“Topless?”
“The car, honey…”
“Oh my,” she said, intrigued, and gave him her address. “I’ll be downstairs in an hour. Don’t be late.”
Jack’s small smile turned cool as he registered her warning. “I’ll be there-”
The sound of his office door being slammed shut turned his wry smile back into a full-fledged grin.
Keely St. John stomped back to her desk and wanted to scream. She could write this headline in her sleep: Mr. Player Reels in a Bimbo.
“Mr. Jack-ass Sloane has done it again,” she mumbled, stabbed the button on the monitor and shut off her computer, never mind exiting out of any word windows.
She’d like to toss him out the window and watch him dive five floors down into the blue lagoon-like swimming pool below, come to think of it. Jack’s bimbo-zillas called the office at all hours of the day and condescended to her—Mr. Jack Sloane’s mousy doesn’t-have-a-life secretary.
Guess she couldn’t blame them. That’s what she led him, and everyone else, to believe.
The problem was, she didn’t have a life. At least, not one that included a good man complete with hot, happy sex. Real sex. Not that she’d been having any fake sex, but she was getting tired of the fantasies starring Jack Sloane. Pipe dreams-that was all they would ever be.
She could not get out often enough to meet a nice man. Working for Jack Sloane and seeing firsthand his playboy antics turned her off to rich, gorgeous bachelors.
Yet, one of his random smiles, his deep voice greeting her with a polite “hello” when he walked into the office, turned her right back on. Hearing his laugh when he was on the phone, even seeing his sexy mouth frown at reports, was enough to send her into a fit of agonized wanting, squirming in her seat throughout the day as her pussy swelled with lust.
She sat back down at her desk, shoulders
slumped and heart thumping in her chest. “What is wrong with me?” she fretted.
She needed to quit. Working for her blue-eyed boss was giving her way too much heartburn. Still…while he might be a knucklehead when it came to dating women, he paid her very well. Besides, decent jobs were so hard to come by these days.
Of course, as owner of the Island Lily Hotel, with its salmon-colored stucco and red tile roof situated on the shores of Hawaii’s Waikiki beach, Jack Sloane could afford to pay all of his employees great salaries.
Guests paid pretty on their red, gold, and platinum cards to escape to luxurious rooms that looked out over powder-soft sands and a velvet blue ocean. And, working for Jack Sloane helped pay the mortgage on her little ivy-covered cottage in the hibiscus dappled heights of pricey Makiki.
So, if she had to put up with his handsome face, corded muscles, and tight butt, not to mention his snooty girlfriends calling, dropping by, or hanging up on her, surely it was a small price to pay?
She could do without the crash course in Player 101—as if her ex-husband hadn’t taught her plenty when he left her for a centerfold. Not just any centerfold either, her ex had tactlessly explained, but a centerfold of the year.
Keely sighed and walked through the large suites, turning off lights, leaving only the banker’s lamp on her desk and one square overhead on until she was ready to lock up. From a locked drawer in a rosewood credenza, she swept up the leather tote that held her change of clothes.
Aloha Friday in Honolulu offices meant Casual Friday everywhere, except Keely never deviated from her standard ugly duckling office wear: black horn-rimmed glasses that framed low-prescription lenses, chunky sweaters, bulk-knit skirts, and rubber-heeled shoes.
It helped keep her past where it belonged.
It was after five now and in Keely’s book, Aloha Friday meant dinner and cocktails at the Lime Leaf Bistro with two friends she’d known since grade school. She wanted-no, she needed to feel fresh. Pretty. Their after-work get-togethers gave her the time and place to be herself. No guys, or bosses, allowed.
She bolted herself in the main office’s private bathroom to change. Jack would leave the office any second now. She could set her watch by him, especially on Fridays. He would sprint out of the office at 5:05 pm on the button, after plotting the sexual downfall of yet another silly female.
Keely removed her sweater, revealing the ultra- soft olivine-green tank-top she wore beneath.
She blew out a breath, cooling off and feeling much more comfortable without the bulky pounds her sweater added to her form. She had gotten flushed and warm in the office listening to Jack’s sexy chuckle as he spoke on the phone.
I have connections—yes, of course you do, Mr. Sloane. You own J’s Beef and Reef, a noisy microbrewery that served steaks flown in from the Big Island!
I’d hoped to take you for a moonlit drive-why of course, Mr. Sloane-only the best for you! Trophy car, trophy girlfriend…
She plucked her glasses from her face, stared at her reflection in the mirror, and wondered how her wide forehead, high cheekbones, and curvy pink mouth would fare pitted up against the women Jack Sloane went for.
“You’d never look twice at me, would you, Mr. Sloane?” she mused out loud. “Too plain, too plump, and half the time I want to kill you.”
She cupped her breasts, plumping them up higher than even her sassy red maximizer bra could manage, until her D cups looked ready to spill over the neckline of her tank-top. She liked the way the intense color matched her eyes and, standing in front of the mirror, posed like a pin-up, she almost convinced herself she looked pretty hot-until she heard the office door slam shut and reality bit.
“And off he goes, to spend the night with a girl a bazillion times hotter than I will ever be,” she sighed, tucking her glasses into a pocket in her tote. “Have a good night, sir.”
She unbuttoned her gray ankle-length wool skirt and slipped it past her hips and off her legs. Legs that were long and shapely, she thought with a sense of pride. At least there was something redeeming about her.
She pulled off her knee-length granny stockings and white support shoes, then tossed the whole nasty lot in a pile before pulling her replacement clothes out of her tote: a tie-dyed cotton miniskirt in ink-bursts of green and royal blue, trimmed with little shiny sequins that matched her tank-top, a blue chambray denim jacket, and beaded slip-on sandals with a short-spiked heel.
She glanced at her watch. Get a move on, Keely, or you’re going to be late!
She hurried, brushed her teeth, then traced her upper eyelids with nut-brown liner. With a quick, careful hand, she flicked mascara over her lashes and swathed some mango-red gloss over her lips.
She spritzed her neck and stomach with her favorite ginger flower scent, dressed quickly, slid into her sexy sandals, and stuffed her office clothes into the tote.
Oh yes, free at last! She thought, flinging the bathroom door open.
She flipped the bathroom lights off and yanked the pencil out of her bun. Silky waves of autumn- gold hair uncoiled around her shoulders.
“I can be a real woman now—” she declared, but a squeak of surprise escaped her lips when Jack Sloane pushed open the front office door and strode right back in.