Leanne Banks: Feet First

This book is dedicated to all the so-called

underachievers…who just needed to find their

passion in order to become achievers.

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

COMING NEXT MONTH

Special thanks to my terrific encouraging friends

and the PFD group: Cindy Gerard, Pamela Britton,

Rhonda Pollero and Cherry Adair, my awesome

parents, Tom and Betty Minyard, and my family for

providing take-out meals and chocolate during

deadline. Thanks, Richard, for helping me with

all things Atlanta. A big high five to the newsliners!

And I can’t forget the beach babes!

“The shoes a woman wants to wear reveal her secret fantasies.”

—Jenny Prillaman, Designer Wannabe

THIS WAS TURNING into a three-doughnut morning.

Jenny Prillaman scarfed down her second hot Krispy Kreme doughnut, marveling at how something that tasted so light could have so many calories. Krispy Kreme doughnuts weren’t on the approved list of foods for the South Beach diet, and she would have to exchange half her meals for the day on Weight Watchers.

Sighing, she surreptitiously licked one of her fingers. Tough. Her boss wasn’t here and he really needed to be.

She barely brushed some glazed sugar from her chin before executive VP Marc Waterson burst through the door wearing an expression of controlled fury on his chiseled face. “Brooke Tarantino is coming in today. Where’s Sal?”

Jenny cleared her throat and rubbed her sticky hands together beneath her desk. Oh, wow. She’d thought he would send his assistant down to do the inquisition.

Marc Waterson had always struck her as a force of nature carefully concealed in a well-tailored Brooks Brothers suit. She suspected in another time period he would have worn his hair long and carried a sword. He was a lethally clever overachiever type, and Jenny generally tried to avoid such types as she’d been forced to deal with a brother and sister cut from the same cloth since the day she was born.

Except, Marc was so hot he made her forget about her brother and sister, the overachiever part and everything but him. He was the kind of man she fantasized about instead of filing. She remembered the birthday wish she’d made after two martinis that if she ever got a chance to bed Marc, she would do it.

Easy enough wish to make. With the exception of a few times on the phone, the man spoke to her through his assistant. He would never notice her. And she wasn’t sure she would know what to do if he ever did.

Instead she worked for a tender-hearted artistic genius who unfortunately spent more time with whiskey than he should. “Sal’s not feeling well and he had to go to the doctor this morning,” Jenny told Marc. “Maybe we could reschedule. Or you could show her some of the sketches Sal has already put together.”

Marc, who was known throughout the company as Braveheart, studied her with a gaze so intent she felt as if she needed sunglasses.

Jenny bit the inside of her cheek to avoid biting her lip and prayed Bellagio’s most intense VP couldn’t tell that she was fibbing. She’d always tried to stay way below top management’s radar. It hadn’t been that difficult. Her body was okay, but she consistently fudged on her South Beach diet and found reasons to delay exercise. She had okay hair that was a pretty chestnut-brown color and blue eyes instead of the expected brown. It gave her a great sense of satisfaction to know that she annoyed her sister the attorney by wearing thin red-framed glasses.

He lifted his eyebrows. “If Sal has already done some sketches, then I’d like to see them.”

“I can get them for you,” she said, clasping and unclasping her fingers beneath her desk. “It may take me a little time to find them in Sal’s office, though. He sometimes puts his sketches in unexpected places.”

“How soon could you find them?”

“An hour, maybe less.”

“Brooke’s appointment was at nine.”

“But she’s usually over an hour late, and she—” She broke off, remembering that Marc was distantly related to Brooke.

“And she what?” he asked.

Jenny sighed. “Sal doesn’t usually need more time, but he did one other time. Brooke responded very well to a pedicure.” She cleared her throat again. “And a couple glasses of champagne.”

“Who did the pedicure?”

Jenny shrugged. “I did.”

He gave her a considering once-over. “You manage Sal and his issues and you keep the demanding Brooke happy. No wonder Sal won’t share you with anyone else. Get the sketches to me within an hour. I’ll decide if we need to order champagne or not.”

He left, closing the door behind him, and Jenny took a deep, shaky breath. She lifted her hands to her cheeks, praying they weren’t red with heat from her lies. Sal had obviously fallen off the wagon and she had to cover for him again. He probably wouldn’t call in until the afternoon.

If he weren’t so kind to her, and if he hadn’t hired her and given her such exciting, albeit secret, opportunities, then maybe she could out him. In her own clumsy way, she’d tried to intervene two times, but he’d brushed her off.

Worry gnawing at her, she shook her head as she rose and locked the office door. She knew why Sal drank, and he had some pretty sad stuff he faced on a daily basis.

Pushing her concern about Sal into another corner of her mind, she prepared to do what she did best.

Doodle.

When she felt bored, she doodled. When she felt stressed, she doodled. When she felt bummed, she doodled. The activity had gotten her in trouble in every class except art. But now she was almost getting paid for doodling.

From the bottom-left-hand drawer of her desk, she pulled out a pad of paper and thumbed through the sketches she’d already drawn of wedding shoes for the upcoming wedding of the century. Brooke Tarantino, Atlanta’s most notorious socialite, who had previously been described in the press as the debutante gone wild due to her escapades, was getting married.

Rumor had it that her father had put his foot down and threatened to cut off her expense account if she didn’t settle down.

Brooke liked attention, lots of it, as evidenced by how many times her picture appeared in every publication from the Atlanta Constitution to the National Enquirer. Brooke had even made People when she’d gotten arrested at one of the parties she’d attended in Miami last year.

Jenny added sequins to the white satin pump. Inspiration hit her and she sketched another pump, this one in leather with a sexy, revealing absence of material in the instep. Less leather, more skin. She enhanced the spiked heel with crystals.

Sal would call it a bridal version of “Come do me” shoes. Jenny smiled to herself. Since she’d started working for Bellagio, she’d learned a lot about shoes. For some people shoes were all about comfort. But for most, shoes were called upon to accomplish many other goals. “Come do me” shoes. “I mean business” shoes. “Look at me” shoes.