by Shirley Jump
And maybe see if he could find out why this shoe had been on the ground. There were very few people in the industry who would have access to this accessory. The magazine, which had been a favorite of Frederick K’s for years, was at the top of his mental list. Someone there had to know something about this shoe, and maybe even what the designer had in store for the rest of his shoe line.
“You’re going yourself?” Martha asked.
Caleb nodded.
“But you hate the media. Especially that magazine.”
The headlines flashed in his head again. The question marks, the massive black letters, all of them trying to capitalize on his mother’s sudden retirement, and then return like vultures to pick at every misstep the company had made since then. Not just the company, but his own life, too. He’d become the punching bag of the gossip column at Behind the Scenes, the tabloid arm of Smart Fashion. Every move he made was chronicled in living color. Yes, he hated the media, and hated Behind the Scenes the most. The tabloid was nothing but trash with advertising.
The problem—it and its sister publication were the highest-circulation trash with advertising in his industry.
Either way, he didn’t trust the media. He’d learned early on that those in the media wanted only one thing—the headline, no matter the personal carnage along the way.
“You haven’t exactly been Mr. Friendly with the reporters in the past.” Martha made a face. “They’re still talking about that incident in Milan.”
And still making him pay for it, too, with one gossip-riddled story after another. The reporters had focused their laser eyes on his love life—or what they surmised about his love life—rather than the company. It had netted him nothing but bad press. Press he could hardly afford, given the shaky state of LL Designs lately.
If he was smart, he’d stay home every night. Staying home meant allowing the quiet to get to him, letting his thoughts travel down the very paths he was using the lights and noises of nightclubs to help him avoid.
At least the tabloids hadn’t uncovered the one truth that would put the final nail in the coffin of his reputation. So far, the reporters had been content to focus on his nightlife rather than where he spent every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday afternoon. He’d taken great pains to assure his mother’s privacy was maintained. An out-of-state rehab facility. A well-paid, compassionate nursing team. And a constant request for discretion from all who knew Lenora.
“Maybe if you were nice to those reporters,” Martha said, interrupting his thoughts, “you’d get better results.”
Caleb scowled. “Nice? To the media?” His mother would lecture him to no end if he became overly friendly with reporters.
“Those flies perk up and listen when you ply them with honey.”
“Yeah, then they turn around and breed a bunch of maggots all over my still-breathing body.”
Martha wagged a finger at him. “Maybe you’re the one that needs the honey.”
“All right.” He let out a sigh. “I’ll bring the editorial staff some cookies or something.”
Martha laughed. “For a man who heads a fashion design house, you really are clueless about women. Shoes and chocolate, Caleb. That’s all you need to get a woman’s attention.”
“And all this time I thought it was a rapier wit.”
“Keep telling yourself that, funny man.” Martha shot him a smile before she headed out of his office. “And see how far it gets you when there’s a sale on Jimmy Choos.”
CHAPTER TWO
AS MUCH as she wanted to, Sarah couldn’t hide out in her apartment and pray for a bunch of elves to knock on her door and hand over a replacement shoe. No, she had to be proactive.
Find that damned shoe, and at the same time, avoid Karl in the office. For a woman who had set out to change her life this week, she was certainly heading in the wrong direction.
Pedro Esposito leaned his dyed blond head over her cubicle wall. When she’d first arrived this morning, she’d dumped the entire sad story on the other writer’s shoulder. Pedro was a good friend—the kind who wouldn’t run to the boss and report Sarah’s shoe loss just so he could get promoted over her. His listening ear and shoulder to cry on should have been marketed to every woman needing a trustable friend. “Good news, peach.”
“There’s good news today?”
Pedro nodded. “Don’t you read your e-mails? Karl had to have an emergency root canal, so he’ll be out all day. Ding-dong, the boss is gone.”
Sarah laughed. Relief burst inside her chest. She’d just been handed a twenty-four-hour reprieve. “Thank God.”
“No, thank the walnut muffin that cracked his crown.” Pedro grinned, then fluttered a piece of paper onto her desk. “Here. This should help save your job.”
Sarah picked up the color flyer. “Oh, very funny, Pedro. A wanted poster for a missing shoe.”
His smile widened. “Better than a wanted poster for your head on a stick, which is what Karl’s going to hang up if he finds out what happened to that Frederick K.”
Sarah shuddered. Knowing Karl, that was a distinct possibility. He had a tendency to freak out over everything from a missed deadline to a drop in advertising revenues. “I’ll find it.”
“Whatever you want to believe, Cinderella. But if you ask me, what you need is a prince to come along and save you.” Pedro chuckled, then sank back behind his own desk.
No way. She was going to save herself, thank you very much. Hadn’t she done a thousand stories on cheating, no-good men? On the kind of men who might pretend to be Prince Charming, but were really Prince Self-Serving in nice clothes? Men who went after the nearest pretty young thing, ignoring the steadfast quiet, not-so-glamorous girl in the corner.
She didn’t need that. At all.
“This Cinderella is going to find her own shoe,” Sarah said. “I made this mess. I’ll figure out how to solve it. No fairy godmothers or princes necessary.”
Sarah put the flyer on her desk. Maybe she’d duck out early, and knock on a few doors in her neighborhood. Someone had to have seen something. They had to have.
She got up, about to head over to the break room for more coffee, hoping to quell the headache that had started yesterday and had yet to subside, when she saw the last man she expected to see striding down the aisle.
Caleb Lewis.
Lord, he was good-looking. Too bad she knew what a cad he could be in real life. Nevertheless, the dark-haired owner of LL Designs had a way of carrying himself that demanded attention and drew her gaze to him, even against her better judgment. Lean and muscular, he stood several inches taller than her, just tall enough for a woman to curl against him and press her head to his chest, feel his heart beat and the solid strength of him. His blue eyes always seemed to hold a hint of a tease, as if he was ready to laugh at the slightest provocation. The kind of man who embodied fun. A good time.
The problem? He was known for exactly that—having a good time, and doing so in public. She’d watched from the sidelines dozens of times while Caleb Lewis laughed it up with the model of the week. Or tangoed on the dance floor in the middle of a sea of women. Or closed down the club, leaving with a woman on each arm. His nickname in the magazine was Devil-May-Care Caleb—a moniker Karl had come up with to describe the designer-house president’s footloose attitude and lifestyle.
He was heart-stoppingly gorgeous—she’d give him that. Still, a handsome man who starred on the pages of the gossip column way too often. Apparently every woman in New York knew how gorgeous he was, and from what she’d observed, he’d spent every night appreciating that attention. Way too much.
Ever since she’d started writing about his active and highly social personal life, there’d been a war of sorts brewing between herself and LL Designs. One where he avoided her and she hounded him for the truth. Thus far, his favorite and only response was “No comment.”
So what was he doing here?
He strode down the carpeted path between the cubicles, then came t
o a stop. Right in front of her.
It had finally come to a head. He was here to confront her about the articles that had covered his endless squiring of one model after another. His wild antics in bars up and down the east coast. The reputation he’d garnered for being not just a ladies’ man, but one who did what he wanted. When he wanted. Consequences be damned.
“Miss Griffin.” Caleb Lewis nodded, his expression as unreadable as white walls.
Oh, God, he was here to sue her. That was the last thing she needed today. Then she noticed the oversized white wicker basket in his hands, a cellophane-wrapped treasure trove of chocolate goodies from the candy shop down the street.
What on earth?
“Can I help you with anything?” Sarah asked. “Do you need directions to Karl’s office?” She gestured down the hall, to the staircase that led to the senior editor’s office.
“Actually,” he held up the basket, stuffed to the brim with brightly colored candies, thick, decadent chocolate bars and luscious cocoa mix packets. “I came to…bribe you.”
Bribe her? After all she’d written about him? It had to be a trick. She snorted. “Yeah, right. With what? Laxative-laced chocolates? Or did you put razor blades in the candied apples?”
A slight grin crossed his face. “I considered it.”
“Honesty.” Despite herself, she grinned back. “I can appreciate that.”
Her stomach rumbled, and saliva pooled in her mouth. That basket held a minimum of three pounds of chocolate, she estimated. After the last twenty-odd hours, she could use at least a pound of the sugar solace in Caleb Lewis’s hands.
He placed the basket on her desk, close enough that she could swipe one of those candy bars with little more than a scissor snip of the cellophane. She fought the urge. Valiantly.
Caleb gestured toward the visitor chair. She nodded, and he dropped into the seat with the kind of ease that marked a confident man, one who could take over a space simply by being in it. “I need some information.”
Sarah tried to concentrate on Caleb’s face instead of the candy. Her stomach rumbled in protest. She should have had breakfast this morning. Then again, concentrating on Caleb Lewis came with as many dangers as digesting the thousands of calories in the basket before her. The man was a distracting interruption she definitely didn’t need today.
His blue gaze zeroed in on her face. He had a way of looking at a person that seemed to see past any façade, to make any secret hard to hide. Like the fact that her entire body was responding to his smile, his eyes, betraying her common sense. She’d seen women get so wrapped up in his face, his smile, that they tripped over their own two feet trying to get closer to him. No wonder. Being this close to Caleb Lewis, she realized the direct power of his gaze. Almost hypnotic.
Sarah cleared her throat. “Information? On what?”
“I wanted to ask whether you—” He cut the sentence off, then leaned forward. “What’s that?”
“What’s what?” She pivoted to follow his line of sight. Right over the books on her desk, past the coffee cup serving as a pencil holder, beyond the unopened oat-and-honey granola bar she’d been saving for a snack, and straight to—
The wanted poster.
She reached to hide it, but Caleb’s reach was faster and he plucked it up. “Hmm. Interesting.”
“It’s nothing.” Sarah swiped at the paper, but Caleb just leaned away from her. “Give it back.”
“Missing: one shoe,” he read. “Red stiletto. Custom design. Reward for safe return.” He arched a brow. “You lost a shoe?”
Sarah snatched the paper out of his hand and buried it under a stack of old magazine issues on her desk. In the next cubicle, she heard Pedro snicker. “I thought you wanted to talk about your company.”
He leaned back in the chair, crossing his arms over his chest. “That looks like a Frederick K. I heard rumors he was launching a shoe line. Is this a prototype for the new season? Something he plans to unveil at Fashion Week?”
Suspicion arced inside her, then she realized the designer’s trademark signature was clearly visible in the photo Pedro had used, one he’d probably grabbed off the server from the art department’s test shoot last week. Someone like Caleb, who made his living in this industry, would recognize the logo right away, and would want information about the competition. “Maybe.”
“Did you lose it?”
His stare seemed to cut right through her. But she refused to be daunted by him. Or by the condemnation in his tone. “What do you care?”
“Oh, I don’t.” A smile curved across his face. “Though you might, if you want to find that shoe.”
The suspicion that had risen in her earlier burst into full-bore distrust. For the first time, she realized he was wearing a navy-blue pin-striped suit. Just like the man she’d seen stop on the sidewalk this morning. Had he been that man? Had he found and taken the stiletto?
What were the chances? And surely, he would have told her right away, wouldn’t he? Then again, given their history, the chances were slim he’d tell her anything. There were a lot of navy-blue-suit-wearing men out there.
But not very many interested in a Frederick K stiletto.
“What do you mean, if I want to find that shoe?” she asked.
He danced his fingers on the arm of his chair, that damnable grin lighting up his features. It was the kind of smile that said I know something you don’t. “I might know where it is.”
Relief exploded inside her, quickly chased by the sobering reality that this was Caleb Lewis she was talking to. The man hated her guts. His vague comments about the shoe’s whereabouts could all be a trick. A way to get back at her for all those columns. “You have to return the shoe. It’s private property.”
That smile flitted across his face again, too fast to read its meaning. The tempting aroma of chocolate wafted up from the basket to greet Sarah, as if saying, trust him. He’s okay. He came with chocolate.
“Is there a reward involved?” Caleb asked.
“Mr. Lewis, if you have that shoe—”
“Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t. Either way, I’m not admitting anything, because Lord knows you’re very good at declaring me guilty before you’ve looked at all the facts.” He draped an arm over the back of the chair, as easy with being there as if he were in his own office. “Why don’t you meet me over at my office at say, two o’clock, and we can discuss an…arrangement of sorts.”
One more smile—the same smile that had undoubtedly charmed half the female population of New York City—and then he left. Leaving Sarah in a position she hadn’t been in before with Caleb Lewis.
Out of control.
Caleb should have been glad that of all people, the reporter who had been his nemesis had been the one to lose the Frederick K. He could call it karmic payback for writing all those stories about his personal life.
Sarah Griffin had created an image of him—one nearly everyone believed—as a womanizing, shallow man. One more concerned about the blonde on his arm than the bottom line.
She didn’t know the truth—no one did—about why he filled his nights with the mindless world of nightclubs. Why he chose to forget his mistakes by spinning through relationships like an errant top.
When he’d walked into the magazine’s offices earlier today, he’d had no intention of talking to any of the reporters who worked for the tabloid side of the magazine. Especially not Sarah Griffin. It wasn’t that he didn’t like her—he barely knew her—or find her attractive—because she was beautiful, quite so—it was more that he wanted to avoid the person who had painted him with a one-dimensional brush.
He had seen Sarah Griffin dozens of times, in the background of the clubs he frequented, the restaurants where he dined. She avoided the spotlight that shone on him, never taking off the reporter hat to have a drink or take a spin on the dance floor. That didn’t stop him from noticing the quiet, observant woman in his periphery. Her wide green eyes took in everything he did and said, then her p
oisoned pen pasted all that information on the next issue’s pages. He often wondered how she was judging him—though all he had to do was open the latest issue to find out.
If it were any other day—and any other circumstances—he would have been intrigued by a woman like Sarah. Her slender frame held the kind of curves that said she enjoyed food and didn’t spend her days subsisting on diet soda and cigarettes. Her brown hair hung in a long, sleek curtain down her back, with a couple of loose tendrils curling around the edges of the bronze-rimmed frames of her glasses. She had an understated beauty about her, one not augmented by the artifice of overdone makeup and overbright hair dye. She was very much a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of woman.
For Caleb, who had met far too many of the illusion-is-my-middle-name kind of women, Sarah’s fresh-faced looks were refreshing. Intriguing.
Except for the fact that she’d written half the stories that lambasted him and painted him as a carousing devil—she could be the kind of woman he’d date. Still, hadn’t he learned from watching his mother’s own heartbreak that a reporter could turn on a subject in an instant, all in the quest for that immortal headline?
But, as he had crossed the room full of the writers’ cubicles, he’d realized bringing Sarah Griffin around to his side could serve him in more than one way. If he could convince her to do a story on LL Designs, maybe she’d see another side of him and of the company. And in the process, he hoped he could convince her to stop trotting his personal life through the “Seen and Heard” pages of the magazine.
What was that old saying? Keep your friends close and your enemies closer? Over the years, Sarah Griffin had definitely become an enemy of sorts. Keeping her close seemed like a good idea. Despite the trash she was in charge of penning, he had to admit—grudgingly—that she was the best writer at the publication. Whether he agreed with them or not, her stories were witty, punchy and memorable. Exactly the kind of piece he needed for LL Designs.
Then he’d seen the poster for the missing shoe.