Be My Baby Read Online Free PDF

horrified face. “What on earth happened here? Okay, never mind, hold on a second.” She took a deep breath, blew it out in a loud gust, and then dashed into the room. An instant later she emerged carrying a brown and gold silk kimono and gently bundled Juliet into it. “Okay, now,” she ordered firmly as she overlapped the robe’s front panels and tied the garment at Juliet’s waist, “tell me what’s frightened you so.”
    “Pardon me,” interrupted a cultured Southern voice from the doorway. “I heard a scream. Might I be of some assistance?”
    “Oh, Mr. Haynes.” Roxanne’s voice held relief as she turned toward the foyer.
    “Edward, dear,” his voice corrected her gently. “Remember? Please, do address me as Edward—I insist.”
    “Yes, of course. Please, come in.” When a man in his early sixties entered the living area, Roxanne reached out to lightly grip Juliet’s forearm. “This is Edward Haynes, Juliet. Edward, Juliet Astor Lowell. It was she who screamed, but I haven’t been able to find out why yet.”
    The arrival of the dapper white-haired gentleman forced Juliet to pull herself together. “In there,” she said raggedly, pointing a shaking finger at the bedroom door. “It was in my bed—big, black—God, it was so ugly. And it dropped practically on top of my foot when I threw back the covers. I’ve never seen anything like it in my life. It”—she shuddered and made scurrying motions with her fingers—“ran under the bed.”
    “Was it an animal, dear? A rat, maybe?”
    “No. A bug . But not little like a beetle. Big. Monstrous!”
    “Wait here,” Edward ordered. “Let me see what I can find.” He disappeared into the room.
    The women could hear him rustling around and Juliet turned to her assistant while they waited. The shock was beginning to wear off, and with relief she felt herself regain a bit of her normal composure.
    For the first time since the insect had flown from the sheets, she really attended to her surroundings and noticed that Roxanne, too, had discarded her business attire in favor of a loud pair of mustard-yellow satin lounging pajamas. She’d also released her curly, ginger-colored hair from its smooth workaday topknot and pulled it into a ponytail, securing the wild cascade that exploded from the side of her head with a black seamed fishnet stocking tied in a large floppy bow. It was a flamboyant look reminiscent of the day she’d come to interview, and it occurred to Juliet that both Roxanne’s work apparel and her public manner had undergone a major metamorphosis since she’d started working for Crown Corporation.
    It wasn’t as if Juliet had failed to notice the change before, of course—the agreement to adopt a certain look and deportment had been a proviso to Roxanne’s employment. Until just this moment,however, she hadn’t quite realized how very big the transformation in her assistant had been. It also suddenly occurred to her that Roxanne only indulged the more laid-back portion of her personality when they were alone together.
    Juliet felt a surge of affection. “Thank you, Roxanne,” she said with quiet fervency. “If you hadn’t shown up so promptly and taken over, I probably would have wound up running down the corridor in my underwear, screaming my head off.”
    A grin flashed across Roxanne’s face, and the struggle to subdue it was patent. Her sincere attempt to do so, however, gave Juliet a glimpse of how her assistant must be envisioning her at this moment—fleeing down the hallway like some underclad Gothic heroine of yore—and an inelegant snort escaped her. She immediately got herself under control, but then her gaze collided with Roxanne’s and they both lost it entirely, bursting into peals of near-hysterical laughter.
    “Truly,” she gasped when she finally caught her breath. “Thank you.”
    “It was my pleasure.” Roxanne wiped her eyes. “That must have been some bug, though. I’ve never seen you so