Chapter 11

Elsa

I still can’t believe Tanner left me standing at the door like that. Rejection is really off-brand for me. But when I get to the office, I’m wanted again. Sort of. My unread emails are blinking on my screen, my cell is buzzing with unanswered messages, and my mail has piled up in my inbox.

“You want me bad, don’t you?” I whisper to my work correspondence.

“Oh, you know I can’t get enough, but I think you should see these reports first. They’ve been begging to see you all morning.” Monique, my assistant, has burst through my office door and plopped a big stack of manila folders on my desk.

I lift the first one off the stack and gasp. Underneath, there’s a copy of the Capitalist Chronicle, which Monique has carefully folded so I’d see the words lingerie and romance right in the middle of the headline. Apparently, Lis Langley has taken the bait.

“Monique, I could kiss you!”

“Maybe later.”

“You read this, right? She says our stocks are up!” The weird thing about stock prices is that any sort of press, however speculative it may be, can send stocks soaring or tumbling. It’s human nature to want what’s hot and on the rise—like Tanner in the park yesterday, but I digress.

Monique shakes her head at me. “She also says this whole thing looks like a publicity stunt.”

“Well, that’s exactly what it is.”

“Is it, though?” Monique taps her long glittery nails on my desk, a move I’ve seen her use countless times on the postal delivery guy when he lingers too long in the lobby, hoping to get an eyeful of the models.

“What are you saying?”

“This requires coffee.” Monique disappears into the kitchen. When she returns with two steaming mugs, I offer her the chair in front of my desk, and she sits across from me.

She continues to eyeball me as I grab my cup and take a sip. I stare back. “What?”

“A little handholding, a peck on the lips, a bouquet of flowers—that would’ve been enough to make that reporter’s pen move. But you two went ahead and got dirty like a pair of poodles in a dog park. Why?”

“New Yorkers are jaded. Tanner said—Tanner and I agreed—that we’d need to put on a real show to get their attention.”

“You are lying to me right now like the clients have just showed up at our booth at the Javits Center and you have no idea who they are and what line we’re supposed to be showing them.”

“I…uh…”

“Are you falling for him again?”

“No! Of course not.”

“Because you remember what happened last time, don’t you?”

How could I forget? Tanner stole more than my heart—he stole my idea for a lingerie collection, and now Pretty Little Vixen has made a pretty little mess of my company, my self-esteem, and if I’m not careful, my whole life. He’s already got my best models. What could he be up to next?

“I know the board members are going to shit themselves when they see this article, but they don’t know you like I do. You wouldn’t be getting all PDA with a guy like Tanner unless you really liked him, especially not for some click-bait article. I just don’t want to see you get hurt.”

In that moment, I’m grateful that my personal assistant is also one of my best friends. Because she’s right. Maybe it’s time to put on my big-girl pants and tell Tanner to take it down a notch before things go too far. But I can’t let her know that. “I’ll take it under advisement.”

“Ha! You’re too much.” Monique chuckles. “You want to pick out some new models for us then? There are a whole bunch of headshots in that stack of folders I just gave you. The models should be here any minute to try on some lingerie.”

“Yeah, just bring them in when they get here. I’ll be ready.”

Monique leaves the room, closing the door behind her. I swivel in my chair to take in the view of the city, one of the best perks of my job.

My corner office has floor-to-ceiling windows on two sides. From the window facing east, I can see everything from the hot dog vendor on the sidewalk below me to the top of the Empire State Building above. From the window facing uptown, I can see all the way to Central Park, i.e. the scene of the crime.

I immediately turn my back to that window. “Stop looking at me, you little minx.”

A steady thumping noise snaps me out of my reverie. It sounds like drums. Is Monique making the models do a full runway show into my office or something? I’m not really in the mood for this.

“We don’t need music, Monique,” I shout as I approach the door. “Just send them in one at a time with their portfolios, and then we can have them try on some clothes.”

I’m not prepared for what’s on the other side of the door. The models are dressed in matching sequin dresses. Their hair is slicked back into very tight buns. They’re wearing pantyhose—the heavy-duty kind—and high-heeled dance shoes. I can’t tell one from the other. How is that a good strategy for a modeling audition?

“What the…?”

I peer behind them and see that the thumping noise I’ve been hearing isn’t coming from speakers but from an actual marching band. When the drum major sees me, he signals to the brass section to start wailing on their horns.

“Who are you?” I yell into the cacophony. “What are you doing here?”

The drum major lowers his baton, picks up the whistle around his neck, and blows. The music has stopped, but my ears are still ringing.

“Presenting…the Radio City Rockettes, accompanied by a new marching band, the Radio City Rackets!”

Monique looks like she’s about to have a heart attack. “I am so sorry, Elsa; I couldn’t stop them.”

My other employees, the traitors, burst into applause.

The drum major blows his whistle again, and the drummers begin a low and steady drumroll. The Rockettes march in time, lifting their knees high. Our office isn’t quite big enough for a kick line, I guess.

A moment later, the group of Rockettes splits in two, forming a new line on each wall between my office and the lobby. In one synchronized motion, they gracefully extend their arms to the front door.

“If you could all wait outside for a moment…” Monique says as she opens the door to show them out, but it’s too late.

In walks a stout young woman in a polo shirt and a seriously ugly pair of khaki pants with pleats on the front. Not a model, I’m guessing. She’s holding a basket, though, and when she sets it down, the entire office melts into sighs.

Puppies. An entire litter of beagle pups with floppy ears wiggle their way out of the basket and head toward me, their noses pressed to the carpet. The puppies are wearing blue ribbons around their necks, and when I grab the first little guy to make it to my side of the office, I can see that there’s a note attached.

The note reads: “Take me home.” It’s signed with Tanner’s name.

Of all the emotionally manipulative…

“Elsa.”

I look up from the big brown eyes of the puppy I’m cradling and see Tanner standing in the doorway. He’s holding a big bouquet of balloons and has an even bigger smile on his face. He releases the balloons, letting them fly freely to the top of the vaulted ceiling.

It’s going to be a pain to get those down later.

“What are you doing here, Tanner?”

He waits a beat, his smile plastered to his face. I’m about ready to turn and walk away from him when I see what he’s been waiting for. The paparazzi arrive with their cameras in hand and start snapping pictures of the Rockettes, the band, the dogs, and Tanner and me.

Tanner signals for the band to stop, and they do so on his command.

I raise an eyebrow at him in defiance. “What, no pizza? No chocolate?”

Tanner snaps his fingers, and a man in a chef’s hat appears in the doorway with a pizza box. He ceremoniously lifts the lid. Inside is what appears to be a Max Brenner chocolate creation—a pizza crust topped with ganache, marshmallow brûlée, and ribbons of fudge.

I groan. Why is he so good at everything?

“Elsa, I’m so sorry about our fight at Fashion Week. You were right; I was wrong. Let me make it up to you.”

Tanner gets down on one knee.

I shake my head. “No, no. Not here. What are you doing?”

He reaches into his back pocket.

“You keep your hands where I can see them, mister.”

He pulls out a black velvet box.

“Elsa Blakely, you are the sexiest woman alive, the queen of the catwalk, a perennial fashion ‘do.’ I would be honored if you would…”

“Get out!” I scream. “Everybody out!”