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and inefficiency, then I finally bit the bullet and admitted that the computer age was here to stay and called in Update. Well sir, Dani and her crew breezed in, sifted through it all and had us straightened out in just a matter of months."
    "You mean you're actually one of those.. .those consultants that Jason hires?" Linda asked, somehow managing to make it sound like something slightly disreputable.
    "Actually, I'm a manager," Dani returned with an indulgent smile. "Which means that I head up a team of consultants."
    "But... don't you have to be terribly... well... brainy to do that?"
    "It helps."
    "I see." Linda gave her a pitying look and shrugged one bare shoulder. "But don't you find that an awful handicap? I mean, it seems so... so unfeminine."
    "Unfeminine?" Dani's brow arched high, and she glanced down at her slender body. A small smile tugged at the corners of her mouth. It wasn't the first time she had encountered jealousy of this kind. It didn't bother her. If anything, she found it amusing and rather silly. Especially since Dani knew full well that it wasn't her intelligence or her job, but her physical appearance that Linda found threatening. "I'm sure I have my share of shortcomings, but I don't think a lack of femininity is one of them. At least I've never had any complaints about it."
    "I wouldn't imagine so."
    Jason's murmured comment brought Dani's head around and her breath caught. His dark eyes slid over her, slumberous and hot, the half smile that tilted his mouth pure provocation. A tingling sensation feathered over Dani's skin as she stared at him, her agile mind, for once in her life, completely blank.
    Before she could respond, both Paul and Phil gallantly echoed the sentiment, much to Linda's annoyance. With an effort of will Dani pulled her gaze away from Jason. He's just trying to rattle you, she told herself. Ignore him.
    Doing precisely that, she smiled at the other two men then switched her attention back to the petulant woman. "Intelligence is not a prerogative of the male sex, I assure you, Linda."
    "No, of course not. But don't you find that men are rather put off by a woman who is so obviously intelligent? I mean, no man wants to marry a woman who is smarter than he is."
    Dani tipped her head back and laughed, a soft, throaty sound that made Jason's eyes gleam appreciatively as they ran over the graceful arch of her throat. "You may be right. But since I'm not interested in getting married, it hardly matters."
    Linda looked shocked, then her eyes narrowed suspiciously. "You don't want to get married?"
    "Not particularly, no."
    "Oh, my dear. Surely you don't mean that," Marge Haggerty protested. "A lovely thing like you?"
    "Marge is right, Dani," Paul declared in support of his wife. "It would be a crime against nature for you to remain unmarried."
    While Dani tried to explain the merits of the single state to the older couple, the others remained silent. Phil smiled in amusement, and Linda, tight-lipped and sullen, drummed her red enameled nails on the table. Jason leaned back in his chair and studied Dani, his dark eyes intent and searching, his expression thoughtful.
    The good-natured argument went on for several minutes, until at last the waiter arrived to take their order. When he had gone, Phil deftly changed the subject, earning himself a warm look of gratitude from Dani as she reached under the table and squeezed his hand.
    Throughout the meal Linda continued to make snide little digs at Dani, but she merely ignored or laughed them off. Had she wanted to, had she felt beleaguered enough, Dani would've been perfectly capable of annihilating the woman with a freezing look and a few well chosen words. Though Linda's spiteful jealousy was mildly annoying, it aroused more pity than irritation. It was not Linda who got under Dani's skin but the large, silent man by her side.
    Dani tried to block him out of her consciousness by directing the bulk of her conversation toward the Haggertys.