by Lori Wilde
“He caught your show today.”
“I assumed.”
“He said it was more entertaining than he dreamed possible on our humble little endeavor.”
Huh? Megan blinked. “Say again?”
“He loved it. Called his wife away from a luncheon at their home to watch the shirtless segment.”
“Oh, give me a break, Ed. You’re making this up so I won’t climb down your throat and pull out your tonsils with my bare hands. Zack Bailey is totally your fault.”
“Remember that when you sign a new two-year contract with a healthy raise.”
She sat down hard on the piano stool she’d refinished for her dressing table. “What? I can’t believe it. There has to be a catch.”
“One tiny one, maybe. Bailey has to sign for a certain number of appearances in the next twelve months for this to happen.”
“You’re saying that man will be a regular on my show?” She couldn’t have been more stunned if Ed had sprouted bunny ears.
“No, not every week. Mr. G. wants to keep the format of guest experts. Maybe attract an auto buff on touching up cars, an auctioneer on spotting good buys in antiques. You know, add some class. Good guests will line up for a chance to be on the show if we triple the audience. After today, it’s practically a sure thing.”
“Ed, you’re insane. Gunderdorf is insane. I cannot work with that man.”
“For way more money and a chance to go national? Don’t kid me…or yourself.”
“Maybe we can hire an actor instead. One who will stick to the script.” Megan kept her fingers crossed but feared Ed’s answer.
“Not an option. Mr. G. loved the sparks between you and Bailey. You don’t have to like him. In fact, the show will be better if you can’t stand each other.”
“He’ll never do it. I’ve seen camera shy before, and he was sweating bullets before he came on. He hated being there, and he wasn’t too keen on me, either.”
“He settled down. Ripped off that shirt like Brad Pitt in his prime.”
“He’s a contractor, not an actor.”
“Bailey Construction is in a competitive market. There’s a well-heeled grandfather in the picture, but he won’t advance the twins a dime to promote a business that isn’t his.”
“Twins? There are two like him?” She groaned from the heart. “How did you learn all that?”
“From Mr. G. He knows all the money people in Detroit. Bailey needs publicity. It’s not easy to keep a small construction company afloat in this city. Especially when your grandfather is a billionaire who refuses to open his pockets or share his contacts.”
“You’ll never sign him. I won’t let myself get excited.”
“I don’t have to. You do.”
“Me? No way. The station has a business manager, lawyers, people with clout. Let them twist his arm.”
“The station also has you, Megan.” He lowered his voice. “Our most attractive host.”
Oh, she didn’t like this. She didn’t like this at all.
“You’re good, honey,” he said in his best brother-in-law voice. “But if J. R. Gunderdorf blackballs you, you won’t be able to get a job in Nowhere, North Dakota.”
“He wouldn’t do that.” She tried unsuccessfully to reassure herself.
“He wants to make you a star, and he loved the vibes between you and Zack.”
“Bailey won’t do the show again, especially not if I ask.”
“Ask anyway. Beg, cajole, cry, flatter, flirt.”
“You mean use my sexuality?”
“No, no. Of course not. I would never suggest that.” He held up both palms. “Unless you want to.”
“Dear Lord,” she muttered. “Give me strength. She put her elbows on the orderly surface of her dressing table and buried her face in her hands.
“Listen to me, Megan. Your concept for Do It Herself is a great one. This is your chance to make it fly. You’re no newcomer to this business. There’s always a price to pay, and you know it.”
“Why do I have to be the one to recruit him? It’s not fair.” For once in her life, she didn’t care if she whined.
“It’s your show, your future. Mr. G. is pretty astute. He saw something to make him think you’re the only one who can wrap up a deal with Bailey. Are you going to be a quitter?”
“My sister told you to say that.”
“What?” he asked, keeping his voice bland.
“The one thing I can’t stand to be called is a quitter.”
“Then call Bailey.”
“He’ll say no.”
“Then call again.”
“Make an absolute fool of myself? Maybe kiss his boots?”
“Have a high electric screwdriver delivered to him at a construction site. Or tickets to the Detroit Pistons game. Wine and dine him. Whatever it takes. The station will pick up the tab.”
“I can’t do it.”
“Sure you can. You’re a hammer-totin’, crowbar-swingin’ kind of gal. You’re not scared of Bailey, are you?”
“No.” She denied it, but she would rather walk on hot coals than try to sign Zack Bailey as a regular on her show.
2
“Another delivery for you, Zack.”
Gus Graham, the construction foreman and an old buddy of Zack’s, stuck his head through the door of the on-site trailer and held out a bud vase with three long-stemmed pink roses. A card with little cupids dangled from a pink ribbon tied to one of the stems.
“What is this? The fourth gift this week? You must have some secret admirer.” Gus roared with laughter, put the vase on the corner of Zack’s cluttered desk, and got the hell out of there. He knew damn well what his boss thought of little pink posies.
Zack wanted to make him eat the flowers, never mind that Gus topped his own six foot, two inches and was as broad as a bear. He was sick of being embarrassed by Megan Danbury’s cutesy deliveries. Did she really think she could manipulate him by making him look ridiculous in front of Cole, his twin brother and business partner, and their crew?
He yanked the card off the ribbon and tossed the roses, vase and all, into a plastic-lined trash can. He was mad at himself for even bothering to read her message, not that it was different from Monday’s, Tuesday’s, or Wednesday’s.
Please let me take you to dinner to discuss a business proposition. –Megan Danbury.
Somebody should clue her in. This was the twenty-first century. She could deliver a message via text.
As he crumpled the card and tossed it on top of the discarded flowers, he remembered the several calls he’d gotten on his cell until he blocked the number.
Was she the pest who never identified herself? What was so important that she had to tell him in person?
The Do It Herself host didn’t know it, but she was poking a stick in a hornet’s nest when she made him look like an idiot in front of his men—and his smugly happily married brother. What he ought to do was make an unscheduled personal appearance at the TV station and see how she liked being embarrassed at her workplace.
But that would mean he’d have to run a gauntlet of oddballs who thought TV was real life—the powder-puff fanatic, sly former client Ed Garrison, the dog trainer who didn’t know enough to hang on to a leash, not to mention Megan herself.
“Hey, bro, I told Tess about your mystery girlfriend and the trinkets,” Cole said, sticking his head through the doorway without coming into the trailer. “She said you should bring her to dinner Saturday.”
Zack gave him the lantern-jaw look, his lips compressed and eyes glaring. It intimidated most people but never his twin. Cole was so damn happy being married to Tess. He didn’t even notice he was treading on dangerous ground.
“She’s not my girlfriend,” he said with intentional hostility. “She’s the dip who dumped paint stripper on me on the TV show you were supposed to do.”
“What’s with the gift deliveries if she’s not hot for you?”
Cole stepped into the trailer. He wasn’t t
he mirror image of Zack, but they were enough alike so no one ever doubted they were twins. Zack conceded his brother was the pretty one. They had the same dark-gray eyes and thick black hair, but Zack wore his longer. Cole’s nose was straight, not slightly off-kilter as Zack’s had been since he’d broken it playing football a long time ago. Zack was a few minutes older and an inch taller, which, he jokingly insisted, made him the dominant twin.
“The woman has a screw loose,” he muttered.
Not true, but he didn’t want to talk about Miss Fix It Danbury with his brother or anyone else. He didn’t have a clue why she was sending him silly gifts and making him the butt of some joke four days running.
He and Cole spent the next hour going over some specs for the bank branch they were building. His brother, who was in a big hurry to clean and fire up the grill before his wife got home from work, left before him.
Zack hung around the trailer until the crew was gone. He could take their ribbing, but he was getting tired of wolf whistles and off-color remarks. If Megan was trying to make him look ridiculous, she was better at it than she was at home handicraft for girls.
He picked up the jacket he’d worn to work because the mornings were still cool for May and wished tomorrow was Saturday.
Damn.
He loved the construction business. He hadn’t dreaded going to work since he spent a summer break from college holding a stop sign on a state highway crew. This gift bombardment had to stop.
Pink roses of all things. What made her think he would like that?
He picked up the phone and called her.
Five minutes later it was set. His nemesis agreed to meet him for dinner at seven the next evening at Rondo’s Grill.
On Friday, no delivery van came to the site, not that Zack’s mood improved much in the absence of another gift. His men were still having so much fun with her stunt; he should dock them for all the time wasted.
After work, he showered under the cold-water hookup in the trailer, but there was no way he would shave in icy water for Danbury. She was lucky he washed off the day’s dust and sweat, considering the way she’d gotten him to talk to her. He already regretted setting up a dinner meeting. He should’ve made her come to the site.
He padded naked through the ancient Airstream trailer, which served as their on-site command center, and found the clean boxer shorts and jeans in the gym bag he’d brought along. He slid feet into a pair of old sneakers and put on his favorite well-worn black T-shirt. Where he was meeting her, this was formal wear.
He got to the roadhouse at seven sharp even though it was way out beyond the airport. They made legendary ribs, which partly accounted for the crowded parking lot, but Rondo’s Grill was mostly famous for serving a last meal to a crooked contractor who disappeared without a trace more than fifteen years ago. Rumor had it he was wearing cement overshoes at the bottom of the Detroit River.
Danbury was late, which gave Zack time to get a booth, sip a beer, and wonder what she wanted. He stared at yellowing newspaper clippings about the ancient disappearance framed on the walls.
Colarie Last Seen at Rondo’s
Alleged Mobster Connection
Colarie Disappears after Plate of Rondo’s Ribs
The whole place was plastered with lurid headlines. Zack wondered if Rondo had had most of them printed himself.
Where the devil was that woman? He had two inches of beer and half a bowl of popcorn left. When they were gone, so was he.
He had problems of his own without dealing with hers. Now that Cole was happily domesticated, his grandfather, Marsh Bailey, was determined to marry off Zack too, and Marsh was carrying one big stick—shares in Bailey Baby Products. Mom ran the family business now, but Gramps, as he hated to be called, was threatening to sell out to strangers if his grandsons didn’t settle down with nice women. Cole’s one-third of the business was safe now; Marsh adored Tess. But they had to keep two-thirds in the family to keep Mom as CEO.
With their thirtieth birthday looming like doomsday, Marsh insisted it was time his twin grandsons grew up and got serious about the business—the business of making baby stuff or babies. Their half-brother, Nick, was still in college and safe from the old man’s machinations for now, so Zack was next in line to take the fall.
He bit down so hard on a mouthful of popcorn his teeth hurt. He wasn’t the marrying kind, and he sure as hell wasn’t interested in anyone Marsh thought was a nice girl. Zack wondered if he took after his birth father, a man he’d never met.
Gramps had scared him off with the threat of jail or worse when he learned his only child was pregnant at seventeen. In nearly thirty years, he’d never tried to see his twin sons. The man didn’t have it in him to be a father, and neither did Zack. Maybe it was bad blood, but the single life suited him just fine.
Luckily for Cole and him, their stepfather had been an okay guy, but Mom had taken his death hard. Only her job as CEO of Bailey Baby Products had kept her going. Now the old bastard was threatening to sell out, knowing damn well Mom would probably be ousted if outsiders took control.
Cole had secured his share of the business by marrying Tess, but Cole was lucky. Who could’ve guessed the pudgy girl they used to tease in high school would blossom into such a gorgeous woman? Now either Zack or Nick had to secure a second third of the shares, and his half-brother was too busy scoring with sorority girls at Michigan State to think about marriage.
Double damn.
Here he was waiting for uptight Danbury when he should be finding a way for Mom to keep control of the business without his help—in this case, that ball and chain called matrimony.
He swallowed the last of the beer, and he felt like having another but didn’t. He’d waited long enough. He dropped a couple of bills on the black tabletop and started to slide out of the booth when he spotted a gorgeous blonde by the hostess podium. She wore a little red dress, and no one in the crowded restaurant could fill it the way she did.
In spite of looking red-hot sexy and ready for anything, Megan Danbury managed a lost-waif expression that brought Rondo himself, resplendent in a Western dude outfit with snakeskin boots and a ten-pound silver and turquoise necklace, rushing over to help her.
Zack had picked this place because Danbury was a linen tablecloth and four forks kind of woman, but his plan to make her uncomfortable had been plain silly. She glided toward his booth with Rondo hovering in her wake like a puppy.
“Here he is. Thank you so much, Mr. Rondo. I’ll be sure to look at all your clippings before I leave.”
No one called the pudgy restaurateur mister, and he lapped it up.
“You’re late,” Zack said as she slid onto the seat across from him. There wasn’t enough dress to keep her bare thighs from making little squishy noises on the vinyl upholstery. And damn if he didn’t find the sound sexy.
“How could I not be? This place is halfway to Kalamazoo.”
“Nice to see you, too.” He tried for droll, but it came out sounding angry. He should have given her ten minutes, not half an hour.
“We could have done this at the studio,” she said.
He thought she shouldn’t pout. With her lips puckered like that, no man was going to think of anything but wiggling his tongue between them.
To cover his wholly involuntary and unwanted reaction, he barked at her, “Why not at my jobsite? Maybe with violin accompaniment and a collar of flowers like the kind winning racehorses wear. You could make me look like a complete fool in front of my men.”
“Didn’t you like the gifts I sent you?” If she batted her eyelids, he was out of there no matter how far she’d had to drive to get there.
“Don’t ask unless you want me to tell you the truth.”
“Mr. Bailey, I’m so surprised you didn’t appreciate the gesture.” She batted her eyes. Her long spiky lashes fanned the air as her lids rose and fell in several quick movements.
What the devil was this woman trying to pull? He felt a stirring of curiosity
in spite of his deep misgivings about anything and everything involving Ms. Danbury.
“I do want to thank you for agreeing to meet me,” she said in a voice dripping with honey.
“You could have just asked me. I don’t need a truckload of gewgaws and flowers cluttering up my jobsite.”
“Shall we order? This is my treat, of course. I’ll put it on my expense account.”
On her expense account? He was liking this less and less. No more Mr. Nice Guy. This woman was pure poison, however attractively she was packaged. “First tell me why you sent gifts four days running.”
“To get your attention.”
“All you’d have to do is show up on the site in that skirt, and you’d have more attention than you’d know what to do with.”
She held his stare. “You like my skirt?”
Oh, yeah. “Very much.”
She said nothing, just lowered her lashes and studied her menu. The waiter showed up and they ordered—grilled salmon for her and a porterhouse for him.
He wanted to know what was behind the game she was playing, but she was coy, pretending she loved Rondo’s because it was quaint and folksy, but he caught her wiping her fork on a napkin. She made small talk. Movies, music, books. He grunted a response or two, still trying to figure out her angle.
“What is it like to be a twin?” she asked as she nibbled at her salad with lemon, no dressing.
“What is it like not to be one?”
It was his standard response to a question both he and Cole thought was too dumb to deserve an answer. If she asked whether he flossed once or twice a day, he was going to ask what color her hair really was, even though he suspected the pale ash-blond mane was the most genuine thing about her.
He had to hand it to her. She was a master at small talk. No wonder she made her living interviewing people—with a little help from a spectacular body. The way her cleavage filled the low-cut neckline, he had a hard time remembering to chew his steak.
She avoided getting down to business until the waitress brought after-dinner coffee, which was too hot to drink right away.