Man Trouble

by Melanie Craft

  “It's simple. Look, he's a market of one. So we study him to find out exactly what's been selling. Then we design the perfect package, create buzz, do some strategic product placement…”

  “Wait a minute. I don't like the sound of this. What am I, a can of soup? I'm not a product. And you're not selling me, to Jake Berenger or anyone else.”

  “Wrong,” Carter said. “Selling you is exactly what we're doing. That's what seduction is all about, right? Convincing someone that they want you? That they have to have you? Sounds like sales to me. Am I wrong?”

  “Yes! It's not that cold-blooded.”

  “Oh, come on,” Carter scoffed. “What do you think attraction is? You subscribe to the Cupid theory, with a little naked guy flying around shooting arrows of love into people?”

  “Of course not,” Molly said. “But I think that when two people are attracted to each other, it's because they've recognized qualities in each other that are personally meaningful—”

  “Exactly,” Carter said. “And let me tell you what qualities Jake Berenger considers meaningful. Hair: pale blond and long. Eyes: blue. Height: five feet eight. Body: slender but curvy, about one hundred and twenty-five pounds. Age: twenty-six…”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Patterns. Statistics. I collected all of the information I could find on all of the women he's dated over the past ten years and gave it to a friend who's handy with computers. What I just told you is what the statistical analysis program told us. We took every detail that seemed relevant, fed it into the program, and it gave us, to an inch and a pound, Jake Berenger's ideal woman.”

  “How charming,” Molly said. “If you're trying to get me to seriously dislike this man, just keep on talking.”

  “Oh, I could,” Carter said. “I was only warming up. How about a tendency to prefer women who wear the color pink?”

  “Pink? This is becoming a bad cliché. Plus, pink makes me look blotchy. This is never going to work, Carter! My hair is brown, I don't have blue eyes, I'm only five-foot-four and I might be slender, but I'm definitely not curvy—”

  “Details,” Carter said. “We'll deal with all of that later.”

  “Not unless I agree to go along with this. Can you explain to me how I'm supposed to charm such a shallow, ridiculous man?”

  “Acting. This isn't about you, Molly. It's not about the two of you falling in love. It's about creating a fantasy character, just like when you write a book.”

  “It's deception. It's not honest.”

  “It's an adventure,” Carter said. A wheedling note crept into his voice. “Do you want me to beg? I will. Please, Molly. Please come with me, your old buddy, and help me reach the heights of success. You know, those same heights that I helped you reach?”

  “But I don't know how—”

  “Yes you do. Read your own book. Spend a week forgetting the Respectable Professor Shaw and become Sandra St. Claire. If you can write like her, why can't you live like her for a week?”

  Molly didn't answer. She had just remembered a game called “Spies” that she had invented and played as a child, with the help of a red-haired girl named Kristin, her best friend at the time. The game had involved a clandestine meeting in Molly's attic, where each girl assigned the other a “secret identity” consisting mostly of a made-up name. They had never done more than run around acting mysterious and giggling a lot, but Molly still remembered that exciting sense of possibility, the feeling that she could do or say anything, with the justification—however questionable—that it wasn't really her.

  Acting, Carter had said. He was right, wasn't he? It wouldn't really be her out there, in a pink dress, batting her eyelashes at a hotel tycoon. Whether she failed miserably or succeeded, it wouldn't matter. Whatever happened on a Caribbean island, hundreds of miles away from Belden College, would be as harmless and as meaningless as a game of Spies.

  “Well,” Carter said gloomily, “if you aren't willing to help a friend in need, then so be it. I understand, really I do.”

  “Carter…” Molly began.

  “No, no.” He put up one hand. “Don't worry about me. I'll just keep on with my pathetic existence as a B-grade journalist, struggling to survive, barely making ends meet…”

  “Carter,” Molly said again, more forcefully this time.

  He ignored her. “I'll just give up on all my dreams of ever bettering myself, of ever achieving the success that you—”

  “Carter, shut up! You win. I'll do it.”

  “You will?” His grin was sudden and blinding.

  “Yes. But let's clarify one thing. When you say that you want me to seduce Jake Berenger, I'm assuming that you mean that in the old-fashioned sense, right? Because if you're asking me to sleep with him, I can tell you right now that you have the wrong woman.”

  “Molly,” Carter said, looking mildly scandalized. “Please. What kind of person do you think I am?”

  “I'm not going to answer that. So we understand each other on that point?”

  “Oh, sure. Definitely, I mean. Sleeping with him won't be necessary, anyway. Someone told me recently that the power is all in the chase.”

  “Who said that?”

  “Ah,” Carter said smugly. “My secret weapon. Our guarantee of success.”

  “You've lost me again.”

  “Another trick that I've learned in my long and illustrious career,” Carter said, “is that when you need expert help, what do you do?”

  “You call an expert?”

  “Bingo.” Carter reached for his battered leather satchel, pulled out a paperback book, and handed it to her.

  Molly looked down at it. On the cover was a perfectly groomed platinum-haired woman who appeared to be in her early forties. She was smiling, knowingly and glamorously, at the camera. “How to Meet and Marry the Rich,” Molly read aloud. “A Guide for Girls Who Want It All. By Elaine McKee Culpepper Von Reinholz Newberg? Carter, what on earth? Elaine McKee? Isn't that your…?”

  “You remember my sister?” Carter asked. “She writes, too. In her case, it tends to be autobiographical.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Billionaire Gets the Boot

  “I had no choice but to break it off,” says a pale and fragile Skye Elliot, speaking to this reporter of the recent end of her well-publicized relationship with resort magnate Jake Berenger. “Jake and I just don't have the same values. I wanted to make a home for us, but he only cares about life in the fast lane. The parties, the drugs…”

  Drugs? “Oh, I never saw him use drugs,” she says. “But with that lifestyle…” Her cerulean eyes have a haunted look, hinting that the celebrity tycoon has a darker side.

  “He told me to give up my work as an advocate for Third World children so that I would have more time for him. I just couldn't do it.”

  Tears spring to her eyes. Gratefully, she accepts a tissue from her manager…

  Jake folded the Daily News in half and tossed it across his desk toward Oliver Arias. “Well,” he said, “we expected this, didn't we?”

  “It's going to get worse,” Oliver said darkly. “It's going to be a feeding frenzy. I think we should sue. I'll talk to the lawyers.”

  “Don't bother,” Jake said. “We're not suing.”

  “What?” Oliver's face was flushed with outrage. He shook the paper at Jake. “These are lies. She wants to destroy you. She's calling you a drug addict! We need to act fast.”

  “Actually, what she said was that she'd never seen me using drugs, which is certainly true. She's too smart—or the Daily News's lawyers are too smart—to give us anything to hang a libel suit on.”

  “It's the principle of the thing. We need to make a statement. We have to fight back.”

  Jake shook his head. “We can't. It would be gasoline on the fire. There's nothing that the media would love more than a public mud-slinging match, and I guarantee that between Skye and me, the one with the teary cerulean eyes would win.”

  “But—”
>
  “Take a deep breath,” Jake advised, “and forget about it.”

  “We have to issue a statement! The reporters have been calling all morning, reading us things that she's said about you, asking if you want to refute them.”

  Jake shrugged. “They're playing chicken with me, trying to get a reaction. If they don't get one, they'll give up. We've been through this kind of thing before.”

  “No, we haven't,” Oliver said. “Not a personal attack from someone who actually seems credible. I don't like it, Jake. This is very bad. The stock is down again—”

  “So I keep hearing,” Jake said coolly. “And meanwhile, my so-called playboy lifestyle is on hold, and I'm doing my damnedest to get things back on track.” He stopped, hearing defensiveness in his own voice. His mother's warning about the rumblings of mutiny on the Berenger board had been on his mind for the past few days.

  A dry smile touched his mouth. Skye was either remarkably clever, or just very lucky. Knowing her, his bet was on lucky. She had stumbled across the only way that she could really do him damage—by publicly painting him as unfit to be the head of Berenger Corporation. Luckily, her media appeal was limited to Hollywood magazines and scandal sheets like the Daily News, a category not taken too seriously by the Wall Street investment community. His image could afford to take a few hits, and the story would eventually die. He hadn't gotten this far in life by panicking every time someone slung a little mud in his direction.

  “She's perfect,” exclaimed Elaine McKee Culpepper Von Reinholz Newberg, clasping her manicured hands in delight as she looked Molly up and down. “Yes, absolutely perfect.”

  Molly blushed, unexpectedly flattered. It was Saturday, one week after Carter had driven up to Belden to propose his scheme, and they were now sitting on brocade-upholstered chairs in the parlor of Carter's sister's penthouse condominium, on Chicago's near north side.

  “I admit,” Elaine continued, “that I had doubts about your judgment, Carter. But this is going to work out beautifully. This project will test the limits of my ability. We are truly beginning from ground zero.”

  Abruptly, Molly tuned back in. “I beg your pardon?”

  Elaine patted her arm. “Oh, my dear. My clients are usually much more advanced. They're models, pageant winners, girls who already know how to dress, how to flirt, how to interest a man. All they need from me is a little guidance, a little reassurance that there is nothing whatsoever wrong with setting one's sights on a man who is—as I like to say—economically advantaged. They are already halfway there by the time they come to me, and it's no challenge at all, really. But you…my goodness! If I can take a history professor with no apparent fashion sense and limited social skills, and turn her into the kind of woman who would interest the most eligible bachelor on earth, then I will have proven to myself and to the world that my techniques are foolproof. You will be my triumph.”

  Her eyes took on a faraway look. “I'll use this as the feature case study in my next book.”

  Molly's mouth had dropped open in shock, and she was having trouble breathing through the sudden constriction in her chest. “You…” she began, ran out of air, and had to take another breath. “Book? About this? Oh, no, you won't. You're not putting this into any kind of book!”

  Elaine looked surprised. “But…”

  “Absolutely not!” Molly exclaimed. “Carter, tell your sister to swear that she'll never write a word about this, or I'll walk out of here and never speak to you again.”

  Elaine's eyebrows shot up into two exaggerated arches. “Fiery!” she said.

  “Oh, God,” Carter mumbled. “Listen, you two. Can't we just…”

  “Passionate,” Elaine continued, appraising Molly with a sharper eye. “I wouldn't have guessed that by looking at you, dear. But that's a good thing. We can work with that.”

  “Carter!” Molly shouted.

  Carter looked uneasily at his sister. “You heard her,” he said. “Sorry.”

  Elaine looked hurt. “Names and all identifying details would be changed,” she said. “Naturally.”

  Molly glared at her. “Publish a single word about me and I'll have you killed,” she said, and turned to Carter. “And let me warn you,” she added, “that my ‘limited social skills’ are connected to a limited tolerance for this project.”

  “Oh, all right,” Elaine interrupted. “Fine. I won't put you in the book, although it does seem like a waste, considering the size of my investment. If I'd known that I couldn't use the material…”

  “What investment?” Molly asked.

  “Never mind,” Carter said quickly. “We'll all be putting our time and effort into this, and I am deeply grateful for your collective generosity, in all of its incarnations—”

  “Shut up, Carter,” Molly said, and turned to Elaine. “Is that what you meant? Investment of your time?”

  “Yes,” Elaine said. “My time, and my money. You don't think that Carter can afford a week for three at a Berenger resort on his salary at the Tribune, do you? My dear, this is not a Holiday Inn. Gold Bay is the most important spot in the Caribbean, and one of the top resorts in the world. And let me add that getting a reservation there, at the last minute, in the height of the holiday season, was just about impossible. I had to call the Princess Von Faxon Westenburg, my ex-sister-in-law, whose daughter Chantal works at Sotheby's with the son of a Berenger senior VP of marketing.”

  Carter looked pained. “It's a loan,” he explained to Molly. “Against eventual royalties. My sister was more forthcoming than my publisher, who is sadly lacking in optimism.”

  “I couldn't possibly turn down such a fascinating project,” Elaine added. “It was made for me. I am the sort of person who needs to be needed.”

  “Good for you,” Molly said. “But I'll be paying my own way.” She had no intention of taking charity from Elaine, and it was a pleasure to be able to refuse it. On the more practical side, covering her own expenses also meant that she had no obligation to anyone but herself. She still had her doubts about Carter's scheme, and this meeting was doing nothing to allay them.

  Elaine looked surprised. “Rooms at Gold Bay are extremely expensive.”

  “Then I suppose that your brother and I had better keep out of the minibar,” Molly said coolly. If Elaine McKee Culpepper Von Reinholz Newberg thought that she could intimidate a member of the Belden College faculty, then she was in for a shock. The woman might have perfect nails and a two-hundred-dollar haircut, but she had certainly never read Plutarch.

  Molly frowned. Something that Elaine had said, just a few moments ago, was nagging at her, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it now. It had seized her attention like a bee sting, but the conversation had quickly moved on, distracting her with talk of princesses and Sotheby's, and loans to Carter…

  “Wait a minute!” she exclaimed, alarmed. Now she remembered. “Did you just say something about a week for three at Gold Bay?”

  Elaine's matte-red lips curved into a delighted smile. “Yes, indeed,” she said. “You don't think that you can do this alone, do you? I'm going with you.”

  Judging from Carter's expression, Molly guessed that this was news to him, as well.

  “Ahh,” Carter said. His face had turned an odd shade of gray. “Elaine, that's very nice of you, but we had talked about you giving Molly just a couple of quick lessons, remember? The short course?”

  Elaine shook her head. “The short course,” she said, sliding a meaningful look in Molly's direction, “will not be long enough.”

  “Won't Mr. Newberg miss you?” Molly asked, doubting it. So far, there had been no sign of anyone who answered to that name.

  “Leonard and I separated six weeks ago,” Elaine said. “He is currently in Bermuda, visiting his offshore corporation. I don't expect a reconciliation. Not before Christmas, at least.”

  “Oh,” Carter said. “I'm sorry to hear that.” “Yes, thank you, it's very sad,” Elaine said briskly. “But life goes on, and I hate spendi
ng the holidays alone.”

  CHAPTER 5

  The Gold Bay beach was half a mile long, curved in a crescent-moon shape that hugged the blue water and gentle waves of the bay. At eight A.M. it was still deserted save for a few dedicated joggers, and Jake, who was taking his morning reconnaissance walk.

  Behind the beach was a lush garden of palms and flowering vines, and tucked into this water-hungry landscaping was a row of thirty cottages, strung like pearls around the neck of the resort. They were the best suites at Gold Bay, each with two bedrooms, a living room, a caterer's kitchen for private parties, and a large deck overlooking the sand. The trees and vines had been carefully arranged to give the occupants of each cottage the feeling that they had no neighbors, but to allow them an unobstructed view of the ocean and the action on the beach.

  Room service to the cottages came by way of an electric golf cart equipped with coolers and warming trays. There was a complimentary morning delivery of fresh juice, pastries, coffee, and the morning paper from the guest's home city, all of which would appear at a time previously arranged with the cottage's private butler. Breakfast was rarely requested before eight, but Jake noticed that a cart was arriving at Cottage Five, and wondered who the early bird was. A yoga-obsessed supermodel, perhaps. Ingrid Anderson, a Victoria's Secret catalog veteran, had arrived three days ago with a bald man in flowing white robes who had signed the register as Rama Guru. For the past two mornings at nine A.M., Rama and Ingrid, both wearing thong bathing suits, had done the Sun Salutation on the pool terrace, to the awe and delight of the rest of the guests.

  Jake strolled up the beach, a little closer to the cottage, looking curiously to see if Ingrid and Rama were there. But he saw only a smallish mousy-haired woman sitting in a chair on the deck, wrapped in one of the thick white terry-cloth Gold Bay bathrobes. The bulky robe was too big for her, and made her look as if she were being eaten by a polar bear. He nodded to her, in casual greeting, and was startled to see her eyes widen as if he had just given her the finger. Without a word, she jumped to her feet, stumbled over the hem of the robe, regained her balance, and then fled back into the cottage.