Tall, Dark & Reckless
Tall, Dark & Reckless
HEATHER MACALLISTER
Tall, Dark & Reckless Recklessforeign journalist Mark Banning needs a partner – now. That’s where compatibility expert Piper, comes in. Mark frustrates Piper; he rejects every potential candidate she finds.Worse still, Mark is now hearing Piper’s voice in his head and the thought of his lips on her skin is tempting enough to drive Mark to make his most reckless move yet!
Praise for Heather MacAllister
“Heather MacAllister does a masterful job in
this perfectly crafted, compact romance that gets
better with every page.”
—Affaire de Coeur on Kept in the Dark
“This is a fun, fast-paced read that I was sad
to see come to an end.”
—Goodreads on A Man for All Seasons
“Lovely, witty dialogue and believable characters.”
—The Good, The Bad, and The Unread on His LittleBlack Book
“Pure fantasy in the finest sense, Heather MacAllister’s
Never Say Never crackles with sexy banter.” —RT Book Reviews
“Smart and sassy, Heather MacAllister’s
Tempted in Texas is highlighted by strong characterizations and witty dialogue.” —RT Book Reviews
“A one-sitting read for me. I got so caught up in this
story that I really didn’t want it to end.”
—The Best Reviews on Male Call
Dear Reader,
I got the idea for Tall, Dark and Reckless after following an endless path of suggested internet links while researching a different book. There’s so much advice on how to attract/keep/entertain/feed/train/meet men—and it was all different. Then I landed on one site that promised to cut through all the babble and simply list the traits and qualities of the perfect man. As a bonus, it listed the instant deal breakers.
Now, you know where I’m going with this. Their deal breakers weren’t my deal breakers. And to be honest, when I found my perfect man, even my original deal breakers turned out not to be deal breakers. Perfect doesn’t mean flawless, it means perfect for me. This is exactly what Piper Scott learns when she discovers that tall, dark and reckless Mark Banning is her perfect man. I hope you enjoy watching her figure it out.
Best wishes,
Heather MacAllister
www.HeatherMacAllister.com
http://www.facebook.com/HeatherMacAllisterBooks
https://twitter.com/#!/Heather_Mac
About the Author
HEATHER MACALLISTER lives near the Texas gulf coast where, in spite of the ten-month growing season and plenty of humidity, she can’t grow plants. Heather has written more than forty-five romance novels, which have been translated into twenty-six languages and published in dozens of countries. She’s won a Romance Writers of America Golden Heart Award, RT Book Reviews awards for best Harlequin Romance and best Harlequin Temptation, and is a three-time Romance Writers of America RITA
Award finalist. When she’s not writing stories about where life has its quirks, Heather collects vintage costume jewelry, loves fireworks displays, computers that behave, and sons who answer their mother’s texts. You can read her posts at www.BlazeAuthors.com/blog or visit her at www.HeatherMacAllister.com, like her on www.facebook.com/HeatherMacAllisterBooks, or follow her at https://twitter.com/#!/Heather_Mac.
Tall, Dark
& Reckless
Heather MacAllister
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To the Fishinglights gang:
Mike and Rae, John and Linda, and Stuart.
And in memory of Kathy.
Prologue
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1
Step one: Find a perfect man.
ORDINARILY, PIPER SCOTT wouldn’t be distracted by a pair of blue eyes, no matter how attractively they crinkled, or a strong, manly jaw, no matter how chiseled—except these eyes were squinting and the jaw was definitely gritting. In pain.
Moments earlier, Piper had arrived at the entrance to the offices of OMG, the Online Media Group, at the same time as the owner of the crinkly blue eyes and the chiseled jaw.
“I’ll get it,” he’d said, and leaned around her to open the front door.
“Thanks,” she’d replied, because her cell had just buzzed and at that moment she was grabbing at her purse to check the caller ID. Only then her purse had slipped down her arm and tangled with the strap of the tote bag she carried on the same arm. When she’d heaved them back in place, a jacket in the dry cleaner’s bag slung over her other shoulder had slithered off its hanger and fallen to the leaf-strewn concrete in front of the door. As she bent to retrieve the jacket, the tote bag fell forward and made contact with the leg of the owner of the blue eyes and chiseled jaw.
Slight contact. A little bump. And now he was acting as though she’d bashed him with a load of books or something.
The big baby.
She’d automatically apologized, one of those quick, social “I’m sorrys” that didn’t seem adequate in the face of that grimace.
“I’m really sorry,” she added now.
“It’s okay.” He gave her a game smile.
Piper eyed him, trying to read his expression. Was she missing something? She glanced down and discovered his hand clenched around his thigh.
White knuckles, expensive jeans. The jeans had the careful whiskering that always reminded Piper of those lines in the comic books meant to emphasize something. “Look! Wow!” In this case, it was the crotch area, which, she noted, did not need emphasizing.
When Piper became aware that she was standing on a public street in downtown Austin eyeing a stranger’s crotch—truly not like her—she jerked her eyes upward. “I didn’t realize I hit you that hard. There’s not that much in my bag.”
“You didn’t.” He straightened. Somewhat. “Something hard got me in the right—or wrong—place.”
“I don’t have—Oh. It must have been the flatiron.”
He looked questioningly.
“A hair styling thingie.”
“Ah.” He raised his hand and went for the door again.
Piper heard the tiny, hard breath he sucked between his teeth.
Oh, please. He was being so transparent. She knew what was coming next. He’d hit on her. So to speak. Anyway, they’d walk in together and she’d apologize again because he was so obviously suffering and then he’d say, “If you really want to make it up to me, have coffee with me.” Or “Let me buy you a drink.” Or even “You can buy me a drink.” Probably not “You can kiss it and make it better,” a line mostly used by guys who weren’t as good-looking. And only the ones who hadn’t been pepper sprayed after saying it.
As they walked across the foyer’s hardwood floor, Piper waited for him to make his move. He’d better hurry. The foyer wasn’t that big. It didn’t need to be, since OMG only published digitally and the writers were scattered all over the country. Even Piper didn’t come here all that often and she lived nearby.
The headquarters of the online conglomerate was in a small, former residential dorm near the University of Texas campus and still had the living/dining/kitchen layout, which OMG used as the downstairs conference space. The offices were upstairs.
The area downstairs was empty now, but in less than half an hour, the OMG quarterly meeting would begin and Piper would be sitting at the table providing support to Dancie, her former college roommate and technically her OMG boss, but first and foremost her friend. Her best friend. The friend who’d been there when Piper needed a friend. Now Dancie needed her, even if she wouldn’t admit it.
But in the meantime, Mr. Blue Eyes was limping. Limping. Fine. Might as well get this over with and let him down easy.
Pasting on a semi-smile, Piper looked toward the man at her side. Only he wasn’t at her side. He, without a backward look, flirtatious or otherwise, was making his way to the elevator.
She hesitated, one foot on the steps, and watched as he reached for the call button. Then he waited, not even glancing over to see if she was still there.
So … he wasn’t going to hit on her? Well, that was lowering. Or, worse, was he avoiding her because he thought she was going to hit—metaphorically this time—on him?
Piper honestly didn’t know and that was rare, because Piper knew men. Everything about them. It was her business to know. As Piper Scott, The Dating Doc, she’d counseled countless men and women—mostly women—on dating strategies. She was known for her exit interviews, a frank discussion of why the date hadn’t worked. After interviewing a thousand men—actually, a thousand and thirteen men—she’d written The Piper Plan: How to Land Your Perfect Man.
Unfortunately, after interviewing those thousand men, Piper felt that there was nothing more to learn about the human male. Men had ceased to surprise her. They bored her.
Take the blue-eyed limper: he was the kind of handsome that appealed to women of all ages. He had arresting good looks—a shock of black hair and heavy black brows that contrasted with brilliantly blue eyes. She assumed he had a great smile, although she hadn’t seen much of it. He even looked vaguely familiar, but most men did these days.
The point was, she knew his type, grid square alpha-alpha, the confident, popular, leader type, normally not a type attracted to her.
And clearly not this time, either. She was surprised to feel a flicker of disappointment.
Piper noticed that he’d pressed the button for the basement, which meant he was going to the man cave where the Guys of Texas webzine, helmed by her friend Dancie’s twin, Travis, had its office. He was probably a friend of Travis’s. They were the same confident, good-looking, women-magnet type of male.
But using the elevator for one flight down? Piper climbed the stairs wondering if the limp had been genuine after all, since it clearly wasn’t a ploy to gain her sympathy prior to asking her out. Or maybe he was avoiding her. Or married. Or … whatever.
What really concerned her was that she didn’t know. What a horrible time to lose her touch at sizing up men. She needed to be confident going into today’s meeting.
Because this, this was the meeting where Dancie should be named an equal partner with her father and brother—something that should have been done in the beginning.
And Piper was going to do everything in her power to make it happen.
Then, she and Dancie would be even.
MARK COULD HEAR THE CABLES and machinery as the tiny elevator moved in the shaft.
Hurry. His leg throbbed and he was aware that he hadn’t heard the woman’s footsteps continue up the stairs.
Yeah, he’d overdone the physical therapy yesterday, but he’d wanted to prove to Travis—and himself—that he was a hundred percent. The last thing he needed was to draw attention to his leg.
She was watching him so he knew he hadn’t covered his pain as effectively as he’d hoped. The fact that she’d arrived in time for the meeting meant she probably wrote for OMG, too. Probably for Travis’s sister, since she was headed upstairs.
Hurry, he urged the elevator again as cogs chugged and drew the box from whatever floor it had been parked at. He shifted all his weight off his leg, preparing to lurch inside as soon as the doors opened.
Go upstairs, he mentally urged the woman. She’d probably recognized him and that was why she was hesitating. Maybe she was a fan. Or, please no, a student in one of his journalism classes, the one in the lecture hall. Maybe she was about to approach him and try to carry on a conversation. Sweat beaded his upper lip and he knew from hours staring at himself in the mirrored walls of the Austin Physical Therapy Center that his face was a grayish-green. That gray-green color told him he was pushing himself to his limit and beyond. If he wasn’t gray with pain, he wasn’t working hard enough.
But a different set of muscles were screaming this time. Had she dislocated his knee or something when she’d hit him?
Something. Definitely something. The elevator arrived. Mark forced himself to step forward as though nothing was wrong and propelled his body to the back of the tiny compartment where he grabbed on to the bar. His leg quivered and nearly buckled.
He suspected he was going to have to take a pain pill, something he’d wanted to avoid. He needed a clear head for this meeting. Not only did he have to demonstrate that he was ready to return to the field, he had to convince Travis’s father to send him back to the Texas-Mexico border. Maybe not as his first assignment after his involuntary layoff, but soon. He had a story to finish and a smuggler to expose. And a promise to be kept.
The elevator doors shuddered closed and Mark gingerly explored the area above his knee, his fingers finding the depression where he’d lost a hunk of muscle and flesh. No, he wouldn’t be playing a game of three-man basketball anytime soon.
On the slow descent, the pain receded, at least enough for Mark to limp into the Guys of Texas man cave.
There were usually a half dozen or so guys hanging around, thinkin’ about guy stuff. Doin’ guy stuff. Writing about guy stuff. Thinkin’ about women from a guy’s point of view: how to get them and what to do with them when you get them, how long and how many times you could do it, and any tips and tricks to share with fellow guys so you could keep doing it.
It would drive him nuts if he had to do that every day, but it was obviously popular. Travis Pollard had turned a simple online campus blog into a megamoneymaker for OMG.
The Guys of Texas published Mark’s behind-the-scenes commentary as he researched in-depth foreign exposés for the news division of OMG. His column was all about the glamour. The adventure. The danger. The excitement. The women.
Yes, Mark was Fantasy Guy. He exhaled. At least it paid the bills.
Mark hung his jacket on a set of longhorns and headed toward the coffee bar.
“Mark!” Travis jogged toward him and Mark realized he’d thought Mark might not show today. “Marko!”
Travis knuckle-bumped him. “My man! The man. Überguy—”
“Travis.”
Travis stuck his hand into his pocket. “Glad you’re back.”
“I got that.”
“Really glad you’re back.”
“I got that, too.”
“Yeah.” Travis rubbed at the top of his nose. “Missed your columns these last couple of quarters. Teaching college courses and recovering from a gunshot wound isn’t as popular as actually getting shot.”
Mark studied the fancy machine at the coffee bar. It was new. “I was also stabbed—maybe you shouldn’t have edited that out.”
“Hey, man. It was in the same leg. Nobody would have believed it.” Travis was completely serious. “But you’re back now,” Travis said as Mark pushed a combination of buttons that yielded a small cup of very black coffee with a thin layer of tan foam. “My sister has been kicking my behind in revenue.”
“What’s she got?”
Travis waved him to a chair. “A dating columnist. You know how women are. So right now, she’s got a lot of women running up the page stats. But when you’re on your game, we get the guys and the gals.” Travis mock-punched Mark in the jaw. “Good thing they cut your leg and not your face.”
Mark gazed at him, his expression carefully blank.
“’Cause that face is your meal ticket,” Travis continued.
“Because talent counts for nothing, right?” Mark asked.
“No, because there are a lot of talented people and there are a lot of good-looking people. There are even a lot of talented, good-looking people. But there aren’t a lot of lookers who are willing to work it. They don’t have to. You work it. I don’t know what drives you and I don’t want to know. I’m just glad you do what you do.”
Travis was no slouch in the work/talent/looks department, either. However, he hadn’t made eye contact very often during their conversation—which had been more Travis rambling than a conversation. And now, he’d started bouncing a tennis ball against the wall, repeatedly hitting the same smudged spot. Mark had interviewed enough people to know Travis was holding something back, and that something was going to affect Mark and his return to work.
“What aren’t you telling me?” he asked.
Travis stopped bouncing the ball and gazed directly at Mark. “Dancie’s Women’s Guide numbers are better than the Guys of Texas, even with you. Maybe not you being rescued after being captured, but better than normal you.”
All Mark wanted was to get back to normal. Normal was following his subject for days on end, immersing himself in whatever culture he found himself. Normal was not facing hundreds of starry-eyed journalism students three times a week. Normal was not evaluating every conversation and every word of every conversation with dozens of beautiful young women lest he inadvertently encourage romantic fantasies. Okay, maybe there was a little normal there. “So your sister has found something as popular as my column. How exactly am I supposed to take that?”
“You aren’t. That’s why I wasn’t telling you, but you asked.”
“It’s what I do.”
“And I hope you’ll be doing it for a long time.”
“So do I.” There was still an undercurrent of tension in the conversation.
Travis cleared his throat and shifted. “And you shouldn’t worry about today’s quarterly.”
Mark hadn’t. Until now.
“I just thought it wouldn’t hurt to have you here in person to remind my dad of how much of an asset you are.”
“So it isn’t usual for a contributor to come to these meetings.”
“Well, I mean, writers do sometimes.” Travis shifted again and finally got to his feet and walked to the ordinary drip coffeemaker next to the fancy machine. “Like if they’re new and going to be major or there’s going to be changes. Coffee?” He held up the pot after mumbling the last.
Mark shook his head. “Changes that concern me?”
Travis poured two mugs anyway. “I don’t know, and that’s the truth. It depends on Dancie. She’s kinda in the driver’s seat for the first time and, to be honest, I don’t know what kind of a driver she is.”
Travis had asked Mark to be here today. Maybe his sister had asked her heavy hitter to be here, as well. Mark’s mind flickered back to the woman he’d opened the door for. He tried to recall details of her appearance, but basically retained only an impression of glasses, brownish-blondish hair and a bunch of straps. He’d been distracted by the sudden pain in his leg and what it meant and how, or if, he’d be able to conceal it. He hadn’t been paying attention to her, other than getting the impression that while she was young, she wasn’t as young as the females in the journalism classes he taught. “Your sister’s big gun …”
“Piper Scott?”
“Um, I don’t know.”
“I guess I can’t expect you to read the competition.” Travis handed him a mug. “The Dating Doc.”
Mark shook his head.
“She’s a dating coach. She’s got some theory about men and their dating personalities that has just taken off.”
“Do you think she’ll be here today?”
Travis sipped his coffee. “If Dancie’s smart, she will. Piper lives here in Austin. They used to be roommates.”
Mark had a feeling. “What’s she look like?”
“Normal pretty—not the high-maintenance kind. Medium tall, good body, but she doesn’t show it off.”
Mark tried to remember the woman at the door, but mostly he remembered her voice. Politely sympathetic with an attractive huskiness. Yeah, he liked her voice, now that he thought about it.
“She’s kind of reserved.” Travis gave a half smile. “Not the party-girl type. The type you’d want to be your sister’s roommate.”
“Gotcha. I think I saw her as I came in.”
“You probably did.” Travis hitched his hip onto the corner of his desk. “Here’s the thing. With you on the sidelines, Dancie’s division has been bringing in the most money and she’s going to make a play for being named partner.”
Mark didn’t like the implication. Actually, it wasn’t an implication. Travis was coming right out and saying that his division had lost ad revenue because Mark hadn’t been on assignment since late last year. Travis would be pushing for his return. Good to know.
Travis sipped his coffee, and Mark did the same. Pretty good coffee. It might even be better than the coffee from the fancy machine.
“Doesn’t your sister deserve to be a partner?” Mark wondered why she hadn’t been from the beginning, but that wasn’t his business.
“She might at this point in time. But she’s going to get married eventually. And then she’ll have babies and she’ll slack off and still get one-third of the profits. Dad will go gaga over the grandkids and he’ll slack off and I’ll be doing all the work for one-third of the money.”
Mark grimaced. “Isn’t that view kind of …”
“Retro?” Travis supplied.
“Not the word I would have used, but yes.”
“Hang political correctness. It’s the truth.” Travis stopped short of slamming his mug on the desk, but he set it down heavily. “Look, Dancie and I had a great childhood. I know people call my mom a trophy wife. So what? Sure, she’s blonde and a lot younger than my dad, but she’s not stupid. And she was there for us and my dad. When I’m lucky enough to have kids, I want to be able to give them a full-time mom, too. And I know Dancie isn’t going to let someone else raise her kids if she doesn’t have to.”
Mark stared unblinkingly. “Some mothers don’t have that luxury.”
Travis caught himself. “Hey, man. I forgot about your mom being in the military. I’m sure she did the best she could.”
Mark clenched his fist so hard he almost forgot about the pain in his leg. “So your point is that your sister shouldn’t be a partner because she might have children?”
“My point is that I want to avoid doing a lot more work for a lot less money. You heard the one-third money part, right? That means the Guys of Texas will have less operating funds. That means less money for your expensive little adventures, as popular as they are.”
This time when Mark sipped his coffee, he burned his tongue, which was good because otherwise he’d be using it to tell Travis to go to hell. On his “little adventures,” Mark rooted out corruption, fighting against rulers and thugs who terrorized their citizens as they made power grabs. He exposed tribal chiefs and gang leaders who showed gratitude to the foreign-aid folks while they took the money for their own use. Because of Mark’s “little adventures,” people’s lives had been saved. Wars had been stopped. Leaders deposed. Mark reported the stories, but the behind-the-scenes “little adventures” were what Travis printed as columns in the Guys of Texas webzine. Mark didn’t like the trivialization, but the advertising revenue was what got him overseas.
He’d had offers from more prestigious news services, but he’d always been a loner and he liked the freedom OMG gave him. He didn’t have to answer to a news team or a producer, except Travis and Travis’s father, and as long as Mark got the story, he could do what he wanted, how he wanted.
Sure, they yelped a couple of times and sure, Mark skated in the gray area, but he got stories the larger media services could only dream about.
“So,” Travis continued. “We want to do whatever it takes to get you back in the field.”
On this, they could agree. “The PT is going great.” Mark ignored the throbbing in his thigh. “By the end of the semester I’ll be good to go.” It was late October. His leg had another couple of months to heal. Plenty of time.
“Great.” Travis clapped his hands together before pointing them at Mark. “Let’s talk possible assignments.”
Mark met his eyes with the same gaze that had compelled everyone from beggars to royalty to tell him more than they’d meant to. “I’ve been gone so long, I want to make a splash with my comeback.”
“Keep talking.”
“Burayd al-Munzir.” Mark sat back.
Travis gazed unblinkingly. “And he is …?”
How could he not know? Swallowing his irritation, Mark said, “Fatik al-Munzir’s youngest half brother. Burayd’s mother came from an influential tribal family in El Bahar, and they were not pleased when she became a third wife instead of the first wife as arranged. His mother’s people are backing Burayd in a disagreement with Fatik over who has rights to the mega oil reserves sitting under tribal lands. Each side wants to be the one to parlay with the U.S., but nobody in this country is taking Burayd seriously. And they need to. The story will take months to develop, but it’ll be worth it.” And staying in villas in modern cities would be easier on his leg than hiking around mountains.
“Sounds very promising,” Travis said. “But we need something with a faster payoff.”
Mark gritted his teeth. “Some issues are more important than money.”
“I like that you think that way and I don’t ever want you to be in a position to realize how wrong you are.” Travis stopped, met his eyes and gave Mark a big, fat smile. “But money is what will buy the plane ticket to get you to whatever sandbox these two play in. Money is what rescued you the last time you went rogue. And money is what has paid for all your physical therapy sessions.”
“Yeah.” Mark shifted as his leg twinged. Keeping his tone offhand, he said, “So how about I go back to the border and finish the gun smuggling story?”
“You’ve gotta be kidding.”
“It could be a fast turnaround. I’ve already done the research—”
“No.” Travis spoke with unmistakable finality. “Not now. Not ever. At least, not if you want to continue writing for OMG.”
Mark wasn’t a total idealist, but he’d never sold out and he never would. He tamped down his anger. “Are you threatening me?”
“Do facts threaten you? It was an expensive mistake.”
“Is there a problem, Travis?” This was the first time Travis had ever mentioned money in considering Mark’s assignments.
“Not at the moment, but the more slices, the smaller the piece of pie.”
His sister’s success must have really rattled Travis. “Have you considered that maybe Dancie will make it a bigger pie?”
“Like I said—marriage, babies.” Travis was sounding a lot like his father. Mark had always thought it was an act, but maybe not.
“This is temporary for her,” Travis reiterated. “I don’t mind giving her a salary bump. I don’t even mind if she draws a bigger salary than I do. But a partner’s share of the profits? No.”
Mark had no intention of getting in the middle of a family fight. He’d keep his thoughts to himself and by New Year’s, he’d be on a plane to the Middle East. Or taking care of unfinished business at the border.
Travis checked his clunky gold watch and indicated that it was time to leave. “Bring all the enthusiasm you’ve got to the meeting, but don’t forget to tie any story ideas to potential revenue streams for OMG.”
Was Travis always like this before meeting with his father? If so, Mark was glad he’d never before attended one of these quarterly get-togethers.
Mark tried not to limp as they walked to the elevator. Potential revenue streams? That wasn’t his job. His job was to get the story. Their job was to publish it.
For a moment Mark imagined a world in which he would never “adventure” again. He did not want to be a part of that world. Even so, though he might be forced to compromise, he’d never sell out.
2
Step two: Verify your target male’s type. Only then engage him in light conversation.
AFTER REALIZING THAT THE MAN wasn’t going to turn around, Piper had quietly continued up the stairs, so he wouldn’t hear her and think she’d been standing there watching him. Of course, she had been, but she definitely didn’t want him thinking so.
Her phone buzzed again as she reached the top of the steps and once again, she sent it to voice mail. Then she turned to the right and breezed into Dancie’s office.
Startled, Dancie looked up from her computer. “You’re way early!”
“Good morning!” Piper sang.
Dancie brightened. “Did you bring coffee?”
“Couldn’t carry it.” Piper set her bag and the hanging clothes on the one visitor’s chair in the tiny space.
“Well, darn.” Dancie went back to typing. “Travis took the good coffeepot and I don’t feel like braving the man cave this morning.”
Someone might have made coffee in the downstairs kitchen for the meeting. As Piper considered whether to check and possibly snag a cup for Dancie, her phone went off again. This time, she just let it buzz until it rolled over to voice mail on its own.
Forget the coffee. There wasn’t that much time before the meeting started and Dancie needed the makeover fairy to wave her magic wand. Piper didn’t have a magic wand, but she did have a flatiron, makeup and a change of clothes. Gently, she closed the door. “Are those notes for today, or can you take a break?”
Dancie stopped typing and eyed Piper suspiciously. “Why?” Her gaze drifted to the chair and narrowed.
Long ago, Piper had learned that the way to manipulate Dancie was to keep her off balance by moving quickly and decisively. Talking a lot as she did so helped, too.
“I want to tweak your visual presentation.” As she spoke, Piper walked around Dancie’s desk and pulled her out of the chair.
“What do you mean?”
There was a full-length mirror on the door. Piper positioned Dancie in front of it and tugged the faded navy hoodie off her arms.
“What are you doing?” Dancie jerked at a sleeve.
“Honestly, Dancie!” Piper pointed to a hole where the cuff had pulled away from the rest of the sleeve.
“Nobody’s going to notice that!”
Piper freed the hoodie from Dancie’s clutches and tossed it onto the desk. She should have aimed for the trash basket. “Only because you’re dressing to be invisible.”
“What are you talking about?” Dancie gestured down at her cotton tank, jean shorts, and flip-flops. “This is the way I always look! Everybody in Austin looks this way!”
“Not today.” Piper examined Dancie’s legs. At least she’d shaved them relatively recently. “Today, you’re going to look like a partner in the Online Media Group.”
Dancie went still. Anticipating the coming rant, Piper used the opportunity to remove the plastic bag from the clothes.
And then, the rant began. “If Dad makes me a partner like Travis, it’s going to be because the Women’s Guide to Living Fabulous division has brought in the most revenue the past two quarters and not because of what I’m wearing!”
“Of course it will be.” Piper automatically spoke with the same tone she used to deliver unpleasant truths to defensive clients. “If he listens to you.”
“That’s why I have a written report. It’s with our proposal.” Dancie pointed to the desk where a shiny red folder sat. “Hard copy.”
“Red. I see.” At least Dancie’d put the thing in a folder.
“Yeah. I thought it would stand out.”
“It does. Red means stop. Danger. Red ink. In the red.” From the bag on the chair, Piper withdrew a green folder and handed it to Dancie. “Green is the color of money. It means growth. Go. Green is good.” Piper gestured. “Switch the folders.”
Dancie stared at it. “You actually brought a folder for me?”
“I didn’t want you to stress in case you forgot.”
Dancie walked toward the desk. “This is some of your psychological stuff, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” While Dancie changed her report folder, Piper moved the chair in front of the mirror.
Without turning around, Dancie said, “I see the clothes. Don’t think I’m not aware of what you’re doing. You’re going to say, ‘Dancie, your quarterly report says the same thing. You’ve just changed the cover to make it more appealing. That’s all we’re doing with these clothes. You’re still you—you’ll just have a different cover.’”
“Excellent. We can skip that part, then.” Piper held up a skirt. “And one of the advantages of having roomed with you is that I know your size.”
Dancie saw the skirt. “Oh, hell, no.”
“Watch the potty mouth. Your dad doesn’t like it when women swear.”
“I am not wearing a skirt! I do not wear skirts. I have never worn skirts—something you should have picked up on after three years of rooming with me.”
“It’s a denim pencil skirt.” Piper tossed it at her. “Think of it as a pair of shorts with the legs sewn together.”
“He’ll know I’m wearing it just to get on his good side.”
“There’s nothing wrong with your father seeing you make an effort to look more attractive,” Piper said calmly. “You’re trying to woo him—”
Dancie flung down the skirt. “In the first place, I am not one of your dating clients and in the second, ew!” She shuddered. “Gee, thanks for putting that in my head!”
“Compatibility principles are the same whether you’re talking dating or job interviews or roommate questionnaires.” The meeting was less than twenty minutes away now and Dancie was being more hardheaded than Piper expected. “Salesmen use the technique all the time. And that’s what you are today—a salesman. You are selling yourself as a partner to your father.”
“Ew—ew—ew—ew!”
“Dancie, stop it!” Piper had to speak more sharply than she wanted to, but this was important.
“Travis doesn’t have to do stuff like this!” Dancie wailed.
“But he does.” Piper looked around for an outlet to plug in the flatiron and ended up unplugging Dancie’s desk lamp. “Have you seen Travis today? What’s he wearing?”
Dancie made a disgusted sound. “Khaki Dockers and a UT golf shirt.”
“And probably his big gold fraternity ring. What do you think your dad’s going to wear?”
“What he always wears,” Dancie said. “Dockers with his belly hanging over the waist and a golf shirt with a Longhorn football booster logo …” She met Piper’s eyes as she trailed off.
“Exactly. Travis mirrors your father.”
“Then I’ll wear khakis and a golf shirt!”
“Your father likes pretty, feminine women.” Which was why Piper was rocking a retro sorority girl/receptionist look today.
“Oh, I know,” Dancie snapped. “He wants nothing more than for me to be his little princess until he can hand me off to Prince Charming.”
“So be a princess with a brain.” Piper led Dancie to the chair in front of the mirror and pushed on her shoulders. Unresisting, Dancie sat down, staring unseeingly until she noticed Piper with the flatiron in the reflection.
“Are you cra—”
Piper moved fast, grabbing a hank of Dancie’s curly ponytail and running the iron through it.
Dancie jerked away in outrage. “Look what you’ve done! Now part of my hair is straight and part is curly!”
“Oops,” Piper said, not sorry at all. “I guess I’ll just have to straighten the rest of it, then.”
Glaring, Dancie yanked the elastic off her ponytail. “I’m going to look pathetic!”
“No—”
“Yes, I am! There’s nothing you can do to me that will make me look one-tenth as good as my mother looks when she rolls out of bed in the morning! You making me look all girlie is only going to emphasize it.”
Her beauty queen mother was Dancie’s huge hot button and there was no way around it. Better that she vent now than lose her cool during the meeting.
“Travis is the one who looks like Mom!” Dancie said of her twin.
True. Piper stayed silent and kept flat-ironing Dancie’s frizzy hair. If Dancie would use some product, she’d have great waves. But she didn’t, so Piper was going for long, loose and feminine today.
“He got the blond hair and the blue eyes and the great teeth and the dimple. I ended up with Dad’s brown eyes and kinky black hair and mustache. I got mom’s nose, though,” Dancie continued bitterly. “It was a gift for my sixteenth birthday.”
“And a lovely gift it was, too,” Piper said. “Remember, I’ve seen pictures of you before.”
Dancie gasped, and then they both laughed.
Piper finished taming Dancie’s hair and while it wasn’t perfect, it was an improvement. “This isn’t cheating,” she told Dancie as she applied some basic makeup. “Your dad will see you’re making an effort to look more feminine, so subconsciously, he’ll make an effort to listen. It’s a sales tactic and takes nothing away from what you’ve accomplished.”
Piper’s phone buzzed. She ignored it, but Dancie reached around her and removed it from Piper’s purse.
“Give me that!” Piper grabbed for the phone, but Dancie, grinning, answered it.
“Piper Scott’s office. Are you ready to find your per—” Dancie abruptly stopped smiling. “I—”
Sighing, Piper said, “Put her on speaker.”
Dancie pressed the screen and mouthed, “I’m sorry,” as sobbing sounded from the phone.
“Piiiipeeeeerrrr!”
“I’m here.” Piper kept applying makeup while a subdued Dancie held the phone.
“Dale… He’s—he’s gonnnnne!” More sobbing. “He left meeeeee!”
Piper squinted at Dancie’s eyes and added a little more shading to one. “Did he leave you and your money or just you?”
Hiccup. “Wh-what do you mean?”
“You gave him the money, didn’t you?”
“He needed it!”
“They always do.” Piper didn’t want to deal with this right now, which is why she hadn’t answered her phone.
“But—it was for his motorcycle! He couldn’t very well get to his job without his bike, could he?”
“He has a job? That’s different.”
Dancie winced.
“Yes, he does! In Wichita Falls.”
Piper glanced at the office wall clock. Taking the phone, she handed Dancie the denim skirt and a pair of flats. Dancie was clearly feeling guilty, because she put them on without protest.
“Are you in Wichita Falls now?” Piper asked.
“No—I’m in Lubbock. Dale was going to send for me when he found us a place to live.”
Piper closed her eyes and shook her head. “And he hasn’t sent for you.”
Sniff. “No.”
“And you haven’t heard from him.”
“That’s why I called the construction company! I thought maybe he’d been in an accident and was unconscious and—”
“They’d never heard of him.” Same thing over and over again. Her mother never learned.
Sobbing.
Pointing to the clock, Dancie slipped around Piper and closed and unplugged her laptop.
“I thought he loved me!”
“You always think that,” Piper said quietly. “How much, Mom?”
“Wh—That’s—”
“I’m in a hurry. I’ve got a meeting in a few minutes. Do you have any money left at all? Or did he take you for everything?”
“Penelope Ann Scott! Don’t you talk—”
Piper took her mother off speaker. “Tell me how much you need and where to send it.”
When she ended the call, Dancie was trying to sneak out the door. “I’m so sorry, Piper. I never would have answered the phone—”
“Forget it.” Piper planned to. Until the next time. “Put on the jacket.”
“But it’s pink,” Dancie said with heavy loathing.
“Blush khaki,” Piper corrected.
“If I were the khaki, I’d blush, too.”
“You wear pink.” Piper indicated Dancie’s tank.
“I got it at a breast-cancer awareness walkathon.”
Piper slipped the jacket over her shoulders. “And now, it’s complemented by the jacket.” It was a lucky break that Dancie was wearing that particular tank top today.
Dancie set her computer and folder down and put on the jacket. “I’m only wearing this because I feel horrible about answering the phone.”
“I know,” Piper said. “But I’ll take it—because you look great!” She gave Dancie a thumbs-up and followed her through the doorway.
“I didn’t realize you were still sending your mom money,” Dancie said as they started down the stairs.
“You have your mother issues and I have mine,” Piper said. “But right now, we need to concentrate on the meeting and getting you made partner.”
“Deal,” Dancie said. And then, “Oh, sh—”
“Language!” Piper cautioned with a laugh.
“—oot!” Dancie finished. “Shoot, shoot, shoot!”
They were at the final turn of the staircase and Dancie was staring across the foyer at the conference table in the old dining room.
Piper followed her gaze and saw the blue-eyed limper from earlier. “Okay, who is that guy?”
“Seriously?” Dancie asked.
“Yeah, why? I ran into him earlier.”
Dancie gave her a strange look. “And you didn’t recognize him?”
“Well…” As they reached the bottom of the stairs, Piper glanced into the room again. “I thought he seemed vaguely familiar, but honestly? All guys are beginning to look alike to me.”
“If all men look like that to you, then you’re working too hard.” Dancie nodded her head in his direction. “That’s Mark Banning, Travis’s star columnist, his big moneymaker.”
There was something more … Piper couldn’t quite remember.
“Oh, come on, Piper! The big-deal foreign journalist who got himself captured last year?”
“Right!” Finally, she made the connection.
“And the only reason I beat Travis in revenue is because Mark got injured. He’s been teaching a journalism course at UT instead of wowing all Travis’s readers with his insane adventures.”
Mark got injured … Now Piper remembered. It had been all over the news. Dramatic rescue and so on. Video clips of the photogenic Mark Banning had run incessantly, including one of him waving from a stretcher, bloodstained bandage wrapped around his thigh—right about where his hand had gripped it earlier, if Piper wasn’t mistaken. Ah.
Dancie exhaled. “I thought I had another quarter before I had to compete with him again.” She headed for the conference room. “Well, if Mark’s back, that must mean his leg has healed.”
“Or maybe not,” Piper murmured beneath her breath. Mark Banning had been stateside for months. If his leg was still that sensitive, then it most certainly had not fully healed.
As they walked into the room, Piper glanced at the famous Mark Banning and found him studying her in a way that meant Travis had filled him in on her identity. Not that either of them would ever have anything to do with the other— unless Mark needed dating tips. Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. The only tip he’d need was how to fend off women, something at which he’d no doubt had a lot of practice.
He stood by the sideboard and sipped coffee, his other hand, left and ringless, for what that was worth, rested on the back of a swivel club chair. Long and lean in a leather jacket, surrounded by a cloud of confidence and testosterone. An alpha-alpha, the pinnacle of male desirability. Men wanted to be him. Women just wanted him.
Not even Piper was immune, although she had no intention of treating Mark Banning with anything other than clinical detachment.
A double-alpha male was a lot of trouble. Not only would his woman have to fight to catch him, she’d have to fight off other females to keep him. This type of man lived as though the world revolved around him because it usually did. He didn’t become a part of your life, he drew you into his.
Piper would never recommend a double-alpha male for anything long-term unless a woman was a double alpha herself. And if she was, she’d hardly be a client of Piper’s. The only other kind of woman for a man like that was the completely self-sacrificing type who was willing to devote her life to enhancing his—and willing to look the other way when she had to.
Believe it or not, there were women like that in the world. More power to them.
Looking at Mark Banning, Piper could understand why. He was unignorable, like a Ferrari parked among the mom-mobiles at a suburban grocery store—beautiful to look at and you didn’t have to see it in action to know it had power and speed under the hood. Or needed extra maintenance. However, she wanted no part of a selfish, self-centered, arrogant, unaware … Except hadn’t Mark opened the door for her? Twice? He hadn’t said or done anything to make her feel bad when her bag had hit his leg, either. So maybe he wasn’t totally self-centered and unaware, which would make him unique among the double alphas she’d interviewed. But he still had the looks and power that made her want to take him for a test drive.
“Ladies!” Travis saw them and beamed his showman smile. “May I pour you a mug of coffee?”
“You’d better, since you stole the good pot!” Dancie said to her brother.
“Just for you.” Travis pushed forward an oversize mug with a crazed stick-figure woman that said, “Forget sugar and spice. Give me caffeine and then I’ll be nice!”
All the other mugs were plain. It was a subtle way to diminish Dancie, who didn’t notice as she eagerly gulped coffee. Piper would take care of it later.
As Travis poured more coffee, Piper looked behind the chair and saw that Mark’s knee was bent and one booted toe rested on the hardwood floor. He was keeping the weight off his leg, which made her feel awful knowing her bag had bashed it.
She probably wasn’t his favorite person at the moment. So why was he staring at her, clearly sizing her up?
Piper suddenly understood. She was the competition. Mark was not only the big moneymaker for Travis, he contributed to the OMG news division. At the moment, Piper was the big moneymaker for Dancie, but only wrote for the Living Fabulous division. However, they were presenting a proposal for expansion today and Mark was probably wondering how much of a threat to his budget she was going to be.
A lot, Piper hoped.
“Hey, Piper. How’s it going?” Travis asked.
“Fine.” She smiled. Travis was an alpha-beta, always striving to prove his alphaness, where a true alpha didn’t need to prove anything. He wasn’t her type, either.
He handed her a mug. “Good to see you, as always. You take cream and sugar?”
“Cream.” It was real cream, Piper knew, because the twins’ father wanted cream and not “that blue water they try to pass off as milk.”
As she poured a dollop into her mug, she was aware that Mark continued to watch her. He hadn’t said one word since she and Dancie had walked into the room.
Dancie must have noticed, as well. “I don’t think Piper and Mark have met, Travis.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Travis touched Piper’s elbow and turned her to face Mark’s blue-eyed gaze. “I guess I assumed everyone knew Mark Banning.”
So Travis was going to be a pain. Piper gave Mark a polite nod of recognition. “Piper Scott.” She held out her hand before Travis introduced her. “We ran into each other earlier.”
“And really hit it off,” Mark said with an easy smile and a warm, solid grip.
She felt a flutter of attraction. Oh, he was good. “About that—”
“Don’t mention it.”
“Princess!” sounded from the doorway.
Mark released her hand. “Seriously,” he said under his breath. “Don’t mention it.”
Before she could ask why, a short, older, barrel-chested man with Dancie’s former nose strode into the room. B. T. Pollard, the twins’ father and head of OMG. Actually, the head of several companies. He was the man who’d bankrolled the twins’ college business project and expanded it into a vast online conglomerate. It had been one of his better business decisions.
“How’s my baby?” He held out his arms. After planting a big kiss on Dancie’s cheek, he held her hands away from her. “Look at you! Hey, Travis! Look at your sister!”
Travis gave her a thumbs-up. “Lookin’ good!”
Contrary to Dancie’s whining, she was wearing the perfect business-casual outfit for the occasion. The denim skirt was genius, if Piper did say so herself. And the chino khaki jacket echoed the slacks both Travis and BT wore. Honestly, even the breast-cancer awareness tank worked.
Straightened, Dancie’s hair was a couple of inches longer and the ends curved just below her shoulders in a feminine wave. She could stand an eyebrow wax, but all in all, it didn’t look as though she was trying to alienate her father by looking as asexual as possible.
Naturally Piper had typed B. T. Pollard for Dancie’s sake—he was a beta-alpha who craved an alpha’s status—and she was using all the strategies she’d learned to position him to be receptive to what Dancie had to say. Even Piper was wearing a swirly skirt, stiletto sandals, and had dug out an ancient set of hot rollers to give herself Texas big hair.
Dancie’s father was as old as Piper’s grandfather and clearly of the “little housewife” generation, but he loved his kids and his wife and wanted what was best for them. The problem was that he and Dancie disagreed on what was best.
Piper wished BT could see how different Dancie was from her beauty queen mother and stop trying to force her to be something she wasn’t. She wished Dancie didn’t care so much. Maybe if Piper had grown up with a father, she might care about gaining his approval, too.
Dancie desperately wanted to show her father that she was as valuable to the business as Travis. And Piper desperately wanted a way to pay Dancie back for all the years she’d let Piper live with her virtually rent free so Piper could stay in school. Dancie being named a partner today would do it. And then Piper could move on, guilt free.
She needed to do something different with her life, to shake things up. But what? She’d never lived anywhere but Austin and she was just … restless. Twitchy. Tired of coaching others from the sidelines. She was ready to get in the game of life, herself. That, she knew. Figuring out what she wanted was the tricky part.
Before she could stop herself, she looked at Mark Banning. He and Travis were murmuring, but while Travis watched Dancie and his father, Mark was watching her. Again. Still.
Awareness prickled her skin and she couldn’t look away. Not only that, she caught herself raising her hand toward her hair. Preening. It was a typical female response when a woman found a man attractive. But Mark wasn’t signaling romantic interest, he was studying her, no doubt looking for clues for ways he could manipulate her if he needed to. If he knew she found him attractive, then he’d use it.
Keeping that in mind, Piper stopped from touching her hair and instead grasped her mug in both hands. Then she raised the mug from waist level and held it in front of her chest. A shield—body-language talk for “I’m not interested.” Which was a total lie because parts of her were shouting, “Look! Look! A prime male. Let’s have his babies.”
Mark smiled slightly and shifted his torso to face her, the rat. It signaled interest and intent and he was doing it on purpose. Piper wasn’t surprised he knew something about body language. As a reporter, he’d have to.
And it was such a lovely torso, too. She wouldn’t mind spending quality time with that torso, preferably without the jacket and shirt. Would it be so terrible to allow him to think he was manipulating her? Just for a little while?
No. No, no, no. Wrong game for her. Mark was a major-league all-star. Piper wasn’t even ready for the minor leagues. Little League, maybe. And she’d have to warm up before she was ready to go to bat.
And Mark Banning? Who was she kidding, anyway? Talk about a guaranteed strikeout.
Why was she using sports metaphors? She didn’t particularly like baseball. Maybe it was because she was standing near him and she’d breathed in some of his manly essence or something.
Oh, good grief. Dancie was seconds away from speaking to her dad in a baby voice and Piper was getting high on Mark Banning fumes.
Forcing herself to step away from him, she snagged Dancie’s stupid coffee mug and walked to the sideboard where she poured coffee into a fresh mug for Dancie and another one for her. She added sugar to her own coffee because her brain needed a shot of glucose. Healthy? Not so much. Effective? Temporarily.
“Did you dress up for me?” Dancie’s father leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Or have you got a boyfriend? Maybe you’re meeting him for lunch?”
“Dad …” Looking embarrassed, Dancie pulled her hands away.
“Who is he? Do I know him? Maybe I’ll just come along with you to lunch, eh?”
“No boyfriend,” Dancie rallied. “But you can take me to lunch!” She ducked her head and a wheedling note entered her voice. “Please?” Daddy’s little princess was wrapping him around her finger again.
This was not going as well as Piper had hoped.
“Aw, baby, sure, I’ll take you to lunch. But what’s wrong with the boys in this town? Piper—” BT addressed her for the first time “—that’s your field. Tell me what’s wrong with the boys in this town.”
Oh, don’t get me started. “Nothing, Mr. Pollard. Dancie just hasn’t met the right one yet.”
He gestured. “And how is she going to meet the right one when she spends all her time cooped up in front of the computer?”
Fell into that trap, didn’t you, Piper?
“And her best friend is a matchmaker!” He shook his head as Dancie and Piper exchanged looks. “What kind of friend are you not to find a nice boy for my Dancie?”
“I’m not a matchmaker, Mr. Pollard. I’m a compatibility expert. I tell women what to do after they’ve found a man.” Which he’d know if he ever read her column.
“Psh.” He waved her away with both hands. “What’s to tell? Act like a lady and let a man be a man. Let him know you appreciate the fact that he’s a man—but not too much.”
“Dad!”
He held up a thumb and finger. “A little sample,” he instructed a pink-cheeked Dancie. “Leave him hungry for more and let nature take its course.”
Piper was pretty sure she heard a muffled snort from behind her. “That’s a good strategy for some types of men, though not—”
“But first she’s gotta find a man! And I’m not talking about someone like you!” BT pointed at Mark. “She needs somebody who’ll be around to take care of her.”
“Yes, sir.” Mark spoke with complete seriousness, but beside him, Travis was about to lose it.
“Dad, I’m fine.” Miraculously, Dancie had regained her composure. “I don’t need help finding a man.”
BT turned back to Dancie. “You’re right. They should be finding you. Look at you. So pretty. You shouldn’t be here. You should go to lunch with your mother. Play tennis. Let her take you around so the boys can see you.”
Dancie smiled. “I’ll do that.”
She would?
“I’ll call Mom after the meeting. Let’s get started, or it’ll be too late.”
Way to go, Dancie. Piper sat at the table, knowing the gentlemen in the room would, too.
They did, with BT at the head, a twin on either side and Mark and Piper facing each other across the table.
Mark had moved a little slowly, nothing anyone would have noticed unless they were watching for it, which Piper was. He leaned back in the cushioned chair and they locked gazes.
Let the games begin.
3
Step three: Demonstrate kindness. The perception that a woman is a kind person is the one trait that appeals to all personality types.
“OKAY.” BT SLAPPED both hands on the tabletop. “Let’s see what we got here.”
As he bent over to reach inside the battered leather satchel resting on the floor next to his chair, both Dancie and Travis emphatically mimed keeping quiet. “Don’t say anything,” Travis mouthed at Mark and included Piper with a look. She glanced at Dancie, who had her finger to her mouth.
Okay. Got the message. Piper mimed zipping her lips.
BT tossed an old-fashioned manila folder onto the table where it skidded a few inches across the shiny surface. The tab was labeled in pencil Twins Biz.
Seriously? No state-of-the art electronic tablets or laptops for him, which was ironic, when Piper thought about it.
BT settled his glasses in place and opened the folder. The next few minutes passed in silence as he read and the twins tried to decipher his expressions. An eyebrow raised here, a head nod there, pursed lips, both eyebrows up—what a performance. As if he hadn’t already read and analyzed every word of the quarterly stats before the meeting.
Typical beta-alpha. Petty power games to make himself feel important. Piper amused herself by watching the others’ reactions. Travis, the alpha-beta, simmered with impatience, but tried to hide it in deference to his father to whom he owed respect. Otherwise, he would have made a point of showing his contempt for those who wasted his time.
People might assume, including Piper at first, that Dancie didn’t have a drop of alpha in her, but Piper suspected she might be more alpha than Travis. If Dancie wasn’t so obviously desperate for validation from her father, her alpha side would be more noticeable.
And then there was Mr. Alpha-Alpha, himself.
Mark leaned back in the chair, swiveled slightly to the side, his lips curved as though amused. He probably was. Clearly, he recognized BT’s posturing and was entertained by it, not annoyed. And that was the difference between Travis’s type and Mark’s type. Travis was irritated because he felt he had no choice but to play his father’s game. If Mark no longer wanted to play the game, he simply wouldn’t. He knew he could always find another boardroom in which to play and to hell—heck—with the consequences.
“So.” BT sat back and removed his glasses. Tapping the folder, he said, “Travis, your sister has got some impressive numbers—even better than last quarter. Which is a good thing since your numbers are even worse than last quarter.”
“Yeah.” Travis gave a little chin nod toward Dancie. “Thanks for having my back while Mark’s leg heals.”
“I wasn’t just having your back. The Women’s Guide to Living Fabulous division is one-third of the company. Our company,” Dancie emphasized. “And this year, it was the most profitable third.”
Go, Dancie! She looked great, she sounded great and the stats were on her side.
Before Dancie could bring up being named a partner, Travis made his case to BT. “Back-to-college and football season always gets us a lot of hits, and then we segue right into the Super Bowl. Another popular time. By then, Mark will be back on assignment and posting his columns. If you average the phenomenal number of hits his page got during his rescue with the last few quarters, we come out ahead.”
“The stats show a big drop-off in his page visitors,” BT said. “What is it—eighty—ninety percent?” He threw a glance Mark’s way. “How quickly they forget, eh, Mark?”
It was only as a slight color bloomed across Mark’s face that Piper realized his skin had been growing paler as the meeting progressed.
He’s in pain. She felt slightly sick knowing she’d contributed to it. She also noted that BT’s words had made Mark angry. Really angry, judging by that gritted jaw and unblinking stare. Maybe his anger would distract him from the pain in his leg.
Before Piper could figure out what had triggered Mark’s anger, Travis spoke. “His fans will come back when there’s new content. And have we ever got content, right, Mark?” He gestured for Mark to speak.
Nodding, Mark rested his forearms on the table. “There’s an ongoing dispute between brothers over oil rights on tribal lands in the Middle East and it appears the U.S. may be dealing with the wrong brother.”
He liked to use his hands to emphasize key words when he spoke. Piper guessed it was a habit from the videos he posted online.
She heard the growing intensity in his voice as he sketched out his plans for the story. He clearly loved what he did and Piper caught herself wishing she felt the same passion about her work. It wasn’t that she disliked what she was doing—she enjoyed helping people identify personality issues and quirks and how they affected them and those around them. Or as one of her corporate clients said, “You show us the hot buttons so we won’t push them.” But these days she had way more of the why-can’t-I-get-a-second-date women clients than corporate consultations.
Maybe once the online Piper Plan was established, women could figure out their man problems on their own and Piper could … could … She was unable to complete the thought. And that was her problem.
Later. She’d puzzle it out after the meeting. For now, she’d focus on that.
Mark was finishing up his pitch. “I’m going to head over to El Bahar to investigate. If my information is true, and I think it is, then this will be huge.” He sat back.
Piper believed him. How could anyone not? Negligent good looks coupled with the contained, focused intensity he’d learned speaking into webcameras equaled sincerity. People would believe anything he said. And if they were aware they were being manipulated; they wouldn’t care. Piper didn’t and she recognized it. Mark made people want to believe him. The man had charisma and an agenda, which made him dangerous.
And he was barely trying. Piper kind of wanted to see him when he was operating at full power. Maybe she’d access the OMG archives and watch a few podcasts.
“And OMG will have the exclusive,” Travis was saying.
See? Mark had even distracted Piper from her objective today and she was letting them make their case for the budget dollars without a fight.
“To get the excitement started,” Travis continued, “we’ll be promoting the heck out of Mark’s return during our Guys Annual Super Bowl Party.”
Piper nudged Dancie’s foot, alerting her that she shouldn’t let Travis control so much of the meeting.
Dancie took the hint. “To fill the gap until Travis and Mark’s numbers are up, I have a proposal to build on Piper’s dating column popularity.” She reached for the green folder. “There’s an added advantage because it opens up a new revenue stream so my division won’t be wholly dependent on ad money.”
Dancie slid the green folder toward her father. “Expanding on what I said in the quarterly report, we’ll have an interactive website with a software program called The Piper Plan to go along with the book—”
“Fluff,” BT pronounced. “You got lucky with some female fluff.” Without looking at the folder, he tossed it back at Dancie.
Fluff? BT had dismissed hundreds of hours of research as fluff? Without even looking at it? Suddenly, Mark wasn’t the only one doing a slow burn. Yeah. Nothing like having your work insulted to get the juices flowing. “Mr. Pollard, my work—”
“The matchmaking business?” He raised an eyebrow. “The one that can’t find my Dancie a man?”
Piper was not going to let him get to her. “It’s not a dating service. I counsel clients about compatibility, particularly when management teams have to decide between equally qualified job candidates. I analyze personalities. Certain types always get along and certain types always clash. And not just romantically. My theory applies to work relationships, roommates, sports teams, careers—”
“You write a dating column for us,” BT interrupted.
She wished he wouldn’t keep doing that. “I—Yes.” Piper exhaled. He just wouldn’t let that go. “But my theory is based on extensive research.”
“Your research is based on fluff.”
Travis snickered, but Travis would. And Mark’s reaction? Piper wasn’t about to look at him because appearing to care what he thought would show weakness and she was already in a battle to be taken seriously here.
“But it’s profitable fluff,” Dancie said, not helping.
“Thanks a lot,” Piper muttered.
“And we can make it more profitable.”
“Profitable until all the air goes out of it,” Travis said. “Then you’ve got nothing. That’s why I build on the standards—your beer, your football, your barbecue—so when my fluff collapses, I’ve still got a safety net.”
“Did you just call Mark fluff?” Piper asked. Probably unwisely. “Since you had to depend on your beer, your football and your barbecue this year.”
She felt Mark’s gaze laser in on her and she glanced at him. How could those blue eyes look hot and cold at the same time? She suppressed a shiver.
“Of course not.” Chuckling, Travis looked at Mark, and then quickly away. “But he gives the meat, if you will, to the OMG news division and gives us … the, uh …”
“Fluff?” Piper supplied, living dangerously. She heard Dancie’s breath hiss between her teeth.
A beat went by. “I give the Guys of Texas readers a look behind the scenes.” Mark kept his gaze fastened on her. “A lot of groundwork goes into my news stories.” His voice grew stronger. “News stories that change people’s lives. News stories that change the world.”
Implying that her work did not.
“That’s a great tagline,” Travis said in a fake hearty voice. “Isn’t that a great tagline?” He turned to his father. “We’ll have Mark at the Super Bowl with us—”
“You said he would already be overseas,” Dancie added.
“Video conferencing, Dancie.” Travis gave an impatient wave. “With hi-def, it’s almost the same as being there in person.”
“I’m glad you feel that way,” BT told him. “Because you’re going to be watching the next Super Bowl on that giant big-screen TV you’ve got downstairs.”
TRAVIS WENT STILL. “What do you mean?”
This is going to get ugly, Mark thought. Travis did love his Super Bowl parties.
BT leaned forward. “I mean that the salary for Mark’s new partner is coming out of your Super Bowl budget.”
Partner? Mark didn’t like where this was going.
“What new partner?” Travis turned to Mark. “You didn’t say anything about—”
“Thanks,” Mark said to BT. “But I don’t need a partner. I’ll be fine.”
“Good to hear. But you’re still going to be working with a partner.”
Never. “I work alone.”
BT shook his head. “Not anymore. You take too many risks, Mark.”
So he’d heard. “That’s how I get stories nobody else does. They hesitate. Hang back. Or they have to wait for authorization. I go for it.”
“Sometimes you shouldn’t.”
“Sometimes I don’t. You never hear about those times.”
“I sure did last year.” BT drew a long breath.
Here it comes. The man was entitled to a lecture, Mark supposed. BT hadn’t said a whole lot at the time Mark had been rescued. Then again, he’d been injured and, as Travis had pointed out, getting a lot of media attention. But that was last year and BT clearly wanted to assert his authority before sending Mark back into the field.
So be it. Mark would take the verbal spanking, apologize, and then they could get back to business, although he’d prefer not to have this conversation in front of Travis’s sister’s and Piper’s assessing gaze.
Mark sensed that she wasn’t impressed by him. That bothered him some and being bothered annoyed him. Usually, Mark didn’t care what strangers thought of him. Maybe it’s because you hope she won’t stay a stranger.
Where did that come from? She wasn’t his usual type and Mark would bet he wasn’t hers, either. He couldn’t imagine a reason for them to see each other again after today. He wasn’t going to seek her out. What would be the point, when he’d be half a world away in a couple of months?
“On your last assignment, you ignored State Department warnings,” BT said, starting his lecture, and Mark refocused his attention. “You ignored my direct order to break off contact with Mendoza.”
Because I do not take orders from someone who has no idea of the situation. Not too fond of orders, period. “You weren’t there. If you’d seen what I—”
“It doesn’t matter what you saw,” BT interrupted. “You were taken hostage and as far as the government was concerned, you’d ignored their warning, so it was tough luck.”
This was old ground and they didn’t need to cover it again. “Meeting with Mendoza was a risk I was willing to take,” Mark said.
BT jabbed a finger to his chest. “But I wasn’t!”
“Dad,” Travis interrupted. “He gets it. Let’s move on.”
BT silenced his son with a look. “Mark, your decision cost me hours of my life dealing with petty bureaucrats and not so petty bureaucrats. You’re only here now because Travis raised money from the Guys of Texas readers to hire mercenaries to go into those mountains and get you.”
Yeah, and the No Guy Left Behind project got a huge amount of news coverage in the process. It was a brilliant strategy that resulted in soaring ad revenue. Not only that, it had succeeded, for which Mark was grateful. “And I appreciate that.”
“We’re good, Dad,” Travis said.
“But I’m not good,” BT retorted. “I’m not good at all. Mark’s reckless—the kind of reckless I can’t afford.” Pointing at Mark, he continued, “If you had a wife or a girlfriend, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. They wouldn’t let you get away with the crazy risks you take.” He gave a short laugh and nodded toward Piper. “Maybe you should talk to this one about finding you a girlfriend.”
Mark flicked a glance her way.
“Not a matchmaker,” Piper said.
“Whatever you call yourself.” BT was insultingly dismissive.
Mark could understand why the man was angry at him, but from what Travis had told him, Piper Scott had been responsible for a nice uptick in OMG’s bottom line.
“Mark, the point is, if you had a partner to answer to, you’d think twice.”
That didn’t sound like a partner; that sounded like a babysitter. “Thinking twice is how reporters miss stories.” He shifted, deliberately softening his body language. “I chose to work at OMG because you gave me a freedom other journalists envy. In return, my reporting has enhanced OMG’s reputation—and profits.”
Mark hated playing the money card, but it always came down to money.
“And he’s ready to do it again, too.” Travis slapped the arms of his chair, mimicking one of his father’s gestures. “I say we stick with what works for him.”
“But it’s not working for me.” BT leaned forward and laced his fingers together, telegraphing that he wasn’t budging.
Hell. It had been a good run at OMG. He hated to see it end.
Out of the corner of his eye, Mark saw a movement and knew Travis’s sister and Piper had exchanged a look. They knew what was coming, too.
“Mark.” BT gazed steadily at him. “This hasn’t been the first time you’ve stepped on governmental toes. I’ve got a budget item called ‘news support services’ that’s nothing but money I use for bribes—excuse me—fines to either get you out of a mess or ensure the local authorities leave you alone. You disappear for days at a time without checking in. You change your travel plans without telling anyone. I think you’re in one country and you pop up in another. You ignore me and, frankly, without somebody riding herd on you, you’re not worth the liability, aggravation and expense.”
“Dad!” Travis looked genuinely shocked.
Mark had been worth it before and he’d be worth it again. This was all about Travis’s father showing everybody who was boss. Mark didn’t mind up to a point, but forcing a partner on him was that point. “I work alone.”
“I’ll take the responsibility, Dad,” Travis offered.
Sounded like a plan to Mark. He nodded his thanks to Travis.
BT shook his head. “You’re not part of the news division. You’d have to get up to speed on everything we’re doing and you’re overloaded now.”
“It seems as though Mark isn’t the only one who needs a partner,” Dancie said.
“I work alone.” Mark subtly shifted the emphasis.
“Make me an OMG partner and I can take some of the extra responsibilities from Travis,” Dancie offered. “I could handle Mark.”
That was the most alarming thing Mark had heard so far.
Travis slowly shook his head. “Oh, nooooo, you couldn’t.”
“There’s not going to be any extra work because I’m sending someone with him. Okay, Mark, let’s call it a producer, since you don’t work with a partner,” BT said. “A female, because I don’t want two men getting into a pissing contest. Pardon my French, ladies. But it’s gotta be a woman who can stand up to him.”
A woman? It kept getting worse. “I work alone.” Th is time the emphasis wasn’t subtle.
No one paid any attention to Mark. He wasn’t accustomed to being ignored—at least not as an adult.
But the twins were now arguing with their father. Travis was going to bat for him, and he appreciated it, but no way was he going to be handicapped by a handler. A woman? He lived pretty rough when he was in the field. And taking a woman to the Middle East would be just insane.
BT was right about one thing, though. The reason Mark wasn’t involved in a relationship was precisely because he put himself in situations no family man should.
The Pollards grew louder as the discussion became more heated. Unless BT could be talked out of his producer edict, this was a massive waste of Mark’s time and he had a one o’clock class he needed to prep for.
He looked across the table. Piper also sat silently while the Pollards hashed things out. She was mad, though, and rightly so.
Her profile was to him, so Mark took the opportunity to check her out. She wore square glasses with dark frames the way pretty women sometimes did when they wanted to be taken seriously. And she was pretty, in a church picnic kind of way, the sort of girl his grandmother would like. Sweetly pastel and prim. Too girlie for his mom, though. And to be honest, for him, as well. A life with her would mean drinking tea from china cups and taking off his shoes before he walked on the carpet. At least that’s the impression he got. Mark had no personal experience with her type. He smiled to himself. Her type avoided his type.
She must have sensed him looking at her, because she slowly turned her head and met his stare with one of her own.
Big brown eyes gazed directly at him from behind the glasses. That was no Sunday-school stare. And now that he thought about it, there hadn’t been any coyness about her the other times they’d studied each other. Mark felt a stirring of interest. There was something more here. Hidden depths. And nobody loved hidden depths more than Mark.
“Coffee?” she mouthed slowly. Her upper teeth dragged over her bottom lip drawing his attention to its plump pinkness.
Something else stirred as his interest shifted from intellectual to physical. Had she done that on purpose? If so, then she was Sunday school on the outside and Saturday-night party on the inside. Every man’s fantasy woman.
He nodded in answer to her coffee question and nudged his mug across the table. Rather than take it to the credenza, Piper reached behind her for the thermal pot. Doing so stretched her top across her chest. Nice.
Yeah, nice. Remember that. Nice girl. Okay, nice girl with some moves.
Piper leaned forward to pour the coffee and the V-neck of her top gaped enough for Mark to take in nicely rounded flesh and some lace. The coffee filled his mug in a slow stream that gave him plenty of time to stare down her top and plenty of time for her to be aware of it.
He might be in a little trouble here. He hadn’t been with a woman in way too long. Between his injury and the offlimits students, he’d had to freeze those urges. Piper Scott was definitely thawing them and at a most inconvenient time.
He forced his eyes downward a few more inches so they were focused on the coffee mug and not on Piper Scott’s surprisingly deep, lace-outlined cleavage.
The instant he saw the spout of the coffeepot tilt back, Mark grasped his mug and risked a glance upward, aiming for Piper’s eyes without traveling over her breasts. “Thanks.”
She smiled in response, and he smiled back because it would be impolite not to.
But then her smile grew and he knew she’d caught him looking down her top. She’d flashed him deliberately as repayment for their little thing earlier, before the meeting started, when they’d been sizing each other up.
Nicely played. Grinning, he dipped his head and raised his mug a fraction of an inch in acknowledgement. And then their gazes connected in one of those “hey, there could be something here” moments. Finding out could be fun. But Mark’s style was intense and temporary, no muss, and no fuss when his work ended the relationship.
Too bad Piper Scott wasn’t the type. Too bad one of the more attractive things about her was that she knew it.
The connection lasted long enough for both of them to realize nothing was going to happen between them and feel a twinge of regret—well, Mark sure did.
BT interrupted the moment by roaring, “Enough!”
Piper flinched and set the coffeepot down.
“You—” BT pointed at Mark. “I don’t care what you call her, but you’re taking somebody on assignment with you from now on. And you will consult with that somebody and if you don’t, I’ll pull your press credentials. And you—” he pointed to Piper. “If you and Dancie want OMG’s backing for your project, then show me this compatibility theory of yours works. Find Mark somebody he can get along with and who can stand up to him. That last part is very important.”
“Dad, get serious!” Travis nearly came out of his chair. “She’s a dating columnist! We’re talking about hiring somebody who’s going to be working with a world-class journalist, not finding Mark a date to the prom!” He didn’t bother to hide his scorn, which Mark could have told him was a mistake.
Sure enough, the women were eyeing Travis with narrow-eyed gazes. “The way it works is that you only send me qualified candidates,” Piper said in clipped tones. “I’ll select the most compatible ones from among those.”
Not going to happen. Mark shook his head, but Piper didn’t notice. Or if she did, she ignored him.
“And when am I supposed to find the time to do that?” Travis asked. “Since we’re not going to the Super Bowl—” he sent a resentful glance toward his father “—I have to redo everything. And that includes contacting the advertisers—”
“I can help you out, Travis,” Dancie offered sweetly.
Mark had heard enough. “Don’t bother,” he said. “For the last time, I. Work. Alone.”
“Not if you’re working at OMG,” BT told him.
Which is pretty much how Mark had expected this to play out. BT should be the one interviewing employees for the news division. He hadn’t said anything about doing so because he knew it wasn’t going to happen.
“Fair enough.” Mark pushed back from the table. “I’ll always be grateful for the opportunities OMG gave me.”
“Hang on a minute, Mark.” Panic sounded in Travis’s voice.
Mark stood, his leg screaming in protest. “Travis, it’s time for me to move on.” Past time for a pain pill, too. “Bye, all.”
Travis swiveled his chair away from the table. “Mark, wait.”
Mark pushed open the door. “I’ll call you later.” He had to get off his leg. Limping badly, he started across the foyer, knowing there was a real possibility he might not make it to his car.
“I’ve got a client meeting,” he heard behind him. “So I’m going to leave now, too.”
In an instant, Piper was beside him. “Lean on me,” she murmured beneath her breath. She held out her arm in a way that hid it from those in the conference room behind them.
He wasn’t about to argue. Bracing himself against her took some of the weight off his leg and relieved the pain.
“It stiffened up in the meeting, didn’t it?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he grunted. “Thanks.”
“Can you walk to the front door?”
Mark gave a tight nod.
“Whenever you’re ready.”
He started walking and she matched her steps to his, bless her, and as soon as they were out of sight, she insisted he lean on her fully.
Mark was relieved that she didn’t try to make conversation. If it hadn’t been for his damned leg, he would have appreciated her closeness more.
As they negotiated a couple of steps, he inhaled sharply and smelled her perfume. It was a flowery, sweet, girlie scent he wouldn’t have associated with her, especially in a business situation. But now that she was pressed up against him, he noticed the jewelry and the hair and the skirt and especially the sandals with the high heels. She looked as though she was going out on a date. Or entering a beauty pageant.
Or dressing to appeal to BT, clever girl.
So she wasn’t necessarily the church picnic type.
“Where are you parked?” she asked as he wondered about her normal style.
“Faculty lot near the Burns building.”
“Where’s your class?”
“Burns building.”
“And where are your pain meds?”
He stopped and looked down at her, but instead was visualizing the orange plastic container in his gym bag.
Piper met his gaze. “I’m guessing you either didn’t fill the prescription because you don’t like the idea, or you left them at home or some other inconvenient place.”
She had him pegged. “They’re in my locker at the physical therapy center.” Which was several miles away. He could have used the campus facilities for his rehab, but didn’t want an audience when he worked out.
“Okay, then we will get you to the Burns building for your class and you will give me the key to your locker and I will get the meds.” She wasn’t asking; she was telling, step by no-nonsense step.
Mark didn’t like being told what to do and how to do it even if he agreed. “You should go back to the meeting.”
She glanced behind her. “It’s all over but the shouting. Literally. Now give me your key and I’ll drive to the PT center and get your pain medication.”
Need and pride warred within him.
Her expression never changed and she spoke in the same nursery-school teacher tone. “You wouldn’t need them if it wasn’t for me. If you don’t give me the chance to make it right, I’ll feel awful.”
“You are so lying.” He shook his head, grinning down at her. “You didn’t even try to sell that.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She batted her eyes.
“Your blatant attempt to let me save face. Thanks, anyway.” He looked at her a moment longer, and then grimaced. “I hurt. Help me to the Burns building, and then I’m taking you up on your offer to get my pills. When you get back, I don’t care if class has started or not. Walk right on up and hand them to me. I’ll make sure I have a bottle of water.”
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HEATHER MACALLISTER
Tall, Dark & Reckless Recklessforeign journalist Mark Banning needs a partner – now. That’s where compatibility expert Piper, comes in. Mark frustrates Piper; he rejects every potential candidate she finds.Worse still, Mark is now hearing Piper’s voice in his head and the thought of his lips on her skin is tempting enough to drive Mark to make his most reckless move yet!
Praise for Heather MacAllister
“Heather MacAllister does a masterful job in
this perfectly crafted, compact romance that gets
better with every page.”
—Affaire de Coeur on Kept in the Dark
“This is a fun, fast-paced read that I was sad
to see come to an end.”
—Goodreads on A Man for All Seasons
“Lovely, witty dialogue and believable characters.”
—The Good, The Bad, and The Unread on His LittleBlack Book
“Pure fantasy in the finest sense, Heather MacAllister’s
Never Say Never crackles with sexy banter.” —RT Book Reviews
“Smart and sassy, Heather MacAllister’s
Tempted in Texas is highlighted by strong characterizations and witty dialogue.” —RT Book Reviews
“A one-sitting read for me. I got so caught up in this
story that I really didn’t want it to end.”
—The Best Reviews on Male Call
Dear Reader,
I got the idea for Tall, Dark and Reckless after following an endless path of suggested internet links while researching a different book. There’s so much advice on how to attract/keep/entertain/feed/train/meet men—and it was all different. Then I landed on one site that promised to cut through all the babble and simply list the traits and qualities of the perfect man. As a bonus, it listed the instant deal breakers.
Now, you know where I’m going with this. Their deal breakers weren’t my deal breakers. And to be honest, when I found my perfect man, even my original deal breakers turned out not to be deal breakers. Perfect doesn’t mean flawless, it means perfect for me. This is exactly what Piper Scott learns when she discovers that tall, dark and reckless Mark Banning is her perfect man. I hope you enjoy watching her figure it out.
Best wishes,
Heather MacAllister
www.HeatherMacAllister.com
http://www.facebook.com/HeatherMacAllisterBooks
https://twitter.com/#!/Heather_Mac
About the Author
HEATHER MACALLISTER lives near the Texas gulf coast where, in spite of the ten-month growing season and plenty of humidity, she can’t grow plants. Heather has written more than forty-five romance novels, which have been translated into twenty-six languages and published in dozens of countries. She’s won a Romance Writers of America Golden Heart Award, RT Book Reviews awards for best Harlequin Romance and best Harlequin Temptation, and is a three-time Romance Writers of America RITA
Award finalist. When she’s not writing stories about where life has its quirks, Heather collects vintage costume jewelry, loves fireworks displays, computers that behave, and sons who answer their mother’s texts. You can read her posts at www.BlazeAuthors.com/blog or visit her at www.HeatherMacAllister.com, like her on www.facebook.com/HeatherMacAllisterBooks, or follow her at https://twitter.com/#!/Heather_Mac.
Tall, Dark
& Reckless
Heather MacAllister
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
To the Fishinglights gang:
Mike and Rae, John and Linda, and Stuart.
And in memory of Kathy.
Prologue
LAND YOUR PERFECT MAN WITH THE PIPER PLAN!
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Do you keep falling for the wrong man?
Do the wrong men keep falling for you?
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After interviewing over a thousand men, popular “Dating to Mating” columnist Piper Scott, The Dating Doc, has identified specific male dating personality types. Not only that—she’s willing to share! Organized into a convenient personality grid, THE PIPER PLAN describes each type and his dating behavior, tells you what kind of woman appeals to him and gives you strategies that women can use to attract and keep him. Know the man’s type, and you’ll know how to win him.
Ready to land your perfect man? Then download your personal copy of THE PIPER PLAN today!
1
Step one: Find a perfect man.
ORDINARILY, PIPER SCOTT wouldn’t be distracted by a pair of blue eyes, no matter how attractively they crinkled, or a strong, manly jaw, no matter how chiseled—except these eyes were squinting and the jaw was definitely gritting. In pain.
Moments earlier, Piper had arrived at the entrance to the offices of OMG, the Online Media Group, at the same time as the owner of the crinkly blue eyes and the chiseled jaw.
“I’ll get it,” he’d said, and leaned around her to open the front door.
“Thanks,” she’d replied, because her cell had just buzzed and at that moment she was grabbing at her purse to check the caller ID. Only then her purse had slipped down her arm and tangled with the strap of the tote bag she carried on the same arm. When she’d heaved them back in place, a jacket in the dry cleaner’s bag slung over her other shoulder had slithered off its hanger and fallen to the leaf-strewn concrete in front of the door. As she bent to retrieve the jacket, the tote bag fell forward and made contact with the leg of the owner of the blue eyes and chiseled jaw.
Slight contact. A little bump. And now he was acting as though she’d bashed him with a load of books or something.
The big baby.
She’d automatically apologized, one of those quick, social “I’m sorrys” that didn’t seem adequate in the face of that grimace.
“I’m really sorry,” she added now.
“It’s okay.” He gave her a game smile.
Piper eyed him, trying to read his expression. Was she missing something? She glanced down and discovered his hand clenched around his thigh.
White knuckles, expensive jeans. The jeans had the careful whiskering that always reminded Piper of those lines in the comic books meant to emphasize something. “Look! Wow!” In this case, it was the crotch area, which, she noted, did not need emphasizing.
When Piper became aware that she was standing on a public street in downtown Austin eyeing a stranger’s crotch—truly not like her—she jerked her eyes upward. “I didn’t realize I hit you that hard. There’s not that much in my bag.”
“You didn’t.” He straightened. Somewhat. “Something hard got me in the right—or wrong—place.”
“I don’t have—Oh. It must have been the flatiron.”
He looked questioningly.
“A hair styling thingie.”
“Ah.” He raised his hand and went for the door again.
Piper heard the tiny, hard breath he sucked between his teeth.
Oh, please. He was being so transparent. She knew what was coming next. He’d hit on her. So to speak. Anyway, they’d walk in together and she’d apologize again because he was so obviously suffering and then he’d say, “If you really want to make it up to me, have coffee with me.” Or “Let me buy you a drink.” Or even “You can buy me a drink.” Probably not “You can kiss it and make it better,” a line mostly used by guys who weren’t as good-looking. And only the ones who hadn’t been pepper sprayed after saying it.
As they walked across the foyer’s hardwood floor, Piper waited for him to make his move. He’d better hurry. The foyer wasn’t that big. It didn’t need to be, since OMG only published digitally and the writers were scattered all over the country. Even Piper didn’t come here all that often and she lived nearby.
The headquarters of the online conglomerate was in a small, former residential dorm near the University of Texas campus and still had the living/dining/kitchen layout, which OMG used as the downstairs conference space. The offices were upstairs.
The area downstairs was empty now, but in less than half an hour, the OMG quarterly meeting would begin and Piper would be sitting at the table providing support to Dancie, her former college roommate and technically her OMG boss, but first and foremost her friend. Her best friend. The friend who’d been there when Piper needed a friend. Now Dancie needed her, even if she wouldn’t admit it.
But in the meantime, Mr. Blue Eyes was limping. Limping. Fine. Might as well get this over with and let him down easy.
Pasting on a semi-smile, Piper looked toward the man at her side. Only he wasn’t at her side. He, without a backward look, flirtatious or otherwise, was making his way to the elevator.
She hesitated, one foot on the steps, and watched as he reached for the call button. Then he waited, not even glancing over to see if she was still there.
So … he wasn’t going to hit on her? Well, that was lowering. Or, worse, was he avoiding her because he thought she was going to hit—metaphorically this time—on him?
Piper honestly didn’t know and that was rare, because Piper knew men. Everything about them. It was her business to know. As Piper Scott, The Dating Doc, she’d counseled countless men and women—mostly women—on dating strategies. She was known for her exit interviews, a frank discussion of why the date hadn’t worked. After interviewing a thousand men—actually, a thousand and thirteen men—she’d written The Piper Plan: How to Land Your Perfect Man.
Unfortunately, after interviewing those thousand men, Piper felt that there was nothing more to learn about the human male. Men had ceased to surprise her. They bored her.
Take the blue-eyed limper: he was the kind of handsome that appealed to women of all ages. He had arresting good looks—a shock of black hair and heavy black brows that contrasted with brilliantly blue eyes. She assumed he had a great smile, although she hadn’t seen much of it. He even looked vaguely familiar, but most men did these days.
The point was, she knew his type, grid square alpha-alpha, the confident, popular, leader type, normally not a type attracted to her.
And clearly not this time, either. She was surprised to feel a flicker of disappointment.
Piper noticed that he’d pressed the button for the basement, which meant he was going to the man cave where the Guys of Texas webzine, helmed by her friend Dancie’s twin, Travis, had its office. He was probably a friend of Travis’s. They were the same confident, good-looking, women-magnet type of male.
But using the elevator for one flight down? Piper climbed the stairs wondering if the limp had been genuine after all, since it clearly wasn’t a ploy to gain her sympathy prior to asking her out. Or maybe he was avoiding her. Or married. Or … whatever.
What really concerned her was that she didn’t know. What a horrible time to lose her touch at sizing up men. She needed to be confident going into today’s meeting.
Because this, this was the meeting where Dancie should be named an equal partner with her father and brother—something that should have been done in the beginning.
And Piper was going to do everything in her power to make it happen.
Then, she and Dancie would be even.
MARK COULD HEAR THE CABLES and machinery as the tiny elevator moved in the shaft.
Hurry. His leg throbbed and he was aware that he hadn’t heard the woman’s footsteps continue up the stairs.
Yeah, he’d overdone the physical therapy yesterday, but he’d wanted to prove to Travis—and himself—that he was a hundred percent. The last thing he needed was to draw attention to his leg.
She was watching him so he knew he hadn’t covered his pain as effectively as he’d hoped. The fact that she’d arrived in time for the meeting meant she probably wrote for OMG, too. Probably for Travis’s sister, since she was headed upstairs.
Hurry, he urged the elevator again as cogs chugged and drew the box from whatever floor it had been parked at. He shifted all his weight off his leg, preparing to lurch inside as soon as the doors opened.
Go upstairs, he mentally urged the woman. She’d probably recognized him and that was why she was hesitating. Maybe she was a fan. Or, please no, a student in one of his journalism classes, the one in the lecture hall. Maybe she was about to approach him and try to carry on a conversation. Sweat beaded his upper lip and he knew from hours staring at himself in the mirrored walls of the Austin Physical Therapy Center that his face was a grayish-green. That gray-green color told him he was pushing himself to his limit and beyond. If he wasn’t gray with pain, he wasn’t working hard enough.
But a different set of muscles were screaming this time. Had she dislocated his knee or something when she’d hit him?
Something. Definitely something. The elevator arrived. Mark forced himself to step forward as though nothing was wrong and propelled his body to the back of the tiny compartment where he grabbed on to the bar. His leg quivered and nearly buckled.
He suspected he was going to have to take a pain pill, something he’d wanted to avoid. He needed a clear head for this meeting. Not only did he have to demonstrate that he was ready to return to the field, he had to convince Travis’s father to send him back to the Texas-Mexico border. Maybe not as his first assignment after his involuntary layoff, but soon. He had a story to finish and a smuggler to expose. And a promise to be kept.
The elevator doors shuddered closed and Mark gingerly explored the area above his knee, his fingers finding the depression where he’d lost a hunk of muscle and flesh. No, he wouldn’t be playing a game of three-man basketball anytime soon.
On the slow descent, the pain receded, at least enough for Mark to limp into the Guys of Texas man cave.
There were usually a half dozen or so guys hanging around, thinkin’ about guy stuff. Doin’ guy stuff. Writing about guy stuff. Thinkin’ about women from a guy’s point of view: how to get them and what to do with them when you get them, how long and how many times you could do it, and any tips and tricks to share with fellow guys so you could keep doing it.
It would drive him nuts if he had to do that every day, but it was obviously popular. Travis Pollard had turned a simple online campus blog into a megamoneymaker for OMG.
The Guys of Texas published Mark’s behind-the-scenes commentary as he researched in-depth foreign exposés for the news division of OMG. His column was all about the glamour. The adventure. The danger. The excitement. The women.
Yes, Mark was Fantasy Guy. He exhaled. At least it paid the bills.
Mark hung his jacket on a set of longhorns and headed toward the coffee bar.
“Mark!” Travis jogged toward him and Mark realized he’d thought Mark might not show today. “Marko!”
Travis knuckle-bumped him. “My man! The man. Überguy—”
“Travis.”
Travis stuck his hand into his pocket. “Glad you’re back.”
“I got that.”
“Really glad you’re back.”
“I got that, too.”
“Yeah.” Travis rubbed at the top of his nose. “Missed your columns these last couple of quarters. Teaching college courses and recovering from a gunshot wound isn’t as popular as actually getting shot.”
Mark studied the fancy machine at the coffee bar. It was new. “I was also stabbed—maybe you shouldn’t have edited that out.”
“Hey, man. It was in the same leg. Nobody would have believed it.” Travis was completely serious. “But you’re back now,” Travis said as Mark pushed a combination of buttons that yielded a small cup of very black coffee with a thin layer of tan foam. “My sister has been kicking my behind in revenue.”
“What’s she got?”
Travis waved him to a chair. “A dating columnist. You know how women are. So right now, she’s got a lot of women running up the page stats. But when you’re on your game, we get the guys and the gals.” Travis mock-punched Mark in the jaw. “Good thing they cut your leg and not your face.”
Mark gazed at him, his expression carefully blank.
“’Cause that face is your meal ticket,” Travis continued.
“Because talent counts for nothing, right?” Mark asked.
“No, because there are a lot of talented people and there are a lot of good-looking people. There are even a lot of talented, good-looking people. But there aren’t a lot of lookers who are willing to work it. They don’t have to. You work it. I don’t know what drives you and I don’t want to know. I’m just glad you do what you do.”
Travis was no slouch in the work/talent/looks department, either. However, he hadn’t made eye contact very often during their conversation—which had been more Travis rambling than a conversation. And now, he’d started bouncing a tennis ball against the wall, repeatedly hitting the same smudged spot. Mark had interviewed enough people to know Travis was holding something back, and that something was going to affect Mark and his return to work.
“What aren’t you telling me?” he asked.
Travis stopped bouncing the ball and gazed directly at Mark. “Dancie’s Women’s Guide numbers are better than the Guys of Texas, even with you. Maybe not you being rescued after being captured, but better than normal you.”
All Mark wanted was to get back to normal. Normal was following his subject for days on end, immersing himself in whatever culture he found himself. Normal was not facing hundreds of starry-eyed journalism students three times a week. Normal was not evaluating every conversation and every word of every conversation with dozens of beautiful young women lest he inadvertently encourage romantic fantasies. Okay, maybe there was a little normal there. “So your sister has found something as popular as my column. How exactly am I supposed to take that?”
“You aren’t. That’s why I wasn’t telling you, but you asked.”
“It’s what I do.”
“And I hope you’ll be doing it for a long time.”
“So do I.” There was still an undercurrent of tension in the conversation.
Travis cleared his throat and shifted. “And you shouldn’t worry about today’s quarterly.”
Mark hadn’t. Until now.
“I just thought it wouldn’t hurt to have you here in person to remind my dad of how much of an asset you are.”
“So it isn’t usual for a contributor to come to these meetings.”
“Well, I mean, writers do sometimes.” Travis shifted again and finally got to his feet and walked to the ordinary drip coffeemaker next to the fancy machine. “Like if they’re new and going to be major or there’s going to be changes. Coffee?” He held up the pot after mumbling the last.
Mark shook his head. “Changes that concern me?”
Travis poured two mugs anyway. “I don’t know, and that’s the truth. It depends on Dancie. She’s kinda in the driver’s seat for the first time and, to be honest, I don’t know what kind of a driver she is.”
Travis had asked Mark to be here today. Maybe his sister had asked her heavy hitter to be here, as well. Mark’s mind flickered back to the woman he’d opened the door for. He tried to recall details of her appearance, but basically retained only an impression of glasses, brownish-blondish hair and a bunch of straps. He’d been distracted by the sudden pain in his leg and what it meant and how, or if, he’d be able to conceal it. He hadn’t been paying attention to her, other than getting the impression that while she was young, she wasn’t as young as the females in the journalism classes he taught. “Your sister’s big gun …”
“Piper Scott?”
“Um, I don’t know.”
“I guess I can’t expect you to read the competition.” Travis handed him a mug. “The Dating Doc.”
Mark shook his head.
“She’s a dating coach. She’s got some theory about men and their dating personalities that has just taken off.”
“Do you think she’ll be here today?”
Travis sipped his coffee. “If Dancie’s smart, she will. Piper lives here in Austin. They used to be roommates.”
Mark had a feeling. “What’s she look like?”
“Normal pretty—not the high-maintenance kind. Medium tall, good body, but she doesn’t show it off.”
Mark tried to remember the woman at the door, but mostly he remembered her voice. Politely sympathetic with an attractive huskiness. Yeah, he liked her voice, now that he thought about it.
“She’s kind of reserved.” Travis gave a half smile. “Not the party-girl type. The type you’d want to be your sister’s roommate.”
“Gotcha. I think I saw her as I came in.”
“You probably did.” Travis hitched his hip onto the corner of his desk. “Here’s the thing. With you on the sidelines, Dancie’s division has been bringing in the most money and she’s going to make a play for being named partner.”
Mark didn’t like the implication. Actually, it wasn’t an implication. Travis was coming right out and saying that his division had lost ad revenue because Mark hadn’t been on assignment since late last year. Travis would be pushing for his return. Good to know.
Travis sipped his coffee, and Mark did the same. Pretty good coffee. It might even be better than the coffee from the fancy machine.
“Doesn’t your sister deserve to be a partner?” Mark wondered why she hadn’t been from the beginning, but that wasn’t his business.
“She might at this point in time. But she’s going to get married eventually. And then she’ll have babies and she’ll slack off and still get one-third of the profits. Dad will go gaga over the grandkids and he’ll slack off and I’ll be doing all the work for one-third of the money.”
Mark grimaced. “Isn’t that view kind of …”
“Retro?” Travis supplied.
“Not the word I would have used, but yes.”
“Hang political correctness. It’s the truth.” Travis stopped short of slamming his mug on the desk, but he set it down heavily. “Look, Dancie and I had a great childhood. I know people call my mom a trophy wife. So what? Sure, she’s blonde and a lot younger than my dad, but she’s not stupid. And she was there for us and my dad. When I’m lucky enough to have kids, I want to be able to give them a full-time mom, too. And I know Dancie isn’t going to let someone else raise her kids if she doesn’t have to.”
Mark stared unblinkingly. “Some mothers don’t have that luxury.”
Travis caught himself. “Hey, man. I forgot about your mom being in the military. I’m sure she did the best she could.”
Mark clenched his fist so hard he almost forgot about the pain in his leg. “So your point is that your sister shouldn’t be a partner because she might have children?”
“My point is that I want to avoid doing a lot more work for a lot less money. You heard the one-third money part, right? That means the Guys of Texas will have less operating funds. That means less money for your expensive little adventures, as popular as they are.”
This time when Mark sipped his coffee, he burned his tongue, which was good because otherwise he’d be using it to tell Travis to go to hell. On his “little adventures,” Mark rooted out corruption, fighting against rulers and thugs who terrorized their citizens as they made power grabs. He exposed tribal chiefs and gang leaders who showed gratitude to the foreign-aid folks while they took the money for their own use. Because of Mark’s “little adventures,” people’s lives had been saved. Wars had been stopped. Leaders deposed. Mark reported the stories, but the behind-the-scenes “little adventures” were what Travis printed as columns in the Guys of Texas webzine. Mark didn’t like the trivialization, but the advertising revenue was what got him overseas.
He’d had offers from more prestigious news services, but he’d always been a loner and he liked the freedom OMG gave him. He didn’t have to answer to a news team or a producer, except Travis and Travis’s father, and as long as Mark got the story, he could do what he wanted, how he wanted.
Sure, they yelped a couple of times and sure, Mark skated in the gray area, but he got stories the larger media services could only dream about.
“So,” Travis continued. “We want to do whatever it takes to get you back in the field.”
On this, they could agree. “The PT is going great.” Mark ignored the throbbing in his thigh. “By the end of the semester I’ll be good to go.” It was late October. His leg had another couple of months to heal. Plenty of time.
“Great.” Travis clapped his hands together before pointing them at Mark. “Let’s talk possible assignments.”
Mark met his eyes with the same gaze that had compelled everyone from beggars to royalty to tell him more than they’d meant to. “I’ve been gone so long, I want to make a splash with my comeback.”
“Keep talking.”
“Burayd al-Munzir.” Mark sat back.
Travis gazed unblinkingly. “And he is …?”
How could he not know? Swallowing his irritation, Mark said, “Fatik al-Munzir’s youngest half brother. Burayd’s mother came from an influential tribal family in El Bahar, and they were not pleased when she became a third wife instead of the first wife as arranged. His mother’s people are backing Burayd in a disagreement with Fatik over who has rights to the mega oil reserves sitting under tribal lands. Each side wants to be the one to parlay with the U.S., but nobody in this country is taking Burayd seriously. And they need to. The story will take months to develop, but it’ll be worth it.” And staying in villas in modern cities would be easier on his leg than hiking around mountains.
“Sounds very promising,” Travis said. “But we need something with a faster payoff.”
Mark gritted his teeth. “Some issues are more important than money.”
“I like that you think that way and I don’t ever want you to be in a position to realize how wrong you are.” Travis stopped, met his eyes and gave Mark a big, fat smile. “But money is what will buy the plane ticket to get you to whatever sandbox these two play in. Money is what rescued you the last time you went rogue. And money is what has paid for all your physical therapy sessions.”
“Yeah.” Mark shifted as his leg twinged. Keeping his tone offhand, he said, “So how about I go back to the border and finish the gun smuggling story?”
“You’ve gotta be kidding.”
“It could be a fast turnaround. I’ve already done the research—”
“No.” Travis spoke with unmistakable finality. “Not now. Not ever. At least, not if you want to continue writing for OMG.”
Mark wasn’t a total idealist, but he’d never sold out and he never would. He tamped down his anger. “Are you threatening me?”
“Do facts threaten you? It was an expensive mistake.”
“Is there a problem, Travis?” This was the first time Travis had ever mentioned money in considering Mark’s assignments.
“Not at the moment, but the more slices, the smaller the piece of pie.”
His sister’s success must have really rattled Travis. “Have you considered that maybe Dancie will make it a bigger pie?”
“Like I said—marriage, babies.” Travis was sounding a lot like his father. Mark had always thought it was an act, but maybe not.
“This is temporary for her,” Travis reiterated. “I don’t mind giving her a salary bump. I don’t even mind if she draws a bigger salary than I do. But a partner’s share of the profits? No.”
Mark had no intention of getting in the middle of a family fight. He’d keep his thoughts to himself and by New Year’s, he’d be on a plane to the Middle East. Or taking care of unfinished business at the border.
Travis checked his clunky gold watch and indicated that it was time to leave. “Bring all the enthusiasm you’ve got to the meeting, but don’t forget to tie any story ideas to potential revenue streams for OMG.”
Was Travis always like this before meeting with his father? If so, Mark was glad he’d never before attended one of these quarterly get-togethers.
Mark tried not to limp as they walked to the elevator. Potential revenue streams? That wasn’t his job. His job was to get the story. Their job was to publish it.
For a moment Mark imagined a world in which he would never “adventure” again. He did not want to be a part of that world. Even so, though he might be forced to compromise, he’d never sell out.
2
Step two: Verify your target male’s type. Only then engage him in light conversation.
AFTER REALIZING THAT THE MAN wasn’t going to turn around, Piper had quietly continued up the stairs, so he wouldn’t hear her and think she’d been standing there watching him. Of course, she had been, but she definitely didn’t want him thinking so.
Her phone buzzed again as she reached the top of the steps and once again, she sent it to voice mail. Then she turned to the right and breezed into Dancie’s office.
Startled, Dancie looked up from her computer. “You’re way early!”
“Good morning!” Piper sang.
Dancie brightened. “Did you bring coffee?”
“Couldn’t carry it.” Piper set her bag and the hanging clothes on the one visitor’s chair in the tiny space.
“Well, darn.” Dancie went back to typing. “Travis took the good coffeepot and I don’t feel like braving the man cave this morning.”
Someone might have made coffee in the downstairs kitchen for the meeting. As Piper considered whether to check and possibly snag a cup for Dancie, her phone went off again. This time, she just let it buzz until it rolled over to voice mail on its own.
Forget the coffee. There wasn’t that much time before the meeting started and Dancie needed the makeover fairy to wave her magic wand. Piper didn’t have a magic wand, but she did have a flatiron, makeup and a change of clothes. Gently, she closed the door. “Are those notes for today, or can you take a break?”
Dancie stopped typing and eyed Piper suspiciously. “Why?” Her gaze drifted to the chair and narrowed.
Long ago, Piper had learned that the way to manipulate Dancie was to keep her off balance by moving quickly and decisively. Talking a lot as she did so helped, too.
“I want to tweak your visual presentation.” As she spoke, Piper walked around Dancie’s desk and pulled her out of the chair.
“What do you mean?”
There was a full-length mirror on the door. Piper positioned Dancie in front of it and tugged the faded navy hoodie off her arms.
“What are you doing?” Dancie jerked at a sleeve.
“Honestly, Dancie!” Piper pointed to a hole where the cuff had pulled away from the rest of the sleeve.
“Nobody’s going to notice that!”
Piper freed the hoodie from Dancie’s clutches and tossed it onto the desk. She should have aimed for the trash basket. “Only because you’re dressing to be invisible.”
“What are you talking about?” Dancie gestured down at her cotton tank, jean shorts, and flip-flops. “This is the way I always look! Everybody in Austin looks this way!”
“Not today.” Piper examined Dancie’s legs. At least she’d shaved them relatively recently. “Today, you’re going to look like a partner in the Online Media Group.”
Dancie went still. Anticipating the coming rant, Piper used the opportunity to remove the plastic bag from the clothes.
And then, the rant began. “If Dad makes me a partner like Travis, it’s going to be because the Women’s Guide to Living Fabulous division has brought in the most revenue the past two quarters and not because of what I’m wearing!”
“Of course it will be.” Piper automatically spoke with the same tone she used to deliver unpleasant truths to defensive clients. “If he listens to you.”
“That’s why I have a written report. It’s with our proposal.” Dancie pointed to the desk where a shiny red folder sat. “Hard copy.”
“Red. I see.” At least Dancie’d put the thing in a folder.
“Yeah. I thought it would stand out.”
“It does. Red means stop. Danger. Red ink. In the red.” From the bag on the chair, Piper withdrew a green folder and handed it to Dancie. “Green is the color of money. It means growth. Go. Green is good.” Piper gestured. “Switch the folders.”
Dancie stared at it. “You actually brought a folder for me?”
“I didn’t want you to stress in case you forgot.”
Dancie walked toward the desk. “This is some of your psychological stuff, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” While Dancie changed her report folder, Piper moved the chair in front of the mirror.
Without turning around, Dancie said, “I see the clothes. Don’t think I’m not aware of what you’re doing. You’re going to say, ‘Dancie, your quarterly report says the same thing. You’ve just changed the cover to make it more appealing. That’s all we’re doing with these clothes. You’re still you—you’ll just have a different cover.’”
“Excellent. We can skip that part, then.” Piper held up a skirt. “And one of the advantages of having roomed with you is that I know your size.”
Dancie saw the skirt. “Oh, hell, no.”
“Watch the potty mouth. Your dad doesn’t like it when women swear.”
“I am not wearing a skirt! I do not wear skirts. I have never worn skirts—something you should have picked up on after three years of rooming with me.”
“It’s a denim pencil skirt.” Piper tossed it at her. “Think of it as a pair of shorts with the legs sewn together.”
“He’ll know I’m wearing it just to get on his good side.”
“There’s nothing wrong with your father seeing you make an effort to look more attractive,” Piper said calmly. “You’re trying to woo him—”
Dancie flung down the skirt. “In the first place, I am not one of your dating clients and in the second, ew!” She shuddered. “Gee, thanks for putting that in my head!”
“Compatibility principles are the same whether you’re talking dating or job interviews or roommate questionnaires.” The meeting was less than twenty minutes away now and Dancie was being more hardheaded than Piper expected. “Salesmen use the technique all the time. And that’s what you are today—a salesman. You are selling yourself as a partner to your father.”
“Ew—ew—ew—ew!”
“Dancie, stop it!” Piper had to speak more sharply than she wanted to, but this was important.
“Travis doesn’t have to do stuff like this!” Dancie wailed.
“But he does.” Piper looked around for an outlet to plug in the flatiron and ended up unplugging Dancie’s desk lamp. “Have you seen Travis today? What’s he wearing?”
Dancie made a disgusted sound. “Khaki Dockers and a UT golf shirt.”
“And probably his big gold fraternity ring. What do you think your dad’s going to wear?”
“What he always wears,” Dancie said. “Dockers with his belly hanging over the waist and a golf shirt with a Longhorn football booster logo …” She met Piper’s eyes as she trailed off.
“Exactly. Travis mirrors your father.”
“Then I’ll wear khakis and a golf shirt!”
“Your father likes pretty, feminine women.” Which was why Piper was rocking a retro sorority girl/receptionist look today.
“Oh, I know,” Dancie snapped. “He wants nothing more than for me to be his little princess until he can hand me off to Prince Charming.”
“So be a princess with a brain.” Piper led Dancie to the chair in front of the mirror and pushed on her shoulders. Unresisting, Dancie sat down, staring unseeingly until she noticed Piper with the flatiron in the reflection.
“Are you cra—”
Piper moved fast, grabbing a hank of Dancie’s curly ponytail and running the iron through it.
Dancie jerked away in outrage. “Look what you’ve done! Now part of my hair is straight and part is curly!”
“Oops,” Piper said, not sorry at all. “I guess I’ll just have to straighten the rest of it, then.”
Glaring, Dancie yanked the elastic off her ponytail. “I’m going to look pathetic!”
“No—”
“Yes, I am! There’s nothing you can do to me that will make me look one-tenth as good as my mother looks when she rolls out of bed in the morning! You making me look all girlie is only going to emphasize it.”
Her beauty queen mother was Dancie’s huge hot button and there was no way around it. Better that she vent now than lose her cool during the meeting.
“Travis is the one who looks like Mom!” Dancie said of her twin.
True. Piper stayed silent and kept flat-ironing Dancie’s frizzy hair. If Dancie would use some product, she’d have great waves. But she didn’t, so Piper was going for long, loose and feminine today.
“He got the blond hair and the blue eyes and the great teeth and the dimple. I ended up with Dad’s brown eyes and kinky black hair and mustache. I got mom’s nose, though,” Dancie continued bitterly. “It was a gift for my sixteenth birthday.”
“And a lovely gift it was, too,” Piper said. “Remember, I’ve seen pictures of you before.”
Dancie gasped, and then they both laughed.
Piper finished taming Dancie’s hair and while it wasn’t perfect, it was an improvement. “This isn’t cheating,” she told Dancie as she applied some basic makeup. “Your dad will see you’re making an effort to look more feminine, so subconsciously, he’ll make an effort to listen. It’s a sales tactic and takes nothing away from what you’ve accomplished.”
Piper’s phone buzzed. She ignored it, but Dancie reached around her and removed it from Piper’s purse.
“Give me that!” Piper grabbed for the phone, but Dancie, grinning, answered it.
“Piper Scott’s office. Are you ready to find your per—” Dancie abruptly stopped smiling. “I—”
Sighing, Piper said, “Put her on speaker.”
Dancie pressed the screen and mouthed, “I’m sorry,” as sobbing sounded from the phone.
“Piiiipeeeeerrrr!”
“I’m here.” Piper kept applying makeup while a subdued Dancie held the phone.
“Dale… He’s—he’s gonnnnne!” More sobbing. “He left meeeeee!”
Piper squinted at Dancie’s eyes and added a little more shading to one. “Did he leave you and your money or just you?”
Hiccup. “Wh-what do you mean?”
“You gave him the money, didn’t you?”
“He needed it!”
“They always do.” Piper didn’t want to deal with this right now, which is why she hadn’t answered her phone.
“But—it was for his motorcycle! He couldn’t very well get to his job without his bike, could he?”
“He has a job? That’s different.”
Dancie winced.
“Yes, he does! In Wichita Falls.”
Piper glanced at the office wall clock. Taking the phone, she handed Dancie the denim skirt and a pair of flats. Dancie was clearly feeling guilty, because she put them on without protest.
“Are you in Wichita Falls now?” Piper asked.
“No—I’m in Lubbock. Dale was going to send for me when he found us a place to live.”
Piper closed her eyes and shook her head. “And he hasn’t sent for you.”
Sniff. “No.”
“And you haven’t heard from him.”
“That’s why I called the construction company! I thought maybe he’d been in an accident and was unconscious and—”
“They’d never heard of him.” Same thing over and over again. Her mother never learned.
Sobbing.
Pointing to the clock, Dancie slipped around Piper and closed and unplugged her laptop.
“I thought he loved me!”
“You always think that,” Piper said quietly. “How much, Mom?”
“Wh—That’s—”
“I’m in a hurry. I’ve got a meeting in a few minutes. Do you have any money left at all? Or did he take you for everything?”
“Penelope Ann Scott! Don’t you talk—”
Piper took her mother off speaker. “Tell me how much you need and where to send it.”
When she ended the call, Dancie was trying to sneak out the door. “I’m so sorry, Piper. I never would have answered the phone—”
“Forget it.” Piper planned to. Until the next time. “Put on the jacket.”
“But it’s pink,” Dancie said with heavy loathing.
“Blush khaki,” Piper corrected.
“If I were the khaki, I’d blush, too.”
“You wear pink.” Piper indicated Dancie’s tank.
“I got it at a breast-cancer awareness walkathon.”
Piper slipped the jacket over her shoulders. “And now, it’s complemented by the jacket.” It was a lucky break that Dancie was wearing that particular tank top today.
Dancie set her computer and folder down and put on the jacket. “I’m only wearing this because I feel horrible about answering the phone.”
“I know,” Piper said. “But I’ll take it—because you look great!” She gave Dancie a thumbs-up and followed her through the doorway.
“I didn’t realize you were still sending your mom money,” Dancie said as they started down the stairs.
“You have your mother issues and I have mine,” Piper said. “But right now, we need to concentrate on the meeting and getting you made partner.”
“Deal,” Dancie said. And then, “Oh, sh—”
“Language!” Piper cautioned with a laugh.
“—oot!” Dancie finished. “Shoot, shoot, shoot!”
They were at the final turn of the staircase and Dancie was staring across the foyer at the conference table in the old dining room.
Piper followed her gaze and saw the blue-eyed limper from earlier. “Okay, who is that guy?”
“Seriously?” Dancie asked.
“Yeah, why? I ran into him earlier.”
Dancie gave her a strange look. “And you didn’t recognize him?”
“Well…” As they reached the bottom of the stairs, Piper glanced into the room again. “I thought he seemed vaguely familiar, but honestly? All guys are beginning to look alike to me.”
“If all men look like that to you, then you’re working too hard.” Dancie nodded her head in his direction. “That’s Mark Banning, Travis’s star columnist, his big moneymaker.”
There was something more … Piper couldn’t quite remember.
“Oh, come on, Piper! The big-deal foreign journalist who got himself captured last year?”
“Right!” Finally, she made the connection.
“And the only reason I beat Travis in revenue is because Mark got injured. He’s been teaching a journalism course at UT instead of wowing all Travis’s readers with his insane adventures.”
Mark got injured … Now Piper remembered. It had been all over the news. Dramatic rescue and so on. Video clips of the photogenic Mark Banning had run incessantly, including one of him waving from a stretcher, bloodstained bandage wrapped around his thigh—right about where his hand had gripped it earlier, if Piper wasn’t mistaken. Ah.
Dancie exhaled. “I thought I had another quarter before I had to compete with him again.” She headed for the conference room. “Well, if Mark’s back, that must mean his leg has healed.”
“Or maybe not,” Piper murmured beneath her breath. Mark Banning had been stateside for months. If his leg was still that sensitive, then it most certainly had not fully healed.
As they walked into the room, Piper glanced at the famous Mark Banning and found him studying her in a way that meant Travis had filled him in on her identity. Not that either of them would ever have anything to do with the other— unless Mark needed dating tips. Yeah, that wasn’t going to happen. The only tip he’d need was how to fend off women, something at which he’d no doubt had a lot of practice.
He stood by the sideboard and sipped coffee, his other hand, left and ringless, for what that was worth, rested on the back of a swivel club chair. Long and lean in a leather jacket, surrounded by a cloud of confidence and testosterone. An alpha-alpha, the pinnacle of male desirability. Men wanted to be him. Women just wanted him.
Not even Piper was immune, although she had no intention of treating Mark Banning with anything other than clinical detachment.
A double-alpha male was a lot of trouble. Not only would his woman have to fight to catch him, she’d have to fight off other females to keep him. This type of man lived as though the world revolved around him because it usually did. He didn’t become a part of your life, he drew you into his.
Piper would never recommend a double-alpha male for anything long-term unless a woman was a double alpha herself. And if she was, she’d hardly be a client of Piper’s. The only other kind of woman for a man like that was the completely self-sacrificing type who was willing to devote her life to enhancing his—and willing to look the other way when she had to.
Believe it or not, there were women like that in the world. More power to them.
Looking at Mark Banning, Piper could understand why. He was unignorable, like a Ferrari parked among the mom-mobiles at a suburban grocery store—beautiful to look at and you didn’t have to see it in action to know it had power and speed under the hood. Or needed extra maintenance. However, she wanted no part of a selfish, self-centered, arrogant, unaware … Except hadn’t Mark opened the door for her? Twice? He hadn’t said or done anything to make her feel bad when her bag had hit his leg, either. So maybe he wasn’t totally self-centered and unaware, which would make him unique among the double alphas she’d interviewed. But he still had the looks and power that made her want to take him for a test drive.
“Ladies!” Travis saw them and beamed his showman smile. “May I pour you a mug of coffee?”
“You’d better, since you stole the good pot!” Dancie said to her brother.
“Just for you.” Travis pushed forward an oversize mug with a crazed stick-figure woman that said, “Forget sugar and spice. Give me caffeine and then I’ll be nice!”
All the other mugs were plain. It was a subtle way to diminish Dancie, who didn’t notice as she eagerly gulped coffee. Piper would take care of it later.
As Travis poured more coffee, Piper looked behind the chair and saw that Mark’s knee was bent and one booted toe rested on the hardwood floor. He was keeping the weight off his leg, which made her feel awful knowing her bag had bashed it.
She probably wasn’t his favorite person at the moment. So why was he staring at her, clearly sizing her up?
Piper suddenly understood. She was the competition. Mark was not only the big moneymaker for Travis, he contributed to the OMG news division. At the moment, Piper was the big moneymaker for Dancie, but only wrote for the Living Fabulous division. However, they were presenting a proposal for expansion today and Mark was probably wondering how much of a threat to his budget she was going to be.
A lot, Piper hoped.
“Hey, Piper. How’s it going?” Travis asked.
“Fine.” She smiled. Travis was an alpha-beta, always striving to prove his alphaness, where a true alpha didn’t need to prove anything. He wasn’t her type, either.
He handed her a mug. “Good to see you, as always. You take cream and sugar?”
“Cream.” It was real cream, Piper knew, because the twins’ father wanted cream and not “that blue water they try to pass off as milk.”
As she poured a dollop into her mug, she was aware that Mark continued to watch her. He hadn’t said one word since she and Dancie had walked into the room.
Dancie must have noticed, as well. “I don’t think Piper and Mark have met, Travis.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” Travis touched Piper’s elbow and turned her to face Mark’s blue-eyed gaze. “I guess I assumed everyone knew Mark Banning.”
So Travis was going to be a pain. Piper gave Mark a polite nod of recognition. “Piper Scott.” She held out her hand before Travis introduced her. “We ran into each other earlier.”
“And really hit it off,” Mark said with an easy smile and a warm, solid grip.
She felt a flutter of attraction. Oh, he was good. “About that—”
“Don’t mention it.”
“Princess!” sounded from the doorway.
Mark released her hand. “Seriously,” he said under his breath. “Don’t mention it.”
Before she could ask why, a short, older, barrel-chested man with Dancie’s former nose strode into the room. B. T. Pollard, the twins’ father and head of OMG. Actually, the head of several companies. He was the man who’d bankrolled the twins’ college business project and expanded it into a vast online conglomerate. It had been one of his better business decisions.
“How’s my baby?” He held out his arms. After planting a big kiss on Dancie’s cheek, he held her hands away from her. “Look at you! Hey, Travis! Look at your sister!”
Travis gave her a thumbs-up. “Lookin’ good!”
Contrary to Dancie’s whining, she was wearing the perfect business-casual outfit for the occasion. The denim skirt was genius, if Piper did say so herself. And the chino khaki jacket echoed the slacks both Travis and BT wore. Honestly, even the breast-cancer awareness tank worked.
Straightened, Dancie’s hair was a couple of inches longer and the ends curved just below her shoulders in a feminine wave. She could stand an eyebrow wax, but all in all, it didn’t look as though she was trying to alienate her father by looking as asexual as possible.
Naturally Piper had typed B. T. Pollard for Dancie’s sake—he was a beta-alpha who craved an alpha’s status—and she was using all the strategies she’d learned to position him to be receptive to what Dancie had to say. Even Piper was wearing a swirly skirt, stiletto sandals, and had dug out an ancient set of hot rollers to give herself Texas big hair.
Dancie’s father was as old as Piper’s grandfather and clearly of the “little housewife” generation, but he loved his kids and his wife and wanted what was best for them. The problem was that he and Dancie disagreed on what was best.
Piper wished BT could see how different Dancie was from her beauty queen mother and stop trying to force her to be something she wasn’t. She wished Dancie didn’t care so much. Maybe if Piper had grown up with a father, she might care about gaining his approval, too.
Dancie desperately wanted to show her father that she was as valuable to the business as Travis. And Piper desperately wanted a way to pay Dancie back for all the years she’d let Piper live with her virtually rent free so Piper could stay in school. Dancie being named a partner today would do it. And then Piper could move on, guilt free.
She needed to do something different with her life, to shake things up. But what? She’d never lived anywhere but Austin and she was just … restless. Twitchy. Tired of coaching others from the sidelines. She was ready to get in the game of life, herself. That, she knew. Figuring out what she wanted was the tricky part.
Before she could stop herself, she looked at Mark Banning. He and Travis were murmuring, but while Travis watched Dancie and his father, Mark was watching her. Again. Still.
Awareness prickled her skin and she couldn’t look away. Not only that, she caught herself raising her hand toward her hair. Preening. It was a typical female response when a woman found a man attractive. But Mark wasn’t signaling romantic interest, he was studying her, no doubt looking for clues for ways he could manipulate her if he needed to. If he knew she found him attractive, then he’d use it.
Keeping that in mind, Piper stopped from touching her hair and instead grasped her mug in both hands. Then she raised the mug from waist level and held it in front of her chest. A shield—body-language talk for “I’m not interested.” Which was a total lie because parts of her were shouting, “Look! Look! A prime male. Let’s have his babies.”
Mark smiled slightly and shifted his torso to face her, the rat. It signaled interest and intent and he was doing it on purpose. Piper wasn’t surprised he knew something about body language. As a reporter, he’d have to.
And it was such a lovely torso, too. She wouldn’t mind spending quality time with that torso, preferably without the jacket and shirt. Would it be so terrible to allow him to think he was manipulating her? Just for a little while?
No. No, no, no. Wrong game for her. Mark was a major-league all-star. Piper wasn’t even ready for the minor leagues. Little League, maybe. And she’d have to warm up before she was ready to go to bat.
And Mark Banning? Who was she kidding, anyway? Talk about a guaranteed strikeout.
Why was she using sports metaphors? She didn’t particularly like baseball. Maybe it was because she was standing near him and she’d breathed in some of his manly essence or something.
Oh, good grief. Dancie was seconds away from speaking to her dad in a baby voice and Piper was getting high on Mark Banning fumes.
Forcing herself to step away from him, she snagged Dancie’s stupid coffee mug and walked to the sideboard where she poured coffee into a fresh mug for Dancie and another one for her. She added sugar to her own coffee because her brain needed a shot of glucose. Healthy? Not so much. Effective? Temporarily.
“Did you dress up for me?” Dancie’s father leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Or have you got a boyfriend? Maybe you’re meeting him for lunch?”
“Dad …” Looking embarrassed, Dancie pulled her hands away.
“Who is he? Do I know him? Maybe I’ll just come along with you to lunch, eh?”
“No boyfriend,” Dancie rallied. “But you can take me to lunch!” She ducked her head and a wheedling note entered her voice. “Please?” Daddy’s little princess was wrapping him around her finger again.
This was not going as well as Piper had hoped.
“Aw, baby, sure, I’ll take you to lunch. But what’s wrong with the boys in this town? Piper—” BT addressed her for the first time “—that’s your field. Tell me what’s wrong with the boys in this town.”
Oh, don’t get me started. “Nothing, Mr. Pollard. Dancie just hasn’t met the right one yet.”
He gestured. “And how is she going to meet the right one when she spends all her time cooped up in front of the computer?”
Fell into that trap, didn’t you, Piper?
“And her best friend is a matchmaker!” He shook his head as Dancie and Piper exchanged looks. “What kind of friend are you not to find a nice boy for my Dancie?”
“I’m not a matchmaker, Mr. Pollard. I’m a compatibility expert. I tell women what to do after they’ve found a man.” Which he’d know if he ever read her column.
“Psh.” He waved her away with both hands. “What’s to tell? Act like a lady and let a man be a man. Let him know you appreciate the fact that he’s a man—but not too much.”
“Dad!”
He held up a thumb and finger. “A little sample,” he instructed a pink-cheeked Dancie. “Leave him hungry for more and let nature take its course.”
Piper was pretty sure she heard a muffled snort from behind her. “That’s a good strategy for some types of men, though not—”
“But first she’s gotta find a man! And I’m not talking about someone like you!” BT pointed at Mark. “She needs somebody who’ll be around to take care of her.”
“Yes, sir.” Mark spoke with complete seriousness, but beside him, Travis was about to lose it.
“Dad, I’m fine.” Miraculously, Dancie had regained her composure. “I don’t need help finding a man.”
BT turned back to Dancie. “You’re right. They should be finding you. Look at you. So pretty. You shouldn’t be here. You should go to lunch with your mother. Play tennis. Let her take you around so the boys can see you.”
Dancie smiled. “I’ll do that.”
She would?
“I’ll call Mom after the meeting. Let’s get started, or it’ll be too late.”
Way to go, Dancie. Piper sat at the table, knowing the gentlemen in the room would, too.
They did, with BT at the head, a twin on either side and Mark and Piper facing each other across the table.
Mark had moved a little slowly, nothing anyone would have noticed unless they were watching for it, which Piper was. He leaned back in the cushioned chair and they locked gazes.
Let the games begin.
3
Step three: Demonstrate kindness. The perception that a woman is a kind person is the one trait that appeals to all personality types.
“OKAY.” BT SLAPPED both hands on the tabletop. “Let’s see what we got here.”
As he bent over to reach inside the battered leather satchel resting on the floor next to his chair, both Dancie and Travis emphatically mimed keeping quiet. “Don’t say anything,” Travis mouthed at Mark and included Piper with a look. She glanced at Dancie, who had her finger to her mouth.
Okay. Got the message. Piper mimed zipping her lips.
BT tossed an old-fashioned manila folder onto the table where it skidded a few inches across the shiny surface. The tab was labeled in pencil Twins Biz.
Seriously? No state-of-the art electronic tablets or laptops for him, which was ironic, when Piper thought about it.
BT settled his glasses in place and opened the folder. The next few minutes passed in silence as he read and the twins tried to decipher his expressions. An eyebrow raised here, a head nod there, pursed lips, both eyebrows up—what a performance. As if he hadn’t already read and analyzed every word of the quarterly stats before the meeting.
Typical beta-alpha. Petty power games to make himself feel important. Piper amused herself by watching the others’ reactions. Travis, the alpha-beta, simmered with impatience, but tried to hide it in deference to his father to whom he owed respect. Otherwise, he would have made a point of showing his contempt for those who wasted his time.
People might assume, including Piper at first, that Dancie didn’t have a drop of alpha in her, but Piper suspected she might be more alpha than Travis. If Dancie wasn’t so obviously desperate for validation from her father, her alpha side would be more noticeable.
And then there was Mr. Alpha-Alpha, himself.
Mark leaned back in the chair, swiveled slightly to the side, his lips curved as though amused. He probably was. Clearly, he recognized BT’s posturing and was entertained by it, not annoyed. And that was the difference between Travis’s type and Mark’s type. Travis was irritated because he felt he had no choice but to play his father’s game. If Mark no longer wanted to play the game, he simply wouldn’t. He knew he could always find another boardroom in which to play and to hell—heck—with the consequences.
“So.” BT sat back and removed his glasses. Tapping the folder, he said, “Travis, your sister has got some impressive numbers—even better than last quarter. Which is a good thing since your numbers are even worse than last quarter.”
“Yeah.” Travis gave a little chin nod toward Dancie. “Thanks for having my back while Mark’s leg heals.”
“I wasn’t just having your back. The Women’s Guide to Living Fabulous division is one-third of the company. Our company,” Dancie emphasized. “And this year, it was the most profitable third.”
Go, Dancie! She looked great, she sounded great and the stats were on her side.
Before Dancie could bring up being named a partner, Travis made his case to BT. “Back-to-college and football season always gets us a lot of hits, and then we segue right into the Super Bowl. Another popular time. By then, Mark will be back on assignment and posting his columns. If you average the phenomenal number of hits his page got during his rescue with the last few quarters, we come out ahead.”
“The stats show a big drop-off in his page visitors,” BT said. “What is it—eighty—ninety percent?” He threw a glance Mark’s way. “How quickly they forget, eh, Mark?”
It was only as a slight color bloomed across Mark’s face that Piper realized his skin had been growing paler as the meeting progressed.
He’s in pain. She felt slightly sick knowing she’d contributed to it. She also noted that BT’s words had made Mark angry. Really angry, judging by that gritted jaw and unblinking stare. Maybe his anger would distract him from the pain in his leg.
Before Piper could figure out what had triggered Mark’s anger, Travis spoke. “His fans will come back when there’s new content. And have we ever got content, right, Mark?” He gestured for Mark to speak.
Nodding, Mark rested his forearms on the table. “There’s an ongoing dispute between brothers over oil rights on tribal lands in the Middle East and it appears the U.S. may be dealing with the wrong brother.”
He liked to use his hands to emphasize key words when he spoke. Piper guessed it was a habit from the videos he posted online.
She heard the growing intensity in his voice as he sketched out his plans for the story. He clearly loved what he did and Piper caught herself wishing she felt the same passion about her work. It wasn’t that she disliked what she was doing—she enjoyed helping people identify personality issues and quirks and how they affected them and those around them. Or as one of her corporate clients said, “You show us the hot buttons so we won’t push them.” But these days she had way more of the why-can’t-I-get-a-second-date women clients than corporate consultations.
Maybe once the online Piper Plan was established, women could figure out their man problems on their own and Piper could … could … She was unable to complete the thought. And that was her problem.
Later. She’d puzzle it out after the meeting. For now, she’d focus on that.
Mark was finishing up his pitch. “I’m going to head over to El Bahar to investigate. If my information is true, and I think it is, then this will be huge.” He sat back.
Piper believed him. How could anyone not? Negligent good looks coupled with the contained, focused intensity he’d learned speaking into webcameras equaled sincerity. People would believe anything he said. And if they were aware they were being manipulated; they wouldn’t care. Piper didn’t and she recognized it. Mark made people want to believe him. The man had charisma and an agenda, which made him dangerous.
And he was barely trying. Piper kind of wanted to see him when he was operating at full power. Maybe she’d access the OMG archives and watch a few podcasts.
“And OMG will have the exclusive,” Travis was saying.
See? Mark had even distracted Piper from her objective today and she was letting them make their case for the budget dollars without a fight.
“To get the excitement started,” Travis continued, “we’ll be promoting the heck out of Mark’s return during our Guys Annual Super Bowl Party.”
Piper nudged Dancie’s foot, alerting her that she shouldn’t let Travis control so much of the meeting.
Dancie took the hint. “To fill the gap until Travis and Mark’s numbers are up, I have a proposal to build on Piper’s dating column popularity.” She reached for the green folder. “There’s an added advantage because it opens up a new revenue stream so my division won’t be wholly dependent on ad money.”
Dancie slid the green folder toward her father. “Expanding on what I said in the quarterly report, we’ll have an interactive website with a software program called The Piper Plan to go along with the book—”
“Fluff,” BT pronounced. “You got lucky with some female fluff.” Without looking at the folder, he tossed it back at Dancie.
Fluff? BT had dismissed hundreds of hours of research as fluff? Without even looking at it? Suddenly, Mark wasn’t the only one doing a slow burn. Yeah. Nothing like having your work insulted to get the juices flowing. “Mr. Pollard, my work—”
“The matchmaking business?” He raised an eyebrow. “The one that can’t find my Dancie a man?”
Piper was not going to let him get to her. “It’s not a dating service. I counsel clients about compatibility, particularly when management teams have to decide between equally qualified job candidates. I analyze personalities. Certain types always get along and certain types always clash. And not just romantically. My theory applies to work relationships, roommates, sports teams, careers—”
“You write a dating column for us,” BT interrupted.
She wished he wouldn’t keep doing that. “I—Yes.” Piper exhaled. He just wouldn’t let that go. “But my theory is based on extensive research.”
“Your research is based on fluff.”
Travis snickered, but Travis would. And Mark’s reaction? Piper wasn’t about to look at him because appearing to care what he thought would show weakness and she was already in a battle to be taken seriously here.
“But it’s profitable fluff,” Dancie said, not helping.
“Thanks a lot,” Piper muttered.
“And we can make it more profitable.”
“Profitable until all the air goes out of it,” Travis said. “Then you’ve got nothing. That’s why I build on the standards—your beer, your football, your barbecue—so when my fluff collapses, I’ve still got a safety net.”
“Did you just call Mark fluff?” Piper asked. Probably unwisely. “Since you had to depend on your beer, your football and your barbecue this year.”
She felt Mark’s gaze laser in on her and she glanced at him. How could those blue eyes look hot and cold at the same time? She suppressed a shiver.
“Of course not.” Chuckling, Travis looked at Mark, and then quickly away. “But he gives the meat, if you will, to the OMG news division and gives us … the, uh …”
“Fluff?” Piper supplied, living dangerously. She heard Dancie’s breath hiss between her teeth.
A beat went by. “I give the Guys of Texas readers a look behind the scenes.” Mark kept his gaze fastened on her. “A lot of groundwork goes into my news stories.” His voice grew stronger. “News stories that change people’s lives. News stories that change the world.”
Implying that her work did not.
“That’s a great tagline,” Travis said in a fake hearty voice. “Isn’t that a great tagline?” He turned to his father. “We’ll have Mark at the Super Bowl with us—”
“You said he would already be overseas,” Dancie added.
“Video conferencing, Dancie.” Travis gave an impatient wave. “With hi-def, it’s almost the same as being there in person.”
“I’m glad you feel that way,” BT told him. “Because you’re going to be watching the next Super Bowl on that giant big-screen TV you’ve got downstairs.”
TRAVIS WENT STILL. “What do you mean?”
This is going to get ugly, Mark thought. Travis did love his Super Bowl parties.
BT leaned forward. “I mean that the salary for Mark’s new partner is coming out of your Super Bowl budget.”
Partner? Mark didn’t like where this was going.
“What new partner?” Travis turned to Mark. “You didn’t say anything about—”
“Thanks,” Mark said to BT. “But I don’t need a partner. I’ll be fine.”
“Good to hear. But you’re still going to be working with a partner.”
Never. “I work alone.”
BT shook his head. “Not anymore. You take too many risks, Mark.”
So he’d heard. “That’s how I get stories nobody else does. They hesitate. Hang back. Or they have to wait for authorization. I go for it.”
“Sometimes you shouldn’t.”
“Sometimes I don’t. You never hear about those times.”
“I sure did last year.” BT drew a long breath.
Here it comes. The man was entitled to a lecture, Mark supposed. BT hadn’t said a whole lot at the time Mark had been rescued. Then again, he’d been injured and, as Travis had pointed out, getting a lot of media attention. But that was last year and BT clearly wanted to assert his authority before sending Mark back into the field.
So be it. Mark would take the verbal spanking, apologize, and then they could get back to business, although he’d prefer not to have this conversation in front of Travis’s sister’s and Piper’s assessing gaze.
Mark sensed that she wasn’t impressed by him. That bothered him some and being bothered annoyed him. Usually, Mark didn’t care what strangers thought of him. Maybe it’s because you hope she won’t stay a stranger.
Where did that come from? She wasn’t his usual type and Mark would bet he wasn’t hers, either. He couldn’t imagine a reason for them to see each other again after today. He wasn’t going to seek her out. What would be the point, when he’d be half a world away in a couple of months?
“On your last assignment, you ignored State Department warnings,” BT said, starting his lecture, and Mark refocused his attention. “You ignored my direct order to break off contact with Mendoza.”
Because I do not take orders from someone who has no idea of the situation. Not too fond of orders, period. “You weren’t there. If you’d seen what I—”
“It doesn’t matter what you saw,” BT interrupted. “You were taken hostage and as far as the government was concerned, you’d ignored their warning, so it was tough luck.”
This was old ground and they didn’t need to cover it again. “Meeting with Mendoza was a risk I was willing to take,” Mark said.
BT jabbed a finger to his chest. “But I wasn’t!”
“Dad,” Travis interrupted. “He gets it. Let’s move on.”
BT silenced his son with a look. “Mark, your decision cost me hours of my life dealing with petty bureaucrats and not so petty bureaucrats. You’re only here now because Travis raised money from the Guys of Texas readers to hire mercenaries to go into those mountains and get you.”
Yeah, and the No Guy Left Behind project got a huge amount of news coverage in the process. It was a brilliant strategy that resulted in soaring ad revenue. Not only that, it had succeeded, for which Mark was grateful. “And I appreciate that.”
“We’re good, Dad,” Travis said.
“But I’m not good,” BT retorted. “I’m not good at all. Mark’s reckless—the kind of reckless I can’t afford.” Pointing at Mark, he continued, “If you had a wife or a girlfriend, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. They wouldn’t let you get away with the crazy risks you take.” He gave a short laugh and nodded toward Piper. “Maybe you should talk to this one about finding you a girlfriend.”
Mark flicked a glance her way.
“Not a matchmaker,” Piper said.
“Whatever you call yourself.” BT was insultingly dismissive.
Mark could understand why the man was angry at him, but from what Travis had told him, Piper Scott had been responsible for a nice uptick in OMG’s bottom line.
“Mark, the point is, if you had a partner to answer to, you’d think twice.”
That didn’t sound like a partner; that sounded like a babysitter. “Thinking twice is how reporters miss stories.” He shifted, deliberately softening his body language. “I chose to work at OMG because you gave me a freedom other journalists envy. In return, my reporting has enhanced OMG’s reputation—and profits.”
Mark hated playing the money card, but it always came down to money.
“And he’s ready to do it again, too.” Travis slapped the arms of his chair, mimicking one of his father’s gestures. “I say we stick with what works for him.”
“But it’s not working for me.” BT leaned forward and laced his fingers together, telegraphing that he wasn’t budging.
Hell. It had been a good run at OMG. He hated to see it end.
Out of the corner of his eye, Mark saw a movement and knew Travis’s sister and Piper had exchanged a look. They knew what was coming, too.
“Mark.” BT gazed steadily at him. “This hasn’t been the first time you’ve stepped on governmental toes. I’ve got a budget item called ‘news support services’ that’s nothing but money I use for bribes—excuse me—fines to either get you out of a mess or ensure the local authorities leave you alone. You disappear for days at a time without checking in. You change your travel plans without telling anyone. I think you’re in one country and you pop up in another. You ignore me and, frankly, without somebody riding herd on you, you’re not worth the liability, aggravation and expense.”
“Dad!” Travis looked genuinely shocked.
Mark had been worth it before and he’d be worth it again. This was all about Travis’s father showing everybody who was boss. Mark didn’t mind up to a point, but forcing a partner on him was that point. “I work alone.”
“I’ll take the responsibility, Dad,” Travis offered.
Sounded like a plan to Mark. He nodded his thanks to Travis.
BT shook his head. “You’re not part of the news division. You’d have to get up to speed on everything we’re doing and you’re overloaded now.”
“It seems as though Mark isn’t the only one who needs a partner,” Dancie said.
“I work alone.” Mark subtly shifted the emphasis.
“Make me an OMG partner and I can take some of the extra responsibilities from Travis,” Dancie offered. “I could handle Mark.”
That was the most alarming thing Mark had heard so far.
Travis slowly shook his head. “Oh, nooooo, you couldn’t.”
“There’s not going to be any extra work because I’m sending someone with him. Okay, Mark, let’s call it a producer, since you don’t work with a partner,” BT said. “A female, because I don’t want two men getting into a pissing contest. Pardon my French, ladies. But it’s gotta be a woman who can stand up to him.”
A woman? It kept getting worse. “I work alone.” Th is time the emphasis wasn’t subtle.
No one paid any attention to Mark. He wasn’t accustomed to being ignored—at least not as an adult.
But the twins were now arguing with their father. Travis was going to bat for him, and he appreciated it, but no way was he going to be handicapped by a handler. A woman? He lived pretty rough when he was in the field. And taking a woman to the Middle East would be just insane.
BT was right about one thing, though. The reason Mark wasn’t involved in a relationship was precisely because he put himself in situations no family man should.
The Pollards grew louder as the discussion became more heated. Unless BT could be talked out of his producer edict, this was a massive waste of Mark’s time and he had a one o’clock class he needed to prep for.
He looked across the table. Piper also sat silently while the Pollards hashed things out. She was mad, though, and rightly so.
Her profile was to him, so Mark took the opportunity to check her out. She wore square glasses with dark frames the way pretty women sometimes did when they wanted to be taken seriously. And she was pretty, in a church picnic kind of way, the sort of girl his grandmother would like. Sweetly pastel and prim. Too girlie for his mom, though. And to be honest, for him, as well. A life with her would mean drinking tea from china cups and taking off his shoes before he walked on the carpet. At least that’s the impression he got. Mark had no personal experience with her type. He smiled to himself. Her type avoided his type.
She must have sensed him looking at her, because she slowly turned her head and met his stare with one of her own.
Big brown eyes gazed directly at him from behind the glasses. That was no Sunday-school stare. And now that he thought about it, there hadn’t been any coyness about her the other times they’d studied each other. Mark felt a stirring of interest. There was something more here. Hidden depths. And nobody loved hidden depths more than Mark.
“Coffee?” she mouthed slowly. Her upper teeth dragged over her bottom lip drawing his attention to its plump pinkness.
Something else stirred as his interest shifted from intellectual to physical. Had she done that on purpose? If so, then she was Sunday school on the outside and Saturday-night party on the inside. Every man’s fantasy woman.
He nodded in answer to her coffee question and nudged his mug across the table. Rather than take it to the credenza, Piper reached behind her for the thermal pot. Doing so stretched her top across her chest. Nice.
Yeah, nice. Remember that. Nice girl. Okay, nice girl with some moves.
Piper leaned forward to pour the coffee and the V-neck of her top gaped enough for Mark to take in nicely rounded flesh and some lace. The coffee filled his mug in a slow stream that gave him plenty of time to stare down her top and plenty of time for her to be aware of it.
He might be in a little trouble here. He hadn’t been with a woman in way too long. Between his injury and the offlimits students, he’d had to freeze those urges. Piper Scott was definitely thawing them and at a most inconvenient time.
He forced his eyes downward a few more inches so they were focused on the coffee mug and not on Piper Scott’s surprisingly deep, lace-outlined cleavage.
The instant he saw the spout of the coffeepot tilt back, Mark grasped his mug and risked a glance upward, aiming for Piper’s eyes without traveling over her breasts. “Thanks.”
She smiled in response, and he smiled back because it would be impolite not to.
But then her smile grew and he knew she’d caught him looking down her top. She’d flashed him deliberately as repayment for their little thing earlier, before the meeting started, when they’d been sizing each other up.
Nicely played. Grinning, he dipped his head and raised his mug a fraction of an inch in acknowledgement. And then their gazes connected in one of those “hey, there could be something here” moments. Finding out could be fun. But Mark’s style was intense and temporary, no muss, and no fuss when his work ended the relationship.
Too bad Piper Scott wasn’t the type. Too bad one of the more attractive things about her was that she knew it.
The connection lasted long enough for both of them to realize nothing was going to happen between them and feel a twinge of regret—well, Mark sure did.
BT interrupted the moment by roaring, “Enough!”
Piper flinched and set the coffeepot down.
“You—” BT pointed at Mark. “I don’t care what you call her, but you’re taking somebody on assignment with you from now on. And you will consult with that somebody and if you don’t, I’ll pull your press credentials. And you—” he pointed to Piper. “If you and Dancie want OMG’s backing for your project, then show me this compatibility theory of yours works. Find Mark somebody he can get along with and who can stand up to him. That last part is very important.”
“Dad, get serious!” Travis nearly came out of his chair. “She’s a dating columnist! We’re talking about hiring somebody who’s going to be working with a world-class journalist, not finding Mark a date to the prom!” He didn’t bother to hide his scorn, which Mark could have told him was a mistake.
Sure enough, the women were eyeing Travis with narrow-eyed gazes. “The way it works is that you only send me qualified candidates,” Piper said in clipped tones. “I’ll select the most compatible ones from among those.”
Not going to happen. Mark shook his head, but Piper didn’t notice. Or if she did, she ignored him.
“And when am I supposed to find the time to do that?” Travis asked. “Since we’re not going to the Super Bowl—” he sent a resentful glance toward his father “—I have to redo everything. And that includes contacting the advertisers—”
“I can help you out, Travis,” Dancie offered sweetly.
Mark had heard enough. “Don’t bother,” he said. “For the last time, I. Work. Alone.”
“Not if you’re working at OMG,” BT told him.
Which is pretty much how Mark had expected this to play out. BT should be the one interviewing employees for the news division. He hadn’t said anything about doing so because he knew it wasn’t going to happen.
“Fair enough.” Mark pushed back from the table. “I’ll always be grateful for the opportunities OMG gave me.”
“Hang on a minute, Mark.” Panic sounded in Travis’s voice.
Mark stood, his leg screaming in protest. “Travis, it’s time for me to move on.” Past time for a pain pill, too. “Bye, all.”
Travis swiveled his chair away from the table. “Mark, wait.”
Mark pushed open the door. “I’ll call you later.” He had to get off his leg. Limping badly, he started across the foyer, knowing there was a real possibility he might not make it to his car.
“I’ve got a client meeting,” he heard behind him. “So I’m going to leave now, too.”
In an instant, Piper was beside him. “Lean on me,” she murmured beneath her breath. She held out her arm in a way that hid it from those in the conference room behind them.
He wasn’t about to argue. Bracing himself against her took some of the weight off his leg and relieved the pain.
“It stiffened up in the meeting, didn’t it?” she asked.
“Yeah,” he grunted. “Thanks.”
“Can you walk to the front door?”
Mark gave a tight nod.
“Whenever you’re ready.”
He started walking and she matched her steps to his, bless her, and as soon as they were out of sight, she insisted he lean on her fully.
Mark was relieved that she didn’t try to make conversation. If it hadn’t been for his damned leg, he would have appreciated her closeness more.
As they negotiated a couple of steps, he inhaled sharply and smelled her perfume. It was a flowery, sweet, girlie scent he wouldn’t have associated with her, especially in a business situation. But now that she was pressed up against him, he noticed the jewelry and the hair and the skirt and especially the sandals with the high heels. She looked as though she was going out on a date. Or entering a beauty pageant.
Or dressing to appeal to BT, clever girl.
So she wasn’t necessarily the church picnic type.
“Where are you parked?” she asked as he wondered about her normal style.
“Faculty lot near the Burns building.”
“Where’s your class?”
“Burns building.”
“And where are your pain meds?”
He stopped and looked down at her, but instead was visualizing the orange plastic container in his gym bag.
Piper met his gaze. “I’m guessing you either didn’t fill the prescription because you don’t like the idea, or you left them at home or some other inconvenient place.”
She had him pegged. “They’re in my locker at the physical therapy center.” Which was several miles away. He could have used the campus facilities for his rehab, but didn’t want an audience when he worked out.
“Okay, then we will get you to the Burns building for your class and you will give me the key to your locker and I will get the meds.” She wasn’t asking; she was telling, step by no-nonsense step.
Mark didn’t like being told what to do and how to do it even if he agreed. “You should go back to the meeting.”
She glanced behind her. “It’s all over but the shouting. Literally. Now give me your key and I’ll drive to the PT center and get your pain medication.”
Need and pride warred within him.
Her expression never changed and she spoke in the same nursery-school teacher tone. “You wouldn’t need them if it wasn’t for me. If you don’t give me the chance to make it right, I’ll feel awful.”
“You are so lying.” He shook his head, grinning down at her. “You didn’t even try to sell that.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” She batted her eyes.
“Your blatant attempt to let me save face. Thanks, anyway.” He looked at her a moment longer, and then grimaced. “I hurt. Help me to the Burns building, and then I’m taking you up on your offer to get my pills. When you get back, I don’t care if class has started or not. Walk right on up and hand them to me. I’ll make sure I have a bottle of water.”
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HEATHER MACALLISTER
Тип: электронная книга
Жанр: Современные любовные романы
Язык: на английском языке
Издательство: HarperCollins
Дата публикации: 16.04.2024
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О книге: Tall, Dark & Reckless Recklessforeign journalist Mark Banning needs a partner – now. That’s where compatibility expert Piper, comes in. Mark frustrates Piper; he rejects every potential candidate she finds.Worse still, Mark is now hearing Piper’s voice in his head and the thought of his lips on her skin is tempting enough to drive Mark to make his most reckless move yet!