there I can do everything in my power to talk you out of it.’
‘OK, but you’re not coming into the meeting with me,’ Chris said. ‘You’re too bloody good-looking. They’ll forget about me in a heartbeat and do everything they can to snap you up instead.’
‘Don’t panic, mate,’ Adam drawled. ‘I wouldn’t be in your shoes for the world.’
Cara checked her lip gloss in her compact mirror for the third time on the cab drive over.
She had dressed conservatively, as she figured that was how they would want her to dress their guy. She wore a vintage black jersey crossover dress and simple silver antique jewellery. Her short curly bob was pulled away from her face and anchored with a large red hibiscus, and her make-up was subtle, all so that nothing could take away from her new red satin Kate Madden Designs shoes, which were expensive enough to make that month’s mortgage payments a squeeze.
The feeling of a brick in her chest grew heavier at the recollection of the price she had paid for them. But if she got the job it wouldn’t matter—she would be free and clear. And that was the goal she had to keep dangling in front of herself like a carrot in front of a mule.
She closed the compact, smacked her lips together once more and found the taxi driver watching her in the rear-view mirror. She sent him a self-conscious smile.
‘Big date?’ he asked.
Cara shook her head. ‘Job interview.’
‘At the TV station? What sort of job? Are you a news-reader or something?’
‘No, nothing like that. I’m hoping to land a job on one of those new dating shows. I don’t even know the title or anything. It’s all pretty hush-hush, actually.’
She jolted forward lightly in her seat as he unexpectedly pumped the brakes.
‘Really?’ the driver said. ‘Are you going to be one of those girls in bikinis who sit in a hot tub all day?’
‘Gosh, no!’ she declared. ‘I’m a behind-the-scenes type. I’m going for the job of styling the male lead in the show.’
‘Oh,’ the driver said before focussing more fully on the road ahead. Obviously hot tubs and bikinis were much more his scene.
He soon pulled up outside the old concrete building that housed the television studios. Cara hopped out and handed the cash through the driver’s side window.
‘Good luck,’ the driver said. ‘And I’ll look out for you on the small screen.’
He gave her the once-over and Cara knew he didn’t believe her for a second and was happily measuring her up for a bikini. Knowing she looked more like a ballet dancer than a Baywatch babe didn’t stop her from blushing in humiliation as he gave a little shrug as if to say he’d seen better.
Cara tugged at her born-again dress, patted down her curls, took a deep breath, and headed inside.
Adam sat upstairs in the top-floor foyer of the television station, cracking his knuckles.
He could have waited in the car. He could have browsed in the shop windows near the television station. He could have taken advantage of the heretofore unheard-of spare time and chosen to stop and smell the flowers in the park nearby. But he hadn’t. He wanted to be where Chris was. And since Chris had been taken into a closed-door meeting, the foyer was as close as he was going to get.
After a good hour spent counting tiles on the ceiling of the open-plan waiting room Adam was itching to leave. And to take Chris with him. If there was even the slightest hint that Chris might change his mind, Adam wanted to be there to snap him up and take him back to the real world of stock prices and innovative technologies. A quantifiable world that never pretended to be anything other than what it was.
So Adam waited close to the source, his knuckles cracking, his eyes seeking out any movement that passed his way.
Cara checked her reflection in the lift doors.
She lifted a hand to pat down her hair. She was pleased to see the new caramel highlights in her curly chestnut bob gave her the exact hint of sophistication she was after. The huge red flower that held her hair back was securely fastened but still she dug it in deeper. It would be just like her to have the thing fall out of her hair and dangle at an illogical angle down her back for the whole day without her knowing, her intelligence and talent and new caramel highlights becoming blurred behind her often clumsy exterior.
Her best friends called her ‘classy Cara’ because she was always so put together, but it was also half a joke since they knew what it took for her to be that way.
She looked down at her unforgettable shoes for moral support. It took almost all of her concentration to remain upright, they were so high and delicate. And she was someone who had to lift her feet so as not to trip even when walking in bare feet.
The lift grumbled to a halt on the top floor and her stomach dropped away. At the last minute she closed her eyes, tapped the heels of her red shoes together and made a wish to whichever good fairies might have been listening.
‘Let me have this job and I will never want anything else again.’
The lift doors opened, as did her eyes, and she stepped ahead, unforgettable red shoes leading the way.
Adam looked up at the whir of the lift.
A woman exited, walking like a ballerina: head held high, shoulders back, deliberate, as if she had a book on her head and had no intention of letting that book fall.
This woman had enough going for her that Adam stopped cracking his knuckles and let his hands drift to rest casually across the back of the couch.
She stopped outside the lift and checked the staff listings, bending slightly from the waist and affording Adam a nice view of…a very nice view. Seeming satisfied she was in the right place, she walked his way.
Only when she came closer did he notice evidence of nerves. She swallowed too many times, her eyes flitting about the place as if she was cataloguing everything in the room, and her knuckles showed white against the sleek black portfolio she clutched in her hands like a lifeline.
Finally her fluttery gaze cut his way.
She managed half a smile, her smooth full lips kicking up at one side, highlighting the sexiest little smile line along one pale cheek.
‘Excuse me,’ she said in a charmingly husky voice, ‘but is this the place to wait for the guys from…?’ She paused, her mouth closing in an adorable little pout as she found the words she was looking for. ‘I don’t even know what it’s called. The new TV dating show?’ A concerned crease appeared above her dainty nose as she awaited his answer.
‘This is the place,’ he said, drawing his eyes from the crease to her blinking eyes. Green, they were, and magnetic. Like a cat’s eyes.
‘Oh, thank goodness,’ she said, a slim hand moving to her chest while her cat’s eyes went back to their dazzled flickering. ‘I’ve had one heck of a time finding where to go. Seems it’s all so secretive most of the staff in the building knew nothing about it. But after my bumbling efforts I’m sure the whole place knows by now.’
She
