Be Mine: Sizzle / Too Fast to Fall / Alone with You. Victoria Dahl
At that moment, he looked more like a boy than a man, sheepish and apologetic. It was devastatingly effective.
“I’m used to being the boss.” His eyes pleaded with her. “I’m sorry.”
Emily sat down again. It would be a whole lot easier to stay mad at him if he wasn’t so damn charming, she told herself. That smile must get him a lot. She opened her portfolio. “All right, then, listen. Our main problem with this product is that we have to distinguish it from Paradise. And that’s going to take more than a different name. More than just switching from diamonds to rubies. And it’s so important that anything we can do to make the difference clear to the consumer will be worth extra money in the long run.”
Richard pulled the cap from his pen, prepared to listen so hard he’d take notes. “All right, how is it different?”
“It’s cheaper. But it would be suicide to market it that way.”
“Granted.” He was still trying to cooperate. “Does it smell different from Paradise?”
“Of course.” She unstoppered the bottle again. “It’s spicier, sharper. Paradise was heavier, fruitier. We marketed Paradise as a slow, languid, sexy scent.” Emily waved the stopper in front of her to smell the scent in the air. “This stuff has more of an edge. We could try for a more exciting approach, I suppose.”
She touched the stopper to the back of her hand and sniffed. “It definitely has an edge.” She frowned as she replaced the stopper in the bottle and flipped the bottle upside down to moisten it. Then she absentmindedly touched the stopper to the hollow at the base of her throat. “It’s just as sexy as Paradise, really. Just different.” She moved the stopper down into the V of her blouse, stroking it between her breasts.
Richard watched her, fascinated.
“It will be a while before the scent is true,” she told him. “It needs to be warmed by my skin.”
“Oh.” He swallowed. “Fine.”
“It doesn’t matter if you don’t know much about perfume,” she said to reassure him. “We just sell the sizzle, not the steak, remember?”
“Right.” Richard cleared his throat. “Does this perfume have sizzle?”
Emily rubbed the silk of her blouse against the skin between her breasts to release more scent and wriggled her nose as it floated up to her. “Yes. Actually, this is pretty good stuff.”
He cleared his throat again. “So, uh, how would you base the campaign?”
“Well,” she said slowly, “we marketed Paradise as sex—you know, the heavy, filled feeling you get when—”
“Right.” He nodded. “I know.”
“This stuff is more like...foreplay. You know, exciting and edgy.”
“Foreplay.”
“I wonder if this stuff builds the longer it’s on. We could tie that to sexual excitement. Then we could direct this to a younger, faster customer. If Paradise was classy sex, this stuff could be kinky sex.” She saw his eyebrows go up. “Well, not whips and chains, but still...sizzle. I wonder...”
She unstoppered the bottle and slid the black crystal stopper into the V of her blouse again.
He turned away. “Will you stop that?”
“Sorry. I know. Too much perfume can make you gag. I just had an idea...”
“What?”
She leaned forward across the table, and she saw his eyes drop to the V of her blouse. “I’m sorry about the perfume. I’ll wash it off, but listen. Suppose we put something in this stuff to make it really sizzle?”
“Sizzle?”
“You know.” She frowned in frustration. “Tingle. Only with heat. A woman wears perfume on the warmest parts of her body—the pulse points. Suppose when she touched the perfume to those places she felt a subtle heat and tingle. It would make her feel excited. Exciting. It would feel like...”
“Foreplay.” Richard grinned, taking Emily’s breath away for a moment. “Well, you’ve got my attention.”
She smiled back, taken with her new idea. “We could call it Sizzle. We’ll get it a product placement in the next really hot movie, something with an electric sex scene. We can package samples with other sexy products for women...”
“Such as?”
“Seamed hose, lace garter belts...” She broke off when she saw him laughing. She sat back and gritted her teeth. “You don’t like the idea?”
“No, no. It’s great. It’s just you. You’re so intense, talking about lace underwear.”
“My intensity is what makes me a success,” she said evenly. “You’d take this perfume, call it ‘Night in the Boardroom’ and sell three bottles of it.”
“Probably,” Richard agreed.
“So don’t patronize me.” Emily looked him straight in the eye. “I don’t deserve it.”
“I apologize again.” He leaned toward her, sincerely sorry. “I really do. Listen, let me make it up to you. Let me take you to dinner tonight.” He smiled, and she lost her breath again.
“Come on, Emily.” Richard coaxed her with his eyes. He had amazing eyes. “You’ve got all that perfume on—you really should go somewhere in it.”
He has eyes like the sky, she thought. I love the way he says my name. And then she thought, no. I don’t need this. I don’t even like him.
“Please.” He smiled that earnest killer smile at her.
Don’t do that, she thought.
“Strictly business. We can talk about the account. About seven?”
I really don’t like him, smile or no smile, but I bet he has a great body under that suit. Not that it matters. “All right.” Emily took a deep breath. “If it’s all right with you, I’ll send a memo to the lab and to the advertising people on this.”
“Fine.” Richard sat back and picked up his notes, obviously pleased she’d agreed, the human in him fast receding behind the businessman. “Although we’ll probably have to scale down some of your ideas.”
“Which ones?” Emily asked coldly.
He was back into his reports and he didn’t hear the chill. “Well, the product placement will be a fortune. We’ll reach more people with print.”
“But not the same way.” Emily leaned forward. “In a movie, they’ll see someone beautiful stroke herself with the perfume, use the stuff against her skin and then go out and have incredible sex with some gorgeous guy. If we get really lucky,” she added thoughtfully, “it will be a very explicit scene, and the audience will get another look at all the places she put the perfume.”
“And if the movie flops?”
“It flops.” She shrugged. “Life’s a gamble.”
“Not with company funds.” Richard shook his pencil at her. “You’ll stay inside the budget this time.”
She ignored the pencil. “If we get this stuff placed in the right movie, it could be bigger than Paradise.”
“And if we get it placed in the wrong movie, we’ll go to executive hell.” He turned back to his papers.
She took a deep breath. Calm. Courteous and cooperative. “I’m still going to suggest it in the memo.”
He didn’t look up. “Just as long as you realize I’m probably still going to reject it in the budget.”
“Fine,” she said, and slammed her portfolio shut.
“Fine,”