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Leanne Banks
feet first
MILLS & BOON
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This book is dedicated to all the so-called
underachievers…who just needed to find their
passion in order to become achievers.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CHAPTER NINETEEN
CHAPTER TWENTY
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
COMING NEXT MONTH
Special thanks to my terrific encouraging friends
and the PFD group: Cindy Gerard, Pamela Britton,
Rhonda Pollero and Cherry Adair, my awesome
parents, Tom and Betty Minyard, and my family for
providing take-out meals and chocolate during
deadline. Thanks, Richard, for helping me with
all things Atlanta. A big high five to the newsliners!
And I can’t forget the beach babes!
“The shoes a woman wants to wear reveal her secret fantasies.”
—Jenny Prillaman, Designer Wannabe
CHAPTER ONE
THIS WAS TURNING into a three-doughnut morning.
Jenny Prillaman scarfed down her second hot Krispy Kreme doughnut, marveling at how something that tasted so light could have so many calories. Krispy Kreme doughnuts weren’t on the approved list of foods for the South Beach diet, and she would have to exchange half her meals for the day on Weight Watchers.
Sighing, she surreptitiously licked one of her fingers. Tough. Her boss wasn’t here and he really needed to be.
She barely brushed some glazed sugar from her chin before executive VP Marc Waterson burst through the door wearing an expression of controlled fury on his chiseled face. “Brooke Tarantino is coming in today. Where’s Sal?”
Jenny cleared her throat and rubbed her sticky hands together beneath her desk. Oh, wow. She’d thought he would send his assistant down to do the inquisition.
Marc Waterson had always struck her as a force of nature carefully concealed in a well-tailored Brooks Brothers suit. She suspected in another time period he would have worn his hair long and carried a sword. He was a lethally clever overachiever type, and Jenny generally tried to avoid such types as she’d been forced to deal with a brother and sister cut from the same cloth since the day she was born.
Except, Marc was so hot he made her forget about her brother and sister, the overachiever part and everything but him. He was the kind of man she fantasized about instead of filing. She remembered the birthday wish she’d made after two martinis that if she ever got a chance to bed Marc, she would do it.
Easy enough wish to make. With the exception of a few times on the phone, the man spoke to her through his assistant. He would never notice her. And she wasn’t sure she would know what to do if he ever did.
Instead she worked for a tender-hearted artistic genius who unfortunately spent more time with whiskey than he should. “Sal’s not feeling well and he had to go to the doctor this morning,” Jenny told Marc. “Maybe we could reschedule. Or you could show her some of the sketches Sal has already put together.”
Marc, who was known throughout the company as Braveheart, studied her with a gaze so intent she felt as if she needed sunglasses.
Jenny bit the inside of her cheek to avoid biting her lip and prayed Bellagio’s most intense VP couldn’t tell that she was fibbing. She’d always tried to stay way below top management’s radar. It hadn’t been that difficult. Her body was okay, but she consistently fudged on her South Beach diet and found reasons to delay exercise. She had okay hair that was a pretty chestnut-brown color and blue eyes instead of the expected brown. It gave her a great sense of satisfaction to know that she annoyed her sister the attorney by wearing thin red-framed glasses.
He lifted his eyebrows. “If Sal has already done some sketches, then I’d like to see them.”
“I can get them for you,” she said, clasping and unclasping her fingers beneath her desk. “It may take me a little time to find them in Sal’s office, though. He sometimes puts his sketches in unexpected places.”
“How soon could you find them?”
“An hour, maybe less.”
“Brooke’s appointment was at nine.”
“But she’s usually over an hour late,
