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“None.”
“None. One hour. In one of those nice, white, over-stuffed chairs. ‘Hello, Brock. Goodbye, Brock.’ That’s all I’m asking.”
Bridget closed her eyes in defeat.
“And maybe if you could summon up a tear or two when he rejects you,” Richard added, but quickly shut his mouth when she glared at him.
Her shoulders slumped and she sighed in resignation. It was no use. There was no way she could refuse him. Not after what he had done for her. When she’d gotten the invitation to her sister’s wedding with the ‘‘and guest’’ printed on the envelope, she’d almost considered not even attending. If not for the fact that she was in the wedding party, she might have called in sick. But she hadn’t wanted to give her family the satisfaction of knowing that she wasn’t seeing someone.
Heck, the truth was she rarely was seeing anyone. It was sort of a theme she’d established in high school. Her beautiful sisters got the guys. Bridget…didn’t. It had always been that simple.
With the wedding looming, and a very real fear that her mother would attempt to set her up with a date for the event, Bridget got desperate. Her mother didn’t have the best taste when it came to picking out dates. They were always either the nephew of a friend’s friend—desperately lonely and still living with his mother—or some recent divorcé who was looking to get back in the game. It was sad to acknowledge that her mother didn’t really have much faith that Bridget could attract any other sort of man.
So she’d decided the answer to her problem was to take a date home to prove that she was all grown up and capable of attracting a successful, interesting man. Since a man was a mark of success in the Connor household, it was only logical that Bridget bring home the most successful man she knew.
She ended up being turned down by a bagman on the street before she resorted to asking Richard.
He said yes. And something happened that night. He stood by her side the entire evening—well, except for the Aunt Edna tango. Even when her younger sisters tried to lure him onto the dance floor, he resisted. He danced every dance with her, held her tightly in his arms and whispered jokes into her ear so that she would smile in the face of such familial scrutiny. He was sweet, caring, funny and he made her feel like the only woman alive. Most importantly, he saved her from the final humiliation of having to stand in front of the room and not catch the bouquet.
He’d been her hero that night.
And because of it, something had changed between them.
She didn’t really have a name for it. Lately, she found herself looking at him differently. It was suddenly easier to see beyond the moody genius with the colossal ego and ridiculous demands to the considerate guy hidden beneath. She didn’t mind the long hours or the occasional working weekend. And when he ordered in dinner for them and they talked late into the night, it felt…nice. Even a little warm and fuzzy.
A total turnaround from the beginning of their relationship. There had been no warm and fuzzy feelings when they’d started working together. He’d been rude, arrogant and impossible to deal with. Only the fact that she’d managed to match him in wits kept her coming back for more. She also admired his ambition. She’d known even then that if she stuck with him, he could take her as far as she wanted to go in advertising. She didn’t have his creativity, but she made up for it with business savvy. Together, they were an unstoppable team at V.I.P.
Since the wedding, she had been wondering what was behind his unflappable drive. Why did he need to work so hard to get to the top? What was he trying to prove and to whom? The wedding had opened her eyes to Richard the man, rather than Richard the employer, adversary and sometimes friend.
She wasn’t exactly sure that she liked having her eyes opened. In fact, she was sort of hoping that they would close again real soon. Because one thing was for certain, under no circumstances would she do something so ridiculously cliché as falling for the boss.
Not her.
No way.
Wasn’t going to happen.
Except that now, every time he barked an order, she remembered how he’d gotten her the last piece of dark chocolate off the dessert tray. Every time he crashed after he convinced himself that his storyboards were horrible—which they never were—she found herself wanting to pat his head and tell him that everything was going to be all right. And every time he raised his arms in victory and called her into his office so that she could tell him what a genius he was, she remembered how he’d put all that ego aside and made her the focus for one night.
He’d told her parents how amazing her work was and how, when he did leave to start his own ad agency, she was the only one he wanted to come with him. He’d said that he couldn’t succeed without her.
And he’d meant it. The bastard!
One lousy night and suddenly she found herself doing the strangest things, like fussing with her appearance. Something she never did. Her sisters had taught her at a very early age that she was never going to be as pretty as they were so there was really no point in trying. Bridget agreed. In fact, she’d gone so far as to rebel against makeup, styling products and all beauty accoutrements. She preferred looking like herself and not some made-up version of herself with too much eye shadow. And in doing so, she felt that she was making a personal stand for inner beauty in women everywhere.
Not to mention it saving her a lot of money.
Until now. These days she wore perfume to the office and tried to style her long, straight hair rather than wearing it in a bun every day. Not that Richard had noticed any of it. Heck, he didn’t even think she would make the cut on his stupid show.
Wouldn’t that show him if she did make the cut? What would he think then?
The fact that she shouldn’t care so much what he thought didn’t enter into Bridget’s thought process at the moment. Instead she realized that making it to the second round of his stupid show might just prove to him and the world that she was, in fact, a woman.
A desirable woman, if not a spectacularly beautiful one.
Bridget’s mind raced with the possibilities. If she could somehow manage to get close to Brock and dazzle him with her keen wit and natural charm, maybe she could convince him to keep her around for a while. Maybe he might actually fall for her and then Richard would be forced to acknowledge that it was possible for other men to find her attractive.
The seeds of a plan sprung deep in her cortex. All she had to do was attract Brock’s attention.
Bridget turned her gaze to where he stood amongst five of the bevy of beauties. He was flexing his bicep. They giggled, he smiled, and Bridget wanted to puke. Okay, maybe he wasn’t her type. Still, all she had to do was get close enough to talk with him, maybe make him laugh, and she might have a shot.
If that didn’t work, she could always try bribing him. It would be worth anything, if for no other reason than to see Richard eat his words.
“I’ll do it,” she finally announced.
“Really?” he asked, clearly astonished. “I thought you were going to make me do a lot more begging and pleading. All of which, I have to admit, I was willing to do.”
“Not so fast,” she said. “My surrender comes at a price. There is a condition.”
“Damn, I knew that was too easy,” he cursed under his breath. “Okay, let me have it. What do you want?”
“Christmas is coming up in a few months…”
“Oh, no.”
“How many minutes before we go live?”
Her smile was sweet, albeit sinful, and his eyes narrowed as he pantomimed rolling up his sleeves. It’s not as if he didn’t know who he was messing with when he began this particular game. He knew exactly what she was playing for, and considering the stakes, he was willing to negotiate. “One day.”
“Two.”
“A day and a half.”
“Christmas Eve dinner, Midnight Mass and brunch the following morning, all in the presence of my family.”
She was going for the gusto. But so was he. “Fine.”
“And you have to buy me a present.”
“Evil,” he whispered.
“It’s a little game I like to play called hardball, Richard. You should know it, you’re the one who taught me how to play.”
“Agreed. Now, let’s try and do something with you.” Richard scanned the contestants. He remembered from their résumés that one of them was a makeup artist who worked in a salon. “Rachel,” he called to one of the girls and motioned her to come over.
A buxom, blue-eyed blonde stood and made her way toward them in a hip-swaying walk that drew the attention of every man in the room. “It’s Raquel,” the woman said in a perfect imitation of Marilyn Monroe’s breathy tones.
“Okay. You’re the makeup lady right?”
“I am an artist,” she replied, somewhat affronted.
Richard pushed Bridget in front of the woman’s face. “Can you do something with her?”
Raquel studied her face. “Well, first we would have to remove all that awful white powder.”
“I’m not wearing any makeup,” Bridget said.
“Ahh!” the woman gasped clearly horrified at such an announcement.
“Except for my Bobby Brown eyeliner,” Bridget conceded. “I mean a girl’s got to have something.”
“Look,” Richard snapped. “We’re running out of time. Just do something. Okay?”
“I can try,” the woman replied. “I’ll need my kit. Come with me.”
“Can’t you just get it and bring it here?” Bridget asked.
“Oh, I can’t carry it. It’s way too heavy. My boyfriend…I mean my ex-boyfriend…took it upstairs and left it in one of the bedrooms. Follow me.”
“Hurry,” Richard urged, only to have Bridget stick her tongue out at him as she walked by. “And while you’re at it, take off those glasses, too!”
BRIDGET FOLLOWED the voluptuous Raquel up the stairs, noting the makeup artist’s walk as she did. She tried to mimic the hip-swaying action, but each time she thrust her hip out to the left or to the right all she managed to do was throw her body off balance. Tripping her way up the stairs was nowhere near as sexy.
They reached the top hallway and turned into one of the bedrooms where a full-size trunk sat at the end of the bed. Raquel flipped the latches and opened the lid to reveal a treasure trove of color beneath it.
“Wow,” Bridget reacted. She hadn’t seen this much makeup in…she’d never seen this much makeup.
“I know. I’ve collected shades from all over the world.”
“Really?”
“No, I just think it sounds more exotic when I say that. But they’re definitely from all over the tri-state area. New York, New Jersey and Long Island.”
Bridget considered informing Raquel that Long Island wasn’t a state, but decided they really didn’t have enough time. Instead she grabbed a chair from a corner of the room and pulled it close to the trunk. She took off her glasses and tucked them into the pocket of her black capri pants.
“Okay,” Bridget said lifting her face. “Have at it. Just don’t make me look like a hooker.”
Again, Raquel appeared to be offended. “Do I look like a hooker?”
Bridget considered the body-hugging strapless red dress that clung to the woman’s figure like plastic wrap. “Uh…no?”
Moments later various brushes were running over her face as Raquel talked. “The truth is you have very smooth skin. If I had more time, and could do something with your hair, and your clothes and your breasts—”
“Hey, no messing with my breasts,” Bridget stated. But the idea did have merit. If she could stay on the show for another round, get a little professional help, maybe she could pull an ugly duck–beautiful swan transformation. That would mean Raquel would have to stick around, too. “So, do you think you’ll make the first cut?”
“Of course I do.”
Bridget envied the woman’s confidence.
“What makes you so sure? There are a lot of beautiful women downstairs.”
“I gave him a note that said I would be willing to perform multiple sexual acts on his body.”
“That’s cheating!”
“It is?”
Bridget shook her head trying to understand. “But you don’t even know him. And besides that you have a boyfriend.”
“Shh,” Raquel whispered. “Not so loud. The rules said you weren’t supposed to have a boyfriend.”
“For a very good reason,” Bridget told her. “If Brock picks you, it’s to be his wife.”
“Oh, silly, that’s not what this show is about.”
“It’s not?”
“No. I mean, of course that’s the end result, but really we’re all here for very different reasons. I’m here because I want to be a star. Maybe even do a cosmetics commercial one day.”
Bridget considered the women downstairs and didn’t imagine that their reasons were all that different. Except for hers, of course. Her reasons were perfectly legitimate. She was going to do the show to make her employer—who she secretly feared she was developing feelings for—eat crow for thinking she couldn’t make the cut, and to prove to him that she was more than just an assistant. What more noble reasons could there be than that?
“All done,” Raquel announced.
Bridget pulled back and took the hand mirror that Raquel handed her. Wow! She looked different. Not hooker-different, either. Raquel had just added subtle shades under her cheekbones, over her eyes and on her lips that seemed to make her features stand out in the best sort of way. And she did it all without adding any more eyeliner.
So much for Bridget’s great makeup rebellion. This actually looked good on her.
“You are an artist.”
“Told you.” Raquel closed her case and started for the door. “Come on, we don’t want to be late.”
Bridget agreed. She reached for the glasses in her pants pocket and put them on.
“Eeek!” Raquel screeched when she saw her. “You can’t wear those, you might smudge. Besides that, I don’t like to see my work go unnoticed. Call it the creative genius in me.”
Great, Bridget thought. Between Buzz, Richard and Raquel this show was going to have more geniuses than it knew what to do with. “But I can’t see. Seriously, after ten feet everything blurs.”
The blonde held her two hands palms up then shifted them back and forth as if weighing the choices. “Beauty. Sight. Beauty. Sight. Beauty.”
“How do you figure that?”
“Silly, beauty always wins.”
“Fine,” Bridget grumbled and put the glasses back into her pocket. She would just have to try really hard not to squint. She didn’t imagine that Brock had a secret desire for squinters.
Carefully, she followed Raquel down the stairs and knew that the foggy blur at the bottom was Richard.
“Hurry,” he urged the two women on.
“I can’t see,” Bridget hissed.
“And I can’t hurry in heels,” Raquel told him, pouting.
Finally, they made it to the bottom of the stairs. Richard took a hard look at Bridget, and up close, she could see that he nodded in satisfaction. “Okay, now let’s get you both on the set.”
Buzz directed them where to sit. He picked out a single hardback chair for Bridget and placed her in it. “Sit up, chin out, boobs…oh. Never mind.”
Bridget tried not to take offense. She saw Brock leaning against a wall in the foyer and tried to get his attention. At least she thought it was Brock. It could have been a coat rack for all she knew.
“Okay, this is it,” the host announced. “Smile, ladies, and remember you are trying to win the heart of America’s daytime heartthrob, so dirty tricks, cat fighting, name calling and tears are all perfectly acceptable. Good luck.”
Bridget saw one of the cameramen circle the room bringing the hulking piece of equipment with him. She tried to brace herself for the impact of knowing that in less than five, four, three…seconds, the camera was going to be on her.
She turned her head and saw Richard standing just out of range of the camera with his two thumbs in the air. Or were they two fingers?
Don’t think, she told herself. If she began to think she might begin to realize that she was going to be on TV and that might cause her to panic.
Too late.
Breathe, she ordered herself. She was doing this for a reason. She was doing this to prove something to her family, to Richard…maybe even to herself. She could compete for a man’s affection with gifts like intelligence and humor and she wasn’t completely unworthy of a man’s attention. She would show Richard that she could make the cut and then maybe he would stop taking her for granted.
That’s right. It wasn’t about any hidden feelings she had for him. It certainly wasn’t because she wanted to make him jealous. That would be ridiculous. She only wanted him to see how wrong he was about her.
“Hey, can you pull back a little,” she heard Richard say to Buzz, who now had the camera focused on her. “I think she’s got something in her nose.”
She was an idiot.
2
“SO BROCK,” Chuck, the show’s host began, as most hosts do, with a fake smile and an even faker-sounding voice. “Tell us what you are looking for in a woman.”
Brock, who sat next to Chuck in the center of a half arc of fawning women, seemed to ponder the question. He rubbed his chin for a moment, turned to the camera that was focused on him and gazed directly into it, as if letting the viewing audience in on his thoughts before he said anything aloud.
“So many things, Chuck,” he responded. “I’m not looking for someone who is just hot. You know what I mean?”
“I do, Brock. I do.”
Not just hot. Suddenly, Bridget perked up a little. She had to admit she’d been feeling somewhat disenchanted after she’d spent time conversing with the other contestants during the first commercial break. Apparently they were all as equally determined as her to land Brock’s affections and at least make the first cut. Only the most pathetic would be getting the boot tonight, and she sensed that most of the women she talked to counted her as being on that list.
Their reasons for wanting to stay did vary. Some wanted to continue because they thought he was a babe. Some because they wanted to be the wife of Dr. Noah Vanderhorn, the legendary thoracic surgeon with a troubled past and a vulnerability for dangerous women, from the daytime television show The Many Days of Life. Most of them, however, wanted their own career in daytime television and starring with Brock Brickman, even if it was on a game show, seemed to be the best approach.
When Bridget suggested training as an actress, preparing a headshot and a résumé and going on auditions, they looked at her as if she was crazy. What did she know about anything? they asked. She wasn’t even showing cleavage.
Well, now she knew that Brock wanted more than just someone who was attractive.
Take that, girls!
“I want someone with a soul, too,” he confessed to Chuck. Soul. Bridget glanced around the room and decided that most of these women had foregone soul for silicon. It was beginning to look as though she had a shot at him after all. She smiled and tried to flutter her eyelashes, but Raquel had gone a little thick on the mascara and they ended up sticking a little.
“Of course, hot doesn’t hurt,” Brock added, then nudged the host’s elbow with his own as if sharing a private joke.
The women, who had been slumping progressively throughout his little speech, suddenly came to life again. Shoulders were thrown back, chins were lifted and hair was flicked. The blonde next to Bridget caught her square in the mouth with a chunk of hair. Bridget turned her head away and the hair was gone, but the taste of hairspray lingered. She tried not to make a horrible scrunch face as she attempted to lick the spray from her teeth.
Please don’t let the camera see me doing this.
“WHAT IS that one woman doing?” the Breathe Better Mouthwash executive asked, pointing to the screen.
Richard stood next to Dan or Don—he really needed to learn which one was which—off camera watching the show on a television monitor. He didn’t have an answer for the CEO because he really didn’t know what Bridget was doing. First, her eyes had started blinking furiously. Now, she was doing something with her face. For a moment, he feared she was having some kind of seizure. He never should have forced her to do this, he realized. Bridget simply wasn’t cut out for this kind of attention. If he hadn’t known that from his three years of working with her, he’d certainly learned it at her sister’s wedding.
Bridget liked to blend. She was the kind of person who was always there, but was never seen. The ultimate assistant: always on hand, but never underfoot. It wasn’t until after the wedding that he began to understand where that quality came from.
Four sisters. Each of them more stunning than the next. Each one of them knowing it, too. Bridget was the worst kind of Cinderella in a family like that, situated between the two older and two younger stars, with a mother who prized beauty and landing a prince above smarts and success.
And Bridget had too much pride even to ask for a fairy godmother.
“Can you make her stop doing that?” Don or Dan asked.
Richard took his eyes away from the monitor and moved back toward the living room, standing just behind Pete, one of the cameramen. At least Bridget seemed to have cleared up her facial tic and once again was focused intently on Brock.
In this particular group of women, she stood out simply because she was so unremarkable. A bubble of annoyance gurgled in his gut and he suddenly had an irrational desire to walk onto the set, grab her arm and get her the hell out of there.
He didn’t want anyone sitting at home watching this show to wonder what she was doing on TV with those other gorgeous women. He didn’t want anyone thinking that she was desperate. She wasn’t. She was doing him a favor. And in some ways, she was one of the most beautiful women he knew.
Not to mention the kind of guts it took to sit alongside a panel of women who looked like that. But the audience couldn’t see guts.
This was his fault. He’d made her do this and now he regretted it. And the worst part was yet to come. Brock still had to reject her on television in front of everyone. The reality of that was sinking in now that the moment was fast approaching. Suddenly anxious, Richard wondered if she would ever forgive him for this…and why it mattered so much to him if she didn’t.
“OKAY, let’s hear from the ladies,” Chuck decided, still oozing his unique charm. “Tell me what you’re looking for in a potential mate. Raquel.”
“I’m looking for someone just like Brick Brockman.”
“You mean Brock Brickman,” the host corrected her quickly.
“That’s right.” She smiled and pulled her shoulders together a bit more to enhance her cleavage. “Brick Brockman. He’s my ideal man.”
“Okay, moving right along. You, Jenna?”
A sultry brunette with impossibly blue eyes stood and drew all eyes to her. Bridget had already determined that this woman was no fool. She had a goal, and Bridget assessed that Jenna would be undaunted in the pursuit of that goal. This woman was going to marry Brock or land a role in a soap opera.
Whichever came first.
She looked at Brock then shifted her head slightly, no doubt to give her best side to the camera, and told everyone in clear strong tones, “I’m looking for someone who completes me. Someone who fills my heart and is filled in return by all the love I have to give. I don’t want just a husband, but a life mate. A partner. Someone I can share my innermost feelings with, not to mention my innermost…desires.” She sat down again with a flick of her hair and a sultry glance that might have been aimed at Brock, or at the camera behind him.
Wow. That was some speech, Bridget silently applauded. She only hoped she didn’t have to follow that.
“And Bridget, tell us what are the pieces that make up your Mr. Perfect?”
There were times, she decided, that life could be entirely unfair.