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In that time, the stakes had risen. Hit by a hard economy, a decrease in couture spending, and the additional competition, Caleb had been trying to resurrect the business for months. But he lacked his mother’s eye for women’s designs, and everything the rest of the designers had come up with lacked that LL Designs spark. Caleb couldn’t say what was missing, only that the products just weren’t the same.
Hell, nothing had been the same since he’d taken over for his mother, stepping into a position he had no business filling. At the time, the options had been almost nil. Lenora had been here one day, then fighting for her life the next. Without the company founder at the helm, the employees had gone into a panic. The only option was to fill the CEO position with someone who cared as much about the company as Lenora. It was supposed to be a temporary fix until he could afford to hire a CEO.
It hadn’t been long before Caleb realized how much he cared about the company wasn’t enough to offset his lack of experience. Nor did it help the company run effectively and profitably. He should have been smart and hired a new head designer, at the very least. But as the company funds dwindled, the dollars for any additional staff disappeared. At the time, Caleb had thought he could handle it.
After all, this was just dresses and blouses. How hard could it be?
Apparently plenty hard, and not at all the kind of thing a former marketing director could do. He knew all about how to sell the product to the consumer—the problem he had was creating a product consumers actually liked.
This spring’s fashion shows were the make-or-break-it opportunity for LL Designs. Either get the public’s attention this year or close the doors of the decades-old fashion house. And admit that he had singlehandedly run his mother’s life’s work into the ground. If she knew what had happened to her company … well, it was a blessing that she didn’t.
Way to go, Caleb. Want to blow up a small village while you’re at it?
“That isn’t …” His assistant Martha Nessbaum stopped by his desk, and put a hand over her mouth. He hadn’t even heard the older woman come in—that alone showed how distracted he’d become in the last few weeks. Caleb Lewis, who had always been on top of the smallest detail in his former career, was clearly losing his focus. “Is it?”
“Maybe,” Caleb said. “It sure fits the leaked description.”
“Can I touch it?”
“Martha, it’s a shoe, not the Hope diamond.”
Martha shot him a you-don’t-get-it look. “This isn’t just a shoe, Caleb, it’s … sex on a heel.”
Caleb chuckled. He hadn’t expected his sixtyish, lion-at-the-door assistant to say that. “Women and shoes. Once researchers figure out how to cure cancer and how Stonehenge was built, I’m sure they’ll get right to work on that mystery.”
“How did you get hold of it?”
“Someone lost it.”
“What do you mean someone lost it? Who would do that?” Martha’s gaze narrowed. “You didn’t break into the Frederick K factory and steal it, did you?”
He laughed. “No. I’m not that desperate.”
Yet. How long until he was? LL Designs employed four hundred people. Four hundred people who counted on him to pay their mortgages, send their kids to college, put food on their tables. It wasn’t just the thought of destroying Lenora Lewis’s legacy that ate him up at night—
It was the thought of all those people standing in the unemployment line. Because of him.
For the thousandth time he wondered what insanity had made him think he could handle running this company. Hell, he could barely handle his own life. He’d made enough mistakes to fill a cruise ship. Maybe if he had—
No, he wasn’t going to think about that. Water under the bridge—water that still churned in his gut with regrets.
Martha reached out and picked up the slender crimson heel. She cradled it in her palm as gently as a newborn kitten, and, he swore, nearly breathed in the scent of the leather. “It’s beautiful. Absolutely—” She gasped, then turned the right side toward him and pointed at a slight scuff mark. “Oh, my God. What happened here?”
“An unfortunate meeting with concrete.” The damage looked as if it could be buffed out, but either way, it didn’t matter to Caleb. He wasn’t photographing the shoe, or selling it or wearing it. Just using it for his own purposes.
The idea had come to him almost from the minute he picked up the Frederick K stiletto this morning. He’d been in such a rush to get to the meeting with the venue he was using for Fashion Week that he’d nearly missed the discarded high heel. But the flash of red drew his eye, and he found himself stopping, partly out of curiosity, partly out of some weird sixth sense that told him the forgotten shoe wasn’t some Goodwill cast-off, but rather something big.
Very big.
Before he even picked it up, he recognized the trademark black striped underside that marked every Frederick K design. Then the scribbled autograph of the designer, sewn into the leather base. An F, a squiggle, then a K. The man could have been a doctor, given the disaster he made out of his own signature.
Before he could think about what he was doing, Caleb had tucked the shoe into his jacket, called a cab and headed to his meeting. Someone was undoubtedly missing this shoe—
But Caleb sure as hell wasn’t missing this opportunity to one-up the shark threatening to send LL Designs to the bottom of the crowded, competitive fashion ocean. People were counting on him to keep this ship afloat, and by God, he’d do that.
Yeah, but how? the little voice in the back of his head asked. He couldn’t let his employees down. But most of all, couldn’t let his mother down. She might not be aware of what was happening with the company, but he held on to the thought that maybe someday she would be back, and if she returned, she’d want to see that he had been a good steward of her legacy.
“So … now that you have the elusive Frederick K shoe,” Martha said, “what are you going to do with it?” She clutched it to her chest, as if she couldn’t part with the right-foot treasure.
Caleb leaned forward and pried the stiletto out of Martha’s hand, then put it back on his shelf. “Keep it. And then rush an even hotter design into production. We’ve been talking about launching a line of shoes for years, and we got all geared up to do just that before the bottom dropped out of the industry. I think now’s the time. This just fell into my lap—literally—and it’d be insane not to take advantage of it.”
“You’re finally going to take that leap?” Martha’s smile widened in approval. “It’s about damned time.”
He chuckled. “Yeah. It probably is.”
“And for what it’s worth, your mother would be proud.”
The words sent a sharp pang through Caleb. Proud. Would she be?
Caleb’s gaze landed on the painting of his mother that hung on the far wall. The oil likeness had captured a younger Lenora, not the woman he knew now. A constant smile curved across her face, and her platinum-blond hair was piled on top of her head in a loose chignon, the same one she’d worn nearly every day, half the time with a pencil stuck in the knot. She seemed to be looking down on him and patiently waiting for him to pull off a miracle.
To do the right thing.
He closed his eyes, unable to look at her image another second. The right thing. Did he even know what that was?
“Proud?” Caleb said, looking away from his mother’s image. “Of what I’ve done to her company? Of how I’ve nearly ruined a lifetime of work in a little over a year?”
Martha leaned in toward him, her expression stern. “You got on the back of a wild elephant when you took the reins of this company. I know it’s been difficult, but you’re doing a better job than you think. And now …” She pressed a hand to her chest and the smile returned. “… you’re taking a risk. Jumping off into the great unknown. That’s the kind of thing Lenora did.”
He hadn’t thought about launching a shoe line as repeating his mother’s brazen business antics. If that was so, then maybe this was the ticket to relaunching the company into a successful orbit.
“What are you going to use for designs?” Martha asked.
He toyed with the heel of the shoe. It was truly a work of art, all sleek lines, with a deep V at the toe and a T-strap edged in gold metallic. “I was thinking of letting Kenny try his hand at a couple—”
“Don’t. He doesn’t get shoes. I should know, I’m a girl.” Martha smiled. “An old girl, but one who still loves her shoes.”
Martha had a point. The problem was, talented designers weren’t exactly in great supply at LL Designs. Just before his mother stepped down, the company had lost two of the best on staff, then another two as the economy had dragged the once-profitable company down. And the inspiration for the company, the one with all the ideas, was too ill for consultation. Maybe forever.
Somehow, Caleb had to do this on his own, and do it better than he had been doing for the past year. “Maybe I’ll have to hire some outside help,” he said, though he still didn’t know how he could afford that. Caleb rose, scooping up the shoe and his BlackBerry. “Either way, I’ll figure it out.” The weight of every decision he made hung heavy on his shoulders. Was this shoe—and the company’s entry into footwear—the miracle he needed? Maybe. Though a whisper of doubt told him if he didn’t fix the problems he was having with the collection as a whole, footwear wasn’t going to resurrect LL Designs, either. “I’m going to pop over to Smart Fashion and see if I can get any buzz on the Frederick K collection.”
And maybe see if he could find out why this shoe had been on the ground. There were very few people in the industry who would have access to this accessory. The magazine, which had been a favorite of Frederick K’s for years, was at the top of his mental list. Someone there had to know something about this shoe, and maybe even what the designer had in store for the rest of his shoe line.
“You’re going yourself?” Martha asked.
Caleb nodded.
“But you hate the media. Especially that magazine.”
The headlines flashed in his head again. The question marks, the massive black letters, all of them trying to capitalize on his mother’s sudden retirement, and then return like vultures to pick at every misstep the company had made since then. Not just the company, but his own life, too. He’d become the punching bag of the gossip column at Behind the Scenes, the tabloid arm of Smart Fashion. Every move he made was chronicled in living color. Yes, he hated the media, and hated Behind the Scenes the most. The tabloid was nothing but trash with advertising.
The problem—it and its sister publication were the highest-circulation trash with advertising in his industry.
Either way, he didn’t trust the media. He’d learned early on that those in the media wanted only one thing—the headline, no matter the personal carnage along the way.
“You haven’t exactly been Mr. Friendly with the reporters in the past.” Martha made a face. “They’re still talking about that incident in Milan.”
And still making him pay for it, too, with one gossip-riddled story after another. The reporters had focused their laser eyes on his love life—or what they surmised about his love life—rather than the company. It had netted him nothing but bad press. Press he could hardly afford, given the shaky state of LL Designs lately.
If he was smart, he’d stay home every night. Staying home meant allowing the quiet to get to him, letting his thoughts travel down the very paths he was using the lights and noises of nightclubs to help him avoid.
At least the tabloids hadn’t uncovered the one truth that would put the final nail in the coffin of his reputation. So far, the reporters had been content to focus on his nightlife rather than where he spent every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday afternoon. He’d taken great pains to assure his mother’s privacy was maintained. An out-of-state rehab facility. A well-paid, compassionate nursing team. And a constant request for discretion from all who knew Lenora.
“Maybe if you were nice to those reporters,” Martha said, interrupting his thoughts, “you’d get better results.”
Caleb scowled. “Nice? To the media?” His mother would lecture him to no end if he became overly friendly with reporters.
“Those flies perk up and listen when you ply them with honey.”
“Yeah, then they turn around and breed a bunch of maggots all over my still-breathing body.”
Martha wagged a finger at him. “Maybe you’re the one that needs the honey.”
“All right.” He let out a sigh. “I’ll bring the editorial staff some cookies or something.”
Martha laughed. “For a man who heads a fashion design house, you really are clueless about women. Shoes and chocolate, Caleb. That’s all you need to get a woman’s attention.”
“And all this time I thought it was a rapier wit.”
“Keep telling yourself that, funny man.” Martha shot him a smile before she headed out of his office. “And see how far it gets you when there’s a sale on Jimmy Choos.”
CHAPTER TWO
AS MUCH as she wanted to, Sarah couldn’t hide out in her apartment and pray for a bunch of elves to knock on her door and hand over a replacement shoe. No, she had to be proactive.
Find that damned shoe, and at the same time, avoid Karl in the office. For a woman who had set out to change her life this week, she was certainly heading in the wrong direction.
Pedro Esposito leaned his dyed blond head over her cubicle wall. When she’d first arrived this morning, she’d dumped the entire sad story on the other writer’s shoulder. Pedro was a good friend—the kind who wouldn’t run to the boss and report Sarah’s shoe loss just so he could get promoted over her. His listening ear and shoulder to cry on should have been marketed to every woman needing a trustable friend. “Good news, peach.”
“There’s good news today?”
Pedro nodded. “Don’t you read your e-mails? Karl had to have an emergency root canal, so he’ll be out all day. Ding-dong, the boss is gone.”
Sarah laughed. Relief burst inside her chest. She’d just been handed a twenty-four-hour reprieve. “Thank God.”
“No, thank the walnut muffin that cracked his crown.” Pedro grinned, then fluttered a piece of paper onto her desk. “Here. This should help save your job.”
Sarah picked up the color flyer. “Oh, very funny, Pedro. A wanted poster for a missing shoe.”
His smile widened. “Better than a wanted poster for your head on a stick, which is what Karl’s going to hang up if he finds out what happened to that Frederick K.”
Sarah shuddered. Knowing Karl, that was a distinct possibility. He had a tendency to freak out over everything from a missed deadline to a drop in advertising revenues. “I’ll find it.”
“Whatever you want to believe, Cinderella. But if you ask me, what you need is a prince to come along and save you.” Pedro chuckled, then sank back behind his own desk.
No way. She was going to save herself, thank you very much. Hadn’t she done a thousand stories on cheating, no-good men? On the kind of men who might pretend to be Prince Charming, but were really Prince Self-Serving in nice clothes? Men who went after the nearest pretty young thing, ignoring the steadfast quiet, not-so-glamorous girl in the corner.
She didn’t need that. At all.
“This Cinderella is going to find her own shoe,” Sarah said. “I made this mess. I’ll figure out how to solve it. No fairy godmothers or princes necessary.”
Sarah put the flyer on her desk. Maybe she’d duck out early, and knock on a few doors in her neighborhood. Someone had to have seen something. They had to have.
She got up, about to head over to the break room for more coffee, hoping to quell the headache that had started yesterday and had yet to subside, when she saw the last man she expected to see striding down the aisle.
Caleb Lewis.
Lord, he was good-looking. Too bad she knew what a cad he could be in real life. Nevertheless, the dark-haired owner of LL Designs had a way of carrying himself that demanded attention and drew her gaze to him, even against her better judgment. Lean and muscular, he stood several inches taller than her, just tall enough for a woman to curl against him and press her head to his chest, feel his heart beat and the solid strength of him. His blue eyes always seemed to hold a hint of a tease, as if he was ready to laugh at the slightest provocation. The kind of man who embodied fun. A good time.
The problem? He was known for exactly that—having a good time, and doing so in public. She’d watched from the sidelines dozens of times while Caleb Lewis laughed it up with the model of the week. Or tangoed on the dance floor in the middle of a sea of women. Or closed down the club, leaving with a woman on each arm. His nickname in the magazine was Devil-May-Care Caleb—a moniker Karl had come up with to describe the designer-house president’s footloose attitude and lifestyle.
He was heart-stoppingly gorgeous—she’d give him that. Still, a handsome man who starred on the pages of the gossip column way too often. Apparently every woman in New York knew how gorgeous he was, and from what she’d observed, he’d spent every night appreciating that attention. Way too much.
Ever since she’d started writing about his active and highly social personal life, there’d been a war of sorts brewing between herself and LL Designs. One where he avoided her and she hounded him for the truth. Thus far, his favorite and only response was “No comment.”
So what was he doing here?
He strode down the carpeted path between the cubicles, then came to a stop. Right in front of her.
It had finally come to a head. He was here to confront her about the articles that had covered his endless squiring of one model after another. His wild antics in bars up and down the east coast. The reputation he’d garnered for being not just a ladies’ man, but one who did what he wanted. When he wanted. Consequences be damned.
“Miss Griffin.” Caleb Lewis nodded, his expression as unreadable as white walls.
Oh, God, he was here to sue her. That was the last thing she needed today. Then she noticed the oversized white wicker basket in his hands, a cellophane-wrapped treasure trove of chocolate goodies from the candy shop down the street.
What on earth?
“Can I help you with anything?” Sarah asked. “Do you need directions to Karl’s office?” She gestured down the hall, to the staircase that led to the senior editor’s office.
“Actually,” he held up the basket, stuffed to the brim with brightly colored candies, thick, decadent chocolate bars and luscious cocoa mix packets. “I came to … bribe you.”
Bribe her? After all she’d written about him? It had to be a trick. She snorted. “Yeah, right. With what? Laxative-laced chocolates? Or did you put razor blades in the candied apples?”
A slight grin crossed his face. “I considered it.”
“Honesty.” Despite herself, she grinned back. “I can appreciate that.”
Her stomach rumbled, and saliva pooled in her mouth. That basket held a minimum of three pounds of chocolate, she estimated. After the last twenty-odd hours, she could use at least a pound of the sugar solace in Caleb Lewis’s hands.
He placed the basket on her desk, close enough that she could swipe one of those candy bars with little more than a scissor snip of the cellophane. She fought the urge. Valiantly.
Caleb gestured toward the visitor chair. She nodded, and he dropped into the seat with the kind of ease that marked a confident man, one who could take over a space simply by being in it. “I need some information.”
Sarah tried to concentrate on Caleb’s face instead of the candy. Her stomach rumbled in protest. She should have had breakfast this morning. Then again, concentrating on Caleb Lewis came with as many dangers as digesting the thousands of calories in the basket before her. The man was a distracting interruption she definitely didn’t need today.
His blue gaze zeroed in on her face. He had a way of looking at a person that seemed to see past any façade, to make any secret hard to hide. Like the fact that her entire body was responding to his smile, his eyes, betraying her common sense. She’d seen women get so wrapped up in his face, his smile, that they tripped over their own two feet trying to get closer to him. No wonder. Being this close to Caleb Lewis, she realized the direct power of his gaze. Almost hypnotic.
Sarah cleared her throat. “Information? On what?”
“I wanted to ask whether you—” He cut the sentence off, then leaned forward. “What’s that?”
“What’s what?” She pivoted to follow his line of sight. Right over the books on her desk, past the coffee cup serving as a pencil holder, beyond the unopened oat-and-honey granola bar she’d been saving for a snack, and straight to—
The wanted poster.
She reached to hide it, but Caleb’s reach was faster and he plucked it up. “Hmm. Interesting.”
“It’s nothing.” Sarah swiped at the paper, but Caleb just leaned away from her. “Give it back.”
“Missing: one shoe,” he read. “Red stiletto. Custom design. Reward for safe return.” He arched a brow. “You lost a shoe?”
Sarah snatched the paper out of his hand and buried it under a stack of old magazine issues on her desk. In the next cubicle, she heard Pedro snicker. “I thought you wanted to talk about your company.”
He leaned back in the chair, crossing his arms over his chest. “That looks like a Frederick K. I heard rumors he was launching a shoe line. Is this a prototype for the new season? Something he plans to unveil at Fashion Week?”
Suspicion arced inside her, then she realized the designer’s trademark signature was clearly visible in the photo Pedro had used, one he’d probably grabbed off the server from the art department’s test shoot last week. Someone like Caleb, who made his living in this industry, would recognize the logo right away, and would want information about the competition. “Maybe.”
“Did you lose it?”
His stare seemed to cut right through her. But she refused to be daunted by him. Or by the condemnation in his tone. “What do you care?”
“Oh, I don’t.” A smile curved across his face. “Though you might, if you want to find that shoe.”
The suspicion that had risen in her earlier burst into full-bore distrust. For the first time, she realized he was wearing a navy-blue pin-striped suit. Just like the man she’d seen stop on the sidewalk this morning. Had he been that man? Had he found and taken the stiletto?
What were the chances? And surely, he would have told her right away, wouldn’t he? Then again, given their history, the chances were slim he’d tell her anything. There were a lot of navy-blue-suit-wearing men out there.
But not very many interested in a Frederick K stiletto.
“What do you mean, if I want to find that shoe?” she asked.
He danced his fingers on the arm of his chair, that damnable grin lighting up his features. It was the kind of smile that said I know something you don’t. “I might know where it is.”
Relief exploded inside her, quickly chased by the sobering reality that this was Caleb Lewis she was talking to. The man hated her guts. His vague comments about the shoe’s whereabouts could all be a trick. A way to get back at her for all those columns. “You have to return the shoe. It’s private property.”
That smile flitted across his face again, too fast to read its meaning. The tempting aroma of chocolate wafted up from the basket to greet Sarah, as if saying, trust him. He’s okay. He came with chocolate.
“Is there a reward involved?” Caleb asked.
“Mr. Lewis, if you have that shoe—”
“Maybe I do. Maybe I don’t. Either way, I’m not admitting anything, because Lord knows you’re very good at declaring me guilty before you’ve looked at all the facts.” He draped an arm over the back of the chair, as easy with being there as if he were in his own office. “Why don’t you meet me over at my office at say, two o’clock, and we can discuss an … arrangement of sorts.”