The One-Week Marriage. Renee Roszel
at her. “I was thinking.”
“Something good, I hope.” She bit her tongue. If she’d chosen that reply from a compiled list of The Ten Most Inane Things To Blurt she couldn’t have done worse.
“I was thinking about you.” He didn’t smile, merely observed her. No doubt his observation included the reddening of her face.
She sat, frozen, wishing she had that list of the ten most inane things to blurt, since they had to be better than any response she was coming up with. Apparently her blush was answer enough, because he grinned. “You never knew I thought about you?”
She shook her head.
“I do.” He squeezed her wrist. “I didn’t mean to take your feelings for granted. I’m sorry.”
She tingled where he touched her. Then she began to tingle all over. Very carefully she removed her arm from his fingers. Contact with the man didn’t help her mental processes. She rubbed the place where his hand had been and lifted her chin, preparing to tell him his apology was accepted, that she forgave him for his insensitivity. When she opened her mouth nothing came out except a little squawk. She swallowed.
“Are you angry with me?”
She shook her head.
“Good.” He closed his eyes. “That’s a load off my mind.”
She stared at him so long her eyes began to feel prickly. “What are you going to do about the Yum-Yum account?” She realized with horror she’d asked that question out loud.
He didn’t respond, just lay there, those sinful lashes curling outward across high, handsome cheekbones.
Had he actually fallen asleep this time? She doubted it, but decided he’d speak when it suited him.
After another few moments, she faced the fact that gazing at him was not the most productive way to spend her time—especially if she planned to stick to her guns about not helping him perpetrate the fraud against Mr. Rufus.
Her thoughts drifted to the few times she’d spoken with the venerable gentleman over the phone. He was always so good-natured and—well, sweet was the only word she could think of that fit.
Hugo Rufus’s Yum-Yum Baby Foods had been around since the fifties. He’d been relying on the same advertisements for years. They’d grown stagnant, dated, not changing with the times. Izzy recalled what Mr. Parish had said only a few moments ago. “He needs me.” She’d let his assertion slip by, barely registering. At the time, she’d been too flummoxed by his nearness to think clearly. She chewed the inside of her cheek, recalling his assertion. He needs me.
Izzy wondered if dear Mr. Rufus’s fortunes might be in jeopardy? If his private island was mortgaged to the hilt? She turned worriedly toward the window, seeing nothing of the celestial tableau outside. Was Mr. Rufus’s advertising search a last-ditch effort to save the stodgy company from going under?
Today’s crop of hep-short-attention-span-tell-me-quick-and-loud-or-forget-it Generation-Xer parents needed to get snagged into hearing about Yum-Yum, or the company could die.
She glanced at her boss. He lay there like some sleeping Norse god with really great lips. Her gaze trailed over him, refusing her demands to look out the window.
She’d seen her boss’s preliminary ideas for the Yum-Yum campaign, heard the jingle he would have proposed. Patterned for an MTV generation of young parents, what she’d seen was catchy and eye-grabbing. He’d even managed to talk one of today’s fastest rising rock groups into being featured in the promotion. The concept was outrageous yet darling—every member of the group happened to be the father of a baby under the age of one. The infants would also be featured. From what Izzy knew of the concept, if that ad campaign didn’t sell Yum-Yum Baby Food, nothing on this earth would.
Tom, she glanced at her boss again. If she let herself be totally honest, Gabriel Parish very well could be Yum-Yum’s last chance. What if the company went belly up? Thousands of jobs could be lost. Could she forgive herself if she didn’t help? Even if it required a tiny lie? She winced. Okay, a pretty big lie?
Why did she suddenly have to believe, with pulse-pounding certainty, that Hugo Rufus needed Gabriel Parish—married or not! Little lies, big lies, whatever it took. He needed what Gabriel Parish could give him as urgently as Dawn Day had needed dental help.
With no desire to examine her decision for potential flaws in logic, she placed her hand on her boss’s wrist. Realizing what she’d done, she snatched it away. “I—I’ll do it, sir.”
One corner of his mouth twitched briefly. “I know, Peabody.”
He never even opened his eyes.
Izzy’s idea of shopping for clothes was to go into a discount store where harried employees hardly had time to point out the dressing rooms, let alone turn the purchase of a shorts outfit into a catered affair.
Of course Izzy had never been to Tant Mieux, an exclusive boutique in downtown Miami. Perched awkwardly on a costly Louis XIV chair, she was offered all manner of delectable finger food, as emaciated models breezed by in designer ensembles. Izzy wasn’t surprised to see the models flapping long, fake eyelashes at Mr. Parish, while smiling suggestively with collagen-pumped lips.
Neither was she surprised that the gaunt nymphs treated her as though she were a smudge on the brocade upholstery. Something to wrinkle one’s nose at, then quickly turn away. Clearly her gray, knee-length suit and gum-soled walking shoes were not on the cutting edge of haute couture.
“Yes,” Mr. Parish said, drawing Izzy’s attention. “We’ll take that one, too”
She glanced at the model posing before her boss. The vixen’s expression was so come-hither that Izzy didn’t know whether Mr. Parish had purchased the model or the mauve shorts set with matching platform sandals, feathered beanie and color-coordinated polo mallet.
“I hope out back they’re not dyeing a horse to match that outfit,” she mumbled. For the past two hours she’d sat quietly as her boss made selection after selection. But this purple job was too much! She couldn’t be silent any longer.
Mr. Parish glanced her way, hiking a brow. “You have a problem with it?”
“To which? A mauve horse or the outfit?”
He leaned her way. “With your brown eyes, you’ll look lovely in mauve,” he assured with a grin.
Taken off guard by the mention of her eye color, she murmured, “I—I didn’t know you ever noticed the color of my eyes.”
“I checked in the limo on the way over.” He glanced away, toward the next model swaying toward him.
“You didn’t have to go to all that bother, sir, I could have memoed you on it.” Izzy knew she had no right to feel affronted, but she did. After working for him three whole years, he’d only noticed her eyes because he’d made a point to on the way over!
He glanced at her. “Should I memo you on the color of mine? It’s something my wife should know about me.”
She swallowed several times. She would never be able to forget those eyes, no matter how she might try. “No, sir. I—I’ll catch a look later.”
He faced her fully, and leaned so close that she could have kissed him with hardly more than a pursing of her lips. “No time like the present. What do you see?”
Her body reacted violently to his soft question. She felt herself going hot and cold, and blood pounded in her temples. She fought the urge to tip her head forward just enough—just enough...
Fighting the impulse with all her might, she sank back in the seat, praying she looked more composed than she felt. “Green...I’d say...green.” Her voice sounded breathless and husky. “I’ll jot it down so I won’t forget.” She made herself look at the mauve-clad model, wiggling toward the exit. “On the subject