“You’re right there. The only place I could fit you in was at the end of the day, and even at that I need to keep it short. I appreciate you’ve come a long way to have this conversation, but I’m going to a benefit this evening. I’m afraid I’ll need to leave in about half an hour.”
What an amazing voice. What charisma. No wonder the viewers were flocking to Just Between Us. He could watch this woman all day. “That will be plenty of time.” Once again, he tried to convince his body to relax. But his body was far more interested in hers than it was in getting her commitment to the network.
And then she smiled. It wasn’t an I’m-glad-to-see-you smile, or a come-on-over smile. It was an I’m-going-to-break-this-to-you-in-the-nicest-possible-way smile and his concentration went straight to hell anyway.
“It doesn’t take long to say no, does it?” she agreed sweetly.
Get it together. Your job depends on the next half hour. “I’m hoping I can convince you otherwise, Ms. Best. Communications and Wireless Broadcasting is prepared to make you a very generous offer in hopes that you’ll sign on with us, a national network, and bring your talents to our wider viewership.”
“Please call me Eve. Everyone does.”
He smiled. For a fraction of a second, her gaze dropped to his mouth, and a tiny spurt of gratification deep inside him celebrated it. “And I’m Mitch.”
“How long have you been with CWB, Mitch?”
His rational brain recognized that she was dodging a reply. His irrational brain was happy to make small talk as long as she wanted to, if he could keep listening to that voice.
“Coming up on five years. I started out in production, but then realized I was better at the business side. I was always tripping over cables and walking in front of the wrong cameras.”
There was that smile again. A little warmer, this time. “Do you like being a scout?”
“Yes.” I used to. Now I’m not so sure. “I like bringing people who deserve it to the attention of people who will love them. Like you, for instance.” Neatly, he brought the conversation back around to the reason he was there. “If you’ll bring your show to our network, we’re prepared to offer you six million for the first year, eight for the second and ten for the third if you’ll agree to sign with us.”
A slow blink was her only reaction. For a woman whose openness and frankness were her trademark, she evidently knew how to be as cagey as a poker player. “That’s very generous.”
“You won’t find a better deal, even with the big guns like NBC or SBN. Have they approached you?”
“If they had, I’d hardly say so, would I?”
Of course not. CWB had its spies, and they’d have been careful to brief him beforehand. But that didn’t mean the bigger networks wouldn’t be hot on his heels once they heard CWB was courting Eve. Television fed on itself, after all.
“Maybe not, but you know how it is. Everyone knows everyone, and word gets around.”
“Well, the word around here is no.” With a glance at the clock, she rose. Mitch got to his feet as she again came around the desk and held out a hand. “Thank you for taking the time to come and make the offer, Mitch. It’s very flattering, but the answer is still no.”
He took her hand, and two things registered. First, that her fingers were slender and warm in his. And second, that she was taller than he’d thought. He stood six foot three in his socks, and with the strappy heels she wore, the top of her head came almost to his eye level.
Then a third thing registered. She smelled delicious. A combination of vanilla and spice and the clean scent of warm skin. Involuntarily, he drew in a breath, and she looked into his eyes.
“Mitch?”
His brain went blank. He murmured some vague words of thanks for her time and then beat feet out of there, finding himself in the driver’s seat of his rental car before he knew quite how he’d gotten there.
And a good thing, too.
Because if he’d stayed one second more, he’d have pushed Eve Best up against the wall of her office and breathed that scent from the side of her neck. Then he’d have kissed her senseless.
He could only imagine what that would have done to his chances for getting her to say yes to him.
He shook his head as if to clear it. To CWB. Not him. To CWB and their offer.
Yeah. That’s what he meant.
2
“WAS THAT HIM?”
Jane Kurtz leaned in Eve’s office doorway and, when she saw that Eve was alone, slipped inside and shut the door.
“Yes, that was him.” Eve gave up on trying to organize her desk for the following day and leaned back in her chair as Jane sat in the one reserved for guests.
The one he’d just vacated.
“His name is Mitchell Hayes, and he’s with CWB.”
“Oh, I like them. I watch Dirty Secrets of Daylily Drive every week.”
“Jane, we are not Daylily Drive. And we are not signing with them. I told him so and he vanished like a puff of smoke. But he’ll be back.”
“How do you know?”
“By the pricking of my thumbs.” And the humming in her ears. Not to mention the tingle of possibility deep in her belly, where it had no business being at all.
“Just how accurate are your thumbs?” Jane straightened a pile of research clippings on the corner of Eve’s desk. When Was the Last Time You Got Some? the headline on top wanted to know.
Eve resisted the urge to throw the latest issue of People on top of it. She didn’t want to think about that. She spent sixteen hours a day thinking about relationships, and men and women, and who was getting what and why, and whether they’d come on the show to talk about it. It covered up the uncomfortable fact—which she devoutly hoped no one else noticed—that she, Atlanta’s relationship expert, did not have one.
She bet Mitchell Hayes had one. Two. More. In fact, he probably had every eligible model and aspiring actress in New York lining up at his door. Well, she wished them luck. Mitchell Hayes wasn’t getting her show—or anything else, for that matter.
“Eve?”
She blinked and focused on Jane. “What?”
“I said, how accurate are your thumbs? Is this Hayes guy going to take you at your word, or are we going to have to get Jenna to take out another restraining order?”
Jenna Hamilton was the station’s attorney, and after the recent announcement about their $38-million lottery win, she’d already had to take out two restraining orders because things had gotten out of hand with an unruly fan and an angry truck driver with a nonwinning number. Once the news had gotten out about
