Czytaj książkę: «Who Wants To Marry a Heartthrob?»

1

“HOUSTON, we have a problem.”

“Huh?”

“We have a problem,” Bridget Connor repeated, although she didn’t know why she bothered. Her employer clearly was not listening. Right now his gaze was pinned on fourteen gorgeous women, each dressed more scantily than the next. Bridget had never seen so much Spandex in one sitting in her life. And she wondered about the engineering of some of the clothes that managed to hold certain body parts in place when it seemed as if the slightest shift might give away the farm, so to speak.

Not that her employer was waiting for a quick flash. Or maybe he was—he was a man after all. But he wasn’t ogling the women with the same intent that some of the other men in the room had. No, Richard Wells’s priority wasn’t sex right now.

It was money.

He turned his head and she could see him squint in her direction. Squinting was Richard’s universal sign for “Huh?” After three years of working for him, she was an expert on all of his subtle little expressions.

“Did you say something?” he asked.

“Yep.”

“Something about a problem,” he recalled. “In Houston?”

“No, here in New York.”

He looked confused. “Then why did you say Houston?”

“It’s an expression. Work with me, Richard.” Then she reminded herself that she needed to be patient with him tonight. Not that it didn’t require a great deal of patience to work with the moody ad executive on a normal day, but tonight was different. His focus was solely on the event that was to take place within the next half hour. Nothing short of a nuclear explosion would distract him from that.

“What is it?” he snapped impatiently.

She considered him while he continued to study the room. “You have no intention of listening to a word I say, do you?”

When he turned back to her, he was squinting again.

“I don’t have time for problems,” he announced.

“I can see that, but you do. Have a problem, that is.”

He shook his head as if to deny her words. “What could possibly go wrong? The camera crew is here, the women are here—well, most of them anyway—and my heartthrob is most definitely here.” Richard pointed to the man standing by himself, away from the women. Brock Brickman was broad, blond, buffed and the perfect choice for Breathe Better Mouthwash’s newly sponsored show—Who Wants To Marry a Heartthrob?

“It’s about one of the girls,” Bridget tried.

Distracted, Richard looked over his shoulder and spotted two men in suits walking through the entryway into the large living room, which had been temporarily transformed into a television set. Don and Dan Meadle were the co-CEOs and owners of Breathe Better Mouthwash. They also happened to be twins, which never failed to amuse Richard and cause him to silently mock the parents who had named them. Obviously, they were here to check up on the project, but he refused to be nervous. Everything was on schedule for his advertising masterpiece.

Who Wants To Marry a Heartthrob? a reality dating show set in New York, was going to put the burgeoning mouthwash company on the map. Two live group shows, four taped individual dates and two romantic weekend getaways, also taped and edited for maximum dramatic effect, would feature exclusively the mouthwash commercials that he had created.

The entire package had been Richard’s concept. Once he had found a cable channel that would support the dating show over the course of eight weeks, his vision had become a reality. Now it was time for the show to air and his nerves were being put to the test, although there was absolutely no reason for it, he assured himself. He had left no stone unturned.

The first piece of the puzzle had been finding the location. He and Bridget had searched the summer play area of New York’s wealthy, South Hampton, for days. Then they had stumbled on a house that was both markedly luxurious and effortlessly romantic.

The sprawling Victorian sat on an inlet of Long Island Sound. Done in white both inside and out, except for the hints of color strategically added throughout, it lent itself to a summer dream. A covered pool took up space on the green lawn that extended toward the water. And in back of the house there was a massive patio, complete with a hot tub and porch swing. It was a heartthrob’s ultimate bait.

The season was right. It was late fall, a little chilly perhaps, but the summer season was over and most of the tourists were gone. This would allow them more flexibility to get the shots on the beach and in the restaurants that they wanted for the four hour-long dates that would be aired individually.

That’s right, Richard thought. Not one stone. He had handpicked each of the fifteen women as well as the heartthrob. Every detail of the show was in his control. Nothing escaped his notice. Not Brock’s cologne, not the host’s tie, not the wardrobe of the ladies. Nothing.

He was investing everything he had into this ad campaign. If it was successful—and it would be because the idea was genius—the Breathe Better Mouthwash executives would have no choice but to follow him when he branched out and opened his own agency. He’d worked for this night for years and success, real success, which to date had been an elusive lady, was within his grasp.

Unfortunately, it was usually moments like this when he thought he was so close to something that nothing could go wrong—that it all went wrong. He need only reflect on that last week before he was to have graduated from Yale to get a reminder of that particularly painful lesson.

“They’re here,” Richard announced ominously, his chin lifting slightly in the direction of the twins.

Bridget turned and glanced at the two men who were standing off to the side observing the spectacle that was a live television show.

“This is it,” Richard told her somewhat fatalistically, feeling his heart beat hard against his rib cage and his palms beginning to sweat. For the most part he wouldn’t have considered himself a nervous man, but right now it felt as if his whole life was coming down to this one crucial moment. He glanced at Bridget, grateful for her presence. Not only did he know that he had her support throughout this endeavor, but he also knew that she would cover his tracks if he needed to leave the room real quick to puke. “If this works—And it is going to work, right? We both agree it couldn’t fail. Right?”

“Right.”

“You’re only saying that because you know that’s what I want to hear, aren’t you,” he accused her.

“Right.”

He could live with that.

“This will be the big one. The one I’ve been looking for. The one that is going to free me and my creative genius from the death grip of the V.I.P. Advertising Agency.”

Bridget rolled her eyes.

“I saw you do that.”

“You’re so dramatic,” she said. “You’ve been looking for the ‘one’ for years now. And V.I.P. doesn’t have you in a death grip. They pay you really well. That’s why you stay with them.”

“It’s just that I have a loft in Soho. You know what I pay in rent. I can’t quit and start my own agency until I’m positive, absolutely sure, that one of these big companies is going to follow me. But this is it. I can smell it.”

“You don’t think that’s the mouthwash?”

Richard took his eyes off the two executives and focused them on his assistant again. Her lips were turned up in that soft smile that she was famous for. Subtlety, he thought, thy name is Bridget.

It was there in the way she pulled her midnight hair back into a tight bun, the way she always wore stark black clothes and the way she always maintained a sense of calm even in the face of chaos—as she was doing now. He couldn’t help but envy her that serenity.

“You know this night is about your future, too,” he told her. “Didn’t I promise you I would make you vice president?”

“Ooh. Vice president of a two-person company. A staggering promotion,” she quipped. But the truth was she knew that following Richard to his own company was the career break she’d been looking for since she’d graduated college and ended up in the assistant pool at V.I.P. It did occur to her that he’d never really asked her if she was willing to quit V.I.P. and join him in his endeavors. He’d just assumed she would.

He was right of course, but still…a girl liked to be asked.

“Don’t you want me to be successful when I do leave?”

She shrugged. “It’s not as important to me. I only have an efficiency in Brooklyn.”

He smirked at her then turned his attention back to the scene before him. The women were arranging themselves around the room ready to greet their potential husband and heartthrob. Bridget watched Richard count them and waited for him to notice that something was missing.

Then Buzz, the cameraman/director that Richard had hired, approached the two of them. A mobile camera, one of three that they were using for the show, sat heavily on his thick shoulder. He had thick, salt-and-pepper-colored hair that hung heavily down his back, a bushy beard, several tattoos and Richard could see Buzz’s round belly where his T-shirt didn’t quite meet the top of his jeans.

Suddenly, Richard was very grateful that this man would always be behind the camera. Buzz was definitely not what America was tuning in to see. Richard quickly checked the living room for mirrors and was satisfied when he saw none.

“We’ve got a problem,” Buzz announced.

“I told you,” Bridget sang.

Richard glared her into silence. “I know. There are still only fourteen girls. Where’s—” Richard scanned the faces of the women, ticking off in his head each of the candidates “—Bambi?”

“Boob accident,” Bridget announced. Both men looked at her. “That’s what I was trying to tell you. She just called. Apparently she developed complications after her implant surgery.”

“What kind of complications?” Richard asked.

“It seems she might have gone a little overboard, three cup sizes overboard to be exact. Her body couldn’t hold them up, and as a result, she threw out her back. She’s going to be in traction for the next three weeks.”

“Three weeks!”

“Wow,” Buzz mumbled. “Must be some pretty big boobs.”

Richard instantly calmed down. “Fine, we’ll do the show with fourteen women.”

“We can’t,” Buzz complained. “You told me fifteen. I set up everything to work for fifteen. The camera shots, the furniture, the props. If there are only fourteen girls it’s not going to look right. The shots won’t be even.”

“Oh, for Pete’s sake, it’s only a cable show. At best what we’re attempting to do here is a beefed-up, overly dramatic infomercial. We’re not talking Masterpiece Theater,” Richard wailed.

“Fifteen is fifteen. I’m a perfectionist.”

“We’re going live in, like—” Richard glanced at his watch and immediately freaked “—ten minutes! Ten minutes. I can’t find another Bambi in ten minutes! Bridget, tell him I can’t find another Bambi in five minutes.”

“We’re fresh out of Bambis, Buzz,” she obliged and tried not to smile for fear it would upset Richard that much more. Not that it wasn’t fun to get him riled every once in a while, but tonight really wasn’t the time.

Buzz shrugged. “Fine. If that’s the way you want it. I’m just saying it’s going to look funny.”

“What’s going to look funny?” Dan, one of the co-CEOs, who had wandered over to their side of the room, asked.

Bridget watched in amazement as Richard instantly smoothed out his frazzled expression. He could go from hysterical lunatic to calm businessman like nobody else she knew. It was all an act, but it was a good one.

“Nothing. Everything is fine. “

Don joined them and pointed to Buzz. “He said that it was going to look funny. We don’t want funny. We’re not paying for funny. You said everything would be perfect.”

“And it will be,” Richard insisted to the two men.

“Not with fourteen girls,” Buzz muttered.

Richard glared at the cameraman ferociously. “I’ll get a girl,” he announced.

Dan, Don and Buzz all looked at Richard expectantly.

“I’ll get a girl,” he repeated. This time with conviction.

Satisfied, Buzz wandered off and so did the executives.

“Great,” Richard snapped once everyone was out of earshot. “Buzz, the biker cameraman is really a junior Steven Spielberg in training.”

“You did insist on the best,” Bridget reminded him.

“I need you to be on my side right now.”

She snorted. “That should be in my job description. Filing, message taking, errand running and permanently being on your side.”

“You mean it isn’t? Add that to your job description as my VP.”

“What do you need me to do?”

“Find a girl,” he ordered her sounding somewhat desperate.

She laughed. “Where am I going to find a sane single woman who is willing to go on a television game show to win a husband in less than ten minutes?”

“Not just a husband…a heartthrob husband. Brock Brickman is America’s daytime heartthrob. Clearly you’ve never seen his work on The Many Days of Life.”

“Yes, but wasn’t he fired?”

“Only a few weeks ago. Which is the only reason he was available to do this show in the first place so let’s consider ourselves lucky. He’s a semi-star, he’s handsome and he’s going to pick one of these lucky women to be his wife. One of these lucky fifteen women. I just need one more…” Richard’s words trailed off even as he surveyed her up and down.

Bridget suddenly got very nervous. Either Richard somehow could see through her dark silk blouse and was checking her out—not likely—or she was being sized up as a piece of meat. A sacrificial piece of meat.

She isn’t Bambi, he concluded silently. She didn’t have the flowing blond hair, the blue eyes or the body. Bridget more or less resembled a modern-day Audrey Hepburn in Funny Face…before the transformation.

She had little to no shape. Her golden-brown eyes, probably her best feature, were covered by thick, dark glasses that he knew she thought were chic, but that actually took up too much space on her face. No doubt her soft pale skin tone would translate as pasty on camera, but he was a desperate man. They could always add a lot of makeup.

“Richard,” Bridget growled. “Why are you looking at me like I’m steak and you are a hungry dog?”

“You’re single.”

“Oh, no,” she protested. “No way. Not me.”

“Bridge, I’m desperate. You heard Dan. He said no funny.”

“That was Don.”

“Whatever. I need you.”

“If you think I would go on a television show to get a husband…If you think I would go on a television show for any reason, you are out of your mind. You know how I hate the spotlight.”

“But this is our future, Bridge!”

Their future. Her heart skipped a beat at his words. She wasn’t sure exactly why. Possibly because she had a very real fear she was about to wet her pants. “I’m not going on TV.”

“Fine. Don’t do this. Don’t make this sacrifice. Really, I don’t know what I was thinking. I mean, hey, you’re happy just being my assistant, right? The idea of running an advertising company alongside me isn’t that important to you, is it?”

Bridget stood firm in the face of his guilt-mixed-with-bribery tactic. He was deluding himself if he thought for a moment that she was going to fall for it. She was way too skilled with this tactic to even flinch.

“Okay, I do know what I was thinking,” he said answering his own question. “I was thinking that you could, for the sake of Buzz’s desire to be a perfectionist, Dan’s—”

“Don’s.”

“—Don’s desire that absolutely nothing go wrong on this million-dollar ad campaign and, of course, my desire that this show put Breathe Better Mouthwash on every grocery and drugstore shelf in America, thus securing my position as New York’s most creative and most successful advertising force, sit in one of those chairs for one hour and look at Brock as if he makes your mouth water! That’s it. That is all that I am asking.” Richard inhaled deeply, then added, “It’s not like you’re going to make the first cut.”

Why that statement, of all things, should sting, she couldn’t say. But she could feel her bottom lip puff out slightly in what she feared was a sulky pout. Bridget didn’t do the sulky pout well. Usually, she ended up looking as though her lower lip had been stung by a bee. “And why not?”

“Look at you,” Richard said, pointing at her chest. “Now look at them.”

Bridget scanned the room of women all working on poses that showed off their…posture…in the best possible light.

“All right,” Bridget conceded. “I get your point. Maybe I don’t have the figure of Pamela Anderson, but that doesn’t mean that Brock might not see my inner beauty.”

“Okay,” Richard said, using his hands on her shoulders to spin her and point her in the direction of Brock. “Now, look at him.”

Brock currently was trying to check out his reflection in one of the elegant silver pitchers sitting on one of the marble-top tables that lined the foyer of the house. Bridget couldn’t imagine that the distorted image satisfied his vanity.

“Hey, do I have something in my teeth?” Brock asked one of the cameramen.

Richard turned Bridget back around to face him. “Please, Bridge. I know you hate the spotlight. But you won’t even know the cameras are there. These guys are professionals. You’ll sit in one of the chairs, balancing out the shot for Buzz, maybe say hello and goodbye to Brock. He’ll pick eight girls, none of whom will be you, and bang! You’re back to being my assistant.”

“Oh, joy!” she exclaimed with mock enthusiasm. “You mean after being rejected and humiliated on network television, I get to go back to being your assistant.”

“It’s not network, sweetheart, it’s cable.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and huffed.

“Please,” he cajoled, and she could hear him struggling to muster actual sincerity. She hated when he did that. It always weakened her.

“You’re my best friend. You’re going to be my future business partner,” he added. “And friends and partners are supposed to be there for each other, aren’t they?”

“What a load of crap,” she groaned. Internally though, she felt herself caving.

“No, really, it’s true. I read it in a magazine.”

“Richard,” she pleaded, giving it one last shot. “Don’t make me do this.”

Damn, he thought. He was beginning to buckle. He hadn’t lied when he’d said she was his best friend. His only friend, if truth were told. He’d spent so much of his energy focused on this one goal of getting to the top that he hadn’t left a lot of room in his life for family, lovers or even friends. He was pretty sure that Bridget only hung around because of his promise to promote her. Still, she stayed with him and he didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize that. But he couldn’t blow this opportunity, either. He was so close to having everything.

Which meant it was time to bring out the trump card.

“I didn’t want to have to do this, Bridge…”

Her eyes narrowed as she tried to read his thoughts. “Oh, no, you wouldn’t…”

“Did I mention that I’m desperate?”

“You are a cad,” she accused him, sensing the type of blackmail he was about to inflict upon her.

“Did I or did I not attend your sister’s wedding with you?”

“Yes,” she muttered through gritted teeth knowing where the rest of this conversation was going.

“Did I or did I not pretend to be your loving boyfriend just to get your parents off your back about marriage?”

“Yes,” she mumbled.

“And did I or did I not dance with your aunt Edna?”

“Hey,” Bridget countered. “Nobody said you had to dance with Aunt Edna.”

“But I did it anyway. Danced with her and told her how much I was in love with you. How you were the woman of my dreams and that someday I would win you over and convince you to be my wife. And how many times has your mother tried to fix you up with a blind date since then?”

“None.”

“None. One hour. In one of those nice, white, over-stuffed chairs. ‘Hello, Brock. Goodbye, Brock.’ That’s all I’m asking.”

Bridget closed her eyes in defeat.

“And maybe if you could summon up a tear or two when he rejects you,” Richard added, but quickly shut his mouth when she glared at him.

Her shoulders slumped and she sighed in resignation. It was no use. There was no way she could refuse him. Not after what he had done for her. When she’d gotten the invitation to her sister’s wedding with the ‘‘and guest’’ printed on the envelope, she’d almost considered not even attending. If not for the fact that she was in the wedding party, she might have called in sick. But she hadn’t wanted to give her family the satisfaction of knowing that she wasn’t seeing someone.

Heck, the truth was she rarely was seeing anyone. It was sort of a theme she’d established in high school. Her beautiful sisters got the guys. Bridget…didn’t. It had always been that simple.

With the wedding looming, and a very real fear that her mother would attempt to set her up with a date for the event, Bridget got desperate. Her mother didn’t have the best taste when it came to picking out dates. They were always either the nephew of a friend’s friend—desperately lonely and still living with his mother—or some recent divorcé who was looking to get back in the game. It was sad to acknowledge that her mother didn’t really have much faith that Bridget could attract any other sort of man.

So she’d decided the answer to her problem was to take a date home to prove that she was all grown up and capable of attracting a successful, interesting man. Since a man was a mark of success in the Connor household, it was only logical that Bridget bring home the most successful man she knew.

She ended up being turned down by a bagman on the street before she resorted to asking Richard.

He said yes. And something happened that night. He stood by her side the entire evening—well, except for the Aunt Edna tango. Even when her younger sisters tried to lure him onto the dance floor, he resisted. He danced every dance with her, held her tightly in his arms and whispered jokes into her ear so that she would smile in the face of such familial scrutiny. He was sweet, caring, funny and he made her feel like the only woman alive. Most importantly, he saved her from the final humiliation of having to stand in front of the room and not catch the bouquet.

He’d been her hero that night.

And because of it, something had changed between them.

She didn’t really have a name for it. Lately, she found herself looking at him differently. It was suddenly easier to see beyond the moody genius with the colossal ego and ridiculous demands to the considerate guy hidden beneath. She didn’t mind the long hours or the occasional working weekend. And when he ordered in dinner for them and they talked late into the night, it felt…nice. Even a little warm and fuzzy.

A total turnaround from the beginning of their relationship. There had been no warm and fuzzy feelings when they’d started working together. He’d been rude, arrogant and impossible to deal with. Only the fact that she’d managed to match him in wits kept her coming back for more. She also admired his ambition. She’d known even then that if she stuck with him, he could take her as far as she wanted to go in advertising. She didn’t have his creativity, but she made up for it with business savvy. Together, they were an unstoppable team at V.I.P.

Since the wedding, she had been wondering what was behind his unflappable drive. Why did he need to work so hard to get to the top? What was he trying to prove and to whom? The wedding had opened her eyes to Richard the man, rather than Richard the employer, adversary and sometimes friend.

She wasn’t exactly sure that she liked having her eyes opened. In fact, she was sort of hoping that they would close again real soon. Because one thing was for certain, under no circumstances would she do something so ridiculously cliché as falling for the boss.

Not her.

No way.

Wasn’t going to happen.

Except that now, every time he barked an order, she remembered how he’d gotten her the last piece of dark chocolate off the dessert tray. Every time he crashed after he convinced himself that his storyboards were horrible—which they never were—she found herself wanting to pat his head and tell him that everything was going to be all right. And every time he raised his arms in victory and called her into his office so that she could tell him what a genius he was, she remembered how he’d put all that ego aside and made her the focus for one night.

He’d told her parents how amazing her work was and how, when he did leave to start his own ad agency, she was the only one he wanted to come with him. He’d said that he couldn’t succeed without her.

And he’d meant it. The bastard!

One lousy night and suddenly she found herself doing the strangest things, like fussing with her appearance. Something she never did. Her sisters had taught her at a very early age that she was never going to be as pretty as they were so there was really no point in trying. Bridget agreed. In fact, she’d gone so far as to rebel against makeup, styling products and all beauty accoutrements. She preferred looking like herself and not some made-up version of herself with too much eye shadow. And in doing so, she felt that she was making a personal stand for inner beauty in women everywhere.

Not to mention it saving her a lot of money.

Until now. These days she wore perfume to the office and tried to style her long, straight hair rather than wearing it in a bun every day. Not that Richard had noticed any of it. Heck, he didn’t even think she would make the cut on his stupid show.

Wouldn’t that show him if she did make the cut? What would he think then?