by Trish Jensen
“Recognize the handwriting?” the girl asked him, leaning over his hands to look at the bill.
He stared down at the top of her head. Her hair gleamed and the scent of her shampoo wafted up to him. An unmistakable scent.
“‘Irresistible,’” he murmured.
Her head came up. Fast. “Excuse me?”
“Your shampoo. ‘Irresistible.’”
“Hey, that’s right! That’s the name of this stuff. How’d you know that?”
She sure was a pretty little thing. Too bad she was perkier than a cheerleader. Kit hated perky. Perky gave him a headache.
Not only that, but he wasn’t about to tell this woman how he recognized her shampoo. She now knew his private number. “I once knew a woman who used that brand,” he said vaguely.
“Really? Did she like it?” she asked, cocking her head a little.
“She used it. I suppose she must have liked it.”
“What did she like about it?”
Kit thought that was a really odd question, but the girl seemed genuinely interested. “I have no idea. Why do you ask?”
She shrugged. “I’m in advertising. I’ve got a pitch meeting with the big shots of the company that makes the product tomorrow morning.”
That news jolted through him, and he looked closely at the imp in front of him. Oh, no. This had to be Sherry Spencer. The young advertising whiz who had an appointment with him the next day.
He would have laughed at the irony, if he had a sense of humor left. Luckily, he’d lost his many years ago. “What do you like about it?”
Her hand came up to sweep back a few stray strands. She winked and nudged him with her elbow. “Between you and me, I don’t care much for it. With my regular shampoo I only have to wash my hair every other day. With this stuff it’s a daily chore. And whoever was dumb enough to name an egg-based shampoo ‘Irresistible’ must have been having a bad brain day.” She finally paused long enough to take a breath. “But I always make it a point to try the products before I start to pitch an ad campaign.”
Tomorrow morning’s meeting was going to prove very interesting. He almost looked forward to it. Except for the fact that he’d have to put up with this woman-child bouncing her way through a presentation.
Well, with any luck a little of the bounce might bounce right on out of her as soon as she saw him again. “It must be difficult to come up with ads when you don’t like the products.”
She laughed, which did beautiful things to her features he’d rather not notice. “I’m in advertising, Kit. I can prevaricate with the best of them.”
Kit could practically hear the trap slapping shut around her pretty little neck. “I see.”
She peered up at him. “You don’t smile much, do you, Kit?”
“I avoid it as much as possible.”
“Yes, I see that.” She glanced down at the bill in his hand, then back up at him. “I’m still wondering what that woman’s idea of a good time was.”
“Oh, that’s an easy one,” Kit answered, as he slowly started shredding the twenty. “Tormenting me.”
“Christian Fleming is a hands-on sort, Sherry.”
“So you’ve told me once or twenty times,” Sherry answered her boss, Fred Simpson, as she packed up her briefcase.
Fred dropped into one of three matching green guest chairs in Sherry’s office. “He likes to be involved in all aspects of the business. So if he has his own ideas about which direction he wants to take his ad blitz, you just smile and come up with it.”
Sherry straightened and propped a fist on her hip. “Why are you sending me? From what I’ve seen, Bella Luna ads are the exact opposite of the kind I normally pitch. They’re sexist, artsy and boring.”
“You might do well not to mention that. He’s the one who came up with the concept for this last campaign.”
“Oh, I can see right off I’m going to love the guy.”
“Be your usual charming self.”
Sherry patted Fred’s shoulder. “Leave everything to me.”
On the drive to the Bella Luna offices in Reston, Sherry mentally went over her opening remarks, but her mind kept straying back to last night. That Kit was a real prize. A booby prize. Good time, my fanny. God, she’d never met anyone so full of no life. If he wasn’t angry, he wasn’t anything.
Not once had he cracked even the hint of a smile. The man obviously possessed all the personality of a rock.
Which was really too bad, considering he was a handsome hunk. He was six-two if he was an inch, broad in the shoulders and lean in the hips. He’d looked to be in his mid-thirties, but a very well-preserved mid-thirties, seeing as his expression never changed enough to give him character lines.
With his teak brown hair and hazel eyes, his square chin and superb cheekbones, he could easily model in some of her ads. As long as the ad didn’t require the model to look like he was enjoying himself.
Sherry pulled a Mars bar out of her glove compartment and tore the wrapping with her teeth.
Why he’d taken up so much of her thoughts since she’d left him at the restaurant, Sherry couldn’t figure. Maybe because she had a real weakness for wounded animals, and she didn’t believe it was possible for a man to be that emotionless without having been wounded enough to erect such a thick wall.
Two minutes later she arrived at the Bella Luna offices. Impressed, she looked up at the brand-new, five-story facility. “Nice place. I think you can afford us.”
She parked and entered the lobby. A security guard checked her name on a list, then gave her directions and buzzed her through locked doors that led to the elevators. Sherry shook her head. Was Christian Fleming worried someone would steal his bubble bath recipe?
She had to be checked through at two more locations on the way up to the fifth-floor suite of offices, so by the time Christian Fleming’s secretary led her toward the meeting room, Sherry was just a tad annoyed by the man’s overinflated sense of importance.
So she paused a moment at the outer doors to smooth her jacket and hair, and plaster a friendly smile into place. Finally she took a breath and nodded at the secretary, who opened the door with a decorum that made Sherry wonder if she were being ushered in for an audience with the Pope.
She stepped into the room, and noticed two things right away. First, the decor was extremely tasteful, in rose and varying shades of gray. Second, she was in trouble of Grand Canyon proportions.
Kit Fleming was seated on his throne at the far, far end of the conference table.
And he was smiling.
Two
Sherry kept her serene smile determinedly in place as Jim Forbes, V.P. of advertising for Bella Luna, stepped forward and shook her hand. What she wanted to do was throw her briefcase at the smirking man at the head of the conference table and run from the room. But she was a professional, and she wouldn’t let a little thing like seeing her career flash before her eyes get her down.
The woman who wrote the note on that twenty dollar bill should be sued for false advertising. Kit Fleming was proving to be a very bad time.
How dare he not mention what he did for a living? How dare he bait her into talking about his stupid shampoo? How dare he look good enough to eat with a smirk on his face?
Sherry allowed herself to be introduced to the ten or so people attending the meeting. She didn’t remember a single name, even though she always prided herself on remembering names. So why hadn’t she put Kit and Fleming together last night to arrive at Christian Fleming, CEO of Bella Luna Industries, Inc.? Because he’d never told her his last name.
Finally Jim Forbes brought her to the man himself, who paused just long enough before standing and offering his hand to make Sherry want to kick him. His grin had faded to a half-smile, but it was still dazzling enough to make her heart pound. He had brilliant, even white teeth, and his eyes, looking more green than brown today, glowed with promises of . . . retribution.
“Ms. Spencer,” he said, squeezing her hand. “
It’s a pleasure.”
I’ll just bet, Sherry thought. Suddenly she wished she hadn’t blithely handed over that twenty to him last night. She’d love to whip it out right about now and start waving it under his nose.
“Mr. Fleming,” she responded, squeezing right back. “Thank you for giving Simpson & Bailey a chance to help with your advertising needs.”
He squeezed harder. “This is merely a brainstorming session, Ms. Spencer. No decision about ad agencies has been made yet.”
Sherry met him knuckle-cruncher for knuckle-cruncher. “Well, I’m sure I’m going to have a real good time convincing you that Simpson & Bailey will be the best agency for you.”
His eyes narrowed and whatever smirk had been playing around his mouth up and vanished. “Yes, well, let’s get to it,” he said, dropping her hand.
“Sounds terrific,” she replied, resisting the urge to rub her aching knuckles. She moved around to the seat Jim Forbes pointed to, and sat down, dropping her briefcase to the floor beside her chair. Folding her hands like a good little girl, she raised her eyebrows at Kit Fleming and waited for him to make his opening move.
God, the man was gorgeous. Today he wore a charcoal gray suit, with a maroon and gray tie. A power tie. How appropriate. The man exuded power, even as he sat silently at the head of the table. And it wasn’t just his seating position, either. There was a radiance about him, and an ease with which he sat, waiting for his subjects to get comfortable, that was rather sinfully sexy.
If he had even an ounce of personality, Sherry would immediately pitch the idea of him acting as spokesman in the ads. He had animal magnetism to spare.
“Well, Ms. Spencer?” the sexy oaf said.
Sherry jumped a little, realizing she’d been staring at him. “Oh, yes, of course.” She laid her briefcase on the table and snapped it open while she began her spiel. Tossing aside her chocolate stash, she pulled out the stack of handouts she’d brought with her. She gave background information on her company, on herself; and name-dropped some of their more prestigious clients.
She walked around the table, passing out her résumé, pointing out some of the highlights—a few of her most successful campaigns. Then she returned to her chair and kept silent while she gave them a chance to leaf through the handouts.
She kept her gaze on Jim Forbes, but her peripheral vision took in Kit Fleming’s face as well. His dispassionate face. If her credentials impressed him, he was doing an award-winning performance of camouflaging it. He tossed aside the sheaf of papers and glanced up blandly. The toad.
She watched in fascination as Kit nodded to one of his underlings, who immediately poured him a glass of ice water. A raised eyebrow directed at another won him a danish from the platter of pastries sitting on the sideboard. A word growled into the phone had his secretary scrambling into the room within seconds to hand him a file folder. He was, if nothing else, a highly effective dictator.
Sherry swallowed her irritation and continued. “I’ve done some extensive research on your products”—that earned her what sounded like a barely concealed snort from the head of the table—”and your last ad campaign. And while I applaud the . . . aesthetic quality of your old ads, I think a fresh approach can gain us some market share.”
Sherry started pacing back and forth behind her chair as she spoke, forgetting for the moment that she’d questioned the value of one of this company’s shampoos a little over twelve hours ago. “It’s been proven again and again that humor sells product. I think if we push Bella Luna cosmetics as sassy and sexy, we’ll appeal to a broader range of today’s females.”
“Let me stop you right there,” Kit interjected.
Sherry turned to him, her brows raised in question. “By all means.”
“It’s also been proven that sex sells.”
“Yes, but—”
“That’s what I want the Christmas push to be about. Sex. Good sex. Raw sex. Wild sex.”
Sherry was getting a little warm around the collar. Just hearing the word sex pass from that man’s hard lips was enough to raise the room temperature several degrees. “Well, of course we’d want to promote the sexy quality of your products, but—”
“Therefore,” he continued as if she were nothing more than a seat cushion, “we’re leaning toward hiring a big name to be our spokesperson.”
“A big name,” Sherry repeated stupidly. “Like whom?”
“Like Tiffany,” Kit informed her.
“Tiffany,” Sherry said faintly. She was only the highest paid model on five continents. “Excuse me, but are you speaking of print ads?”
“Print, television, the works.”
“I see.” She gripped the back of her chair. “Mr. Fleming, may I have a private word with you?”
He raised one brow elegantly, which thoroughly irritated her. “Whatever you have to say can be said right here, Ms. Spencer.”
“All right.” She took a breath. “Are you out of your mind?”
A collective gasp bounced around the room. Apparently questioning the CEO’s sanity wasn’t a very bright idea. The only person not staring at her as if he next expected to see her lying in a coffin was the big kahuna himself. His expression hadn’t changed an iota.
“Not that I’ve noticed,” he answered her. “What do you have against Tiffany?”
“I haven’t got a thing against Tiffany,” she retorted, “other than the fact that I’m not certain she has a full grasp of the English language.” She tapped her index finger on the table. “The point here is to get Ms. Everyday America to want to use your health and beauty aids. You’re not going to get them buying Bella face cream by smearing it over a cover model’s perfect cheekbones. How many women are going to rush right out for your cosmetics when you’ve held up perfection as a woman’s goal?”
“Isn’t it?”
“Personal perfection, yes. Trying to get a woman to be the best she can be. But using Tiffany as a standard of beauty will only make women resent you.”
“I disagree.”
“You’re wrong.”
Another loud gasp. And this time Fleming did react. He stared at her as if she’d just spoken Swahili. Obviously, not too many people took it in their heads to disagree with the idiot. Sherry could practically see the account flying out the window on hummingbird wings.
“I see,” he said finally, glancing at his watch. “Well, I have another meeting in five minutes. Thank you for coming, Ms. Spencer. I’ll be in touch with your firm shortly with my decision.”
And with that Christian Fleming stood and left the room.
Kit sat back and swung his legs onto his desk, stacking his hands behind his head. Closing his eyes, he tried to wipe out the image of Sherry Spencer, standing there telling him he was wrong.
If it had been anyone but her, he would have thrown the person out on his or her rump. Kit had been running this company since his thirty-first birthday, and for the last five years profits had steadily climbed. If there was one thing he felt totally confident about, it was his business decisions.
So why was he even waffling about this? And why couldn’t he get Sherry Spencer out of his mind?
She was an unbelievably irritating, stubborn female, and yet he wanted her on this project with an intensity that baffled him. But on his terms. Kit liked being in control. In fact, he was passionate about it. He recognized the origin of his need to be in charge, and realized that in some ways it was a weakness. But he also knew that, in some ways, it was the reason for his success.
For that, at least, he could thank his foster parents.
His intercom buzzed. “Your sister’s here, Kit.”
“Send her in.”
He dropped his feet to the ground and stood, a grin tugging at his lips. A moment later his sister floated into the room, looking fresh and lovely. It never ceased to amaze him that twins could look so utterly different. Rachel’s eyes were the clear blue of the sky, and her hair was the natural blond of their nordic ancestors on their
mother’s side.
“Hello, darling,” she said, moving behind his desk and raising on tiptoe to press a kiss to his cheek. Then she dabbed at the lipstick stain she’d left behind.
“Hi, sis. What brings you by?”
“I just wanted to give you a personal invitation to dinner tomorrow night. Jeff and I are having a small party.”
His eyes narrowed as he gazed down on her perfectly guileless face. Though he’d only found her again two years ago after a decade of fruitless searching, they’d grown as close as if they’d been together their entire lives, and Kit could read her like a book. “How small a party are we talking here?”
She waved. “Just a few close friends.”
“Who are you trying to fix me up with this time?”
“Christian Tyler Fleming! You have a suspicious mind.”
“Rachel Brook Strand, you have a transparent mind.”
She puffed out an indignant breath, which, of course, gave her motive away. “I don’t have any idea what you’re talking about.”
“I thought that after the disaster with Samantha, you’d have learned your lesson. When are you going to stop trying to fix me up?”
She laid a hand on his cheek. “Once I’ve seen you happily married.”
Kit shuddered. “Heaven forbid.”
Shaking her head, she said, “I just know falling in love would do you a world of good. Look how happy I’ve been since marrying Jeff.”
“You’re the marrying kind, Rachel. I’m not.”
“Bosh. We’re twins.”
“Who don’t look alike, don’t think alike, didn’t even grow up alike.”
Her eyes clouded with sorrow, which made Kit uncomfortable. He should have kept his mouth shut. He hated that she still felt guilty for lucking out in the adoption roulette they’d been tossed into, when their mother had felt forced to give them up. It wasn’t Rachel’s fault she’d been sent to the modern-day Waltons, while he’d wound up with a not-so-funny imitation of the Bundys.
He raked a hand through his hair. “I’ve seen firsthand what marriage can do to people, sis. They learn to hate each other, they take no greater pleasure than tearing each other apart. I’m not falling into that trap.”