He gestured for her to precede him down the hall. She was self-conscious about walking in front of him, but she’d dressed carefully in nondescript navy slacks, a yellow turtleneck and a bulky sweater. No unnecessary skin exposed anywhere.
Michael stopped at a supply closet and hung the costumes alongside others. “My office is down on the left.”
Those last few steps seemed like the longest walk she’d ever taken. But finally they were at the door of an unremarkable ten-foot-square office. Michael Pierce was not caught up in the trappings of owning a business—his furniture consisted of a simple desk, a worn leather desk chair, a credenza, a wall of file cabinets and two visitor chairs. He gestured to one as he closed the door. “Have a seat.”
She sat, but her mind raced.
“Would you like some coffee, iced tea?”
“No, thank you.”
He eased down in his seat with a sigh. “Rebecca…”
She looked down at her hands, holding her purse in a white-knuckled grip.
“Sonia and I are divorced.”
Rebecca jerked her head up, genuinely stunned. “What? When?” Then she held up her hand. “I’m sorry—that’s none of my business.”
He shook his head. “It’s no close-held secret. In fact, I’m surprised you hadn’t heard through the grapevine.”
Under other circumstances, she might have, but since she and Dickie had been fodder for the grapevine lately, she’d been excluded from the community gossip circle. Then Quincy popped into her mind—of course he knew, which was why he’d encouraged Michael to stop by her shop that day. The sneak.
“The divorce was final this week.”
Remorse wallowed in her stomach—she could tell from his eyes that Michael was hurting. “I’m so sorry.”
He nodded as if he were sorry, too. “Well, now that that’s out in the open, we can get down to business.”
Rebecca lifted her eyebrows. “Hmm?”
“I’ve given your ideas for updating the restaurant a lot of thought. My manager Rico and I talked it over, and I’ve decided to give them a try.”
A smile spread over her face.
“If you’d be willing to help, that is.”
Her smile vanished. Help? As in be in close quarters with a sexy divorced man who had seen more of her than was professionally acceptable?
“I’ve already ordered construction of a stage,” he said. “And I’ll pay you for your consulting, of course.”
“I…” Her mind raced in circles. “I don’t know…”
He leaned forward. “Listen, Rebecca, about the other night—”
“I was simply trying out a new costume,” she cut in with a little laugh. “I’m s-sorry if I embarrassed you. I assure you, I was even more embarrassed.” Her cheeks flamed.
“You don’t owe me an explanation. I had no business barging in like that.” He cleared his throat. “I’ve already forgotten it happened.”
She nodded with mixed emotions—relief and a little remorse. Her accidental peep show hadn’t even been memorable. Of course when compared to the stunning Sonia, she was bound to come up short.
“What do you say about us working together?”
She could certainly use the extra money, and the exposure the new format of the restaurant would give to her shop. And she had to admit that the idea of working with Michael was irresistible. “I could only work after my regular store hours.”
He nodded and smiled. “Fine. Can you start this evening?”
“I…suppose.”
“Good. I don’t have much time to get this off the ground. What time shall I stop by?”
Of course he’d be coming to her shop since all the costumes and sketches were there. But it was strictly business. She stood and straightened her shoulders. “How about six-thirty?”
He stood. “I’ll see you then.”
He extended his hand. Rebecca hesitated, then decided she was overreacting. She put her hand in his, hoping he couldn’t feel her trembling. When his fingers closed around hers, she bit her tongue against the current that passed through his warm hand to hers. She had no explanation for why this man moved her, but the mere thought of Michael Pierce was an aerobic workout. The Surgeon General would definitely approve.
“Until later,” he said.
Had she imagined a husky note in his voice?
A casual smile warmed his brown eyes.
Yes, she had imagined it. Rebecca withdrew her tingling hand. “Goodbye.”
She turned and calmly fled.
CHAPTER FIVE
REBECCA SHOOK HER FINGER at Quincy. “You’re up to something.”
Quincy pulled an innocent face and pressed his hand against his chest. “Me?”
“Yes, you.”
“Can I help it that the man’s divorce is final the same week you’re looking for a divine diversion from Mr. Dickie?”
“I’m not looking.”
“Don’t you see, it’s perfect—your heart is broken, his heart is broken.”
She bit into her bottom lip. “Did she have an affair? No wait, don’t answer that.”
“Yep, the guy was a customer at the restaurant, and he’s freaking loaded.”
She stuck her fingers in her ears. “I don’t want to hear this.”
“Mrs. Pierce dumped Mr. Pierce and left him holding the bag.”
She unplugged her ears. “What bag?”
“The restaurant—it’s going under.”
Rebecca’s eyes bugged. “How do you know that?”
“Most of the restaurant’s vendors will only ship ‘cash on delivery.’ It’s a sure sign.”
She frowned. “You’re not supposed to tell things like that.”
He sighed dramatically. “I only divulge information on an as-needed basis, and you need the whole picture if you’re going to have an affair with him.”
“You’re not well.”
“Don’t tell me you don’t find the man attractive.”
“Is he? I hadn’t noticed.”
“Right. Are you blind? The man’s gorgeous.”
She carried the special-order costumes he’d delivered to the closet. “Michael and I are working together on a project, Quince. I don’t mix my personal and professional lives.”
His ears fairly grew before her eyes. “What kind of project?”
“If you must know, he’s asked for my help in the evenings to give the restaurant a new look—and that little tidbit is not for public consumption.”
Quincy grinned. “That’s great news—he’s going to fight to keep the place going.” He wagged his eyebrows. “And the two of you working elbow to elbow, knee to knee—you never know what could happen.”
“Nothing is going to happen, Quince. End of discussion.”
He nodded to the box that held Harry. “What did your friend send you?”
She kicked at loose foam peanuts on the floor. “A male blow-up doll.”
He blinked. “Okay.”
“It’s dumb—he’s supposed to be a good luck charm, but I don’t buy into that bunk.”
“I don’t know, it sounds like a fun little tradition to me.”
“I don’t have time for nonsense.”
“I guess not, now that you’ll be working after hours with Michael Pierce.”
She gave him an exasperated look. “Don’t you have a route waiting?”
“Alas, yes.” He headed toward the door, then gestured to her front window. “By the way—the vampire costume is hot.”
“Thanks.”
Rebecca sighed. She had already taken a couple of orders for the racy outfit—a bonus because she’d actually dressed a mannequin in the costume to convince Michael that she hadn’t been simply, um, entertaining herself.
She called Mrs. Conrad and left a message that her order had arrived. Then she rented several costumes for a party at a nearby community college. A magician came in looking for skimpy show outfits for his two assistants. A local club singer came in to buy a glitzy
hat. Meanwhile, the clock hands seemed to creep toward six-thirty.
And if she hadn’t been edgy enough since her earlier talk with Michael, the information that Quincy had leaked only heightened her anxiety. Michael needed for her ideas to work. When he’d asked offhandedly for her input, she’d been talking from the top of her head with no inkling that his business was at risk. If she’d been harboring any deep-seated schoolgirl fantasies about Michael Pierce’s motivations for meeting with her, they were now dashed. The man was looking for a miracle, not amusement.
The bell on the door tinkled, and Mrs. Conrad walked in wearing brown tweed and a fussy cardigan, and bearing a little tin—more cream candy?
“More cream candy,” she sang. “Oh, and it looks like another storm is blowing in just in time for rush hour.”
Rebecca thanked her for the candy and fetched the package from the closet. Another peanut followed her out, riding on the static electricity around her shoe. Darn pesky box.
“Here you go, Mrs. Conrad. One harem costume.”
The woman beamed. “I’m so happy the outfit made it in time for Marty’s birthday.”
“Would you like to try it on?”
“Absolutely.”
Rebecca escorted her to the yellow dressing room and closed the curtains. “Yell if you need me.”
“Oh, stay here, I want to tell you about the most wonderful time Marty and I had last night at a club called Rapture.”
“Er, Mrs. Conrad, I don’t think—”
“It was body paint night and—”
“Mrs. Conrad, do you mind if I ask you a question?”
“No dear, go right ahead.”
“How did you and Mr. Conrad meet?”
“In high school.”
“Oh, you were high school sweethearts?”
“No, we met by the bathrooms at my prom. I dumped my date and he dumped his, and we spent the rest of the night in the back seat of his Buick.”
Rebecca lifted her eyebrows.
“Not what you expected to hear?”
“Well…”
The curtain zipped open and a veiled Mrs. Conrad shook her hips to make the coins around her waist jingle. “What do you think?”
“It’s great.” The woman’s body was still trim and firm. “I’m sure Mr. Conrad will love it.”
The woman angled her head. “That’s the secret, you know.”
Rebecca squinted. “The secret to what?”
“A happy relationship. Do you have a boyfriend?”
“No. I was engaged…until a few weeks ago.”
Mrs. Conrad looked sorrowful. “Was the sex dreadful?”
Her neck burned. “Well, um, I always thought our physical relationship would…develop.”
“Wrong.” The woman lifted her hand in the air and looked to an imaginary horizon. “From the get-go, there has to be a spark between the two of you, an awareness of each other that is so unique, you simply can’t bear to be away from each other.”
Far different from the advice her mother had drilled into her and Meg’s heads so they wouldn’t fall for a man who would abandon them with two small children. “What about friendship, emotional intimacy?”
“Overrated. Those things will grow out of your physical bond if it’s right. You’ll have many friendships, Rebecca, and other people in your life to whom you’ll be emotionally close. But physical intimacy is unique to the relationship with the man you love. You’ll share the deepest thoughts with your heads together on a pillow after great sex.”
Dickie never talked immediately before, during, or after sex. In retrospect, the man turned into a mime when he was aroused. “But I’m not…I mean, how do you…”
“How do you find out if a man is the one without compromising your principles?”
Rebecca nodded.
Mrs. Conrad gave her a rueful smile. “You have to take a chance, dear. And when you find the man who makes you forget your name when he walks into a room, you hope against hope that he feels the same. Then it’s magic.” She shook her hips again, sending the spangles on her outfit dancing under the lights. “I’ll take it,” she said, then pulled the curtain shut.
The woman’s words stayed with Rebecca until after she turned the Closed sign on the door at six. If Mrs. Conrad was right, her and Dickie’s relationship had been doomed from the beginning. They had met at a benefit dinner, and although he was nice-looking, she remembered thinking after the first date that he was the kind of man she should fall in love with. His gentle kiss on the third date had set the pace for their love life, and she had acquiesced. Why she’d gone against her natural inclinations, she wasn’t certain, other than she didn’t want him to think she was odd. It hadn’t occurred to her that Dickie might be the odd one, or that their chemistry was simply all wrong.
Shaking the melancholy thoughts from her head, she tallied the day’s receipts and straightened the table in her workroom in anticipation of Michael’s arrival. She pulled a catalog of fabric swatches from her shelf, and sketches from her “fantasy” file, elaborate costumes she ordered or made by request only. From her Rolodex file, she withdrew cards for local dance troupes. To calm her nerves, she put on a fresh pot of coffee. She turned off the overhead music, but it seemed too quiet, so she turned it back on and settled on a Spanish station—upbeat, but not distracting. At sixty-thirty exactly, a knock sounded on the front door.
Rebecca inhaled deeply and rounded the corner. Michael stood outside the door hunched against the rain that had blown in. She jogged to the door and unlocked it, waving him inside. “Did you walk?”
He nodded and set down his dripping briefcase. “I was halfway here when the sky opened up. I figured I might as well keep going.” He yanked off his cap and banged it against his knee, then wiped his shoes on the doormat and shrugged out of his jacket. His damp T-shirt was plastered to his chest. “Filthy night.”
The picture he created—big and masculine and easygoing—set her stomach churning, and God help her, she was already imagining things that shouldn’t happen. Even the simple act of locking the door behind him seemed intimate, as if they were shutting out the world. She reminded herself that Michael was there on business, and was counting on her help to turn the restaurant around.
He bent to scoop something off the floor—a foam peanut. Those things were everywhere—she’d found one in her bathtub, for heaven’s sake.
Rebecca held out her hand and he dropped it on her palm. “Thanks,” she said. “These things seem to be reproducing.”
At his wry smile, she swallowed—an unfortunate choice of words.
She shot a look toward the closet where the “good luck charm” was stored. To be packed away, Harry was doing a good job of finding his way underfoot. She closed her fingers around the peanut and tried to ignore the pull of Michael’s body on hers. “Let’s get started.”
CHAPTER SIX
MICHAEL’S MIND JUMPED all around, bombarded with images of the woman walking in front of him dressed in the outfit now on display in the window—the mannequin certainly didn’t do it justice. In contrast, Rebecca’s trim figure was clad in the same prim outfit she’d been wearing earlier—by design? Her black hair was pulled back from her face with a dark headband, and her face was devoid of makeup. By all appearances, a demure shopgirl. And if not for the citrusy scent she wore, the same one he remembered being stirred up by the swirling hem of a velvet cloak, he might have convinced himself the incident had been a figment of his overactive imagination.
All afternoon he’d told himself that he’d asked for Rebecca’s help for the sake of the restaurant. And while he did respect her opinion, he was a liar, liar and his pants were on fire—he simply wanted to be near her. But dammit, it felt good to think about something other than his failed marriage.
“My office is in the back,” she murmured.
He followed, focusing on the surroundings to keep his mind and eyes off her willowy figure. An up-tempo Spanish instrumental played on the radio, the re
cording occasionally interrupted by a zap of static that revealed the proximity of lightning. Indeed, the air had an electric quality that heightened his senses, and magnified his awareness of the woman in front of him. The fact that she was oblivious to his raging hormones was both a relief and a frustration.
They left the showroom, passed three dressing rooms on the left, then walked through swinging doors bearing a sign that read No Customers Beyond This Point. The expansive area on the other side of the doors he recognized as the large room he’d entered the night before last by way of the back door. The floor was shiny sealed concrete, the ceiling exposed pipes and conduit. Colorful costumes hung on rods spanning two walls, and a half dozen wire bins were stacked with clothing, wigs, hats and other items not readily identifiable. Dress forms and mannequins were too numerous to count.
The room had a mischievous feel—as if at night the inanimate objects might spring to life. He could see how Rebecca might fall under the spell of the compelling atmosphere, how even he might himself.
She walked over to a large drafting table with an adjustable lamp clipped to the edge. A bench seat was tucked underneath. Three file cabinets and a computer workstation sat adjacent.
“My office,” she indicated with a sweeping gesture.
“Nice.”
“Efficient,” she corrected with a laugh. “I made coffee.”
“Sounds great.”
“Have a seat.”
He pulled out the bench seat and sat down feeling like a teenager who’d just discovered he was going to share a science lab table with a cute girl. She returned from a makeshift coffee station and set down two brimming cups, then eased onto the bench. He noticed that she didn’t seem to be as affected by their nearness as he. He was a mess, Michael decided. A horny mess. He lifted his briefcase onto his lap and flipped opened the closures. “I brought a diagram of the store.”
“Great. And do you have a staffing chart?”
“Right here.”
The tip of her tongue emerged as she studied the diagram. Michael was riveted. Suddenly everything the woman did seemed sensual.
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