Her Man Friday (8 page)

Hoo-kay, he thought. It didn't take a genius to figure out that she wanted to change the subject. And speaking of geniuses, that reminded him of something he wanted to ask her about.

"So what's the deal with Mr. Kimball's sister and IQs?" he asked as he closed the program housing the billionaire's sangria recipe and reached for a cookie.

Miss Rigby chuckled. "You've met Janey, then, have you?"

He nodded. "A little while ago. She gave me a spelling test."

The secretary perched herself on the edge of Kimball's desk, a posture that resulted in the hem of her already short skirt shrinking even more. Somehow, he suspected the gesture was deliberate, that by revealing a little extra thigh, Miss Rigby was hoping she might make him forget all about her odd reaction to the sangria recipe.

As far as Leo was concerned, she succeeded. Really, really well.

"Did you pass the exam?" she asked.

"Of course," he told her, reaching for his coffee again, but keeping his gaze trained on the smooth skin of her thigh. Wow.

"Janey suffers from second child syndrome," Miss Rigby said after sipping her tea. "And when the first child is someone like Schuyler, well… Needless to say, Janey was somewhat overlooked in her youth. Not only was Schuyler a hellion, but her IQ, you see, is terribly,
terribly
, just above average, something that didn't alarm her teachers or her mother into taking drastic measures with her."

"And what's so terrible,
terrible
, about being just above average?" Leo asked. Frankly, there had been times when he was growing up that he would just as soon have been terribly, terribly just above average himself. It would have made things a hell of a lot simpler. For everybody.

"Absolutely nothing," the secretary said, reaching for a cookie that was—somehow he contained his shudder of disgust—pink. "But Janey seems to feel diminished by it. She's the only one in the family who doesn't rank genius, and it bothers her enormously. Even Schuyler's mother, for all her… eccentricities—"

"Eccentricities?" he interjected. "What kind of eccentricities?" This ought to be good.

Miss Rigby sipped her tea. "Well, for example, right now, Miranda is in her room having tea, too, except that her companion is much less, um… substantial than my own tea companion is."

"Substantial?" Leo asked curiously, not certain he liked the sound of that.

But Miss Rigby only nodded without elaboration.

"As in… skinny?" he asked.

This time she shook her head. "As in… not there."

"Not there?"

She sighed fitfully. "Well, all right, if you must know, she's having her tea with Hedy Lamar."

"Oh."

"At any rate," Miss Rigby hurried on, "in spite of that, Miranda Kimball is, in fact, a card-carrying member of Mensa. Mensa just doesn't like to advertise the fact, that's all."

Leo nodded, but his thoughts circled back to Janey Kimball instead of her mother. His own brothers had certainly used his accelerated IQ as an excuse to beat the hell out of him on more than one occasion. Oh, but only in the nicest possible way, naturally, and only for his own good, and only because they loved him so much. Their animosity had only been compounded when Leo wound up being the first—and so far, only—Friday who had attended college, and that was only because he'd earned full scholarship privileges, and
that
was only because of his stratospheric test scores.

The rest of the family—except for his mother, of course—had always kept their distance from Leo in one way or another, simply because he wasn't much like the rest of them. This in spite of all his efforts to fit in, efforts which had, one after another, backfired bigtime. Still, he thought, of all the things that might cause alienation among family members, smarts wasn't a very bright one.

And speaking of not very bright, that reminded him of something else he wanted to ask her about.

"And just what, exactly, is it that
you
do for Mr. Kimball, Miss Rigby?" he asked, voicing what was really uppermost in his thoughts today. "Aside from stealing his sangria recipe, I mean."

She had bitten into the pink cookie, but gagged a little as he completed his question. The gag, however, resulted in a gasp, the gasp segued into a cough, and the cough turned into a full-blown dry hack. With no small effort, she reached for her tea and downed a hefty swallow in an effort to halt what was fast becoming a serious respiratory failure.

Okay, Leo was fully aware that he made women nervous sometimes. He was bigger than the average guy, and, all modesty aside, not a bad-looking sort. It wasn't unusual for a woman to react to him with some degree of attraction, mixed with a healthy dose of wariness. But he couldn't ever recall making one gag and hack until tears squeezed from her eyes.

"Miss Rigby?" he asked, standing. He reached across the desk and opened his hand over her back to give her an idle pat.

But instead of helping, the action only seemed to increase her discomfort, because she jumped up from the desk and took a few steps backward in retreat. Holding up one hand palm out in surrender, she enjoyed another healthy sip from her tea. Gradually, she got her coughing under control, then she dragged a finger beneath each eye to swipe away the moisture that had collected there.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled roughly. "I… That bite just went down the wrong way."

"Boy, I'll say it did."

She cleared her throat one last time, then returned to her seat on the desk. This time, however, she tugged her skirt down before sitting.

"I'm, uh… I'm Mr. Kimball's social secretary," she said, her voice still a little ragged from all the coughing. "I'm sorry. Didn't I tell you that earlier? I could have sworn that I did."

"Oh, you told me your title," he said. "I just wasn't sure what all that involved. Why a social secretary would be any different from a regular secretary and everything." He sipped his coffee and waited for a reply. When he didn't receive one, he added, "I mean, just how many
secretaries
does a man need, you know?"

Lily eyed Mr. Freiberger with what she hoped was a benign expression. However, benign was the last thing she felt at the moment. For one thing, considering his aptitude in finding Schuyler's top secret sangria recipe a few minutes ago, this man was obviously no ordinary lowly bookkeeper. He clearly knew his way around a computer better than the average pencil pusher. She'd spent the better part of the summer trying to figure out where Schuyler had hidden that recipe, and she'd never been able to find it.

Of course, neither had Schuyler, when she'd asked him to locate it, but that wasn't saying much. Schuyler frequently misplaced his files, especially the really important ones. In fact, his master's thesis from college was still out there in cyberspace somewhere, where he had accidentally jettisoned it shortly after completing it—he had been trying to access an adult-oriented bulletin board at the time. Fortunately, Lily had had the foresight to store the work on diskette before allowing Schuyler use of the modem. For someone who was so astoundingly brilliant, Schuyler Kimball had absolutely no idea how to get around a basic home computer.

But there was more than Mr. Freiberger's amazing facility with computers that bothered Lily. She still couldn't shake the feeling that he wasn't presenting himself in a way that was particularly, oh… honest. His frumpy awkwardness had only lasted as long as it had taken him to overrun Schuyler's office, and now, suddenly, he was like a man who was in total control. Of his professional role, of his thoughts, of his surroundings. Somehow Lily couldn't quite put aside the sensation that he was trying to overrun her, too.

But what was genuinely mind-boggling was that, truth be told, she really wouldn't mind being overrun by the man. And that, furthermore, she kind of wanted to overrun him in return. It made no sense. Certainly she had experienced immediate attractions to men before, and she'd enjoyed one or two intimate relationships in her life. But those relationships had come about
after
she'd gotten to know the men in question, not the moment she had opened the door to them. She didn't know the first thing about Leonard Freiberger, except that she didn't think he was being honest about something. Yet she found herself responding to him on a level that was anything but professional.

And now he was asking the oddest questions. Wanting to know the most unusual things. Giving her looks that went well beyond suspicious and into outright accusation. What on earth was going on?

When she remembered that he was still awaiting a response to his question about what she did for Schuyler—and how could he have possibly made such an inquiry sound so blatantly sexual?—she lifted one shoulder and let it drop in what she hoped looked like a careless gesture. Even though careless was the last thing she felt at the moment.

"I run things for Mr. Kimball here," she said simply. "I keep things organized, keep track of what needs to be taken care of. Although he also has a secretary at his office who attends to the things that come up there, I make sure that all the things that need to get done here at Ashling do in fact get done. And sometimes, when it's needed, elsewhere."

"Elsewhere?"

"At Mr. Kimball's other residences," she clarified. "As I mentioned, I do travel with him from time to time. This time of year, however, with the holidays coming up, I tend to keep close to Ashling."

"Mr. Kimball celebrates in a big way, does he?"

"You could say that."

"Lots of parties?"

"Well, lots of guests," she said, evading the question.

"And just how did you… oh… get this position with Mr. Kimball?"

Once again, he'd made a simple word like
position
sound sexually charged, and it finally, finally hit Lily that Mr. Freiberger thought she played a much different role in Schuyler's life than social secretary. She almost laughed out loud at the suggestion, so appropriate was it in its own strange way. Still, she supposed that the kind thing to do would be to set him straight. Well, straighter, anyway. There was no reason to tell him the entire truth. It would only serve to get her into trouble.

"Mr. Kimball and I have known each other for some time," she began. "Since college, in fact. I met him, oh, let me think… It was twelve years ago, I guess. I was nineteen at the time, trying to beat the Xerox machine in the school library into submission because it had stolen my fifteen cents. Schuyler came up behind me and fixed it in a snap. I was immediately taken with him. He's a very arresting individual on first contact. And, naturally, I was impressed by how mechanically capable he was."

"Oh, I bet that was what impressed you."

She narrowed her eyes at Mr. Freiberger's tone of voice. But his expression was completely impassive, so she had no idea if he had just made a disparaging comment or not. Deciding to give him the benefit of the doubt—for now—she continued.

"We remained friendly throughout college—"

"Oh, I'll bet you did."

"—and when he started up his business," she continued crisply, pretending—but not very hard—that she hadn't heard his comment, "Schuyler was nice enough to offer me a position."

"A really interesting position, too, I imagine."

"And since I had few other prospects at that point," Lily continued on valiantly through gritted teeth, "I was happy to take him up on his offer."

"And what an offer it must have been."

There, she was finished. And she congratulated herself for not slapping Mr. Freiberger silly during all his adolescent commentary. She'd explained her history with Schuyler all nice and simple and to the point,
and
she'd done it truthfully. She was rather proud of herself for that. Well, pretty truthfully, she amended. She may have left out one or two little things. But she'd covered all the major points. Well, most of the major points, anyway.

Before Mr. Freiberger could demand a more thorough explanation, not to mention ask her another question she really didn't want to answer, Lily leapt up from the desk again.

"And speaking of my work for Mr. Kimball," she said, "I really should be getting back to it. I'll be happy to leave the tea things here for you, if you think you'll be wanting more."

"Oh, I'll definitely be wanting more, Miss Rigby."

There it was
again
, she thought. That tone of voice that let her know he was talking about something significantly different from what she was talking about herself.

But all she said in response was, "Fine. Then I'll just… leave these here, shall I?"

"Fine."

She turned to go, but something made her hesitate. Not that Mr. Freiberger said anything that might have halted her progress, but she sensed somehow that whatever business the two of them had was by no means finished. So she pivoted easily around again to face him, and wasn't exactly surprised to see him lift his gaze from where it had been—right at fanny level.

"Was there something else?" she asked.

He shook his head slowly, his expression a complete blank. "Why no, Miss Rigby. Not today. Did I give you the impression that there
would
be something else?"

She opened her mouth to respond, then decided she'd be better off if she kept quiet. So with a silent shake of her head, she turned again and made her way out of Schuyler's office. Somehow, though, she was beginning to suspect that Mr. Freiberger's stay at Ashling was going to result in a lot more than a simple discovery of some minor income tax infraction. And furthermore, somehow, she got the distinct impression that income taxes were the last thing he'd come to investigate anyway.

She only wished she could figure out what it was, exactly, that he
was
looking for. And she wondered if she should alert Schuyler to the fact that there was something funny going on. Immediately, she dismissed the idea. Schuyler would tell her she was being silly. And, perhaps, she was. In many ways, he had always known her better than she knew herself.

Even when the two of them had been students, Lily had known, as had everyone else who had ever come into contact with him, that Schuyler Kimball wasn't normal, that he knew things, could see things, could understand things, that no normal human being would be able to process. His IQ was off the charts, his brilliant mind the eighth wonder of the modern world. Only one thing had ever even come close to equaling it—his ambition. These days, people referred to Schuyler as
driven
. As a student, however, he'd been
consumed
.