Eve Devon - The Love List

‘I’m sorry,’ Ethan was quick to reassure. ‘I should have thought about what it would look like dropping by so unexpectedly. I simply need your help to run something past your sister.’

Nora stared at Ethan. Why did she get the feeling that this wasn’t going to be simple? With a sinking heart she really didn’t see how she could possibly juggle one more thing, but if this had something to do with her sister—if her sister needed her help, she would find a way.

Plan A, to meet with Eleanor Moorfield minus her shoe appendage slipped out of the window and sloped off into the distance, where, the way her day was going, it would undoubtedly be joined by Plan B and Plan C.

‘Would you like me to reschedule your 8 a.m. for later today?’ Fern asked, looking at Nora with concern.

‘I can wait until your meeting is finished,’ Ethan said, mildly. ‘I just got off a plane so I could do with checking in to a hotel and sleeping. I only stopped here first to make an appointment. I’m afraid I didn’t realise how early it was.’

Nora was so busy wondering how he’d managed to charm security into letting him through to her offices that she only caught the tail end of Fern’s repeated offer to reschedule her breakfast meeting with Eleanor. Hand clenching within the confines of the bag, she said, ‘Thanks, Fern, but you’d better cancel it altogether. Something else has come up, which means I couldn’t have made it today, anyway.’

‘Something else? Since when? You were so pumped for the meeting. You’re ready. The pitch is ready.’ Fern glanced down at Nora’s feet. ‘Wait. Those aren’t the shoes . Where are the shoes ? Don’t tell me you forgot to bring them in with you. Not you, The Shoe Princess.’

Nora felt Ethan’s gaze drop to the four-inch black stilettos she was wearing before slowly moving up the length of her legs to the hem of her black pencil skirt and then up further, across her cream jacket before finally coming to rest on her face. Fern and Nora knew each other, warts and all, but somehow with Ethan standing there, taking everything in, it was really hard not to feel exposed. And warm. Very, very warm. ‘I can be interested in shoes without being a “princess” about it,’ she said, trying unsuccessfully not to pout.

‘Right, so what’s with the shoe bag?’

Nora glanced guiltily down at the bag clutched across her midriff. It had the name of a well-known Italian boot-maker emblazoned across the front. Of all the ironies… Nora felt her grip on reality slipping as she admitted, ‘Actually, I do kind of need your help.’ She blew out a breath. There, that hadn’t been so very difficult. Doing her best to ignore Fern’s snort of incredulity, she rushed on, ‘Yes, this is really me, really asking for help, which you can tease me for later, but right now I need you to help me come up with a Plan B—a suitable excuse for postponing my 8 a.m. with,’ Nora looked at the wall clock and blanched, ‘with only one hour’s notice.’

‘Just for the hell of it, what happened to Plan A?’ Ethan interjected, pulling out one of the chairs in front of Fern’s desk and obviously settling himself in for the duration.

‘Forget Plan A. I am so beyond Plan A it’s not even funny,’ she answered, a tad more irritably than was perhaps wise, given that it was she who was asking for help and not the other way around.

The heartbeat-altering grin made an appearance. Ethan seemed to find her waspishness more amusing than insulting. He probably never found himself in embarrassing situations.

Taking another deep breath, Nora focused solely on Fern. ‘The problem is, I can’t do my pitch today, on account of a little accident, which doesn’t need a whole Q and A,’ she insisted as Fern stepped forward with a frown on her face, ‘I’m absolutely fine—I simply…need to cancel. And come up with a suitable excuse. I mean I know fact is stranger than fiction,’ when Nora heard her voice rising alarmingly she began pacing, to try and outdistance herself from her own stupidity, ‘but in this case fact sucks. Fact turns me into a laughing stock and I can’t afford that—’

‘Is she always this hyper?’ Ethan asked Fern, as if she wasn’t there.

‘No way. Only when she’s done something…oh, good grief, Leonora, have you been multi-tasking again?’

‘Only a little bit,’ Nora shot out defensively, before squeezing her eyes shut in mortification, because really, who had ever heard of a CEO not being able to multi-task?

‘We’ve talked about this. You know nerves and multi-tasking and you don’t mesh. I swear, for someone so ultra-efficient in every other aspect of life, it beggars belief. What’s happened and why on earth don’t you put the bag down?’

Nora winced.

It seemed a show-and-tell was on the horizon.

‘It is kind of shoe-related,’ she whispered as she started lowering the bag from where her arm was hidden inside, ‘it’s kind of a,’ she gulped and went for broke, ‘help, I’ve super-glued my shoe to my hand, kind of a mess.’

The bag floated silently to the floor and the next thing she knew, Ethan was standing in front of her turning her hand one way and then another, as if she were some sort of interactive museum exhibit.

‘How on earth..?’

‘Oh, by all means, let’s share.’ Nora’s head bobbed up and down as if she couldn’t wait. What was one more ounce of mortification? ‘Let’s see. Well, this is one half of a pair of vintage Eleanor Moorfield shoes. On my feet, these shoes say: This woman knows what she’s about. You can trust her with your business—with your life, which is why I intended to wear them today for a pitch I’ve been working on for weeks. Sure, I may have, technically, been supposed to fix the sole of this one yesterday. But, sometimes life gets in the way and anyway, I found some glue this morning on Fern’s desk and, well, some of the glue must have seeped out while I was pressing the sole closed. By the time I had finished running over my presentation, and,’ Nora’s head dipped as she mumbled, ‘taken a couple of work calls,’ she waved her hand-shoe combo in his face, ‘ this , had happened.’

‘Fascinating.’

Nora’s gaze shot to Ethan at the quietly mumbled word. With the heat of humiliation stinging her cheeks, she really could have done with both hands free to fan herself, or at the very least, hide behind.

‘Did I mention Nora is addicted to multi-tasking?’ Fern chimed in helpfully.

‘There’s no way I can win a business pitch like this. Doesn’t exactly make for a great hand-shaking experience, does it?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Ethan said, his grin full. ‘You’d get my vote for originality. My guess is he certainly wouldn’t forget you.’ He stroked his fingers over her hand. Heat zinged all the way up her arm and into her neck. Okay, so snatching back her hand might send a signal that she was affected by his touch, but at least it would shock her brain back into working. And, a working brain would be good. If only to stop her feeling like some silly ingénue under his gaze.

‘He is a she ,’ she answered. ‘And believe me…she won’t be so easily charmed, especially since it’s one of her designs that’s attached to my hand. I’m going to reek of ineptitude. Not exactly the look I was going for.’

‘Never mind all that,’ Fern said. ‘You should be in hospital getting that seen to.’

Hospital? Nora hadn’t really done hospitals much lately. Not since her father—skidding her thoughts to a halt, she tucked her tongue between her teeth and started pacing again. There had to be another way. ‘Ooh, quick. I need your computer.’

‘My computer? Sure but—’ Fern got out of the way in time for Nora to plonk herself down at her desk in order to slowly, single-handedly Google: How to remove superglue.