Indecent Suggestion - By Elizabeth Bevarly Page 0,46

long sleeves and a barely scooped neckline. To accessorize it, she’d added black sheer stockings, black heels that weren’t too high, a strand of sedate pearls and pearl earrings. She was playing Robert Englund’s game, too, for now, wanting to reassure her boss that she could play by the rules if it meant being compensated for it. He still hadn’t said anything firm about a promotion or raise or bonus, even though she was confident all were forthcoming. And if she looked half as nice as Turner did tonight…

She let her thoughts stop there, because she didn’t want to think about how nice Turner looked tonight. That way lay madness, she knew.

“You ready?” he asked as one valet came around to his side of the car and another tugged open Becca’s door.

She nodded. “But I think I’m going to need a drink as soon as we get inside the door.”

“Feeling like a commoner already, are we?” he asked with a smile.

She shrugged, but couldn’t quite manage a smile in return. “Among other things,” she told him softly.

She could tell her response puzzled him, and he opened his mouth as if he were going to say something else, but the valet on his side of the car opened his door, forcing him to exit and take a receipt from the young man instead. Becca climbed out, too, then used Turner’s distraction to change the subject.

“Do you remember Mrs. Englund’s name?” she quizzed him as he joined her on the steps leading up to the front door.

“Yes, I do,” he told her. “It’s Mrs. Englund.”

This time Becca was able to smile. “Very good,” she said.

She was about to make her way up the steps, but hesitated when Turner crooked his elbow and offered her his arm. Normally, she would have linked arms with him and not thought a thing about it. After the way things had been over the last couple of weeks, though, she wavered.

“Come on,” he said quietly, obviously understanding her uncertainty. “If we still feel the need to, we’ll talk more later, when we can both think a little more clearly. For tonight, though, we’re just Turner and Becca, the way we’ve always been. Okay?”

She nodded, but wasn’t sure she believed him. She wasn’t sure he believed himself, truth be told. Because there was something in his eyes when he looked at her…

No, she told herself. It was just her imagination playing games. In spite of the positive way he’d responded to her overtures, when all was said and done, she didn’t think he really wanted to take things to the next level any more than she did.

And she told herself she wasn’t disheartened by that. She wasn’t. And just to prove it, she wasn’t going to think about it at all tonight.

So there.

The interior of the Englund home was as luxurious as Becca remembered, and then some. The foyer soared two stories above them and was paneled on all sides and the ceiling with a dark, rich wood she suspected was mahogany. A sweeping staircase rose before them, opening onto a second floor gallery that boasted a series of oil paintings of landscapes and still lifes. A thick Persian runner in variegated jewel tones covered the stairs, matching the carpet that spanned much of the foyer floor. To the left of the stairway and beyond it was a hall that led farther into the house, and on their immediate left was what appeared to be a roomy parlor. To the right was the living room, where much of the party seemed to have congregated for now, because the room was teeming with guests.

A liveried maid appeared out of nowhere to take Becca’s and Turner’s coats once they’d slipped out of them, then carried the garments off to the magical Kingdom of Infinite Coat Storage. Becca had no idea how the woman would keep track of who owned what coat, but she was confident Robert Englund would only hire the best coat-keeper-tracker-of that money could buy.

Turner threw her a reassuring smile as he gestured toward the hallway. “My tingling spider sense tells me the bar is thataway.”

“Hmm,” Becca replied as she followed him in the direction he’d indicated. “I think that’s actually your bourbon sense that’s tingling.”

“Oh, right,” he said. “I always get those two confused.”

His bourbon sense was right on the mark, too, because they found the bar—at least one of them, since she suspected there would be more than one for a party this size—set up in