Gentlemen Prefer...Brunettes

by Fielding, Liz

  ‘Certainly. It’s a philosophy I subscribe to most heartily. But not necessarily in regard to food. Besides, I thought it was all low-fat, no-added-sugar that did you good these days?’

  Cassie discounted the smile. There was no denying that the man was gorgeous, but he was just a little too aware of the fact. Besides, she wasn’t a tall, willowy blonde so he was presumably just using her to practise on until something more to his taste came along.

  ‘Frankly, I’d rather go without. And no one is suggesting you eat them every day. You can have too much of a good thing, particularly flummery,’ she said pointedly.

  ‘Is that a particularly rich dish?’ he asked, a touch dangerously.

  Coming from him it was; the glint of mischief in his eyes betrayed him. She was quite certain he was aware that the word had another meaning, one that he would be far more familiar with…nonsense, humbug, empty trifling.

  Beth, who had dealt with her customer, returned in time to witness the sudden flush of bright pink spots that had appeared on Cassie’s cheeks. ‘If you think flummery is rich, my friend, you should try Cassie’s toad-in-the-hole,’ she interjected hurriedly.

  ‘Should I?’ Nick asked, continuing to look straight down into Cassie’s eyes. ‘If I catch the toad will you cook it for me?

  ‘Buy yourself a copy of the book, Nick,’ Beth advised him. ‘It will be an investment. One day you’ll run out of women to charm and then you’ll have to learn to cook for yourself.’

  ‘I’ve never charmed a woman for her talents in the kitchen, Beth,’ he said, without taking his gaze from Cassie. ‘This town is full of good restaurants.’ He hadn’t missed the hectic colour that had seared her cheekbones, confirming that despite her very cool manner he was making some kind of impression on Miss Cassandra Cornwell. Quite what kind of impression he wasn’t sure, which was unusual enough m itself to interest him. ‘But I’ll buy one if Cassie will inscribe it for me.’

  ‘Of course she will,’ Beth said, suddenly businesslike. ‘What would you like her to write?’

  ‘Oh, I’ll leave that to Cassie. I’m sure she’ll think of something appropriate,’ he said, offering her the book.

  ‘How about, “To Nick Jefferson, the most accomplished—?” ’

  ‘The most accomplished cook in town,’ Nick completed, cutting Beth off before she could say something completely outrageous.

  ‘But you can’t cook,’ Cassie reminded him, with excessive politeness. Nick had a feeling that she would have preferred to throw one of her cookery books at him. A whole pile of books, perhaps. He rather thought he would like to see her try.

  ‘Won’t your book teach me how to turn out perfect meals in minutes?’ he asked, provoking her some more. ‘That is the dream you’re peddling’

  ‘On the contrary. Anyone can heat up some fancy cook-chill meal from the supermarket these days.’ She laid her hand on the pile of books beside her. ‘I write about the kind of old-fashioned cooking that takes time and love to produce. My readers cook for pleasure, Nick, and so do I, not for the instant gratification of fast food.’

  ‘I can see why your television show is so popular, Cassandra. Nostalgia is really big right now.’

  ‘Don’t you sometimes long for a taste of rice pudding the way your mother made it? With butter and sultanas and freshly grated nutmeg?’

  ‘No, I always preferred fresh picked strawberries. And if the strawberries were stolen…’

  He wasn’t talking about puddings any more. ‘That’s nostalgia too,’ Cassie interrupted, just a touch crossly. ‘And what about the dreams you’re selling?’ She indicated the floors above her, the glass tower of Jefferson Sports headquarters, glistening in the summer sunshine, dominating the town. ‘Buy this great new tennis racquet, or these expensive golf clubs, and you too can be the world champion? Where’s the reality in that?’

  Beth choked. Neither of them noticed.

  ‘Not world champion.’ He lifted one corner of his mouth in the kind of smile that would have had most women gasping for more. ‘Club champion, maybe. But Jefferson Sports sells more than one kind of dream. We sell the great outdoors, too. Camping gear, fishing rods, hiking and sports equipment, in fact the complete antidote to over-indulgence in your kind of cooking.’

  ‘You’ll be needing a tent, won’t you, Cassie?’ Beth put in swiftly, before things got totally out of hand. ‘If you ask him nicely, I’m sure Nick will show you his entire range.’ She paused, a wicked little twinkle appearing in her eyes. ‘You never know, he might even offer to pitch it for you.’

  ‘Are you going camping’ he asked Cassie.

  ‘You bet she is,’ Beth said, answering for her. ‘In fact she’s going with three perfectly adorable young men.’

  ‘Boys,’ Cassie muttered, refusing to allow Beth to make something out of this stupid flirtation. ‘And I already have a tent.’

  ‘Three boys?’ He glanced at her ringless hand, not that it meant anything these days… ‘Yours?’ he asked.

  ‘My nephews. They want a taste of the big outdoors and since my sister and her husband are going away for a week I volunteered to take them.’

  ‘Just you and three boys? Beth could be right. You’ll need someone who knows what he’s doing to put up the tent.’

  ‘Will I? Is it that difficult?’

  ‘A nightmare if you don’t know what you’re doing.’

  ‘Do you warn your customers about that when you’re selling them one of your dream tents?’

  ‘We do advise them to have a practice run at home in the garden before they go trekking up the Amazon. Have you done that, Miss Cornwell?’

  ‘Trekked up the Amazon?’

  ‘Had a practice run—in the garden?’

  ‘Not yet.’

  ‘You should. This weather isn’t going to hold for ever. It might be pouring with rain, or blowing a force ten gale when you get to wherever you’re going.’

  ‘Are you volunteering to show me how it’s done, Mr Jefferson?’ She didn’t think so. He was doing it on automatic, Cassie decided. It wasn’t anything personal; he wasn’t in the least bit interested in her, he just couldn’t help himself.

  ‘Maybe. Why don’t we discuss it over lunch?’

  Lunch? The man really was too much. Did he think she would swoon into his arms with gratitude?

  ‘Won’t you be too busy pursuing leggy blondes to worry about me and three small boys?’ she enquired, keeping the edge from her voice with difficulty as, determined to put an end to this nonsense, she turned to the flyleaf of the book.

  ‘Who said I pursued anyone?’

  The implication being that they pursued him? Good grief. ‘Your sister’s name is Helen, I think you said?’ She refused to take any further part in this conversation.

  ‘That’s right.’ She signed the book, handed it to Beth to wrap and waited for him to go. He didn’t. ‘Don’t forget my book, Cassandra,’ he reminded her.

  She’d assumed his offer to buy a book had been simply part of the game—in fact she’d been sure it was. But if he had more money than sense she wasn’t about to argue. She took a second book from the pile, opened it and for a moment considered the bare white space of the flyleaf.

  Then she wrote, ‘For Nick Jefferson—a man to be taken with just a pinch of salt.’ Then she signed it and handed it to him.

  CHAPTER TWO

  NICK regarded the inscription for a moment before passing the book to Beth with his charge card without comment. A man had to pay for his pleasure, after all, and flirting with Cassandra Cornwell had certainly been different. Whether he could describe it entirely as a pleasure he couldn’t be sure. Except for that kiss. He hadn’t been kidding about the strawberries.

  ‘Now, where shall we have lunch?’ he asked Cassie. ‘I’m sure you know all the best places.’

  Not as well as he did; she was certain of that. ‘I’m sorry, Nick, I already have a luncheon engagement.’ She offered him her hand without thinking…at least, she hoped she had
n’t been thinking. ‘I do hope your sister enjoys the book.’

  ‘And what about me?’ He was holding onto her hand again, the pad of his thumb pressed against the backs of her fingers in something close to a caress. Cassie retrieved it quickly. She was twenty-seven years old, well beyond the point in life where she was prepared to become just another entry in any man’s little black book.

  ‘You’ll never open your book again,’ she said briskly. ‘You’ll just stick it on a shelf somewhere, or maybe it won’t even get that far. Maybe you’ll just go back to your office and give it to your secretary.’

  ‘Not with that inscription, I won’t.’

  ‘You didn’t think it appropriate? I’m sorry, Nick. Would you like me to give you your money back?’

  ‘No.’ Then, as she reached for her bag, he added, ‘I can’t wait to read it more closely.’

  ‘Nonsense. You’ll hide it away in the bottom drawer of your desk and forget all about it. That would be such a waste when I can find a good home for it.’ She opened her purse and began to extract the money to refund the cost of the book.

  Nick closed his hand over hers. ‘Put your money away. I promise I shall take your book home with me this evening and study it with the closest interest. Who knows? Maybe you’ll convert me and I’ll be tempted to cook something.’

  ‘Be careful you don’t make a complete strawberry fool of yourself, Nick,’ Beth warned him as she returned his card and handed him the books in a bag. ‘Give my best wishes to your mother and don’t wait for Helen’s next birthday before you drop in again. You do have to pass the door every day,’ she reminded him.

  ‘I won’t,he promised, his gaze ligering momentarily on Cassie. Then he stepped through the door and out into the huge airy atrium that rose through the centre of the building.

  ‘Whew!’ Cassie said, flopping back in her chair as the door swung shut behind him. And she shook her fingers, blowing on her nails as if scorched.

  Beth laughed. ‘You’re a cool one, Cassie. I should think it’s a totally new experience for Nick to be turned down for anything, particularly lunch in some fancy restaurant. ’

  ‘Then I shall take comfort in the certainty that the experience will be a memorable one for him.’ She smiled slightly. ‘Which is more than can be said for the dish of the day—which is all I would have been if I’d said yes.’

  ‘I see your point. So who are you lunching with?’

  ‘You. My treat.’

  ‘You turned down Nick Jefferson for me? Lady, you need to get your priorities right.’

  ‘Just because the man makes me sizzle, Beth, doesn’t mean I have to leap onto the plate and hand him the mustard.’

  ‘He does make you sizzle, then?’

  ‘Only in the same way as your average movie star.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘You know. You go to the cinema and while the lights are down he’s all yours. Then you go home. Men are safer that way.’

  ‘Don’t you find safety a touch boring?’

  ‘Not at all. Besides, you heard the man. He has an incurable weakness for blondes.’

  ‘I know. Tall blondes at that. The cool Grace Kelly type. One has just taken up residence in the Jefferson Sports marketing department and I hear the guys are laying odds on how long it will take her to succumb to the Jefferson charm. But do you know something? For all the lovely blondes Nick’s chased and undoubtedly caught in the last few years, he’s never actually been tempted to marry one of them. Doesn’t that tell you something?’

  ‘That they’re smart?’

  ‘You’re not that cynical, Cassie.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I am.’ The onlooker saw more of the game and she’d been an onlooker for long enough to know that she’d made the right decision. But she was human enough to be interested in a little hot gossip. ‘He’s never even come close?’ she asked.

  Beth shrugged. ‘He bought a lovely cottage just outside town a few years back and everyone got excited about that, assuming he was going to take the plunge.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘It turned out he was having fun with an interior decorator at the time. I suppose she just wanted something to practise on and he was inclined to indulge her. Once she’d finished with the cottage she moved on.’ She grinned. ‘Or maybe he moved her on.’

  ‘That sounds more likely. After all, why would he bother to marry anyone when he’s having such a good time?’

  Beth frowned. ‘Nick isn’t like that.’

  ‘No?’ Cassie shook her head. ‘He’s a good-looking man, Beth, and maybe he’s as nice as you say, but I like a little more bottom to a man.’

  ‘Bottom? He has the cutest butt—’

  ‘Substance. Gravitas,’ Cassie interrupted quickly. ‘Nick Jefferson is a cuckoo. A very charming, very beguiling cuckoo, no doubt, and I can see the way your mind is working. But I’m a swan—so don’t even think about it.’

  Beth’s forehead wrinkled up into a frown. ‘A swan?’

  ‘They mate for life.’ It was an excuse that had served her well enough until now, but her fingers strayed to lips still tingling from that unexpected kiss. Then she saw Beth looking at her with an expression that mingled sympathy with just a touch of exasperation, a look that said five years was long enough to mourn for anyone. ‘I know, I’ll probably end my days talking to my cat,’ she said, quickly, before Beth said it for her.

  ‘Possibly, but that’s no reason not to have a little fun with the cuckoos, or even the ducks, while you’re waiting for another swan to come along. I imagine swans do look for another mate if the first one… It’s not too late to call Nick back and tell him you’ve changed your mind about lunch—’ She began to move towards the door.

  ‘Stay right where you are, Beth Winslet. Nick Jefferson is not my kind of man.’

  ‘He’s every girl’s kind of man,’ Beth said with a grin.

  ‘Exactly. And he isn’t about to saddle himself with one when he can have the whole gallery, now is he? So, where am I going to take you for lunch?’

  Beth continued to challenge her for another thirty seconds, then she threw up her hands, conceding defeat. ‘I should be treating you,’ she said. ‘I can’t believe the number of people you brought into the shop this morning.

  ‘And some of them even bought a book,’ Cassie said with a grin as she signed the books left on the table.

  ‘I know you hate these things. It was good of you to give up your morning.’

  ‘It was the least I could do. After all, catering for your wedding changed my life—’

  ‘Lunch with Nick Jefferson might well have done the same,’ Beth pointed out. ‘Have you ever considered the possibility that I might be your fairy godmother—?’

  ‘You’re not suggesting that Nick Jefferson is Prince Charming?’

  ‘Heaven forbid. I wouldn’t wish Prince Charming on any woman. Just consider… He lined up all the beauties in the land so that he could take his pick of them. And then he chose Cinderella by the size of her feet. How sad can you get?’

  ‘Well, when you put it like that…’

  ‘I do. I have to admit that you do have the daintiest little feet I’ve ever seen—but I have the feeling that Nick looks for a little more than that in a woman.’

  ‘Blonde hair, super-model looks?’ Cassie suggested.

  ‘Well, what do men know? As your fairy godmother my advice would have been to let him take you to lunch.’

  ‘I’d advise you to hang up your wand and quit while you’re ahead, Beth. Now, I’ve discovered this great little place down by the river. So, what do you say?’

  ‘Thank you?’

  ‘That’ll do nicely.’

  Twenty floors above them in the Jefferson Tower, Nick Jefferson was facing a problem of his own. She was approaching him right now across the marble floor of the lobby. Tall, slender, with platinum hair that emphasised her glacial beauty, Veronica Grant was a distinctly superior female and since she’d been brought in as a consultant to work with
the marketing department she’d had every man who worked at the headquarters of Jefferson Sports drooling over her every word, even the ones old enough and married enough to know better.

  Not that she gave them any encouragement. Professional to her fingertips, she confined her conversation strictly to the job in hand. She appeared to be quite unaware of the testosterone rampaging in her wake as she walked through the building.

  Appeared to be. Nick Jefferson was not entirely convinced about that. There wasn’t a woman yet born that oblivious of the ripples she caused as she walked across a room. Not when the ripples were of tidal-wave proportions. It had to be an act. Didn’t it?

  The temptation to find out was almost irresistible. After all, his name headed the list of odds in the ‘Ice Queen Stakes’ that some clown had posted in the men’s room—hardly surprising in view of the fact that his family owned the business and that he was still, despite his thirty-three years, one of the few men on the list without at least one failed marriage behind him. A situation he was in no hurry to change. He’d seen the bitter aftermath of too many marriages that had ended on the rocks to be eager to rush into wedlock.

  Not that his name seemed to impress Veronica Grant. She treated him with the same rather distant politeness that she bestowed on everyone else.

  He wondered if she knew about the list. He’d ordered its removal the moment he’d seen it, well aware that the female thought-police of the typing pool would pounce on such political incorrectness with glee. But things like that had a way of getting around; which meant that simply asking her out to dinner the way he might any other new colleague was likely to be met with a certain amount of suspicion. He was well aware that more than one of his colleagues had made the mistake of being too eager. Her response had been a polite but definite ‘No, thank you’. No excuse. No face-saving suggestion that she was busy, or involved with someone else. Just a plain, unadorned ‘no’.

  Was it just that she didn’t mix business with pleasure? he wondered. Or was she waiting for something better to come along? The heir apparent to the Jefferson Sports empire, for instance?