by Lisa Plumley
She was seriously underprepared for this, Danielle realized. There was more to Chip Larsen’s momentous phone call than she’d known. Why hadn’t the chairman of the board simply confided in her? Why hadn’t he told her there might be protestors? Didn’t the upper management trust her? Hadn’t she proven herself? According to the cherished handbook, they were all supposed to be “on the same team” at Moosby’s.
This wasn’t going to earn her the promotion she wanted.
Unless, as part of being tested for an upper management position, she was supposed to have intercepted the protesters herself? But how could she? The only thing she’d been prepared for was a celebrity CEO meet-and-greet . . . and maybe a few photo ops with the man of the hour, followed by an ad shoot. That’s all.
That’s all Chip Larsen had prepped her for, at least.
He must have known this might happen. He was the chairman of the board of Moosby’s! He was plugged in. She wasn’t.
Danielle couldn’t believe she hadn’t asked more questions during that phone call. She’d obviously been blinded by her own hopes for the future—distracted by her own pride at having her work recognized . . . just the way that unctuous jerk, Chip Larsen, had probably intended her to be, all along.
This was all so . . . confusing. Especially with happy-go-lucky Jason Hamilton partying down, ho-ho-ho style, in the middle of her store. With several dozen admirers. What had he been caught doing with Bethany, the future anthropologist, anyway?
Irked, Danielle spun around. She made her way past partying customers, neighbors, friends, and employees, feeling her unease rise with every jolly, eggnog-brandishing person she passed.
It looked as if Moosby’s HQ had played her for a fool.
They hadn’t clued her in at all. Instead, without her permission or her knowledge, they’d deliberately used her store to publicly put Jason Hamilton in the midst of all his fans . . . and his detractors, too. He was probably supposed to be there apologizing for . . . whatever outrageous thing he’d done.
Which was ironic, since he didn’t seem at all contrite.
Maybe they hadn’t told him that’s why he was there, either?
Whether they had or not, Jason Hamilton seemed to have stepped into his own private Waterloo, complete with protestors to instigate trouble and cameras to catch his expected downfall. It was fortunate for him that he’d been able to sidestep it.
This time, at least.
Full of foreboding for the next time, Danielle strode away, headed for her office. Partway there, amid the crush of people, she glimpsed the satellite news crew and two reporters from the Kismet Comet newspaper—reporters she’d dutifully called in as the Moosby’s chairman of the board had suggested—recording every moment of Jason Hamilton’s Christmastime visit to Kismet.
Whatever Moosby’s HQ wanted out of all this—redemption for Jason Hamilton’s misstep with Bethany, a trial by fire for their newest corporate exec (aka her!), or something else—those reporters were hoping for another scandal. Because it was evident there’d been at least one scandal already.
Betty hadn’t handcrafted a protest sign and brought her friends downtown just for giggles. She’d had a reason for doing that—a reason instilled by the gossip-hungry cable TV news channel that was ludicrously popular in Kismet, yes. But all the same . . .
Danielle had to know more. She had to inoculate herself and her store against whatever damage Jason Hamilton’s visit might cause. She did not intend for her store and its staff to become patsies. They might be living in a small town, but they weren’t hicks. How dare Chip Larsen even try to do this?
She wasn’t a stranger to feeling like a fool, Danielle acknowledged to herself as she reached her office. She’d felt exactly this way when she’d learned that Mark had been cheating on her. She’d hated it then. She hated it now. Being the unwitting dupe in someone else’s deception was the worst.
But just in case she’d misunderstood the situation . . .
A few minutes’ Internet searching on her office PC revealed that she hadn’t misunderstood anything. Jason Hamilton had been photographed in a fairly compromising situation with Bethany, the nearly naked anthropologist. As Danielle clicked her way through the search results she’d uncovered, her jaw dropped.
One or two media outlets were really out to crucify Jason Hamilton. The photo in question was incriminating, sure. But CEOs had done far worse things than offer a toast to a woman with a pair of bodacious ta-tas. It was almost, Danielle mused to herself as the holiday tunes and general party clamor grew louder outside her open office door, as if someone was out to amplify the potential offensiveness of Jason’s behavior.
It was understandable for Moosby’s HQ to want to project a family friendly corporate image. As a company figurehead, Jason Hamilton was money in the bank to Moosby’s—as long as he didn’t cause any trouble. Now that he had . . .
A knock on her office’s doorframe startled her.
She looked up from her computer. Jason Hamilton stood there watching her, with the party in the background, looking every inch the gorgeous bad boy of toy retailing she now knew he was.
Or might be. Danielle wasn’t certain. News could be manipulated, just the same way people could be. But not her.
Not anymore. From here on out, she intended to be smarter.
She never intended to feel as gullible as she had when Mark had divorced her and moved in with twenty-three-year-old Crystal. Not again. Not if she could help it. Not even at work.
Especially not at work.
“Hi.” Her company’s hotshot CEO smiled at her. “I’m Jason.”
It was the same innocuous opener he’d used on 95 percent of the people currently boogying to the Klangers’ version of “Last Christmas” on her toy-filled sales floor. She knew that. But for whatever reason, that didn’t matter. Upon finding herself on the receiving end of Jason’s dazzling smile, Danielle wound up feeling sort of . . . fluttery anyway.
Damn it. She wasn’t going to be susceptible to this.
She stood, straightening her spine. “I’m Danielle Sharpe. Welcome to Moosby’s in Kismet, Mr. Hamilton. You’re late. Really late. We were starting to wonder if you’d ever arrive.”
Her blunt approach had its desired effect. He forgot about shaking her hand—something Danielle wanted to avoid, given its mind-scrambling effects on Betty—and apologized instead.
“Yeah. I know. I’m sorry about that.” He ducked his head, treating her to an intimate view of his rumpled dark hair.
It looked soft. She wanted to run her fingers through it.
Wait. What? No, she didn’t. That was crazy. Super crazy.
He’d been wearing a Santa hat a while ago. Where was it? If he’d still had on that hat, he might have seemed less appealing.
Ha, her inner sense of flutteriness mocked. As if.
“I’m not used to driving in the snow.” He offered her a bashful smile, then raised his hands. “My hands are L.A. hands. Good for surfing, going to parties, and putting on sunglasses. Not so much for steering through snow flurries, I’m afraid.”
Of course she looked at his hands. How could she not?
He’d invited her to. Even as Jason frowned at them with faux chagrin, Danielle studied them herself. She couldn’t help drawing an altogether different conclusion than he had.
His hands were big but graceful. His fingers were long but elegant. His palms were slightly callused. They looked manly.
How did a posh, spoiled-to-the-max CEO get calluses?
“I dunno,” Danielle mused aloud. “Your hands look plenty capable of doing interesting things to me.”
His expression changed. Surprise darkened his eyes.
Oh, his face said. We’re going to play it that way?
Gigi would have been so proud of her.
“Saluting topless women, for one thing,” she went on as she casually shut down her office PC. “Do you care to explain that?”
She punctuated her question with a del
iberate look. Jason’s formerly relaxed posture sharpened as he glanced over his shoulder. Good. She’d managed to put him off-balance. She didn’t like being the only one who’d been caught unprepared.
Under different circumstances, Danielle might have felt bad about confronting him so candidly. But today she didn’t.
Because, she reminded herself, today she didn’t believe for one second that Jason Hamilton didn’t know his own company was playing her for a patsy. They’d woefully underestimated her in the process, though. Danielle meant to prove it, too.
Chip Larsen had misled her during their phone call. He’d flattered her. He’d taken advantage of her eagerness. But he’d forgotten one crucial detail. Thanks to him, Danielle now had exclusive access to Moosby’s star CEO. For as long as Jason was in town, she had a chance to impress him—to make him see that, whether they’d ever planned to give it to her or not, she deserved the promotion they’d dangled in front of her.
That’s exactly what she intended to do, too.
After all, how many Apple underlings had ever gotten a direct line to Steve Jobs? How many Facebook programmers had ever had a chance to schmooze with Mark Zuckerberg? How many Amazon.com employees had ever stood within five feet of Jeff Bezos? Not many. Powerhouse CEOs weren’t usually accessible to people like her. Now that Danielle had a chance to make an impression on her megaboss, she was going to run with it.
But first, she was going to get some answers. Because the only thing stronger than her yearning to get promoted and give her kids a better life was her need not to be deceived.
She wanted all the facts. She wanted them now.
Before she became even more susceptible to that smile of his. Fortunately for her, at the moment, Jason Hamilton’s former boyish brilliance had dimmed considerably.
Just then, Moosby’s vaunted CEO didn’t look like a man who’d inspired a spontaneous holiday party on her toy store’s sales floor. He looked like a kid who’d been caught taking not just one forbidden cookie, but the whole damn cookie jar.
He looked . . . crestfallen. Not necessarily because he’d been caught, but because now he wouldn’t get any more cookies.
“Well?” Danielle prodded, arching her brow. “I’m waiting.”
Chapter Five
Damn it. He really needed to find Edna Gresham.
Jason decided as much, as he met the don’t-mess-with-me gaze of the bespectacled brunette who’d confronted him in Moosby’s back office. Looking at her was like encountering the world’s hottest starlet-turned-accountant . . . one who wanted his head on a stick.
Right about then, a nice, grandmotherly, milk-and-cookies type like Edna Gresham—the person he’d expected to find there—sounded pretty good to him. Instead, he’d come face-to-face with the small-town equivalent of The Inquisitor. Given the difficult past two days he’d had, Jason wasn’t in the mood for this.
On the other hand . . .
“You’re asking me to explain my side of things?”
“Of the scandal that brought protestors to my store? Yes.”
That was interesting. “Nobody else wanted an explanation.”
She crossed her arms. Jason experienced an unprecedented urge to wrap her arms around him instead. Which was weird. The last thing he was in the market for was a freaking cuddle.
“Maybe that’s because they realized asking you for an explanation was a lost cause,” she speculated with another arched brow. “Since you’re dissembling instead of explaining.”
“‘Dissembling’?” Her glasses weren’t just for effect. She was brainy. She wasn’t backing down, either. At least she’d given him credit for being able to comprehend her A-plus vocabulary. She wasn’t talking down to him the way Chip tried to. That was nice. “That’s kind of harsh, don’t you think so, Ms. Sharpe?”
He lightened his objection with a genial grin.
She stared him down. She didn’t even blush. Uh-oh.
Whatever mojo he possessed, it didn’t work with Danielle Sharpe. He was on his own here. Naked. In a manner of speaking.
Not that he would have minded seeing her naked. Or both of them naked. Together. Someplace cozy and warm and private . . .
Hell. He had to focus. What was the matter with him?
It was as if he’d never met a cute brunette who filled out a red and green More, More, Moosby’s! holiday T-shirt and a pair of well-fitted jeans before. Which he had. Definitely.
Jason just couldn’t remember exactly when, at the moment.
All he could see was her. Her stubbornly raised chin. Her glossy red lips. Her tousled dark hair and her slender, athletic frame and her take-charge stance. Her posture told him she was in control here and didn’t intend to let him forget it.
Danielle Sharpe might be the only person within five miles, it occurred to him, who hadn’t tackled six people to reach him today. He’d thought he’d met everyone except Edna Gresham and maybe the person who mopped the floors. Obviously, he hadn’t.
Perversely, it bugged him that Danielle hadn’t joined the throng of eager Moosby’s fans. But it also impressed him that she’d asked him for an explanation for Bethanygate, rather than jump to conclusions the way his entire board of directors had.
She wasn’t similarly impressed with him. “Call me Danielle,” she invited him. “While you’re explaining yourself.”
“Okay, Danielle. Thanks. Please call me Jason.” Being on a first-name basis with her was a step in the right direction. He could work with that. With a nod, Jason indicated the office. It was tidy and organized. Just like her. “Mind if I come in?”
“Be my guest.” She gave an elegant wave. “You’re the boss.”
“For the moment, I am. If I play my cards right,” he joked, squeezing in between stacked-up inventory boxes, a mini fridge, and a marked-up whiteboard with monthly sales goals written on it. “If I don’t, I won’t be anybody’s boss by New Year’s Day.”
“Wow. Sounds tough.”
So did her unsympathetic, disbelieving tone. “It is.”
“As if anybody would get rid of the star of the company.”
“It’s been known to happen.”
“If you’re trying to distract me by making me feel sorry for you, it won’t work.” Danielle tapped her temple, drawing his attention to her nerdy/sexy eyeglasses. “I keep an unbelievably long to-do list up here,” she informed him. “Right now, get an explanation from you is hanging in the number one position.”
Jason grinned. “I do like a tenacious woman.”
“I like an honest man. Too bad they’re so hard to find.”
“Whoa.” He swept his gaze over the office, belatedly taking in the details. A fuzzy size-her jacket that had been slung over the back of the desk chair. A takeout coffee cup bearing the imprint of her vivacious red lip gloss. A framed photograph of three children, neatly aligned next to the Moosby’s corporate rule book. There was a rule book? Huh. “Plenty of men are honest.”
She snorted. “So they say. I’ll believe it when I see it.” She propped her hip on the edge of her desk, then gave him another no-nonsense look. “Besides, I’m not debating with you.”
“You started it.”
“I did not.”
“Did too.”
“Di—” She broke off, catching herself just in time.
Wearing an abashed look, she smiled at him.
Jason felt as though he’d invented a jet pack or a flying car. Or done something equally improbable but totally cool.
“You have a beautiful smile, Danielle.” He was rapidly losing interest in tracking down staid but safe Edna Gresham. Wherever she was. “It makes your whole face glow.”
“Nice try. But that’s just the Christmas lights I’ve strung up in here. They make everything look better.”
Jason doubted it. It was her. But he frowned anyway.
Christmas. Bah-humbug.
“You don’t like Christmas?” she prodded upon glimpsing his expression. “If so, you’re in the wrong town
.”
He remembered being enveloped in holiday cheer when he’d driven in—recalled being ambushed in the toy store’s doorway with cheerful crowds and flashing lights and freaking “Santa Claus Is Coming to Town” being played by an oompah band in cheesy sweaters and knew that she was right about that much.
Evidently, he’d been assigned to rehabilitate his dinged public image at the merriest toy store in Kismet. Possibly in the whole world. Around here, they appeared to eat, drink, and sleep Christmas. They probably pounded eggnog like whiskey shots, shit sparkly gold ornaments, and dedicated their neighborhood watch programs to sighting Santa’s flying reindeer.
He regrouped. “So, you wanted an explanation from me?”
“About an hour ago now.” Another grin. “Yes.”
She was sarcastic, too. Great.
Seriously great. He liked a woman with verve.
“Okay. I was on vacation. In the tropics.”
“Tropical vacation, huh? Sounds fancy. Must be nice.”
“Usually, it is.” Except when you’re deliberately running away from your own company. “Anyway, I was at a party when some women came up to me,” Jason went on. “We were all drinking—”
“As one does at a party.”
“—and having a good time, when suddenly I look to the side and see one of the women whipping off her spangled top.”
“Sequins can be awfully itchy,” Danielle deadpanned.
“There was a lot of woo-hooing going on,” he told her, “and some cell phones came out, but I didn’t find out about that until later, when the pictures surfaced. At the time, I was busy holding Bethany’s mojito so she could put her top back on.”
“Back on? She was getting dressed? So quickly?” Danielle gave him a faux perplexed frown. “But how did you have time to autograph lefty?” She performed a game-show-hostess-worthy ta-da! wave at her own T-shirted left breast. “Or was it righty?”
