The Bachelor Bid. Kate Denton

      CHAPTER ONE

      CARA BREEDON had reached the door of her boss’s office, about to make her exit, when Brooke Abbott’s voice halted her in her tracks. “By the way...any progress with Wyatt McCauley?”

      Give me strength—not McCauley again! To Cara, the name was starting to grate like nails on a chalkboard. Just to get through one day—even one morning—without hearing that name, that question. No such luck. “Not much headway yet,” Cara reluctantly answered.

      “Then you’ve got to get cracking, Cara. I want Wyatt McCauley.”

      Tell me something I don’t know. Ever since Brooke’s designation as chair of her sorority’s celebrity bachelor auction, she’d fixated on the idea of computer magnate McCauley as the star attraction. Having delegated to Cara, her secretary, the task of making her fixation a reality, Brooke had reserved for herself the chore of spewing out reminders and demanding updates.

      Brooke would have gone after McCauley herself if it hadn’t been for the fact her firm, Brooke Abbott Advertising, had just signed its biggest client to date.

      The curse of good fortune meant that all of Brooke’s energies had to be directed toward the new client.

      Still, she somehow managed to eke out a few minutes each day to yank Cara’s chain about McCauley. For the past two weeks every other sentence from Brooke had been “Wyatt-this, Wyattthat.” With each new mention of him, Cara’s suspicions became that much firmer that when Brooke said she wanted the man, she wasn’t talking only about the auction. She wanted Wyatt McCauley, period. And she wanted him bad. Were it within Cara’s power, she’d deliver him—gift-wrapped or hog-tied if necessary—just to get Brooke off her case.

      Landing McCauley wasn’t the first difficult project Cara had been handed, but it was proving to be the most exasperating. As she drove home from the office Cara tried to keep in mind that Brooke was a generous employer, paying top dollar to her staff. In return she expected lots of late evenings and Saturdays, plus a myriad of personal tasks that had nothing to do with company business. On the whole, Cara didn’t mind. It wasn’t unusual for a company owner to throw in such additional duties. If it meant pleasing the boss, she could tolerate picking up her dry cleaning and doing the grunt work for a favorite Abbott charity. All in all, Cara had few complaints. Few complaints, that is, until the day Brooke first uttered the words “auction” and “McCauley” in the same sentence. Now the job was turning into a gigantic headache.

      The problem was Wyatt McCauley wasn’t cooperating. For the past ten days, Cara had called his office only to find him unavailable each time. Just yesterday she tried again, surprised when she’d been put straight through to the man himself.

      “Cara Breedon, Mr. McCauley. Thank you for taking my call,” she had begun.

      “No problem,” McCauley had answered cordially. “It’s been such a hectic day, I welcome an excuse to escape the pile of work on my desk—now you’ve given me one.”

      They’d chatted amiably for a minute or so before he pressed the point. “And what may I do for you, Ms. Breedon?”

      There had been no innuendo in his soft Texas accent, but still Cara could just imagine what he could do. The voice alone was enough to help Cara understand Brooke’s fanatical interest.

      “I’m recruiting participants on behalf of Brooke Abbott, chair of the Rosemund bachelor auction. You’re probably aware that the auction benefits—”

      A loud sigh had stopped her spiel. “Ms. Breedon, too bad you’ve wasted your time and mine. As I’ve told your auction gang repeatedly, I don’t do that sort of thing. Good day.” The line had clicked off.

      Cara remembered staring at the receiver by then humming with a dial tone. She had been tempted to dial McCauley back and tell him just what she thought of his manners. He’d been so nice at first until she...until she’d taken advantage of his accessibility with a sales pitch, one he’d apparently heard once too often. Grudgingly Cara had admitted that yes, he did have the right to cut her off.

      But, darn it, she thought now, she had to have this man and she’d keep after him until he said yes. Somehow she needed to make him understand that the auction wasn’t “that sort of thing” but an important fund-raiser for a worthy cause.

      It was either keep after McCauley or report failure to Brooke. And at the moment, she’d do anything to avoid such a scenario. Caught between the new bigfish client and the fast-approaching auction, Brooke was so uptight she might commit hara-kiri—or ask Cara to.

      The next morning Cara called McCauley’s office again. The assistant said the CEO was tied up and couldn’t speak with her. Cara left a message asking that he ring her back. Three days passed with no return call.

      Casting about for a different approach, Cara decided to adopt a marketing strategy, beginning with the gift of a bright-red, limited-edition sports cap publicizing the auction. Along with the cap went a letter explaining the cause it benefited—the Rosemund Learning Center for disadvantaged children.

      Neither the cap nor the letter elicited a response, so Cara followed up with a tie—special delivery from the Neiman-Marcus flagship store in Dallas. The enclosed card said she hoped to “tie up his support for the auction.” Still no reaction.

      After