Nothing but the Best

by Kristin Hardy

  "I'l ask Paige for midweek," Cil a promised, "if not sooner."

  "Good," Rand nodded, knowing that they'd been talking, literal y and figuratively, about window dressing. What real y mattered was the store concept. He had a nasty notion that there they diverged wildly. "So now we've got the Annex with our hip new interior. What do we put in it?"

  "Sex."

  "I'm not sure that's legal." His voice was dry.

  She smiled. "You know what I mean, sexy clothes, sexy salesclerks, sexy music. Sex. Things that wil get people talking."

  "You mentioned Versace, Gaultier."

  "Sure, and Helmut Lang and Vivienne Westwood. We want to be the place the hot young things in Hol ywood come to get their clothes."

  "It's a great concept, but that can't be it."

  "Sure it can."

  "No. Fifty percent revenue jump, remember? We can't subsist on superstar couture," he argued. "We need to have a broader spectrum."

  "Then you're right back where we started from." He knew she wasn't pouting, but he had to remind himself to stop staring at that mouth of hers.

  "Stewart Law had a real y bril iant idea with putting a store on Melrose," she continued, "but then he lost his nerve and tried to play it too safe. You saw where that got him."

  "I also know you can play it too far the other way." He knew it only too wel . "Look, we're agreed that we want the hot, marquee designers. That's the merchandise that wil define the store, that wil make people want to come in." He played with the wrapper to his straw, thinking out loud. "But maybe we draw in the average Jane. The image attracts her. She's got money but she's not wild enough for our exact target demographic. If we can have a few less edgy things for her—some Narciso Rodriguez, some Jil Sander—then she goes away happy. More important, she comes back."

  "Jil Sander, huh?" She studied him.

  "Yep."

  "How can you know Jil Sander and not know what color ecru is?"

  "There are some kinds of information my mind is incapable of dealing with."

  "Fragile flower."

  "Indeed. Now, you mentioned using the store as a launch pad for a lingerie line you're starting."

  Her face lit and his heart rate bumped up. "I've been working on it for almost a year and we're just about ready to rol it out. Imagine the kind of coverage we could get, 'Danforth heiress launches lingerie line at hot new Annex.'"

  "Got it al worked out, have you?"

  "If you're not two steps ahead, you're one behind," she observed, nibbling on a bean sprout.

  He watched her. "Good point."

  "I've got contacts in al of the mainstream fashion magazines, as wel as the L.A. papers. We could even hold a runway show here to generate some buzz. Think of it, the Annex as exclusive outlet for Cil a D."

  "It's good that you're being so selfless about this."

  "Look, it's good exposure for the line, I know that, but it's also a way around our marketing budget," she said reasonably. "People love exclusive anything, and let's face it, they love an heiress. Let's give them what they want."

  "How about if we keep it under consideration for now. You thinking about anything else?"

  "Yes."

  "And that would be."

  She stared at him and something flickered in her eyes, something that had a slow curl of tension twisting inside him.

  "I've been thinking about sex."

  His mouth was suddenly dry with forbidden desire, and al the blood in his body headed south. Jumping back into their affair was the last thing they should be doing. Logical y, he knew that. So why was he finding it so hard to remember?

  "The clothing isn't enough. The atmosphere isn't enough. We need something that wil make us different."

  She was talking about the store, he realized, letting out a breath of mixed disappointment and relief. "Go on."

  She leaned forward. "Let's take it one step further. Let's go out on the edge, get word of mouth like you wouldn't believe."

  Something about her tone brought up his guard. "What do you have in mind?"

  "Toys." She blinked at him guilelessly. "Sex toys."

  "Out of the question."

  "What do you mean out of the question?" Her chin rose. "Just listen before you go ruling things out. I can convince you."

  "That'l be a trick."

  "Just listen, wil you? I was talking with my friends about it a couple of nights ago. There's not real y any place comfortable to buy them. The places that don't look like they'd give you a disease general y have a real y boring selection."

  "Horrors."

  "Hey, if a woman's getting up her nerve to buy a toy, she ought to at least be able to get what she wants." Cil a thought about it a moment. "Look, we could stick them in the back with the lingerie, maybe in a curtained-off area. This wil work, trust me."

  "Sure, but how many customers wil we lose in the meantime?"

  "Just think of it," she went on, ignoring him. "The fabled back room at the Annex, for the discerning buyer. I know the right people to talk to to send the word around. Your customer who walks away with the Jil Sander wil never even know about it."

  And he could just imagine how this would go over at Danforth. "Exactly what do you think the board is going to say if they find out the Annex is sel ing sex toys?"

  "We don't tel them." She shrugged. "We don't even tel the press. By the time the board finds out we'l be making money off it and there's no way they'l interrupt it."

  "Oh, yeah? Christ, your father would have a fit. I'd be out of a job before you could say vibrator."

  Her lips twitched. "Are you afraid of my father?"

  "No, but I've got a career, here."

  "Like I said, we don't tel them until after we have the revenue numbers to support it."

  "Assuming we don't get blown out of the water before."

  "Come into the twenty-first century, Rand. It's not like we'd be running a prostitution ring," she said, amused. "They're just sex toys. People real y aren't going to care al that much."

  "You say."

  "Do a quick marketing pol ," she invited him. "Better yet, go to the Cosmo Web site and look at their annual sex survey. You're going to see that the average twentysomething woman likes her toys and likes her pleasure." She studied him. "If I'd had toys with me that night at the resort, would they have turned you off or would you have used them?"

  His imagination exploded with the image. And he saw the secret, satisfied smile slide over her face.

  "You see? Toys have a place. I think we'l be fine."

  "I want to do some research on it," he warned her.

  She rose. "You do that."

  * * *

  CILLA LAY IN THE BATH that night, letting the hot water and bubbles work away at her tension. They'd stuck her with a baby-sitter who was supposed to keep her from doing anything edgy that might alarm the Danforth customer. Unfortunately, the company had tried that approach with the Annex and gotten precisely nowhere. Why couldn't they understand that it had to be different?

  Why couldn't Rand?

  Al right, she grudgingly admitted, he was at least open to some of her ideas, and behind others, but he kept having these odd flashes of conservatism. He kept playing it safe.

  And she couldn't figure out why. The guy she'd met at the resort had been ready and wil ing to take chances, she thought, remembering their dawn foray to slide naked into one of the hot springs and touch each other in the fizzing water. She didn't get the feeling that he'd been jumping out of character, either, especial y since it had been his idea.

  He seemed to understand the purpose of her direction with the Annex and realize the potential for success. And yet, periodical y, he'd pul back, like a dog walking up to an invisible fence. Maybe he'd been so burned by the dot-com crash that he'd become leery of risk, turning his back on what had made him successful to begin with. And in a company like Danforth, being risk averse was rewarded.

  She soaped up the loofah and rubbed it moodily over her shoulder. So
say that Rand Mitchel was truly forgetting—or trying to forget—who he was.

  He couldn't walk away from it entirely. He hadn't, that much she knew. She'd seen him without inhibitions, she'd seen him taking chances.

  And she couldn't be around him without wanting him.

  She wanted to succeed professional y, and she couldn't do that without making the Annex fly. To make the Annex fly, she needed Rand to loosen up.

  Okay, strategy change. Maybe al she real y needed to do was remind him of who he real y was. And if that took seducing him, wel , she prided herself on being a woman who did what was necessary.

  Cil a began to hum, a smile of anticipation spreading across her face.

  7

  PAIGE LOOKED ACROSS the store, her eyes calm and assessing. "What I'm seeing for the Annex is modern, clean design, but with an edge." She turned to Cil a and Rand. "That's what you need."

  The three of them stood at the cash register area at the back of the store. Sunlight spil ed in the front windows, dul ed almost immediately by the deadened tones. Cil a wished she had Paige's sense for design and could envision it already made over and fresh looking. Since she didn't, the next best thing was having Paige herself, who looked every bit the successful design professional in her sleek white suit and the perfect blond arcs of her haircut.

  "The first thing we do is get rid of the neutrals and bring in some more open colors."

  "Something bright," Cil a put in, looking around at the dispirited wal s of the Annex.

  Paige shook her head. "You're not going to crowd the space with racks the way you would the Forth's women's department, are you?"

  "No. I want people to be able to see the clothes," Cil a told her.

  "Exactly. We want to carry that sensibility through in the design, too. Don't let the colors overpower what you're sel ing."

  "Ditch the ecru, though."

  Rand stirred. "I thought it was taupe." Today, he wore a beautiful y cut Armani that brought out the blue in his eyes.

  "Let's just cal it gone," Paige said with a smile. "I'm thinking sleek minimalist with a touch of retro. Hard, glossy floor coverings, maybe build in some recessed segments and isolate your color there." She laid out sketches on the counter behind the cash registers and they crowded in to look.

  Cil a could feel Rand's proximity, even though he wasn't touching her. It made her mouth dry to think of what might happen between them.

  "What about furnishings?" Rand asked, moving slightly away from Cil a as though their closeness made him uneasy.

  "Le Corbusier chairs," Paige replied promptly. "Maybe a couple of van der Rohe Barcelona couches, that sort of thing. Mix up the colors. You want to encourage people to get comfortable. The more bodies you have, the more excitement."

  Rand nodded, Cil a saw with a satisfied smile. She'd known Paige would convince him. There was no one in the world who could present her judgment as confidently as Paige. Cil a stared at the sketches and then at the store, trying to imagine it transformed.

  "So, I had this idea about the wal art," Paige said now. "What about making the space a sort of mini art gal ery? I mean real art, not match-your-couch art," she elaborated quickly. "Focus on local rising stars, make the Annex not just the place to go for the latest clothes but for the latest visual media, too. You enhance your decor without cost outlay, and up your coolness quotient about three thousand percent."

  Cil a felt an unholy stir of excitement in the pit of her stomach. This was what she wanted for the Annex, something special, something you can't miss. "What do you think, Rand? I could have a little chat with the owner of the gal ery that shows Ty's work, see if we could col aborate."

  In his eyes, she saw her certainty reflected—this was right for the project, dead on in every respect. He nodded. "Do it."

  "So what's your availability as far as the renovation goes, Paige?"

  "I basical y have the next two weeks free and then I'm locked in to a remodel job for a longtime customer."

  "Can you get this done in two weeks?"

  She gave Cil a a pitying smile. "I never bid on a job I can't hold to schedule."

  "I should have known better than to ask." Cil a grinned. "In that case, how soon can you start?"

  "How soon is now?" Paige gathered together her sketches and tucked them into her portfolio. "I checked in with my contractors when I worked up the proposal. Let me verify their availability and I'l get back to you with a final timeline." She zipped the gray leather folio shut. "You're going to want to shut down beginning next Monday because I'l have the builders and painters making a mess al over."

  "We'l take care of it," Cil a assured her.

  "She's definitely the right one," Rand said, watching Paige head to the door, pul ing out her cel phone as she walked.

  Cil a cleared her throat. "I'm sorry, did you say something?" she asked him politely.

  He gave her a dark look. "You're one of those, huh?"

  "One of what?"

  "One of those 'I told you so' types?"

  Cil a stuck her tongue in her cheek. "Wel , if it'l make your ego feel better if we pretend you were on board the whole time, then far be it from me to blow your bliss." She gave him a bright, false smile. "Isn't it lucky that we both realized what a fine job Paige would do from the beginning?"

  "Yeah, yeah, yeah, enjoy it."

  "I intend to," she told him with a grin.

  * * *

  RAND STUDIED the schedule that Cil a laid out in front of him. "So, step one is the face-lift." "With the store shut down and a nice Closed For Renovations, Reopening On…sign in the front. We should get a graffiti artist to do it, maybe, painted on plywood."

  "It'l cost."

  "More targeted than ads," she countered.

  There was something different about her today that he couldn't quite put his finger on, something that made him more aware of her than ever before.

  Her look belonged on Carnaby Street, circa 1964, the skirt very short, the sweater very tight. Her hair was slicked back behind her ears for an almost boyish effect. It made her look anything but, though, al big eyes and lush mouth. Precisely as she'd planned, he was betting.

  "It's spending that makes sense," Cil a continued.

  She had great instincts, he thought—when she wasn't being outrageous. "You're right. Okay, next, we upgrade the stock."

  "Let fun and sex be your watchwords."

  "Every waking moment," he said dryly. "We open two and a half weeks from today."

  "More or less. And then, we have our grand opening."

  "Cost," he reminded her. "We'l already have had our opening."

  "Doesn't count. We need to have a special event where we do it up right."

  "Why not the day we start business?"

  "Too early," she explained. "Too much can go wrong. We need time to get our act in gear, get the buzz going. When al the clerks are trained and everything's going like clockwork, that's when we have our grand opening."

  "Which, I take it, you've already scheduled."

  A smile hovered around the corners of her mouth. "Five weeks after we open our doors. Four weeks to work the bugs out, then the fol owing week we hold a couple of mini press events, including a champagne reception."

  "Invitation only, I hope," he said with a glance toward the racks of thousand dol ar merchandise.

  "We'l have a very select guest list," Cil a assured him. "Music, finger food, goody bags. Invite the fashion press, as wel as some Hol ywood A-listers we hope wil become our clients."

  "To know us is to love us?"

  "Something like that." She rose and walked a short distance down the center of the store, her enthusiasm inviting him to join her in some devilish fun. "I was even thinking we could put in a temporary runway and have a show that night," she said over her shoulder, then turned and walked back to him, looking leggy and delicious. Leggy and delicious and…clever, he realized. That was what made her hard to ignore, the combination of sassy and savvy.

  Wo
rk, he reminded himself. "Who are you going to invite to show?"

  "A couple of the locals we'l be carrying." She shot him a cagey look. "And maybe Cil a D."

  "Ah, yes, we need to talk about that."

  She dropped down onto the couch next to him and he caught a hint of her scent. "Things have been going so wel , Rand. Don't turn into a spoilsport."

  "Let's talk about it back in the office." He needed to get back into the boring conservative surroundings because being alone with Cil a Danforth was fast tempting him to do things that were completely out of the question.

  Like kissing her senseless.

  "Back to the office, hmm?" Cil a nibbled on her lower lip. "Of course, since I drove here to begin with, that means you're appealing to my good nature to get you back?"

  "Who was the one who volunteered? 'My little car wil be easier to park, Rand'?"

  "I was trying to be public spirited. It's not my fault you drive a giant gas guzzler. Anyway, I think if you want to get back to work, you'd be smart to be open to my suggestions."

  "I said we'd talk about it," he reminded her as they rose.

  * * *

  "I SUPPOSE THAT MEANS the jury's stil out on the toys, too," Cil a said as she unlocked the passenger door for Rand and walked around to get in herself. She reached into the space behind her seat with one hand to rummage through her attaché case. "I'm stil waiting to be convinced that the benefits outweigh the possibility of negative publicity," Rand said. It came out more old-maidish than he'd intended, but he wasn't about to let her push the project off the rails.

  Cil a tossed a file folder into his lap and pul ed into traffic.

  "What's this?" He opened it to see some pages torn from a magazine and clipped together. From a women's magazine, he realized, or, rather, the magazine for young, hip single women. "Baby Don't Stop—What You Love In Bed?"

  "I thought you might be interested in seeing the results of the latest sex survey. Take a look at question fifteen, which shows the percentage of women who have purchased sex toys." She punched on the radio and turned it down low.