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“I am delivering it. See?” The kid shoved an armload of stuff at Jake, who took it grudgingly.
“This goes to my P.A., not to me.”
“Your what?”
“My P.A. My E.A....” Jake’s scowl deepened. “My secretary,” he said. “You’re supposed to hand her the mail.” “Oh. Emily.”
For reasons unknown, Jake felt his hackles rise. “Her name,” he said coldly, “is Miss Taylor.”
“Uh-huh. Emily, like I said.” The kid grinned. “Nice lady. Pretty eyes.”
What was this? Did every male who walked in the door have to make an appraisal of Emily? What about her eyes? She had two of them. So what? Most people did.
“I always hand the mail right to her. But the door’s locked. It looks like nobody’s home.”
Jake’s scowl turned to a look of disbelief. He shot back the cuffs of his Burberry and his suit jacket, checked hi watch and looked at the kid.
“Don’t be ridiculous. Of course someone is home.” He grabbed the doorknob. “It’s after nine. Miss Taylor’s always at her desk by—”
The knob didn’t move. The kid was right. The door was locked.
Jake’s mood, already in the cellar, began digging its way towards China. He shifted the armload of envelopes and magazines, dug out his keys and let himself into his office.
“If Emily is sick or something,” the kid said, “when you talk to her, tell her that Tommy sends—”
Jake slammed the door, stalked across the office and dumped the mail on Emily’s desk. It was, as always, neat as a pin. Even when she was seated behind it, not so much as a paper clip was ever out of place. Still, he could tell she wasn’t there. Her computer monitor stared at him with a cold black eye. The office lights were off, too, and there was no wonderful aroma of fresh coffee in the air.
E.A. or not, Emily had no feminist compunction against making coffee every morning.
Jake turned on the lights, marched into his private office, peeled off his wet coat and dumped it on the back of his chair.
Sick? Emily?
“Ha,” he said.
She hadn’t been sick a day since she’d come to work for him. Yeah, she’d said she felt as if she were coming down with a cold yesterday afternoon but it couldn’t have been much of a cold because not an hour later, she’d leaped at Archer’s invitation to dinner like a trout going after a fly.
“Sick,” Jake muttered.
Sleeping off her big night out, was more like it. Who knew where Archer had taken her for dinner, or what hour he’d gotten her home? Who knew how much wine she’d had to drink or how late she’d gone to bed or if she’d gone to bed at all...
Or if she’d been alone when she got into it.
Not that he cared. What she did, who she did it with, was her business. He’d tell her that, when-if-she deigned to show up this morning. The only question was, should he tell it to her before or after he told her she was fired?
From executive assistant to unemployed, in less than twenty-four hours.
The thought did wonders for his disposition. But why wait for Miss Taylor to put in an appearance? He could just as easily fire her right now.
Jake smiled coldly as he reached for the telephone but his smile changed, went back to being a frown. What was her number? For that matter, where did she live? In the city? In the suburbs? In one of the outlying boroughs? He had all that information. She’d filled out a form when she’d come to work for him. Actually, she’d filled out a zillion forms, thanks to all the tax information everybody required, but he’d be damned if he could remember anything about Emily’s private life.
Why would he? Until Archer stirred things up, she’d been the perfect employee. He’d never had reason to think about her, once he was away from the office. And now he was wasting time, thinking about her instead of sitting down and doing all the things that needed doing today. Not that he was actually “thinking” about Emily. Where she’d gone with Archer. Whether she’d had fun. Whether Archer had come on to her. Whether she was late because, even now, she was lying in the bastard’s arms...
“Son of a bitch,” Jake said, under his breath.
He thumbed open his address book, ran his finger down the list of T’s. There it was, Emily Taylor, the phone number written in Emily’s own, careful hand. Her address was there, too. She lived in Manhattan. Good, he thought grimly as he punched the phone number into the keypad. Then, she could damned well get her tail in here, pronto, and never mind what she was in the middle of doing with Archer.
