All Tied Up

What was it about a wet naked man? Macy wondered. So much clean skin in which to bury her nose and breathe, in which to dart the tip of her tongue and taste.

“Macy?” Leo called. “Are you cooking yet?”

If he only knew, she mused. “I was thinking of bringing a couple of eggs in here and poaching them in this steam.”

Leo’s movements stilled and then she heard the magnetic latch click. The door eased open and Macy got her first unintentional look at his body before she jerked her gaze up to his face.

He wore a grin that was pure ego and conceit. The brief look she’d caught of his body was enough to confirm he had good reason.

Besides, at the moment, she was willing to forgive him just about anything. Water streamed down his face, dripping from spiky lashes, matting his hair to his head with a boyish charm.

The complete picture destroyed her resolve and she stepped into the shower, pajamas and all.

Dear Reader,

I admit it. Fashion fascinates me, as do fads. Who would have thought we’d see the return of tie-dye and bell-bottoms? Or that individuality and flaunting convention could make for such eye-catching style?

I also find myself fascinated by the entrepreneurial spirit and boundless imagination (not to mention energy!) found in so many members of Generation X.

Welcome to gIRL-gEAR, the combination of my fascinations, where you’ll meet a group of six twenty-something women who’ve launched an urban fashion empire and, because this is my fantasy, have set the retail world on fire.

All Tied Up, the first story, follows the Peter Pan adventures of Macy Webb, who wildly embraces her inner child—until she meets corporate attorney Leo Redding, who is all grown up.

If, like Chloe Zuniga, the heroine of the second story, you enjoy those sexy scenes from classic cinematic love stories, you won’t want to miss No Strings Attached.

Finally, join Sydney Ford as she sets sail toward a romance that was Bound to Happen!

Enjoy!

Alison Kent

P.S. To learn more about the girls, the company and the series, visit www.girl-gear.com, where you can always find the latest in fun and games, dating tips and more!

All Tied Up

Alison Kent

www.millsandboon.co.uk

A big thank-you to:

Birgit Davis-Todd for your enthusiasm and your patience Karen Solem for your encouragement and patience Susan Sheppard for the conversation over dinner on the River Walk—and did I mention your patience? And to Walt, for too many things to mention but, on this book in particular, for your patience with my need for tiramisu and caramel lattes.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Prologue

The gIRLS behind gIRL-gEAR

by Samantha Venus for Urban Attitude Magazine

This month we begin a multipart series introducing the women responsible for the cultural phenomenon that is gIRL-gEAR. (And to think it all began at an Austin, Texas, Starbucks!)

Three years ago, the firm blasted onto the retail scene with urban fashion’s next best thing, and now gIRL-gEAR has had every department store across the country scrambling to catch up. All we at Urban Attitude have to say is, Good Luck!

Let’s meet our first gIRL…Macy Webb—a fitting choice for our initial profile, as Macy works as content editor for the Web site’s discussion forums and advice columns, offering tips on dating and suggestions for singles. And let’s be honest here. Do we doubt for a minute that the gIRLS whose fashion advice we’ve followed now for three years would steer us wrong when it comes to M-E-N? I don’t think so!

Creator of gIRL gAMES and gIRL gUIDE, the site’s fun and advice columns, Macy’s currently organizing a trial run of her latest gIRL gAMES project—a very sexy scavenger hunt. “An after-hours, adults-only, you-find-mine-I’ll-find-yours kind of contest,” she says. The rules will be posted in her next column, due online at the end of the month. (www.girl-gear.com)

MACY WEBB READ the laminated copy of the magazine article tacked to the corner of her drafting board while waiting for her printer to spit out the lists she’d be needing later tonight. When she considered how far the company had come in such a short period of time…She shook her head, amazed that the firm’s partners still possessed a shred of sanity, what with the out-of-control pace of the business.

The six friends who’d founded gIRL-gEAR, hadn’t even met until their senior year at University of Texas, while sharing late night shifts at a new Austin Starbucks. Macy had been a psychology major. Her roommate, Lauren Hollister, had been working toward a degree in commercial art.

Sydney Ford, gIRL-gEAR’s CEO, had managed the coffee shop while studying business and finance. Kinsey Gray, Melanie Craine and Chloe Zuniga, the last of the partners, had been on equally diverse career paths, from marketing to technology to fashion.

Until one fateful night following a late November football game, the six women had assumed they’d go their separate ways come commencement the following June. That night the UT Longhorns had trounced the Houston Cougars in a nearly unheard of Texas windchill of seventeen degrees.

And the teamwork involved in ordering, brewing and serving enough lattes, mochas and cappuccinos to defrost what seemed to be every single spectator, convinced business-minded Sydney that she’d be a fool not to capitalize on a sure thing.

The sure thing had launched with the explosive sparkle and flash of a Fourth of July bottle rocket. Each of the women brought her own individuality and vision to bear on the corporation’s mission statement. Each brought her own field of expertise as well, putting her degree to work to expand the conceptual whole.

Macy and Lauren worked as respective editors of content and design for the interactive e-commerce Web site and mail-order catalog. Chloe headed up gRAFFITI gIRL and gADGET gIRL, the cosmetics and accessories lines.

The gift line, gOODY gIRL, and the technology line, gIZMO gIRL, were in Melanie’s capable hands. Kinsey divided her time between gO gIRL and gROWL gIRL, the active-wear and party-wear divisions.

Sydney had been forced by time limitations and ever-increasing executive responsibilities to hand off the original gIRL-gEAR fashions to the firm’s junior associates, who did their best to keep up with consumer demand.

Thirty-eight months after graduation and two years into incorporation, the six founding partners had revised their five-year business plan for the second time. But even if the corporation’s fireworks fizzled next week, each of the women had a portfolio reflecting an investment in the future.

A good thing for all involved, but Macy didn’t dwell on what might or might not happen. The way she saw things, the future was…the future. Much too far away to think about when there was so much fun to be had now….

1

“I DON’T KNOW, Macy. You think we have enough food here?”

Macy Webb set a tub of tortilla chips and a trough of salsa next to the Crock-Pot of hot chile con queso plugged in on the kitchen bar. She added a festive tower of throwaway bowls in red, yellow, green and blue, and a stack of matching paper napkins. Eyeing the colorful layout, she smiled and, hands at black capri-covered hips, turned to answer Lauren.

“Well, there’s you and me, the other girls, and Anton, of course.” Lauren’s boyfriend was as much a permanent fixture on game night as the gIRL-gEAR partners, who helped Macy fine-tune the ideas for her column.

“And the guys? Who did you invite this time?”

“Ray, Jess, Doug and Eric.” Macy gave serious thought to the combined appetites of five in-the-prime-of-life, twenty-something men. “Hmm. Now that you mention it…”

She took in the long buffet table Lauren had pulled from the loft’s office space into the dining area and covered with a brightly fringed Mexican throw.

Pico de gallo. Chopped tomatoes. Shredded lettuce. Grated cheese. Chafing dishes with pinto beans ala charro and sautéed onions and peppers. A metal washtub of iced Corona longnecks, and fajitas on the grill. It looked like enough, but…

“Margaritas, maybe?” she asked.

Lauren rolled her eyes, shook her head. Healthy strands of sun-streaked blond hair brushed her shoulders. “I was being facetious. We’ll be eating leftovers for a week, at least.”

“Not a problem.” Macy pinched a tiny tomato square from the serving bowl, popped it into her mouth. “I can eat Tex-Mex morning, noon and night.”

“That’s because you have the metabolism of a man. I, on the other hand, have no metabolism, which means I have the hips of a woman.”

“Hips, ha! You and your perfect C-cup boobs. Don’t be giving me any of your metabolism crap.” Macy tugged on the hem of her hot-pink T-shirt, glanced down the scooped neckline in search of cleavage. “Oh. I know. You forgot the guacamole.”

Lauren stopped in the middle of setting out rows of plastic cutlery to lift a delicate brow. “Looking down your shirt makes you think of avocados?”

“If only. More like green grapes. Key limes, if I’m lucky.” Macy adjusted her shirt hem and went to clear a place on the table for the platters of meat. “I owe what bustline I do have to the push-up bras Kinsey stocks. Employee discount be damned. I’ve invested a fortune.”

“Are you sure you’re getting your money’s worth?” Lauren’s expression was the picture of fresh-faced innocence. “I don’t see any pushing up going on at the moment.”

Macy stuck out her tongue. “That’s because my pusher-uppers are all still wet. I’ve been busy with the party and didn’t get my laundry done until this afternoon.”

“That explains the funky-looking delicates hanging in my bathroom.” Lauren headed back to the kitchen.

“My bathroom’s open to the public. Yours is off the beaten path. I didn’t want just anyone fondling my things.” Of course, she might make an exception for the right man. The right man with the right hands and a kiss to knock her socks off.

“Then your things should be safe. No one but Anton has any reason to be in my room. And I’ll make sure the only thing delicate he fondles is me,” Lauren said, returning from the kitchen with her hands full of serving utensils.

“Thanks for rubbing it in. Now I only have you to worry about. You and the guacamole, which I see you have once again managed to forget.” Macy waited for an explanation more reasonable than the one she knew would be coming.

“It’s in the fridge.” Lauren gestured over her shoulder with a tilt of her chin. “Behind the fruit trifle.”

“And you left it there why?”

“I thought we just covered this? Metabolism? Hips?”

Macy considered smacking the grin from Lauren’s face. But that was best-friend rule number one. No smacking allowed.

She took the serving pieces Lauren offered. “So now I have to set the table, get the guacamole from the fridge and grab the chicken and shrimp off the barbie?”

“Cute. Aussie Tex-Mex.” Lauren reached for the platter and barbecue tongs. “I’ll get the meat. The guacamole might not make it to the table if left up to me.”

Grr. “Will you stop already with the food obsession? I’ve seen what you eat. If you ate any less I’d be worried.”

“If I ate any less, I’d be a saint. Which I’m not. And you can keep your unsaintly comeback to yourself.”

Macy bit back the unsaintly comeback on the tip of her tongue. “I was only going to say that I can’t believe you’d worry about calories on game night.”

Lauren stepped through the sliding glass doors and out onto the balcony. She tossed her reply back into the room. “Your game nights are beginning to scare me. It’s like you’re a walking, talking Cosmo poll. Where do you come up with these ideas?”

A walking, talking Cosmo poll? Macy chuckled, even while recognizing the analogy to be a fairly accurate description of the ease with which she created gIRL gAMES and gIRL gUIDE, the fun and advice columns she wrote for gIRL-gEAR’s Web site. Her job was child’s play. She liked it that way, and planned to get away with not working for a living as long as she possibly could.

Meeting Lauren between the table and the balcony door, Macy took the platter of chicken from her roommate’s hands. “Don’t ask me where the ideas come from. They just show up. I test them, work out the kinks, write the columns. And the rest, as they say, is history.”

“Well, I guess that’s all good, since yesterday Sydney mentioned your two columns are still generating the most feedback for the site.” Lauren headed back to the grill.

“Wow! How cool is that!” Macy left the chicken on the table and followed, wanting to hear more.

“Actually—” Lauren gestured with the tongs “—we talked about a new design for your Web pages. I think you need a logo. Maybe a caricature. Or a cartoon-type figure.”

“Hmm. Cartoon is good. A takeoff on my name? A cuddly spider, maybe? Big eyes and long lashes. None of that black widow, Barbie doll, comic-book cleavage.”

“Cuddly, huh? I’ll see what I can do.” Lauren plucked the last of the shrimp from the grill. “Oh, and I think Sydney wants you to write an ongoing serial, too. Where readers vote on ideas or submit suggestions for each installment? Anyway, I’m going to run a few design ideas by Anton later.”

“Wow, super.” Macy pasted on a broad smile. “Hey, what would I do without you and Sydney to take care of me?”

“That’s what best friends are for.”

Macy wandered back into the loft before sarcasm got the better of her. Yes, she was excited. Yes, she was thrilled. She loved her career, after all. But success was blowing in on hurricane winds and she wasn’t prepared for the storm.

It was now that mattered, now that counted. Living for and in the moment. Not worrying about the price of technology stock years down the road. She didn’t want to lose a minute of today planning for the future. Why couldn’t anyone see that?

Lauren stepped inside, catching the balcony door with her hip and giving a gentle shove. With food, drink and all things paper, plastic and edible in place, she lifted a brow at Macy, looked back at the table, then to Macy again.

Macy shrugged. “If you cook it, they will come?”

“You’d better hope they come soon or I see a whole lotta freezer bags in your future.”

As if on cosmic cue, the buzzer signaled the approach of the loft’s renovated freight elevator.

“I don’t know how you manage to do that every time. But there’s something about a gift horse and his mouth that I think applies here.” Lauren scurried toward her rooms at the far end of the loft, her low-slung jeans topped by a billowy gauze shirt a shade lighter than the purple tube top beneath.

“Hey,” Macy called. “Where’re you going?”

“I need to check my stuff before Anton gets here.” And, with a wiggle of her fingers, Lauren disappeared behind one of the hanging panels of hammered brass that separated her living quarters from the loft’s main room.

“Stuff? What stuff? Oh, never mind. Who cares about your stinky ol’ stuff, anyway?” Pouting, Macy headed for the kitchen and the guacamole. She could eat both her helping and Lauren’s, return for seconds and never gain an inch or an ounce.

The only way the avocado salad would make any difference to her figure was if she scooped it directly into her bra. Sort of an edible implant. Kinky, but, hey. A girl had to do what a girl had to do if she wanted to have stuff of her own.

And anyone worth checking it for.

“THIS SHRIMP IS outstanding. Absolutely outstanding.” Eric Haydon shoved another in his mouth and gave Macy a closed-lipped, shrimp-eating grin.

She added a fifth throwaway plate to the stack balanced from fingertips to elbow, added a hint of twisted wickedness to her parting shot. “Just doing what I can to fatten you up for the kill. Hansel.”

Chipmunk-cheeked Eric stopped chewing. Then swallowed. “I was afraid of that.”

“You know, Eric, if you weren’t so easy to tease, well, I wouldn’t tease you.” Macy reached the kitchen alcove separated from the rest of the loft by eight floor-to-ceiling lava-lamp bubble sculptures. She dropped the discarded plates into the trash. “Tonight’s game will be painless. I promise.”

Longneck in hand, Eric leaned a shoulder on a turquoise figure eight. His dark-blue Henley shirt seemed hard-pressed to cover his broad shoulders, but did great things to his eyes. “I’ve figured something out about you, Macy Webb.”

Well, that made one of them, because sooner or later she needed to figure out why he wasn’t her type. “What’s that? That no matter how creatively you beg, I’m not leaving gIRL-gEAR to come cook for you?”

Eric owned his own sports bar, Haydon’s Half-Time, and had been after Macy for months to give up writing and editing to sling his hash instead.

Except Macy only cooked for fun, not for money. Money made work out of play, and what kind of a life was that?

“I wish. But I know you’re not going anywhere.” He finished his beer, tossed the empty bottle in with the plates and utensils. “Can’t blame a guy for trying, though.”

“I don’t blame you. As the object of your culinary pursuit, I have been flattered.” Macy thought for a minute, then puffed out her lower lip. “As a matter of fact, now that I think about it, I’m going to miss being wooed.”

“You want woo? I’ll give you woo.” Eric took a step closer and slowly smiled, allowing his dimples to deepen to maximum impact. Then he leaned down and poured all that macho charm into Macy’s personal space.

She leaned up into his, pulling to a halt before she actually got stupid and kissed the man. “Yeah? You and whose football team? Hmm.” Eyes closed, she held up one finger. “Let me take a minute here to imagine the possibilities.”

“Very funny, Macy.”

“Okay. I’m done.” She opened one eye, then the other, laughed out loud as Eric rolled his.

“You’re sick.”

“And you’re gullible.” She punched him in the shoulder.

“Hey.” He rubbed away the damage. “You know, just for that I think I’ll take one last shrimp and leave.”

“You can’t do that.” She grabbed and ended up with a handful of loose sleeve minus the elbow she’d been aiming for. “I’m already one man short, since I don’t know where Anton is.”

“I knew it.” Eric hung his head, his chin lowered in defeat. “This is going to be one of those games where we have to pair off into couples, isn’t it?”

“And what makes you jump to that conclusion?” Besides the fact that at least fifty percent of her games were designed for interaction between the sexes, and her players knew the odds rarely changed from month to month.

“Two things. The tougher the game, the better the spread. And you have fajitas coming out the wazoo. Second thing. If you’re a man short, that means couples.” He held up a second finger, jabbed it at his chest to make his point. “And there is no Mrs. Eric Haydon in my future.”

“No need to be so touchy, Eric. It’s just a game. Not holy matrimony.”

Eric braced both hands on the edge of the sink, shook his head and looked down.

Macy moved in, massaged circles on his back between his shoulder blades. “Poor baby. Your breakup with Cathy was a tough one?”

“Brutal. Totally brutal.” He pushed back from the sink, stood in the center of the kitchen with his hands at his hips as if waiting for a flying tackle.

Macy didn’t know whether to hug him or push him over with a feather, which she was sure would be all it would take. She did manage to bite her tongue on a chuckle.

If he wasn’t such a Tarzan…Hmm. Maybe that was the problem. She never had made a very good Jane. “You know, Eric, I hate to say it….”

“Go ahead. Everyone else has.”

“Okay then. I told you so. You and Cathy were totally wrong for each other.”

“Well, it didn’t feel so wrong when we got together.” Eric rubbed the base of his neck, looked from Macy to the wildly paint-splattered kitchen floor and back again.

She just waited, one brow lifted while he stewed.

When his juices reached a simmer, he jumped from the frying pan into the fire. “Damn it, Macy. Just spit it out before you choke on your tongue.”

“It didn’t feel so wrong when you got together because you didn’t get out of bed for a week.” She punctuated her pronouncement with a sternly pointed index finger.

“Yeah, so?”

“So?” Were all men so daft? “Man cannot live by bed alone.”

“Aha! Wrong. Man can. Woman cannot.”

Macy was gearing up to set Eric straight when a soft female voice cut into the conversation. “Sounds to me, sugar, like you haven’t met the right woman.”

Both Macy and Eric turned, to find Chloe Zuniga with one hip propped on a bulbous red sculpture.

With a gorgeously full Jennifer Lopez figure, naturally highlighted platinum hair and eyes that changed color depending on her choice of contact lenses, Chloe was fantasy pinup material.

It was only when she opened her mouth that the myth was dispelled. Chloe had a voice as soft as down…and the vocabulary of a wharf rat.

Hand extended, Eric started forward. “Eric Haydon. And you would be?”

Batting ingenuous eyes that said less about her innocence and more about her understanding of artful naiveté, she dispensed a frosted pink, candy-coated smile. “Why, your wildest dream, of course.”

Eric grabbed her wrist, turned his cheek and nuzzled his lips to her skin. And he did it all without breaking eye contact. “Is that a promise I should be holding you to, Chloe?”

Time to stop this conversation’s downhill slide, Macy decided, stepping into the standoff before either of her guests could strip to their skivvies. “Any sign of Anton yet?”

Chloe extricated herself from Eric’s hold, leaving him with a pat on the cheek. She crossed the kitchen to pull a bottle of spring water from the fridge. “He’s here. Lauren sent me to tell you.”

“It’s about damn time.”

Macy breathed a sigh of relief, which Chloe interrupted by adding, “But Doug’s not coming. A bad blueprint on one of the condos, I think was the deal.”

Chloe twisted the cap from her bottle and sipped. “Oh, and Kinsey just called. Her parents came into town this afternoon and insisted she join them for dinner.”

Oh, good aggravating grief, Macy thought, and grimaced. The more feedback on the game, the better to gauge the column’s success. “Now what am I going to do? I planned this month’s game around five couples.”

Eric, of course, found the news to his liking. “Looks like I’m off the matrimonial hook.”

Chloe slid up against Eric’s side, gave him a look from beneath sultry lashes. “Speaking of a matrimonial hook, rumor has it, sugar, that Cathy cut you loose.”

Eric blew out a long tolerant sigh and wrapped a brotherly arm around Chloe’s shoulders. “Chloe, Chloe, Chloe. Seeing as how this is Macy’s party and I’m working to be on my best behavior here, I’m going to let that one slide.”

Macy wished she could slide. All the way into tomorrow, and forget tonight ever happened. “I’m not sure your behavior’s going to make any difference, since it looks like Macy’s party is now Macy’s bust.”