“And after the nine o’clock with PR, you have a lunch meeting with Libby Mason—”

“Remind me who she is, again?”

“She’s the entrepreneur. Her dolls went viral last month…”

“What kind of dolls?”

“Adventure girl dolls. She has an astronaut, an archaeologist…”

“Don’t we have something along those lines already?”

“Yes, sir, the Little Scientist kits for girls. The first focus group is happening this morning…”

“Make a note of a possible marketing tie-in.”

“Yes, sir, but you haven’t yet signed a contract with Ms. Mason…”

I suppressed an eye-roll, and instead gave my assistant an incredulous look.

“Cory. You know as well as I do that there isn’t a small-time entrepreneur in the United States who would balk at accepting an offer from AllGood Inc.”

“Well, not so far, sir, but there’s always the possibility—”

“The contract will be signed before dessert. What is the…whoa!”

A soft thump, the heady scent of coffee mixed with clean-smelling perfume, and the crash of papers halted me in my tracks.

Cory stepped back, his eyes wide, a horrified hand over his mouth. He didn’t hold my attention for long. The coffee had spilled all over the ample chest of the woman who had collided with me, making her thin white blouse cling to her deliciously round curves.

“Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry,” she said, kneeling quickly to clean up the mess.

Her dark chocolate-brown curls tumbled over her face before I could catch a glimpse of her. Drawn by her frenetic energy as much as her obvious but understated good looks, I knelt to help her.

“I’m a klutz,” she said self-deprecatingly. “Are you all right?”

“Quite all right,” I said, trying to peek at her face as I collected papers into the folder.

She looked up at me with a relieved smile which immediately fell from her face, replaced by a look of sheer terror. Her eyes grew large, giving me a clear vision of blue-green flecks over brown. It reminded me of something, but I couldn’t put my finger on what. Her soft, full lips fell open, which would have been far more attractive if they hadn’t also been pale with fear.

I had the sudden urge to touch her face and reassure her, which I suppressed by gripping the folder tightly in my hands.

“I…I am so very…”

“Sorry. I believe you mentioned that,” I said, as gently as I could, deliberately softening the words with a smile.

It didn’t seem to help. Before I knew it, she was running—literally running— away down the hall. Realizing that I still held her folder, I called after her. The look she gave me when she turned around reminded me of the stray dog my mother had rescued when I was a boy. Like she’d been kicked before, and was expecting to be kicked again.

“You might need this,” I said, holding up the folder.

She returned, metaphorical tail between her legs, refusing to make eye contact with me. Resisting a frown, I slid the folder in amongst the armful of things she carried. I was just opening my mouth to reassure her that everything was fine, that I wasn’t going to strike her down for daring to collide with me, try to laugh it off and bring that smile back to her pretty face, when Cory grabbed my arm.

“Got a call from upstairs,” he said. “Chase said the focus group is starting, and he still hasn’t been able to show you the specs on the paleontology kit. We’d better hurry if we’re going to make the PR appointment on time.”

“They’ll wait,” I sighed as she scurried away again. “They can’t very well hold the meeting without me. Head on up. I’ll stop in and see Chase; you keep them from getting restless.”

“Yes, sir,” Cory said, almost gratefully.

Why was everyone always so grateful to get away from me? I nearly asked him, but figured it wouldn’t do any good. If he was that frightened of me, he would only deny his anxiety for fear of vexing me. I swear, I thought cynically, if I ever find a person who can be in my presence…disagree with me, even…without melting into a puddle, I’ll marry them.

Of course, that wasn’t my only criteria, but it was the highest on my list at that moment. A body like the woman in the hall wouldn’t hurt, either. Chase met me at the elevator doors.

“Mr. Dane,” he said, offering a cool, professional smile. “I have those specs for you.”

“Why didn’t you have them last week when I asked for them?” I asked him.

He winced as if I’d struck him.

“There was a bit of a disagreement between the developers and the design team,” he explained. “I didn’t receive the specs myself until Wednesday; then, I had to oversee sample production. I apologize for the delay.”

“What was the disagreement?”

“What color to make the dirt,” Chase sighed. “The project lead on the development side insisted that the girls would want dirt-colored dirt, while the design team insisted on pink and purple dirt with glitter.”

Chase brought me to the play table. It was a long table filled with bits and pieces of various projects, toy inspirations, simulation stations, and modeling materials. It was cluttered as always, which pleased me. I had spent long hours at this table as a child, a benefit of being the sole offspring of the CEO. I’d designed my first toy at age eight, and had worked in each department of the company by the time I was twenty-one.

“Here we are,” Chase said, pulling a file up on a simulation monitor.

I looked it over critically. The tray was designed well, with a feedback system for stray dirt, various textures and densities, and six different fossil designs. They tied in easily with the remote control dinosaurs which I had approved last week, which would make marketing a breeze.

“A pink and purple tray as well as the pink and purple dirt? What colors did they decide on for the tools?”

“Erm…pink and purple in a swirl pattern, with glitter,” Chase said with a grimace.

“Fantastic,” I sighed. “Cory, take a…oh, right, I sent him upstairs. Walk and talk.”

Chase followed me like a lapdog as I walked along the table, examining works in progress.

“I don’t know, Chase. The glitter alone seems like a health hazard…” A yelp from beyond the lockers interrupted my thought. “You keeping dogs up here, Chase?” I asked.

Chase didn’t respond, too busy jotting down notes in his phone. Curious, I went to investigate for myself, and stopped short when I saw the source of the sound. Her pale olive skin shone in the dim light, contrasting prettily with her bright white bra strap. The taper of her waist brought a cacophony of inappropriate fantasies swirling into my mind, as did the subtle jiggle of her rear as she forced the sweater down over her body.

“Sorry, what did you say?” Chase asked.

She covered her face with her hands, standing perfectly still as if that might make her invisible.

“Squeaky pipe,” I lied. “I’ll have maintenance get up here to look at it. So, you were explaining the pink sand?”

I heard her blow out a breath, an almost erotic sound which stoked the fire of my fantasies. Forcing myself to ignore every human urge, I led Chase back to the far end of the table. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched her slip away, her face red beneath her curls.

I waited for the elevator doors to close over her before I bid Chase farewell with instructions to get the damn glitter out of the sand, then went on my way. I was six minutes late to the meeting, but it didn’t matter much. They couldn’t start without me, after all.

“Good morning!” I greeted the occupants of the conference room on the thirtieth floor. “What’s on the agenda for today?”

“We have the casting call this morning for the Mother’s Choice campaign, and we’re hoping to start filming next week,” Kelly Abrahms told me in her clipped, efficient way. “I haven’t seen the models yet, but I trust my staff to handle it.”

“I want you to oversee the final models personally,” I told her firmly. “The last model we hired had clearly never touched a diaper in her life. We aren’t looking for beach babes, we’re looking for mothers. Attractive, put-together mothers—the kind of mother every mother wants to be. She needs to be relatable, in a positive way.”

“Yes, sir,” Ms. Abrahms said, jotting down a note.

“Right, what else?”

“I received our survey data yesterday,” Rupert King said.

“Great, show me what we got.”

The others around the table exchanged a look as Rupert stood to fiddle with the settings on the projector laptop. I noticed, just as I noticed everything, but didn’t comment on it. The fear was less palpable in this room with the executives, but it was there all the same. I would just have to resign myself to it.

“Okay, so, when asked about our quality, most responses were favorable. Customer service, also favorable. However…” Rupert clicked to the next slide. “Our family-friendliness, trustworthiness, and general reliability are all tanking.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“Well, we asked for elaboration, and after sifting out the junk responses, this is what we came up with.” He clicked to the next slide, pulling a comment box up on the wall. “This comment fully embodies most of the other feedback we received.”

Rupert cleared his throat, then read out loud.

“‘The face of the company no longer feels family-friendly. I have my doubts that the new CEO knows anything about kids or what they like, and I don’t feel comfortable engaging with a toy company that is one hundred percent profit-focused. Mr. Dane looks like a cold, unfeeling money-grabber, and I wouldn’t give him my hard-earned cash if I had a choice.’

“There were many comments like this, but this was the, er…friendliest.” Rupert shot me an apologetic look, then sat down, leaving the comment up on the wall.

“A cold money-grabber,” I said thoughtfully. It stung, but only a little.

“Yes, well, we’ve come up with some ideas to revitalize your public persona,” Megan Case said quickly. “We could throw a block party, or have you volunteer for some charities…”

“Hold that thought, Ms. Case,” I interrupted, unwilling to take part in a popularity contest if I could avoid it. “Let me see our sales figures for this quarter compared to this same quarter ten years ago.”

“Oh…yes, of course,” Rupert said, scuttling back over to the laptop. After a few minutes of poking around, he pulled up the figures.

“Tell me what I’m looking at.”

“Ten years ago, your father netted one-point-eight million dollars this quarter,” Drew Match jumped in. “This quarter, you netted one-point-two million dollars. Then, if we look at last quarter, you netted one-point-three million. Before that was Christmas at one-point-five. In the last two years, you haven’t had a single quarter which showed any growth.”

Hard evidence, surely, but of what? Wanting to avoid a personality overhaul, I chose a different direction. “Then we need some new toy ideas,” I said with a half-shrug. “Figure out what’s going viral, and get ahead of it. Buy out the Spidget Finner people, get in touch with some more entrepreneurs.”

Megan and Rupert exchanged a pained look.

“Things are a little bit different now,” Rupert said quickly.

“People want to know who they’re supporting with their money,” Megan jumped in. “People don’t just shop for quality and price anymore…”

“They shop for moral and ethical concerns as well, that’s why more people purchase from charity organizations…”

“And locally-owned businesses,” Megan added with a solemn nod.

“Being the biggest and the best isn’t enough anymore; people need to feel like you’re a good person, too,” Rupert finished. His eyes widened in horror, reminding me sharply of the pretty woman I had encountered that morning. “Not that you aren’t a good person—I’m sure you are, sir—it’s just that your public image is…well…”

I held up a hand, and Rupert shrank into his chair.

“All right, what are your ideas?” I acquiesced.

Everybody began talking at once, and I picked the core of their ideas out of the babbling chaos.

“Volunteer!”

“Toy giveaways at Christmas!”

“Start a family!”

“Grow your hair out!”

“Casual Fridays!”

“Wait, wait, wait,” I interrupted. “Did someone just say ‘start a family’?”

“Well,” Megan said, glancing away guiltily. “It’s just that your father…well, he didn’t really get the branding he was after until he had you, you know. I mean, he always had that cozy grandfather vibe, but after you came along…”

“Business boomed,” Edward Grove finished. Grove had been involved in the company since its inception, and had been my father’s closest friend and confidant. “It didn’t change him any, but it changed the public’s perception of him. Now, seeing as you don’t have a wife, you might consider getting involved with a children’s charity instead. People need to associate you with children, in a positive way. Having a child of your own would lend credibility to your brand, but there are other ways.”

“Equally effective ways?” I asked.

Grove sighed and held a palm out flat, then shrugged. I nodded thoughtfully, understanding. Probably not, the gesture implied.

“We’ll leave my brand alone for the moment,” I said, my mind racing. “Sales aren’t too terrible. People are pleased with our products. Keep focusing on quality and commercials. Is there anything else on the agenda for this morning?”

“No, that about wraps it up,” Ms. Abrahms said. “The screening is starting now; I should get down there and supervise.”

“I’ll come with you,” I said. “I’d like to get a look at them myself.”

Maybe we can get a decent actress this time. Someone who isn’t obviously offended by the presence of children.

I admit to being bitter about the last ad campaign. The actress looked plastic, and had been absolutely rude to the children, which had caused a rift. That rift, unfortunately, had been captured by the camera. Another campaign like that would ruin the company faster than my supposedly rotten image.

I followed Ms. Abrahms down to the twelfth floor and into the screening room, where a line of young women stood mumbling over their lines, waiting for their turn to speak. The woman auditioning barely looked old enough to be out of school, let alone have a child.

“All play, all fun, AllGood.” She finished her lines without conviction.

“Thanks, we’ll be in touch,” the assistant director said with an almost predatory grin. The actress blushed and stepped off to the side.

The next stood at her mark and began to read her lines woodenly. A frown pressed through my professional mask as I observed the rest of them. Too young, too thin, too old, too severe. There were none here who fit my idea of an AllGood mother. Frustration lengthened my stride as I left the room and turned back toward the elevator.

Remembering that the ridiculous pink sand was being tested by the focus group today, I spun on my heel and walked past the screening room, down the hall to the focus room. A spark of recognition shot down my spine as I peered through the glass walls. There she was, for the third time in a single morning, like magic. In a company this large, it was rare for me to see anyone but my own secretary and assistant multiple times in a day, and even more rare that I recognized them when I did.

With the mother problem still fresh in my mind, I watched her play with the kids. A remote control dinosaur grasped her leg and she squealed dramatically, throwing her hands up in mock-terror. The squeal dissolved into an infectious laugh, and the kids reacted beautifully to her. Her brilliant smile was infectious, even from a distance, and I found myself smiling without meaning to.

She’s the one, I decided. She is the mother this campaign needs. My mind was made up.