CHAPTER SEVEN
CALEB dropped a blank notepad on Sarah’s desk, following the wide white pad with a trio of colored pencils. “I want your input.”
She glanced up, surprised to see him. Especially after how they had left things in his office the day before. She’d spent that night tossing and turning, replaying the kiss again and again. The way his lips had claimed hers, sent a charge of desire roaring through her body. She was fooling herself if she thought a pair of stilettos was the sole reason she had kissed Caleb Lewis.
She had wanted him for as long as she could remember. However, wanting—and the wisdom of having—were two very different things.
Now he was in her cubicle, sending her tossing and turning in a whole other way.
“My input? On what?” she asked, deciding it was better to steer the course away from the very personal incidents of the other afternoon.
“I want to know what you think.” He dropped into the visitor’s chair beside her. His tie was loosened, the top button of his shirt undone. He looked relaxed and sexy, as if he could put his feet up beside her at the end of a long day, share a glass of wine and a long conversation.
“Oh. Okay.” She tried not to let disappointment trickle into her voice. The last thing she wanted Caleb Lewis to know was that she had been affected by that kiss. Or that she was upset that he had come all the way over to her office—
For work. Not to see her.
He leaned forward, propping an elbow on the arm of the chair. “If you had to describe LL Designs—the company my mother headed, not the one it is now—in three words, what would you say?”
Sarah gnawed on the end of her pen while she thought for a moment. “Adventurous. Spirited. Jeweled.”
“Jeweled? You mean with too many rhinestones?”
She laughed. “No. I meant that when a woman put on an LL Designs dress, she felt like a diamond. Or a ruby. Or an emerald. Unique and beautiful.”
He shook his head and let out a gust. “That’s brilliant. If I had had to describe my mother’s designs, I would have said the same thing. Here I am, a former director of marketing, not thinking with my marketing brain. I’ve been too busy trying to stem the bleeding to think ahead.”
“Well, you’ve faced a lot of challenges in the past year. But you’re doing the shoe collection, right? That should be different, something exciting.”
He shook his head, not ready to agree. “What did you call our designs? Lacking in originality, unfocused? You were right. Absolutely right. And if I don’t start thinking in a new direction, everything for the spring collection and the shoe launch will have the same problem. And where will that get me? Nowhere but backwards.” He flipped out his cell phone and punched in a few numbers. “Martha, halt production on the spring collection and set up a meeting with the design staff at one. Tell them I want them to think of ideas that are…” His gaze met Sarah’s. “Adventurous. Spirited. Jeweled.” Then he hung up.
Sarah’s jaw dropped. “You’re seriously scrapping the entire spring collection based on something I said?”
“It’s the smart thing to do. If I release what I have on tap right now, I’ll end up exactly where I was before. And that’s not progress.”
Sarah sat back and smiled at him. This was not the Caleb Lewis she had expected. In fact, over the last week, he had surprised her over and over again. He was proving himself to be open to input, to change, to risk. “Well, if I didn’t know better, I’d say Lenora was back. That’s exactly the kind of thing your mother was famous for doing.”
“And exactly the kind of thing that threw the company into a panic more than once. It’s also something I should have done a long time ago.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“I’ve been blind. To what this company needs, to what I should be doing.” His gaze drifted to some far-off spot, and she wondered what was going through his mind. “To the choices I need to make.”
She heard something in his voice that told her those choices had little to do with the company. “What do you mean?”
He opened his mouth as if he was going to say more, then shut it again. Caleb drew himself up, and seemed to shrug off the heavy cloud hanging over him. “Nothing.”
The reporter in her raised its suspicious head. He was hiding something. She’d thought they had come far enough along in their relationship—this was a relationship, right? After those kisses?—that he wouldn’t feel compelled to hold back if she asked him a question. Plus, he’d been honest about the company, about his childhood, about the struggles with this year’s collection. He’d told her dozens of things.
Why not whatever this was?
Her journalistic instincts nudged at her. Told her to search for the truth, to find the answers that Caleb wasn’t giving her.
Before she could ask him anything more, he spoke. “If I’m starting from scratch this close to Fashion Week, I’m going to need some help.”
Sarah was busy writing a few notes about this change in direction with LL Designs, and didn’t look up at him. “I’d say so. You’re going to be busy.”
“I meant…I’m going to need you, Sarah Griffin.”
“Me?”
Caleb nodded. “You’re our target audience. And you have the best analysis of LL Designs that I’ve heard in a long time.”
“But—”
Caleb leaned over, and his hand covered hers. Her words sputtered to a stop. “I need you. Please help.”
I need you.
Those three words worked like a magic spell. They were the words Sarah Griffin had never been able to resist. Coupled with Caleb’s deep blue eyes, they made saying no not even a possibility. Still, she made an attempt. “I’m supposed to be writing the story.”
A smile curved across his face, and everything inside Sarah quivered with desire. To kiss him again. To have him take her in his arms again, and crush her to him. “This time, you’re part of the story.” Caleb tapped at the blank pad of paper he’d dropped on her desk. “I know you love shoes. And I know you know a lot about them—just from working here, and from the snippets of conversation I’ve heard between you and the shop owners in the last few days. You’ve impressed me, Sarah.”
“That’s the last thing I ever expected to hear you say about me.”
“Ditto.” He grinned. “You are a good reporter. You ask incisive questions, you listen, you observe, and you put all of that together and make informed judgments. I have no doubt that the story you’re doing on the company will be the best one ever written.”
The warmth of his praise filled her. All these years, she had worked at the tabloid, sure she could be something better, wanting to be something more, but never having the opportunity to prove her skills. And here, the one man she had vilified on the pages of Behind the Scenes was telling her he thought she wasn’t just good, but great. She wanted to hug him.
Instead she picked up the pad of paper. “Then what is this about?” She fingered the blank pages.
“I think you’re smart on more than one kind of paper. I’d like to see if you could…design.”
“Design?” She shook her head and moved back in her seat. “Caleb, I don’t have any experience in that area. I’m a writer, not an artist.”
“You’re a creative person. Sometimes that’s enough.” He pushed the notepaper closer to her. “I’ve seen your shoe collection. I know you have a passion for this. Just draw what your ideal pair would be.”
Pedro popped his head over the cubicle wall, eavesdropping without shame. “Did someone say shoes?”
“Let’s go somewhere else to talk about this,” she said, gathering the paper and pencils and getting to her feet. The last thing she needed was Karl walking in and finding her collaborating with Caleb Lewis. Or Pedro asking questions that Sarah didn’t have answers for.
They ended up at a coffee shop a block down the street, huddled in a corner booth. Sarah had expected Caleb to sit across from her, but he slid in beside her, his hip against hers, his thigh running down her jean-clad one. Heat ignited along the connection, rushing through her veins. The waitress dropped off coffee but Sarah barely noticed. Her every breath centered around Caleb’s nearness. Her mind replayed that kiss like a stuck videotape. She watched his mouth move and fantasized about tasting him again, and again.
Oh, this was not good.
“Where do I start?” she asked, dropping her gaze to the blank pages. “I’ve never done this before. I don’t know what makes you think I can create anything.”
Caleb picked up a second pencil. His hand skated near hers. “Just draw. Doesn’t have to be anything fancy. An idea, really, is all I’m looking for.”
She did as he said, and her first attempts were awful. Stilted, rough approximations of footwear that no one would wear. “This is so not my forte.”
Caleb’s hand covered hers, and Sarah’s breath caught. “Let yourself go,” he said quietly. “Think with your heart, not your mind.”
With him right there, his touch still lingering on her skin, she could barely think at all. But she closed her eyes, and let her brain disconnect from her gut, then opened her eyes again and began to sketch. The drawing wasn’t good—she was no Picasso, after all—but the shoe that emerged from beneath the lines of the black pencil wasn’t bad.
Caleb smiled. “I like that. I like the bow at the top of strap. And how you echoed that detail on the heel. What kind of fabric do you see this in?”
“Satin?” She paused, then the hesitation left her as she pictured the design on her feet, the finishing touch to a slightly belled dress in a deep jewel tone. “Definitely satin.”
“I agree. This is a brilliant start.” He slid out of the booth, taking her drawing with him, but leaving the rest of the paper and pencils. “I have to get back to work, but I’d like to take this with me.”
“You’re not serious. That was just an idea—”
“A good one. I want to see what the guys think.”
“Caleb, I really don’t think it’s a good idea for me to be involved in your business. It’s a conflict of interest.” She paused. “I think.”
“I think—” He leaned in closer and half of her wanted him to kiss her again. “—that this is the perfect opportunity for you to add that little extra something to your story. Not only did you see the production process from start to finish but you were part of it yourself. That creates an unforgettable story.”
“Is that all you wanted?” she asked. “The story? The design?”
His gaze connected with hers, and a long moment passed with only the clanking sound of dishes in the kitchen and the low murmur of the few customers at the shop’s counter. “I think it’s best if that’s where we leave it, don’t you?”
“Of course,” she said. And told herself she wasn’t disappointed. At all.