Leigh Michaels - The Corporate Marriage Campaign

“I have no idea,” Trey said coolly. “It belongs to Caroline.”

“All right,” she admitted cheerfully. “I leaped to conclusions there and missed the pier entirely. So what do you drive—a Rolls-Royce that matches your suit?”

“Depends on the day.”

Darcy had to admit that despite herself she was impressed—certainly not by the fact that he owned multiple cars, but because he didn’t seem to want to brag about it. “How did you and Dave become friends, anyway? Somehow the two of you just don’t seem the type to be bosom buddies.”

“Because he has a motorcycle and I don’t?”

Darcy chalked that up as a fact to remember. “I’ve never heard him mention your name.”

“We met in the frat house in college. Lost track of each other after that, and we didn’t run into each other again until a college reunion a year or two ago.”

“When I’d already gone to San Francisco.”

“I guess it must have been. What were you doing out there, anyway?”

“Graphic arts,” she said crisply. “How long have you been with the stores?”

“About two years. I stayed out East after grad school and worked for a couple of different firms, but then my dad had a heart attack and had to retire, so I came home to take over.”

“How does he feel about you being in charge?”

“He died six months ago,” Trey said.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“No reason you should.”

That, Darcy thought, was not quite true, even though the name probably wouldn’t have had personal meaning for her. But six months ago she’d been living in a fog where nothing much had made an impression. Six months ago, she might not even have noticed Trey Kent if he’d crossed her path.

No, she thought. No matter what else was going on in her life, it would be impossible for any woman to ignore Mr. Elegance.

“Where are we going, again?”

Darcy had gotten so sidetracked into thinking about Trey that she had to stop to think. “Tanner’s—it’s a couple more blocks down. There’s parking out front.” Belatedly she remembered what he was driving. “Unless you’d rather leave the car with a valet at the hotel down the street.”

“No, it’ll be fine. This car has such an elaborate alarm system it’ll slap handcuffs on anybody who tries to touch it, long before the cops have a chance to show up.”

Just inside the front door of the bar, she paused to look around. “There’s a free booth—I’ll grab it, if you want to go get the drinks. Just an iced tea for me, please.”

The booth was in a corner, well away from both the door and the bar, and she had to work her way through a fair-sized crowd to get there. Halfway there, she heard someone calling her name and turned to see a friend of Dave’s leaning against the pool table.

“What brings you back to town, Darcy?” he asked. “Dave isn’t sick or something, is he?”

“He’s fine, Joe.”

“Well, I haven’t seen him around much. And last I heard you were hanging out in San Francisco with Pete Willis.”

Darcy kept her voice even, but it took an effort. “That’s old news, I’m afraid.”

“You and Pete called it quits? Well, let me buy you a beer and you can bring me up-to-date. Must be a year since I’ve seen you.”

Behind him, Trey said levelly, “She’s drinking iced tea, and she’s with me tonight.”

Joe cocked his chin forward. “I don’t see any ownership tag hanging around her neck. No ring on her finger.”

“Check again tomorrow and you might be surprised,” Trey said. He stepped between them.

“Later, Joe,” Darcy called. She took her iced tea and considered dumping it over Trey’s head. Which was surely an odd reaction, considering that she was relieved to have Joe’s interrogation short-circuited. Still, just because Joe asked questions didn’t mean she intended to answer them, and it wasn’t up to Trey to decide who she talked to. “You want to tell me what that was all about—besides disgustingly primitive primate behavior?”

“He was hassling you.”

“He was asking how I was.”

“Who’s Pete Willis?”

“Oh, is that what’s bothering you? He’s the man I worked with in San Francisco. Nobody you need to be worried about.”

“He’s not going to be coming around wanting to hire you back?”

“Not in this lifetime.” Her voice was steady. “Let’s get our business taken care of before Joe has another beer and decides to find out whether you can whip him.”

Trey seemed only mildly interested. “Who are you worried about coming out the worse for wear—him or me?”

“Neither. I don’t want Dave to have to come bail everybody out of jail, because I’ll end up doing the paperwork. Tell me about the ad campaign.”

Trey leaned back against the vinyl seat. “Since we’d already started with Caroline and Corbin, the ad department is having to revamp the entire shooting schedule.”

“Corbin. What a name.”

“It fits him. The idea is to minimize setup time for each photo by working through the store in a logical way, not necessarily in the same order the ads will appear. We’ll do the engagement ring tomorrow, of course, because that’s the first ad which will run and they need the art right away. But then we may do household linens and lawn furniture, because they’re in the same section of the store. You know how the departments are laid out in sort of a rough circle.”

“Actually,” Darcy said, “no, I don’t. I haven’t been in a Kentwells store in years.”

Trey blinked in surprise. “Oh, of course. All our stores are in Chicago, and you’ve been out west.”

She said, very slowly, “Yes.” It was true, as far as it went. And there was no point in alienating him by telling the whole truth—that she’d always preferred to do her shopping with Kentwells’s competition. You wouldn’t volunteer that information if you were interviewing for a job, she reminded herself. This isn’t much different.

“We’ll have to start early in the morning,” he warned. “There’s still a lot of prep work to be done because we’re starting from scratch with you.”

Starting from scratch… “You’d better smile when you say that, partner. I’m not exactly in the frame of mind to play Cinderella.”

Trey sighed. “I do keep putting my foot in my mouth, don’t I? I just meant that the clothes which were chosen for Caroline won’t work for you, and the hairstyle and makeup you need will be much different, too.”

A woman in a white jacket deposited a pizza on the table between them and went away without a word. Trey looked at it in puzzlement. “Did we order this?”

“Sort of. It’s my standing order—I just wave at Jessie in the kitchen whenever I come in.” She took a paper plate from the stack on the table and slid a steaming wedge onto it. “Try it, it’s the best hand-thrown pizza in town. Since you brought up Caroline, I had a question. She does understand this is all made up, right?”

“Of course.”

“Because she seems to be a bit of a dreamer. She’s not serious about the engagement party, is she?”

“Of course she is. The best way to make it convincing is for everyone around us to act as if it’s real. Caroline throwing a party, Dave giving a toast to the happy couple—it all adds a touch of reality.” He helped himself to a slice of pizza. “Now—let’s get down to business. Tell me everything I could possibly need to know about my wife-to-be.”

NO SOONER had his request popped out than Trey regretted it—or at least he regretted the way he had phrased it. Asking a woman to tell him all about herself—what had he been thinking?

He’d never met one yet who wouldn’t take that as a blanket invitation to share an entire evening’s worth of self-analysis. By the time Darcy finished her Freud act, he’d probably known what she’d had for breakfast on her first day of school, and all about the lasting wounds it had left on her psyche.