Читать книгу Be Mine: Sizzle / Too Fast to Fall / Alone with You - Victoria Dahl - Страница 10
ОглавлениеCHAPTER TWO
“THAT MAN IS GOING to listen to me,” Emily told Jane the next morning. “I am going to be courteous and cooperative, but still forceful and demanding.”
“This should be interesting.” Jane looked skeptical.
“I will stun him with my competence.” Emily stuck out her chin. “I will keep an open mind.”
And during the week that followed, Emily did her best, but she was doomed. Richard kept ordering her to send him files, ordering her to meet him for meetings and ordering her to arrange conferences until she was ready to throw the whole campaign in his face. When she came into the office on Friday morning and Jane told her that Richard wanted her in the conference room, she broke.
“Too damn bad!” She slammed her briefcase down on her desk. “I have things to do.”
“Courteous and cooperative.” Jane handed her a folder. “Here’s his cost estimates. You won’t like them. I think it’s showdown time. Be nice to him, but let him know he can’t dictate to you. You know, forceful and demanding.”
“What happened to marry him and be obsessive together?”
“You can do both. Hey, I did the same thing with Ben. I was nice to him, but I let him know he couldn’t dictate to me.”
“Ben never dictates to you.”
“See?” Jane grinned at her. “It works.”
* * *
EMILY WAS RUNNING DOWN his cost estimates when Richard met her in the conference room.
“Here.” He tossed a small black bottle at her. “Put some of this on.”
She caught it and glared at him.
“It’s the product.” He dropped some folders onto the table and sat down, opening one. “Let’s see what it smells like.”
The hell with you, Emily thought. She held it out to him. “You put it on. We’ll see what it smells like on you.”
“I tried it last night.” He sorted through the folder without looking at her. “It took me two showers to get it all off before I came to work.”
“Then you know what it smells like.” She put the bottle on the table and returned her attention to the estimates.
“Put it on.” He pulled a legal pad for notes out of his briefcase. “See what you think.” He looked over at her for the first time and waited for her reaction.
Courteous and cooperative.
Emily sighed and pulled the stopper out of the bottle, putting her fingers over the opening and flipping the bottle over to release a few drops. She tapped the drops behind her ears and on her wrists, then replaced the stopper. “It’s nice.” She picked up the estimate report again.
“Just nice?” he asked.
“I’m not much for perfume,” she said, and he laughed.
“You’re responsible for selling four million dollars’ worth of perfume. I should think you’d be interested.”
“Look.” Emily dropped the report, exasperated. “If you got a job selling tampons tomorrow, you’d work hard so you’d be successful, right? Even though you personally aren’t much interested in tampons?”
Richard lost his smile, taken aback by her intensity. “Well, yes. Why are you so angry?”
“Because you’re treating me as if I were an amusing child.” Emily folded her hands in front of her, clenching them to keep her temper. “An amusing female child. That crack you made at the meeting, about ‘no price too great to pay for Paradise’ being my motto was insulting. You would never have made it to a male executive. And now telling me to wear the perfume. Would you ask George to wear it?”
“That’s different.”
“No, it’s not. He’s never smelled it, either.”
Richard looked uncomfortable. “George isn’t part of our team.”
“Throwing a bottle of perfume at someone and ordering her to wear it is not teamwork!” Emily snapped. “It’s not a team. It’s a boss and a flunky, and I am nobody’s flunky. I told you I wouldn’t put on that perfume, and you simply ordered me to put it on again. You give me orders, and you never listen to me. This is not a partnership. This is not teamwork. I don’t need this.” She slammed her portfolio closed and stood up.
“You’re right,” Richard said.
She stopped and glared at him, and he rubbed his hand over the back of his head and smiled at her ruefully. At that moment, he looked more like a boy than a man, sheepish and apologetic. It was devastatingly effective.
“I’m used to being the boss.” His eyes pleaded with her. “I’m sorry.”
Emily sat down again. It would be a whole lot easier to stay mad at him if he wasn’t so damn charming, she told herself. That smile must get him a lot. She opened her portfolio. “All right, then, listen. Our main problem with this product is that we have to distinguish it from Paradise. And that’s going to take more than a different name. More than just switching from diamonds to rubies. And it’s so important that anything we can do to make the difference clear to the consumer will be worth extra money in the long run.”
Richard pulled the cap from his pen, prepared to listen so hard he’d take notes. “All right, how is it different?”
“It’s cheaper. But it would be suicide to market it that way.”
“Granted.” He was still trying to cooperate. “Does it smell different from Paradise?”
“Of course.” She unstoppered the bottle again. “It’s spicier, sharper. Paradise was heavier, fruitier. We marketed Paradise as a slow, languid, sexy scent.” Emily waved the stopper in front of her to smell the scent in the air. “This stuff has more of an edge. We could try for a more exciting approach, I suppose.”
She touched the stopper to the back of her hand and sniffed. “It definitely has an edge.” She frowned as she replaced the stopper in the bottle and flipped the bottle upside down to moisten it. Then she absentmindedly touched the stopper to the hollow at the base of her throat. “It’s just as sexy as Paradise, really. Just different.” She moved the stopper down into the V of her blouse, stroking it between her breasts.
Richard watched her, fascinated.
“It will be a while before the scent is true,” she told him. “It needs to be warmed by my skin.”
“Oh.” He swallowed. “Fine.”
“It doesn’t matter if you don’t know much about perfume,” she said to reassure him. “We just sell the sizzle, not the steak, remember?”
“Right.” Richard cleared his throat. “Does this perfume have sizzle?”
Emily rubbed the silk of her blouse against the skin between her breasts to release more scent and wriggled her nose as it floated up to her. “Yes. Actually, this is pretty good stuff.”
He cleared his throat again. “So, uh, how would you base the campaign?”
“Well,” she said slowly, “we marketed Paradise as sex—you know, the heavy, filled feeling you get when—”
“Right.” He nodded. “I know.”
“This stuff is more like...foreplay. You know, exciting and edgy.”
“Foreplay.”
“I wonder if this stuff builds the longer it’s on. We could tie that to sexual excitement. Then we could direct this to a younger, faster customer. If Paradise was classy sex, this stuff could be kinky sex.” She saw his eyebrows go up. “Well, not whips and chains, but still...sizzle. I wonder...”
She unstoppered the bottle and slid the black crystal stopper into the V of her blouse again.
He turned away. “Will you stop that?”
“Sorry. I know. Too much perfume can make you gag. I just had an idea...”
“What?”
She leaned forward across the table, and she saw his eyes drop to the V of her blouse. “I’m sorry about the perfume. I’ll wash it off, but listen. Suppose we put something in this stuff to make it really sizzle?”
“Sizzle?”
“You know.” She frowned in frustration. “Tingle. Only with heat. A woman wears perfume on the warmest parts of her body—the pulse points. Suppose when she touched the perfume to those places she felt a subtle heat and tingle. It would make her feel excited. Exciting. It would feel like...”
“Foreplay.” Richard grinned, taking Emily’s breath away for a moment. “Well, you’ve got my attention.”
She smiled back, taken with her new idea. “We could call it Sizzle. We’ll get it a product placement in the next really hot movie, something with an electric sex scene. We can package samples with other sexy products for women...”
“Such as?”
“Seamed hose, lace garter belts...” She broke off when she saw him laughing. She sat back and gritted her teeth. “You don’t like the idea?”
“No, no. It’s great. It’s just you. You’re so intense, talking about lace underwear.”
“My intensity is what makes me a success,” she said evenly. “You’d take this perfume, call it ‘Night in the Boardroom’ and sell three bottles of it.”
“Probably,” Richard agreed.
“So don’t patronize me.” Emily looked him straight in the eye. “I don’t deserve it.”
“I apologize again.” He leaned toward her, sincerely sorry. “I really do. Listen, let me make it up to you. Let me take you to dinner tonight.” He smiled, and she lost her breath again.
“Come on, Emily.” Richard coaxed her with his eyes. He had amazing eyes. “You’ve got all that perfume on—you really should go somewhere in it.”
He has eyes like the sky, she thought. I love the way he says my name. And then she thought, no. I don’t need this. I don’t even like him.
“Please.” He smiled that earnest killer smile at her.
Don’t do that, she thought.
“Strictly business. We can talk about the account. About seven?”
I really don’t like him, smile or no smile, but I bet he has a great body under that suit. Not that it matters. “All right.” Emily took a deep breath. “If it’s all right with you, I’ll send a memo to the lab and to the advertising people on this.”
“Fine.” Richard sat back and picked up his notes, obviously pleased she’d agreed, the human in him fast receding behind the businessman. “Although we’ll probably have to scale down some of your ideas.”
“Which ones?” Emily asked coldly.
He was back into his reports and he didn’t hear the chill. “Well, the product placement will be a fortune. We’ll reach more people with print.”
“But not the same way.” Emily leaned forward. “In a movie, they’ll see someone beautiful stroke herself with the perfume, use the stuff against her skin and then go out and have incredible sex with some gorgeous guy. If we get really lucky,” she added thoughtfully, “it will be a very explicit scene, and the audience will get another look at all the places she put the perfume.”
“And if the movie flops?”
“It flops.” She shrugged. “Life’s a gamble.”
“Not with company funds.” Richard shook his pencil at her. “You’ll stay inside the budget this time.”
She ignored the pencil. “If we get this stuff placed in the right movie, it could be bigger than Paradise.”
“And if we get it placed in the wrong movie, we’ll go to executive hell.” He turned back to his papers.
She took a deep breath. Calm. Courteous and cooperative. “I’m still going to suggest it in the memo.”
He didn’t look up. “Just as long as you realize I’m probably still going to reject it in the budget.”
“Fine,” she said, and slammed her portfolio shut.
“Fine,” he said, and looked up and smiled. “See you at seven.”
* * *
“I’VE GOT A DINNER DATE with the executive Hun,” Emily said to Jane as she passed her desk. Jane rose and followed her into the office.
“Tell me everything.”
“It’s a toss-up.” Emily slumped into her chair. “His face is still beautiful, but he also still has a narrow, little cost-effective mind.”
“Which means he disagreed with you.”
“Oh, please.”
“So where are you going?”
“I have no idea. He, of course, will decide.” Emily frowned. “What do you want to bet he orders for me?”
“Why do you care? You can sit and look at him all night.”
“A pretty face isn’t everything,” Emily told her primly.
“Forget the face.” Jane sank into her chair. “The body is to die for.”
“How can you tell? The man is always in a suit. I bet he sleeps in a tie.”
“Karen went in to give him some papers, and he was changing his shirt. He’d spilled coffee on it, and he keeps a spare for emergencies.”
“He would.”
“She saw him with his shirt off.”
“And?”
“She’s still speechless.”
“I doubt he’ll take his shirt off at dinner.”
“No, but if you play your cards right...”
“Don’t you ever think of anything but sex?”
“Frequently. But let’s face it, here. You’re not going to dinner to work on Perfume X. You’re attracted to him.”
“Sizzle.”
“Pardon?”
“Perfume X is now Sizzle.”
“And does it?”
“It will. I’m on my way to R & D.”
“Well, this should be an interesting campaign. What are you going to wear?”
“For what?”
“For dinner, dummy. I suggest you wear something sexy. Drive him wild.”
“The only thing I do that drives Richard Parker wild is spend company money. Which reminds me, will you get me Laura in Los Angeles? We need a product placement.”
“Big bucks. Did we get the Hun’s okay to spend the money?”
“No, we’re going to surprise him.” Emily smiled evilly. “That man positively needs more surprises in his life.”
* * *
“HEY, EM. WHAT’S NEW?” Laura said when Emily was put through to her.
“Perfume. A hot new perfume called Sizzle. We need a product placement. Something very sexy.”
“Is this the next Paradise?”
“If I have anything to say about it, it will be.”
“Then it will be.” Laura laughed. “You always have something to say about it. I’ll get right on it.”
“Thanks. How’s Gary?”
“Gone,” Laura said cheerfully.
“Good. I never liked him.”
“He never liked you, either. Thought you were a suit.”
“He was right. You don’t sound too unhappy about this.”
“Oh, he was always just a filler. Only a desperate woman would take Gary seriously.”
“Only a desperate woman would take any man seriously.”
“And you’re the woman marketing Sizzle?”
“I said ‘seriously.’ I’ve decided you don’t have to take a man seriously to have sex.” Emily visualized Richard as a cheap pickup to be thrown away like a worn-out glove after a meaningless but passionate fling.
It was a new approach for her, but she liked the idea.
“My sentiments exactly about Gary,” Laura said. “I’ll get back with you ASAP.”
After she hung up, Emily thought about Richard. Sex with Richard. Meaningless though it might be, it would probably be great because he was gorgeous. And intelligent. And he did have a body to die for.
And I’m having dinner with him tonight.
Maybe Jane’s right, she thought.
Jane buzzed her. “You told me to remind you about R & D.”
“On my way.” Emily hesitated. “Hey, while I’m gone, I need you to run an errand.”
“Anything, my leader.”
“I need some black lace underwear.”
“Now you’re talking. I won’t fail you.”
* * *
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT always worried Emily. There seemed to be a lot of activity going on and a lot of people in white lab coats, but no one ever seemed to be in charge. After she’d dated the head of that department, Chris Croswell, for a while, she’d worried even more. Chris had the concentration of a fruit fly and the morals of a mink. It seemed such a bad personality profile for the head of a department with so many bubbling beakers. No wonder it looked as if no one was in charge.
“Hello, beautiful,” he said when he saw her. “Let’s have dinner.”
“Sorry, I’m busy.” She held out the bottle. “About this perfume—”
“Busy? Who with?”
“None of your business. About this perfume—”
“The new guy on twelfth. I thought he’d spot you.”
“Chris, the perfume needs work.”
“So does our relationship.”
“We don’t have a relationship,” she told him. “We haven’t had a relationship for two years. You’ve been married and divorced since then. Now about the perfume—”
“Which only goes to show how much work our relationship needs.”
She took his hand and put the bottle in it. “We want it to sizzle.”
“Sizzle?”
“Tingle a little on the skin. Heat up a little. Can you do it?”
“Sure.” He shrugged. “When do you need it?”
“Yesterday.” Emily began to back toward the door. “As soon as possible.”
“You got it. Now about dinner...”
“You cannot possibly take me to dinner. You’ve got to put some sizzle in that bottle.”
“I’d rather put some sizzle in you.”
“Thank you, Chris.” Emily backed out the door. “Let me know when it’s done.”
One thing you can say for Richard, she told herself as she escaped. He’s never that asinine.
She was actually beginning to look forward to dinner.
* * *
THE EVENING STARTED well. Emily brushed her hair in a cloud around her shoulders and wore her new black lace underwear, one of two sets Jane had splurged on with her money.
“Always have a backup set,” Jane had told her. “You never know, he may rip this stuff off you with his teeth in the throes of passion.”
Emily visualized it. “Sounds good.”
She topped the underwear with her best short black dress, dabbed on some nonheating Sizzle, and was just congratulating herself on how sophisticated and adult she looked when the doorbell rang and she went cold with nerves.
This is just dinner, she told herself. He’s a Hun. You don’t care. This is meaningless.
It didn’t work.
As much as she hated to admit it, the anticipation she’d felt earlier had grown the more she’d thought about Richard. For the first time in a long time, she was really looking forward to an evening with a man. “So much for a meaningless fling,” she told herself, and fought down another little spurt of panic as the doorbell rang again.
Her panic subsided when she answered the door and saw him there, solid and familiar. He stood still for a moment when she opened the door, and then he swallowed and said, “You’re beautiful.” He brought her gardenias. He handed her into the cab as if she were made of porcelain.
This is good, Emily thought. He looks like a god, and he treats me like a goddess. This could work.
He took her to the Celestial for dinner.
“George said this was your favorite restaurant,” Richard told her as they sat down.
Emily clamped her lips together. You could have asked me where I wanted to eat, she thought, and then sighed. Be nice, Emily. He’s being nice. And you need him on your side. And he’s paying; he has a right to choose the restaurant. Besides, it is your favorite. Besides, he’s gorgeous.
“I’m starving.” He motioned to the waiter. “Let’s skip drinks and go right to dinner.”
“I wouldn’t mind a glass of wine,” Emily said, but Richard was already ordering.
“Sweet and sour soup. Mongolian beef.”
“I don’t care for Mongolian beef,” Emily said politely.
“Mu-shu pork.”
“I like garlic chicken.”
“Su-san shan.”
“I really hate su-san shan.”
“Princess prawns.” He beamed at her. “How does that sound?”
“Have you had your hearing checked lately?”
Richard was already handing the menus to the waiter. “That’ll be fine.”
“Plum sauce on mu-shu pork?” the waiter asked.
“No,” Richard said.
“I like plum sauce,” Emily said, and the waiter smiled at her and nodded.
Thank God, she thought. I was afraid I’d suddenly gone mute.
“We needed to get away from the office.” Richard smiled at her. “Too many aggravations there.”
The only aggravation there just ordered dinner for me here, Emily thought.
“Your hair looks wonderful.” He looked at her, his eyes shining, and then smiled that sexy boyish grin that made her breathing quit every time. “You’re lovely in the office, but tonight you’re absolutely gorgeous.”
He’s not that aggravating, Emily thought, remembering to inhale. He has potential. Be nice, Em. “This is really nice of you.” She leaned forward. “It really shows me how much you want our partnership to work. And I’m glad you’re concerned about our working relationship, because I think we can do much better.”
“Absolutely.” Richard took her hand. “I agree with you absolutely.”
His touch startled her. He had nice hands. Nice warm hands with tapered fingers. His nails were beautifully manicured, she noted, trying to concentrate on details so she could ignore the warmth spreading into her from his fingers. She breathed a little harder and met his eyes. He was looking at her with naked adoration. He really was sweet.
Do not become emotionally attached to the Hun, she told herself. Simply use his body mercilessly and then fling him aside.
“Tell me about yourself.” His hand tightened on hers. “I want to know everything.”
Emily blinked. “Why?”
He seemed taken aback. “Don’t you think it’s important for people who, uh, work together to get to know each other?”
“I guess so.” Emily thought about it. She and George had worked together for eight years, and he’d never even asked her where she lived, let alone gotten to know her. This was an interesting side of Richard. “All right.”
She answered his questions through the soup and the pork. By the time she was finished, she knew why Richard was so successful. He asked the right questions and, this time, listened to the answers. Midway through her life story, she realized he was piecing together the things that made her the person she was; he was doing in-depth research on his latest project—her. It was intensely flattering and not a little disconcerting.
But at least he was listening.
He was also charming, intelligent and polite. Emily relaxed and enjoyed herself with him, and the more she relaxed the more he opened up, so that by the time the pork was gone, there was a vulnerability in him she hadn’t seen before. It was devastating. Emily found herself fighting against falling in love with him. And losing.
Don’t be a fool, she said, and then she looked into his incredible blue eyes, eyes so plainly adoring her, and fell some more.
“Mongolian beef, princess prawns, su-san shan,” the waiter said, putting the dishes on the table.
“Great.” Richard ladled Mongolian beef onto her rice.
Emily looked at the stuff. She didn’t care for beef in general, and she hated beef cooked in oil. The onions looked like worms. Richard added several spoonfuls of vegetables, also glistening with oil. Then he served her prawns, and she began to eat, carefully avoiding the beef and vegetables.
“You’re not eating your beef.” Richard frowned. “Is there something wrong? Should I send it back?”
“I don’t like Mongolian beef.”
“Why didn’t you say so?”
“I did. You didn’t listen.”
He looked at her plate. “Su-san shan, too?”
“Yes. The waiter heard me. That’s why I got plum sauce on my mu-shu pork.”
“You like plum sauce?”
“Yes.” Emily sighed, patient to the end. “I mentioned it.”
“I don’t listen.” He looked at her with eyes like a scolded puppy’s.
“No, you don’t.” She couldn’t bear to see him so unhappy so she smiled at him. “Work on that.”
“I will,” he promised.
“Good. Now it’s your turn. Tell me about you.”
He hesitated, but she was a good researcher, too, and by the time the fortune cookies arrived, Emily knew everything about his past. They had a lot in common. They both agreed, for instance, that Walt Disney should have been shot, instead of Old Yeller, because they’d both been traumatized by the movie. They’d both been president of their senior class in high school. They’d both been at the head of their classes at business school. They both truly enjoyed their jobs. They’d both had disastrous relationships in the past. They were both determined to have a better one, perhaps a permanent one, in their future.
Emily forgot his high-handedness and was happy again. He was so sweet, so bright, so kind, so vulnerable, so obviously dazzled by her. So sexy, she thought.
So right for me.
So when he took her home, she invited him in.
She closed the door behind them and turned, and he kissed her. He moved slow enough to give her time to say no if she wanted to, fast enough to give her the feeling of being swept off her feet.
Nice timing, she thought as his lips touched hers. Then she stopped thinking.
He hadn’t spent all his nights studying to be the Budget Hun. His lips were firm on hers, moving against hers, and she felt the warmth he always generated start again. She kissed him back, sliding her arms around his neck. She opened her lips and touched his with her tongue, and he slid his tongue into her mouth, tangling with hers, stroking inside her. The heat was everywhere in her now, and she clutched at him, leaning into him. He brought his hand up to the back of her head, lacing his fingers into her long dark hair to hold her close.
When he moved his hand down again, her hair became tangled in his sleeve buttons.
She felt it first as a tug and broke the kiss.
“Richard,” Emily said, and he said huskily, “I know,” and found her mouth again. He moved his hand down her body and she felt the hard pull against her hair.
“No, Richard! Wait! My hair...” She dropped her head back to ease the pull on her scalp.
He bent to kiss her exposed neck, moving kisses down into her cleavage. He also moved his hand to her rear end.
“Ouch! Richard, stop it!”
“What?” he asked huskily, his hand moving across her rear. Her head swayed with his hand. It really hurt.
“My hair.” She held on to it, trying to take the pressure off her scalp. “You—”
“You have beautiful hair.” He lifted his hand to run his fingers through it and the pull stopped.
“Thank God.” She let her head drop forward as the pull eased, tears in her eyes from the pain.
“You’re crying,” he said softly, touched.
“My hair’s caught on your sleeve.”
“You’re so beautiful.” He bent to kiss her again.
“Dammit, Richard, my hair’s caught on your sleeve!” Emily yelled.
“What?”
She pulled away from him, holding on to his arm so he wouldn’t jerk her hair out. A lock of her hair was wound around his sleeve button.
“Don’t move.” She blinked back the tears of pain. “This really hurts.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” He gently untangled her.
“I did!”
The mood wasn’t broken, it was shattered. It took every ounce of self-control she had not to murder him where he stood.
“It’s probably better if you go now,” Emily said, backing away as Richard moved to hold her again. “I’ve got to be at work tomorrow. I’m meeting with advertising on the package design and you know those ad guys... Somebody’s got to watch them every minute.” She’d moved to the door as she spoke, and she opened it now. “I had a lovely evening.”
“How’s your head?” Richard looked disappointed and rueful and faintly annoyed.
She rubbed her scalp where the tug had done the most damage. “I’ll take an aspirin. It’ll be fine.”
“Let’s try again.” He smiled down at her. “Come out with me again.”
Emily closed her eyes. “Why don’t we talk about it later?” Her head really did hurt. Go away, she thought. I told you I needed an aspirin. Go away so I can take one.
“How about Friday night?”
“Richard. You don’t listen. I told you my head hurt. I told you I needed an aspirin. I told you we’d talk about it later.”
“Saturday?”
“Never.” Her voice rose almost to a shriek. “Never again. Not until you learn to listen. Take classes. Get a hearing aid. But get out of my life until you can hear me when I speak.” She pushed him out the door and slammed it in his face.
I don’t believe this, she fumed. How can one sweet, charming, intelligent, sexy, good-looking guy be such a lousy listener? God, my head hurts.
I am never going near him again, she thought as she turned away from the door. Not even if someone ties him down and forces him to listen to me. Never, ever again.
