Texas Tea
Recipe: Equal amounts of tequila, rum, vodka, gin, Triple Sec, Sour mix. Add splash of Coke for color. Serve on the rocks and garnish with mint. (Skip rocks if entertaining stubborn folks.)
Chapter One
“Today’s woman doesn’t stand behind any man to get the job done.”
Victoria Delaney clicked to the next slide in her presentation and met the gazes of those around the rectangular mahogany table in the conference room connected to her office. Some were her colleagues, their eyes glazed over or their heads nodding like agreeable sheep. The others were clients and they followed her presentation with rapt attention.
“And neither should the icon of modern domesticity, Holly Seas,” Victoria continued. She wanted to overhaul the company’s current image, and this morning, in front of Holly Seas executives and her committee, Victoria felt a rush, an invincibility coming from her belief in the proposal. This account would be the fourth top client for Herman & Scythe if Victoria could land it and a major stroke toward getting that V.P. position she’d been coveting for three years. Her presentation centered around a company taking the domestic diva world by the ear. Their multi-tasking products were designed to simplify a woman’s busy schedule. Victoria never used any of them personally, but she was more of a one-track, career-minded woman. Time hadn’t allowed for more than getting as far as she could in a competitive, cutthroat environment. Her sister, the homemaker of the family, bubbled on and on about Holly Seas miracle products though.
Victoria clicked to another slide while pulling the corner of her Armani silk jacket out of its accidental fold. Power color navy with scarf accents of crimson and light blue added just the right touch of professional softness to invoke the image of a Holly Seas consumer.
“Especially with the new line of meals targeting women on the go,” she said, continuing with her prepared speech. “Modern, multi-tasking ladies don’t want to see a carefully-coiffed woman wearing a wrinkle-free, linen apron over her business suit while she serves dinner. Let’s show women in today’s world -- diaper and gym bags slung over one shoulder, a daily planner and cell phone in hand, one foot out the door of a clean, but lived-in house. A full-time homemaker doesn’t sit on the couch and eat bonbons any more than the full-time female CEO does. She’s on the go, driven toward success whether raising her family or providing the financial means to do so.”
Victoria saw two of the ad consultants from Holly Seas nod their heads. Right on cue. This campaign was all her baby and it was about to pay off. Her promotion so near -- only a few more months until contract renewals. Not bad for a girl from Suburbia, Indiana where most of her contemporaries were raising families, trying to meet the mortgage while still affording braces for their kids.
From the corner of her eye she saw Kevin Eldridge shift in his seat. The image of his unfortunate clash with the wall during their racquetball game yesterday came to mind. It wasn’t her fault he’d been in her way. She’d actually been doing him a favor by ending the game. Besides, he’d been the one to ask for the game over lunch, not Victoria. A kind of “let’s be pals like usual”.
Victoria was fine. Really. And to prove it, she took him up on the date. Competition was a great way to shake off personal feelings. That was why she’d gone for the shot. It was possible to hit the ball, Kevin being in the way not withstanding, so she went for it. With her return hit, the ball popped off the crack between the serving wall and floor perfectly, ending the match in Victoria’s favor.
Poor Kevin. He limped from the court, avoiding eye contact with her on his way to the locker room, no usual mention of lunch. Victoria didn’t blame him though. He probably wanted to spend a few minutes with his new fiancé, Francine, before taking his place in art design, the department next to hers and Francine’s.
Victoria raised the Power Point to a chart on the screen, nothing but energized from the hour-long workout.
“I want to show you some of the more interesting findings from our latest market research. We asked women, ages twenty-five to forty-five, to describe their most hectic time of the day. We discovered something we didn’t already know--”
The door adjoining her office opened and a six-foot-something man decked out in a blue plaid Western shirt, faded jeans, and a brown cowboy hat slipped inside. He took a seat in a chair lining the back wall.
Who in the world --? “Can I help you?” Victoria asked. A more polite version of “you’re in the wrong room, wrong building, maybe wrong state”.
“Not right now. Please go on. Don’t let me interrupt,” he said, his drawl thick. His posture, with one leg crossed over the other and his arm resting along the back of the chair next to him, broke her concentration. She could hardly demand he provide the reason for his presence known, not without sounding waspish. She decided to go along with his intrusion, like it was an expected event.
She tried to remember where she’d been…oh, yes. She pointed at the chart and went through the details of the study, eyeing the cowboy when she could, a niggling at the nape of her neck growing stronger every time she met his gaze.
When he turned his head to look out the window, she saw the healthy swath of coal black hair tied back in a ponytail.
Oh, God!
Memories avalanched. Strobe lights. Pulsing music. The breeze from a sunroof. That God-awful sculpture in Caesar’s Palace. Her head buzzing from a liquid silk drink. The friction of his cheeks on her --
Victoria’s gaze flew to her audience. They were waiting for her to continue and she hadn’t a clue what she’d been talking about. Paul Clemson, her immediate boss, fingered a button on his cuff. His forehead took on four crease lines and his beady eyes shifted from her to the screen, impatience building. Victoria forced the tension from her pursed lips and drawn brows while scrambling for her next line. She’d been talking about….
The intruder crossed his legs and the gleam of his boot, black leather with stitching just about the ankle that disappeared under the hem of his jeans, caught her eye.
What the hell was his name? Connor, no…Cameron? That didn’t feel right either. It was something more unusual… Victoria wasn’t likely to remember. Not with the adrenaline vibrating through her brain.
No matter. She had a problem. A small inconvenience rather. If she let this fluster her, she wasn’t worth her six-figure salary, never mind the promotion.
Perhaps she could pass him off as a model for one of their upcoming shoots. Victoria wished deep in her heart he was here for business concerning the agency and not her.
Cowboys were rare in Chicago, and on the eleventh floor of Reinholt Plaza, in the middle of Herman & Scythe, an ad agency buzzing with professional protocol, he was all the more exceptional.
“Would you excuse me for a moment?” she said, taking long steps toward her office. “Mark, why don’t you show them the next few slides? You know them as well as I do. I won’t be long.”
She stopped next to his chair and grabbed the cowboy by the arm, yanking hard when he didn’t immediately take the hint.
The pull on her arm loosened when her silent request registered. Once the door closed behind them, she invaded his personal space and pushed him into a far corner of her office.
“What in the hell are you trying to prove? Or did you stumble into the wrong office,” she said, hoping he’d take the hint and leave. “Or the wrong building, in fact.”
He tipped his head and laughed, a white, even display of teeth only a couple of inches from Victoria’s hot temper. Of course he was gorgeous. Her past could only haunt her if the view pricked at her awareness.
She smacked his hat out of his hand and felt minor satisfaction when it flew across the room.
“Upset?” he asked in a cool timbre.
“I don’t recall telling you where I worked.”
“Yeah, we didn’t talk much, did we? Finish your meeting. I’ll wait,” he craned his head around and glanced at the room, “on that couch over there.”
“Why wait?” Victoria took a step back and crossed her arms over her chest. “Cut to the reason for your visit. I’ll say no to whatever you want and you can get the hell out of here. Then I’ll return to my meeting.”
“A sailor’s mouth in a bun, huh?” He ran an assessing eye over her body, one eyebrow lifted on his travel back up to her face, a dry expression saying he wasn’t impressed with what he saw. “You don’t chew tobacco, too, do you? Another nasty habit I don’t tolerate.”
Victoria opened her mouth to blast him when he reached over and fingered a small tendril of hair that had escaped her French braid. Rough skin brushed against a nerve in her neck and she flinched, inhaling sharply.
“If I thought a minute-long conversation was all that was needed, I would have called,” he said more soberly, only a hint of accent in his speech. His gaze lingered on Victoria’s mouth.
The back of her knees tickled in a way she knew spelled trouble. She told her body to stop. Stop quivering. Stop with the goosebumps down her spine. Stop with the urge to taste warm, wet lips. He could show her a video of their night together and she still couldn’t react. She knew it’d been a mistake to let her guard down and enjoy herself for a change. Goddamn, but here was the proof. Followed her all the way from…wherever to track her down.
He lifted his eyes to hers, his gaze steady. “Unfortunately, what I’ve got to say will take more time than that. Go on and wrap things up. I’ve got all day. And all night. Regardless of my booze-hazed recollection, I do remember you like to dawdle in some areas of life.”
She took a deep breath, rolled her head back and stared at the ceiling.
Should she call security? They would only raise more attention and her purpose in pulling him aside was to minimize his untimely disruption.
She regarded her opponent. One corner of his lips curved, a sarcastic smile she didn’t know how to read since she didn’t really know the man. There was no mistaking the seriousness in his dark blue eyes though. Combined with his black hair and tanned face, his two-day old shadow on a strong jaw, he was like the darkest edges of a storm boring over her.
Her heart drummed against her ribs, her face radiated a feverish heat. Her armpits stuck to her shirt, regardless her feigned control and deodorant strong enough for a woman.
“Okay,” she said, pointing to one of the two leather sofas. “Not a peep until I’m done, do you understand? Or I call security.”
He smiled, a slow curve of attractive lips while he searched her face, as if considering pushing her on the threat.
A memory flash of the first time she’d noticed his eyes came to call. His intense way of looking at her, focusing in and making her feel like the only woman in the room. In the sharp light of her office, his consideration unnerved her.
No wonder she’d been plastered when she’d slept with him. It’d taken alcohol to melt her defenses, to spark her imagination until she acted on fantasies she didn’t know she had.
“Security, huh?” he asked. “I might be tempted to push you on that threat, but--” He sauntered over to the couch and started sorting through magazines on the coffee table, “I’ll save my energy for later.”
Victoria swallowed a retort, a razored reply that burned on the way down. She’d run him off after the meeting and regroup later, in the privacy of her apartment where she could crumble.
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