by Tawna Fenske
“I don’t want you to miss a team dinner on account of me.”
“No, it’s fine. Miriam—that’s my business partner—she and I take turns running them each month. This one is hers anyway.”
“Okay then. Do you want to come to my place?”
“No!” She couldn’t have sounded more alarmed if he’d asked her to go nude skydiving as an exercise in assertiveness. She must have recognized it, too, because she softened her voice. “I mean—I think it would be more professional if we meet at one of our offices.”
“You’ve seen mine. How about you show me yours?”
“Um—”
“Office, Holly. Show me your office.”
“Of course,” she said, sounding flustered. “I knew what you meant.”
Okay, so he was teasing her on purpose now. Dammit, it felt good. Testing the waters, owning the moment, being assertive—weren’t those all things a good CEO did naturally? It might not feel natural to him yet in the boardroom, but when it came to flirting with Holly, he was starting to get the hang of it.
He heard a tapping sound, and pictured her drumming a pen on her desk in a nervous rhythm. “Let’s do my place. The office will be deserted after four thirty, since we’re bussing the whole staff out to a big resort for the dinner. Might be the first time in history no one at First Impressions is working late.”
“Except for you.”
“Except for me.”
“Well, Holly, I’m glad to be your exception. See you this evening.”
Ben hung up, wishing like hell he could be her exception in every way possible.
Holly spent the last two hours of her workday fluctuating between two extremes. On one hand, she felt panicky about nailing this job with Ben and paying off the bank. She was used to handling pressure in her career, but unaccustomed to having a ticking clock dangling over her head, a perpetual reminder of what she stood to lose if she didn’t succeed in her rebranding efforts with Ben.
On the other hand, she couldn’t stop thinking about Ben. Not just about what his business could mean for the financial future of her company, but about his hands and lips and a lot of other body parts she couldn’t stop picturing in her mind.
So when he walked through the door at four thirty-five wearing one of his new shirts and a well-cut pair of trousers, it was annoying to find herself staring slack-jawed at the man whose thumb prints were still on her thighs.
She closed her mouth and took a step forward, extending her hand. “Ben—so good to see you again. Welcome to First Impressions Public Relations and Branding.”
He gave her an odd look, but he took her hand anyway. He shook it a few times but didn’t let go as he surveyed the lobby and reception area. “Wow, this place is beautiful. Very hip. I love the galvanized steel wall.”
“Thank you.” Holly glanced down at their linked fingers and wondered if he realized he hadn’t broken the handshake yet. She sure as hell wasn’t going to be the one to tell him. “I chose all the slate myself, and the furniture is all mid-century modern stuff I found in flea markets and retro consignment shops.”
“I love those chairs.”
“Thanks. The couch is my favorite. It looks like something you’d see on Mad Men, doesn’t it?” She gestured toward the orange leather sofa with her free hand, part of her hoping Ben didn’t let go of her other one anytime soon. “There’s another one that’s similar in the conference room. Would you like a tour before we get started?”
“I’d love one. This is great getting to see where you work. How long have you been in PR?”
“Most of my career. I got my degree in marketing, but I was always drawn to the branding and public relations aspect of it.”
“How come?”
“There’s something inspiring about being a cheerleader for a product or service I really believe in. About making sure other people have the opportunity to see it the way I do, and recognize its true potential.”
He grinned. “I like the idea that I’m now one of your products or services.”
“It is a little weird for me,” she admitted, though the weird part wasn’t the job itself. It was the fact that being around Ben now made her feel like a middle school girl with her first crush.
God, this was inconvenient.
“Did you say you started the company?” he asked.
“Yes. With my friend, Miriam.”
“Did you have a lot of investors?”
“No.” Holly bit her lip, kicking herself for not having investors or for not figuring out a way to shoulder the business mortgage all by herself. Or maybe she could have just leased a piece of property—
“Miriam’s my business partner,” she said, forcing her mind back to the conversation at hand. “She’s also a brilliant branding specialist. She started out as a graphic designer and she’s got a great eye for color and design.”
“I’d love to meet her sometime.”
“She’s the one I consulted before we went shopping with you the other night. In a roundabout way, she’s responsible for dressing you.”
“Only fair, since you’re responsible for undressing me.” He grimaced. “I meant the zipper. Helping me fix the zipper—”
“It’s okay, I knew what you meant.” Holly felt the heat creeping into her cheeks, so she turned toward the lobby to continue the tour. “We offer a wide range of marketing services at First Impressions, but branding and rebranding is our specialty.”
“Are these all awards you’ve won?”
She nodded toward the plaques and certificates on the wall, feeling a swell of pride in her belly. “We have a very talented team here.”
“I can see that.”
Something about his interest in her career left her wondering whether Chase had ever shown this much curiosity about her job. At one point not long after their honeymoon, he’d stopped by her office to take her to lunch and spent an hour visiting with her employees. At first, Holly had been thrilled with the attention, delighted by his interest in her career and his effort to get to know the people who made up her circle of friends and professional acquaintances.
It wasn’t until later she’d realized he’d been snooping around for ammunition, eager to prove to Holly that she needed to cut back her hours.
“Marla in payroll said you’ve been very supportive of her choice to work part-time after having a baby,” Chase had said later, twining his fingers through her hair to loosen her chignon.
“Her name is Mara,” Holly had replied slowly, wondering why he’d taken an interest. “But yes, I helped her work out a job-share arrangement with another payroll specialist who also wanted to work part-time. It’s gone well so far.”
“Hmm,” Chase had murmured. “So hypothetically speaking, you’re in support of a woman putting her family first before her career.”
“Of course,” Holly said a little too quickly. “Or finding a way to balance the two—it’s up to the individual woman, of course.” She remembered the sinking feeling in her gut, the knowledge of what was coming next.
“So you’re saying family isn’t important to you personally?” Chase had challenged.
“Wow, are these ad concepts something you guys came up with?”
Ben’s deep voice jarred Holly from the unpleasant trip down memory lane. She blinked, then followed his gaze to the magnetic board covered with a colorful array of ad slicks. He pointed to one, and she nodded, pleased to see he’d zeroed in on the concept she’d personally developed.
“Yes, that’s for a new advertising campaign we’ve been working on for a kombucha brewer that’s suddenly getting national media attention. These were mock-ups for a print campaign we showed them this morning.”
“Did they like it?”
“Very much. The whole team invested a lot into the pitch, and the company owners could tell.”
“Which one’s yours?”
Holly shrugged. “Everything is a team effort around here. No one person gets credit for a concept or a pitch.
”
Ben grinned and shoved his hands in his pockets. “Sure, but just between you and me, I’m betting one of these has a little more of you in it.”
She hesitated, then leaned past him to point at one of the ad slicks, conscious of the heat radiating from his body. “That one right there. The one with the dog and the grapes.”
“I thought so. Very clever. It looks like something you’d come up with.”
She smiled, pretty sure it was the first time someone she’d known less than a week had been able to pick her work out of a lineup. “Thank you.” She cleared her throat. “Shall we get started on the speech coaching?”
He turned to face her, his expression somewhere between resignation and amusement. “You mean you didn’t invite me here to ogle your—work?”
“You’re welcome to ogle my—work—all you want. But our time might be better spent if you do it while I’m offering you tips on public speaking.”
“All right then. Shall we do it right here?”
“Let’s move to the conference room.” She led the way, conscious of Ben falling into step behind her. She’d worn her hair up in a chignon, and the exposed nape of her neck tingled with the thought of his breath on her bare skin.
She rounded the corner and halted just inside the conference room, then turned to Ben and gestured for him to join her. “I imagine this might be a similar space to the one where you’ll be presenting?”
He stepped past her and nodded as he surveyed the room. “Langley Enterprises doesn’t have a cool purple conference room table, but yes—the setup is probably pretty similar. Whiteboard, giant presentation screen, a big, ominous table with way too many chairs for way too many people.”
“Haven’t you heard that old public speaking tip about picturing your audience in their underwear?”
“Since my dad will be there, I’d rather not.”
Holly laughed and moved to the front of the room. “After we get started, I’m going to have you do some visualization stuff where you imagine bodies in each of those chairs.”
“As in cadavers or Victoria’s swimsuit models?”
“Whatever rolls your socks up.”
Ben sighed and pulled out a chair and slumped down into it, folding his hands on the table. Holly tried not to stare at them. God, they were huge.
“So where do we start?” he asked. “Guide me, Obi-Wan Kenobi.”
“Star Trek again?”
He widened his eyes, then pantomimed stabbing himself through the chest. “Are you kidding me?”
“What?”
“Star Wars. Holly, Obi-Wan Kenobi is from Star Wars. How can you confuse the two?”
“For starters, I’ve never seen either one. I only got your Star Trek reference the other night because I had a roommate who was really into it.”
Ben shook his head in mock dismay. “How is it possible we’re from the same planet?”
“I’ve been wondering the same thing myself.”
He grinned and leaned further back into the chair, stretching his legs out in front of him. “One of these days, we’ll have to have a Star Wars marathon.”
Holly bit her lip, not sure whether the idea thrilled her or just created more potential for temptation. She was saved from deciding when he swung the subject back to the task at hand.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to digress from the purpose of our meeting. Where were we?”
“You asked me for public speaking tips,” Holly reminded him. “Here’s one: get your butt out of the chair.”
He grinned and straightened up in his seat, but didn’t stand. “You mean I can’t deliver a sales presentation from a seated position?”
“You order drive-thru tacos from a seated position. You watch bad sci-fi from a seated position. You use the bathroom in a seated position.”
“Hey, I’m a guy—”
“My point is that you need to establish a commanding presence right off the bat.” She moved across the front of the room, keeping her posture straight in illustration. “You have your height, Ben. Use it to your advantage. Take charge of the room right from the start.”
Looking bemused, he stood up. Holly stared up at him, startled by the sheer size of him again.
“Better?” he asked.
“Much.” She took a step back, needing to put a little space between them. “Okay, that’s a starting point. So tell me about this sales presentation. What are you going to be discussing?”
“Substrate-level phosphorylation in the absence of a respiratory electron transport chain.”
She stared at him. “Was that in English?”
Ben shoved his glasses up on his nose. “I might have to dial it back a little for the intended audience.”
“Unless your intended audience is comprised of nuclear physicists, I’d say that’s an accurate assessment.”
“The audience is a team of executives from Kleinberger. Some of the same guys you met the other night.”
“Aren’t they a brewing company?”
“Yep. Second largest craft brewery in the nation, and we’re trying to sell them some top-of-the-line fermentation equipment we’ve engineered and manufactured. It’s going to revolutionize their whole process.”
“So—beer? You’ll be talking about beer?”
“In a roundabout way, I guess so.”
“Well, there’s a topic you know and love. Why don’t you start there?”
“Maybe. But I also need to discuss the engineering aspect of things.”
Ben shoved his hands in his pockets, but Holly shook her head. “Nope, no slouching, no sitting, no hands in pockets. You’re in a boardroom, not a video arcade.”
“That’s unfortunate. I’d be a lot more excited about this if I got to play Frogger with the audience.” His face brightened suddenly, and Holly thought for the hundredth time how attractive he was when he smiled for real. Then he pulled his hands out of his pockets and held up a jump drive. “I almost forgot, I have a PowerPoint presentation.”
“Perfect! Let’s take a look at it.” She held out her hand, and he dropped the little device into her palm. It was warm from his body heat, and she had the ridiculous urge to press the little electronic gadget to her cheek just to feel something he’d kept snugged up against his thigh.
She ordered herself to stop thinking about Ben’s crotch and start thinking about his presentation. “When did you put this PowerPoint together?”
“About an hour after my dad came into my office and asked me to do this. It’s probably a little rough.”
Holly dropped into a chair at the conference table and shoved the jump drive into the slot on the boardroom laptop. She waited as the computer brought up a list of files. There was only one to display. “Is this it? Kleinberger Sales Presentation.”
“Yep, that’s the one.”
She clicked the file, then waited as the computer whirred and flashed. When the PowerPoint file popped up, Holly stared at it for a few beats. “Your presentation is titled Eukaryotes, Glucose, and You.”
“Too long?”
“Too—well, a lot of things.” She clicked through a few of the slides, dismayed to see they all looked a lot like the first one. There were no graphics. Just a whole lot of really big words.
“Look, I have a great graphic designer who does amazing PowerPoint work,” she said. “Let me give this to her in the morning and see if she can spiff it up a little for you.”
“I appreciate it.” Ben shoved his hands in his pockets again, then grimaced and pulled them out. “Sorry. Okay, what’s next?”
“Have you rehearsed any of what you want to say?”
“I have a few ideas. I could use help organizing them. What’s the best way to approach that?”
“A good strategy is to present your information in an inverted pyramid.” Holly folded her hands on the table in front of her, feeling more in control of herself now that they were talking about a subject she knew well. “In other words, you want to give your audience the flashie
st, most pertinent, most important information right up front.”
Ben quirked an eyebrow at her. “I’m talking about the metabolic process of converting sugar into alcohol. What part of that is flashy?”
“The part where it becomes beer.”
“Good point.”
“Let’s try this a different way,” she said, minimizing his PowerPoint slides on the screen. “Is there any cost savings involved? Projected outcomes? Anything that might make an audience of business professionals sit up and pay attention?”
“Good, that’s good.” Ben pulled a piece of scratch paper out of the basket at the center of the table and plucked a pen from behind his ear. He dropped into a chair beside Holly and began scrawling notes. “I have a couple ideas about that.”
She watched his gaze move back and forth across the page as he scribbled furiously. The beautiful amber-flecked eyes flashed with excitement, and his massive hand made the pen look like a toy. Whatever he was jotting, he seemed enthusiastic about it.
Why was that so sexy?
“Do you anticipate any really tough questions from the audience?” she prompted, crossing her legs to keep her mind off the thought of having Ben between them. “Any flaws in your plan that they might be inclined to zero in on?”
Ben glanced up and gave her a thoughtful look. “Well, I guess they might ask how Langley Enterprises’ equipment differs from that of our closest competitors.”
“And how does your equipment differ?”
“My equipment is huge. Much bigger than anyone else’s equipment.”
Holly gripped the edge of the table. “What?”
“The fermentation tanks,” he said, giving her a funny smile. “They’re quite large. I developed them myself, and they’re capable of brewing up to five hundred barrels of beer in a twenty-four-hour period. That’s pretty huge.”
“It sounds like it,” Holly said faintly. “What else?”
“Mine’s also much harder.”
“Oh. Well—”
“The metal Langley used, I mean. It’s a 440C stainless steel I developed with a specific formulation of chromium and nickel designed for strength and corrosion resistance.”