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  On the wall of the elevator was a bronze plaque that listed all the Taggerts in the building, and toward the bottom it looked as though Loretta’s new recruit had been busy again, for a piece of paper had been glued over McAllister Taggert’s name that read, “Marvelous Jaguar.” Smiling, Karen took a pen out of her pocket and changed it to, “Macho Jackass.”

  When the elevator stopped, she didn’t know whether it was the wine or her defiance, but she felt better. However, she did not want another encounter with Taggert. While holding the door open, she carefully looked up and down both corridors to see if anyone was about. Clear. Tiptoeing, she went down the carpeted hall to the secretaries’ office and, as silently as possible, removed her coat from the back of the chair and her purse from the drawer. As she was on her way out, she stopped by Miss Johnson’s desk to get notes from her drawer. This way she’d have work to fill her time over Christmas.

  “Snooping again?”

  Karen paused with her hand on the drawer handle; she didn’t have to look up to know who it was. McAllister J. Taggert. Had she not had so much to drink, she would have politely excused herself, but since she was sure she was going to be fired anyway, what did it matter? “Sorry about your office. I was sure you’d be out proposing marriage to someone.”

  With all the haughtiness she could muster, she tried to march past him.

  “You don’t like me much, do you?”

  Turning, she looked him in the eyes, those dark, heavily fringed eyes that made all the women in the office melt with desire. But they didn’t do much for Karen since she kept seeing the tears of the women who’d been jilted by him. “I’ve typed your last three prenuptial agreements. I know the truth about what you’re like.”

  He looked confused. “But I thought Miss Gresham—”

  “And risk breaking those nails on a keyboard? Not likely.” With that, Karen swept past him on her way to the elevator.

  But Taggert caught her arm.

  For a moment fear ran through her. What did she really know about this man? And they were alone on this floor. If she screamed, no one would hear her.

  At her look, his face stiffened and he released her arm. “Mrs. Lawrence, I can assure you that I have no intention of harming you in any way.”

  “How do you know my name?”

  Smiling, he looked at her. “While you were gone, I made a few calls about you.”

  “You were spying on me?” she asked, aghast.

  “Just curious. As you were about my office.”

  Karen took another step toward the elevator, but again he caught her arm.

  “Wait, Mrs. Lawrence, I want to offer you a job over Christmas.”

  Karen punched the elevator button with a vengeance while he stood too close, looking down at her. “And what would that job be? Marriage to you?”

  “In a manner of speaking, yes,” he answered as he looked from her eyes to her toes and back up again.

  Karen hit the elevator button so hard it was a wonder the button didn’t go through the wall.

  “Mrs. Lawrence, I am not making a pass at you. I am offering you a job. A legitimate job for which you will be paid, and paid well.”

  Karen kept hitting the button and looking up at the floors shown over both doors. Both elevators were stuck on the floor where the party was.

  “In the calls I made I discovered that you’ve worked the last two Christmases when no one else would. I also found out that you are the Ice Maiden of the office. You once stapled a man’s tie to your desk when he was leaning over you asking for a date.”

  Karen turned red, but she didn’t look at him.

  “Mrs. Lawrence,” he said stiffly, as though what he said were very difficult for him. “Whatever may be your opinion of me, you could not have heard that I’ve ever made an improper advance toward a woman who works for me. My offer is for a job, an unusual job, but nothing else. I apologize for whatever I’ve done to give you the impression that I was offering more.” With that he turned and walked away.

  As Karen watched, one elevator went straight from the twelfth floor down to the first, skipping her on nine. Reluctantly, she turned to look at his retreating back. Suddenly, the image of her empty house appeared before her eyes, the tiny tree with not much under it. Whatever she thought of how he treated women in his personal life, Taggert was always respectful to his employees. And no matter how hard a woman worked to compromise him, he didn’t fall for it. Two years ago when a secretary said he’d made a pass at her, everyone laughed at her so hard, she found another job three weeks later.

  Taking a deep breath, Karen followed him. “All right,” she said when she was just behind him, “I’ll listen.”

  Ten minutes later she was ensconced in Taggert’s beautiful office; a fire burned in the fireplace, making a delightful rosy glow on the table that was loaded with delicious food and what seemed to be a limitless supply of cold champagne. At first Karen had thought of resisting such temptation, but then she thought of telling Ann that she’d eaten lobster and champagne with the boss and she began to nibble.

  While Karen ate and drank, Taggert started to talk. “I guess you’ve heard by now about Lisa.”

  “The redhead?”

  “Mmmm, yes, the redhead.” He refilled her glass. “On the twenty-fourth of December, two days from now, Lisa and I were to be in the wedding of a good friend of mine who lives in Virginia. It’s to be a huge wedding, with over six hundred guests flying in from all over the world.”

  For a moment he just looked at her, saying nothing. “And?” she asked after a while. “What do you need me for? To type your friend’s prenupt?”

  McAllister spread a cracker with pâté de foie gras and held it out to her. “I no longer have a fiancée.”

  Karen took a drink of the wine, then reached for the cracker. “Excuse my ignorance, but I don’t see what that has to do with me.”

  “You will fit the dress.”

  Maybe it was because her mind was a bit fuzzy with drink, but it took her a moment to comprehend, and when she did, she laughed. “You want me to pose as your fiancée and be a bridesmaid of some woman I’ve never met? And who has never met me?”

  “Exactly.”

  “How many bottles of this have you drunk?”

  McAllister smiled. “I’m not drunk and I’m absolutely serious. Want to hear more?”

  Part of Karen’s brain said that she should go home, get away from this crazy man, but what was waiting for her at home? She didn’t even have a cat that needed her. “I’m listening.”

  “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but three years ago I was …” He hesitated and she saw his eyelashes flutter quite attractively. “Three years ago I was left at the altar of my own wedding by the woman I planned to spend the rest of my life with.”

  Karen drained her glass. “Did she find out that you were refusing to say the lines ‘with thee my worldly goods I share’?”

  For a moment McAllister sat there and stared, then he smiled in a way that could only be called dazzling. And Karen had to blink; he really was gorgeous, with his dark hair and eyes and a hint of a dimple in one cheek. No wonder so many women fell for him. “I think, Mrs. Lawrence, that you and I are going to get along fine.”

  That brought Karen up short. She was going to have to establish boundaries now. “No, I don’t think we will, since I do not believe your tragic little-boy-lost story. I have no idea what really happened at your wedding or all those other times women refused to marry you, but I can assure you I am not one of these lovesick secretaries who think you were ‘Miserably Jilted.’ I think you were—” She halted before she said too much.

  Enlightenment lit his face. “You think I was ‘Magnificently Jettisoned.’ Or do you think I am a ‘Macho Jackass’? Well, well, so now at last I know who the office wordsmith is.”

  Karen couldn’t speak because she was too embarrassed—and how had he found this out so quickly?

  For a moment longer he looked at her in speculati