by Nancy Warren
“Honey, I’d go to the other side of the world for this one.”
“For sex, maybe, but would you buy a surfboard because he told you to?”
Sonia stared thoughtfully at the print. “Maybe he’s not so perfect when you see him in person.”
Just thinking about picking him up at the airport later today had Lise chugging more Maalox. “I seriously think Jen’s judgment is impaired since she dumped Mark Forsythe for Cameron Crane.”
Sonia blew her bangs off her forehead. “Well, I guess it’s up to us to save Jen’s butt. What are we going to do? Could we ugly your perfect man up some?”
Lise laughed. “Airbrush in some blemishes? There’s a switch.” But her friend’s words had given her an idea. She squinted and tipped her head to one side.
“Let’s try this . . .” She grabbed a black felt pen and dotted in a five o’clock shadow, dulling that far too-perfect complexion.
She tilted her head to the side. “Better.”
But the hair. No one had hair that looked so naturally sun-streaked. She had no idea who his hairdresser was, but the guy must cost a fortune. And the result was too perfect. She shook her head. “The streaks have to go,” she said, attacking the hair with a brown marker.
“Stop, I can’t bear to watch,” Sonia said, shielding her eyes. “I’m going back to my desk. You take a beautiful man and make him ugly? It’s like rubbing dirt into a diamond ring. You are one crazy woman.”
By the time she’d finished with the markers, Lise was feeling more hopeful. The man in the picture was still striking, but he looked more like a real man than a gift from the gods.
Speaking of which, she was going to have to pick up Jen’s gift to the surfing world at the airport.
“Aaaah,” she cried when she looked at her watch.
At the same moment, Sonia came into Lise’s office. “You’ve got to be going or you’ll be late picking him up.”
“I know, I was hoping I’d get time to do a couple more things today.”
“Do you want me—” Sonia started hopefully.
“No. I need to see him in person and get a feel for how Steve Jackson is going to be to work with. If he’s a prima donna type, I need to know it right away. Did you check that his suite’s ready? I don’t want to start out with any temper tantrums.” They grimaced at each other. They’d dealt with some colorful characters in their time.
“It’s ready,” Sonia assured her. “And I checked the flight; it’s on time.”
“Great. I’ll make it if I hurry. Knowing models, he’ll have so much baggage he’ll take an extra half-hour anyway.”
In one move she shoved her arms into her suit jacket and reached over to close the file on her computer screen. It wasn’t one of the most coordinated moves of her life—and since her life was fairly chock-full of uncoordinated moves, that was saying something. There was a small and insignificant sound of plastic hitting a solid surface, then Sonia’s cry of “watch out.”
Startled by the cry, she glanced down and saw she’d knocked the Maalox bottle over and it was spilling thick, white, stomach-acid-quelling, ulcer-coating gunk down her suit jacket, her skirt, and pooling in a globby puddle in her lap.
Sonia righted the bottle, but the damage was already done.
“I guess I forgot to tighten the cap,” she said. “Stupid, stupid.” She rose, grabbing a tissue and dabbing at the gooey mess.
“You can’t go out looking like that. I’m not even going to tell you what that looks like.”
“I have to. No time to change.”
“Honey, no male model is going to be seen with you looking like somebody barfed their vanilla milkshake all over you.”
“I thought you weren’t going to tell me what that looks like,” Lise reminded her assistant.
Sonia sent her a knowing smirk. “I was being polite. What that really looks like is worse.”
Another glance down and she got the general idea. “Eeew, gross,” she cried and pulled out another wad of tissue, though what she thought it was going to do she had no idea. Now she was leaving behind bits of tissue on her suit fabric along with the chalky white stuff.
Sonia, meanwhile, reached for Lise’s phone and pushed a couple of buttons. “Eddie? Can you bring Lise’s car around to the front door in five minutes? I’ll leave the keys out on my desk for you.” She snapped her fingers and Lise, realizing she was going to do whatever Sonia told her to because she was tired, her head ached, and she had officially lost it, obligingly scrabbled in her purse and passed them over.
“Now strip,” Sonia said.
“I’m meeting our model in my underwear?”
“We’re switching clothes,” Sonia said, wrinkling her nose. “And believe me, I am expecting a gigantic Christmas bonus.”
“I can’t—” But there was no point continuing, since Sonia was already running out of her office, the keys jingling in her hand.
Lise took one more look down at herself and slipped out of her jacket.
When Sonia returned, she shut the door to Lise’s office and reached behind her for her zipper. Lise was already down to her underwear.
“The bra and camisole have to come off.”
One look at the strappy sundress and Lise could see the woman’s point. Okay, so she’d look like Gwyneth Paltrow at the academy awards, her small breasts swimming in a too-large bodice. It was better, she supposed, than her own soiled suit.
“Come on, off.”
It was only for an hour, Lise reminded herself. She had to chauffeur a guy who, for sure, was going to be a lot more interested in his own looks than hers. Wearing a wardrobe that was a little on the wild side and skimping on underwear was not going to ruin her life.
But being late to pick up an international model, one whom Jennifer Talbot considered critical to the campaign she was running, could ruin her life.
She yanked off her camisole, unsnapped her bra, and, as the much less modest Sonia, wearing nothing but a thong that looked anorexic even for a thong, wafted the bright colored dress over her head, she pulled the bra off.
“You’re bigger than I am,” she complained as the straps settled on her shoulders, leaving her modest cleavage immodestly on display.
“Attitude, babe. Stick your chest out and no one will notice.”
She tried sticking her chest out and the dress did sit a little better, though she still felt like a little girl playing dress-up in her big sister’s gown.
Still more naked than not, Sonia bent and pulled off one of her high heels. “And here, take the shoes.”
“My shoes are fine.”
“Fine to be buried in. You are not wearing those shoes with my dress.”
Feeling as though a clock were imbedded in her esophagus, ticking away the seconds, she kicked off her shoes and stepped into the orange strappy things Sonia passed her. They were slingback and didn’t fit too badly if she didn’t actually try to walk.
“Great, thanks.” She wobbled for the door, only to feel her hair practically dragged out of her scalp. “Ow. What are you doing?”
“Brushing.”
“Gotta go.”
“Lipstick,” Sonia begged.
“No time.” But even as she closed her lips on “time,” a gold cylinder was aimed at her lips and—swipe-swipe—she was lipsticked. She really hoped it wasn’t the same shade as the shoes.
“Now, go,” Sonia said, giving her a sharp pat on the behind. Lise was not a woman who got swats on the butt, but somehow, she felt a woman in a dress like this was going to be vulnerable to butt-swatting. She’d have to be vigilant.
Although, she suspected her chances of breaking her leg—or neck—in the shoes was going to be a greater danger than itinerant airport gangs of bottom-slappers.
“Don’t forget the sign,” Sonia reminded her. Lise nodded. As she passed Sonia’s desk she picked up the placard with STEVE JACKSON emblazoned on it, then slapped her prescription sunglasses on her face and rushed out into the sunshine.
By the time she made it to the arrivals lounge, out of breath and with cramped Achilles tendons from running in those stupid, damn, ice-pick-heeled shoes, the flight, of course, had hit some kind of delay.
She sat down to wait. Not a problem, she told herself. She’d practice those relaxation exercises her doctor had given her. Except she’d never felt less relaxed. The air conditioning was goosebump-ing bits of her that weren’t normally exposed, and her mind began cataloguing everything she had to do.
Somehow, this was all Mr. Too Handsome’s fault.
Chapter Two
Steve Jackson gazed out of the airplane window at the sparkling city below.
He couldn’t stop the thrill of excitement when he saw the Golden Gate Bridge arch below him like a leaping dancer’s spine. He’d worked on a good few bridges, hefting steel and welding sections that were never elegant, but which somehow became so once the whole was put together. But few bridges, and he’d seen his fair share, were as beaut as this one.
As much as he enjoyed his first sight of San Francisco, he reckoned he’d be a lot happier working at home with the ring of metal on metal in his ears and the smell of soldering lead in his nose, strapped high over the world doing an honest hard day’s work for an honest day’s pay.
Shifting uncomfortably, he wished for a pair of grubby jeans, an old shirt stained with the sweat of a full day’s work, and that he was heading to the pub with his mates.
Instead he was in clothes that made him feel like one of those plastic fashion dolls his little sister loved to dress up. And instead of a decent job a man could do and still hold up his head, he was going to be prancing around like a bloody shirt lifter in a pair of bathing trunks to sell bloody surfboards to bloody Yanks.
He grew hot just thinking about it.
Think of the money, he reminded himself.
He was sitting here in first class, on his way to a few months of ridiculously well-paid work, and he consoled himself that he was so far from home none of his mates would ever know. He’d been right cagey about where he was going, saying only he was having a bit of a holiday.
He glanced back at the People magazine open in his lap. He’d taken to leafing through such publications in hopes of working out how they acted in America. If it was like on telly and in the glossy magazines, he was going to have a half-decent time. He wasn’t here only for the money; he quite liked the look of those California girls. As far as he could make out, all they did was party.
Maybe he could do a bit of partying himself while he was here. Why not? He’d have a bit of extra money, and there was something about those girls with their long blond hair and perfect white teeth, their convertibles and light beers. Steve Jackson was determined to enjoy this crazy job that had landed in his lap. When he wasn’t prancing around half-naked for this silly job, he was going to have the time of his life.
The plane banked and showed him more of the city. There was Golden Gate Park and a rocky island out in the harbor that had to be Alcatraz. Down there somewhere were cable cars and steep hills and—and a woman who was going to “groom him,” according to Jennifer Talbot. Turn him into some git with bleached blond hair and oil on his muscles doing a body-builder pose, he reckoned.
His stomach turned over queasily, which could have been at the thought of what awaited him, or from the sudden movement of the plane. In truth, he was a lot more used to buses than planes.
For all the money they were offering—and he had to admit that would come in handy—he still might have refused the job if it hadn’t been for Cameron Crane.
When he met the man himself, he instantly saw a blighter he recognized. A rugged bloke who likes a beer and can play a round of footie without crying.
They’d met and shaken hands, and Cam had looked at him with eyes that understood and said, “Well? What do you reckon?”
He’d shrugged. “Dunno.”
Crane had understood everything he needed to from that one word. “Don’t you let those Yanks make him too pretty,” the big boss of the operation had warned Jennifer Talbot, and at that moment Steve had believed it might just work. “He’s a man, he surfs like a man, he looks like a man, right?”
“Of course. He’s perfect. I don’t want him to change,” Jennifer Talbot had said in the exasperated tone of someone who’d said the same thing a million times. Still, he was glad to hear they weren’t planning to turn him into something he wasn’t.
Now as he headed for foreign soil in a brand new suit that felt like a posh stranger’s, he wondered if taking the job had been the right thing to do.
“Only one way to find out,” he mumbled as the plane bumped to the ground.
He rose to retrieve his swish new carry-on bag, careful not to let his head bump the ceiling. It didn’t, but it was a close-run thing. Beside his bag was a tartan affair that he recognized as belonging to the older woman across the aisle. He passed it to her and she thanked him.
“Oh, would you mind getting my bag as well?” A younger woman who’d been eyeing him throughout the flight batted her eyes at him.
“Sure. Which one?”
“The green one.”
He reached for the bag and almost recoiled when he touched it. Crocodile skin. And if the poor croc hadn’t had enough to put up with, being hunted and turned into a lady’s bag, he’d been further humiliated after death by being dyed to match the inside of a kiwi fruit.
He passed the bag over briskly, trying to rebuff the woman’s efforts to chatter at him as they left the plane.
Thank goodness he was being met—and by a woman, he thought—as the crocodile bag and its owner tagged along by his side. They’d already been through immigration in Hawaii, so all he had to do was grab his bags and go.
The crocodile woman was clearly disappointed when his single bag came off the carousel and her fourth still hadn’t appeared. Having hefted the first three off for her, he was amazed the plane had remained airborne.
As he emerged into the meeting lounge, he glanced around for Jennifer Talbot, although he hadn’t really expected her to be here. There were a few people with signs but none had his name on it.
Lots of people were hugging, a few crying, as families and friends reunited. A few tired souls were gathering in a bedraggled crowd under a tour company’s logo, and a few breezed out clearly knowing where they were going.
Steve felt utterly and completely alone.
Well, he reckoned someone would show up sooner or later, so he decided to find a cup of coffee and sit in the lounge and wait.
As he made his way through a seating area he saw his first party girl. Or, more accurately, his first morning-after-the-party girl.
In fact, what caught his attention was the soft mound of a smallish breast perilously close to committing indecent exposure in an already eye-catching dress.
The owner of both the dress and the breast was asleep, her bright, red-painted mouth open slightly on a gentle snore. Her bag was open on her lap and he guessed she’d had quite the party based on the large bottle of headache tablets and the economy size bottle of antacid. Her thick brown hair was a sexy tumble and her dark glasses were skewed across a face that was unremarkable but for the full red lips.
She must have quite a hangover, he thought to himself. Even her lip stuff was a bit sketchily applied.
He shook his head. Eight hours or so ago and he’d have liked to make this lady’s acquaintance.
He thought about waking her to let her know her purse was wide open and her dress all but, then decided she’d be better off for her sleep.
He made to walk on past and stepped on something that snapped like a dry twig in the bush. The sharp sound had him glancing down to see his name staring up at him. He looked back, puzzled, at the woman who’d jumped at the sound.
Her eyes were wide open but with the blank expression of a rudely woken hangover victim.
That final jiggle as she’d jerked awake was all it had taken. Her left breast, about the size and shape o
f a mango, lay on top of the bright dress. Her skin was so white, he thought, and her nipple the exact shade of caramel toffee.
Following his gaze, the woman made an indeterminate sound between a squeak and a moan. She clapped both hands over the escaping mammary, her face filling with embarrassed color. Even her chest seemed to be blushing. “What are you doing?” she whispered in outrage.
The humor of the situation was fast gaining on him. He bent down and picked up the now broken dowel with the sign attached. “I’m Steve Jackson,” he said.
There was a moment when he seriously thought she might disclaim all knowledge of him or the sign. But, after a moment, she pulled herself together.
“Oh. Well. I’m Lise Atwater. Welcome to San Francisco,” she said and keeping her left hand clamped over her breast, offered her right to shake. Her voice was soft and clear and her eyes were a rich chocolate brown. At least, he assumed they were both brown. The wonky sunglasses covered one eye and left one peering at him with a mixture of mortification and censure.
His aunt Gwen would clip him a good one if she could see him standing here trying not to laugh while the girl sat there frozen, one hand clamped over her chest and the color in her cheeks fluctuating between deathly pale and fevered.
Maybe it was the thought of Aunt Gwen, but he suddenly remembered his manners. He pulled off his suit jacket and popped it right over the woman’s top half so it blanketed her from shoulders to thigh.
“Thank you,” she said stiffly.
He turned, partly to act the gentleman and partly to release a grin worthy of the green bag in its former life.
