The Sexiest Man Alive

by Sandra Marton

Susannah, who had been staring at Matthew Romano, switched her gaze to the second man. What, exactly, did that mean? What had the detestable Mr. Romano said? If he’d talked about what had happened in the boardroom, she’d have bet anything he hadn’t been honest, hadn’t told his brother—who looked like a very nice man—that he’d taken advantage of the situation to confuse, intimidate and infuriate her so he could come on to her.

  Because that was what he’d done, all right. Taken advantage. Otherwise, he’d never have been gotten away with kissing her. And she’d never have responded. Not that she had responded. Why would she? She’d been kissed before, caressed before…

  But not driven wild before, she thought, and she felt the color race into her face.

  Stop that, she told herself fiercely, and took Joe’s outstretched hand.

  “I’ll make a deal with you, Mr Romano,” she said, with a cool smile. “If you’ll remember to discount ninety-nine percent of whatever your brother said, I won’t hold it against you that you and he are related.”

  Joe laughed with delight. Matthew’s eyes narrowed to slits.

  “Miss Madison. I’m a busy man. In fact, my brother and I were just—”

  “Just about to have a second cup of coffee. Won’t you join us?”

  “Joe,” Matthew said tersely, “we have a plane to catch.”

  “Matt’s such a joker.” Joe chuckled as he pulled out a chair. “The plane belongs to him. It doesn’t leave until he does. Isn’t that right, Matt?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Matthew said through his teeth. “I just love to joke around.” Susannah had already seated herself at the table, and Joe was slipping into his seat, too. He bit back the urge to bark at them both. He’d lost control once today, thanks to this woman. It wasn’t going to happen a second time, especially with Joe to witness it. “Okay,” he snapped, and sat down, arms folded over his chest. “You’ve got five minutes to explain what you’re doing here.”

  Susannah nodded. Five minutes was four minutes more than she’d let herself hope for. The question was, where to begin? Everybody at CHIC was singing Matthew Romano’s praises. Only she knew the man was a gold-plated, icy-hearted rat.

  And a rat, even in a suit and tie, would always be a rat.

  The staff had gone crazy after he’d left.

  “Oh, Suze,” Claire had squealed, “Suze, you’re a miracle worker! What did you do to convince the man to give us a chance?”

  That, she was sure, had been her cue to blush and stammer and make up a story that would cover the fact that he expected her to sleep with him if she wanted the magazine to survive. Did Romano really think she was that desperate? Or that naive? She wouldn’t have slept with him if giant bugs from Betelgeuse conquered Earth and he and she were humankind’s last chance at survival.

  Well, maybe she’d do it, then. After all, there’d be a serious reason to make such a sacrifice, to sleep with a man even if she hated his guts.

  Even if he was gorgeous. Susannah’s heart gave a little kick. Gorgeous was the word.

  Studly.

  Still, she’d never sleep with him. She didn’t do that kind of thing.

  And he would never suggest it.

  There were laws against sexual harassment. No matter what else he was, the man was a savvy businessman. One whiff of a scandalous lawsuit and Romano Inc. would be up to its knees in nasty publicity.

  So he’d tossed out the four-weeks, she’s-made-me-very happy lifeline for only one reason. To torture her. To make her spend every day of those next weeks knowing, knowing the chances he’d change his mind about CHIC ranged from zero to none. Her people would hope and dream and work their tails off—and it would all be for nothing. She and the heartless Matthew Romano would be the only ones who knew it.

  Standing there, facing Claire and the others, Susannah had realized that it didn’t have to be that way. Romano was a savvy businessman, and if she could find a way to make CHIC’s circulation and advertising rates increase, he’d be a fool to shut it down just to get even with her.

  If there was a buck to be made, Romano would want to make it.

  All she had to do was find the way. And that’s when she’d remembered the idea she’d come up with on the way to work. So she’d phoned his secretary, started to race out the door, remembered how she looked and asked herself if the CEO of a multimillion-dollar firm would pay more attention to a proposal made by a woman wearing jeans and a sweatshirt or one made by a woman dressed like an executive.

  The answer had been so obvious it hadn’t required any effort at all. What had required effort was figuring out how to change clothes without heading all the way downtown, then turning around and heading uptown again. Her only hope had been to cross her fingers and tell everybody a white he. She said she’d just had a call inviting her to lunch with Romano at his hotel.

  “Impressive,” Claire had breathed.

  “I know,” Susannah had answered, “but I have to be there in fifteen minutes, and just look at me.”

  So, here she was, wearing a black wool suit scrounged from a fashion shoot and a pair of shoes donated by Amy, CHIC’s very own fashion maven. The jacket was too snug, the skirt too short, the heels too high, but none of that mattered. What mattered was that she’d made it. She was here., seated opposite a glowering man who probably suspected she’d figured out his game and, by God, she was going to make the most of her allotted five minutes if—

  “Three minutes left, Miss Madison.”

  Joe Romano gave an exaggerated sigh.

  “Pay no attention, Susannah. You don’t mind if I call you that, do you?”

  “No. No, I—”

  “I don’t believe in formality, do I, Matt?” Joe decided to ignore Matthew’s warning look. His big brother was rattled. It was a rare, hell, a unique sight, and he wasn’t about to let the opportunity to have a little fun at Matt’s expense slip by. “My brother, on the other hand, is always formal. And always polite. He’s just not himself today. Are you, Matt?”

  “I am completely myself,” Matthew said coldly. “And the seconds are ticking away.”

  Susannah slipped her leather bag from her shoulder. “That’s okay,” she said. Her hands were icy with fear, and she fumbled at the clasp. “I don’t need much time to show you this.”

  She shoved a notepad across the table. Matthew turned it toward him and looked at it, his brows arcing at the nearly indecipherable scrawls.

  “Hieroglyphics? Interesting, but, unfortunately, I am not an Egyptologist.”

  “Those are project notes,” Susannah said politely, even though she ached to shove the notepad up that arrogant, masculine nose. “I’m sorry if you can’t make them out, but I wrote them in a rush. I’ll be happy to read them to you.”

  “No,” Matthew said.

  “Yes,” Joe said.

  Matthew looked at his brother. “Didn’t you have an appointment?”

  His tone was calm. It had been known to make recalcitrant bankers turn pale. Unfortunately, it didn’t even make Joe blink.

  “An appointment? No. How could I? We’re going back to L.A., remember?” Joe smiled at Susannah. “Notes for a project for CHIC? Sounds interesting. I used to manage a magazine myself, once upon a time.”

  “It was a college yearbook,” Matthew said, through his teeth.

  Susannah cleared her throat. “I’m sure that must have been interesting,” she said carefully.

  “Oh, it was.” Joe grinned. “Maybe I could help you develop this plan, whatever it is, for your magazine. I’ve got time on my hands. My brother doesn’t always know what to do with my talents.”

  “I’ve got some ideas for your talents that might surprise you,” Matthew said grimly. “And the lady doesn’t have a magazine I have it, and I’m not interested in doing anything but putting it out of its misery.”

  “That’s what my notes are all about, Mr. Romano.” Susannah took a deep breath. “I’ve come up with an idea that will turn CHIC around.”

  Matthew laughe
d. “Only Houdini could turn CHIC around, Miss Madison. Or are you telling me those are notes you took at a séance?”

  “CHIC used to be the top-selling magazine for women between the ages of eighteen and thirty-five,” Susannah said, refusing to rise to the bait. She picked up the notepad, flipped a page and tapped her fingers against it. “Just look at these circulation figures: There’s not a publication in the country that wouldn’t kill for numbers like those.”

  Matthew dismissed the page with a glance. “Those numbers are five years old,” he said. “They have no relevance.”

  “But they do! We lost those readers because we went in the wrong direction. American women in the target age group lead busy lives, Mr. Romano. They have jobs, husbands, children. They don’t want recipes that take two hours to prepare and they don’t need hints on how to vacuum their way to happiness.”

  “Do you really think this is news, Miss Madison?”

  “They want features that make them forget their troubles, if only for a while. Fantasy, Mr. Romano. Fantasy, that’s what they want. They want to read about—about Venice by moonlight. They want recipes for candlelit suppers even if the reality is that they’re going to end up ordering in pizza.”

  “Fascinating,” Matthew said, in a way that sent Susannah’s blood pressure skyrocketing. “There is a diversity of readers—and, I’m certain, a diversity of magazines on the market. If you’re going to suggest CHIC join their ranks—”

  “The diversity is the problem, Mr Romano.”

  Matthew shot his cuff and looked pointedly at his watch. “As I said, this is fascinating, but I have a dinner appointment on the coast, and—”

  “I believe I can double our readership and our advertising revenue by focusing on the one common interest they all share.”

  “Your time is up, Miss Madison.” Matthew pushed back his chair and rose. “Joe?”

  Joe sighed and looked at Susannah. “Sorry,” he said, “but when Matt’s right—”

  “Sex,” she blurted.

  There was a sudden silence in their vicinity. Matthew glared around him, glared at Susannah and sat down again.

  “I should have expected this,” he growled. “Listen, lady, whatever happened in that boardroom—”

  “Wow,” Joe said, and grinned. “In the boardroom?”

  Matthew shot him a withering glance. “One more word, you can walk back to L.A.”

  “Sex sells,” Susannah said, hurrying the words, wondering if she’d manage to get through this before the Romano brothers went for each other’s throats. “It sells cars and toothpaste and beer. It sells everything.”

  The men looked from each other to her. “So?” Matthew said.

  “So,” Susannah said, folding her hands in her lap to keep them from shaking, “so, it can sell CHIC.”

  “How?” Matthew offered a pitying smile. “All the women’s magazines are pushing sex. There’s nothing new about that.”

  A smile curved across her mouth, one so smug it made him want to haul her to her feet and—

  “You’re getting ahead of me,” she said. “What do you know about magazine publishing, Mr Romano?”

  “Not much. But I know enough about balance sheets to tell you that you’re wasting my time.”

  “Do you read any? Magazines, I mean.”

  Matthew’s eyes narrowed. Susannah had to concentrate on not leaping to her feet and racing for the door.

  “I know this will astound you,” he said gently, “but I can, with some effort, manage to recite the alphabet all the way from A to Z.”

  Bastard! Did he think this was amusing? Susannah took a breath.

  “Then I’ll rephrase my question, since I doubt you expend all the energy it must take to decode periodicals that would be of interest to our target reader.”

  Joe laughed. Matthew looked at him.

  “Joe?” The single word seemed to float above the table, shimmering with meaning.

  “Yes?”

  “I’ll meet you at La Guardia.”

  Joe shrugged, smiled lazily and got to his feet. “Good idea. Actually, bro, I think you need to handle this, ah, this situation on your own.” He smiled, reached for Susannah’s hand and, when she gave it to him, brought it to his lips. “It’s been a pleasure, Susannah. And an education. I certainly hope we’ll see each other again.”

  “Not in this lifetime,” Matthew muttered as his brother strolled away. He caught the eye of the worried-looking waiter and signaled for coffee. After it had been poured, he moved his chair closer to the table. “All right, Miss Madison.” His tone and his expression were grim. “You seem determined to have some sort of showdown, so let’s get to it.”

  “No showdown,” Susannah said quickly. She leaned forward, her eyes on his. “Picture this. A woman—let’s call her Mary Anne—works hard all day, comes home at night to an empty apartment, pulls a TV dinner from the freezer, curls up on the sofa, watches TV…”

  “I fail to see what this hypothetical Mary Lou has to do with—”

  “Mary Anne. Mary Lou’s her sister. Mary Lou spends the day doing laundry and running after the kids. At night, she stirs up some leftovers for dinner, cleans up the kitchen, then joins her husband in front of the television set. It’s Monday night. He’s watching football. She watches for a little while and then she yawns and goes to—”

  “Bed,” Matthew said impatiently. “So?”

  “What’s the common factor missing from both their lives, Mr. Romano?”

  “How in hell should I know?” Matthew asked irritably. Was that what Susannah Madison did with her nights? Go home, eat a frozen dinner, curl up on the sofa and watch TV? No. He’d left something out of the equation Susannah ate her dinner with a man named Peter. She curled up on the sofa with him, watched TV with him, went to bed with him…

  “Romance,” Susannah said, and gave him that same smug smile again.

  Matthew blinked away the red haze that had formed in front of his eyes. “I beg your pardon?”

  “Don’t you see?” Her voice rose with excitement. “Both those women—those potential readers—are desperate for some romance in their lives. Fantasy, remember? CHIC can give it to them and, once it does, the advertisers of everything from soap to soup will be clamoring for space in the magazine.”

  “Is this a new takeoff on those perfume-strip inserts they put into magazines nowadays, Miss Madison? You know—open CHIC, turn to page thirty-seven and there’s a strip labeled Moonlight and Flowers?”

  “Turn to page thirty-seven,” Susannah said eagerly, “and there’s a recipe for Lobster bisque a deux.”

  “Lobster bisque for—”

  “For two.”

  “I know what the phrase means, dammit! I just don’t see—”

  “And two pages later, there’s a feature article on the language of perfume.”

  Lobster? The language of perfume? And what had she meant about him being ahead of her when he’d made that crack about sexy magazines? If she had a plan, he couldn’t see it. Not that it mattered. Nothing she could say would change his mind about the folly of throwing good money after bad.

  But, dammit, she was even more lovely to look at now, with her cheeks pink and rosy and her eyes glittering with excitement.

  Matthew frowned and cleared his throat “I’m, ah, I’m afraid I’ve never heard of the language of—”

  “Perfume What scents are sexier to a man? Florals? Greens? Orientals?”

  He blinked. “Well, I—I—” Whatever it is you’re wearing, he thought, and he knew suddenly that it was time to put this conversation to rest. “Miss Madison.” He spoke gently. He could see, after all, that she’d put some effort into this. It wasn’t her fault her plan wasn’t any good. “Susannah,” he said, in an even more kindly fashion, “I’m sure you’ve put a lot of thought into these suggestions, but—”

  “There’ll be a contest each month, and wonderful prizes.”

  “Contest?” Matthew frowned. “What kind of contest?
I’ve seen the contests women’s magazines run. Best dessert recipe. Best main course. I thought you said—”

  “And I thought you said you didn’t read women’s magazines.”

  “I don’t. Read women’s magazines, I mean. But I’m not dead. I see the covers on the stands.”

  “Then you know that there are enough contests like that to last a lifetime.” Susannah lifted her chin. “Our contests will ooze romance. Well, we won’t say ‘romance,’ we’ll say ‘sexiest.’ Because sex—”

  “Sells. So you’ve already pointed out. Sexiest what, then? Meat loaf?”

  Damn the man! Was he being deliberately dense? His smile was so condescending it made her want to slug him. Instead, she gave a trilling laugh, as if to show him she knew he was joking.

  “Sexiest movie, Mr. Romano. Or—or sexiest way to spend an afternoon.” She saw the first faint glimmer of interest in his blue eyes. Her heart lifted because she’d caught his attention—and her palms grew damp because the worst was yet to come. “The possibilities are endless,” she said. “Sexiest city in America, sexiest restaurant in New York…”

  “Why limit it? Take a global approach, appeal to a wide cross-section of women. Sexiest city in the world. Sexiest restaurant in the world. Don’t you agree that would be better?”

  “Yes,” she said, trying not to bounce up and down in her seat because now she had him.

  “No.”

  Susannah jerked back in shock. “No?”

  “That’s what I said. No.”

  “But you said…you just said…”

  “It’s an idea. An interesting idea, but a monthly feature like the one you’re describing wouldn’t have sustained appeal. It has no real focus. One month, two, three, and readers would start to drift.”

  He was right, of course, and she did have a focus. She was about to lay it out for him—which was definitely a poor choice of words, all things considered. All she had to do was make him see the logic to her plan. Perhaps he would. Perhaps she hadn’t given him enough credit for creative thinking. Actually—actually, the way he was looking at her, with all his attention focused on her and his blue eyes narrowed and thoughtful, she could see that some people might get the idea Matthew Romano was an intelligent, capable man. An intelligent, capable man who was rising to his feet and smiling in polite dismissal.