Barbara Daly - You Call This Romance!?

Just to show himself, and her, that it wasn’t anything about her that had brought him back, he gave her a scowl as he walked right past her and straight to the head honcho’s office.

He peered in. Wycoff, a portly man with a bulbous nose, sat behind his desk leafing through travel brochures, like a man planning his own vacation. “Harrumph,” Cabot said.

Wycoff lifted his head, but he didn’t look happy to see Cabot standing there. “May I help you?” he said in an unhelpful tone.

“Yes.” Cabot strode in and sat down, refusing to be put off. “Name’s Cabot Drennan. Your agent Faith Sumner is working with me on my honeymoon arrangements and I…” He paused, fascinated by the dull-red color suffusing Wycoff’s face.

“Say no more. I’ll set you up at once with Miss Eldridge. Miss Eldridge has been with me for thirty years, and she—”

“I don’t want Miss Eldridge. I want Miss Sumner.” Feeling that a dull red flush might be climbing his face, he added hastily, “to go on working with me.”

“You do? She hasn’t somehow booked your cruise on a Russian oil tanker or found you a hotel where an Elderhostel is in session and the food is cafeteria style?”

“Of course not,” Cabot snapped. The man was a pig. He disliked him intensely. “She’s been terrific,” he lied. “Over-the-top. If you had a few more agents like her…”

Now Wycoff blanched and Cabot decided he’d gone too far. He’d only known Faith for two days, but already he could tell he didn’t want more than one of her in his life. Although having her in his life would be…What am I saying? What am I thinking?

“What I mean is,” he said, starting over, “that I have a request that might sound, I mean right at the beginning, until you understand the concept, sort of unusual.” Since Wycoff’s eyes were darting right and left as if he were looking for help, Cabot barreled right ahead. “I want Ms. Sumner to take the honeymoon with me first.”

Wycoff lumbered up out of his chair. “Mr. Brandon, I must—”

“Drennan,” said Cabot.

“Mr. Drennan.” Wycoff wasn’t a whole lot taller standing up than he had been sitting down. That’s what Cabot would call short legs. “What you suggest is absolutely out of the question. It’s indecent. I could get sued.”

For a minute there, Cabot had thought Wycoff actually cared about Faith, in which case, he’d try to forgive the man for being a pig. Now he didn’t have to. “What I mean is that I want her there to check out the arrangements in person, on site. It’s called ‘advancing’ the event,” he added in case Wycoff needed a buzz word to make things clear. “It would be like standing in for the bride, the way a maid of honor does at the wedding rehearsal. I’d want her to take her complaints to the hotel staff, smooth things out before the actual honeymoon.”

Wycoff was thinking about it. It was a good sign.

“My intended is a film star,” Cabot threw into the silence. “Wonderful woman, but you know how temperamental actresses can be. I just want things to go well.”

“A movie star?”

Those were magic words in Los Angeles, maybe anywhere. “Yes. We haven’t made the announcement yet, or I’d tell you her name.”

The man’s mouth was clearly watering.

“Agent Sumner could do my PR firm a great service,” Cabot said solemnly. “But of course I wanted to get your approval first. Then you can talk to her, see how she feels about it.”

“I assure you, Mr. Drennan, that if I’m convinced it’s a good idea, Miss Sumner will do as I ask.”

“I thought that might be the case,” Cabot said, and settled back, satisfied.

FAITH SAT at her desk staring at the Focus, Faith screen saver and contemplating the loss of yet another job. It was the only reason Cabot could possibly have for bending Mr. Wycoff’s ear.

Once again she’d failed. Where had she gone wrong? Because however well suited she seemed to be for a job, something always went wrong.

Succeeding as a travel agent at Wycoff Worldwide was important to her. The time Hope and Charity had put into coaching her and designing screen savers and mouse pads, that alone was enough to make this job important, to say nothing of the fact that they’d paid for her training.

And she was the oldest. According to the current literature on birth order, she was supposed to be the leader, the competitive one, the…

“Faith!”

…one to carry on the family work ethic, the one most likely to…

“Faith Sumner!”

…walk into Mr. Wycoff’s office and get fired. As she staggered forward on leaden feet, she discovered that the feet were wearing unmatched shoes. They were the same color, pearl gray to match her suit. It was the heel height that was different. This meant she’d also taken a mismatched pair to the shoe shop for resoling, which meant that now she’d have to take these two shoes in as well, which would cost twice as much, and the higher-heeled pair hadn’t even needed resoling.

Leveling herself by walking on one toe and one heel, she stuck her head through the doorway of Mr. Wycoff’s office. “You called?” Her knees buckled under her and her throat closed up. “Sir?” she squeaked.

Cabot Drennan lounged gracefully in one of Mr. Wycoff’s visitor chairs, his right ankle crossed over his left knee, looking more serene than she’d ever seen him look. Getting someone sacked must be a real mood-lifter for him. She’d been too agitated earlier to notice how he was dressed, but it had to be Casual Friday at his office because he wasn’t in his three-piece suit. He was in khaki shorts, snowy-white running shoes and an even snowier polo shirt. The white gleamed against his all-over tan, and his dark eyes gleamed as he slowly raised his gaze to her face.

But it wasn’t Friday. It was Tuesday…no, Wednesday. And his eyes weren’t melting over her. She was melting under their steady assault.

“Sit down, Faith,” he said. “I have a project to discuss with you.”

“I CAN’T DO THAT,” Faith protested. “Go on your honeymoon? Stay in the honeymoon suite and have all those manicures and go to all those restaurants as if…Well, I can’t. It’s just too weird.” She could hardly breathe. Just sitting there beside Cabot was making her heart pound and generating other unusual symptoms, both pleasurable and distressing. These were not feelings one should have in a gray suit while sitting in one’s boss’s office. But on a honeymoon…

Going on Cabot’s honeymoon was what she wanted to do more than anything, but not like this. Not as a proxy to be coiffed and made up and positioned and photographed, but as a bride, to be loved and cherished. Loved, at least. Frequently and with passion. She was fairly sure that was one task she could focus on without difficulty.

She drew in a sharp breath as he uncrossed his muscled legs and leaned toward her. “Travel agents check out hotels and resorts all the time, don’t they?” he said. His look and his tone were persuasive.

“Well, yes.”

“I believe you spent a weekend at the Sunny Sands resort on the Gulf Coast during the summer.”

Mr. Wycoff’s voice startled Faith. It was the first time he’d spoken since he summoned her in, and she’d almost forgotten he was in the room. “Yes,” she said, “I did do that. It was an experience I’ll never forget.” It had been a nightmare, free or not. She had no difficulty comprehending why she’d been chosen to receive a complimentary weekend on the Louisiana coast in the searing heat of late August with a hurricane approaching. Her boss had chosen her, hoping she’d blow away in the storm, or be eaten to death by mosquitoes, which dived even faster with a tailwind.

“Same thing,” Cabot said. His voice pressured her like a firm caress, seeking acquiescence. “Except I’m comping you, not the hotel. I just want you to go there, go through all the motions. That way I’ll know the honeymoon will…will…”