“I’m hoping maybe if you meet with him in person, talked to him, that you could convince him to go through with it.”
“I’m willing to try.”
First, there was his hair, which looked as if he chopped it off with a blunt knife whenever he got tired of its length. A trip to a good salon could have him looking like a professional within an hour.
“Let me give you his contact information….”
Naomi found a pen and paper in her bag and copied down Zane’s address and phone number, then assured Jack she’d get in touch with Zane right away.
A half hour later, she’d said goodbye to Daphne Delano, and she sat in her white Cabriolet staring at the phone number and address she’d copied down.
This was her chance.
She’d struggled for the past two years to establish herself as the image consultant to go to in Atlanta or anywhere else on the East coast. But it was a tough business, and she’d relied on her father’s political connections more than she would have liked. She’d consulted for a few well-known politicians, and she’d had some success with several local TV celebrities, yet her name still wasn’t as high profile as she would have liked.
But if she could transform Zane Underwood into the smooth, polished journalist Mediacom wanted him to be, her career would be set.
On the phone, she could only be so convincing. But in person, she’d have the upper hand. She hadn’t grown up in the shadow of one of the most domineering men on earth for nothing. Being Senator Atchison Tyler’s daughter had taught her many things, not the least of which were the power of feminine wiles and the value of subtle persuasion.
So with the rest of her schedule for the day free, she pulled out her city map, located Zane’s street and headed for his house.
April in Atlanta had its share of idyllic days with clear blue skies and low humidity, and but this was not one of them. Today was one of those prelude-to-summer days, when the damp, hot air was stifling, and there wasn’t even the slightest breeze to offer relief. Naomi navigated through the midday traffic with the top up on her Cabriolet and the air-conditioning blasting.
Twenty minutes later, she’d found the historic brownstone that bore Zane’s address, in the midst of the city’s hippest neighborhood. His building, once a single-family home, had been converted into multiple units, and Zane’s was on the third floor.
Naomi checked her appearance in the rearview mirror and headed for the front door. She buzzed number three and waited.
“Yeah?”
“Zane, this is Naomi Tyler. Jack Hiller asked me to talk to you. Can I come up?”
Silence. And a moment later, she heard a window open from above. She took a step back and peered up at Zane. He reminded her of a soap-opera star she used to drool over in her teenage years.
Zane’s dark brown hair was even more tousled than usual, as if from sleep, while his dark eyes had that squinty bedroom look that came from the day’s first exposure to bright light. And he wasn’t wearing a shirt.
God help her, he looked glorious without one.
She could see the delicious dip where his bicep met his shoulder, and the smooth bulges of his pecs. Beautiful was one of many words she could think of to describe him.
Hot, delicious and tempting were a few others.
He was quite possibly the most glorious sight she’d ever laid eyes on.
“So go ahead and talk,” he said.
“I was hoping we could talk face-to-face, and I don’t mean like this.”
He looked at her long and hard, then smiled a slow smile that had probably been meant to warn her. Warn her that he was a wolf, that if she came up, he couldn’t be responsible for what happened next.
Whatever. She was a big girl who could take care of herself, not some Little Red Riding Hood who couldn’t tell the difference between her grandmother and a forest predator. It was just a bizarre coincidence that she was wearing a red suit. She and her fairy-tale counterpart had nothing in common but the color of their clothes. She could face up to wolves—at least the figurative kind—without flinching.
Then he disappeared from the window, and a moment later the buzzer sounded. Naomi jerked the door open while she still had the chance.
Making over Zane Underwood was the opportunity of a lifetime, and she would not—could not—waste it.
3
NAOMI TOOK THE STAIRS slowly and deliberately, careful not to wind herself, so that she could face Zane with her professionalism intact.
At the top of the staircase, Zane’s door stood ajar. Naomi pushed it open and peeked inside. “Hello?”
“Jack Hiller told you I need dolling up?” Zane lay stretched out on the sofa, his lazy, sleep-softened gaze pinned on her.
“Not exactly.” Her body responded to his physical presence as if she’d never seen an attractive man before. Clearly, dolling up was the last thing he needed. “Taming you might be a better way to say it.”
She stepped into the apartment and closed the door. High ceilings, tall windows, hardwood floors—it was easy to see why the houses in this area were such a hot commodity. They had character like nothing that was built today. Naomi glanced around and quickly started formulating her opinion of Zane.
The apartment was a little on the spare side, but the wood floors warmed it, as did the chocolate leather sofa and chair. The room was haphazardly decorated with Middle Eastern and African art and artifacts, probably picked up while Zane was on assignment. It was no Home and Garden showplace, but it wasn’t a bachelor-pad cliché, either.
He likely cared about the places he reported from, and a photograph on the wall of a group of scraggly children gathered around a donkey on the streets of what looked like a Third-World city suggested he probably cared about people, too.
His half-naked appearance on the couch, though, said something entirely different. Something entirely distracting.
“You think you can tame me?” he asked.
“I know I can help you keep your job,” she said, skirting the sexual undertone of his question.
“So you have me sized up? Think you know what kind of guy I am based on my art collection?”
Naomi felt her cheeks grow warm. “I’m sorry—did I wake you up?” she said, making a not-so-subtle attempt to change the subject.
It was almost noon, so if she did wake him, he deserved it.
“Yeah.”
“Out partying too late last night?”
He smiled, and she got a warm, fuzzy feeling in her panties. Zane Underwood had sex appeal emanating from his pores, and when he smiled…Oh, baby.
“Something like that,” he finally said.
“Good thing you didn’t have to appear on camera this morning.”
“I’m used to sleep deprivation, but why don’t we just cut to the chase? I’d like to go back to bed.”
Why did a word as simple as bed, when spoken by this man, seem so sensual?
“I was hoping we could have lunch and discuss the possibilities I see for your career.”
“I didn’t realize I needed any career advice.”
“Jack Hiller thinks you do.”
“Jack can go screw himself.”
“Shall I relay that message to him for you?” Naomi asked, hoping to call his bluff.
Instead, his lazy smile turned into a smirk. “Go right ahead, but let me revise it a bit. ‘Jack Hiller, go fu—’”
“I was joking. Really,” she said, smiling her flirtiest smile. “Have lunch with me. My treat.” She sat down on the edge of the leather chair near him.
Zane yawned and stretched, appearing for a moment more like a glorious lion than a lazy reporter. “I can think of more interesting things to do with you than have lunch.”
“Are you trying to scare me away? Because I’ve worked with Bud Callahan. I doubt you could be more obnoxious than him.”
He smirked. “I could try.”
Buford “Bud” Callahan was the ultra-conservative senator whose politically inco
rrect comments about a certain hot-button voter issue had forced him to rely on Naomi’s services for his last political campaign. Her father had gotten her the job, and she’d hated almost every minute of it. Nevertheless, Bud’s comments had all but been forgotten by the public and, thanks to Naomi’s efforts, he was well on his way back to being embraced as a charming old curmudgeon whose views hadn’t quite caught up with the times.
Zane exhaled a sigh and sat up, then stood and closed the distance between them. He was tall—at least six feet—and he moved like a man who was sure of himself, who knew what to do with his body. Naomi found herself wondering just how true that was.
Was he as good as Booty Call Ken? Would he have the talent to prove Naomi wasn’t a frigid corpse in bed?
He sat down on the arm of her chair, forcing her to lean back in it. Then he bent over her, imposing on her personal space. It was just another intimidation tactic that wasn’t going to work.
“How’s that crêperie down the street?” she asked.
“I make it a rule not to eat at crêperies,” he said, “unless I’m in Paris and there’s a pretty Parisian with me who insists on going to one.”
Naomi forced a smile and called upon her rudimentary college French. “Nous allons à la crêperie, s’il vous plaît?”
She’d always been better at the accent than she had the grammar or vocabulary.
“Je veux faire l’amour avec toi,” he said, his French quick and fluid, his accent perfect, sultry, delicious.
She barely knew enough of the language to know he’d just said something entirely inappropriate, but she wasn’t quite sure what it was. Her dialogue was pretty much limited to food and transportation.
One thing was for sure, though—she couldn’t back down now. Zane Underwood was going to be her next client. He may have thought he could intimidate her with sexual innuendo, but he was dead wrong.
“Has that phrase come in handy much during your travels in French-speaking countries?”
He smiled. “A time or two.”
“You should put on a shirt if you plan to have lunch with me.”
“I guess you won’t leave me alone until I do.”
“Good guess.”
He lingered a moment too long, his gaze traveling from her eyes to her mouth and back again. Finally, he stood and gave her personal space back to her.
Naomi’s body relaxed by a degree, and she watched him as he headed for his bedroom. The skin of his torso was smooth and rippling with taut muscle. He was thin but athletic, as if he worked out, but not too much. And the way his old Levi’s hugged his hips was downright sinful.
Being here in the apartment of one of America’s best-known journalists, seeing him up close and personal, having him make some unknown proposition to her in French—it was all too much.
She felt like Adam, being offered the forbidden fruit. So ripe and tempting, something she’d wanted for so very long. All she had to do was reach out and take it, sink her teeth in and find out what she’d been missing.
A rush of heat came over Naomi as Zane disappeared into his bedroom. She could follow him and take him up on his offer. It would have been the most uncharacteristic thing she’d ever done, her biggest rebellion against her morally righteous upbringing. In one fell swoop into bed, she could transform herself into the kind of woman she’d fantasized about being all those years ago at Brooklawn Academy.
But she stayed put.
For now.
Her career came first. She’d get Zane Underwood as her client, she’d turn him into whatever the network wanted him to be, and then…Then maybe she’d let him seduce her out of her panties.
Maybe.
Naomi bit her lip and smiled at the thought. But her satisfaction was short-lived, because her Tyler Moral Conscience—that inherited sense of guilt that accompanied every sin, real or imagined—could not be suppressed.
She squirmed as guilt settled in her chest, and she could feel an almighty presence glaring at her, silently berating her for having such earthly thoughts.
Naomi had learned to live her life by her own rules, but she’d never quite figured out how to get rid of the guilt.
No doubt, she was her parents’ daughter through and through.
And she was going straight to hell.
ZANE COULD THINK of far more interesting things to do with Naomi Tyler than sit around eating crêpes. As he tugged on a black T-shirt and tucked it into his jeans, images of her bombarded him.
She had the sort of long, silky brown hair that reminded him of mermaids, and her brown eyes gave her face a soft, warm look that belied the tightly wound woman he sensed she really was. But tightly wound or not, her mouth had a lush, inviting quality that made him think X-rated thoughts.
There was something about her posture, though—a little too straight—and something about her smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes.
What she needed was a good roll in the hay. Maybe get her perfectly coiffed hair messed up and her perfectly fashionable outfit stripped off. Then she’d relax a little and, if he was lucky, she’d forget all about his network-sanctioned makeover.
Zane tugged on a pair of leather work boots and checked his appearance in the mirror. Hair—messed up as usual. He raked his fingers through it and didn’t bother with a comb. No need to impress the babe in the red suit.
Naomi.
It sounded so biblical. Maybe her parents were religious conservatives who’d raised her to save herself for her wedding night, and even then, not to enjoy her wifely duty too much. Maybe that’s what her stiff posture was all about. She might have thought she was fooling him with her flirty little act, but he saw through it.
He went back into the living room and found her examining one of his journals. They were on the bookshelves for public view, but few people ever bothered to open one and look inside.
“This is amazing,” she murmured as she studied a page.
Zane looked over her shoulder and saw that she was reading his notes from a trip to Kenya. He’d picked up the habit of keeping journals on his first trip abroad at the age of eighteen, and now he never went anywhere without one. He jotted down his thoughts and impressions, he sketched pictures of what he saw, and he stuck in all the photos, ticket stubs and mementos he collected along the way.
His journals helped him think through the angle he wanted to take on any given story, helped him find the truth hiding beneath all the lies.
And they were great for impressing women, too.
Naomi finally looked up at him, the journal still open in her hands. “I’m impressed.”
Bingo.
He shrugged. “It’s just an old habit. Gives me a good place to write down naughty phrases in foreign languages for later use.”
She smiled. “I’ll bet.”
They walked the block to the crêperie, and Naomi asked questions about the neighborhood—most of which Zane couldn’t answer because he was rarely home—while he tried to figure out Naomi’s appeal, aside from her obvious beauty. He normally didn’t go in for high-maintenance types with perfect hair, perfect clothes and perfect smiles—there were too many women in the world to waste his time with overly demanding ones—but this particular high-maintenance babe intrigued him.
When he started wondering why the hell he’d agreed to go to lunch with her, he only needed to glance down at her firm little ass in the red skirt to remember.
When they finally sat down at one of the outdoor tables, Zane decided his best tactic would be to turn all attention away from himself. “So, what’s involved in being an image consultant?”
She studied the menu for a few seconds, then closed it and gave him a calculating look. “I do whatever it takes to help people realize their full potential.”
“Whatever it takes?” Okay, so when he was in the presence of a pretty woman, he had a one-track mind. That was no secret.
“Within reason, of course.”
“What would it take for me to realize my full pot
ential?”
“I can’t tell you unless you agree to work with me.” Her eyes sparked with a hint of teasing.
“What exactly did Jack tell you about me?”
“Just that you don’t project the image the network is looking for, and that he wants me to help you.”
“So I can keep my job, right?”
“Right.”
“Maybe I don’t want to keep it.”
Naomi shrugged. “Your call.”
But the problem was he did want to keep his job. He may not have approved of the network’s bottom-line mentality, but it wouldn’t change if he moved somewhere else. And Mediacom was one of the most respected news venues in the world.
The pay wasn’t too damn bad, either.
A waiter showed up to take their order, and Zane asked for a Coke and a turkey melt. Naomi ordered a crêpe and a mineral water, and he pegged her for one of those women who couldn’t eat anything containing more than a microgram of fat without going on a purging fast.
Maybe he was being a little judgmental, but her hyper-erect posture was convincing him more and more by the minute.
When they were alone again, she said, “I think you want to keep your job or you wouldn’t be here right now.”
“Maybe.”
“And your bad-boy act is just that. An act.”
“My bad-boy act?” Zane couldn’t help but smile. “Is that what you call it?”
“That’s what America calls it.”
“I didn’t realize the entire country called me anything.”
“Don’t play coy. You know you’re in the public eye.”
“Sure, I just didn’t know I was on the public tongue.” He smiled his most wolfish smile as he imagined the tongue action he’d like to show Naomi, and her gaze darted down to the table for a split second.
He could play the Big Bad Wolf, and with her red suit, she made a delicious Little Red Riding Hood….
The waiter brought their drinks, and she turned her attention to pouring her bottle of mineral water into a glass. Zane watched her as she tilted the glass, pouring slowly to avoid releasing too much of the carbonation.
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