She's Got Mail!: She's Got Mail! / Forget Me? Not. Darlene Gardner

needs to learn she can’t come back to me every time one of her love affairs goes bust. She has to learn that she has a strong heart, that she’ll be okay without re-covering or redecorating or stealing toilets.”

      He meant to vent, but instead his on-the-fly analysis hit home. Meredith did have a strong heart. Damn it, she lived. She experienced life. Which meant she wasn’t afraid to love deeply, crash and burn, then pick herself up and love again.

      Of course, during the picking-herself-up phase, a corner of his life got redecorated. Nevertheless, Ben had to hand it to Meredith—she had more guts to delve into life than he did.

      After a long pause, Heather said, “See? You’re preoccupied again.”

      “Maybe it’s time for me to be preoccupied,” Ben said quietly. “Time for me to figure out who Benjamin Taylor is, what I want.”

      A second head appeared in the doorway. “Darling, what you want is to see some new commode samples!”

      Ben flinched. What had Meredith done to her hair? Instead of chopsticks, she had small, bright, silver things sticking out of another wild bird’s nest number. For a mind-numbing moment, he wondered if she had stuck commode handles into her hair.

      “You—” he tried not to stare at her hair “—you didn’t drag a bunch of toilets in here, did you?”

      Meredith gave him an are-you-crazy look. “Do I look that strong?”

      If you put your mind to it, you could drag in a herd of water buffalo. He offered a small prayer that Meredith’s next affair wasn’t with a safari tour guide. “Well, you have been lifting weights,” he muttered, eyeing the sheets she held in her hand. Photos of commodes? And he thought yesterday morning had started off strangely.

      Meredith stepped jauntily into his office. Today she wore a red dress with a satin jacket embroidered with birds and bonsai trees. Good thing her business was lucrative, otherwise she couldn’t afford a new wardrobe every postaffair. Or afford these ex-husband redecorating binges. “Oh, you noticed,” she said, flexing one arm. “I’ve been working with a personal trainer—”

      “Show me the pictures.” Ben didn’t need to see his ex-wife flex. He needed a commode and shower door, pronto.

      The room filled with an incenselike scent as she walked into the room. Of course. New look, new perfume. “You’ll adore these commodes,” Meredith said. “Very European. Custom-mixed porcelain. This one is called the Renaldo. Notice the flowing, neo-Italian lines….”

      It was too much. Truckers. Incense. A commode named Renaldo. “Meredith,” Ben barked, “if you put neo anything in my bathroom, I will throttle you with my bare hands!” He gripped the edge of the desk, resisting the urge to press one of those handles in her hair. “Just fix the pipe so I can turn on my water. And get me a square, white toilet. End of discussion.” To her stunned expression, he added, “And please close the door behind you. I need to make an important phone call.”

      “NICE MUGS.”

      Rosie looked up. Jerome slouched against her desk, wearing a pair of jeans, a white Gap T-shirt and a whiskey-colored leather jacket. Paige must be out of town. Jerome only dressed like Johnny Depp when his boss was out of the office. “What?” Rosie asked.

      Jerome looked at the two coffee mugs, Rebel Without a Cause and My Fair Lady, on her desk. “Nice…” his dark-eyed gaze traveled up Rosie’s torso, lingering where they shouldn’t before meeting her eyes “…mugs.”

      He could be such a scum. She’d witnessed his smarmy come-ons with others, but with her? He liked the type who giggled and walked provocatively in high heels. Rosie was the type who spoke her mind and speed-walked in loafers. Contemplating his motivations, she avoided Jerome’s gaze as she rearranged the mugs around her wind-up dinosaur with pom-poms. Suddenly it made sense to separate the rebel from the lady.

      Which meant she’d act as though he hadn’t made that stupid mug comment.

      Seemingly absorbed in her dinosaur-rearranging task, Rosie said nonchalantly, “Thanks for setting up that meeting with Paige.”

      “You owe me lunch.”

      “Yes, I owe you lunch.” And nothing else.

      “Focaccio’s,” Jerome said, hitting the first syllable so hard, Rosie knocked over the dinosaur. One corner of Jerome’s mouth twisted into a lascivious grin.

      Rosie clutched the dinosaur tightly. “We’re still talking about lunch, right?”

      “Focaccio’s,” Jerome repeated in a husky whisper, “is a restaurant.”

      “I know that.” He was pronouncing it differently this time. What a sneak.

      “When we goin’?”

      “When I get my paycheck.” She didn’t have to say which paycheck. Maybe it would be the paycheck she received in a year. Or two.

      “Oh, right, I almost forgot.” Jerome reslouched so his other hip leaned against the desk. “You gulchers live paycheck to paycheck.”

      She sensed danger. Just the way her farm animals back home sometimes sensed danger when no obvious threat was nearby, she sensed Jerome sneaking up for some type of surprise attack. “I’m no longer a gulcher,” she said, keeping her voice level. “Now I’m Mr. Real.”

      Jerome looked surprised, then broke out in laughter. “Mr. Real,” he finally said, the words choked out as though it were a struggle for him to be serious. “That’s rich.” He reached over and stroked her clenched fingers, wound tightly around the dinosaur. “You’re filling in for Mr. Real only because of me, baby.”

      Baby? A nauseating spurt of adrenaline shot through her. She eased her hand away. “You got me in to see Paige. I did the rest.”

      “But you never would have had that opportunity if I hadn’t opened the door.”

      Rosie was squeezing the dinosaur so tightly, she was sure she’d have a permanent imprint of a little dinosaur face on her palm. “So you opened the door….” she said calmly, determined to not let her voice shake as her hands were doing.

      He leaned so close, she could see the lusty glint in his dark eyes. Smell his sweat. “I could open it again,” he said, his words thick with insinuation. “Help you get another opportunity.”

      Through clenched teeth, she said, “Are you propositioning me?” Even after years of being told, “Watch your tongue,” Rosie couldn’t take this macho act any longer. He’d already blackmailed her for lunch—now he was blackmailing her for more.

      Jerome stepped back, fast, and adjusted the lapel of his leather jacket so the collar stood up. In his best Johnny Depp “I’m cool” voice, he said, “I never said anything like that.”

      “No, you implied it.”

      He cocked an eyebrow. “I came here to deliver a message from Paige,” he said, suddenly all business. “She wants stats on your Mr. Real answers. Number received. Number answered. Quality of responses. Quality of feedback.”

      Sheesh. When Jerome got serious—or miffed?—he turned from a bad boy into a tough guy. She shouldn’t have accused him of propositioning her. What if he said some negative things to Paige about Rosie? There goes my great escape from the gulch. “I’ve only been Mr. Real for a day,” she said, forcing herself to sound light, professional. “When does she want these stats?”

      “Tomorrow morning. First thing.”

      “First thing?” She opened her cramping fingers, giving the dinosaur some breathing room. “How first is ‘first thing?”’

      “Let’s see…I have two openings. Ten or seven-thirty.”

      “Ten would be good,” Rosie offered. That’d give her more time to pull together statistics, print off a few of the questions and answers as examples,