Meg gazed up at Etienne. “How can you be so sure that I’ll be able to pull this off?

“You’ve jumped in and taken me on as a kind of project—one where you’re determined to get the blue ribbon by turning me into the best jam at the county fair. You’re so sure, so enthusiastic, so determined. Don’t you ever doubt? Or question?”

He reached out one hand and raked his fingertips across her cheek. “I question many things in life,” he said solemnly. “More than you’ll ever know. But I don’t question truth when it stares me in the face, Meg. We’ll succeed because it’s clear to me that you are an amazing and striking woman.”

“And you know this how?”

He smiled gently and tucked one finger under her chin. “I know this because you did something you hated the thought of doing just to save your friends, and I also know this because I’m a man and I have eyes in my head.” And, without another word, he leaned over and placed his lips on hers.

Dear Reader

I think that I’ve always had a fascination with those ‘before and after’ photos one sees in magazines. Yes, I know that often they’re not real, or they’re digitally altered, but there’s something so…hopeful about a person deciding that they have a problem, setting out to change it and then—with a little magic and hard work—succeeding beyond their wildest dreams in a very dramatic way.

So, I met Meg Leighton, the heroine of this book, and I discovered that she had a secret desire to be all the things she’d never been allowed to be in her life—and then I met Etienne Gavard, a man who might actually help her achieve her secret desires…Well, I just had to write their story. But the funny thing is that along the way I realised a few things.

There’s no way to take a picture of the ‘before and after’ stages of a heart that’s been broken and then mended, but that transformation is even more meaningful than any physical transformation. If we could take a photo of the results, the ‘after’ photo would dazzle us completely. That which transforms us the most is loving and being loved. If we should be so lucky as to experience love in our lives, then we are very lucky indeed.

So, while Meg wants to be a Cinderella of sorts, and Etienne wants to help her, what I’m finding (and what I think you’ll find) is that they’re in for so much more than a simple makeover…

Best wishes

Myrna Mackenzie

Myrna Mackenzie never meant to be a writer. Writing was something that mysteriously famous people did, and she didn’t qualify. Still, fate came calling in the form of a writing assignment in sixth grade, so Myrna got out her trusty blue pen, her lined notebook paper, and penned a murder mystery. It was titled something suitably gory and…um…embarrassing (Mackenzie doesn’t remember the title, but thinks The Terrible Mystery of the Bloody Glove would have been about her style back then). The story was a mess, and the box containing that story eventually went missing somewhere between moves (hurray!). But the experience of writing a story turned out to be amazing and wonderful and fun and…you get the picture. She was hooked.

Years later Mackenzie discovered her true love: writing romances. An award-winning author of over 30 novels, Myrna was born in Campbell, a small town in the Missouri boot-heel. She grew up just outside Chicago, and she and her husband now divide their time between two lakes in Chicago and Wisconsin—both very different and both very beautiful. In addition to writing she loves coffee, hiking, cruising the Internet for interesting websites and attempting gardening, cooking and knitting. Readers (and other potential gardeners, cooks, knitters, writers, etc.) can visit Myrna online at www.myrnamackenzie.com, or write to her at PO Box 225, La Grange, IL 60525, USA.

THE
FRENCHMAN’S
PLAIN-JANE
PROJECT

BY

MYRNA MACKENZIE

MILLS & BOON®

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MILLS & BOON

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Table of Contents

Cover Page

Excerpt

Dear Reader

About the Author

Title Page

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Copyright

CHAPTER ONE

“I HATE to discourage you, but you’re not going to be able to convince Meg to come work for you. And I’m afraid…I’m sorry, but I’m not at liberty to tell you why.”

That small bit of information was all Etienne Gavard had been able to glean from one of Meg Leighton’s former coworkers. It echoed in his head as he drove his sleek black Porsche into a rundown Chicago neighborhood, located the apartment building he was looking for and pulled into a parking spot two doors down. Not an especially promising situation, but Meg Leighton was the expert he needed to help him complete the near impossible task he’d taken on.

“So, this is what it’s come to.” He muttered the words as he stared at the dingy building where Ms. Leighton apparently lived. He had crossed the Atlantic and had been driven to following questionable women he’d never met to even more questionable neighborhoods. Do you even know why you’re here or what you’re doing? he wondered.

Of course, he did. His calendar said that it was June first. Six weeks from the anniversary of the worst day of his life, the day that would haunt him forever but which especially haunted him in June and July. And for the past two summers he’d handled things badly. He’d closed himself off from the world and tried to drink himself into oblivion to forget the death of his wife and the unborn child she had agreed to bear only because she’d thought he needed and wanted a Gavard heir. Not this year. This year he wouldn’t allow himself to sully their memories that way. If he could just get through this one year without losing it…if he could just do one good thing to replace the bad memories…then maybe…

Well, never mind the maybes. The truth was that he’d built an empire saving dying companies and he was good at what he did, maybe even better since the tragedy and what had followed had led him to decide that this job would be his only life and love, his only world from now on. And this year, to keep himself sane, he would attempt the impossible. He’d located a company so far gone that it seemed beyond saving, one where no one cared that it was going under other than the people who worked there. Attempting to breathe life into it would take up all his time. He wouldn’t have time to think about the past.

One task accomplished.

Now, he needed the right person to assist him. Usually this was the easy part. There was always someone who knew the details, had some idea what was going on and who knew at least a little about what had made the company a success in the first place.

This time with this in-a-total-tailspin company? Not so simple. Everyone was running around crying that the sky was falling, and the best person to help him, he’d been told by someone with an interest in his success, was no longer with the company. Furthermore, there was a mystery attached to her departure, one that her former coworkers had refused to discuss. But he’d been able to glean this much. The woman, Meg Leighton, was here in this building right in front of him.

Etienne stared at the crumbling brown brick and the unkempt lawn. One would think a person living in such a place would be easy to influence, but no. He’d been told that she would be extremely reluctant and he would have to find another avenue.

“Oh, but I’m a very determined man, Meg Leighton,” he muttered to himself as he exited the car. “And I need you, mademoiselle. Very much. I intend to have you.” Now that he’d made the commitment to save the company, there was no going back. He hadn’t just bought a company. He had taken on the responsibility for people’s lives and he absolutely was not going to fail them. That would be unthinkable, the past repeating itself, and it would be totally unbearable to damage another person again.

Besides, most people had tipping points. They could be persuaded once one discovered their weaknesses.

Etienne wondered what Meg Leighton’s weaknesses were. Time to find out. He stepped forward and pushed open the door to the building.

“Lightning, there’s a man coming to see us,” Meg told her cat as she hung up the phone. “I hear that he’s French. He’s also tall, blue-eyed and very handsome.”

Lightning looked incredibly bored. The cat yawned.

“I agree,” Meg said to herself. “Who cares about that? Handsome Frenchmen come to our door every day.”

The cat simply stared.

“All right, so maybe we don’t have Frenchmen ringing our doorbell, or handsome men tapping on the windowpane or…well, let’s face it, sweetie, we just don’t get too many men around here at all. Even our mailman is a mail-woman,” Meg conceded. “But that’s not the point.”

The point was that Meg’s friend, Edie, from the home office of Fieldman’s Furnishings, had just called. It appeared that the new owner of the company was going to try to persuade Meg to do something she didn’t want to do; come back to the company. But that just wasn’t going to happen. Fieldman’s had once been the closest thing to a real home that Meg had ever had. Mary Fieldman had hired her when she had only been sixteen and an at risk teenager. She had literally saved Meg from herself, but after Mary’s death, the business had also been the site of Meg’s biggest and most public and painful humiliation. The once warm feeling Fieldman’s had given her had been completely replaced by scalding regret, pain and anger directed at herself. She had allowed herself to forget the ugly lessons she’d learned growing up an outsider at home and in school and all that had followed as a result of her outsider status. The end result of that forgetfulness had been the shame-inducing fiasco at Fieldman’s.

Nevertheless, Edie had told her that she should prepare to be wooed by a man who wanted her to return to the scene of the crime.

Meg closed her eyes and counted to ten. “I’ll just have to be strong and firm and make him understand that no means no,” she whispered out loud. I could never go back there after what happened, she thought. The memory of the total humiliation when Alan Fieldman had publicly dumped her, fired her and thrown her out on the street, or that she had not taken it quietly or with any degree of dignity could still make her blush with shame if she allowed herself to think about it. She seldom did. She certainly wasn’t going to do so now.

Not for all the blue-eyed men in France, she thought. Downstairs, she heard the outer door to the apartment building open. Immediately, Meg’s heart started to race. She had done her best to move on past her life at Fieldman’s, to let go of her stunned pain at having lost the business that had been her anchor, and she had come so close to succeeding. The fact that Etienne Gavard’s impending visit was bringing back her ugly past…the fear that she might be asked questions about that day at Fieldman’s and about her relationship with her boss…the waiting…she had always been so horrible at waiting…

“Darn it,” she said, moving to the door and throwing it open just as the man made it to the top of the stairs.

So much for being standoffish. She hadn’t even waited for him to knock.

Meg swallowed hard as she came face-to-face with Etienne Gavard. He was, as Edie had noted, very tall. Meg, no Lilliputian herself, was a good half a head shorter than he. With that dark hair, those silvery-blue eyes and that slightly amused smile…

“Mr. Gavard?” she asked, as casually as possible, hoping her voice sounded calm and disinterested.

“Yes, Mademoiselle Leighton. I’m Etienne Gavard. I see you were expecting me a little?” he said, raising one dark eyebrow that Meg was sure made any number of women feel dizzy and disoriented.

A little? She’d practically ripped the door off its hinges. If Meg had been a blushing kind of woman she would have blushed. As it was, her blush was only on the inside. “Edie called me. That is…Edie’s a total sweetheart, but she’s totally loyal to me. You probably shouldn’t tell her anything you don’t want her friends to know.”

“Ah, loyalty,” he said. “I see. I like loyalty.” When he said the last word he looked at Meg as if he could see right into her heart where all her most fervent and darn irrepressible emotions lay no matter how hard she tried to repress them. This man was staring at her as if he knew things about her that no one else knew, the places she kept under wraps and hid carefully. Always.

A trickle of panic ran through Meg. No way was she letting some man rip off her carefully applied emotional bandages and make her consider going back to Fieldman’s just because he could do that sexy eyebrow thing.

Meg, unable to raise her eyebrow, simply stared. “I’m not like Edie,” she said. “Edie is a very special and nice person.”

Etienne Gavard’s smile grew. The man had dimples. Gorgeous, sexy dimples. Meg almost hated him just for standing here in her hallway spreading all that virility around. She was, as her father used to say, as plain as toast. Slightly plump. With a fading scar on her cheek that had caused her grief in her youth. And worst of all, an outspoken manner and attitude that had gotten her in trouble and kept her there all her life.

“I’m happy that on only ten seconds’ acquaintance that you’re willing to share that bit of information with me, but…are you trying to tell me that you would be disloyal to Edie?”

Meg blinked. “I would never harm Edie.”

He nodded. “Excellent! Because Edie is one of my employees now. I have to have her best interests at heart, so the fact that you would care about her welfare is a very good thing to know. I like loyalty in my employees and…I’m hiring. I’d like to discuss hiring you.” The man tilted his head. He studied Meg closely.

Meg felt suddenly naked. She most definitely didn’t want to feel naked in front of a man like this. “I’m afraid that’s not possible. Mr. Gavard, let me be frank. You obviously went to all the trouble of coming from France to buy a company, so you must be an incredibly busy and important man. I’m flattered that you would want to hire me, but I just…I don’t want to waste your time.”

“You’re not.” His voice was very deep with that enticing accent. Meg glanced up at him. That was a mistake, since she noticed the breadth of his shoulders and immediately felt a forbidden thrill slip through her body. Men who were that good-looking made her nervous. They were on her “don’t touch, don’t even notice” list. Especially since that incident with Alan Fieldman. Besides, she didn’t want or need to notice anything more about this man. He’d be gone in minutes.

“Mademoiselle Leighton, I understand that this…my methods today are…abrupt and unconventional, but the situation at Fieldman’s is complex. I’m not sure how much Edie or any of the others understands about this, but…Is there somewhere we can go to talk?” he asked. “I don’t want to alarm you by suggesting your apartment, but surely…”

“I’m never alarmed,” Meg said, lying. “And it’s not as if you’re a stranger. You own Fieldman’s. You’re Edie’s boss. Still, I’m sorry, but there’s no point in the two of us continuing this conversation. I don’t have any idea why you would want me to come back to Fieldman’s, other than the story Edie told me about you needing an expert on the company, but if that’s the case, then I’m afraid you’re mistaken. I’m not who you need.”

“Who is?” he asked, studying her intently. Meg almost felt as if she couldn’t tear her gaze away. As if she had no brains or self-control at all, her heart began to pound in a terribly disconcerting way. She ignored it. She’d always had brains, and she was working on the self-control. It was, in fact, the prime goal of her life, to escape her past and become a strong, successful woman. Eliminating her too impetuous, reactive ways was a necessary part of that plan. Self-control was key.

She hesitated.

Etienne raised that dark, expressive eyebrow again, and Meg’s breathing hitched in her throat. She wondered just how many strong women he had won over with that seemingly insignificant move. “I’m truly sorry for this intrusion, Mademoiselle Leighton, but the company seems to be in total disarray,” he said. “The books are in arrears, production has all but shut down, confusion reigns. Even the most mundane things are out of order. There’s not even any soap in the washroom, and no one seems to know where it’s kept.”

“Third aisle of the stockroom on the fourth shelf from the bottom. Or at least that’s where it was kept,” she said.

He smiled. “See. You know things.”

“No,” she said, trying not to smile at his blatant attempt to stroke her ego. “I know how things were when I was there, but I’ve been gone for a year. Besides, Mr. Gavard, I hardly think that knowing where the soap is kept is going to help you very much.”

“When I wash my hands it will help,” he said with that low, sexy voice that made it sound as if he was talking about far less mundane things than where supplies were kept. “But you’re right. I’m looking for very much more than soap. I’m looking for someone who’s willing to begin an adventure and make a difference in people’s lives.”

Meg shook her head. “You’re obviously way more misinformed than I thought you were, Mr. Gavard, if you think I’m capable of any of those things, and…” She blew out her breath in a slight sigh.

He waited as she chose her words. Or at least she thought he was waiting. “Why don’t you want to come back?” he asked suddenly.

She chose the easiest answer. “I have a new job, you know. I’ve been there for a year, ever since I left Fieldman’s.”

“Edie said you worked in the office of a local fruit and vegetable market.”

“And I fill in at the store sometimes, as well,” she admitted. “I like it. Fieldman’s is in my past. Gina’s Fruits and Vegetables is my present. I like stocking the bins. It’s a useful task.”

She stared at him defiantly, hoping she sounded convincing and that he would simply go. But he didn’t budge. Instead he stared at her with a serious, solemn, contemplative expression. Those long-lashed silver-blue eyes studied her as if analyzing each part of her, and Meg did her best not to squirm. She knew what he was seeing: an overly tall, plump and squarely-built, very plain woman with hips and a mouth that were both too wide and a host of other scars, visible and otherwise. She’d been examined and found wanting all of her life, but Etienne didn’t seem to be examining her in quite the same way as she was used to, and in the end, after his perusal, it was her hands that he brought his gaze back to.

She forced herself not to clench them, knowing that the nails were broken from opening cartons and from mishaps with the bins. Meg wasn’t a vain person at all, but if she had ever had a body part that she might have been proud of, it was her hands. The rest of her was awkward, but her hands could be graceful. Now, of course, they looked hideous, but Etienne Gavard was studying them so intently that her fingertips started to tingle.

“So, this is your present,” he finally said. “I see. You want a useful job. That’s understandable. But you don’t think it would be…useful to go out on a limb and try to help me save your former colleagues’ jobs and keep them from losing all they have?”

Meg froze, her own concerns set aside. “Is that what’s going to happen?” She could barely whisper the words.

He held out his hands. “I’ve seen the work that Fieldman’s used to do. I know of Mary Fieldman. She was a powerhouse and a woman with talent and she also had an eye for talent in others. Her company did very good work right up until the day she died.”

“I know.” Meg couldn’t quite keep the pride and affection out of her voice. She missed Mary…every day.

“Edie said that Mary was…attached to you, that you had been there since you were sixteen and you were her favorite employee, that Mary consulted with you on decisions.”

Meg shook her head. “That Edie,” she said.

“It’s not true?”

She shrugged. “Yes, it’s true, but Mary didn’t really need my input. She always knew exactly what she wanted for Fieldman’s. She wanted quality, to sell a product that exuded exquisite class. She wanted the name Fieldman’s to mean something extraordinary to potential customers.”

“Have you seen what Fieldman’s has been selling—or trying to sell—lately?”

She hadn’t. “Edie mentioned that there had been a few changes, but no, I haven’t personally seen the product. She and I don’t discuss Fieldman’s, as a rule.”

Etienne reached in the pocket of his black suit jacket and pulled out a glossy brochure. He held it out to her.

Meg took it and flipped it open. Both eyebrows raised and she flipped another page. “Is this real? Are those actually wide-eyed urchins on that upholstery? Koala bears? Puppies with pink bows around their necks?”

The pained look on Etienne Gavard’s face said it all. “I understand that Alan Fieldman had his own ideas. He wanted to go in a different direction, capture a younger audience.”

Yes, well, Alan had always wanted to rebel against his mother. He’d fought hard and used people like Meg to make sure his mother had placed the company in his hands and not his brother’s. And he hadn’t known very much about young people even when he’d been a young person.

“Help me bring back the company, Meg,” Etienne Gavard said.

She looked up into his eyes and they were so blue, so compelling that she almost leaned forward.

“You don’t understand,” she said, forcing herself to take a step back instead of forward.

“Make me understand.”

“I didn’t walk away from Fieldman’s. I was fired for insubordination. It was a major scene. I made a lot of noise when I went. I fought. I yelled. I didn’t go quietly. Everyone was there.”

“I see.”

No, how could he see? He hadn’t been there to witness how ugly and demeaning it had been. How reminiscent of an earlier period of her life she had tried so hard to fight free of.

“So you see why I wouldn’t be a good candidate for the job you’re trying to fill.”

He slowly shook his head. “You said you fought. I need a fighter, Meg. I want one.”

Her throat began to close.

“I don’t think you understand what you’re saying or what I’m saying. I think I might have even thrown something at Alan.”

Was that a smile on the dratted man’s face? “Okay, we’ll work on that. No throwing things.”

“I…”

Suddenly it was all too much. Too soon. The plan she had tried to stick by, to move forward by living quietly and closing off a lot of doors, was going awry. Emotion, a desire for things she had set aside as unrealistic dreams, was trying to push at her. Meg blinked, trying to compose herself.

“Why are you doing this?” she asked suddenly. “I mean…look at you. You’re obviously well dressed, cultured, rich if you could afford to come all the way here and buy an entire company. Why would you do that? Why would you come all the way to America and throw your money away on what might well be a losing venture?”

It was a bold and nosy question for a potential employee to ask, but there was too much at stake here. She’d had doors slammed in her face too many times just when she’d seemed to be nearing her goal, and Etienne Gavard’s offer had come out of the blue and seemed too good to be true. She needed facts, truth, a sense that she wasn’t going to walk blindly into an incredibly stupid situation the way she had before.

So despite the rudeness and total impropriety of her question, she stood her ground. She watched as a fleeting look of pain darkened Etienne Gavard’s eyes before a mask came down and he shook his head. “I came here because…Let’s just say that money isn’t the issue. At least not for me. Salvaging companies is what I do. It’s a challenge, an occupation, and I’m good at it. I usually win.”

“But not always.”

“No, not always, Meg. And I’ll be honest. Even with your help, there’s a good chance I’ll lose this time.”

And Edie and all the others would lose their jobs, the little bit of security they had in their lives. That was so unfair, so totally, entirely wrong and frightening. And…there was another truth that she hadn’t dared to face.

If the company was going down because Alan had been running it—

She, like it or not, willingly or not, had been instrumental in Alan ending up as CEO. The thought was like a blow. She wanted to close her eyes, but that would be cowardly. Fieldman’s was failing. Good, innocent people would suffer if it failed.

Meg wanted to keep that tragedy from happening. If there was any chance at all that she could do something to help…but was that even possible? Could she help?

How could she not try to help? Edie was her best friend.

“How can you be sure I can make a difference?”

He shook his head. “I can’t. There are no guarantees in life. Ever.” Again, that fleeting look of pain crossed his face. He looked away and then back.

“But if we do nothing, I can tell you that Fieldman’s will most likely go under. We have to try to reverse things,” he told her. “People’s livelihoods really are at stake. So, what would it take to convince you? What is it that you want?”

By now, Meg knew she had no choice. She had to help if she could, but…She studied Etienne Gavard. He was a successful man, a powerful man, one who never would have ended up in the situation she had ended up in at Fieldman’s. He knew things and he oozed confidence, success, knowledge, stability. She had questioned his methods, but in truth, there was something about him that made a person think he was bound to succeed. Etienne Gavard was a man to be reckoned with.

Meg thought about that, about all the things she’d locked away in her soul and decided were undoable. Now here was a task and an opportunity she couldn’t turn away from. The truth was that what she really wanted most in life was a home brimming with love and children, the kind she’d never had and probably never would have, but this man couldn’t give her that. No one could, and she was grown-up enough to have made peace with that knowledge, so…

“I’d like…What I want is security, a place that’s all my own and I want to build a position in the business world that can’t easily be taken away from me on someone else’s whim. I want to be not just good behind the scenes but also out in the open, a force to be reckoned with, the kind of person that people want to do business with, one they respect. Can you do that for me? Can you teach me to be a success? Tutor me? Teach me what you know and show me the ropes while we do our best to save Fieldman’s?”

He didn’t even hesitate even though she was pretty sure he wouldn’t have expected a request like this. “If that’s what you want, then I’ll do my best to turn you into a stellar businesswoman.”

“What happens when this is over?”

“That would be up to you. If you suited and you wished to stay once the company was on its feet and I returned to France, that would be your choice. And if you only wished to stay as long as necessary to help me get the company back on its feet, I would pay you well and then let you go…wherever you wanted to go. I’d make sure you had a good leadership position, of course, if your training proceeds as both of us hope it will.”

Meg let that sink in. This was all proceeding so darn fast. “Do I have to give you my answer now?” Having been given the whole story about Fieldman’s, Meg now felt the urge to rush ahead and say yes, but it was that very urge to rush that stopped her. Rushing in had never worked out well for her. A smart woman would at least mull over the situation for a few hours to make sure she had covered all the bases and knew the whole story.

He smiled.

“What?”

“‘Do I have to give you my answer now?’ is a much better response than the one you were giving me a few minutes ago.”

“You’re a rather persuasive man.” Which might be dangerous under other conditions, but there was no way a man like Etienne Gavard would be thinking of her in any physical or romantic way, so she was safe. Knowing she wouldn’t be his type could be rather freeing, she supposed. She wouldn’t have to warn herself about thinking of him as anything other than an employer. “But you haven’t answered my question. How much time do I have before you need to know?”

“Let’s say tomorrow. The sooner the better.” “Because the company is sinking.”

“Yes. Rather quickly.”

“Oh, heck.” Meg blew out a breath, closed her eyes and did the very thing that had cost her so much in the past. She plunged in. “I’m not—I just can’t walk away when Edie and the others are at risk if there’s even a whisper of a chance that I can help. And…I don’t know how in the world anything I do might help save them, but I’ll try. I’ll do my part.”

“So, we have a deal.” He held out his hand. His very large, long-fingered masculine hand.

She hesitated, but only for a second. What was the risk, after all? She wouldn’t be foolish enough to start having romantic dreams about Etienne Gavard.

Meg placed her hand in his. The jolt she felt was expected. The extreme intensity of it was not. An unanticipated thrill ran down her arm, through her body and all the way to her toes. Every inch of her being felt as if it was humming. Were all French males this potent?

“I’ll see you in the morning, Meg,” he said. “I’ll pick you up at eight.”

“I know the way to Fieldman’s, Mr. Gavard.”

“Etienne. Call me Etienne. We’re partners in this venture, Meg. And we’ll be working side by side around the clock…on the Fieldman project and on your project as well. I’ll pick you up.”

He glanced down then, and Meg realized that Lightning had come out of the apartment onto the landing.

“You have a cat?” Etienne asked.

She laughed. “I’m not sure that I have a cat. Lightning has an attitude. Sometimes it’s more like she has a human than the other way around.”

“Lightning?” he asked. “She looks a bit lethargic.”

Meg shrugged. Lightning usually was lethargic, but knowing her cat’s moods, that wasn’t the term she would have used in this instance. Lightning was slowly, very slowly curling herself around Etienne’s leg in what could only be called an affectionate manner. “She doesn’t usually like men.”

“Ah. Then maybe you’ve simply been hanging around with a poor class of men.”

Meg couldn’t help herself then. She laughed.

“Did I say something amusing, Meg?”

“A little.” He’d also said something truthful. Besides Alan, Meg had experienced several other catastrophes with the opposite sex; men who flitted away when the next new and better woman came along. So…no more. She’d sworn off men. Fortunately Etienne was her boss. Despite her no men policy, bosses didn’t count. They were allowed.

“Someday I’ll ask you to explain why you laughed. I’ll see you tomorrow,” Etienne told her as he left.

When he was gone, the hall felt suddenly empty, bereft of those broad shoulders and all that overwhelmingly male anatomy. The right type of male if her cat was to be believed. Lightning sat on the top stair as if waiting for him to return.

“Forget it,” Meg told her cat. “He’s not for us. Not ever. And we’d better both keep that in mind. In just a few months he’ll be wooing women across the ocean. Gone forever. This is strictly business, I am not his type and you and I are not to allow ourselves to get attached in any way. Period.” So why did she feel as if she wanted to join Lightning and sit there waiting for tomorrow when Etienne would return?

Etienne lay back on the bed of his penthouse suite and tried not to think about a pair of worried caramel eyes. Why was he doing this? It was obvious that Meg Leighton wasn’t exactly thrilled about going back to Fieldman’s, and who could blame her? Her departure from the company had clearly been less than pleasant. Given what little he’d been able to glean about the Fieldman family, at least the sons, they had been users lacking not only business sense but also consciences.

He wondered why Alan Fieldman had fired Meg.

Not that it mattered. He could tell, just from their brief conversation and just by looking past her to her wildly decorated but thoughtful apartment and at the array of books on her shelves, that she had a brain and a desire to learn. The topics ranged from history to philosophy to various how-to books.

She obviously had gumption. She’d tried to keep him from steamrolling her. He felt a twinge of guilt at having used her friends’ financial situation to convince her and wondered for a second if he was any better than Alan Fieldman.

Probably not. He knew his flaws and his shortcomings all too well. But he was different. He was going to do everything in his power to keep Meg and her friends from getting hurt. And he was going to do his very best to fulfill the promise he’d made to Meg to help her carve out her own place in the business community. When he left in a few months—and his whole goal was to do his work and move on to the next job—she and her friends would, he hoped, be happy and smiling.

At the word smiling, he thought of Meg’s lips. She was a plain woman but her eyes and her lips were amazing. Just a slight twitch of those lips spoke volumes and called up unexpected heat in his body.

“Enough,” he told himself. “You know the rules. You never get to stay. You never get to take anything away other than a brief respite from the pain and a sufficient amount of money to move on to the next project.” Socializing with the subjects wasn’t allowed. Ever.

CHAPTER TWO

“WHERE is everyone?” Meg asked as they entered Fieldman’s Furnishings the next day.

Etienne looked around the big, empty office with weak sunlight filtering in through the streaked and dusty windows high overhead. It shone on the mottled blue carpeting that was worn thin in places. There was a crack in one of the walls, and despite the fact that people still worked here, the place smelled of neglect. “I gave them the day off,” he said.

“Excuse me? You did what?” Meg turned to him, her brown eyes open wide. She was wearing some wild red and white thing that hid a lot of her body, but wasn’t camouflage enough to hide the fact that she was shapely and generously curved.

He frowned at her reaction. “I sent them home. With pay,” he clarified. “Don’t worry, Meg. I didn’t turn your friends out without compensating them.”

Meg shook her head. “I didn’t mean that. I wasn’t accusing you of cheating Edie and the others. And I know this is so out of line, but I was just…The company is dying and you sent the workers home? Why would—I’m sorry for asking, but I just don’t understand why you would do that.”

He smiled suddenly. “Meg, see what a great help you’re going to be. Look, you’re already questioning my methods.”

Instantly she looked contrite. A lovely pink crept up from the neckline of her white blouse. “Don’t,” he said suddenly. “There’s no need to be embarrassed about the fact that you’re questioning me. It’s a good thing.”

She frowned. “I’m not embarrassed.”

“You’re blushing.”

“I never blush.”

But she was. And in a very pretty way. The bloom continued to spread, the faint rose accenting the full curve of her cheeks. Etienne raised one brow. “Yes. You’re blushing. If we’re going to work together, we need truth between us.”

Almost as if she couldn’t help herself, Meg reached up and touched her face. The pale, almost indiscernible scar that ran three inches from the corner of her lip toward her ear was now the only part of her face that wasn’t a delightful pink. There was something very…erotic about that small white scar, something that made a man think about placing his lips against that thin line and moving outward, kiss after kiss.

Etienne caught himself again and stopped that train of thought as quickly as he could. What on earth was wrong with him? The woman…Meg wasn’t wearing anything vaguely suggestive. In fact, her clothing looked somewhat sacklike. Her shoes were made for comfort rather than to accentuate her legs. And yet he had been thinking…well never mind what he had been thinking. Or why. He didn’t even want to know about the why. Instead he cleared his throat and flipped on a computer in the still, empty room. The sound of the machine booting up filled the silence. He looked at Meg.

“I wasn’t lying or trying to be coy,” she insisted. “I’ve never been a blusher.”

“Good, then. It’s something new in your life. These next few months are going to be all about new things. Unlike these out-of-date computers.”

“You have a time frame?”

“I have a goal. Not only to bring back your business in the United States but to expand beyond your shores. There’s a small business expo in Paris two months from now. Make an impression there and international business will flow in. That’s our target date to be up and running again full speed.”

“You’re serious, aren’t you? Two months seems so short. Not that I’m doubting you can do it. You’re the genius of La Défense.”

Etienne snapped to attention at Meg’s mention of Paris’s business district. “The genius of La Défense? And you surmised that how?”

“Um…you told me?” She looked up at him without guile, those big brown eyes as innocent as a newborn lamb’s, even though he knew he had never told her the nickname given to him by the French press.

“Meg…” he drawled.

An instant expression of guilt shadowed her countenance. “All right, I looked you up on the Internet. I’m sorry if I intruded. I just…I don’t really know you and I wanted to know if you were for real.”

He wanted to smile at her forlorn tone. He felt very real staring at her right now, but…the Internet?

The urge to smile disappeared. He was from an old, well-known family. There had been articles written about Louisa’s death. But that wasn’t something he felt he could discuss. Despite the three years that had passed, the pain, the guilt was still like a flame inside him. “And what did you discover?” he asked, careful to keep his tone casual.

“I discovered that…you are real,” she said simply, which said so much and so little at the same time. She hesitated. Then she took a deep breath. “So, can even a genius like you pull Fieldman’s together in only two months? What can we accomplish in such a short time?”

Etienne felt a huge sense of relief. He wouldn’t be asked to discuss Louisa. He wouldn’t have to give evasive answers to mask his pain. If Meg had chanced upon that story, and she most likely had, she wasn’t saying anything. For several long seconds he studied her carefully. She gazed back at him directly, unflinchingly. Only the way her fingers fidgeted with the cloth of her dress gave away even a hint of discomfort. All right, she probably knew his history. But she was ignoring it. He would, too, and he would be grateful. In other circumstances, he would be kissing her feet.

Which called up an image of something he knew he could never pursue.

“What can we do?” he asked, skirting all the issues except the only one he would allow himself. “Many things. When a company begins to fail, it’s not enough to simply go back to the old ways. And yes, better accounting practices will help, but they won’t get Fieldman’s the attention we need to pique customers’ curiosity. What we need are some quick, very visible, highly touted changes. We want a spark to intrigue the customers and fire up the employees. We want something to attract publicity.”

He caught a smile on her face. “What?”

“I assume your changes won’t be like the ones Alan made,” she said.

Etienne laughed. “Well, I was thinking bunny rabbits. With carrots. Very eye-catching.”

“Ah, I see you really do need me, after all,” she said. “No bunny rabbits.”

He tried to look wounded. “What do you suggest, then?”

For half a second, she looked self-conscious. Those pretty caramel eyes flew open wide. “All right, you don’t want to go back to what Fieldman’s was doing when Mary was in charge.”

He slowly shook his head. “The world moves on. We have to move with it.” It was a good reminder and more for himself than for Meg. He was a man constantly on the move, and he needed to be that way. There was no way to change the past. All he could do was move away from it.

“Your job takes you all around the world, doesn’t it?”

“I never stop moving. It helps that I’m not married or likely to be. It wouldn’t be fair to ask a woman to put up with a man like me who is never around.”

Which was far more direct than he felt comfortable being, but he had learned that being direct was the only way.

Meg didn’t even blink. In fact she smiled slightly. “I’m not a family woman, either, or likely to get married.”

Which meant something bad had to have happened to her at some point.

“Someday I’ll want children, but since I don’t have them yet, I’m free to spend as much time on the job as necessary.”

Children. Etienne’s heart started thudding. He had once wanted a child.

He didn’t speak. Memories rushed at him. A conversation with his wife. She hadn’t wanted the baby. He had. But she was the one who lost her life due to the rigors of pregnancy and an undetected heart defect.

And he was obviously not hiding his reaction to her declaration well. Meg was looking at him with what could only be called concern in her expression. Etienne shook off the past. It was done. It was over. And he was making Meg nervous. That wasn’t acceptable.

“But we don’t need to spend time talking about my plans,” she said quickly. “We need to discuss the company and…I understand what you said, but we don’t want to toss out what worked completely, do we?” she asked. “That is, isn’t my knowledge of what was working part of why you hired me?”

She licked her lips nervously. Etienne’s pulse jumped. His body reacted…the way any man’s body would react. And suddenly, standing here staring at those berry lips, he wondered for a second why he had hired Meg. She wasn’t pretty in the common way at all—some might even call her plain—but there was something…some light in her eyes, something very full about those lips that made her very tempting, and temptation was never allowed to be a part of his dying business reclamation projects. Yet, here he was examining Meg as if he intended to do something that was out of the question.

He nearly swore. No doubt he’d simply been depriving himself of female companionship for too long. He was clearly going to have to watch himself around Meg Leighton. And she was still waiting for an answer to her question.

“Yes, you have the keys to what made Fieldman’s work before. Let’s take that and give it a twist.”

“Something classic but fresh,” she said.

“Fresh and enticing,” he agreed.

“Maybe…” Her whole face lit up.

“What?” He watched her, but she suddenly looked self-conscious.

“No. Maybe I’d better let that idea sink in and think it through a bit, let it play out and mature before I share it. I have an awful and longstanding tendency to jump in and do things without waiting for common sense to kick in, to react or speak without thinking. Bad habit.”

“Not always.”

She gave him a look that said he was clearly wrong. “For me it is. That’s part of what I want you to help me with. How to think on my feet without saying or doing something tremendously terrible or embarrassing.”

“What kinds of things have you said and done?”

She shook her head. “No. I am so not sharing my most embarrassing moments. It’s bad enough that they happened in the first place. I’ve taken numerous classes to improve myself. I’ve tried to learn how to ski, how to skate, how to enter a room, and I know the basic concepts. I’ve even been taught how to fall gracefully several times, but when it comes down to the wire, I’m still the person who steps on the banana peel and ends up in an embarrassing heap with absolutely no grace. Or the one who yells something loud and embarrassing just as everyone in the room stops talking. I live in fear that someone will catch me on a camera phone and I’ll end up on the Internet as one of those ‘most watched videos.’” She threw out one hand in a gesture of remorse. “You don’t happen to carry a camera phone around with you, do you?”

Etienne couldn’t stop himself from chuckling. “Yes, I do, but I would never use it against you, Meg. That would be trop…I mean too unfeeling of me.”

She gave him another look. “Ah, so you’re a gentleman. Not the type of man I meet every day.” Which made him wonder what her experiences with men had been. “So…about that idea for the company…How do you feel about leather?”

Etienne nearly choked. Ah, her so-called habit of saying something without thinking about how her audience would hear it…now he understood a little bit. Still, in this case, it was a charming addition to her personality. This woman was a delight, was all he could think of. Despite her original reluctance to work with him, she had clearly jumped in with both feet now that she’d made up her mind to commit. “Leather?” he asked, reminding himself that she was talking about furniture, not something kinky. “I like leather. What man doesn’t?”

“All right. I’ll keep that in mind. Tomorrow I’ll bring you ten ideas.”

“Of ways to use leather creatively.”

They had been moving deeper into the office, but now she stopped and faced him. Though her eyes only met his chin, she tipped her head back and gave him the kind of look a woman gave to an errant schoolboy. “Are you making fun of me, Etienne?”

No. He was enjoying her. Immensely. In a quite improper way that he knew darn well he was going to regret. Later. “I might be,” he conceded. “But I mean it only in the very best way. I think you’re unique. I like the way your thought process works.” And that, he suddenly realized was the key to Fieldman’s future success. There was always a key. Finding it was the challenge. And here she was, standing right beside him. The woman who was going to make the difference in a way that hadn’t occurred to him earlier.

“What?” she said. “Why are you looking at me that way?”

“What way?”

“I don’t know. As if…I don’t know. You’re smiling. A lot. And I know I didn’t even say anything remotely funny or weird. At least not this time. Did I—have I torn something again?” She looked down at her blouse, fussing with the material, clearly embarrassed.

Oh, yes, Meg was definitely it. But he didn’t want to frighten her or to make her think that he was looking at her in a suggestive way. That wasn’t fair. He was very careful not to even hint that he was offering things he wasn’t offering or that he wanted things he couldn’t be allowed to want.

“It’s nothing overt you’ve done. I’ve just come up with a new part of our plan, the most important part.”

“Wonderful. What is it?”

“You.”

She shook her head. “I don’t understand. I’m already here.”

“No, not like this. Fieldman’s needs to be fresh, different, exciting. You asked me yesterday to take you on as a student of sorts. So, let’s do that. In a major way. Let’s make you the new face of Fieldman’s.”

If he had taken her to a horror movie, Etienne could not have surprised a more shocked and terrified look on Meg’s face. “That is so not going to happen,” she said. “That would be such a mistake.”

“No. It’s not a mistake. Meg, look at me.”

She looked, and those big beautiful, terrified eyes nearly tore his heart out.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, but she looked as if she didn’t believe him. “I wouldn’t do that. Believe me, I’ve hurt people in my life and it’s not the kind of thing I want to repeat. Ever.”

“You don’t know what you’re asking me. You want me to stand up in front of people.”

“I do. I want you to be the new symbol for the company.”

“I can’t do that. I have ‘being the center of attention’ issues.”

Somehow he refrained from smiling. She really was frightened.

“Any other kinds of issues?”

“Trust.”

“I have trust issues, too.”

“You do?”

“Yes. I try not to ask people to trust me, and I’m not going to do that now, but I will tell you this. I won’t send you out to speak or have your picture taken unless I’m right there with you. I’ll be there to guide you and to shield you. And if anything happens that you don’t like, I’ll whisk you right out of there.”

“Even if it hurts Fieldman’s?”

“Even then.”

She took a deep breath. “And you think this will help the company.”

“There aren’t any guarantees, Meg, but I know this much. A personality always gets more attention than a piece of furniture ever will. Mary was, I understand, a personality, and half the reason people bought from Fieldman’s. We need someone to take her place, and you fit the bill perfectly, especially since you were Mary’s protégée. If Fieldman’s is going to rise again and to succeed, you’re the best bet we have.”

She hesitated, but only for a second. “All right, if you think it will help the people here, I’m in. I’ll consider it my duty.”

Etienne nearly groaned at her choice of words. “Don’t do it for duty. That’s something you do because you feel you have to. It robs you of your control and your joy and in the end may leave you with nothing.” Which he knew better than anyone.

And which was obviously saying too much. Meg Leighton was studying him carefully, possibly seeing damaged parts of his soul that he didn’t want exposed.

“Consider your spokesperson role to be part of our agreement. On the job training,” he suggested.

She blew out a breath. “Okay, all right. Yes. So…what do we do now?”

“We get started.”

“On me?”

Such guileless eyes. No wonder she had trust issues. Some wolf could waltz right past her defenses and hurt her. But it wouldn’t be him.

“Let’s start with the building first,” he said. “Show me everything you know.”

If he concentrated on the building, he would be less distracted by the woman. It was a solid theory. But as he walked behind her, the soft sound of her voice, the sway of her hips, even the gentle line of her arm as she pointed out the details of their surroundings…mesmerized him.

Etienne frowned, angry at his completely inappropriate reaction. He reminded himself of why he had come here and what the rules were. No attachments, no touching.

Suddenly Meg stopped. She turned and sighed. “The state of this place, the books…Saving the company is going to be a challenge, isn’t it?” she asked, those big brown eyes worried.

“Don’t worry, I can handle it,” he said, the promise as much about his reaction to the woman as it was to the company. He was not going to get close enough to risk hurting her.

“You’re very confident, aren’t you?” she asked with a smile that sent pleasure arcing through him.

“No. I’m determined,” he said. Determined to do what he had come to do and then leave. And that meant ignoring the fact that what he wanted right this minute was to see her smile again. No, if he was truly honest with himself, he wanted more. He wanted to taste her.

And for the first time he realized just how difficult it was going to be, working with Meg. Her smile, her lips…The woman was going to be a major distraction.

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