hairs on my arms lift. I slow down and look for the source of the strange sensations that are rippling through me.
Blake Hudson, who is now my new boss, stands at the end of the hallway, staring straight at me. His silver-haired minion, standing by Blake’s side, raises his hand in greeting and gives me a small wave.
Maybe Blake won’t recognize me, with my frizzed-out hair and runny makeup?
He narrows his eyes at me and his arm sweeps up. He points his finger accusingly at me.
Okay, he recognized me. Yeah. There was no way he wouldn’t.
Just then, the elevator door opens, and I scurry in and frantically press the button. I’ve got to get out of here before Thérèse comes to her senses.
Chapter Six
Blake
The personal shoppers’ department, tucked away in the back of the store on the first floor, is a rectangular open-plan room whose furnishings haven’t changed since my father’s day. Gilded wall sconces throw pools of light onto glass-topped maple desks with curved legs. The air always smells faintly perfumed.
Normally it’s a hive of activity. Personal shoppers squawk into their cell phones, paw through racks of clothes, and flip through trade magazines.
Today it’s as quiet as a tomb. The minute I stormed through the door, everyone stampeded from the room like terrified gazelles. The air around me is white-hot with anger, and they’re afraid of being scorched. Even Henry’s keeping his distance.
Winona Jeffers and Thérèse Fontaine don’t have the luxury of escape. We’re facing off in a furious tableau outside Thérèse’s office at the far end of the room, next to Winona’s desk. She’s already placed a gold vase full of paper poppies and a bejeweled picture frame next to the laptop, moving right in, making herself at home. Well, isn’t she optimistic.
“Who is the head of the perfume department?” I bark at her, my words shimmering with the heat of my fury.
Her polite smile never wavers. “Salome Berger.”
Damn it. Every question I ask, she gets right. I maintain my look of faint contempt. “Her telephone extension?”
“3572,” Winona shoots back at me with perfect confidence. “I have an excellent memory. Near photographic, I’ve been told. When I’m focused on remembering something, it’s in there forever.” She taps her temple with a slender index finger.
Is that possible? It’s 8 a.m. She’s memorized the names and numbers of all our department heads since yesterday afternoon?
I pinch the back of my hand to make sure I’m not experiencing a particularly vivid nightmare. But no. Yesterday, in a massively unfunny cosmic joke, the head of our personal shopper department hired the hellion from Hell’s Kitchen to join our team of personal shoppers.
I rarely get involved in personnel matters, but it’s really important that I make this not happen. Winona was distracting enough when she was safely on the other side of town. Her and me, working under the same roof? It would fry my synapses.
Ever since I caught a glimpse of her in the hallway yesterday, flushed and perspiring, makeup sexily smeared like she’d just made love for hours, I’ve been tortured by a raging hard-on that I have to keep finding ways to conceal. I can’t stop thinking about her.
And that’s not okay. My late father’s lifelong dream, to take Hudson’s international and open stores in Paris and London, depends on my ability to think clearly.
To raise the funds it will take to go international, we have to go public. To go public, I need to convince the board of directors that I can maintain our massive gains of the past few years, and that I have the ability to oversee a project at that level.
Currently, two members of the board of directors are siding with my Uncle Bill. They’re still crabbily mired in the twentieth century. They miss their Model T Fords, and they’re sure that this new-fangled thing called the radio will never catch on. Whatever next? Radio with pictures, ha ha?
Well, I may be exaggerating, but not by much.
The other three board members are in favor of going public and expanding, but if I lose just one of them, it all goes up in flames.
I can’t afford any distractions, and Winona sucks up my focus like a black hole.
“The head of the women’s clothing department?” I demand.
“Day wear, evening wear, couture, resort, business attire? Or the chief merchandising officer?” she parries. Before I can answer, she proceeds to recite each name and extension. She’s got a devilish gleam of amusement in her eyes. Why isn’t she scared of