That Night with the CEO

by Karen Booth

  Adam was tending the fire, a welcome sight even though the rain had cleared up. “Not the binders again. Can’t you send that to me in an email? I’ll read it off my phone.” He stood and brushed the legs of his perfect-fitting jeans. She had a weakness for a man in an impeccably tailored suit, but a close second was a guy dressed exactly as Adam was. Each held its own appeal—in-command businessman and laid-back mountain guy. So of course Adam had to knock both looks out of the park.

  “I like paper. I can rely on paper,” Melanie said as she headed into the kitchen and tapped the counter. “It’s so weird. Did I bring them up to my room?” She went for the stairs, but didn’t make it far. Her notebooks sat mangled behind one of the leather club chairs. She scooped them up. “Did you feed these to Jack?”

  Adam was tapping away on his phone. “What? No. Did you actually leave those out where he could get them?”

  “I assumed they’d be safe on the coffee table.”

  “Um, no. He’s only three. As well trained as he is, he might as well be a puppy. He’ll chew on anything if you give him the chance.”

  She flipped through the notebooks. One had massive teeth holes at the corners, and the binding of the other was twisted. “I hope he enjoyed his snack.”

  Jack was sound asleep in front of the fire.

  “I’d say he’s dead-tired after it.”

  “We should probably concentrate on interview preparation anyway. You’re going to need coaching.”

  “You can’t be serious. I’m unflappable.” He sat on the couch, running his hand through his touchable head of hair, giving off a waft of his cologne or shampoo or perhaps it was just plain old Adam. Regardless, it made Melanie’s head do figure eights.

  “Okay then, Mr. Unflappable.” She took a seat opposite him. “We’ll do a mock interview and see how you do.”

  “Fine. Good.”

  Melanie clicked her pen furiously, well acquainted with the techniques writers might use to put Adam on edge. “Mr. Langford, tell me about that night in February with Portia Winfield.”

  Adam smiled as if they were playing a game. “Okay. I went out, I ran into Portia. We’d met a few months ago at a party. We had a few too many drinks.”

  “Don’t say how much you had to drink. It casts you in an unflattering light.”

  “Why? It’s a free country.”

  “Never, ever say that it’s a free country. It’s an excuse to do whatever you want, without regard for the consequences.” She ignored the scowl on his face. “Now try again. Tell me about that night in February.”

  There was deep confusion in Adam’s expression. Hopefully that meant he was realizing what a narrow tightrope he had to walk to get past a scandal. “That question is so open-ended, and I already told you the truth. Now I don’t even know where to start.”

  “These journalists are skilled in the art of tripping someone up. They want you to say something embarrassing or break down. They want something juicy. It’s your job to control the conversation. Make the scandal exactly what you claim it to be.”

  “Which is?”

  “You tell me.” She flipped her pen in her hand, watching him. The gears were turning behind his dappled blue eyes. For someone with an IQ that was reportedly off the charts, this was clearly a puzzle to him.

  “I didn’t go to the club with her. I just ran into her.”

  “That makes it sound like you were there to pick up women. Focus on the benign or the positive. Nothing that can be construed as negative.”

  He pressed his lips together in a thin line. “I’d been working like crazy on a new project and I wanted to blow off some steam.”

  “I’m sorry, but that won’t work either. The work stuff is good, but blowing off steam makes you sound like a man who uses alcohol to have fun.”

  “Well, of course I do. What’s the point, otherwise?” He sank back against the cushions. “You know, I don’t think I can do this. My brain doesn’t work like this. People ask me a question, I answer it and move on.”

  “I know this is difficult, but you’ll get it. I promise. It’s just going to take some honing of your answers.”

  “Why don’t you show me what you mean? If I don’t defer to you on this, we’ll be sitting here for days.”

  “Okay. First off, you establish your relationship with Ms. Winfield. Maybe something like, ‘I’ve known Portia Winfield for a few months and we’re friends. She’s a delightful woman, a great conversationalist.’”

  He cocked an eyebrow and smirked. “You do know she’s not the sharpest tool in the shed, right?”

  “All I said is that she’s amusing and can talk a lot.”

  A flicker of appreciation crossed his face. “Go on.”

  Melanie deliberated over what to say next, not enjoying the idea of Adam with another woman. Feeling that way was irrational. She had no claim on him, and Adam’s reputation suggested that he could have any woman he wanted. Just last year he had a brief romance with actress Julia Keys, right after she’d been deemed the most beautiful woman in the world. Melanie remembered well standing in line at the drugstore, seeing Julia’s perfect face on the cover of that magazine, a distinct sense of envy cropping up, knowing that Julia was dating the man Melanie could have for only one night.

  “You could say that you two enjoyed a drink together,” Melanie said, collecting her thoughts.

  “It was more like three and she was well on her way when I got there.”

  “But it’s true that at some point in the evening you enjoyed one drink, right?”

  “Sure.”

  “There you go.”

  He grinned. “Please. Keep going.”

  “Here’s where I get stuck, because I can’t figure out exactly how you two ended up kissing, while the back of her dress was stuck in the waistband of her panties, the famous disappearing panties.”

  Adam sighed and shook his head in dismay. “Do you have any idea how idiotic this whole story is?”

  “You’re going to have to paint me a picture, because I really don’t.”

  Adam folded his arms across his chest. “I kissed her, and it was more than a peck on the mouth. That much is true. But I quickly realized how drunk she was. I wasn’t about to let it go any further. I had no idea she was mooning half of the bar. She’d just come back from the ladies’ room. And I definitely didn’t know that anyone was taking pictures with a camera phone.”

  As the woman who had more than once tucked her skirt into her pantyhose by accident, Melanie knew this was a plausible explanation. “Then what?” Curiosity overtook her, even when the story was making her a bit queasy.

  “I told her that I thought it would be a good idea for me to walk her to her car so her driver could take her home. I settled up the tab while she went back to the ladies’ room. I walked her outside, but she could hardly walk and was hanging on me. She dropped her phone on the sidewalk, bent over to pick it up, but I still had my arm around her. That’s when she showed the entire world her, well, you know...”

  “Ah, yes. The hoo-ha that launched a million internet jokes.”

  “I’m telling you, I had no idea.”

  “And from that, the world assumes you took her panties off at the bar.”

  “Of course they do, but that’s not what happened. I have no idea what she did with them or why she took them off in the first place. I was trying to be a good guy.”

  “The reality is that the press loves to catch famous people doing stupid things, but the bad publicity doesn’t hurt her like it hurts you. All she does is ride around in a limo all day and go shopping. If anything, this probably makes her more interesting to her fans.”

  “I never should’ve bought her a drink. Or kissed her for that matter.”

  She almost felt sorry for him. He hadn’t done anything w
rong. It had all gone horribly awry.

  “Are you going to tell me what my ex said in the paper about the scandal? I don’t think I can read it for myself.”

  Melanie cringed, knowing how bad it was. If her ex had ever said anything this ugly about her, she’d probably curl into a ball and die. “I don’t think we should worry about that. Nothing good will come from it. As far as the PR campaign goes, we’re going to have to hope that today was just a slow news day.”

  “No. I want to know. Tell me.” He spoke with clear determination.

  “Just remember. You asked.” Melanie pulled the article up on her phone, sucking in a deep breath. “She said, and I quote, ‘I’d love to say that this surprises me, but it doesn’t. Adam has always had a huge weakness for pretty girls. I don’t know if Adam is capable of taking any woman seriously. I certainly don’t think he’s capable of love. I feel sorry for him. I hope someday he can figure out how to be with a woman and finally give of himself.’”

  Adam shot up from the couch, marched over to the fireplace and began anxiously jabbing the logs.

  “I know you’re mad, but setting the house on fire won’t solve anything,” she said.

  “Do you have any idea how hurtful that is? I’m not capable of love? She was my fiancée. We were going to get married and have kids.”

  Call it an occupational hazard, but Melanie often had to look past clients’ hurt feelings over the way they’d been treated by the media. It was far more difficult in Adam’s case, because she’d experienced the same rejection. She knew how hard it was to go on, alone, living a life that bore no resemblance to the one you’d thought you’d have. No wedding bells, no home to make together, no children to love and care for.

  “You obviously loved her very much.”

  “I did. Past tense.” He returned to poking at the fire. “The minute she walked out on me, I knew she never really loved me.”

  Melanie had to wonder if that was true, if he’d known right away that it hadn’t really been love. It’d taken her months to figure that out when Josh left, and in many ways, that made the pain far worse. “Why did she break it off? If you don’t mind me asking.” Her curiosity was too great not to ask.

  “She said I was too wrapped up in work.” He shrugged and left the fire to blaze away. “If you ask me, I think she was disappointed I didn’t want to feed off the Langford family fortune and jet around the world, going to parties. It’s ridiculous. I work hard because that’s the way I’m built. I don’t know any other way.”

  “There’s no shame in working hard.”

  “Of course not, but I don’t get to tell my side of the breakup in the papers. I just have to accept the awful things she said about me.”

  “I’m sorry. I know it’s difficult to have your personal life on display like this.”

  “I’m not the guy in those pictures. You do realize that, don’t you?”

  “Unfortunately, that’s all people care about.”

  Adam shook his head in disgust. “The whole thing is so ridiculous. Can’t we go back to my plan? Ignoring it?”

  “Not if you want Portia Winfield’s lady parts to be the first thing people think of when they hear your name.”

  He groaned and plopped down on the couch again. “Let’s keep going.”

  Melanie closed her notebook and set it on the coffee table. She needed to switch gears for both of their sakes. “Let’s discuss wardrobe. For most of these photo shoots, I’d like you to appear polished, but still casual. We’ll do a suit for the business publications, but for the lifestyle magazines, I’m thinking dark jeans and a dress shirt. No tie. I’d love to see you in a lavender shirt. It will bring out your eyes, and women react well to a man who isn’t afraid to wear a softer color.”

  “You have got to be kidding. I wear blue, gray and black. I wouldn’t know lavender if it walked up to me and started talking.”

  “I’m not asking you to pick the color out of a box of crayons. I’m asking you to wear it.”

  “No lavender. No way.”

  Melanie pressed her lips together. There were only so many battles she could win. “We’ll do blue. A light blue. Nothing too dark. You’ll have to wear makeup too, especially for the TV appearances, but you don’t need to do anything other than sit there and let them take care of it. It’s painless.”

  “How’d you learn all of this, anyway?”

  “Public relations? I studied it in college.”

  “No. The things about lavender and women liking softer colors.”

  “Let’s just say I grew up in a family that cared a lot about appearances.” That may have been underselling it a bit, but she wasn’t eager to open up this particular can of worms.

  “Oh, yeah? Like what?”

  She dismissed it with a wave of her hand. “Trust me, it’s boring.”

  “Look, I need a mental health break after the mock interview and the quote from the paper. Just tell me.”

  She didn’t want to dismiss him, mostly because she hated it when he did the same to her. Maybe the highlights, or lowlights as she referred to them, would be okay. “Both of my parents were big on appearances, although my mother passed away when I was little, so I don’t remember being lectured about it by her.” The way Melanie missed her mom wasn’t what she imagined to be normal. She’d been so young when she lost her, that it was more like losing a ghost than a real person. “I definitely remember it from my dad.”

  Adam frowned. “Like what?”

  Melanie shrugged, looking down into her lap. She’d told herself many times that she shouldn’t allow these memories to make her feel small, but they did. “He’d order me to put on a dress, or try harder with my hair, be more like my sisters. I’m the youngest of four girls and I was a little bookish growing up. They were all into beauty pageants. My mother had won tons of pageants as a girl, but she was stunning. I knew I’d never live up to that.”

  “Why? You’re pretty enough.”

  She blushed. It was silly, but she enjoyed hearing Adam say she was pretty, or at least pretty enough. “There’s more to it than that. You have to walk up on stage and smile perfectly and wave your hand a certain way and follow a million rules that somebody, somewhere, decided were the ways a girl should present herself. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t be that plastic girl.”

  He rubbed the stubble along his jaw. “And yet you chose a profession that involves an awful lot of smoke and mirrors.”

  She’d never really thought of it that way. “But I can make my own rules when I need to, make my own way. It’s creative and strategic. I love that part of my job. It’s never dull.”

  “Did you participate in any beauty pageants, or did you rebel from the beginning?”

  A wave of embarrassment hit her, quite a different type of blush from the one she got when Adam had said nice things. “I did one pageant. I actually won it, but that was enough for me.”

  “Little Miss Virginia? You’re from Virginia, right?”

  “Yes. Rural Virginia. The mountains. And I can’t tell you what my title was or I’ll have to kill you. It’s far too humiliating.”

  “Well, now you have to tell me. No one gets past me without sharing at least one humiliating story.”

  She shook her head. “Nope. Sorry. We’re discussing business. Let’s get back to your wardrobe.”

  “Come on. We already had to talk about me and the girl who can’t keep track of her own undies. And one could argue that this is business. These are your qualifications for being my wardrobe consultant.”

  “It’s dumb.”

  “What if I say I’ll wear a lavender shirt? One time.” He held up a single finger for emphasis.

  She really did want him to wear lavender. It would make for some great pictures. “Okay. Fine. I was crowned Little Miss Buttermilk. I was five
.”

  Adam snickered. “I can’t believe you won the coveted Little Miss Buttermilk title.”

  Melanie leaned forward and swatted him on the knee. She’d never told any man this stupid, stupid story, not even her ex. “If you must know, I think I largely took it based on the talent portion. I was an excellent tap dancer.”

  “I have no doubts about that. I’ve seen your legs, Buttermilk.”

  Melanie swallowed, hard, and tucked one leg under the other. Had he ever seen her legs—every last inch of them. Adam cleared his throat. Thankfully, Jack got up from his nap and ambled over, providing a logical means of changing the topic.

  “Hey, buddy.” Adam scratched Jack behind the ears.

  “Your parents must’ve made you do things you didn’t want to do when you were a kid.”

  “It’s always been about business. Some kids got baseball mitts for Christmas from their dad. I got a briefcase.” Adam nodded, looking at Jack. “That actually happened, by the way. No lie. I love my dad, though. I really do.” That sadness was in his voice again, the one that cropped up whenever he spoke of his father.

  “That’s why you agreed to let me come. To make your dad happy.”

  His eyes connected with hers, holding steady for a few, insanely intense moments. “That’s a big part of the reason. Of course.”

  Five

  Adam’s brain was mush. There was no more gas in the tank. He and Melanie had talked about interviews and wardrobe for hours. They’d delved into the details of his past that they needed to focus on, and the ones they absolutely needed to avoid. She’d lectured him about refraining from flipping the bird to the photographers when they got pushy. He’d done it only once, but he still wasn’t sure he could make any promises on that last point.

  He rolled his neck, admiring Melanie as she eyed her watch for what had to be the third or fourth time. She was especially lovely in the fading light of day, with a golden pink flush to her cheeks that closely matched the lips he’d never be able to forget. “Do you have somewhere you need to be, Buttermilk?”