It was a life he liked, just the way it was.
He had an office in Rockefeller Center, an apartment on Park Avenue, a weekend house in Connecticut and a vintage Corvette.
He had Emily.
Yes, life was good ... except for this current mess, with Brandi.
Jake groaned, kicked back his chair and put his feet up on his desk. How come he hadn’t read the signs? Her career was all that mattered, she’d told him, but it wasn’t true. First she gave him a key to her apartment. He hadn’t asked for one, hadn’t offered her the key to his, but she handed hers over, anyway, with a casual smile that would have made him look like an ass not to have accepted it. Then she bought him a tie at Bloomingdale’s. Nobody bought Jake ties except Jake, but she said some hotshot actor had been wearing one just like it when she’d posed in an ad with him, and how could he possibly turn down such a simple gift?
And then, last week, the final touch. He’d taken her home, was in the process of saying good-night—he hadn’t felt like spending the night with her which, in retrospect, he should have recognized as the beginning of the end—when she reached into her pocket, pulled out a pair of airline tickets and waggled them at him.
“Surprise,” she’d said gaily, and explained that she was flying home to Minneapolis for the weekend and he was going with her.
“It’s my parents’ thirty-fifth anniversary, Jake. They’re having the whole family to dinner and they’re just dying to meet .you!”
The tie around his neck—the very one she’d bought him, which he hated but had worn that evening because she’d asked him where it was—suddenly felt like a noose, growing tighter and tighter until he stabbed two fingers under the knot and yanked it away from his throat.
“I can’t go,” he’d said, and she’d said yes, yes, he could, and he’d said he couldn’t and she, with her lip trembling, said he could if he wanted to and finally he’d said well, he didn’t want to...
“Oh, Jake,” she’d whispered, and the next thing he’d known, she was crying into his shirt.
What did women want, anyway? Well, not all women. Not the Emilies of this world but then, Emily wasn’t a woman. Not a real one. She was his P.A.
Jake sighed, rose from the chair behind his desk, walked to the window and looked out. Forty stories below, people crowded the street. He hoped Brandi wasn’t one of those people. She’d been there this morning, waiting for him.
“Jake?” she’d said, and before he could decide what the heck to do, whether to pretend he didn’t see her or hustle her into the lobby and up to his office before she started bawling, she’d thrown her arms around him and tried to kiss him.
“Hell,” he whispered, and leaned his forehead against the cool glass.
Still, he had no desire to hurt her. He didn’t want to say anything cruel or unkind...
“Mr. McBride?”
Because she was a nice woman. And even though it was time to move on, that didn’t mean—
“Mr. McBride? Sir?”
Jake swung around. Emily stood in the doorway. For the first time in what felt like hours, he smiled. If only all women were as pragmatic, as sensible, as she.
“Yes, Emily?”
“Sir, I thought you’d like to know that I sent that e-mail memo to John Woods.”
“Fine.”
“His reply just came in. He says he likes your suggestions and hopes you’re free to fly to San Diego to meet with him next week.”
“Am I?”
“Yes, sir. You’re free Monday and Tuesday. You have a meeting Tuesday afternoon but it can be easily postponed.”
Jake nodded. “Make the arrangements, please. What else?”
“A fax from Atlanta. Nothing important, just a confirmation of your conference call.”
“Good, good. Anything else?”
Emily looked down at the notepad in her hand. “You’re having a late lunch with Mr. Carstairs tomorrow at the Oak Room.”
“Ah. Thank you for reminding me.”
“Yes, sir. And you have a dinner appointment this evening. Eight o’clock, at The Palm. You asked me to remind you to mention that new oil field opportunity in Russia.”
Jake smiled and shook his head. “What would I do without you?” he said pleasantly. “You’re the epitome of efficiency.”
“Being efficient is my job, Mr. McBride.”
“Jake, please. I don’t think we need to be so formal. You’ve been working for me for, what, a year?”
“Eleven months and twelve days.” Emily smiled politely. “I’m comfortable calling you Mr. McBride, sir. Unless you find it uncomfortable...?”