“I’d stay he has definitely noticed her. He’s fighting it already.”
“Ladies, ladies, you’ve got this blown out of all proportion.”
“I don’t think so.” Jan reached for her purse, and withdrew a copy of Stephanie’s employment application. “I did a bit of checking here. You had two employers in the two years before you came to us. Right?”
“Right.” Stephanie’s hand folded around her wineglass as she shifted uncomfortably.
“Why?”
“Well.” She paused to clear her throat. “I’ve had some problems with the men I’ve worked with.”
“What kind of problems?”
“You know.” She waved her hand.
“Men making advances?” Toni, the quiet one, suggested.
“More than that. They all seemed to require more than secretarial duties of me, if you get my meaning.”
“We do,” Jan said.
“Trust me, ladies, it wasn’t romance my former bosses had in mind.” Just thinking of those stress-filled days produced an involuntary grimace.
“What did you do?”
“The only thing I could. I quit.”
“Yes, she’s heroine material all right,” Toni said with a curt nod.
Unable to hold back a laugh, Stephanie added, “You ladies don’t honestly believe all this, do you?”
“You bet we do,” all four concurred.
“But why would it matter to you if Jonas Lockwood is married or not? Maybe he’s utterly content being single. Marriage isn’t for everyone.”
Jan answered first. “As I explained, we’re all incurable romantics. We’ve worked for Mr. Lockwood a lot longer than you. He needs a wife, only he doesn’t realize it. But we’re doing this for selfish reasons, too. It would help the situation at work for us all if Mr. Lockwood had a family of his own.”
“Family?” Stephanie nearly choked on her wine. “First you have me falling in love with him, then we get married, and now I’m bearing his children.” This conversation was going from the sublime to the ridiculous. To be honest, she was half-tempted to practice her feminine wiles on Jonas Lockwood, just for the pleasure of seeing if the mighty man would crumble at her feet. Then she would have the ultimate pleasure of snubbing him and walking away. But this clearly wasn’t what Jan and friends had in mind.
“You see,” Barbara inserted, “we feel that Mr. Lockwood would be more agreeable to certain employee benefits if he walked in our shoes for a while.’’
Dumbfounded, Stephanie shook her head. These ladies were actually serious. “I think a union would be the more appropriate way to deal with this.”
“There isn’t one. So we’re creating our own—of sorts.”
Stephanie still didn’t understand. “What kind of benefits?”
“More lenient rules regarding maternity leave.”
“Extra days off at Christmas.”
“Increased health benefits to include family members.”
Lifting the blond curls off her forehead, Stephanie looked around the table at the four intense faces studying her. “You’re really serious, aren’t you?”
“Completely.”
“Utterly.”
“We mean business.”
“Indeed.” Jan raised her hand and called for the waitress, ordering another round.
“I’m really sorry, ladies, but I’m not heroine material.” The waitress delivered another round of wine coolers and Stephanie waited until the woman had finished. “A man like Jonas Lockwood needs a woman far less opinionated than me. In two days, we barely said a civil word to each other.”
“The woman who loves him will need a strong personality.”
“She’d needmore than that.” Stephanie couldn’t imagine any woman capable of tearing down Jonas Lockwood’s icy facade. He was too hard, too cold, too unapproachable.
“Say, I didn’t know you spoke French.” Jan glanced up from Stephanie’s application, her eyes growing larger by the minute. “Do you, Steph?”
“My grandmother was French. She insisted I learn.”
“Then you’re bilingual?”
“Right.”
All four women paused, regarding Stephanie as though she had suddenly turned into an alien from outer space. “Hey, why are you looking at me like that?”
“No reason.” Barbara lowered her head, apparently finding the maraschino cherry floating in her drink overwhelmingly interesting.
“So your grandmother was French?” Toni asked, doing her best to hide a smile.
“Why do I have the feeling that you four have something dangerously powerful up your sleeves?” Stephanie glanced from one grinning face to the other.
“What does the fact that I speak French fluently have to do with anything?”
“You’ll see.”
“I don’t like the sounds of this,” Stephanie muttered.
“What do you think of our idea?” Barbara asked bravely.
“You mean about finding a woman for Mr. Lockwood?”
The four nodded, watching her expectantly.
“Great. As long as that woman isn’t me.”
“I think it’s fate,” Jan added. “This couldn’t be turning out any better than if we’d planned it.”
“Planned what?”
“You’ll see,” all four echoed.