Her Man Friday Read online

  "Well, can I at least go by my own first name?" he asked, masking his sarcasm as best he could, and telling himself that was not petulance he heard in his voice.

  "Leonard?" Cohiba Man asked with a shrug. "I don't see why not."

  Leo cringed at the sound of his given name. He really hated being called Leonard. No one but his great-aunt Margie got away with calling him that anymore, and the only reason she did was because she was ninety-two years old. Weil, that and the fact that, even though at six-foot-two, Leo was a solid one-hundred and ninety-eight pounds, Aunt Margie outweighed him by a good fifty pounds. And she watched way too much Championship Wrestling.

  "No, not Leonard," he started to object.

  But Halston Man cut him off. "Leonard Freiberger!" he exclaimed. "That's who you could be. It would be close to your real name, but not really. And you won't be an investigator. You'll be a… let's see now… a bookkeeper! Yes, that's perfect. A mousy little bookkeeper who's been hired to double-check the files for a few minor discrepancies. And I think Leonard Freiberger is the perfect name for a mousy little bookkeeper. I went to school with a Morton Freiberger," he added parenthetically. "Trust me. This will be perfect."

  "That's interesting," Leo replied blandly. "I went to school with a Butch Freiberger. Son of a bitch beat the hell out of me one day during PE."

  Leo also thought about telling Halston Man that he had bookkeeper friends named Trixie LeFevre and Jamal Jefferson, and not a single one with a name like Leonard Freiberger. But the old guy seemed to be having so much fun that Leo didn't have the heart. Unfortunately, when he said nothing to counter the man's suggestion, the other executives, incredibly, seemed to warm to the idea.

  "Yes, yes," Versace Man chimed in. "That's a wonderful idea. You'll need glasses, though." He whipped his own pair of delicate, horn-rimmed spectacles from his face and held them out to Leo. "Here, you can wear mine. Don't worry—they're not prescription. They're mood glasses. Women adore them on men."

  Mood glasses? Leo wondered. Now what marketing genius had come up with that idea? One who had never had to wear real glasses, obviously. Leo should know. He'd been wearing contact lenses for half his life—since he was nineteen years old.

  "I don't think—" he began to object.

  But this time Grecian Formula Man interrupted him. "And you absolutely must wear tweed," he threw in. "Not the good kind—the Lauren or the Hilfiger—the absent-minded professor kind. Like Peter O'Toole wore in Goodbye Mr. Chips. That would suit the charade beautifully."

  Leo pinched the bridge of his nose—hard—and tried not to panic. "Uh, I think you guys are getting a little too—"

  "It's just too bad we can't do anything about your physical makeup, Mr. Friday," Charlton Heston Man piped up, frowning as he considered Leo from head to toe. "There aren't many bookkeepers who look like football linemen. Perhaps if you slouched a bit…"

  All right, that was enough, Leo thought, dropping his hand back down to his side. He owed it to bookkeepers everywhere to put a stop to this egregious stereotyping ASAP. Otherwise, he'd have Trixie and Jamal up here kicking corporate butt in no time flat.

  "Look," he bit out, barely able to contain his growing outrage. "You guys are out of line. There's no reason for me to affect any kind of damned stereotype. I'm perfectly capable of handling this assignment the same way I've handled hundreds of other assignments over the years. Just sit back and let me do my job."

  "Oh, we'll let you do your job, Mr. Friday," Cohiba Man said. "But don't forget who's paying your salary here."

  "Fine," Leo conceded sharply. "I'll play by your rules, to an extent." He emphasized those last three words as much as he could. "I'll go by another name, and I'll be the simple, lowly bookkeeper doing a perfunctory and very standard survey of the records. But I won't be a buffoon."

  "We never asked you to be that, Mr. Friday," Cohiba Man said. But he smiled as he puffed his cigar.

  Leo shook his head once more, not bothering to be imperceptible about it this time. These guys were flat-out nuts. Too much living in the corporate ivory towers would do that to a person, he supposed.

  Fine, he thought. He'd play a part. Whatever it took to get these guys off his back so he could do his job, collect his paycheck, and leave them in the dust. One thing, however, was absolutely certain. He wasn't going to go by Leonard Freiberger, and he wasn't going to slouch, and he wasn't going to wear tweed or mood glasses.

  He didn't care who was paying his salary.

  * * *

  Chapter Two

  "Leonard Freiberger, ma'am. We spoke on the phone yesterday afternoon?"

  Lily Rigby gazed at the man standing on the other side of Schuyler's front door, blinked a few times in rapid succession, and realized she had no idea what to say in response. His appearance simply left her at a loss for words. She reminded herself that Mr. Freiberger had identified himself over the telephone the day before as a bookkeeper, but still… She hadn't thought anybody wore that Goodbye, Mr. Chips tweed stuff anymore.

  "Lily Rigby," she finally said, extending her hand toward him. "I'm Schuyler Kimball's social secretary. It's nice to meet you, Mr. Freiberger."

  Actually, she was quite a bit more than Schuyler Kimball's social secretary, she thought. She and Schuyler had, after all, gone to college together. And he had, after all, been her first lover, however briefly. And they had, after all, lived together for years and years and years. But that was undoubtedly a bit more than Mr. Freiberger wanted to know, wasn't it?

  So she said nothing further as she extended one hand toward him in greeting, then skimmed the other over the straight black hair she had wound into a sleek French twist. She forced a smile as she catalogued the rest of him, scrambling for a bland, polite addition to her salutation. When he took her hand, his fingers closed over hers, virtually swallowing them. He had big hands and a strong, capable grip, and his flesh was warm and rough against hers.

  When she glanced up at his face, it startled her to realize that beneath close-cropped, medium brown hair, and behind round, wire-framed glasses, Mr. Freiberger had beautiful hazel eyes—not quite green, not quite blue, not quite gray. They were eyes that reflected intelligence, wit and a generally easygoing disposition, and not a little heat. His other features were craggy, but pleasant—a square jaw, full, but finely chiseled lips, a straight nose, nice cheekbones. Oh, yes. Very nice cheekbones, indeed.

  Quickly, she shook his hand and released it. Then she skimmed her gaze downward, and back up again, hoping he noticed neither her hasty inventory, nor the reluctant blush she felt warming her face when she completed it. Because even the baggy tweed jacket and trousers, even the rumpled white oxford shirt and outdated tie, did nothing to hide the solid body lurking somewhere beneath.

  Goodness. Mr. Freiberger was built like a Mack truck. And he probably topped six-feet, though it was hard to say for sure, considering that nasty slouch of his. But even with his bad posture, he towered over Lily. Then again, she stood a mere five-foot-four in her stockinged feet—on a good day—and never wore heels any higher than one inch with her work clothes.

  She stepped aside to allow the man entry, wondering again why the board of directors of Kimball Technologies wanted him to go over Schuyler's home files. Something about a problem with last year's tax return, Mr. Freiberger had explained, but honestly. She wished they would have given her more notice for an audit that sounded in no way urgent.

  "Come in, Mr. Freiberger," she told the bookkeeper, sweeping a hand toward the expansive marble foyer. "I apologize for my hesitation. My mind is elsewhere. Mr. Kimball is out of town this week, so I have my hands full keeping things running on my own."

  Not that she didn't run things all by herself when Schuyler was there, too, she added to herself with not a little pique. Ten years had passed since she'd earned her first degree in business and Schuyler had suggested launching Kimball Technologies, but he had always been far too focused on the design work for the company to ever worry about anything el
se. Like so many other things, the day-to-day tasks here at Ashling invariably fell to Lily, regardless of where Schuyler was.

  The bookkeeper nodded his thanks as he gripped his leather satchel more firmly. Then he strode forward, pausing just inside the door. When he passed her, Lily noted that he smelled… very nice. Not perfumey, but… clean. Earthy. Masculine. Somehow the scent was both wildly inappropriate and strangely suitable for him.

  "Thank you, Miss Rigby," he said. His voice, like the rest of him, was a combination of opposites, the gentility edged with a roughness she couldn't mistake. "I'll do my best to stay out of your way this week," he added. "I'll be quiet as a mouse. You won't even know I'm here."

  That was something Lily sincerely doubted. Already she was far too curious about Mr. Freiberger. In spite of his clothes, he looked like the kind of man she might meet in a South Philly bar, at the end of the work day and the peak of hockey season, downing beer and screaming on the Flyers to the Stanley Cup. Yet he dressed and spoke and carried himself as if he were an unassuming and inconspicuous… well, dweeb.

  "Um, that's okay, Mr. Freiberger," she said. "It's pretty quiet around here when Mr. Kimball's not in residence. And we tend to fall into a fairly casual routine, even when he's home. I assure you, you won't be in the way at all."

  She closed the door behind him, but not before a breath of autumn scurried inside. The mid-October wind was cool and crisp, already hinting at the winter to come, redolent of apples and drying leaves. The expansive maples and oaks that surrounded Schuyler's estate were ablaze with orange and red and gold, their leaves scattered about the grass like fallen handkerchiefs. Mr. Tooley, the groundskeeper, could scarcely keep up, even with the help of two college boys he had at his disposal. Then again, the house they cared for wasn't exactly your run-of-the-mill estate.

  Ashling, the thirty-four-room, twenty-nine-thousand-square-foot Georgian manor that was Schuyler Kimball's primary residence, rested on forty-five acres of prime real estate in rural Bucks County. With its rose-colored brick and lead/copper roof, with its twelve fireplaces and nine bedrooms, with its gymnasium and movie theater, and with its majestic marble gallery that linked the house's two wings, Lily knew Ashling surpassed even Schuyler's expectations for living quarters. The name he had bestowed upon his home was a phonic representation of Aisling, an Irish name that meant dream. Because to Schuyler, that was precisely what the huge house was. A dream come true.

  She supposed there were a lot of people who would consider the residence excessive, particularly for a single man who had made no secret of his confirmed—and womanizing—bachelorhood. Truth be told, Lily was one of them. But Schuyler had worked hard and sacrificed a lot to earn the wealth he claimed. She had seen firsthand how many obstacles he had overcome to achieve his current status, and how many battles he continued to fight every day to maintain it.

  And it wasn't like he did live here alone. There was a huge staff of hourly workers who filed in every morning to see to the day-to-day running of Ashling. Schuyler's mother, Miranda, and his sister, Janey, were residents. Lily, too, with a handful of servants, lived here full-time, though her quarters were significantly more modest than the family's. And, of course, she mustn't forget Chloe.

  As much as she might like to.

  As Lily led Leonard Freiberger through the gallery toward the east wing that housed the private living area where Schuyler kept his office, she strove for polite conversation. "Leonard," she repeated. "That's a lovely name. My mother had a chocolate point Siamese named Leonard. Of course, it goes without saying that we always called him 'Leo.'"

  She wasn't sure, but she thought the bookkeeper grunted something in response to that. She sighed and tried again. "He was rather neurotic, though, even for a Siamese. There were times when we were convinced he thought he was a Turkish Angora."

  Silence greeted the comment from behind, followed by what sounded to Lily like a very weary sigh. She was about to say something more, when finally Mr. Freiberger asked in a flat voice, "Um, why was that?"

  Without breaking stride, she replied over her shoulder, "Well, he just thought he was so much smarter than everyone else, you know? I mean, honestly. A chocolate point Siamese. Can you imagine?"

  When Mr. Freiberger responded with another lengthy silence, she glanced back to find that he was squinting at her—as if the light in the gallery had suddenly gone dim. Men, Lily thought with no small exasperation. They never did understand cats.

  She continued to lead him on their journey, passing the receiving room, the sitting room, the living room, and the atrium, then turned left into the east wing. For some reason, there seemed to be a strange tension emanating from Mr. Freiberger, a tension whose origin Lily couldn't quite pinpoint. So, as always, she fell back on meaningless chitchat to defuse the taut mood.

  "I know you drove here from Philadelphia, Mr. Freiberger and work for Kimball Technologies. Are you originally from the area?"

  "Not Philadelphia, no," he told her. "Although I've worked and lived in the city for about five years now, I grew up in Maryland, in a small town on Chesapeake Bay called Harborside." She could tell by his tone of voice that he carried a lot of fond memories of his upbringing. And she noted that when he smiled the way he was smiling now, he was almost… She sighed involuntarily. Well, he was almost, sort of, kind of… handsome.

  She began to walk again, but this time strode side by side with Mr. Freiberger, instead of two paces ahead of him. And this time she slowed their pace to one that was much more leisurely.

  "It sounds like a wonderful little town," she told him.

  "Yes, well, 'little' would be the operative word," he agreed, still grinning, still speaking warmly, still almost handsome. "There's not much there but oystermen. But you're right—it is wonderful."

  They entered the living quarters of Ashling, but since they were still in mid-conversation—and since Mr. Freiberger was still looking so almost handsome—Lily slowed their pace even more as they approached Schuyler's office.

  "You're from a fishing—or, rather, oystering—family then?" she asked, assuming the obvious.

  Mr. Freiberger nodded, lifting a hand to straighten his glasses as he replied, "Yes, my father and brother both are oystermen."

  "Why didn't you go into the business, too?"

  He shrugged as he said, "There's not a lot of that kind of work left these days. Besides, I showed a proficiency for other things. I wasn't really suited to the family business."

  She was about to ask him what kind of other things he claimed proficiency in—and would he, if she asked nicely, show her what they were—but by that time, they had cleared the family room, the library, and the conservatory, and they stood by the door of Schuyler's private office. As Lily opened it and turned to gesture Mr. Freiberger in ahead of her, she marveled again at the incongruencies in the man.

  The son of an oysterman. Yet he claimed not to be suitable for that type of work. Strange, because he was clearly in prime physical shape, certainly more than up to the back-breaking labor such a job would require. And something about him bespoke the great outdoors. His complexion was touched with a golden tan, lines fanned out from the corners of his eyes, and his lips were framed by deep slashes that might be genetic, but more probably resulted from exposure to the elements. Certainly it was evident that he spent more than a little time outdoors. Nothing about him suggested the bookishness he projected.

  Still, who was Lily to judge appearances? Hadn't she herself been erroneously pegged on more occasions than she cared to admit?

  "Any files Mr. Kimball keeps for professional reasons are all in here," she said, once more shaking off her odd preoccupation with Leonard Freiberger.

  She entered Schuyler's office behind the bookkeeper and strode immediately toward the massive mahogany desk that sat before an even more massive Palladian window. Of course, Schuyler's personal files were all in here, as well, but there was little chance Mr. Freiberger would be accessing those. Not just because they h
ad little to do with the business, but because they were all protected by passwords and elaborate booby traps that baffled even Schuyler himself from time to time.

  "Most of them are on diskette," she added, pulling open a drawer and extracting a stack. "Some are on the computer's hard drive, and a few are filed the old-fashioned way—in filing cabinets." She smiled. "For all his technological savvy, Schuyler still hasn't made his environment completely paper-free. He's not very good with computers, I'm afraid."

  Leo nodded as he enjoyed another leisurely study of Schuyler Kimball's "social secretary," noting her slip at using her employer's first name. And, for the first time in his life, he found himself wishing that he was an extremely rich man. Then maybe he could afford a woman like the delectable Lily Rigby.

  Her pale green eyes and now-you-see-it-now-you-don't smile hinted at an easily amused nature, her flawless ivory complexion and artfully applied cosmetics suggested good breeding. Her black hair, doubtless long and straight when freed, was wound up the back of her head the way Kim Novak used to wear her hair in all those Hitchcock films from the fifties and sixties—the kind of hairstyle that always had a man's fingers itching to loosen it.

  As she leaned forward to boot up the computer on the big desk that was obviously Kimball's central nervous system here at home, Leo took in the rest of her. Her chocolate-brown business suit was professional enough to pass muster at most companies, he supposed, but he hadn't encountered too many professional women—hell, too many women, period—who filled out a corporate uniform quite the way Lily Rigby did. Her straight skirt was just a little too tight and a little too short, and her waist-length jacket swung open over a top that was a little too snug and scooped a little too low. A thin, gold chain encircling her neck hosted a bright diamond, one that was a little too big for someone on a social secretary's salary.

  Social secretary, Leo repeated dubiously to himself. Yeah, right. Mistress was more like it. He'd learned enough about Schuyler Kimball, playboy billionaire, to know the man would never have a woman like this in his employ without sampling her personal wares on a regular basis. Oh, sure, the job title was a nice, convenient cover, and giving her a regular paycheck for such a role might make the arrangement more socially acceptable. But there was no way Leo would ever believe that the job description for Miss Rigby's position was anything other than sexual.