“I can’t work for that man. Bette, you know I have handled every assignment you’ve given me. I have worked with demanding bosses, with disorganized bosses, even with sexist bosses. But I can’t and won’t work for Paul Monroe.”
“I don’t understand, Janine. You seemed to be getting along fine last week.”
Janine Taylor shook her head, and if Bette thought there was confusion in the gesture she also recognized rock-solid determination.
That was one characteristic Bette had considered when she’d assigned this particular assistant. She figured it would take someone determined to keep a rein on Paul. She had told herself Janine’s plainness had not been a factor in selecting her.
“From the beginning, I knew he was a little different. After all, look at all those calls to you.” Bette felt her cheeks sting. “But today...today! He was . . .” Janine hesitated. “Odd. Very odd,” she repeated, putting great emphasis on the word. She seemed to be trying to communicate some greater meaning with her eyes, like the player in a TV quiz game hoping to get her point across without giving away the clue.
Bette stared across the desk at the woman who’d been among her most reliable employee, and tried to reconcile Janine’s reaction with the man she’d come to know. Perhaps Paul was not the run-of-the-mill Chicago businessman, but she couldn’t imagine him doing anything to elicit such an extreme reaction from a woman, unless it involved the feel of his lips on hers, the rasp of his skin against hers, the draw of his mouth—and then the woman’s response would be very different from Janine’s.
“Can you tell me what, specifically, he did that made you walk out before the end of your assignment, before, even the end of a day?” She couldn’t prevent astonishment from creeping into her voice. The whole thing was so unlike Janine.
“No schedule,” Janine jerked out. “He wouldn’t give me a schedule, even when I practically begged. And a curator from the Smithsonian—the Smithsonian! —called, and Mr. Monroe said, no, he wouldn’t take the call right then. He didn’t feel like talking. He just didn’t feel like it. And that’s what he said to tell them. I didn’t, of course, but... And he said—He didn’t . . .” Her fluttering hands, which seemed to be trying to finish sentences her mouth couldn’t accommodate, floated back to her lap and she set her jaw pugnaciously, allowing just one word to escape. “No.”
“No?”
“No, I won’t try to tell you any more. Because if I tell you, you’ll think I’m crazy, too. Because it’s not what he did, it’s how he did it.”
There seemed to be no answer to that.
“I’m sorry, Bette. I’m truly sorry.” Janine stood and slung the strap of her oversize handbag over her shoulder. “And if you want to fire me or put me on suspension, I’ll understand. But I won’t go back there.”
The door hadn’t even clicked closed behind her before it opened again to admit Darla.
“Paul Monroe’s on line one,” she announced, then gave a sympathetic frown when Bette cursed emphatically.
“You want to take it or shall I?”
“I’ll take the call.”
“Okay, but you know, I don’t think that man’s nearly as harmless as he might seem on the surface. I saw his face Thursday when you made me tell him that you’d already left for an appointment with another client, and that’s a stick of dynamite I wouldn’t go playing around with too much.”
Bette grimaced her understanding. She knew. She knew all too well. Defusing the dynamite was exactly the point.
She had her hand on the phone when she stopped, with something tingling along the nerves of her arm, something ringing cheerfully in her head. Uh-oh. She wanted to take this call. She looked forward to hearing his voice. And that was dangerous. Very, very dangerous. Lighting a dynamite fuse required only a spark.
“Wait a minute.”
Darla turned from the door, and waited for Bette to continue.
“On second thought, you take the call. Tell him we’ll have a replacement assistant in his office first thing tomorrow morning. And tell him, well, you know what to tell him. Then come back in and we’ll have to adjust the schedule to free up Norma Schaff to go there for the rest of the week.”