Too Hot To Handle. Barbara Daly

Many years ago when she was young and hopeful, she’d wanted those things with Alex—Alexander Asquith-Emerson—and she still felt that if she couldn’t have them with him, she didn’t want them.

      “Sarah…” Macon seemed to gather up something within himself as he leaned forward. “These days the world is a dangerous place for women. Maybe I could fill the current void. You and I know and understand each other, and all I feel for you is the deepest respect. No strings. No promises except my promise of total discretion. I could get you over your rough spot.”

      Today was apparently going to be studded with shocks, so she might as well get used to them. Sarah gazed into his eyes, seeing nothing there but an earnest need to help her out, and as magnified as Macon’s eyes were behind the Coke-bottle lenses of his glasses, you could pretty much see whatever was there. But he’d given her an opening to say something to him she’d been wanting to say for a long time, if she could get her mind off her own problems long enough to grasp the opportunity.

      “Macon,” she said with great solemnity, “I am deeply flattered by your offer, and I’m tempted to accept it. You have no idea how attractive a man you are.”

      He actually could be, if it weren’t for those glasses, his depressing sartorial choices and a haircut that looked as if he’d done it himself. She rarely noticed Macon’s looks. She was too dependent on his genius.

      “That’s what my landlady tells me,” Macon admitted. “She’s always after me to buy clothes, get a better barber.”

      Any barber. “Listen to her,” Sarah said. “A few outside changes would give you self-confidence. Personally, I’m extremely fond of you just as you are. But I have made a vow not to have sex with my professional colleagues. You saw what happened with the cardstock salesman. When I rejected his yellows, I lost his reds, the best reds on the market.” She sighed, still stung by the loss. “Most people have a religion to guide them,” she added for good measure. “That’s mine.”

      Macon nodded, apparently not at all hurt by her refusal. “It’s one of the things I respect you for. Just thought I’d make the offer. Save you time and hassle.”

      “I really appreciate it, but you deserve something more.”

      “Oh, come on, Sarah.”

      “I’m serious about this. And what I want you to do—” She got up, came around the desk and sat on the arm of his chair. “What I want you to do,” she repeated softly, “is go out and find someone who will love you romantically as much as I love you as a friend and colleague. Somebody who will appreciate all those qualities that make me love you. Maybe even—” she put her hand under his chin and tilted his head up until his eyes goggled directly into hers “—maybe even somebody who wants strings, something permanent.”

      She had him mesmerized. His lips parted. “Why are you so sure you don’t want something permanent yourself?”

      She let go of his chin and stood up. He’d surprised her again. She felt uneasy, fidgety. “Maybe I just can’t see past you,” she said in a sexy growl he couldn’t possibly take seriously.

      In fact, he laughed. “Okay, okay,” he said. “Just…” He was grave again. “Just be careful, okay?”

      “Absolutely.” But not in the way he imagined. She had no fear for her physical safety. All she had to protect was her heart.

      THE NEXT MORNING was no different from the last month of mornings. Sarah woke up hot and restless, exhausted from fighting her way through dreams that swirled her into a spiral of desire, then left her floating in limbo, just short of reaching the pinnacle of release. The sheets were damp and tangled. Her nightgown, nothing more than a cream silk slip, felt clammy as she shrugged the slender straps off her shoulders and let it fall to the bathroom floor.

      In the shower, she moved the faucet from hot to warm to cool. As she ran nervous fingers through her damp hair, feeling the curls spring up with a life of their own, she felt fresher, but not better. The heavy, swollen sensation persisted, making her feel dull and lethargic.

      Coffee should help.

      It didn’t.

      Clothes. Sarah reached into the sea of black that filled most of her closet and drew out a pair of slim capri pants, a tiny, tight tank top and a jacket that looked as though someone had shrunk it, as it was short in the sleeves and short in length.

      She frowned at her reflection in the mirror, her mood darkening. What she needed was a splash of bright color. She exchanged the black pants for an identical pair of khaki-colored capris and took a second look at herself. Yes. Very jolly. Practically festive for downtown Manhattan.

      She put large gold hoops in her ears and her entire collection of gold bangles on her right arm. They clanked dully in rhythm with her black mules as she traveled the crumbling, tip-tilted New York sidewalks—half of the long crosstown block to Sixth Avenue, then a dozen short blocks uptown—to her office in Chelsea. While she walked, she faced up to her problem.

      Those bothersome dreams hadn’t been wild and crazy fantasies. They’d been wild and crazy memories, memories of Alex.

      Macon was all too right. It was once again time to find a man to dull those memories.

      Just a man, that was all she needed. She’d start looking for prospects this very weekend. She only hoped her staff wouldn’t move on to greener salaries before she found one.

      ALEX EMERSON STROLLED aimlessly north through Soho after lunch in Tribeca, crossed Houston and made his way up to Washington Square. Encouraged by the warmth of mid-May, joggers trotted around the perimeter of the park and dog owners ignored the No Dogs Allowed signs to toss Frisbees to ecstatic black Labs and golden retrievers. In the center of the park near the fountain, hot-dog vendors were doing a land-office business.

      The hot dogs smelled great, but he’d already eaten a couple of times today and would have to eat a couple of times more. He had several hours between the long but productive business lunch at Arqua, which he’d just left, and drinks at the Plaza’s Oak Bar with yet another set of potential investors in the venture capital company he ran out of San Francisco. Drinks would be followed by a long, expensive and, he hoped, even more productive business dinner in a quiet corner of the elegant restaurant Jean-Georges near Lincoln Center.

      Doing business was a fine way to spend a spring Saturday as far as Alex was concerned. Work was the only arena in which he felt comfortable. When he was at home in San Francisco he worked. When he traveled to New York or London or Taipei, he also worked. It was only during the little breaks between work that he felt on edge, jittery, bothered, too aware of the needs of his body and the permanent sense of loss in his heart.

      Walking helped a little. Running would have helped more, but it would have meant two additional clothes changes and a shower before his five o’clock appointment. Too much time wasted. Suddenly bored with greenery, he headed west on Waverly Place toward the untidy bustle of Sixth Avenue. A couple of blocks north he crossed the street to get a closer look at the library, then went to the corner to wait for the walk light.

      From that vantage point he watched shoppers cram their way into Balducci’s, a specialty grocer, while others emerged, burdened and visibly harassed, from the exits.

      His New York business acquaintances occasionally sent him gift baskets from the place. They sold several things Alex was crazy about—the most thinly cut smoked salmon in town, fresh cream cheese, a lemon tart that had had a walk-on role in one of his dreams and boxes of chocolate-chip cookies that were close enough to homemade to fool somebody like him, whose mother wasn’t into cookies. He should go in, buy them out of those cookies and surprise his staff with them on Monday morning.

      It really would be a surprise. He wasn’t what you’d call a chocolate-chip-cookie kind of boss.

      As this thought went through his mind, a woman came out of the shop carrying two of the distinctive green-and-white shopping bags. She set them down for a moment to set a brown leather handbag more firmly over her shoulder. She was reed-slim in narrow