Bachelor Boss

She wasn’t surprised, though, to see a stack of work neatly aligned on the corner of the desk. From the looks of it, he hadn’t taken his own counsel to go home. He had to have been there past midnight to have gotten so much done.

She was grateful, though. On the drive in, she’d berated herself for being so determined to finish up last night. She feared having to sit there and twiddle her thumbs, which would have made her miserable. She supposed she should have known better. Philip was never idle, so why should his staff be? Besides, being busy made the day go faster, and it felt like she got home to Erin sooner.

By the time the elevator doors opened and he emerged, she was engrossed in a prospectus from Philip to the members of a joint venture interested in buying one of his companies. It should have been dry, dull work—inputting numbers into a spreadsheet, typing a long document from one of the tapes Philip had claimed to hate. Instead, she was intrigued.

“I thought I told you to sleep in.”

Madalyn wished there had been a more teasing quality to his voice. “You did, but I’m not very good at that. It was hard enough waiting until nine to get here.”

“Oh, well, yes, I appreciate your dedication. Listen, Madalyn...”

“Yes?”

“You see, about last night, I—”

The phone rang and she hesitated, picking it up when he gave an exasperated nod toward the phone.

“Mr. Ambercroft’s office,” she answered in a crisp, professional tone.

There was no response.

“Hello? May I help you?”

“Who is this?”

Madalyn told herself not to be put out by the imperious tone in the woman’s voice. “I’m Madalyn Wier, Mr. Ambercroft’s assistant.”

“Of course,” the woman said slowly. “Is my son in his office?”

“One moment please.”

He raised an eyebrow as she put the call on hold.

“It’s your mother,” she said, answering his silent question.

Philip rubbed his forehead for a moment and when he dropped his hand, she thought she saw weariness in his incredibly blue eyes.

“I’ll take it in here.”

He disappeared into his office, shutting the door behind him. She understood his reaction. She loved her own mother dearly, and worried about her increasingly poor health, but no one on the face of the earth could exasperate her faster. She was grateful that her mother’s visit had only produced one argument so far on Madalyn’s single status. It was the only real source of contention between them. Their usual argument consisted of Madalyn trying to get her mother to move to Dallas so they could see each other more.

Philip came back out sometime later, and asked her about a file she had waiting for him. She stopped him when he turned to go back into his office.

“Was there something you wanted to say to me before we were interrupted?”

He looked at her for the longest time, the intensity of his gaze making her decidedly uncomfortable. It was almost as though he were battling himself, and she wondered if her own anxiety was what someone felt when facing a firing squad.

“No,” was all he said before he shut his door behind him.

She didn’t have to be hit on the head to understand that whatever subject he had been about to bring up was now closed and off-limits.

Philip leaned against his door, unaware until he looked down that he was crushing the file Madalyn had given him. After tossing the papers on his desk, he sat with controlled movements and leaned back.

First, he’d surprised himself by telling his mother more about Madalyn than that she was a temporary secretary. It had somehow slipped out that she had worked for Price Manufacturing, and even more startling, he’d said something about her amazing skills.

His mother’s pause had spoken volumes. She was obviously as taken aback as he was to be discussing such mundane details with her. They weren’t usually chatty.

Then he’d felt doubly foolish to hear his mother admonish him to not let his emotions interfere with his business sense. Since when had he needed his mother’s advice? Not that she was ever hesitant to give it, but Philip had drawn the line years ago to remind his mother that not only was he nearly forty years old, but he was more than capable of making decisions without his mama’s help.

He took responsibility for his actions, mistakes and all. Some lessons had been hard learned, such as losing his heart to Hannah Hollingsworth in college. That vivid lesson had made clear the fantasy of love conquering all. He hadn’t thought it mattered that the Ambercrofts couldn’t trace their roots to the Mayflawer. They’d been proud, self-made Americans... even if they glossed over the fact that Grandfather Ambercroft was the one who had really boosted the family fortune by bootlegging whiskey during Prohibition. As for himself, Philip thought his grandfather had been a hell of a guy, and he remembered listening intently to the stories the man had told about his youth. Philip suspected his grandfather had told the stories to irritate his mother as much as anything else.

But Hannah’s family had a decided lack of humor, and put exorbitant pride in their mostly blue-blood ancestry, but he’d foolishly believed that wasn’t enough to keep them apart. He’d begged her to run away with him, to marry him, and then they’d force her parents to accept him. But Hannah had been unable to defy her parents for a man they had considered well beneath them on the social register.

Philip was sure the day she’d refused him was the day his heart had frozen solid, as so many people believed to be true, and he’d vowed never again to let his emotions override his common sense.

Since then, he’d never let anything interfere with his goals. Now, all of a sudden, he’s about to give up a lucrative business deal just because his new secretary—his temporary secretary—gave him a hard-on? Not bloody likely. He was going to get his brain and his libido under control and remember what he’d planned. He had no intention of doing anything illegal, or even immoral. When the time was right, he was going to flat-out ask her about Price Manufacturing. That was hardly diabolical.

He smoothed out the papers he’d wrinkled and sat down to put his mind to work with a ruthlessness that had made him the success he was. His eyes lost focus as his mind began to whirl. Price Manufacturing wasn’t his pressing issue at the moment, so he set it aside. His present goal was McConnally Machinery.

He picked up the phone and punched out a number with quick, hard jabs.

When he’d finished his conversation, he felt a stiffness in his neck, but he ignored it as he hit the intercom. “Madalyn, would you come in here, please?”

“Yes, sir?” she asked a moment later from his doorway.

“Sit down.”

She did as ordered and he was impressed at how well she hid her curiosity. Her demeanor was relaxed, her hands folded in apparent calmness, her expression open with a proper amount of question in her eyes.

He was going to go with his gut on this, for more than one reason, but he was depending on her experience as a high-level assistant in assuming she could maintain the poker face she’d displayed. If he was wrong, he might just kill two plans with one foul-up.

“Once again I’m springing something on you suddenly, but the negotiations on the file you just gave me have been moved up to tomorrow. On long sessions, such as this one will be, I usually take Mrs. Montague with me, as her note-taking skills are superb. Would you be willing, on this short notice, to fill in? I’d like to leave this afternoon, as things will start early in the morning. We’ll be back late tomorrow.”

She hesitated. Normally she couldn’t have even considered his request as she wouldn’t leave Erin with anyone overnight, but her mother was going to be there for at least another week.

“Is there a problem?” he prompted in the ensuing silence.

“I need to tell you something that I failed to mention yesterday. I have a child, and I’m a single parent.”

“Oh,” he said, not quite hiding a moment of surprise. “Of course, I understand then—”

“But it so happens that my mother is in town visiting, and if we’ll only be gone one night, I don’t see that it will be a problem. Where will we be going?”

Her matter-of-factness must have short-circuited his objections, for his tone became completely businesslike again.

“Mobile, Alabama. McConnally Machinery is the company. They machine ship propellers and shafts. I’ve been playing cat-and-mouse with the owner for a year now.”

He opened the folder and handed her a black-and-white photograph of a man in his fifties, his silver hair combed back off his forehead. He had an open, engaging face, his skin slightly battered by years spent in the salty air and elements.

“His name is Connar McConnally. When you meet him, don’t let his Southern, good-ol’-boy manners fool you. He likes to play the dumb hick, but this guy’s sharp. His company is relatively small, but he’s managed to keep a big chunk of the business on Mobile Bay all to himself. People whose very livelihoods depend on their boats being in the water will wait until this man—” Philip nodded toward the picture “—can get to their repairs. He started making noises about selling a year ago, but he won’t play ball yet.”

Madalyn studied the photograph and then handed it back across the desk. “What will I be doing for you there?”

“Be my eyes and ears. Do more than take notes. Watch people. Give me your impressions of their body language as well as their words.”

“Do you think he’s hiding something?”

Philip smiled. “Businessmen always have something to hide, but my interest lies in how big that something is. I think he’s just smart enough not to appear too eager, but I want to make sure before we toss the first pitch. My goal is to talk him into letting Ambercroft take over, but get him to stay on and run things. I’m going to try and sell him on the idea that all he really wants is some of the burden taken off his shoulders, but this way he keeps the benefits of a company he’s so proud of without the day-to-day worries.”

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