Pink Satin

skirt and then stared at her outfit darkly. The oyster skirt, cocoa blouse and pearls were old favorites, a choice based on past experience to pick up her mood. They were failing her.

She wasn’t much of a lover. She was good at listening, and terrific at making pot pies; her empathy was laudable, and she was just plain excellent at her job. But she’d never been much of a lover.

Wearily, she touched her fingers to her temples, denting the skin white with unconscious pressure. She had known that, long before she got involved with Ryan. And she’d sensed up front that Ryan would be an exciting, imaginative and experienced lover. Too experienced to be fooled by a lady trying to fake it.

He was the last man she should have let herself fall in love with.

“Looks to me like our resident sex symbol needs a drink.”

Her head popped up to see Ray lounging in the doorway, the sleeves of his white linen shirt rolled up at the cuffs, his spotless black suit pants perfectly creased. His tone, as always, overflowed with husky seductiveness. And as always, it grated on Greer’s nerves.

She could barely keep the impatience out of her voice. “I take it you got the figures back from the regional sales studies we did?”

He nodded. “But it looks to me as if you’re much more in a mood for a bottle of wine and a night of love than discussing Midwestern sales patterns.”

Greer reached out for the folder in his hand. “I’ll settle for the statistics on girdle sales in Ohio, but thanks.”

He dropped the file on her desk. “One of these days you’re going to realize what you’re missing.”

“I’ll survive,” she assured him as she thumbed through the statistics he’d brought her. “Did I tell you this or did I tell you this? The Corn Belt’s going nuts for negligees.”

“Not exactly the Corn Belt, but close enough.” Ray lowered himself into the chair by her desk, his lazy black eyes skimming over her figure in the cocoa blouse. He was a man who specialized in mentally stripping women; yet Greer had never figured out how his eyes could be so opaque, so unreadable. “I won’t say I didn’t resent Grant’s pushing you into my marketing corner, but I have to admit you know your stuff. Now, Southern women I would have guessed, but never that the farmers’ wives would go for frills and lace.”

“I’ve been telling you for ages that psychology and marketing shouldn’t be strangers.” Greer shoved her glasses onto her nose and flipped through the last pages of his report.

“And I’ve been trying to tell you exactly the same thing for months, darling.”

“Pardon?” She lifted her head from the neatly typed pages distractedly.

“It’s only a half hour until quitting time. I was about to suggest a drink afterward.”

For a moment, she couldn’t think of a thing to say.

For all his constant sexual patter, Ray had never asked her out before. The offer made her oddly nervous. “I really can’t, not tonight. Maybe another time…”

“Why did I know you’d say that?” Ray’s smile was cool. He moved to the door, but then turned suddenly, that practiced smile gone from his face. “You know, I thought we’d made inroads this last week, working together. Obviously, I was mistaken.”

She frowned. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I think you do. I thought if we worked together a little more closely, you might just thaw out. Obviously not.”

“Ray!” Greer fumbled for words. “I care very much that we work well together. I always have. But beyond that-”

“Beyond that, if any other man in the place had asked you for a drink, you would have gone.”

Greer clamped her jaws together. “For heaven’s sake. I’ve had a drink after work with Barney once in the five years I’ve worked here-”

He was gone. Bewildered, Greer shook her head. She’d never seen Ray behave so…ridiculously.

For the next half hour, she pored over the regional statistics he’d brought her, and fretted over the confrontation. She’d always regarded him as an insensitive, chauvinistic SOB. Well, he was. But perhaps she herself had shown a lack of sensitivity toward his feelings. Had her dislike of him shown through?

The thought upset her. Simply because she didn’t like the man didn’t mean she wanted to hurt him. And she knew she hadn’t made any serious efforts to understand Ray, as she had with the others at Love Lace. She hadn’t cared enough to try.

Besides, one short drink after work wouldn’t have hurt you, she scolded herself. For the first time since you’ve been here, he’s actually trying to get along. You blew it.

Bodies were moving past her door. Greer glanced at the clock and gathered up the report and her purse. Feeling utterly low, she made her way down the hall, anxious simply to be home where she could mope in peace. She was fumbling with sunglasses at the back door when she heard a sneeze.

Normally, a sneeze was hardly enough to make her turn around, but this one sounded out of place. Grant’s office was behind her; she backed up three steps to where she could see through the windowed partition.

The office hadn’t changed; it still had a teak desk so well polished you could use it for a mirror to put on lipstick, a neat array of bookshelves and a wall collage of photographs-models in various styles of lingerie-that Greer could never fathom why Marie tolerated. The office was the same, and Grant was the same, his blue suit impeccable on his square, lean form, his mustache meticulously trimmed, his posture, as always, erect. The only thing out of place was Ryan.

Work boots, jeans, hard hat, sun-weathered skin… Ryan was a shout of sheer sexy machismo next to Grant’s overmanicured smallness. The difference between the men was more than physical, Greer mused for a second and a half. Grant was the kind of man who would make lingerie. Ryan was the kind women wore it for.

That second and a half passed quickly, during which she was quickly striding the five steps necessary to walk inside Grant’s door, where she stood, her jaws clamped into a counterfeit smile.

“Greer!” Grant leaned back on his desk, motioning her in. “I told Mr. McCullough you’d be passing by here any minute. I was just filling your friend in on the industry.”

“Done for the day?” Ryan queried lightly.

She nodded. Ryan offered a hand to Grant, and the two men exchanged a few more pleasant words before Greer found herself escorted from the office into the hot sunlight of the parking lot. Just as Ryan’s stride was lithe and easy, Greer’s was stilted and clipped.

“You’d better be good for a ride home, honey. I was dropped off here.”

“And just miraculously ran into my boss in the farthest office in the back?”

“Once I had the receptionist call him, yes.”

“Why?” Greer asked, bewildered, as she climbed into the driver’s seat and hurriedly rolled down the windows against the sweltering oven inside. Ryan folded up his knees next to her, tossed his hard hat in the back and grinned. “McCullough, what are you up to?”

“Infiltrating the enemy lines.”

“Fine. Where’s the war?”

“Don’t get nervous. I was swarmed the minute I walked in the back door. I never asked for all the attention.”

“Most people use the front door.”

“And face all that stuff in the window?”

Greer chuckled. “You mean underpants?”

He shoved down his visor against the relentless late afternoon sun. “Looked like a pretty decent group of people you work with.”

“You’d figured them for flakes. Because of the lingerie,” Greer said wryly.

“I hadn’t figured them for anything at all. Don’t jump to conclusions, sassy.” He paused. “I must have met at least five of your colleagues.” And there was no need to mention that he’d engineered all of those meetings. “There’s no question they’re fond of you.”

“And I love them back,” Greer said mildly.

“The first one I ran into was a man named Ray. The one you mentioned you’d be going to that trade show with.”