An Exquisite Challenge

by Jennifer Hayward

“Per favore,” he murmured. “Go on. I was getting some keen insight into what you really think of me.”

  She lowered her gaze, the sickening feeling she might have just blown it flooding through her. “I was just venting. You’re supposed to be in your office, not sneaking around the back way.”

  “I’ve been on calls since seven. Nature called.”

  She stood up, refusing to cower in the wake of the arrogant tilt of that nose. “If we’re going to make this into a contest, I’ve been up since five.”

  His eyes glittered. “I wasn’t, but how very five-year-old of you.”

  Danielle was watching them as though they were a prime-time reality show. Gabe inclined his head toward his office. “Shall we do this?”

  Alex picked up her storyboards and followed him in, laying them out on the oval conference table near the window. The designer had done an inspired job on the visual representations of the concept and event. “On our tour,” she began, “you said the complexity and individuality of a wine depends on the chemistry—how you as the winemaker make the choices. Whether to use man-made or naturally occurring yeasts, how long the different varietals should be aged, the proportion of one versus the other.”

  He nodded.

  “I started playing around with the concept of chemistry. How that would work as an event theme. And came up with these concepts.” She flipped to the first storyboard. “The initial touch point is the invite. Guests are invited to fall in love with their ‘match’ at De Campo’s The Devil’s Peak launch.” She flipped to the next board. “When they arrive, they’re handed a computer generated ‘chemistry’ match, someone attending the event who is like-minded. It can be either a networking match or a romantic one. Throughout the evening, they’re tasked with finding their match and exploring it.”

  He arched a brow. “What if they’re the jaded, unimaginative type who couldn’t be bothered?”

  She flipped to the next board, which had a photo of the De Campo Tuscan vineyard on it. “We incent them. We offer them something fabulous, like a trip to the motherland. But only if the matches sign in during the evening and prove they’ve met.”

  He looked skeptical. “Go on.”

  She flipped to the next board. “Everything that happens throughout the evening is about chemistry. The decor, the quiz at the bar to match guests with their perfect De Campo wine, the gift bags tailored to each individual’s chemistry and finally,” she said, smiling, “the fireworks at the end of the night. They represent the chemistry of The Devil’s Peak. We end with the tasting of the wine and the fireworks for a big last impression.”

  He rubbed his hand over his jaw. “I like it. I’m not sure about the chemistry matches, though. Will this type of a crowd do it? Will the New York crowd do it?”

  She nodded. “I’ve found from experience if you incent people well enough, they’ll do anything. It doesn’t have to be a trip to Tuscany. We can make it a selection of chemistry experiences to pick from...”

  His mouth twisted. “And how do we not make the matches look like quackery?”

  She’d wondered the same thing. It had to be real science. “There’s a firm here in San Francisco that specializes in just this. It’s run by scientists with human-behavior backgrounds. We supply details on the subjects, they input them into the computer and presto, they spit us out real, scientific matches.”

  He gave a rueful smile. “What about liability issues with the romantic matches?”

  She gave him a long look. “This isn’t an escort service. It’s a lighthearted meet and greet with a like-minded person.”

  “Run it by our lawyers,” he instructed. “We have five hundred people attending this event. You’re going to have time to pull information on all of them?”

  She nodded, anticipation flaring inside of her as he seemed to increasingly buy into the concept. “The joys of the internet. People say far too many personal things on social media.”

  “We won’t be seen as stalkers of people’s personal information?”

  “Most people put it out there to be seen.”

  He gave the storyboards a long look. Her heart rose to her mouth as she watched him debate. Please, God. It’s a great concept. Go for it.

  Finally, he nodded. “Bene. Make it happen.”

  Her heart jumped into her mouth. “Make the whole event happen? As in, you’re giving the contract to me?”

  He smiled, the effect of it so dazzling when he put the effort into it, it was impossible to resist. “Katya was right. You’re brilliant.”

  She could have hugged him except there was that no-touching rule she’d imposed on herself. “You won’t regret this,” she declared. “This is going to be the event of the year.”

  “I might actually believe you are Superwoman if you pull it off,” he murmured.

  “My cape is in my room,” she confided cheekily. “I need your approval on the invite before I go.”

  They went through it. For about five minutes of their relationship they had harmony. Might have been six. Then he started picking the invitation apart piece by piece. Twenty changes in all. On one measly invitation. A picture of how this was going to be formed in her head. It was worse than she’d even imagined. She was going to have to figure out a way to convince him to back off—fast. Because if she was going to pull these events off, she needed to fly without someone looking over her shoulder every five minutes.

  She took a big breath of the salty, clean San Francisco air as she walked out of the building to her car, her irritation fading as it sank in that she’d done it. Gabe had given her the contract. She was still in business.

  Just as quickly as her euphoria arrived came the stomach-clenching reality of what she now had to do. She had three weeks to execute one of the most complex events she’d ever created.

  A feat that might or might not be possible.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  THE NEXT FEW days passed in a blur of logistical activity. Alex met with the graphic designer, finalized the invitations and took a last look at the guest list. It was missing a few VIPs the other agency had overlooked, as well as included a few undesirables she didn’t think should make the final five hundred. Gabe had seen the list twice, according to Danielle, so she made the changes, marked it as final and sent it off to the printer.

  The most pressing job done, she called her two Manhattan-based staff and told them to get on a plane. Convinced her transplanted New Yorker friend Susan James, one of the most talented designers she’d ever worked with, to do the event decor with her. Then she secured the catering company Susan preferred and signed a contract with the matching firm.

  And breathed.

  The pure scope of the event left her and her team exhausted and stumbling into bed in the wee hours every night. She wouldn’t call their execution flawless, exactly—there were just too many moving parts and not enough time to get them done. Flying by the seat of their pants was a better description. Just the way she liked it. Except her clients usually weren’t overbearing control freaks—like Gabe—who had to have their hands in everything. Everything. Earn my trust, he’d said. She was trying very, very hard to do that. But Gabe’s insane schedule meant they had to take everything to him in between meetings and after he’d come up from the winery at night, which meant late, late nights for everyone. Not to mention his habit of disappearing when he said he was going to be somewhere. The power’s out at the winery, Danielle had said one day, “supply problems” another.

  He was making them crazy. Putting them behind by adding a whole other layer of complexity. So Alex put Operation Control Freak into effect. She deluged Gabe with paper, every single piece of minutia approval she could find: the color of the napkins on the bar, the type of chocolate in the gift bags, the musical selections for the band. At some point, she figured, he’d give in.

  He didn’t. He powered through it all in his own sweet time with a grim determination that made her wonder if he was the one who was superhuman. So she gave up on that pl
an and took matters into her own hands. Only give Gabe crucial things he must see, she told her staff. Give me the rest.

  He was still killing them.

  On Tuesday he made an imperious demand for Ligurian anchovies to be added to the appetizer list. “Ligurian, as in the coast of Italy?” she’d asked, sure he must be joking. “Is there any other?” he’d muttered back and gotten into his car. She’d bitten her lip and called the caterer. By Thursday, he still hadn’t approved the cost to fly them in and the chef was having a hissy fit about the fact he still hadn’t okayed the final menu. Her fireworks supplier was threatening to double the price if they didn’t settle on a run schedule by the end of the week and her Champagne fountain, the centerpiece of her cocktail area, was apparently leaking, without a replacement structure in sight.

  Total chaos.

  At two a.m. on Friday, she declared herself officially brain-dead and fell into the big, soft king-size bed in the suite at the far end of the hall from Gabe’s. A wise placement, she’d decided. But her mind kept spitting out things she’d forgotten to do, so she got out of bed, grabbed her notebook and headed to the kitchen for some hot milk, which was usually foolproof in putting her to sleep.

  Hot milk in hand, dosed with a liberal amount of cocoa and sugar, she turned away from the stove and walked straight into a wall. Or Gabe, to be precise. Hot cocoa went flying. Alex squealed. Gabe cursed. She jumped back, stared at his soaked T-shirt and gave a low moan.

  “Please tell me I didn’t burn you.” He pulled the soaked material away from his skin, hissed in a breath as he did so and lifted it. Red, blotchy skin stared back at her, but nothing worse. “Oh, God,” she choked, shoving her mug onto the counter. “I am so sorry. I thought you were in bed.”

  He grimaced. “Still working.”

  Of course he was. He was a machine.

  His gaze slid down over her. “You might have ruined that.”

  She remembered what she was wearing. Short. Silk. Heavy on the cleavage.

  Damn.

  She crossed her arms over her chest. A little too late, as his focus had already moved from the curve of her breasts down over her hips and bare legs. His gaze slid leisurely back up to hers, taking in every last inch. Heat, molten heat, stole the breath from her lungs. He would be smooth. He would be generous. And he would take his time.

  She sank her teeth into her bottom lip. Suddenly no-touching, no-attraction clauses seemed like an abstract concept that did not pertain to this particular situation. Not when his eyes were flickering with a warning that his iron control was wavering, and a part of her wished desperately it would.

  There was a period of one, maybe two seconds where she wasn’t sure where this was going to go. The air was so charged she found it too thick to breathe. She dragged in a breath because breathing was necessary. Then his face hardened and a chill fell over those amazing green eyes.

  “I need to get back to work. Any milk left?”

  “In the pan. Gabe—I need those approvals. The catering stuff is urgent.”

  He walked to the cupboard and pulled a mug out. “I’ll give you feedback on all of it tomorrow morning.”

  “It’s got to be first thing.”

  “I’ll do it before my meeting in town.” He turned around. “And Lex? I think we need a dress code.”

  A wave of heat engulfed her. She picked up her half-full mug—no way was she going near him to get more—and lifted her chin. “I’ll remember that the next time you have me working until two a.m.”

  She flounced up the stairs and went back to bed. Her body sang with a dose of raging hormones she had no idea what to do with. Power through the list, she told herself, picking up her pad of paper. But the look on Gabe’s face kept replaying itself over and over in her head. That had been lust.

  * * *

  “He’s done it again.”

  Emily, Alex’s star junior exec with exactly three years’ experience under her belt but about ten times that in wisdom, planted herself in front of where Alex was measuring the dance floor the next morning, an exasperated look on her face. “He told me ten a.m. to meet about the catering and Elena just informed me he’s left for the city.”

  Alex straightened and pushed the hair that had escaped her ponytail out of her face. Gabe had also promised her feedback on three other crucial things. She was going to kill him. They could not afford to get any further behind.

  “Leave it to me,” she said grimly. “He has a meeting here this afternoon. I’ll stake him out and get the sign off on all of it.”

  “Great.” Emily sighed as only a twenty-three-year-old could and stretched. “If he wasn’t so good-looking I might hate him.”

  “I’m past that,” Alex muttered. She was so tired she wanted someone to shoot her right now and put her out of her misery. “Call the caterer and tell her we’ll let her know on all of it today, including the anchovies.”

  She wrote down her measurements, nabbed a coffee from the kitchen and sat down before she fell down. She needed a dose of her sister’s calming Zen powers. Lilly had the ability to pull her down a notch when she felt as if it was all spinning out of control.

  Lilly answered on the third ring. “I was wondering if you were still alive...”

  “You could always ask my boss,” Alex suggested dryly. “He’s the one trying to kill me.”

  “How’s that working out?” Amusement laced her sister’s tone.

  Alex chewed on the end of her pencil and stared up at the workers adjusting the netting in the vineyard. “You know how I feel about him. It’s been interesting.”

  “No, I don’t, actually.” There was a pause. “Do you?”

  “Lil.”

  Her sister sighed. “One of these days you’re going to have to figure it out, you know.”

  No, Alex disagreed silently, she didn’t. Particularly when it was now a ground rule not to.

  “I worry about you, Lex,” her sister continued. “I’m worried you’re going to spend the next ten years of your life pursuing this giant ambition of yours and then realize that it’s about so much more than that.”

  Here we go again. “I’m only twenty-eight. I’m supposed to be climbing the corporate ladder.”

  “What about babies?”

  “I don’t want babies.”

  “You don’t know if you want babies. There is a whole legion of women out there putting off pregnancy for their careers. Then they wake up one morning and realize it’s too late.”

  Alex shut her eyes and prayed for patience. “I know I don’t want babies. In fact, maybe I should let them harvest my eggs now so one of those poor women has a fighting chance.”

  Her sister gasped. “You wouldn’t.”

  “Did we not share the same childhood?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Lil. I understand you are sickeningly happy with your machismo husband and your gorgeous little boy, soon to be brother of a gorgeous little girl, I’m sure. But leave me out of the baby discussions.”

  Lilly sighed. “Fine.”

  Alex looked up to see the sound technicians she’d hired pulling into the parking lot. “If you don’t hear from me in a while it’s because I am either snowed under or I’ve actually gone ahead and committed murder on your brother-in-law. How are you feeling, by the way? Following doctor’s orders?”

  “Riccardo will barely let me move without commenting. I might kill him before this is all over.”

  Lilly had suffered from preeclampsia with her first pregnancy and they’d all walked on needles throughout most of it. For once, Alex didn’t blame her controlling husband for being that way. “This may be the only time I ever tell you this, but listen to your husband. He’s right.” She stood up and grabbed her clipboard. “I gotta go. Give said husband a sock in the head for me.”

  * * *

  Gabe stared at the guest list and decided he must be delusional at this point, because he had not put that name on this list.

  He hit the intercom button. “
Danielle,” he growled. “You sent me the wrong list.”

  “Let me check.” She walked into his office a minute later. “Nope, that’s the final one.”

  “It can’t be,” Gabe replied as patiently as he could manage. “Darya Theriault is on it.”

  His PA whitened. “It’s the master list. Alex had a last look at it.”

  His fingers curled around the paper. “She changed it and didn’t get my final approval?”

  “She said you’d seen it twice.”

  White-hot anger sliced through him. “Get her on the phone, now.”

  “Frank Thomas is here.” Danielle gave him an uncertain look. “Do you want me to make him wait?”

  The desire to put his hands around Alex’s beautiful neck and strangle her almost made him nod, but finding out what Jordan Lane was up to was more important than bloody murder. “Give me two minutes, then send him in.”

  She nodded and left.

  Alex had put his ex on the guest list. His ambitious lawyer ex who’d left him for a senior partner with a note that had said, “I don’t love him like I love you but it’s a smart move and I’m marrying him.”

  Just like that. Propped up beside his coffee mug when he’d walked in the door from a trip to New York.

  Worse than that, this RSVP list said Darya was attending. With her husband.

  It was the last straw. He slammed the list down on his desk. He’d managed to overlook Alex and her team’s blatant misuse of his time. The decisions she was making she thought he wasn’t noticing. But this. This was too much. Troppo.

  As was the creation she’d sashayed into the kitchen wearing last night that had screamed take me. Merda. There was only so much a man could take. He’d dealt with the insubordination; he’d even managed to handle the smart mouth. But he could not get his mind off of how good she’d felt under his hands that night at the hotel—sleek, smooth and undoubtedly worth every last husky sigh. Or the way that negligee had put her perfect body on display, hugging the lush curves of her breasts and hips. His body tightened under his fitted suit trousers. They were the type of curves that made a man want to put his hands all over her—in no particular order.