Praise for Shirley Jump

“Shirley Jump … has a solid plot and involving conflict, and the characters are wonderful.’

—RT Book Reviews on

Miracle on Christmas Eve

‘This tale of rekindled love is right on target; a delightful start to this uplifting, marriage-orientated series [The Wedding Planners].’

—Library Journal.com on

Sweetheart Lost and Found

‘Jump’s office romance gives the collection a kick, with fiery writing.’

—PublishersWeekly.com on

Sugar and Spice

About Shirley Jump

New York Times bestselling author SHIRLEY JUMP didn’t have the will-power to diet, nor the talent to master under-eye concealer, so she bowed out of a career in television and opted instead for a career where she could be paid to eat at her desk—writing. At first, seeking revenge on her children for their grocery store tantrums, she sold embarrassing essays about them to anthologies. However, it wasn’t enough to feed her growing addiction to writing funny. So she turned to the world of romance novels, where messes are (usually) cleaned up before The End. In the worlds Shirley gets to create and control, the children listen to their parents, the husbands always remember holidays, and the housework is magically done by elves. Though she’s thrilled to see her books in stores around the world, Shirley mostly writes because it gives her an excuse to avoid cleaning the toilets and helps feed her shoe habit.

To learn more, visit her website at www.shirleyjump.com

Also by Shirley Jump

Vegas Pregnancy Surprise

Best Man Says I Do

A Princess for Christmas

Doorstep Daddy

The Bridesmaid and the Billionaire

Marry-Me Christmas

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

If the Red Slipper Fits …

Shirley Jump

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To Marci, for being the best walking buddy and friend

anyone could ask for.

Rain or shine, you’re there, to commiserate, cry, laugh

(and yes, sometimes, shop).

Thank you.

CHAPTER ONE

SARAH Griffin watched the red shoe wing past her, then tumble in slow, horrible motion, toe over heel, out the open window and into oblivion. Shock kept her rooted to the floor for a good half second, before the horror of what had just happened pricked her like a pair of spurs, and she dived, too late, for the custom-designed, one-of-a-kind Frederick K red stiletto.

The shoe that was going to make or break her career—the same shoe that had just made a three-story disappearing act.

“How could you do that?” The words exploded from her throat, but elicited no response from her younger sister, standing just a few feet from the window. “Don’t you know how important that shoe is?” Sarah leaned out the window, searching for the burst of crimson leather on the gray concrete. Nothing, nothing, then—

There. By a trash can. Relief surged in her chest. Okay, the shoe was still intact. Seemed okay, at least from here, but she’d never know for sure until she retrieved it. She wheeled away from the window and dashed for the door.

“Where are you going?” Honest surprise lit the notes in her sister’s voice. Sarah paused and gaped at Diana. Did she really expect her to stay here and finish the argument?

Diana Griffin had a slender frame, but it covered for a surprisingly strong body. She spent her afternoons beating up a punching bag at Gold’s Gym, so much that they’d replaced it twice in the two years Diana had been a member.

You didn’t mess with Diana. Sarah knew that, and hadn’t heeded her own advice. Match Diana’s temper with Sarah’s tendency to blurt out her true feelings, and you ended up with a disaster. Now the shoe—the shoe—was on the sidewalk and her career was hanging by an ever-unraveling thread.

“I have to get that shoe back,” Sarah said. “Do you know what’s going to happen if—” “Let it go, Sarah.” Diana waved in dismissal.

No biggie, she was saying. Diana had made her point, using her right pitching arm, and Sarah should just get over it already. “It’s just a shoe. If you want something cute and pretty, I’ll give you a pair of mine.”

Sarah threw up her hands and shoved past Diana. “You don’t get it, Diana. You never do.”

Her sister shook her head. “Get what? That you are trying to ruin my life … again?”

Drama. There was always drama with her younger sister. It was as if Diana hadn’t gotten enough attention as a kid and was in a constant quest for more. Hence the hyperbole and the temper-tantrum shoe fling. Sarah had seen more than one model diva pull the same stunt, and over the most ridiculously unimportant things, like a corner table or a too-warm glass of chardonnay. It was the kind of behavior that filled the gossip pages at Behind the Scenes. Written by Sarah herself.

She was tired of the drama, the look-at-me antics of the people she covered for the tabloid. Just once, she’d like to see someone defy the stereotypes she blurbed with oversized headlines. Someone who got honest, admitted that the club scene was as shallow as a puddle, and that there were more important things in life than starring on page six.

“I don’t have time for this, Diana.” Sarah opened the door, hurried down the hall, bypassing the elevator for the stairs and then burst out the front door of her apartment building and onto the congested street of her Manhattan neighborhood. Traffic hummed, garbage trucks bleated and construction crews hammered, creating the morning melodies of the city. She had loved this neighborhood the second she stepped foot in it, finding a small apartment in an old brownstone and a kindly landlord who brought her cookies on Christmas Eve.

Her apartment was insanely small, and yes, a third-floor walk-up without any of the fanciness of a doorman or an elevator. But the neighborhood had charm and a genuine quality about it that Sarah craved at the end of the day.

The bright fall sun blinded Sarah for a second, bouncing off her glasses and giving her twin bursts of yellow in her vision. She pivoted to the right, toward Mrs. Sampson’s trash cans, fully expecting to see the shoe right there. Just where she’d seen it a few seconds ago.

The space by the landlord’s trashcan was empty. Well, not empty—a crumpled soda can, two ketchup-spattered fast-food burger wrappers and a torn Chinese-food box leaking its leftovers in a dark puddle—but empty of the most important thing in Sarah Griffin’s life right now.

The shoe.

Panic fluttered in her chest. It couldn’t be gone. Couldn’t be. It wasn’t like it could walk off, right? And who would only want one shoe? What would be the value in a solo stiletto?

And that shoe, of all the ones in the world. Completely impractical, good only for special occasions. Surely, no one would take it?

If the shoe wasn’t here, though, that meant someone had it. The question was who? And why?

She glanced around, looking for someone carrying a red high heel. Hurried business-people crowded the sidewalk, all of them so intent on getting to their skyscraper destinations, they powered right past her in their sneakers and loafers. Not a one held a shoe.

A tall dark-haired man in a navy pinstriped suit had stopped a few yards away from her. From this distance and angle, she couldn’t tell if she knew him or not. Heck, most of the men on the street looked the same from the back—all suit and dress shoes. She saw him shrug, reach into his jacket, then continue on his way. Could he have the shoe?

She watched him for a moment longer, then decided no. From behind, he looked too much like the guy next door—albeit, the handsome guy next door—to be the kind that would pick up a stray shoe and walk away with it. She considered running after him, just in case, but then he hailed an oncoming cab and was gone before she could get her feet to coordinate with her brain. Damn.

The shoe had to be here. Somewhere. Sarah bent down and drew closer to the trash cans. Maybe a rat had dragged it into the dark corners? The thought made her sick, but she looked anyway. She looked behind, in front of, beside and even under the dark brown plastic containers.

No footwear of any kind.

Now the panic was clawing at her throat, threatening to cut off her air supply. This was not happening. So, so, so not happening. Karl was going to kill her. No, not just kill her—maim her, behead her and then hang her decapitated body in the parking lot as an example of idiocy.

How on earth was she ever going to get off the gossip pages of the tabloid and move over to and into the main section of Smart Fashion magazine if she couldn’t keep hold of a simple shoe? It wasn’t just the Frederick K that had gone sailing out the window—it was every dream she’d had for her career.

For months, she’d wanted to switch to the editorial staff of Smart Fashion, the monthly magazine put out by the same parent company that did the tabloid. One magazine was the shining respected industry publication; the other was the back-stabbing stepsister. At the time, working for the tabloid had been a job, one that paid well. One she’d needed desperately. She’d seen it as a stepping stone, a temporary stop.

It had become a long-term stall. One she hated more and more every day. Moving to Smart Fashion and covering the newest trends in jewelry and skirt lengths didn’t exactly call for deep journalistic investigation, but it was a step in the right direction. A step away from the years she’d spent observing and penning exclamation-point-studded stories about how the “glamorous” people lived.

She was tired of working in the shadows. Tired of putting her future on hold. This shoe, as silly as it sounded, had been the symbol of everything Sarah intended to change about her job, herself and most of all, her life.

Fifteen minutes of frantic searching passed before Sarah was forced to admit the shoe was gone. She ran back up to her apartment, and headed straight for the window, ignoring Diana sitting on the sofa, filing her nails with the kind of calm that said she had no idea what kind of damage she’d just done. Or if she did, she didn’t care—

Both were typical Diana.

Sarah and her sister shared a lot in the genes department—they were both slender, both had long, dark brown hair with a touch of red that turned to gold after too much time in the sun, and both had wide green eyes. But when it came to sensitivity and empathy, there were many days when Sarah wondered what had happened to her sister’s. She loved Diana, but her inability to relate to other people’s problems chafed at their relationship like a splinter. It was as if Diana had decided Sarah did enough worrying and caring for the both of them.

“Please let it be there,” Sarah whispered. She leaned forward, out the window, scanning the sidewalk a second time.

Nothing. The shoe was gone.

Sarah sank to the oak floor of her apartment. “I’m so dead.”

“I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal out of this,” Diana said, flinging out her fingers to check her emery job. “It’s just a shoe.”

“It’s my job.” And so much more, Sarah thought, but didn’t say. Her sister would never understand what that shoe represented. How it was so much more than her first big project for Smart Fashion magazine. Okay, so not exactly big—just a quarter-page write-up on the launch of the line by Frederick K, with a review of the premier stiletto in the collection. But it was a start, and that was all Sarah needed.

She couldn’t make Diana see how that simple strappy red heel seemed to hold everything Sarah had always wanted—and had thus far denied herself. “Not just that, but that shoe is a one-of-a-kind, secret prototype that no one was supposed to see before the spring fashion shows. No one.”

Diana shrugged. “You did.”

“You’re not helping the situation, Diana.”

“I’ll buy you another pair. There. Problem solved.”

“You can’t buy these. That’s the point. No one is supposed to have them until after the spring fashion shows. My boss trusted me to keep them under wraps, and now—”

What was she going to do? How on earth was she going to explain this? The photo shoot for the fall issue was only three days away, and half of the starring product had disappeared. The magazine had everything laid out and ready to go, with space left for photos and stories from coverage of Fashion Week in two weeks. The top designers would be showcasing their spring fashions for next year, and all of New York would be abuzz with chatter about their new designs. It was the biggest week of the year at the magazine, one where tensions ran high and expectations ran higher.

She couldn’t make Diana see that, nor, Sarah was sure, could she get her sister to understand why she had taken the stilettos home in the first place. Explaining to Karl the little field trip she’d taken those designer shoes on was going to be even harder than telling him she’d lost one half of the pair.

Why did you take those one-of-a-kind Frederick Ks home, Sarah?

Because I thought having them, just for a little while, would transform my life.

Oh, yeah, that was going to go over well. Like, unemployment-line well.

“Well, we have a problem. And we need to deal with it right away.” Diana tucked the emery board away, then flipped out a lipstick case and slicked on a crimson bow.

“That’s the understatement of the year. You just singlehandedly sent my career down the fast track to nowhere. Gee, thanks, Diana.”

“I didn’t mean with that silly shoe.” Diana sighed, then met her sister’s gaze. “I meant with Dad. You are not dumping him at my apartment. I have a life, you know.”

They were back to this again? Sarah shouldn’t be surprised. Diana was the kind to pick at an issue until she got the answer she wanted. Preferably one that absolved her of all responsibility.

For years, Sarah had taken on the caretaker role. When their mother had first gotten sick, it had been Sarah who stepped in to be the lady of the house. Heartbreak over his wife’s cancer had immobilized their father, leaving Sarah two choices—let everything go to hell, or step into her mother’s apron.

Bridget Griffin had lingered, in that limbo between life and death, for almost ten years before death finally ended her suffering. For so many years, Sarah had expected the death, but when that day finally came—

She’d found herself standing there, stunned. A hole had opened up in her life, and she had yet to find a way to fill it. Live your life, her father had said.

What life? she’d wanted to say back. For so many years, she’d poured everything into her family. No time for dating, for daydreaming or for thinking about the paths she might have taken, if only …

All those if onlys had been lived by Diana. Sarah had made sure her little sister got to experience everything—dates, proms, parties—even if that meant Sarah was the one waiting up at home instead of doing the same thing. Or working insane hours to help pay for Diana’s dreams.

Their father had worked hard all his life, but a cop’s salary only went so far. As his wife’s illness worsened, he became less attentive to the holes in the family budget, so Sarah went to work, adding what she could to the family coffers. Never telling her father, just quietly taking care of them all.

Which meant her life had been put on hold for so long, she’d forgotten what it meant to have one outside of work. Working a job that paid well but that grated on her conscience on a daily basis. Sarah Griffin needed a change—and she’d thought that bringing home the Frederick Ks would be the first step.

Kinda hard to take any step at all only wearing one shoe.

“Diana, you promised,” Sarah said, returning her attention to the problem at hand—what to do about Dad. “You can’t just back out on that because it’s inconvenient.”

Her sister winced. The truth had hit its mark. “I can’t drop everything just because you’ve decided that Dad has overstayed his welcome. I mean, I have a job, friends—”

“And what, I don’t?” Sarah said.

Diana bit off a laugh. “Sarah, I don’t want to be mean, but seriously, you have all the social life of wallpaper. I’m out every night. I can’t be babysitting Dad.”

“I’m out, too. More nights than I’d like to be.”

“Yeah, writing about how other people are living their lives. That doesn’t make you a social butterfly.”

Sarah brushed off her sister’s words. The magazine paid her to cover those events. So what if doing so left her little time to do anything more than watch and write? She was the one who was being responsible. Doing her duty as a daughter, letting her father stay with her for the last few weeks. “I’m doing my job, sis. Something I’d be able to focus on more if you stuck to your promise. Dad won’t be staying long with you.”

Okay, so Sarah couldn’t really promise that. Martin Griffin had already been in her apartment—him and his godawful ugly recliner—for over a year. After their mother had died, Martin had wandered around the empty, quiet family home for several months before Sarah finally convinced him to put it on the market. He wasn’t good at living on his own—he had spent far too many years on the police force and was more used to male camaraderie than to running a house. He forgot to eat dinner, forgot to transfer the wet clothes to the dryer, forgot to put the basket in the coffeepot. Sarah had stopped by twice a day, worried he’d hurt himself one of these days, and finally she’d just suggested he move in with her. Her father, for all his grumpiness, seemed to enjoy living at Sarah’s, and tried to help out in his own way. Not necessarily the way Sarah wanted, but she loved her father and had enjoyed him living with her.

Still, she wanted her independence. The freedom from worrying. She’d worried for years—about the house, about her father, about her sister and mostly about her mother—and the responsibilities weighed so heavily on her shoulders, she was surprised she wasn’t stooped over. It was Diana’s turn to be the responsible one. To take some of the burden from Sarah.

Except Diana didn’t want any responsibility and never had. Maybe Sarah had made a mistake in being so indulgent with her little sister.

The lipstick went back in her sister’s purse, replaced by a travel hairbrush and a hand mirror. “I’m in the middle of planning the Horticultural Society Charity Ball. It’s my first big job out of college, and it’s super important, Sarah. I don’t have time for this … distraction.”

Sarah didn’t mention that the “job” her sister spoke of was a volunteer position, given to her by her boyfriend’s mother, who chaired the Horticultural Society. Her sister had yet to find employment she could stick with longer than a few weeks.

“That distraction is your father.” Sarah shook her head. “I swear, we are not related.”

“Let him stay here. He likes you better anyway.”

Sarah glanced over at her sister, but Diana was immersed in sweeping her bangs into a soft C shape. “Diana, he loves us both equally.”

Diana snorted. “I have two dogs, Sarah. And I definitely like one better than the other.”

“We’re his children, not his pets. Family ties run much deeper than flea collars.”

Diana arched a brow. “But, Sarah,” and now her voice dropped into a whine, “you’re good at dealing with Dad. I don’t even get along with him.”

“What better way to build a relationship than by having him move in?” Sarah gave her sister a smile. A firm smile.

“I’d rather buy him tickets to the next Mets game.”

“Sorry, sis, but it’s your turn.” Sarah crossed her arms over her chest. “You might have trashed my career today, but I’m not letting you get out of this, too. At the end of this month we’ll get him moved over.” They’d had this same argument just thirty minutes ago—and look where it had ended up. With Diana picking up the thing closest to her and pitching it out the window.

Sarah refused to budge this time. For too long, she’d acquiesced at the cost of her own plans. The day she’d walked out of the office with the Frederick Ks impulsively shoved into her tote bag had been the day she’d decided she would stop being the responsible, dependable one. If she didn’t put her foot down now and demand that those around her change, then things might never move past where they’d been, and that wasn’t an option.

Except now she was too worried about finding that damned shoe to do anything but be responsible.

Diana sputtered out one last protest. “But—”

“No. It’s settled. I’m not having this discussion anymore. If I ever find that shoe—” And Sarah was beginning to despair of ever seeing it again, but she couldn’t think of that right now or she would go insane. “—I’ll be working nonstop at the magazine. This is my big break. Dad hates to be left alone, and you know how he gets if no one is here to be with him.”

“I can’t. I have—”

Sarah crossed to her sister. The sight of the shoe spiraling out the window came back to her mind, along with years of frustration. She met Diana’s gaze and held her ground. “You have family who needs you, Diana. That’s all there is to it.”

“You’re wrong about that,” Diana said, her voice low and quiet.

Was everything okay with Diana? The familiar worry, which she had felt for so many years, during which she’d been as much mother to Diana as sister, sprang to life in Sarah. Her confident, beautiful little sister rarely betrayed vulnerability or weakness. She had always been, as people said, a “handful,” a spitfire. And yet, a sense of melancholy seemed to be painted on Diana’s features. “Diana, are you all right?”

Sarah reached for her sister, but Diana rose, tucked the brush and mirror back into her purse, then headed for the door. “If Dad moved in with me, it would be a disaster. Please, Sarah. Let him stay with you. It’ll be easier all around.” For a second, Sarah considered relenting. To release Diana from a duty she didn’t want. Then her sister said the words that made Sarah solidify her resolve. “Face it, Sarah. You’re the one we all rely on. You’re the only responsible one in the family.”

“I don’t want to be,” Sarah said to her sister’s retreating form as Diana left the apartment. “Not anymore.”

Caleb Lewis propped the shoe on the top shelf of the credenza behind his desk, then sat back in his chair and stared at the slender red stiletto he’d found that morning. Size 7, sleek in all its crimson curves and sporting a racy T-strap design. The thing had literally dropped from the sky, practically into his hands. What were the chances?

It had to be a fake. Couldn’t be the supersecret, big hush-hush prototype for Frederick K’s much-anticipated shoe line. Ever since he’d opened his doors, women had been buying every dress, blouse and skirt that the hotshot rising Boston designer made. They’d stood in line for hours just for a chance to buy a cocktail dress. Nearly come to blows over the launch of his cashmere sweaters last fall.

Frederick K was the hot shiny new toy in the fashion industry, and LL Designs had been trying to play catch-up ever since. Caleb had taken over his mother’s company a little more than a year ago, when LL Designs was at its height of popularity. And immediately after he’d seen Frederick K come on the scene and steal away their business, one design at a time, like a mouse nibbling at a piece of cheese.

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.”

One more smile—the same smile that had undoubtedly charmed half the female population of New York City—and then he left. Leaving Sarah in a position she hadn’t been in before with Caleb Lewis.

Out of control.

Caleb should have been glad that of all people, the reporter who had been his nemesis had been the one to lose the Frederick K. He could call it karmic payback for writing all those stories about his personal life.

Sarah Griffin had created an image of him—one nearly everyone believed—as a womanizing, shallow man. One more concerned about the blonde on his arm than the bottom line.

She didn’t know the truth—no one did—about why he filled his nights with the mindless world of nightclubs. Why he chose to forget his mistakes by spinning through relationships like an errant top.

When he’d walked into the magazine’s offices earlier today, he’d had no intention of talking to any of the reporters who worked for the tabloid side of the magazine. Especially not Sarah Griffin. It wasn’t that he didn’t like her—he barely knew her—or find her attractive—because she was beautiful, quite so—it was more that he wanted to avoid the person who had painted him with a one-dimensional brush.

He had seen Sarah Griffin dozens of times, in the background of the clubs he frequented, the restaurants where he dined. She avoided the spotlight that shone on him, never taking off the reporter hat to have a drink or take a spin on the dance floor. That didn’t stop him from noticing the quiet, observant woman in his periphery. Her wide green eyes took in everything he did and said, then her poisoned pen pasted all that information on the next issue’s pages. He often wondered how she was judging him—though all he had to do was open the latest issue to find out.

If it were any other day—and any other circumstances—he would have been intrigued by a woman like Sarah. Her slender frame held the kind of curves that said she enjoyed food and didn’t spend her days subsisting on diet soda and cigarettes. Her brown hair hung in a long, sleek curtain down her back, with a couple of loose tendrils curling around the edges of the bronze-rimmed frames of her glasses. She had an understated beauty about her, one not augmented by the artifice of overdone makeup and overbright hair dye. She was very much a what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of woman.

For Caleb, who had met far too many of the illusion-is-my-middle-name kind of women, Sarah’s fresh-faced looks were refreshing. Intriguing.

Except for the fact that she’d written half the stories that lambasted him and painted him as a carousing devil—she could be the kind of woman he’d date. Still, hadn’t he learned from watching his mother’s own heartbreak that a reporter could turn on a subject in an instant, all in the quest for that immortal headline?

But, as he had crossed the room full of the writers’ cubicles, he’d realized bringing Sarah Griffin around to his side could serve him in more than one way. If he could convince her to do a story on LL Designs, maybe she’d see another side of him and of the company. And in the process, he hoped he could convince her to stop trotting his personal life through the “Seen and Heard” pages of the magazine.

What was that old saying? Keep your friends close and your enemies closer? Over the years, Sarah Griffin had definitely become an enemy of sorts. Keeping her close seemed like a good idea. Despite the trash she was in charge of penning, he had to admit—grudgingly—that she was the best writer at the publication. Whether he agreed with them or not, her stories were witty, punchy and memorable. Exactly the kind of piece he needed for LL Designs.

Then he’d seen the poster for the missing shoe.

Jackpot.

With the shoe as leverage, he could surely get Sarah’s attention, be able to work out some kind of deal, encouraging her to be more amenable to writing a favorable-to-the-company article. Maybe convince her he wasn’t the bad boy she thought he was and see how writing an in-depth story on LL Designs’ new season could benefit them both.

Who better to understand and appreciate his launching of a shoe line than the woman who was in possession of the debut pair of Frederick Ks? At the same time, it hadn’t taken him long to realize working with her meant bringing her into the office—and risking that she would see the missing Frederick K on his desk. He could just see the headline now: Desperate Business Owner Swipes competitor’s Newest Design.

Yeah, not the kind of press Caleb was looking for.

Still, it was a chance he was willing to take. He had a feeling this could be a very beneficial arrangement for his business.

He reached up, grabbed the shoe and shoved it into one of the drawers of his desk. He would tell her he had the stiletto—but after he had a chance to explain what had happened, and make Sarah Griffin see he wasn’t as bad as her headlines painted him.

The numbers on his office clock had just flipped to 2:00 p.m. when Martha buzzed Caleb. “You have a visitor,” she said.

Caleb chuckled. Right on time. He wasn’t surprised. Sarah Griffin was probably completely freaked out about the missing stiletto. Losing something like that—particularly when the issue’s deadline was right around the corner—had to have her stomach in knots. And to lose one of the ultra-secret Frederick Ks? If her job wasn’t already on the line, it would be soon.

And that gave Caleb leverage. “Send her right in,” he said.

“Uh, it’s not a her.”

Not a her? Had Sarah Griffin sent someone else in her stead? Or had she decided he was bluffing about the shoe and just blown him off?

His door opened and a heavyset man in a bright blue suit stepped inside. He stood about six feet tall and half that in width, with a shock of short white hair that stood out in a cloud-shaped halo around his head. Beneath the suit he wore a red-and-white striped button-down shirt, complete with a matching pocket square. There was nothing about the man that said simple, understated or pay-me-no-mind. Not his clothing, not his mannerisms and definitely not his infamous booming voice. “Hello, Caleb.”

“Frederick. How nice to see you.”

The flamboyant owner of Frederick K designs chuckled. “Don’t lie, my boy. We all know you hate my guts.” He crossed the room and stopped by one of the visitor’s chairs but didn’t sit down. Probably avoiding wrinkles in his perfectly pressed bright-blue suit.

Caleb rose, and came around to lean on the edge of his desk. “Let me guess. You’re here because you’ve realized this fashion business is just too competitive for you and you want me to buy you out.” Frederick K snorted. “That’ll be the day. Oh, no, I’m here to offer you the opposite.” He leaned in, his dark-brown gaze meeting Caleb’s. “I want to buy you out. Lock, stock and barrel.”

The offer came as a surprise to Caleb but he didn’t betray that emotion. Why would successful Frederick K want to take over struggling LL Designs? Was it merely to eliminate a little more of the competition? “I’m not for sale. And neither is this company.”

Frederick K laughed, the sound hearty, coming from somewhere deep in that expansive gut of his. “You’d rather file bankruptcy?”

“We’re fine.”

Another laugh. “My, my. You are delusional.” Frederick reached into the inside breast pocket of his suit, withdrew a sheet of paper and fluttered it onto Caleb’s desk. “My offer. Sign it, and you’re released from this—” Frederick waved a hand. “—prison of your mother’s making.”

A tide of anger rose in Caleb’s chest. Give up his mother’s company? Sell her decades of hard work to this buffoon? “I will never sell to you. I won’t sell you so much as a thread of my mother’s company.”

“I always thought you were a bad businessman, but never a fool.” Frederick K shook his head, making the white cloud dance. “And I’m so rarely wrong.”

Caleb pushed off from his desk and towered over the other man. “Get out of my office.”

“I’ll see you at the shows in a couple of weeks,” Frederick K said. “Unless of course you’re smart enough to quit while you’re behind.” He gestured again toward the slip of paper.

“I’ll be there,” Caleb said. “And LL Designs will be the one getting the buzz this year. Not Frederick K.”

“Delusional,” Frederick K muttered again, under his breath, then he walked out of Caleb’s office. Caleb was tempted to slam and lock the door behind him, but he didn’t.

The man had been right. He’d taken the pulse of LL Designs, and found it weakening by the day. A smart businessman would have taken the offer of a buyout, pocketed the cash and walked away. Then this entire burden would be on someone else’s shoulders and he’d be free to pursue his own career again, rather than the one he’d inherited.

He could be free. Of the worries. The stresses. The too-heavy burden of being CEO.

Caleb picked up the single sheet from Frederick K, dropped into his office chair again—

And sent the paper through the shredder.

The elevator seemed to take its sweet time bringing Sarah to the top floor of the steel-and-glass building that housed LL Designs. She’d hemmed and hawed for a good ten minutes about whether or not Caleb Lewis had been serious or just looking for a way to get back at her for all the gossip columns. Either way, she couldn’t be sure without taking him up on his offer.

Offer, ha. It had been a dare, couched in friendly terms.

He wanted to see if she was willing to step into the lion’s den to find out if he had her missing stiletto. It was possible, she had reasoned, that the entire thing was a set-up. That Caleb Lewis had used the wanted poster to formulate a ruse that would make a fool out of her. And in the process, exact a little revenge for all those columns.

But then she came back to the look on his face when he had seen the poster. He knew something—and she was not leaving here until she found out what it was.

The elevator doors opened. Sarah’s steps stuttered when she saw who was waiting for the car.

Frederick K.

The designer was talking on his phone—barking into it, really—and didn’t even notice her as she passed by him and into the corridor. Not that he ever had. Frederick K was the kind of guy who talked to his people, and told them to talk to all the “other” people. Those who existed beneath his stratosphere.

Had he been here about the shoe? Had Caleb Lewis double-crossed her? After the elevator doors closed behind Frederick K, Sarah breezed straight into Caleb’s office, bypassing his assistant’s desk over the woman’s objections. “Did you sell me out?”

Caleb stared at her. “Sell you out? To whom? For what?”

“I just saw Frederick K leaving here. Did you tell him?”

“About the shoe you lost?” A grin darted across Caleb’s face. “Now, why would I do that?”

“Because that’s the kind of man you are.”

The grin disappeared, replaced by a scowl. “You have me all wrong.”

“I wrote the stories, Mr. Lewis. I did the research. I know you.”

He came around his desk, until mere inches separated them. His woodsy cologne teased at her senses, tempting her to draw closer.

She didn’t.

“You’re wrong, Miss Griffin,” he said, his voice low and quiet. “I’m not the man you have portrayed on your pages.”

His gaze met hers, and her thoughts stammered to a stop. Every time she came into contact with the owner of LL Designs, Sarah forgot her own name, never mind what she was going to say.

He had a way of riveting his attention on her, making her feel like no one else existed in his world at that moment except her. But she knew better—she herself had put together the gossip pages that linked Caleb Lewis to every runway model in a five-mile radius. A smart woman would avoid entangling herself with a man like him. He had heartbreaker written all over his face.

“Why am I here?” she asked. “If this is some kind of ruse—”

“Don’t you want to know where that shoe is?”

Did he have it? Or know something she didn’t? Her heart skipped a beat. She put a smile on her face, hoping diplomacy would bring him over to her side—and get her the information on the stiletto that much faster. “I know my articles on you haven’t been that flattering, and I appreciate you being so understanding about this shoe … fiasco.”

He perched on the edge of his desk and crossed his arms over his chest. “I never said I had it or that I would give it back, just like that.” He snapped his fingers.

Damn. He must have the stiletto. Then why wouldn’t he admit it?

What did he want?

“One shoe doesn’t do you any good, Mr. Lewis. Certainly—”

“Quid pro quo, Miss Griffin. You want something and so do I.”

She glared at him. “If this is some twisted way of propositioning me, I assure you—”

Laughter burst from him. “I assure you, this is not about sex.”

Her ego smarted at the words, and heat climbed her neck. Well, geez. He didn’t have to be so blunt about it.

Why did she care what he thought about her? She had no desire to be part of Caleb Lewis’s model harem. But stills …

It’d be nice to have him notice her. Just for ego’s sake. That was all.

“I want ink,” he said.

“Ink?” She pushed her glasses up on her nose, acutely aware that in her jeans and dark-brown cowl-neck sweater she didn’t exactly scream sex goddess. Surrounded by images of the stunning women who wore LL Designs’ latest creations, she felt out of her element. Particularly with Caleb Lewis zeroing so much of his attention on her. Attention that clearly had nothing to do with sexual desires.

Was that because her brown sweater made her look about as sexy as a loaf of bread? Or simply that Caleb was sticking to business only? Still, his questions, his directness, unnerved her. Sarah was usually the one behind the scenes—not the one in the scene. “Isn’t that what Office Depot is for?”

“I don’t mean printer ink,” Caleb said. “I mean a story. On my company.”

Suspicion rose inside her again. He knew what she’d written—surely he read Behind the Scenes—why would he want her, of all people, to write the story on his company? One that he undoubtedly expected would put a positive spin on the struggling design firm?

“Why me?”

He leaned forward. “Because contrary to some of the … fluff—” In his tone she heard the struggle to use a euphemism for his true feelings about those columns. “—you have published in the past, you are the best writer on staff over there. And though I may have disagreed a time or ten with what you’ve written about me,” at this, a grin whispered across his face, then disappeared so quickly she wasn’t even sure it had been a genuine smile, “I have found your writing to be smart and witty.”

The compliments washed over her, settling into the insecure cracks in her writer persona. She didn’t care if someone was the most successful writer or painter in the world, there was just something about the creative spirit that was more vulnerable than that of, say, an accountant. She’d obsessed about every story she’d ever written, always sure her editor was going to kick it back with a big red REJECTED stamp across the top.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me yet, Miss Griffin. There’s an addendum to this offer.”

“Mr. Lewis—”

“Call me Caleb, please.” That grin danced across his features again, and Sarah’s stomach did a little flip-flop. “I feel like my grandfather when you say that.”

“Caleb.” His name slid off her tongue. Too easily. “The editorial calendar is set months in advance and I can’t—”

He pushed off from the desk and closed the gap between them. He was so close, she could see that his eyes—which she’d always thought were just blue—were a tempting combination of blue-gray, like the sky just after a storm cleared. She didn’t recognize his cologne, but resisted the urge to inhale the deep, musky notes. “If you wanted to badly enough, you could.”

Could what? Kiss him? Because some insane part of her wanted to do that. Pretty darn badly. Especially the way he looked today—in a white button-down shirt open at the collar, the crimson tie tugged down just enough to expose a tempting V of his neck. He’d taken off his suit jacket and draped it over the back of his chair. The simple deletion had transformed him, and the relaxed, almost cavalier tone to his attire made her want to see what would happen if she unknotted that tie, then slipped each one of those tiny white buttons out of their holes and—

She cleared her throat and moved back. “No can do. I’m sorry.”

Really sorry. She’d have done about anything to see him grin again. No wonder the models gushed about him as though he was a movie star. He had the kind of charm that tempted a woman to drop her guard, expose a chink in the walls around her heart, and go after him with wild abandon. She’d watched him from afar a thousand times, but up close—

Up close, he exerted a raw sexuality that said he would be very, very good in bed. Oh, boy.

“I’m sorry,” she said again, “but I’m not willing to compromise my ethics and just write some pretty little ego-stroking piece about you to counteract any bad press you may have received.”

He scowled. “This isn’t about me.”

“Then what is it about?”

“The company. I want a story written on LL Designs. Showcasing the company in a way your publication hasn’t done for years. I promise, it’ll be a great exclusive.”

For a second, she thought of another kind of exclusive—the kind where Caleb Lewis paid attention to her and no one else. The kind where she spent her evenings with him parked in front of a roaring fire, exploring every delicious inch of his tall, broad frame. And him doing the same to her, over and over again.

Get a grip, Sarah. The last thing you need is a relationship with a man like him.

And the last person a man like him would go for was someone like her. She wasn’t leggy or glamorous. She was … just Sarah. Nothing wrong with that, but nothing spectacular about it, either.

“I don’t know,” she said. “How do I know you’ll make this story worth my while?”

“I have something you need.” He paused. “The missing Frederick K stiletto.”

The shoe. He did have it.

All the years she’d worked at Behind the Scenes, Sarah had done her job—and done it well—and figured a promotion to the inside pages, to the real meat and potatoes of Smart Fashion,

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