicure, either, noting her buffed natural fingertips.
Oh, well. It wasn’t as if she needed stripper nails like Sugar’s anyway.
2
KEELEY PUSHED through the bakery door and dangled her wet umbrella over the mat. A spring squall had broken over the city after her intriguing phone conversation and had driven rain under her umbrella, spattering her glasses and pulling damp strands of hair loose to straggle along her cheeks.
She probably looked like something the cat dragged in, but after all, accountants didn’t get paid for their hairdos, just what was under it.
The teenage girl behind the counter greeted her with a slight Polish accent. Yum, she loved Eastern European bakeries. None of that low-fat, high-fiber, no-taste nonsense.
Maybe one treat. Since she was sitting at her desk more and more, she had to be careful of her carb intake. Hmm, chocolate chip cookies, donuts, sweet rolls, apple crisps and—ooh, cherry tarts. With a delicious sense of irony, she ordered the tart and a skinny latte.
She put her change in the tip jar and carried her coffee and sweet to a table on the side wall, where she could watch the door without being in its direct line of sight. A tall potted plant blocked her a bit, but she’d manage.
She placed a napkin on her lap and carefully bit into the tart, the flaky crust breaking apart on her tongue. The cherry filling was better than the usual canned pie filling, with vanilla and almond extracts mixed in. Delish. She really needed to treat herself more often. After all, a few extra minutes—or hours—on the elliptical trainer would take care of it.
Not quite three o’clock. Keeley’d have time to finish her tart and get down to business with Binky’s buddy, Dane. The bell over the glass door chimed, and she peeped though the leaves like Sheena, Queen of the Jungle, sizing up her prey.
Rowrrr. A big blond guy walked in, black trench coat dripping on the floor mat. He flipped his wet hair off his forehead and wiped his eyes. Keeley couldn’t exactly tell at this distance, but she guessed they were probably blue. He had the total Nordic-god, lusty-viking-raider look going on, probably several inches taller than her own five foot eleven and three quarters.
He ordered a drink and took his change with a ring-free left hand, promptly dropping the coins into the tip jar. Not a cheapskate. Then he smiled at the girl behind the counter, and dimples popped up in his cheek. She blushed and stammered, and Keeley shifted in her seat. Come on, open that trench coat. She wanted to see if he had a gut like other big guys often did.
As if he’d heard her mental begging, he undid his coat buttons. No way. No way. The trim blond hunk wearing a white shirt and red tie couldn’t be Binky Bingham’s right-hand man. She’d imagined some older guy in his forties or fifties who just happened to have a voice as sexy and sinful as dark chocolate. This guy was some coffee junkie popping in for his afternoon fix.
As if he’d felt her astonished stare, he turned to meet her eyes. Keeley froze, hunter becoming the prey as he stalked toward her through the coffee shop. For a big guy, he moved easily through the maze of tables with a loose-hipped stride.
He stopped next to her table and stared at her. His eyes were blue, after all—cool blue like a spring sky. “Is this seat taken?”
As one final test, she raised an eyebrow. “I don’t know. Do you have a rose?”
He grinned. “Sorry to disappoint, but it’s impossible to drink coffee with a stem between my teeth.”
Bingo. “Dane Weiss?” She stood and had the unusual sensation of looking well up into a man’s face. A welcome change from having short guys staring into her cleavage. “Keeley Davis.”
“Pleased to meet you.” He set his coffee on the table and enfolded her hand in his own large one. Her fingers, almost always chilly, tingled as he warmed them. “I hope you haven’t been waiting long.”
Just long enough to get herself all hot and bothered. “Not at all. It was nice to get out of the office for a break. I usually push myself pretty hard.”
“Me, too.” He released her hand, and she missed his warmth. “Mind if I sit?”
“Be my guest.” She nodded at the seat across from her. He sat on the small wooden chair, testing his size on it first before settling all the way. It looked like a child’s chair under him.
“Cherry tart?”
“What do you mean?” Sugar hadn’t told Binky about her, had she? She promised she wouldn’t.
He gestured at her pastry. “I see you like cherry tarts.”
“Oh. Yes.” No reason to get defensive. “They’re my favorites.”
“Mine, too. I grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin, and we have several cherry trees in the orchard. My mom makes the best cherry jam, pies, tarts, you name it.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever had fresh cherry pie.” She’d mostly grown up on snack pies her mother had brought home from the convenience store.
“You don’t know what you’re missing. The fruit explodes on your tongue, a bit tangy at first, but then mellowing into pure sweetness.”
Keeley tried not to gape at him. My God, the man should be narrating erotica audiobooks. Cherries exploding into pure sweetness on his tongue? She really, really wanted to see that tongue in action. “You sound like you miss it. Would you like some of mine?” She pushed her plate toward him.
“Oh, no, I couldn’t eat your sweets on you.”
Oh, yes, he could. “Really, go ahead. It’s a big tart.” And so, apparently, was she. Old habits died hard.
He smiled at her the way he’d smiled at the teenage counter girl. Friendliness, but nothing more. “Just a small taste.”
She didn’t want friendliness. She wanted him to feel the same achy awareness that he was stirring in her. And during tax season, of all times. “Take as much as you want. Big men like you have big appetites.”
He gave a quick blink at that statement, but broke off half the tart and took a bite with white teeth that had obviously received above and beyond the recommended daily allowance of dairy products. “Mmmm, not as good as Mom’s, but still delicious.”
“Isn’t it?” She swirled her finger through the cherry filling and slowly sucked it clean. He sipped his coffee, the only hint of interest a slight flaring of his nostrils.
Good grief, the only way she could be any more obvious was if she unbuttoned her boring, off-white blouse and flashed him her rack. But she did admire self-control. Such a rare quality in a man.
DANE DRANK his coffee, hoping his rain-dampened hair would mask the fact that he’d started sweating at the sight of Keeley sucking cherry filling off her finger. “So about the project.”
“Yes.” She flipped open her leather-bound notepad, all business now. “Tell me what’s going on.”
He quietly filled her in on Binky’s suspicions of his grandson and she nodded as she took notes. “I see,” she began. “The subject of your investigation is the chief financial officer who has access to pretty much every account in the company, but other people obviously have access as well.”
“Yeah, that’s right.”
“And you? Do you have access to those accounts?” She gave him a hard stare. “Any girlfriends who work there and have access to those accounts?”
He grinned. She was no fool. But if he were the thief, he would never hire a sharp cookie like her. “No, no girlfriends who work there. I’ve never worked there before and have had absolutely no access to any of their funds. I will as soon as I start as acting controller, but if you take the job you’ll be able to look over my shoulder and keep me on the straight and narrow.”
“I was wondering how you were going to get me in. Or can you download the accounts for me to look at off-site?”
“No, you’ll have to do the audit on-site. It might tip the thief off if I come on board as controller-in-training and start taking specific account information home right away.”
“So I’ll come in after hours and audit?”
“Not exactly.” Dane took a deep breath. “Binky suggested you work at the company as my executive assistant.”
She looked as if she’d swallowed a cherry pit. “You want me to be your secretary?”
“My executive assistant,” he corrected, knowing semantics were futile.
“Ha. Big difference.” She crumpled her napkin and tossed it on the table.
Not good. If she turned him down, he’d have to find another reputable accountant, delaying Binky’s peace of mind even further. “The audit is your first priority. Believe me, I’m not going to send daily memos or write the company’s annual report.”
“That would be fun. ‘Dear esteemed clients of Bingham Brothers, please disregard any minor discrepancies in your holdings. We are working diligently to discover which of our trusted executives has his or her hand in the till. Sincerely, the management.’”
He laughed. Sure, it was an awful situation, but her humor helped lighten things.
Keeley’s regretful expression was obvious. “I’d really like to help you, but I don’t think it would work. I’ve met Charlie Bingham several times at financial networking events. I doubt he’d recognize me immediately, but he would if I spent all day in his office for several weeks.”
“Damn.” Dane frowned. He hadn’t considered that. Leaning back in his chair to give the situation some thought, he immediately straightened when one of the legs creaked ominously. Coffeehouse chairs were either made for skinny city guys who subsisted on caffeine alone or women like the one sitting across from him.
Hmm. Under that bulky brown jacket, her tucked-in white blouse revealed a slender waist and her long skirt showed some firm calves, if not her thighs.
She cleared her throat and his gaze flew to her face. Instead of the demure blush he expected at his less-than-subtle examination, she merely looked sardonic. “Did you get a good look?”
Not hardly, but he wasn’t going to say that. “Don’t take this the wrong way—”
“Oh, I love it when men start a sentence with that disclaimer.”
“Okay, okay.” He backed off. “What I was going to ask, have you usually worn outfits like that when you met Charlie Bingham?”
“No, he took me to prom. Of course, he’s seen my work clothes.” She peered over her glasses at him as if he were an idiot, but he forged onward.
“What if you had different clothes?”
“What?”
“Not accountant clothes—younger, lighter outfits.”
“More…revealing?” Her voice dipped into the husky range. She brushed her fingers over her blouse’s top button and unfastened it. She crossed her legs under the glass-topped table and hiked her skirt to her knee. She’d uncovered maybe three inches of skin in total, but Dane still found it arousing. She leaned forward, her attention totally on him. “Dane, do you want me to play dress-up for you?”
“More like a makeover,” he managed to say, wondering where the sex-kitten persona had come from.
Just as quick as he wondered, she switched back to frowning CPA. “A makeover? Who do you think you are? Pygmalion? Professor Henry Higgins? The guys from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy?”
“Hey! I meant disguise, not makeover.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You know, like wearing contacts instead of glasses, maybe letting your hair down, wearing less brown…” His voice trailed off into a silent sigh. He’d handled this situation with all the finesse of the farm-fresh hayseed he used to be—or even worse, his dad’s bull Caesar. “Look, I’m sorry. I understand if you don’t want to take this job after this awkward beginning, but if you do want it, it’s yours, disguise or no.”
Her eyebrows pulled together. “You don’t know me, and you’re trusting me with such a big project.”
“I did check you out.”
“You did? And what did you find?”
“I verified your credentials, lack of criminal record, the basics.”
“Ah.” She nodded, relaxing the tiniest bit.
Had he missed something? His P.I. had done a routine check on her. Then he looked at her calm expression and decided to drop it. Maybe she’d gotten into trouble as a teenager, records he didn’t have access to. Unless she’d done juvie time for embezzlement, he didn’t really care. “And Sugar’s recommendation carries a lot of weight. That woman is a walking financial calculator.”
Instead of reassuring her, she frowned again. “How do you know Sugar?”
Ah, she was probably wondering if he was one of Sugar’s lap-dance clients. “Not from her work, at least not directly. She models for my sister Bridget’s lingerie line.”
She grinned. “Oh, yes. ‘Bras by Brigitte.’”
“Yeah. That’s it.” Silly fake-French marketing ploy, but sales were taking off.
“I’ll have to look for some of her designs when I’m shopping. For my makeover.”
It took him a second. “You mean you’ll do it? That’s great!”
She raised a slim hand. “Don’t get all excited yet. Binky Bingham is going to pay me big-time.”
“Hey, he wouldn’t expect anything less.” Binky was used to paying women lots of money.
Her next words proved she knew Binky’s habits as well. “I don’t accept cash, especially tightly rolled fifties. He can write me checks at the beginning, middle and end of the audit, with additional billing if I get involved in legal proceedings.”
“And he’ll pay for any clothing you may need to do the job.”
She raised an eyebrow. “A clothing allowance? Maybe I will get one of your sister’s pricey bras. Sugar says they’re so comfortable, you practically feel naked.”
A naked Keeley? Images of Keeley undressed like the brunette stripper from Frisky’s tumbled around his head. He never mixed business with pleasure, and Binky’s business was important. Dane didn’t need to ask himself what was wrong—he already knew.
“Dane?” Her questioning voice broke into his confusion. “Here, take a napkin before your pants get stained.”
“What?” He looked in horror at the paper napkin she offered him. Sure, she was turning him on, but he wasn’t even close to staining anything.
With an exasperated sigh, she dropped the napkin on the table in front of him and soaked up a puddle of coffee. “Your cup is leaking.”
“Oh.” He didn’t realize he’d crumpled his paper cup while imagining her naked. He grabbed more napkins and mopped the mess. Lucky he’d almost finished his coffee. “So, Keeley. Tax season is almost over. When can you start working at Bingham Brothers?”
“April fifteen is next Wednesday. After that, I need a couple days off to shop and catch up on my sleep. I’ve been getting by on four or five hours a night, and I want to spend all day in bed if I feel like it.”
Boy, did he feel like spending all day in bed with her. He nodded brusquely. “Will the following Monday work for you?”
“Monday, it is.”
“Good. I’ll courier over a check for your advance and clothing allowance, and I’ll expect you at 8:00 a.m. sharp at Bingham Brothers. Wear your new clothes.”
She raised an eyebrow. “Yes, sir, Mr. Weiss. I’ll practice my shorthand over the weekend in case you want to give me your dictation.”
Man, did she have to use that word? “Not necessary.” He passed her his business card. “My cell number’s on the front. Call me with any questions.”
“I think I have an idea of what you need.”
He sincerely hoped not.
She stood, shimmied her skirt to midcalf and picked up her raincoat. He rose and they shook hands again. “I’ll leave first. We don’t want to be seen together.”
“Good idea.” He felt foolish about the cloak-and-dagger stuff but that didn’t keep him from admiring her ass as she strolled away. Her plain brown pumps had enough of a heel to add just the right amount of wiggle, and the watery sunlight lit the strands of caramel-colored hair that escaped from her bun. She paused before opening the door and looked over her shoulder to catch him staring. He gave a feeble little wave and her lips curved in a small smile.
Then she pushed out the door and disappeared among the busy pedestrian traffic.
Dane exhaled loudly. Had Keeley been trying to arouse him on purpose? If so, she’d done a good job. Talking about his big appetites hadn’t helped any, either. He did have big appetites, and not just for fine food, but for fine women.
But now he had the sneaking suspicion that he could eat a whole can of cherry filling off another woman’s naked body, and that wouldn’t have the same impact on him as the sight of Keeley’s pink tongue licking her finger clean. Dammit, dammit, dammit.
3
“CONTROLLER-IN-TRAINING for Bingham Brothers?” Dane’s best friend and future brother-in-law Adam Hale drank his dark Guinness beer and raised a black eyebrow.
“Yep. Binky Bingham offered me the job a few days ago and I accepted. I moved my stuff into one of their corporate apartments until I find a permanent place.” Or until the audit was finished and Dane could move on. He gestured to the bartender to bring him another bottle of W?lfbr?u, a Wisconsin beer brewed not too far from his parents’ farm. He was drinking the original brew because that was what the bar carried, but his favorite variety was Wolfie’s Honey Weiss, a honey-flavored pale ale.
Adam shook his head. “I have to admit, I can’t see you working permanently for any company, much less them. I thought Charlie Bingham tried to punch you once.” Adam was a financial analyst for another big Chicago company and knew the local heavy hitters.
“Yeah, the keyword is tried.” Dane drank some beer and they both laughed. Charlie Bingham was a health club monkey, good for swinging off the bars but not much else. “I was attending the same charity function as his grandfather and Charlie made a drunken crack about Binky’s date.”
“Probably younger than Charlie,” Adam commented. “Still, not the thing to do to your family, especially in public.”
“He was upsetting Binky, so I said something to him and he took a swing at my jaw. He missed by a mile, so I pinned his arm behind his back and poured him into his limo to go sleep it off.”
“Gee, Dane, I can see why you’d jump at the chance to work there. Sixty-hour weeks in some bland office, fossilized business practices and a chief financial officer who’ll stab you in the back with his secretary’s letter opener if you drop your guard. A real dream job compared to your last few months freelancing for that up-and-coming Asian firm.” Adam rolled his eyes. “Come on, what’s up?”
Dane munched on some peanuts and considered what to say to Adam, who was part of the same industry and not uninterested in such an eminent company. Family or no, Binky’s confidentiality came first. “Binky asked me to come aboard. He’s not getting any younger, you know.”
“He’s not, but his dates are!” Adam caught Dane’s warning glance and grinned. “Okay, okay. I know Binky took you under his wing when you were a broke MBA student.”
“I owe him a lot, and now it’s time to pay him back.” His tone indicated it was a closed subject.
“Okay, Dane.” Adam reached for some pretzels and gazed at the baseball game on the TV. They were in a bar where the guys from the neighborhood stopped for a few brews before heading home. Despite Adam’s polished city-boy appearance, he came from a similar blue-collar background. “Geez, would you look at that? The Brewers are losing to the Cubs again. Pathetic.” He turned to Dane. “Well, Binky’s lucky to have someone like you at his side. Men in his position often don’t have any allies without their own agendas. You’re a loyal man.”
Loyal? Dane supposed he was, although he’d never thought of it that way. Loyal, dependable Dane. Not the most exciting description, but it beat being a rude jerk like Charlie.
What kind of man did Keeley like? Over the past several days since their coffee meeting, he’d caught himself looking forward to seeing her tomorrow morning. He hoped she’d bought some outfits that showed off her body a bit more. If Charlie thought she was only working there because Dane was interested in her, Charlie would have even more reason to drop his guard.
As long as Dane didn’t drop his. Problem was, he could instantly imagine Keeley taking his “dictation” naked and flat on her back on the conference table. Or maybe in the copier room against some paper cartons. Or sitting in a big leather office chair, her ankles draped over the arms.
He didn’t know why he was so attracted to her, considering he usually went for women who were obviously sexy and not afraid to show it. Maybe it was those flashes of sex-kittenhood popping out from her buttoned-up accountant persona. And the way she swung her ass from side to side when she absolutely had to know he was watching her. He rubbed his hand across his face.
“You okay?” Adam nudged his elbow. “You’re all red.”
“Am I?” He knew he was, judging from the heat in his cheeks. “Kind of warm in here.”
“If you say so.” The bar’s air-conditioning was turned to frigid temperatures thanks to a mid-April heat wave. Fortunately, his friend let it drop. “Bridget will be glad you’re going to stay in Chicago for a while. You can help us plan the wedding.”
“Oh, goody, can I?” Dane gave him a sidelong glance. It had taken some getting used to that his baby sister was living with and would be marrying Adam, Dane’s former bar buddy and champion chick-scoring wingman.
Adam cleared his throat. “After all, we want you to be my best man. You and your brother, that is.”
“Colin and me? Are you sure you want me? After all, I did try to strangle you when I learned you were dating Bridget.” More than just dating actually, but those events were better left unmentioned.
“Hey, what’s a little strangulation between brothers?” Adam joked, but his dark eyes were serious.
“Adam, ever since you and Colin were roommates at college, I’ve always thought of you as a brother. Marrying Bridget just makes it official.”
Adam swallowed hard and clapped him on the shoulder. “Thanks, buddy.”
“No problem.” Dane nodded and slapped him on the back in return. Okay, big emotional moment over. Maybe they could catch the end of the ball game.
“You know, this engagement and marriage thing is pretty cool.”
Dane gave a quiet sigh. Back to the emotional stuff. “Yep.”
“I mean, after all these years of knowing you guys and knowing your sister and having it all come together so we’re all together—it’s pretty cool.” Adam grinned like a goofball.
“Cool,” he agreed. Cool, if incoherent. What inning was the ball game in, anyway?
“Now that you’re staying put for more than one week, maybe you can meet someone, too.”
That got his attention. “Geez, Adam. Don’t go all squirrelly on me. I’m glad for you two, but now is not the right time in my life to go looking for anyone.” Adam would soon know that Dane’s time in Chicago would only be long enough to finish his investigation and move on. Dane already had some feelers out for his next consulting job.
“Love comes when you least expect it,” Adam intoned, the beige Guinness foam on his upper lip ruining the sentiment.
“What are you, a greeting card poet?” Dane shook his head. Adam had to be drunk to spout such sappy crap.
His friend smirked. “Laugh if you want, but you know the old saying—the bigger they are, the harder they fall. And you are one big guy.”
“That refers to being punched in the jaw, not falling in love.”
Adam grinned and socked him in the shoulder. “Take it from me. You won’t be able to tell the difference.”
“WHAT SHOULD WE DRINK TO?” Sugar hoisted her butterscotch-vanilla martini high in anticipation.
Keeley lifted her limoncello cocktail in response. “To the end of tax season!”
“To the start of a new tax year with lots more money!” Sugar slugged back her drink and Keeley followed suit, the tart liquor puckering her lips. Yum. The trendy bar they were drinking in made the coolest cocktails. Since it was Sunday night, the crowd was a bit lighter, but more casual than Friday or Saturday night. The weekend was basically over, so people were more relaxed and not trying so hard to hook up with each other.
“Thanks for treating me to dinner and drinks, Keeley. It’s fun to get dressed for a girls’ night out. I got stuck working Friday night and last night, so I could use a break before my Monday morning class.”
“Thanks for suggesting we come here, and you’re welcome. It’s the least I could do after you treated me to lunch last week.” After getting Binky’s first check, she had a bit of breathing room.
“But that was lunch, not dinner and drinks. You must have had a great tax season. Or maybe Binky’s gig panned out and you’re doing his audit?” Sugar swiped some butterscotch sauce off the rim of her martini glass and licked her finger.
Keeley hesitated, client confidentiality keeping her from spilling her guts.
“Oh, come on, Keel. You know Binky tells me everything.” She dug in her purse and held up her cell phone. “I can call him to give you permission if that would make you feel better.”
“If you want to know that badly, go ahead.”
Sugar pressed a couple buttons, and Binky’s name popped up on her phone screen.
“He’s on your speed dial?” Keeley whispered.
“Anyone with eight or nine zeroes in his bank account is on my speed dial,” Sugar whispered. “Hello, Binks, sweetie, how are you?”
Binky was apparently fine and wanted to tell Sugar all about it. Keeley slugged back the rest of her limoncello while Sugar made appropriate cooing noises. That was the trouble with dancers seeing customers outside of the club. They got way too involved with each other’s personal lives, and things could get messy. On the other hand, Binky’s fraternization with strippers had landed Keeley a job with him, so who was she to complain?
“Binky, I’m here with my good friend Keeley, but she’s superprofessional and won’t tell me a thing about your situation until you give her the green light.” She listened and handed the phone to Keeley. “He wants to talk to you.”
“Hello?”
“Binky Bingham, here. Please feel free to take Sugar into your confidence, my dear. She has one of the best business brains I’ve run in to. In fact, on that unfortunate day when she steps down from her entertaining career, I’ve told her she can have carte blanche of positions at Bingham Brothers.”
“Thank you, Mr. Bingham. I take my clients’ confidentiality very seriously—”
“Of course you do. Could you ask Sugar when she’s next scheduled to perform at Frisky’s?”
Keeley rolled her eyes but did as he asked.
“Wednesday. I’ll be looking for you, Binky!” she called into the phone.
“Excellent. Goodbye, and good luck, Kelly.” Binky hung up.
Close enough, as long as his check cleared.
“So who is Binky’s mysterious protågå?” Sugar leaned closer over her glass.
“You know him—Dane Weiss. I start working with him at Bingham Brothers tomorrow.”
“My, oh, my, Bridget’s brother!” Sugar whistled. “And how is the very virile viking these days?”
Keeley wondered if Sugar had ever been close to Dane’s “virility.” “You know him well, then?”
“I’ve met him a few times at Bridget’s functions, but never outside that.” She giggled and wiggled her perfectly groomed eyebrows. “Don’t worry, sweetie. He’s not a regular of mine. In fact, he thinks I’m a bad influence on his sweet little sis. She came to Chicago fresh from the family farm and fell in to designing stripper outfits for rent money. Of course, that’s how she got her big break, but that’s neither here nor there to him. He disapproves of the whole business.”
“Dane doesn’t like strippers and he’s a friend of Binky’s?” Keeley asked skeptically. “Binky does enough business at Frisky’s to list their address on his tax return.”
“Yeah, considering how much money he spends there, Tony the manager would offer Binky a lap dance himself to keep him happy.”
Keeley shuddered at the idea of short, fat Tony gyrating above Binky in his shiny gray suit and open-neck black shirt, his gold chains glittering. “I need another drink to get that picture out of my mind.”
Sugar hailed the waiter, who practically vaulted over three tables to get to her. He took their reorder and galloped back with their drinks.
Keeley took a sip of her limoncello cocktail. She loved the fresh lemon liqueur, a grown-up version of the el cheapo powdered lemonade she and her sister drank on hot summer days when they were kids. Lacey used to set up elaborate lemonade stands for the neighborhood kids while Keeley kept a protective eye on her. At least the lemonade stand had never been robbed, unlike the convenience store where their mom worked.
Dane Weiss had grown up on a dairy farm. She bet he never had to worry if his dad was going to come home from the barn or if a cow would pull a pistol on him.
“That was a pretty heavy sigh, Keel.” Sugar, an expert at reading people’s moods, eyed her over her martini rim. “Don’t worry about this gig with Dane. He’s a real straight shooter.”
Keeley shook her head. “If he’s such a straight shooter, I don’t know how this will all turn out.” She leaned over the table. “I’m going in undercover as his secretary.”
“Undercover or under the covers with Dane?” Sugar whooped.
“Ha, ha.” Although she had definitely considered the second possibility. Dane was so big, so strong and handsome…She drank most of her limoncello to try to cool off.
“If you don’t want him, I’ll give him another try. Maybe he likes blondes.”
“Hands off, honey,” Keeley snapped without thinking.
Sugar giggled. “Well, well. I haven’t heard that tone of voice from you in a long time.”
“Just slipped out,” she mumbled. And she couldn’t even blame the cocktails, since it was only her second.
“Keeley, darling, please put yourself first for once. Ever since we’ve known each other, you’ve been all work and no play. Helping your sister, putting yourself through school and finally taking that dreadful CPA exam—how many hours was it?”
“Fifteen long, torturous hours sitting in front of a computer terminal.”
“Ugh.” Sugar shuddered. “And I thought my MBA classes were bad. So when was the last time you got any?”
“Any what? Sleep?” Sugar was right. She had been going nonstop for months.
“You know what.”
“Oh, that. That’s been kind of low on my priority list lately.”
“Well, rewrite your priority list with that at the top. You could do worse than Dane Weiss to have some fun with. He’s single, handsome and really strong from that clean, dairy-farm upbringing. He’s built like a bull.”
“And probably hung like one, too,” Keeley answered without thinking. She’d seen a bit of a wiggle under his zipper during her double entendres at the bakery.
“There you go!” Sugar patted her hand. “Thank goodness, a sign of life after all.”
“I don’t know, Sugar. I’ll be working with him for several weeks and it could be awkward bringing sex into the equation.”
“Nonsense. It’ll add to the spice. Fear of discovery is a major turn-on for men. You know that.”
Keeley did know that. Could she put herself first for once? And would Dane even be receptive to her? “I don’t know. Maybe he won’t be interested in me. Maybe I’ve lost my touch.”
“Puh-leeze! Once you’ve got it, you never lose it. Ditch those boring brown dust rags you call clothes and lighten up. Just because you’re an accountant doesn’t mean you have to dress like a manila file folder.”
“That’s what Dane said. In fact, Binky’s paying me a clothing allowance to disguise myself so Charlie won’t recognize me from previous networking events.”
“Clothing allowance?” Sugar straightened. “How much?”
“A bundle. But I haven’t had time to spend it since I got stuck filing a bunch of tax extensions this weekend. I do have enough old outfits to get me through a few days at Bingham Brothers.”
“Your old outfits?” Sugar raised her eyebrow.
“I still fit in them, you know.” Geez, it wasn’t as if she’d porked up.
“Not exactly office wear.”
“I know that. Nobody will suspect the newest bimbo secretary of auditing the accounts, and besides, Dane told me to wear more revealing clothing.” He had no idea what he was in for tomorrow.
“Dane’s the boss. I know you’ll knock his socks off.”
Keeley drained her glass. “Maybe I’ll knock his pants off instead.”
KEELEY UNLOCKED the door to her second-floor walk-up apartment and hung her waist-length brown leather jacket on a hook in the narrow foyer. She walked into the small kitchen with its metal 1950s cabinets and tossed her keys on the gold-speckled Formica counter.
Her vintage 1905 greystone was one of the few buildings left untouched by the renovation bug sweeping through the Ukrainian Village neighborhood. Her landlady lived downstairs and had successfully resisted her sons’ attempts to move her into an assisted living home and sell out to a rehabber. Of course, once everything was overdeveloped, Ukrainian Village would lose the qualities that made it a fun place to live—reasonable rents, decent parking and a laid-back, yet hip atmosphere.
Keeley grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and headed into the bedroom to decide what on earth to wear on her first day as an undercover bimbo.
She opened the tiny closet and reached past the white-and-cream high-neck blouses, brown, black and gray suits, and the sensible neutral pumps and subdued silk scarves, to the clothes she never wore anymore, but hadn’t been able to let go of.
She pulled out skintight sleeveless tops in fuchsia, red and lime-green, skirts so short they were illegal in certain jurisdictions and the literal kicker, four-inch high stilettos and platform heels in black, white and clear plastic Lucite.
If bimbos ever got together and wrote a dress code, she could comply perfectly. She stripped off her khaki pants and cream-colored blouse and exchanged them for a low-cut white top, black miniskirt and black open-toed heels with rhinestone ankle straps.
She took a few experimental steps across her bedroom, her old sashay falling into place. The heels were higher than she was used to, but the rhinestones still sparkled nicely, if not as much as they had under the stage lights.
She stopped in front of the mirror. Something was out of place. The clothes were okay, her bod still fairly decent, but it was the hair. Too brunette.
She reached up to the top shelf—easy to do in her platforms—and picked a round white box. Blowing the dust off, she set it on her bed and studied her emphatic hot-pink printing on the top. Property of Cherry Tarte!!! She shook her head at the juvenile writing. At least she hadn’t drawn hearts to dot the exclamation points.
She removed the lid and lifted out her absolutely favorite red-haired wig, its luxuriant waves cascading over her hands. Brenda Starr-red. Rita Hayworth-red. Ann-Margret-red. And of course, stripper-red.
Pulling the wig on, she tucked her hair under it and stared at her reflection. “Hello again, Cherry,” she said to herself. “Bet you thought you’d never come out of retirement.”
For it had been the infamous Cherry Tarte, Keeley’s alter ego, who had paid for her accounting degree by baring it all for the boys at the Love Shack. It was ironic, to say the least, that she’d use Cherry’s persona for what could be the biggest accounting job of her career.
And it was all thanks to Dane Weiss and his need for a bimbo forensic accountant. She couldn’t wait to see his face when his new executive assistant started work tomorrow morning all tarted up. Or rather, “Cherry-Tarted.”
4
RUNNING LATE WAS not the way Dane wanted to start his pseudocareer at Bingham Brothers, but he’d stayed awake late going over the background materials from Binky. Probably a whole lotta nothing, but he always needed to know about the major players before he walked into a new place.
Dane paid the cabbie in front of the LaSalle Street skyscraper that housed Bingham Brothers and punched the elevator button to take him to the offices on the upper floors.
It was a long elevator ride, and he yawned, partly to pop his ears and partly because he needed to. Even after he went to bed, he’d dreamed of the brunette stripper from Frisky’s. Not particularly unusual for a guy who’d been celibate for a few months, but the part that had really woken him up sweating and hard was when she turned to face him. It had been Keeley Davis looking at him with a sexy, come-hither look.
And he was the guy who had asked her to dress sexier for the office? Granted, it was to fool Charlie Bingham, but Dane was the one who would be working with her fifty or sixty hours a week.
The elevator doors opened and he stepped into the cool gray lobby of Bingham Brothers and approached the middle-aged receptionist with her apricot helmet of hair. No teenage, nail-filing receptionists for them. This lady had probably been the company’s telephone operator since the age of plug-in switchboards.
“May I help you, sir?”
Dane introduced himself and quickly found himself in possession of a photo ID badge and directions to his new office. She showed him how to swipe himself in through the security system and, presumably, the time clock as well.
He thanked her and passed into the offices, threading through several columns of cubicles and pushing through the door marked with his name. He stopped in surprise.
A mob of guys stood around the desk where, he surmised, Keeley sat. Judging by the way their backs were to him, he guessed they weren’t waiting to greet him with a rounding chorus of “For He’s a Jolly Good Fellow.” Unless she was running the office betting pool, Dane would gamble that they were all chatting her up.
“Good morning.” His loud tone cut through the noise. The men jumped away guiltily, parting like the Red Sea to reveal a redhead. And what a redhead she was…her long, glorious waves falling over her shoulders and her breasts, brushing the edges of some Grand Canyon-deep cleavage flashing from a tight, white blouse.
Where was Keeley?
“Good morning, Mr. Weiss,” the redhead purred.
Oh, dear God, it was Keeley. She’d made her hazel eyes look wider and greener, her coy brushing of eyelashes dark on her cheek. She even had a little Cindy Crawford mole near the corner of her mouth. Real or drawn on, he didn’t care. It was a point on a map, leading the way to her full, red lips.
She smiled at the men flanking her. “Sorry, boys, playtime’s over. Looks like the boss is here.”
Her husky tones rolled over the male crowd, pulling them further into her spell. He had to clear his throat and glare pointedly at the outer door. They straggled out, some giving him nasty looks, some gazing longingly at her. He was sure to be one popular guy at Bingham Brothers.
He grabbed Keeley’s elbow and steered her into his inner office. Holy cow, where was the rest of her skirt? She had to have at least twelve inches of visible thigh. Her black micro-micro mini barely covered her ass when she was standing. If he started at her knee and stroked upward on those firm, toned thighs, he could slip his hand under that skirt with room to spare.
“Good morning, Mr. Weiss. I’m your new assistant, Cherry,” she singsonged. “How do you take your coffee?”
Ice-cold and down his pants, that’s how. “What the hell is this getup?”
“Exactly what you asked for—younger and lighter. Nonaccountant clothes.”
He sat on the edge of his desk, flabbergasted. Yeah, he’d asked for it, all right. But what had he gotten? “You’re so far from accountancy, you’re not even the same species. Where on earth did you get that outfit?”
“A little something I had in the back of my closet.”
“Yeah, right. Where’d you go shopping, the stripper store?”
“You mean the store where your sister gets her design ideas?” Her tone was syrupy sweet.
He rubbed his jaw. She had him there. “Okay. But attracting attention wasn’t what I had in mind.” He lowered his voice and leaned over to her. “How are you supposed to conduct a covert audit when nobody can take his eyes off you?”
“That’s the plan.” She gave him a sly smile. “It’s like a magician’s sleight of hand. You distract the audience with flashy stuff on top while the serious business goes on below.”
“Flashy stuff on top?” His gaze was drawn to the low-cut vee of her blouse. Her cleavage had some kind of gold glitter lotion highlighting the full curves of her breasts. The lotion was perfumed, too, as he greedily inhaled her warm, sexy scent.
The base of her throat moved as she swallowed hard. “Dane?” She snapped her fingers in front of his line of sight and pointed to her face. “Up here.”
He grudgingly looked up and eased away from her. “Sorry about that. Your plan worked too well on me.”
“Yeah, well, you’re a man, aren’t you?”
Her deprecating tone rubbed him raw. “Some men, like me, for example, can think of other things besides ‘flashy stuff on top.’” He could, couldn’t he?
“Funny, Sugar didn’t mention you were gay. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.” She gave him a sympathetic look.
He was speechless for several seconds. Gay? She thought he might be gay? Then he saw the corners of her full red lips pull into a tiny smirk. Ah, playing games with him. Well, he could play, too. “No, I’m not gay. I just go for a different type of woman. No offense to you, of course.”
“None taken.” Her smirk disappeared as quickly as her clothing in his imagination. “So what type do you go for?” she asked.
“Um…” He couldn’t very well tell her the truth, which was that he liked tall, leggy brunettes. And tall, leggy redheads. “Petite blondes.” That would get her good. According to his sister, tall brunettes always hated short blondes, especially when short blondes took all the tall guys. And he was tall.
She curled her lip delicately. “And you don’t get a crick in your neck bending over those petite blondes?”
He shrugged. “Not everything is done standing. But anyway, time to get to work, Cherry. See if you can’t find a pad of paper so we can make some notes.”
Keeley didn’t quite stomp off to her desk, but her gait was definitely stiff. He eased into his chair so she couldn’t see how her tight ass in the tiny skirt was making him stiff, too.
“PETITE BLONDES, my ass.” Keeley yanked open her desk drawer and found a yellow legal pad. Not everything is done standing. That big ox would squash one like a blond bug. She hoped he stayed awake long enough after sex to let the girl roll clear. She bet Dane liked being on top. Bossy guys often did, until they were shown the advantages of being on bottom.
Her nipples tightened under her thin white top and her black thong was becoming suspiciously moist. Hmm. Maybe thinking about how Dane liked to have sex wasn’t the best way to spend her first morning at the office.
And he was waiting for her. She grabbed a felt-tip pen so as not to leave indentations in the paper below. The old trick of rubbing pencil over the pressed-in marks still worked, and she didn’t trust anyone here.
She closed the drawer, but before she could return to the office, trouble arrived in a two-thousand-dollar suit.
“And you are?” Charlie Bingham raised a black brow.
Good morning to you, too, creep. “I am Cherry…” Shoot, she’d forgotten to think of a last name for her alias. She’d never needed one before. “Cherry Smith.”
“Cherry? How…interesting.” His tone implied that Cherry was the goofiest name ever. As if he hadn’t lost his virginity to some snooty broad named Buffy, Muffy or Trixie. “And you actually work here? At Bingham Brothers?”
“Yes, indeed. I’m the executive assistant to the new controller-in-training.”
“Dane Weiss.” He said that with the same lip curl as someone would say “dog doo.”
Dane moved next to her, his presence an instant comfort. How long had it been since anyone had backed her up? “Good morning, Charlie. I see you’ve met my executive assistant, Cherry.”
Binky’s grandson gave her an insolent once-over. Rude little shit. She took a great deal of pleasure in looking down at him from her towering Lucite high heels.
“Why am I not surprised, Weiss? Trust you to find the flashiest assistant possible.” He laid on the word assistant with a snotty tone.
Keeley fought the urge to roll her eyes since she’d heard it all before, and from nastier specimens than him, but what was interesting was Dane’s reaction. A flush roiled up his neck and onto his face, the tips of his ears reddening. Was he embarrassed?
Then she saw his clenching fists. Nope, angry. Really angry.
“This young lady is my executive assistant. You may call her Miss, uh…”
“Smith,” Keeley supplied.
“Or better yet, don’t call her anything at all. If you have something to say, you tell me, instead of bothering her with your bad attitude, Charlie.”
Keeley’s eyes widened so fast her fake eyelashes popped loose at the edges. Dane was defending flashy, trashy Cherry. How sweet.
“Don’t call me Charlie!” The dark-haired man was turning a matching shade of red. “My name is Charles Andrew Bingham the Sixth, and you call me Mr. Bingham, dammit!”
“Mr. Bingham is your grandfather, Charles Andrew the Sixth. Maybe I’ll call you Chuck.”
Keeley smothered a grin at the outraged expression on Charlie’s face. Chuck was even worse than Charlie.
“I’m on to you, Weiss,” he said, hissing Dane’s last name. “You think you can waltz in here and con my senile coot of a grandfather, but you can’t fool me. You’re up to something, and I’ll keep my eyes on you until I find out exactly what.” He shot his fancy French cuffs and strode out of the office.
Keeley laughed. “Way to fly under the radar, Dane. I thought for a second the two of you were going to have a real honest pissing contest here in the office.”
Dane spun back to her, the blood sinking from his face and returning it to his normal color. “We’ve had words before.”
“No!” She pressed her hand to her bosom in mock surprise. “And here I thought you had a special gift for making friends and influencing people. Or didn’t they teach you that in business school?”
He motioned her into his office and closed the door. “Chuckles was rude to his grandpa and his grandpa’s lady friend. I gave him a brushup on the rules of etiquette.”
Probably Binky’s date was Sugar or one of her friends. “Good grief. How many stitches did he need?”
“None.”
“X-rays?”
“None.”
“Clean pairs of underwear once he got home?”
Dane burst out laughing. “None. Really, he took a poke at me and I shoved him into a limo.”
“Too bad. I’m sure he must have deserved a butt-kicking at various points in his life.”
“Sorry.” He extended his palms upward. “He’s still Binky’s grandson.”
“And our only suspect at this point,” she murmured.
“Yep.” Dane quirked a corner of his mouth. Yikes, the man’s dimples were lethal.
She brandished her felt-tip pen. “Despite your reservations, my disguise worked. There’s no way Charlie’s going to think I’m anyone but some bimbo secretary you’re boffing.”
“True. You’re no bimbo secretary.”
Keeley waited for him to respond to the part about boffing, but he just gave her a slow, lazy smile. “Let’s get to work, shall we? We’ll leave the boffing discussion for another time.”
“DANE WEISS’S office, may I help you?” Keeley stuck out her tongue at the sultry female voice on the other end requesting a lunch meeting with Dane. It was yet one more female upper-management type panting after him. Over the past week, Dane had enough lunch invitations to eat seven times a day.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Weiss is tied up with meetings the rest of the week.” She had no idea whether or not he was, but there was no way he was going for three-hour lunches while she was stuck in the office.
She and Dane had been in Bingham Brothers orientation for several days with no access at all to the accounts. If she had to sit through another PowerPoint presentation on company culture, she’d throw one of her lethal shoes straight through the projection screen.
When she hadn’t been pinching herself to keep awake, she’d surfed the company’s intranet to familiarize herself with the antiquated accounting systems, policies and procedures.
“Who was that?” Dane leaned against the doorjamb, his arms crossed over his chest. Today he had on a navy-blue shirt that really brought out his eyes.
She hadn’t bothered to note the woman’s name and had forgotten it as soon as the receiver clicked. “She’ll call back if it’s important.”
He laughed. “Suzanne in accounting and Barbara in human resources each told me they wanted to have a lunch meeting with me when my schedule cleared. I didn’t know my schedule was that full.”
“That’s why I’m here, Mr. Weiss, so you don’t need to worry your important self about your schedule.” She threw back her shoulders in her low-cut black blouse and shook her fake red mane.
He closed the outer office door. “Some people might think you’re trying to keep me all for yourself.”
Was she? Despite her big talk to Sugar, Keeley’d had reservations about getting involved sexually with Dane Weiss while she was working for him. Maybe her disobedient subconscious was butting in again. “And some people, like me, want to get started with other important projects. Some people are tired of getting air-conditioning drafts blown up their office-inappropriate clothing.”
He shook his head and smiled. “I hope your clothing allowance is enough to hold you over.”
“Like I told you, I got these from the back of my closet.”
“Right, right.” He winked, obviously not believing her. “Well, if you need more shopping money, let me know.”
“I’m good, thanks.” She probably had another six or eight outfits she hadn’t worn yet. “Hope you like lime-green and fuchsia.”
“Together?” He looked confused.
“Hardly. I’m dressing a bit flashy, not like a circus clown.”
“The sacrifices we make for our careers. And here’s another one. Now that Glenn, the current controller, feels I’m up to speed, I’ve been cleared to have account access. We’re going to have some late evenings this week, starting tonight.”
Working late with Dane? A little shiver ran through her. “Here at the office?”
“Yep. We need to start with your bean-counting magic.”
“What if I have a hot date tonight?” She didn’t, but wanted to keep him on his toes.
“I wouldn’t be surprised, considering the way you look.” He leaned down. “I knew you’d be a distraction the second I saw you sitting behind this desk.”
Êîíåö îçíàêîìèòåëüíîãî ôðàãìåíòà.
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