start marking things down.” He checked his watch. In thirty minutes, he had to meet Lana at the bank. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go.”
Jill caught up with him at the door. “Isn’t there anything we can do to change your mind?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Not a thing. I’m the kind of man who, when I make up my mind to do something, it stays made up.” He hadn’t put himself and his sister through school and started his own real estate business by being wishy-washy.
“You say that as if it’s a virtue.”
Her words caught him off guard. He studied the toes of his shoes for a moment, then looked up at her. “I guess if you think life is all about fun, it isn’t,” he said. He nodded goodbye and opened the door.
He thought he’d gotten the last word, but right before the door shut, her voice drifted to him. “If you don’t have fun, you don’t have a life, Mr. Landry. Too bad no one ever taught you that.”
JILL SLAMMED THE DOOR SHUT on Mitch Landry, then turned and punched Blow-Up Betty right in the stomach. “I can’t believe he would do this to us!”
Betty swung back and forth on her stand until Sid moved over to steady her. “Careful with the merchandise, sister.”
She brushed by Sid and began to pace. “I mean, how can he waltz in here, take one look around and decide to shut us down?”
“He’s the owner. He can do anything he wants.” Sid walked over to the cash register and slumped onto the stool behind the counter. “I guess we’d better start looking for other jobs.”
“I don’t want another job.” Jill didn’t stamp her foot, but she wanted to. This was one of those times when an all-out temper tantrum would have felt good. “I want to keep this one. There must be something we can do.”
“You heard the man. He’s got the architects working already. In another few months people will be ordering up fried rice where the costume rack is now.” He picked up the paper and opened it to the classified ads. “There must be something in here I could do.”
Jill hurried over to him and grabbed his arm. “Sid, you don’t want to get another job.”
His eyebrow ring rose. “I don’t?”
“No. If you get another job, they’ll make you change your hair. Or get rid of your jewelry.” She leaned closer, her voice almost a whisper. “They’ll make you wear a suit. And a tie.”
Sid put a hand to his throat. “A tie?” He shook his head. “There must be something I can do where I don’t have to wear a tie.”
“Not and still have the title of manager. Even the manager of McDonald’s wears a tie. Plus, anyplace else you go to work, you’re liable to have to be there at eight o’clock, or even earlier.”
“Eight in the morning?” Just 4 Play opened at 11:00 a.m. and closed at 10:00 p.m. For a night owl like Sid, 8:00 a.m. might as well be the middle of the night. He laid aside the paper and gave her a stricken look. “What can we do?”
“We have to change his mind.”
“How? We only have a month.” He looked around the store. “By then we might be sold out of everything.”
“We’ll simply have to show him how important this place is—that we provide a much-needed service for people.”
Sid frowned. “How can you do that? I mean, let’s face it, we’re not exactly the food bank. Plenty of people get along fine without candy pants and nipple rings.”
“Only because they don’t know what they’re missing.” Inspiration sent tingles up her spine. She grinned. “I’ve got it!”
Sid leaned away from her. “Got what?”
“I know how we can convince Mitch Landry not to close the store.”
“How?”
She plucked a jar of body chocolate from a display on the counter and began rolling it back and forth in her palms. “I think a little seduction is in order.” She looked at Sid. “I’ll make sure our Mr. Landry gets acquainted with the delights of some of our merchandise.”
A pleasant warmth curled up from her stomach as the idea took hold. Really, it was a brilliant plan. Mitch Landry wasn’t a bad person, merely uninformed. He had a great body and definite masculine appeal. It might even be fun to strip away some of his stuffy attitude and inhibitions, not to mention that suit and starched shirt.
Sid looked skeptical. “You think that would really make any difference?”
She set the jar of chocolate on the counter. “Sure it would. Once he’s having so much fun with the stuff we sell, it would be hypocritical to close us down.”
“You think he’d care about that?”
“You heard the man. It’s not about money for him, it’s about reputation. Responsibilities. He’s got integrity up to his eyeballs.” She gave a mock salute. “No, I just have to find a way to get him to loosen up.” Half the fun would be knowing where to start.
Sid shook his head. “I don’t know, Jill. I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to get personally involved.”
“Oh come on, I’m a big girl. It’s not as if I plan to get serious with the guy. We’ll just have a little fun.”
“He might not feel the same way. He struck me as the type who takes everything seriously.”
She shrugged off the truth of Sid’s words. Seducing Mitch Landry would be a dangerous game, but nobody had ever mistaken her for a coward. “I’ll be doing him a favor by showing him how to lighten up.”
“And if it doesn’t work?”
She leaned on the counter, chin in her hands, and smiled to herself. “Then I’ll have a hell of a lot of fun trying, won’t I?”
3
MITCH WAS FIVE MINUTES LATE to meet Lana, but he wasn’t worried, because she was guaranteed to be ten minutes late. It was one of the things that annoyed him about her. That and her tendency to be arrogant, but he supposed that came from always being at the top of the social heap.
Still, in any relationship, you had to overlook certain things. Lana had other qualities he admired: she was attractive, well-dressed, intelligent and elegant. And she had the kind of connections he needed to establish himself as a businessman in this town. Not that he’d ever date a woman solely for her social status, but it was an added plus when you were trying to get ahead.
She breezed through the double doors of the bank lobby right on schedule, at ten after. Mitch rose from his chair and went to meet her, leaning down to kiss her cheek. “Careful,” she cautioned, pushing him back. “I just had my hair done.”
Why that should make any difference, he wasn’t sure. It wasn’t as if he was going to run his fingers all through her hair in the course of a hello kiss. Not that he could anyway, she kept it so firmly pinned
