When Staci Takes Charge

by Calista Fox

“Yeah, sure,” Staci said, totally dazed. “When we get back to the office. At the moment, I just want to take it all in.”

  “We have the blueprints, too,” Maxi said. “Everything you need to fully assess what we have planned. There’s even extra room for growth potential. If Lola keeps up her brilliant marketing ideas, we’re going to need it. Not to mention when we rollout the shoes you and Evan are designing. We’ll be seriously busy.”

  Staci absorbed the feeling of the space, liking the openness, the ambience. She thought back to her teeny, tiny building in a crappy part of town where she’d first kicked off Staci Kay Shoes six years ago and couldn’t help but pat herself on the back. She’d come a long way. With the help of her friends. And her customers.

  “What do you think?” Evan eventually prompted her.

  Staci was completely blown away. “I think it’s absolutely perfect. I love it. It’s exactly what we need.”

  “All right, then,” he beamed. “It looks like you’re going to remain fully operational for a long to come, Miss Kay.”

  She turned to Evan. “You really are too much for words.”

  “Just trying to help out.”

  “No,” she said. “You give so much to me all the time. All the help with the new line of shoes, this building, your support. Evan…” Her heart swelled. “I can’t for the life of me figure out how I got so lucky. How I found you.”

  “If I recall correctly, you got locked out of a hotel room.”

  She laughed, though tears filled her eyes once again. “I really am so very, very fortunate.”

  “We both are,” he said. “And I’ve told you how impressed I am that you started Staci Kay Shoes. I want you to continue to succeed, sweetheart. I’ll do whatever I can to help you along the way.”

  “Everything you do helps me. I love you.” She wrapped her arms around him and held on tight.

  Her employees clapped enthusiastically.

  Staci pulled away and said, “I guess we’re just destined for public displays of affection.”

  “Wait until our wedding.”

  “I can’t wait until our wedding.” It was still six months away. “I can’t wait to be Mrs. Dr. Evan Hart.”

  He brushed strands of hair from her face. “In spirit, you already are.”

  Then he kissed her. And Staci couldn’t have been happier.

  Please see the next page for an excerpt from What Lola Wants

  Chapter One

  Who does a girl have to blow around here to get a drink?” Lola Vonn asked with a crooked brow as she scanned the crowded lounge for a server. A busser had dropped off two glasses of ice water fifteen minutes earlier, but no one had come by to take an order.

  Across the high-top table, her coworker Maxi Shayne said, “A little louder, please. I don’t think the nuns at St. Mary’s heard you.”

  Lola flashed a smile. “Too uncouth?”

  “So very unlike you,” Maxi teased, a sparkle in her eyes.

  “And you’re Miss PC?”

  “At least I employ a certain level of tact.”

  “All right. I repent. I’m only joking about the blow job.” Lola searched the neon-lit room again, her gaze landing on the sexy bartender mixing dirty martinis. He had spiky blond hair, a scruffy chin, and bulging biceps. “Or…maybe not. Hell-o there, Hot Stuff.”

  “Noticed him when we walked in,” Maxi commented. “Edgy-looking men do the most sinful things in bed.”

  “I wouldn’t mind him taking the edge off me.”

  “I saw him first.”

  Lola dragged her gaze from Hot Stuff. “Doesn’t it seem like we’re the only women not getting laid in this town? I mean, I can’t pass a watercooler in the office without hearing about Samantha’s wild weekend romps, Jill’s lovefest with her fiancé, and Stephanie’s latest ‘Oh, my God, she makes me come again and again’ girlfriend. I’m happy for them, don’t get me wrong. But I feel the cobwebs coming on.”

  Along with a serious bout of loneliness.

  “Depressing, I know,” Maxi said on a sigh. “I don’t get it. I’m not exactly an ‘ug.’ And you’ve got that whole modern-day Marilyn Monroe thing going on.”

  “You are gorgeous,” Lola assured her dark-haired, sapphire-eyed friend. They were direct opposites in appearance. Maxi sported a sassy long-bob, which she accentuated with beachy curls, while Lola wore her blond hair in a fluffy blowout style that tumbled over her shoulders and midway down her back.

  Maxi’s eyes were a deeper blue, whereas Lola’s were as bright and clear as a summer sky. Maxi was tan, with a lithe runner’s body; Lola had a creamy complexion and curves. They complemented each other nicely, and certainly garnered their fair share of attention. But something was amiss.

  Lola said, “My problem is, I just don’t spark with anyone. I’ve given up counting the days, weeks—oh, hell—the many months since my dry spell hit.”

  “We definitely need men. And wine.”

  “Wine is not going to cut it tonight.”

  Maxi’s brows dipped. “We came to the trendiest bar in Baltimore Harbor to drink water? Not this girl.”

  Lola smiled again. “We’re celebrating with champagne.”

  “You got the promotion!”

  “I did.”

  The very pert and fashion-forward Maxi Shayne clapped her hands and bounced in her seat. “I knew you’d get it! I’m so happy for you. I know how badly you’ve wanted a marketing position—and to move back to Scottsdale to be closer to your family.”

  “Not to mention, this East Coast humidity is killing me.”

  “So it’s true what they say about the Arizona dry heat?”

  “We might be able to fry eggs on a sidewalk in July, but I prefer a hundred and fifteen degrees over needing another shower two seconds after I walk out my front door.”

  Maxi reached for a cocktail napkin and fanned herself. “I’ll admit, I’m feeling a bit moist myself. And not in the good way.”

  Lola laughed. “Makes two of us.”

  A female server finally swooped in, blowing from her forehead a lock of light-brown hair that had escaped her high ponytail. She looked sufficiently frazzled by the Friday night crowd.

  “Sorry for the delay, ladies. We’re shorthanded at the moment. What can I get you?”

  Maybe it was because she was feeling particularly pleased with her climb up the corporate ladder—or because there truly was no place like home, and she had a one-way ticket back there—Lola announced, “A bottle of Taittinger, please.”

  “Coming right up,” the server assured them before rushing off to wait on more tables.

  Maxi whistled under her breath. “Expensive champagne, no less.”

  “It is a promotion—with a sweet bump in pay. Plus, the company is footing the bill for my relocation costs. And you, my friend, are worth every Taittinger penny. I say we splurge!”

  Maxi grinned. “Really, who am I to dispute that kind of logic?”

  “You’re the one who convinced me to pitch my Web campaign to the vice president of Marketing when he came out for those executive meetings. I gave him a provocative idea for reaching the stiletto-wearers of the world and he totally jumped on it. So…thank you very much.”

  Granted, she’d had to stalk Todd Connelly, the VP, for two days—finally cornering him outside the men’s room. A girl had to do what a girl had to do, right? His usually stoic expression had turned enthusiastic when Lola had proposed a risqué online campaign with a brazen social-media blitz.

  She said, “Even our ad agency hasn’t gone where I boldly decided to go with this campaign. We might not be Prada, but then again, we don’t come with a lofty price tag, either. There’s absolutely no reason why women around the globe shouldn’t have a closet full of sassy Staci Kay shoes.”

  “Amen to that, sister.” Maxi high-fived her. “Suggesting Staci be featured in the ads was sheer genius. Every time I see our fearless leader strutting through the office in a pair of five-inch, siren-red, patent-leather heel
s, I can’t help but think, Hell, yes! You go, girl! ’Course I also wonder if I have bisexual tendencies…”

  “Please, you wouldn’t be the first woman to conjure a mental image of Staci rockin’ a baby-doll nightie to go with those stilettos, smacking a riding crop against her palm and wearing a confident, devilish grin.” Lola wagged her brows. “Sort of a female Christian Grey, you know? Turning the tables.”

  The concept was exactly what she’d pitched to Marketing. A powerful, successful woman taking charge in the boardroom—and in the bedroom. All while showing off ultra-sexy footwear. Todd had deemed it brilliant and timely, what with the current Fifty Shades craze.

  “I so love your wicked side. Speaking of…” Maxi handed over her iPhone. She gave Lola a grave look as she said, “I beg you, do not let me drunk-text Kevin tonight. I swear, I won’t be able to stop myself from offering to be his sex slave. And then I’ll fall in love with him all over again.”

  “Bad and wrong, girlfriend.” Lola shook her head for emphasis. “Serial cheater, remember? You deserve way better.”

  “Yes, but—rock my world,” she said on a lusty sigh, “the man knows what he’s doing when he goes down on me.”

  Lola resisted the urge to bang her forehead on the table. Last time someone had gone down on her…? Had to have been a good year ago, at least. A friend of a friend from Accounting, if she recalled correctly. And it hadn’t been all that great. In fact, she’d sensed that he’d lost his way a few times. So she’d faked an orgasm to get him to move on to fucking her. Another disappointment—no sparkage. At. All.

  Yeah, depressing pretty much summed up her romantic life.

  “We shouldn’t talk about sex,” Lola contended. “Otherwise, we’ll both end up going home with someone. With my luck, I’ll meet Prince Charming before I leave town. I don’t do long-distance relationships—I’m not getting laid enough as it is.”

  Maxi smirked. “Silly girl. There’s no such thing as Prince Charming, but it’s sweet that you’re still so optimistic at twenty-five.”

  “Not all men are Kevins.”

  “Slugs?”

  She groaned on Maxi’s behalf. Then said, “My best friend, Alex, is proof.” And Lola couldn’t wait to see him again.

  Alex Reed had been her rock since early childhood. Sure, he was a bit on the stuffy side, what with his incessant need to alphabetize his CD collection and pick imaginary lint from his impeccably tailored suits. But still. He’d always been a stand-up guy.

  She’d actually suffered separation anxiety when she’d left him behind in Arizona. Thankfully, she’d met Maxi, who had filled the friendship void almost instantly, helping to keep at bay doubts of whether or not she’d made the right decision to move.

  Lola had interviewed for a Marketing job at Staci Kay’s Scottsdale office after she’d graduated from Arizona State University, but had been offered an administrative assistant position in the Baltimore Operations hub instead. She’d been so desperate to get her foot in the door—because she was a huge Staci Kay fan and because she knew she could someday make it into the Marketing department—that she’d moved herself all the way across the country.

  She’d done it for the experience as much as the potential opportunity to get a leg up. Well, that and the generous employee discount on shoes.

  But her heart was in Scottsdale, and Lola was more than ready to return.

  The server delivered a chiller with the Taittinger—the brand Lola’s mother always ordered for special occasions—and poured two glasses.

  Lola and Maxi clinked rims and sipped.

  “Ah,” Lola said blissfully. “That’s nice.”

  “Congrats again,” Maxi told her. “But…Debbie Downer moment.” She set aside her crystal flute, the corners of her mouth dipping. “Your promotion means no more nights like this.”

  A twinge of regret ensued. “Crap. Here I am all beside myself with excitement and I haven’t even considered how drastically my life is going to change again. I am seriously going to miss you.”

  “Right back at ya.” Maxi let out a long breath, then lifted her chin and said, “But hey, we can visit each other. And I’ll text you an eyeball-roll emoticon every time Glen in Human Resources violates the sexual harassment policy by staring blatantly at my boobs—while licking his lips—so that we can be grossed out together.”

  “Creep.”

  “Creep-y.” Maxi shuddered. “He’s a total lech.”

  “He’d make a great poster child for condoms.”

  “Here, here.” They touched the rims of their glasses again.

  “Anyway,” Lola said as she shimmied in her chair, her excitement returning. “You and I will always be friends, so don’t worry about that. And when the mood strikes you to offer hot monkey sex to the ex, call me immediately so I can talk you out of it.”

  Maxi laughed. “I will. And who knows, maybe you’ll finally meet Mr. Right in Scottsdale.”

  “From your lips to God’s ears.”

  Her coworker gazed curiously at her a moment, then asked, “What about Alex?”

  Lola blinked. “What about Alex?”

  “Well, you know. I’ve seen pictures of him on your phone.”

  Lola simply stared.

  “Come on, Lola. He’s hot—even with the Clark Kent glasses! Tall, dark, and delicious. Employed. Single. Hetero, as far as you know. To top it all off, you’re both nuts about each other.”

  “As friends,” she pointed out.

  “You’ve heard the saying that ends in with benefits, right?”

  “Oh, no.” Lola gave a vehement shake of her head this time. “Alex might adore me, but I literally turn his world upside down. I can’t help it, and I don’t do it intentionally. Well, that’s not always true.” She shrugged. “Thing is, I’m a shoot-from-the-hip girl. He’s a by-the-book guy. The two do not mesh in the way you’re thinking.”

  Maxi eyed her speculatively. Perhaps even encouragingly…

  “I’m serious,” Lola insisted. “His idea of a rousing Friday night is arranging the cans in his pantry so all the labels face forward—that’s when he’s not trying to invent a new theory of relativity or something.”

  “Total dud?”

  “Not at all, actually.” She sipped, then said, “He’s very bright and witty. He’s just…a little nerdy, you know? Though in a very intriguing way. It’s totally fascinating how his brain is always churning.”

  Alex was a marvel, for sure. But they were day and night, not sharing a single similarity, what with Lola being the former head cheerleader and he having been the president of every geeky club imaginable. And yet…she’d been enthralled with him from the moment they’d met, finding his meticulous, brainiac ways captivating, even though she’d had no idea at the age of seven what that was all about.

  Maybe it was the fact that he seemed so different from her and everything she knew that had caused her to latch on to him. There really was no clear explanation. They’d just instantly clicked. And she wasn’t one to question their solid friendship.

  “Anyway,” she told Maxi, certain there was a healthy dose of conviction in her eyes, “he’s not the type to get wild and crazy. Unless I dare him to.”

  “So dare him.”

  A snicker fell from her lips. “I definitely would not be simpatico, sexually, with Alex. Sure, I think he secretly gets a kick out of me tossing a wrench in his works from time to time. He needs a little nudge in that area. But I wouldn’t want to send him over the edge. And if anything went wrong? I couldn’t fathom it. He’s a gem—a total keeper. Way too important to risk losing.”

  “Okay, then,” Maxi conceded, albeit reluctantly, if the hesitation in her smoky tone was any indication. “Here’s to you finding some other super-hunk Prince Charming. Not too much to wish for, right?”

  Right?

  Lola had her doubts. Especially since her full concentration needed to be on pulling off her new work gig, not searching for Mr. Right. She was currently operating under the
fake it ’til you make it guise, praying like hell she didn’t end up a one-hit wonder in the Marketing department.

  Rumor had it the current manager was being groomed for the director position, and he would mentor someone who could slide into his slot when vacated. Lola wanted it to be her. More than she wanted anything else.

  Well, aside from her own hot monkey sex…

  * * *

  A sharp clap of thunder ripped through Alex Reed’s Gainey Ranch condo. Lightning flashed, illuminating his dimly lit dining room/kitchen combo. Fat drops pelted the windowpanes.

  Above the ping, ping, ping of rain, he heard the dead bolt on the front door crack. His head snapped up. He stared across the open kitchen to the door.

  The second lock sprang free, and he shot to his feet.

  Son of a bitch. A home invasion in an upscale Scottsdale community? It was a gated property, for God’s sake!

  He stepped around the rectangular, glass-top table where he’d sat, his laptop fired up, his small plate of sliced baguette chunks and foie gras terrine positioned alongside his computer at ten o’clock, his wineglass perfectly aligned at two.

  Baseball bat, he thought. Hall closet.

  He started in that direction. But then he wondered who the hell would break in with keys…

  A second later, the sound of the knob twisting filled the room, and the tornado that was Alex’s best friend blew in with a gust of wind.

  Alex started. Not in a million years had he expected to see Lola Vonn rushing through his front door.

  She yanked a large Rollaboard behind her as she stepped inside. Lola drew up short when she saw him.

  “Holy shit!” She gasped as she pressed a hand to her chest.

  Her very ample, enticing chest.

  “You scared the crap out of me!” she declared.

  “I can’t imagine why,” he said. “It is my condo.”

  She gave him a feisty look. His pulse hitched a notch or ten at the sight of her. Was he hallucinating? Fantasizing about her when he should be doing his quarterly taxes?

  “What the fuck?” he muttered, completely caught off guard.

  Lola’s gaze dropped to the mangled umbrella in her hand. “I know, right? It’s a torrential downpour out there. Crazy-wicked monsoons. I mean, look at my umbrella. Totally ruined. It’s Burberry, goddamn it.”