The Bedroom Business

Handsome, successful, sexy, Romeo, 33, S, BL and bl, looking for his beautiful, sexy Juliet…

Sexy, handsome guy, 38, ND, blond and blue, very successful, ISO sexy, beautiful lady, preferably Br&B…

It was like reading a code. ISO for “in search of.” D for “divorced,” S for “single,” ND for “newly divorced.” B’s for hair and eye color. Unless you had red hair. Or gold. Or…

Oh, this was ridiculous. Advertisements by men for women. Reading them was a joke. They were so phony. If every guy who was dateless in New York was sexy, easy on the eyes and successful, why were they running these ads? She knew better than to fall for all those adjectives. In fact, if she had to come up with the name of a gorgeous, sexy, successful man, the only one she’d be able to muster was that of Jake Mc…

Emily’s heartbeat stumbled. Quickly, she grabbed the telephone, punched in the Personals number, listened impatiently as a recorded female voice offered available options.

To reply to a LoveNote, the voice said nasally, please enter the number of the LoveNote you’ve selected.

Emily entered a number. She waited, heard a husky male voice say “hello,” listened to what was, more or less, a repeat of the ad in the magazine, and waited for the ad to end and the tone to sound. At last, it did. It was time to leave a message for Mr. Handsome, Sexy and Successful, 40, D, brown and brown.

Her mouth was dry as sand. She thought, fleetingly, of the sad red geranium sitting at home on her kitchen table, which she kept forgetting to water…

Beeeep!

Emily swallowed, licked her lips and took a breath. Sound sexy, she told herself.

“Good afternoon.” Great. Just great. She sounded about as sexy as a Girl Scout trying to sell cookies. “Hi,” she said, trying for perky, if not sexy. “Uh, I’m calling to say—to say that I think I might be just the Brrr and Brrr—uh, the Brown and Brown you’re looking for.” She hesitated, checked the ad again. Sexy, it said. And beautiful. Emily chewed on her lip. “Well, maybe not. I mean, I have brown hair. And brown eyes. But I’m not exactly sexy. Or beautiful.” Her voice cracked. “But, really, is that so awful? ‘Beautiful’ means having qualities that delight the senses. I know that because I had to look it up once, in the dictionary. I wanted the exact meaning because I was writing a term paper on Shelley. The poet, you know? Anyway, I’m just saying that beauty is in the eye of the beholder and handsome probably is, too. So even if you’re not as handsome as you say you are, that’s okay because I’m not…” She groaned, put her hand to her forehead. “As for sexy, well, what does ‘sexy’ mean, anyway? Different things in different cultures. For example, when I was studying anthro, I learned that sexual attractiveness varies enormously from tribe to tribe in the Amazon. Some view nudity as the norm. Others, perhaps after they’ve had some contact with the outside world, disdain nudity but see nothing wrong with indulging in coitus with a variety of partners. There’s a particular pygmy tribe—”

A large male hand slammed down on the telephone cradle, breaking the connection. Emily jerked her head up. McBride was standing over her, looking down and glaring.

“Just what in the Sam Hill are you doing?”

Dear God, Emily thought, what was I doing? The telephone buzzed in her ear like an angry bee.

“Miss Taylor?”

“You’ve—you’ve always called me Emily.”

“A mistake,” Jake said coldly, “considering that I’m starting to realize I don’t know the first thing about you.”

He folded his arms over his chest. It was, she thought foolishly, a formidable chest. He’d taken off his suit jacket, loosened his tie, undone the top button of his white shirt and rolled back his sleeves. He did that often; he’d once said he felt choked in a suit and tie. Why was it she’d never before noticed that his arms were dusted with dark, silky-looking hair? That his chest was the width of The Great Wall of China?

“Well, Miss Taylor? What were you doing?”

Emily put the phone down, folded her hands in her lap and tried not to think about how long he might have been standing there.

“I was—I was making a call,” she said carefully.

“To whom?”

“To…” She frowned as she looked up at him again. “It was a personal call, Mr. McBride.”

“Yes.” Jake shot her a predatory smile. “I imagined it was. Somehow or other, I didn’t think you’d be discussing pygmy sex practices with any of my clients.”

She could feel the heat flash into her face. “I was not discussing pygmy sex practices.”

“What were you discussing, then?”

“Would you step back, please,” she said coolly, “so I can stand up?”

“Answer the question, Miss Taylor.”

“I don’t have to.” She could feel her courage rushing back, swirling through her blood in a wave of heat. “As I said, it was personal.”

“Did you ask me if you could make personal calls?”

She blinked. “No. No, I didn’t. But you never said—”

“You never asked.”

Emily glowered up at Jake. “I’ll pay for the call,” she snapped.

“I don’t want your money. I want to know why you were talking about pygmy sex practices, and with whom.”

“Dammit!” She shoved her chair back and shot to her feet, her flushed, angry face lifted to Jake’s. “I wasn’t talking about pygmy sex practices. I told you that. I was leaving a message on an answering machine.”

“An answering machine at the Museum of Natural History?”

God, that infuriating smirk on his face! How had she survived it, all this time?

“An answering machine at a man’s apartment,” she said tightly. Well, it wasn’t a lie. It wasn’t an apartment but Handsome, Sexy and Successful would probably phone in for his messages from his apartment.

“Well, well, well.” Jake’s dark green eyes narrowed. “You’re just full of surprises, Miss Taylor. No wonder ol’ Pete was so eager to take you to dinner last night. He read you just right.”

Emily flung her hands on her hips. “And what is that supposed to mean, Mr. McBride?”

“Never mind what it’s supposed to mean. I’m waiting to hear who you were phoning.”

“Oh, for goodness sake!” She swung away, grabbed the magazine and shoved it into Jake’s flat belly. “You won’t be satisfied until you wring the truth out of me, will you? Okay. Okay, here’s the truth, McBride, and I hope you enjoy getting the last laugh.”

She swung away from him, trembling with anger and humiliation. She could hear Jake reading the ads aloud in a soft, disbelieving voice. There was a long silence before he spoke again.

“You were answering an ad in the personals?”

“Yes.”

“You were telling one of these men you’d go out with him?”

“Yes.”

“You were going to meet a stranger, an asshole who identifies himself as sexy, successful and handsome with…What in hell is Brrr and Brrr? A description of the weather? A new liqueur?”

Emily spun around and faced Jake. Her eyes were huge, her face flushed, and he fought back the sudden, insane desire to take her in his arms and soothe her.

“It’s brown hair and brown eyes,” she snarled. “And for your information, lots of people meet through ads like this.”