Diana straightened. "Why not?"
"Won't people get our product mixed up with Korman's that way? Isn't his perfume called Temptress or something?" Alex shrugged, suddenly shy. "Not that I'm an expert or anything."
"Oh, dear." Diana's pretty forehead wrinkled as she pondered this, staring at her paper label. "I hadn't thought of that." The woman looked like she was ready to cry.
If Alex weren't so sure Diana wanted to get into Chess's pants—even though Chess was married to Cookie—Alex might have felt sorry for her. "Maybe you ought to bring it up with Chess." This would undoubtedly be an uncomfortable conversation. Casually, he grabbed another bottle. "Meanwhile, I gotta get this over to him. See ya."
He got out of the storeroom. Sweat was pooling on his chest, but he got out.
With a second bottle.
Alex fingered the two bottles in his lab coat. The extra one was worth five thousand dollars. Half his gambling problem.
He hadn't questioned the anonymous voice on the phone, the one who'd promised him the money if he delivered a bottle of prototype. He already knew this would be a theft of the worst kind. But he'd been tempted. And torn—until his lesson with Chess this morning.
Whistling again, Alex waltzed down the hall. Now he wondered what the guy on the phone thought he could accomplish with a bottle of prototype. From what Chess had told him, Alex now knew that each bottle of Temptation contained about a hundred and twenty different ingredients. It was impossible to duplicate the contents of the bottle with only the fragrance itself. You had to know the formula.
Alex figured that was the problem of the dude on the phone, not him. No skin off Alex's nose to put the bottle in a locker at the Greyhound station, the way he'd been instructed. It would be okay to take the five thousand in cash that would be waiting in the same locker. It wouldn't hurt anybody—except maybe the guy who thought he was getting something worth that much money.
And Alex would have half his problem taken care of. As for the other half, well...the only possible way to deal with that was by winning instead of losing at cards. There was another game tonight. And his poker books.
The sweat cooled on Alex's chest as he continued down the hall. One bottle. He wouldn't have to tell Chess or anybody about the gambling.
He'd gotten himself into this mess and he'd get himself out of it.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
After lunch, Ruth walked into her office to find Chess taking up one of her wire-frame artsy chairs. Apparently oblivious to the discomfort of the designer chair, he leaned back, one ankle crossed over the other knee. In one hand he held a mug of coffee. In the other he had a folder full of her proofs from the day before.
He looked up as she opened the door. On his face was no hint of guilt for invading her office and helping himself to the proofs which were in no shape to show to a client.
"Don't remember inviting you over." Ruth threw her purse on top of her desk table.
Narrowing his eyes, Chess asked, "What the hell is this?"
Ruth told herself that she wasn't afraid of Chester Bradshaw. Just because he was bigger than she was, and just because he could yell louder didn't mean he was going to win this one. She was right, and she knew it. He did, too, which was probably what was making him mad.
"That—" Ruth nodded toward the proofs in Chess's hand. "—is our new advertising campaign."
She watched Chess's face harden and begin to turn dark.
"The hell it is!" He tossed the folder onto Ruth's desk. He gave the impression he'd have liked to have thrown them much further—like to Chicago. As it was, the photographs inside slipped out and spread into a fan over the gray laminate desktop.
"If you imagine for one minute that I'm going to allow you to use my wife—" Chess broke off, apparently too choked up to continue. He gestured toward the offending photographs. "You can forget it!"
Ruth glanced down at the fan of photos. She'd been having a hard time deciding which of them to use for the first magazine layout. They were all so good. She looked back at Chess.
He glowered at her with a mix of righteous indignation and something else. The something else was harder to name and not anything Ruth had ever seen on Chess's face.
"Why should I forget it?" she asked. "Cookie's a great model. Fantastic, as a matter of fact. My photographer's going wild over her."
Chess looked away. "I'm sure he is."
"The photographer's female," Ruth added dryly. She sat behind her desk. "And you haven't answered my question. What's wrong with using Cookie?"
Chess evaded a direct answer. "From what I've seen, you've completely changed the thrust of the campaign. It isn't about freshness anymore."
"No, Korman stole that angle. So now we're talking about romance. That's what a woman wants when she buys perfume. She doesn't want to smell fresh—she wants to fall in love. Or have someone fall in love with her."
"It's not a bad tack," Chess admitted, meeting her gaze. The something she couldn't name grew stronger in his eyes. "But can't you use some other model?"
"Not another who'd work for Cookie's wages."
"We're not that strapped."
Ruth raised her brows. "We are. But that's beside the point. I'd want Cookie even if I did have to pay her. She's perfect. You saw the pictures. An essence of longing yet to be fulfilled. And then there's the publicity from the wedding. People already know her face, they already associate her with Scents Allure."
Chess slowly rose to his feet. His gaze went to the photos now spread over Ruth's desk while a muscle worked in his jaw. He looked like he couldn't decide whether he wanted to rip the pictures to shreds or sneak them off to a corner by himself.
The mysterious expression in his eyes suddenly made sense to Ruth. "You're jealous!"
Chess made a scoffing noise, but he set down his coffee and then picked one of the eight-by-ten glossies out of the fan. His eyes briefly roamed over the woman whose image the camera had caught. "Look at this." Chess put the photo squarely in front of Ruth.
The image showed Cookie sitting at a makeup table. She was dressed in a flowered silk robe that fell away to display a tempting swell of décolletage and one beautifully curved leg. Her head was tilted back as she applied her finger to a spot on her neck below her ear. Her eyes were closed in an expression of deep and wishful anticipation.
"You like that one?"
"Like it!" Chess pointed an outraged finger at the woman in the photograph. "She's showing more skin in a public magazine ad than she's ever allowed me in the privacy of our own home!"
"Ah," Ruth breathed out. "So that's how it is." She was afraid to look up at Chess, certain he was already regretting having confessed this much.
"That's how it is." Chess turned away, moving toward her fourteenth-story window. One hand rubbed the back of his neck. "Damn," he muttered. "Hell and damnation."
Ruth hadn't the vaguest idea what to say. He obviously wasn't interested in sympathy. Nor, she judged, was this the right time to make another push for his approval of the ad campaign. "What made you come by to see me today?" she asked instead.
Chess stared at the skyscraper across the street. "Cookie told me I'd better get a sneak preview of what you were up to."
Behind Chess's back, Ruth raised an annoyed eyebrow. "She promised she wouldn't tell you about it."
Chess turned back. "She didn't tell me about it. She only told me to drop by." He shook his head. "You put her in a difficult spot, you know, demanding that promise from her."
"Hardly. She didn't seem to have any trouble breaking it."
Chess frowned. "She didn't want to break it. But at the same time, she wasn't going to keep something this important from me."
Ruth's annoyed eyebrow quivered. "Why not?"
"Why not?" For a second, Chess seemed at a loss. "Because we promised each other— I mean, I'm her husband."
As if that explained anything. "Let me get this straight. Cookie won't lie to you—because you're her husband."
> Chess rolled his shoulders. "That's right."
"She takes this husband thing very seriously, and yet you aren't sleeping together. I must admit, this is a very unique relationship."
"You're telling me." Chess massaged the back of his neck again. "It's giving me ulcers."
"I can imagine," Ruth murmured. "You're not used to this, are you?"
"Used to what?"
"Never mind." Ruth turned her attention back to the photograph of Cookie in her silk bathrobe. "Distressing as it must be to have this woman living under your roof, refusing you her no-doubt-delectable sexual favors, I would expect more rationality from you, Chess."
He stopped rubbing his neck. Of course. She'd used the magic word. Accuse a man of being irrational and he was liable to blow a gasket.
Ruth leaned forward over the desk. "I've never seen you put your personal issues ahead of business. I'd hate you to start doing that now when things are at such a delicate pass."
Triumph surged through her as she saw a scowl darken his face.
"The only objection you have to the campaign is the use of Cookie as the model," Ruth went on, pressing her advantage. "And the only reason you have for that objection is a purely irrational jealousy, an emotion that isn't going to make any of us money."
He didn't have a word to say in reply.
Ruth leaned back in her chair. She wasn't done yet. She'd made a dent in his male ego, but she had one more weapon in her arsenal. If ever there was a time for overkill, this was it. "There's another factor to be considered here," she continued.
Still scowling, Chess sat back down. "What?"
"Cookie's career." Ruth picked up a stray colored pencil from her desktop. "This ad campaign could launch more than your perfume. It could very well launch Cookie's acting career."
She could tell that one hit its mark. Daunted, Chess attempted to rally. "She already has an acting career. She's got a good role in a long-running play."
"Oh, yes, the play." Ruth nodded. "Cookie told me the play is over with at the end of the year."
Chess looked up in surprise. "She didn't tell me that."
"Still, it's true. Come January, she's unemployed."
Chess looked momentarily stricken. But he quickly composed his expression, lifting a shoulder. "She'll be rich by January."
"And that's supposed to satisfy her?"
"Why not?"
Ruth struggled to maintain her temper. Men were thick-skulled beasts at best, but Chess was going for a prize here. "Think about it, kiddo. Come January are you planning to retire? Going to quit the business and stop making new fragrances?"
"Of course not," Chess shot back. "Oh," he added in a more subdued tone. "Hell."
Ruth moved her arms forward on the desk, hands clasping either end of her pencil. "This ad campaign would be a boon to Cookie's career. She'd become known and, if the campaign were successful, very, very wanted."
Chess gave Ruth a sidelong look. "Did Cookie tell you this?"
"I doubt it even occurred to her."
He looked, finally, defeated. "I doubt it did, either." Slowly—resignedly—he stood up. "All right, you win. Go ahead with the campaign the way you've planned it—including Cookie."
At the door he stopped. "Oh, I almost forgot. I brought one of the bottles over for you."
Ruth caught the tossed blue-tinted bottle. "Oh dear," she said. "I hope you didn't print too many of these labels."
Chess groaned. "Don't tell me there's a spelling error. That happened with the first batch of Wonder three years ago."
"No, not a spelling error." Ruth gave him a wary look. "We have to change the name of the perfume altogether. Korman stole our advertising by taking the name Temptress."
Chess nodded. "You're right, of course. Do you have any ideas?"
"Yes." Ruth looked straight into his eyes. "I think we ought to call it Love."
His gaze didn't waver. Perhaps she'd been wrong to think it would. The mighty and untouchable Chess Bradshaw wasn't about to take that fall.
"Love?" Chess repeated with utter dispassion. He gave a careless shrug. "Why not?"
~~~
Chess was proud of himself. By the time he'd pulled into the driveway of his heavily mortgaged house, he'd also pulled his temper under control.
He'd decided. Cookie wasn't going to affect him. He wasn't going to give her that kind of power. He sat for a moment in the car with the motor off and made sure this was true. He wasn't going to let her make him angry, not even after she'd done her best to sabotage his authority in every area of his life. He was going to remain cool about this. In control.
Chess got out of the car and walked up the front steps of the porch. In control. Calm. Rational.
He put his key in the lock and opened the front door. "What the—?"
Cookie stood in the middle of the marble entryway, wearing a close-fitting white top and black exercise pants. Black suspenders passed over her shoulders. She had drawn back into some type of martial arts stance. "I'm warning you," she told Chess. "These hands are lethal weapons."
Chess closed the door behind himself. "What the hell are you doing?"
"Don't come any closer." Cookie jumped back as Chess took a step further into the house. She maintained her wide-apart stance, one arm extended in front of her. "I know how to pull you down."
"You're being absolutely ridiculous." In stupefaction, Chess watched as Cookie raised one of her feet, pointed it and rotated it like a ballet dancer. She then switched to extend her other arm forward.
"No closer," Cookie said, her voice deep.
"Cut this out. I want to go upstairs to change my clothes."
"You're not going anywhere until we have this out."
"This? What's this?" He watched as she again did the menacing rotation of one leg. It didn't take more than a lazy movement of his arm to catch her foot in midair.
He expected to have her hopping on one foot and depending on his hand for balance. Instead Cookie jumped all her weight onto his grasping hand and lashed out at him with her other foot.
"Christ!" Chess grunted as her heel hit his ribcage. His hold on her other heel tightened and they both went down. One of his shoulders hit the hard tile first. "Ouch!"
"Mmph," Cookie grunted. She kicked to get her trapped foot free.
"The hell," Chess muttered. He regained his hold on her foot and slid her along the marble toward him.
"I warned you," Cookie exclaimed. She twisted and almost writhed out from under his grasp.
A surprised laugh escaped him as he discovered he wasn't going to be able to subdue her by simply holding on. He started in on his old wrestling moves.
She had a startling knowledge, however, of what to expect.
More laughter rumbled from his chest as he had to anticipate her evasions. Because he'd started laughing so hard, it took him almost five more minutes before he had her pinned on her back. Her cheeks were flushed and her chest heaving.
His chest was heaving, too. But he was also grinning. The brief physical scuffle, he realized, had done much more for his state of inner peace than a whole afternoon full of rationalization.
"You're pretty good at this," Chess remarked.
Cookie dragged in a strangely choked-sounding breath. "I've taken loads of self-defense classes."
A funny pang went through him. He was simultaneously proud Cookie had taken that much responsibility for her safety and damned if he wouldn't make all of that training unnecessary. "I'm too big for you," he allowed, hoping she got the subtle point. She needed him.
With her chest rising and falling, Cookie raised one eyebrow. "Hardly. I just didn't want to actually hurt you."
Chess stared at her. Then he started to laugh. The arms that had been pinning her down relaxed. "If that's the case, then you should have staged this little battle in the living room." He let her go to groan to a sitting position. "Marble tile is hard stuff."
"You're telling me." Releasing a deep breath, Cookie sat up and rub
bed the back of her head. "How's your shoulder?"
His shoulder would live, but Chess put a hand up to massage the vanishing pain. "You noticed."
"Let me see." Cookie scooted to his side where he leaned against the staircase. She moved his hand away and tenderly probed the area. "That hurt?"
"Mm." He watched her face as she examined the scuffed shoulder of his suit jacket.
Her brows were drawn down in concentration, her lips soft, not quite parted. Beneath her ponytail, stray strands of dark hair curled damply on her neck.
Desire for her lanced through him, from his chest down to his crotch; the desire he'd sworn he wouldn't feel.
"Are you okay?" Cookie's dark eyes flashed at him.
"Sure." If he had to feel like this, at least he wouldn't give her the satisfaction of knowing it. "But why did you do that?"
Dark lashes dropped over her eyes. She clasped both hands over his mildly aching shoulder and perched her chin on top of them. "You were angry with me. I wanted to give you a chance to express it."
"Did you now?" He was a bit chagrined that she could see through him so easily.
"Uh-huh. You're a little scary when you lose your temper, but I've decided that's preferable to the block of ice."
That surprised a laugh out of him. At the moment he could hardly compare himself to any kind of ice. He could feel the sexual pull of her like a bowstring. "Are you saying we're going to have a physical tussle every time I get angry—or are we just limiting it to those occasions when you go behind my back to arrange my personal and professional life?"
She had the decency to blush. Dropping her hands from his shoulder, she sat back. "I knew you'd be upset over that dinner invitation to Kate."
"Kate." He brushed that aside. "I'm not worried about Kate; she won't show up anyway. Let's talk about Ruth's photographs."
Cookie's mouth dropped open. "She will too show up!"
"The photographs, Cookie."
She crossed her legs and gave him a pouting, under-lash look. "They were just a test. To see if the idea would work."
"An idea no one bothered to discuss with me."
Call it Love Page 17