2.
“What are the three words you'd used to describe me, Mrs Horan?” Kirk Anderson asked his secretary.
Mrs Horan cleared her throat and looked him in the eye. “Do you want my real answer or the one I wrote down on the form?” It was one of the things he liked about her; she was never afraid to speak her mind. She'd been with him for twelve years, and he trusted her more than he trusted the CEO of his biggest company. A small smile twitched at his lips.
“I'd be interested to hear both.”
She gave him a nod, her eyes sparkling. “Of course you would. But you can't have your cake and eat it, at least not with cream. Choose.”
The smile crept past the edges of his mouth till he felt it in his cheeks before letting it slip quietly away. “Your real answer then.”
“Driven, reclusive, and,” she paused and looked at him again to check his face. “Kind.”
He didn't let his face react. He'd made a skill out of keeping his features passive whenever he needed to. “Interesting.”
She laughed, and he was startled by the noise.
“One day you're going to have to let down your guard, Mr Anderson, and then heaven help whoever gets in the way.”
“I'm not sure I know what you mean.”
“I mean,” she said with a grin that made her look a good five years younger, “that you hold yourself damn tight to your chest. But I know that there's a gentleness under those layers that would surprise even you, if you let it out.”
“I respect your opinion, Mrs Horan.”
“But you don't believe me,” she laughed again. “Don't worry. I won't tell anyone.” Then she snapped back into efficient mode and outlined his schedule for the day. “If you've got it in you, be gentle with this next one. I think she's a bit nervous.”
“I don't have time for nerves today, Mrs Horan.”
She gave him a look, and he sighed. “Show her in in five.”
Kirk let his secretary's speculations about his innate kindness leave with her when she walked out the door. Anderson’s was on the brink of reaching one of his bucket list targets. Hitting the Forbes Top Ten Most Influential Brands had been on his agenda ever since he’d seen the list in a magazine at his first finance job straight out of university. The company had been close, but never this close, and if this software launch for Anderson’s Investment Wealth went as he planned, there was every indication they’d make the list. He rubbed his hands together. Their stock price would hit the roof when that happened.
“And so here we are,” he said as he flicked through the personal details form Mrs Horan had filled out for him. Making sure the software launch went perfectly was occupying his every waking minute right now. He wouldn’t usually bother with some of the details crossing his desk, but this one was too important, and surprisingly he was enjoying getting his hands dirty with the minutiae of it instead of the broad picture work that usually filled his days.
Still, he couldn't quite believe he'd let Joe Diaz talk him into a consultation with a stylist of all things. But his CEO of Anderson’s Investment Wealth, Mike Brand, had brought him the data about casual appearance being important to key brand influencers, so here he was, having a consultation with...he looked down at his calendar...Sarah Hunt.
The door opened, and Mrs Horan showed her in. “Put those clothes on the sofa for now, dear.”
At least she was on time, and she was prepared. But then Kirk looked up and, “Is this someone's idea of a joke?”
The woman in front of him wore a bright red leather jacket, blue pants and her long dark hair was shaved completely at both sides. If he wasn't mistaken, it looked like a brushed-out Mohawk. He accepted he didn't get out much, but he couldn't have missed the life memo that said it was appropriate to wear a Mohawk to a corporate meeting.
“I'm sorry. Have I come at a bad time?”
Kirk stopped. Her voice was nothing like what he'd expected. Dark and deep and sultry, it reminded him of the cigars his grandpa used to smoke. There was something smoky in it, something dirty and rough and...she looked him dead in the eye. Bam. Her eyes were like dark pools of chocolate. Who the hell let the woman in?
“I'm sorry. There must have been some mistake. I'm expecting a top end stylist. Friend of Joe Diaz.”
She beamed, and in her blood-heating voice said, “No mistake. I'm Sarah Hunt, from Hunters and Collectors. But you can call me Sass, everyone does.”
“Well, Ms Hunt,” said Kirk, sliding a smooth, cool tone back into his voice. “I have to say you are not what I expected.”
She tipped her head to the side and looked him up and down. “I guess that puts me at an advantage. I've read the answers on your profile form and seen your profile photo, so you're just what I expected. Shall we get to work? I’d like to go through the questions with you personally, rather than your assistant, if you don’t mind.”
Okay. She was efficient. He could work with that. Maybe the brushed-out Mohawk was the result of a visit to a bad hairdresser. Or maybe she'd had an illness. “You have twelve minutes. Proceed.”
“Can you tell me what your perfect night out would look like?”
He raised an eyebrow. “I thought my assistant answered that for you. A booking at Molly’s, a large glass of Merlot and a chance to go through a few reports in peace.”
She jotted something down in her notebook.
“That is what my assistant wrote down, isn’t it? She books me in every week.”
“I see.” More scribbling in her notebook. Kirk began to feel like he was under the microscope in a way he hadn’t been for years, and he wasn’t sure he liked it. He changed his focus to watching her. The woman was slender, her long legs emphasized by the pants she wore that reached the ground, and her hands, when they weren’t writing, were animated with long, delicate fingers. But it was her face that sent the biggest shivers over his skin. Wide, bright eyes, porcelain skin, pretty didn’t begin to describe it. She was beautiful in a way that made you look twice at a magazine rack. Beautiful in a way that had his breath coming short and fast.
He shook his head slightly. She was appealing, sure. Was that why he felt so naked under her gaze?
“And the three words you’d use to describe yourself?” she asked, pulling him out of his thoughts.
“Mrs Horan filled the form out correctly.” Adding kind to the list of descriptions wasn’t going to help him find the perfect polo shirt rather than a shirt for this press conference.
Her lips pursed around her pen and he found himself unable to take his eyes off them. They were soft, pink, shiny, and the way the pen made them open like that…hold up, Anderson. Focus.
“A little bit more about the event you're attending.” She sat down in one of his guest chairs without being asked.
“You've signed a non-disclosure agreement?”
She nodded.
“It's a press conference. We're launching our new investment software package that is leagues ahead of what's out there. Been in development for the last two years. The user interface is fantastic. Idiot proof almost. It’s going to make the difference between us being big and being huge.”
“You’re not huge already?”
“In some segments. But I want us to be huge across the board. Anderson’s is going to be a household name, Ms Hunt. And apparently, it starts from the top down.”
She held up a hand. “You need to look funky. Great.”
“I wouldn't say funky.”
“Make you look powerful.” She looked at the form she had folded into her notebook. “And efficient, intelligent, and focused?”
“Exactly.”
“But different from how you look now,” she said with a glimmer of a smile.
“I think the word is, approachable.”
She paused and tipped her head to the side. “You say approachable. I say funky. Let’s just leave it at that and see where we get to, shall we?”
“Personally, I don’t know what’s wrong with a suit.”
She laughed. “You don’t need a suit to look like you own the room. Do you know what Bill Gates wears to meetings these days?”
“The last meeting I had with him, he wore a blue shirt and jeans.”
“And did he command a presence in the room?”
“He's Bill Gates.”
“Exactly. And are you not Kirk Anderson?”
He twitched an eyebrow. He could see why Joe liked her. She was smart. He'd give her that.
The woman stood and walked to the other side of his office. Her pants clung to her butt in a way that made his blood pump far too fast and far too hot for his liking. He never did this. Never ogled women. Especially not ones who worked for him.
She paused in front of a large blue painting. “Do you like this painting?”
“It was a good investment.” His art dealer had suggested he buy it, and the piece was already worth twice what Kirk had paid for it three years ago.
“That's not what I asked.”
“It forms part of the question. I like it because it is a good investment.”
Was that a small sigh of frustration? “Do you like what is in the painting?”
Kirk looked harder. It was a messy impressionist piece. But he did like the way the artist had picked out veins of what could have been water along its length and inserted gold foil to highlight them. Moreover, the woman standing in front of it made it seem alive. Her eyes darted over to the veins of water and she stretched out a hand as if she wanted to touch them.
“Yes. I suppose I do.”
“And what about this?” she picked up a precious Ming Vase from its stand.
“Don't drop that.”
She frowned. “I wasn't planning to.”
Rattled for no reason that he could pinpoint, his answer was snappier than it needed to be. “It's fine. The blue is a nice blue.”
Setting the vase down carefully, she made her way, slowly, to the corner of the room where another large painting, this time a portrait of a red horse, elongated out of proportion, stood starkly against the white wall. “And this?”
“It's a horse. Look, I'm a busy man. What has any of this got to do with my appearance at this event?”
“It has everything to do with it.’ The way she said everything, along with her husky voice, and the way she was standing there with her hip out and her hands on her hips like she was in charge, sent shivers down Kirk's spine. Shivers down his spine and his blood pumping toward his groin. Stop. It. His body never defied him like this. This was wrong. He did not get distracted by women like this. And certainly not by an entirely inappropriately dressed stylist who he was seeing as a favor to an old colleague.
“You live alone?”
His head jerked up. Not because of the question, but because it made him think about having her in his home. Her sitting on his kitchen bench helping herself to a strawberry from his fruit bowl. Her walking through his lounge taking off that ridiculous red leather jacket and throwing it on his sofa. Her stalking through the doorway to his bedroom…
“Mr Anderson?”
He shook his head. “Do you have something for me to wear or not?”
She smiled. “Do I make you nervous?”
Nervous was not the right word. She made him aware. Aware of how much room she took up in his office, aware that he was standing stiff and straight, aware that his blood was pumping faster than usual and was headed...down. “Not at all. I just fail to see how any of this is helping us reach the end goal faster.”
“Indulge me a moment longer. You do live alone, and you have a carefully curated range of meals your housekeeper prepares. You make an effort to eat at home most nights, even though you like the quiet solitude of your office and would be happy to eat at your desk.” She looked at him and bit her lip. For the second time, he found it almost impossible to tear his gaze away from her soft, pink, mouth until she started speaking again. “You like this painting because of the color. It's quiet but strong, and you enjoy the veins that run through it because they make you think about water, and you've always loved water. Water is powerful, a force of nature that's usually underestimated by most people.” She tipped her head to the side and Kirk had to stop his jaw from openly falling open.
“Did I say it reminded me of water?”
“It’s called Water over rocks,” she pointed to a small plaque at the bottom. “Lucky guess.”
His shoulders released. Okay, so she wasn’t some crazy mind-reader as well as having a stupid-making voice.
“My bet is you think of yourself like that. You were a bundle of raw talent and angry ambition. Like water, you were surging at what life was trying to offer you, pushing at it, trying to bust out and flow fast and furious down another channel. That's what saved you from the family firm or the crushing debt, or the cheating lover or whatever it was. And here you are.”
The pause lengthened, and for once Kirk was, truthfully, lost for words. Who was this woman and how had she gotten so deeply under his skin in less than half an hour?
“You think you're the best at what you do, but that's not enough. You want to be the best, period. And because you're a smart man, you know that being the best means being seen to be the best. Not with flashy clothes, but clothes that scream how confident you are, how approachable, how in control. You are the crest of the wave, Mr Anderson.”
He coughed. He had never been to a shrink, and likely never would. The feeling of having someone brush their fingers, figuratively, over the hopes and dreams he held tight inside himself was not something he relished. “I think I’ve heard quite enough.”
That did it. Her face paled, and she realized, finally, who was in charge in this office. “With all that in mind,” she said quickly. “I have a few things for you to choose from.” She unzipped one of the garment bags on the sofa and pulled out two jackets.
Kirk found his voice very quickly. “Are you trying to be funny?”
Sarah looked at the jackets in her hands. One was a deep blue velvet blazer, the other a black leather jacket. Smart, sure, but not exactly corporate. In two steps, he had taken the leather jacket from her.
“You come in here with big speeches about who I am and what I want, and then you pull out something like this?”
“It's fresh, powerful and plenty luxurious. The younger members of your audience might even recognize the brand. It’s been all over Instagram this month.” She zipped the velvet back into its bag and pulled out a crisp white shirt that had something strange happening with the buttons. “Wear it with this, and you'll look like a man in control. More than that, you'll look like the man everyone in the audience wants to be.”
“I will look like a fool.”
He stood close, so close he could smell her scent. Something like lemon and cinnamon. She stood her ground and looked up at him, her dark eyes still holding some spark that wouldn't have been out of place in a blazing fire. “I took this meeting because Joe asked me to. What I needed was someone to provide me some real clothing options for an important product launch. Not someone to psychoanalyze me with skills they got off the back of a cereal packet.”
“I was only trying to—”
He held up a hand. “You were opening your mouth and letting whatever you wanted come out. That is not providing a useful service, Ms Hunt. That is taking liberties.”
Now her eyes flashed as if she was a cat about to pounce. “I try and get to the root of who my clients really are. That way, what they wear is like a second skin.”
“This,” he tossed the leather jacket onto the sofa where it slid down behind some cushions. “Is nothing like a second skin. This is dressing mutton as lamb and crossing your fingers.”
“You said you needed to be funky.”
“You said I needed to be funky. I said I needed to look powerful and in control of one of the biggest brands in the world.”
“And you would.”
“I would look like I was taking advice from a young woman who had no idea how to work with clients or take their needs into consideration.”
She took a step closer and now he didn't just smell her scent, it coated his senses and made him want to push a hand through her long, thick hair to find its source.
“I was only thinking about your needs.”
If she knew what being face to face with him was doing, she wouldn't be so quick to talk about his needs. “You talk a lot, Ms Hunt, but I don't think you've listened to a word I've said.”
“Oh, I've listened—” she stopped herself, but her face said she had plenty more to say.
“If you've listened you haven't heard anything I've said. You'd be better off behind the makeup counter at Macy's.”
Her mouth gaped. “That is...” she groped for words. “Perhaps you're right, and you don't need my help. You need someone much more specialized. Someone who will bend over for you and…” she shook her head. “I just can’t even...”
“Don't stop now. Tell me what you really think,” he said, watching her eyes widen. When she was angry, and he was pretty sure she was plenty angry, her pupils opened, and her nostrils flared, it was goddamn sexy as hell. Something clicked behind her eyes, and he saw her throw caution to the wind before she did it. He’d seen it in plenty of board meetings: the moment when competitors gave up and gave in to their feelings. It was a beginner’s mistake.
“Leaders, real leaders, know how to relax. And they know how to make people feel relaxed around them. If you get your team to respect and like you for how you treat them, they'll do anything for you.”
“My team respects me already, Ms Hunt. This isn’t about them.”
“I'm sure. But I bet they don't like you much.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You heard me. I'm not saying it to be callous, but if you really want to take your brand to the next level, then you have to quit being Mr. Cold Sharp Edges. And don't worry,” she said packing up her garment bags. “I'm already leaving.”
“I should think so.”
“Well.” She stood holding her bags of clothing. “Good luck with your big product launch.”
“Humph.”
She turned, but not before he saw her roll her eyes. It took him back to being at home with his folks. His mother was always rolling her eyes at him, and it drove him mad. Kirk reached out for Sarah’s arm to tell her to mind her manners and BAM, the contact just about sent him sideways. For a moment, everything stilled. The room was silent. The air didn't move. Their eyes were locked, and the angry spark was replaced by something else; was it fear? There was something raw in her gaze. Something open and real and true. Then the moment ended and her face flattened, her eyes flashing back into an angry dark hue.
“Did you need something else?” she spat out.
Yes, he needed something else. He needed to touch her again to see what it was that had made him feel like he'd swallowed a thousand volts. He needed to see that look in her eyes again and revel in its purity. He needed—he wanted—more time with her.
He dropped his hand. “No.” He swiveled on his heel and stalked to his desk. Picking up the phone he called through to his secretary. “You can show the legal team through now, Mrs Horan.”