we unplug our appliances when we’re not using them. Right?’
Smiles all around. Lots of nods. If someone held a fist in the air she wouldn’t be surprised. The wave of solidarity gripped her. Her heart thundered all the harder in her chest, her skin hummed, the ache in her wrists all but forgotten.
‘Did you know,’ she said, lowering her voice so they all had to move in closer, ‘this sculpture is lit twenty-four hours a day? Yep. Even now, in the middle of a sunny Brisbane spring afternoon, it has thirty separate lights making sure it always looks as shiny as it can possibly be. Thirty!’
One by one the faces turned to glare at the shimmering silver edifice behind her. She could smell blood in the air. That was a triumph in itself considering the Goliath she was putting herself up against.
Her bosses had done their research, looking at popular fashion stores, television stations, national café chains when deciding who to lobby. But every lead had led back to the same destination. The Kellys.
They were the most famous, respected, fascinating family in town. Their reach was unmatched. Their influence priceless. If she got them on board as the first major corporate partner with the revamped Clean Footprint Coalition, the exposure would be unimaginable, and Brisbane would fall into her lap like a pack of cards.
‘I am a concerned citizen,’ she continued, ‘as are you all, as are my colleagues, the band of environmental groups together known as the Clean Footprint Coalition. While the Kelly Investment Group, with the hundreds of ambivalent corporate clients they represent, is the biggest bulldozer you have ever seen.’
Hannah yelled out a mighty, ‘Yeah,’ and the crowd took up the cry until it all but reverberated around the square.
Wynnie bit back a grin of victory. God, did she love her work. These moments, when she had something to do with making people think about their place in the grand scheme of things, she really felt as if she could change the world.
The rush of pleasure was yummier than chocolate. It was more profound than a Piña Colada on an empty stomach. Hell, it was better than sex. Thank God for that. The hours above and beyond the call of duty that she dedicated to her work were such that she barely remembered what the latter was like.
A sudden ripple of noise from behind her mercifully pulled her from contemplating the extent of her accidental chastity. She turned, as well, and naturally got just far enough that her shoulder jarred, sapping every one of those lovely endorphins with it.
The pain had her sucking in a sharp breath, and hoping the trickle of sweat that had begun its journey down her neck and between her breasts wouldn’t show up on camera.
She needn’t have worried. Every camera panned left, microphones swerved in their wake, all pointing towards Kelly Tower.
And she knew why her audience had dared stray.
The saucy handcuffs and her subsequent introduction to the media of Brisbane as their new avenging angel had been mere foreplay. For any good show to be newsworthy every angel needed her very own personal devil. And she was about to meet hers.
Little spikes of energy skittered across her skin as she imagined who it might be. An overweight security guard with no authority and less of a clue? Some red-faced lackey sent to try to shoo her away?
‘Kelly!’ a radio guy called out.
‘Mate, over here!’ another followed suit.
Kelly? Could one of the gods have come down from the tower himself? She tried to find Hannah’s face within the crowd to share the rush. Hannah had her hands on some guy’s shoulders as she too tried to make out which bright, shiny Kelly it might be.
As she tried to see without causing a permanent injury Wynnie’s mind backtracked over the Kelly family members she’d read about amongst the hundreds of local luminaries she’d been made aware of in the preceding days.
It wouldn’t be Quinn Kelly, CEO, surely. The fellow had always been elusive to the mere masses, and of late had become as reclusive as Elvis. She was kind of glad. His ability to slay even the most steely backed opponent with a single glance was legendary.
Brendan Kelly? He was next in charge, the heir to KInG’s throne, but not at all press-friendly from what she’d heard. If it was either of them she’d eat her shoes. Mmm. She liked her shoes. They were one of the only things she’d brought with her from Verona. Maybe she’d eat Brussels sprouts. She hated Brussel sprouts so that seemed a fair compromise.
So if it wasn’t Quinn, and it wasn’t Brendan, and since neither the younger brother Cameron, the engineer, or youngest sister, Meg, the seemingly professional ingénue, worked for KInG, then it had to be the one whose photo she had pulled from the file and stuck to the back of her office door with a great red pin through his forehead. The one she hoped she might finally get to after weeks of negotiating, pushing, prodding, making a nuisance of herself. The one she believed could help her make the Clean Footprint Coalition’s dream a reality.
Dylan Kelly. Vice President, Media Relations. The spare to Brendan as heir. The public face of KInG, he could charm the heck out of any female with her own televisions, was constantly photographed wining and dining the city’s most gorgeous women at benefits, sports events, and everywhere in between, and generally held the gossip-hungry city in thrall.
Wynnie was sure it helped that he appeared to be one of the more beautiful men ever to grace the planet. Her chin had practically hit the conference table when she’d first seen his photo. Heck, if he weren’t a corporate bad guy she might have worked pro bono to have him declared a protected species.
‘Ladies,’ a deep voice rumbled from somewhere over her now throbbing right shoulder. ‘Gentlemen. What a pleasure it is to see that you’ve all decided to come by on this fine sunny day. If I’d have known there was to be a party I would have ordered dim sum and wine coolers for all.’
A few cracks of laughter, several deeply feminine sighs, and the slow flopping of microphones told Wynnie she was losing her audience fast.
She took a deep breath, flicked her hair from her face, and prepared to win them back by beating Mr Slick to an ethical pulp. He might be infamously charming, but she had right on her side, and that had to count for something.
Finally the crowd cleared, and through the parted waters came a man. Standard light blue shirt. Discreetly striped tie. Dark suit. So far not so much the kind of devil she had in mind.
But the closer he got, the more the details came into focus. His suit was tailored precisely to highlight every hard plane of the kind of body that spoke of restrained power, and made walking through big cities at lunchtime a guilty pleasure. His clenched jaw was so sharp it looked to be chiselled from granite. His dark blond hair was short, but with just enough scruff to make a girl want to run her fingers through it. Tame it. Tame him.
But the thing that trapped her gaze and held it was a pair of hooded blue eyes. With all the other inducements he had on show, there was no other colour they’d dare be.
And it was then that she realised they were trained completely on her. Flat, piercing, bewitching baby blue.
And he wasn’t merely looking at her, he was looking into her. As if he was searching for the answer to a question only he knew. Her throat tightened and her mouth felt unnaturally dry, and, whatever the question was, the only answer her mind formed was, ‘Yes’.
She
