Be Mine by Jennifer Crusie Read Free Book Online

out with him again.”
    “No.”
    “See, you don’t listen.”
    “Jane...”
    “All right, all right.” Jane got up to go. “How is this going to affect your working relationship?”
    “What working relationship? He doesn’t listen there, either.”
    Jane shook her head. “You’re making a big mistake. Aside from this one little flaw—”
    “ Little flaw?”
    “—this guy is perfect for you. And you’re going to let him get away.” Jane shook her head again as she went back to her desk. “Big mistake.”
    * * *
    “I’ M REALLY SORRY , Emily,” Richard said when she went to his office to check on some cost figures.
    “Richard, it’s not important.” Emily sat and reached for the papers she needed. “It could have happened to anyone.”
    “Anyone else would have listened.” He looked down at her, regret palpable in his eyes. He looked big and broad and solid and dependable and sexy. Also crazy about her, and devastated that she was unhappy with him.
    Emily closed her eyes. She could feel herself weakening. No, she thought, and opened her eyes.
    “I don’t think we should date, Richard. I’m just not comfortable with the idea of working together and dating.”
    “Emily—”
    “Listen to me,” she said, and he flushed.
    “You’re right.” He sat down. “About the listening, not about the dating. But if that’s the way you feel, I’ll listen.”
    “Thank you. Now about the estimates...” She found the figures she needed and then left before he could do something to wreck her defenses. It was a close call.
    During the next week, Richard found several pretexts to call private meetings with her, but she either sent him memos or brought Jane with her, much to Jane’s disgust. Eventually he got the hint, and for the next three weeks, she didn’t see him at all. She missed his sweetness and the breathless heat she fell into whenever he was close, but she didn’t miss his bossiness at all. She didn’t have a chance to; he bombarded her with memos that needed answers, forms that needed filling out and reports that needed filing yesterday. Ninety percent of the work, she thought, was unnecessary.
    Emily took his last report request out to Jane.
    “This is ridiculous. He has all these figures. If he sends anything else, send it back. Who does he think he is?”
    Jane took the report. “I don’t want to tell you this, but he wants you in his office.”
    “What did he say? ‘Have her washed and sent to my tent’?”
    “Karen just said he wanted you in his office ASAP.”
    “This stops now,” Emily snapped and turned on her heel toward the elevators.
    “Don’t bother to announce me,” she told Karen, and opened Richard’s door without knocking.
    He was sitting at his desk, comparing figures from two neat stacks of reports. His desk was obsessively tidy; a small bottle, two stacks of papers, one pen, a pitcher of water and a drinking glass. Nothing else. He must be a Martian, Emily thought. How can anybody work in such obsessive neatness? He doesn’t even take off his suit jacket.
    But he does look great.
    “I bet your mom was really strict, wasn’t she?” Emily asked.
    Richard looked up from his desk, surprised and slightly annoyed.
    “You summoned me.” Emily put her hands on her hips. “I came running as soon as I heard.”
    “The new formula came up from the lab.” He gestured toward the bottle on the desk. “Your idea about the, er, tingle.”
    “Why did it come to you?” Emily asked, exasperated. “You don’t give a damn about tingle.”
    “I don’t know.” Richard pulled his eyes away from her and turned back to his reports. “Just take it.”
    “What I like most about working with you is your charm.” Emily picked up the bottle. “Don’t you ever summon me again. You want me, you come down to see me.” She turned to go.
    “Emily, wait.”
    She took a deep breath and turned back, fire in her eye.
    Richard ran his hand through his hair. “I’m sorry. I get