Hostile Makeover
Contents
Acknowledgments
Special thanks go to Kitty Gillespy for walking me through the world of advertising and for reading this work in progress. She also shared her first-hand knowledge of L.A. hotels and restaurants. I’m still trying to figure out why her life sounds so much more glamorous than mine.
I remain ever grateful to my fearless critique partners Karen White, Jennifer St. Giles, Sandra Chastain, and Karen Kendall, who are brutally honest and refuse to let me get away with the “stuff in the box.”
I’d also like to thank my editor, Wendy McCurdy, and her assistant, Erica Orden, for making this feel less and less like brain surgery with every book.
Thanks also go to my agent, Pam Strickler, for her support and enthusiasm.
chapter
1
F
or the first time in her thirty-three-year-old life, Shelley Schwartz faked an orgasm. On principle she was opposed to this idea and had, in debates with her friends, been very smug about always hanging in there even if the payoff was more like a blip on the Richter scale than a full-scale movement of the earth.
A woman should never be cruel or unsympathetic in bed, she’d argued, but pretending that something she didn’t like might actually lead to an orgasm had potentially dangerous ramifications; how could a woman go into paroxysms of ecstasy over something one day and then fail to get off on it the next? It was Pavlovian training at its most dysfunctional—and most men didn’t need any help or encouragement in failing to satisfy.
But today she’d gotten stuck between a rock and a hard place. Well, actually it had been a mattress and Trey Davenport’s superbly sculpted chest.
Faking it had turned out to be her only viable option.
Because although her body had been pinned beneath Trey’s very studly one, her mind had been trained on her two-thirty meeting—the one at which she intended to show her father and everyone else at the advertising agency that she was not the cream puff they believed her to be. The meeting she’d spent months preparing for, and which she was now racing to at the speed of sound.
Shelley coasted through a four-way stop then mashed down the accelerator, still trying to figure out how an innocent lunch had turned into such a sexual Waterloo.
She’d invited Trey to the Ritz for his birthday, certain they’d have plenty of time for a celebratory lunch before her meeting. Things had been going swimmingly until he dangled the room key in front of her.
She’d felt the smile freeze on her lips, but Trey was a truly sweet and very hunky guy and it was his birthday; she simply couldn’t tell him she’d rather go back to the office and pitch a feminine hygiene account. “This is my chance to be taken seriously at work” wasn’t going to cut it with a man who’d just turned thirty-five, consumed most of a bottle of Cristal, and was looking at her like she was the icing on his cake.
Unsure what to do, she’d acted pleased and figured if they got right to it, she’d be showered and dressed in plenty of time.
This might have worked except that Trey, ever the gentleman, kept waiting for her to go first. Only Shelley wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon and Trey, who ran marathons and climbed mountains, could go for hours if properly motivated. This had never seemed like a bad thing. Until today.
But even as she’d stared at the ceiling and admitted defeat she’d realized it wasn’t fair to penalize Trey just because she was throwing in the sexual towel. Surely all God’s children deserved an orgasm on their birthday.
So she’d kicked up their rhythm, whispered things in his ear that actually made her blush, and urged him on, giving an Oscar-worthy performance of turned-on womanhood.
And then when she could tell he was hanging on by the very slimmest of threads she’d done it, the thing she’d argued so vehemently against. She’d impersonated herself at her free-falling, head-banging best and forced Trey Davenport to follow suit.
Despite the compromising of her sexual principles, the meeting was already under way by the time Shelley arrived. The Easy To Be Me people sat with their backs to the conference room door; the Schwartz and Associates team aligned across from them. Her father sat at the head of the table with the indispensable Ross Morgan at his left.
Both men turned as she skidded to a halt in the doorway. Her father sighed. Ross Morgan looked at her as if she were a car wreck he couldn’t bear to watch. The conversation sputtered to a stop and everyone else turned to see what they were looking at.
“This is my daughter Shelley,” her father announced to the now-silent room.
She swallowed and nodded then forced a smile to her lips. It was only as she moved toward the empty seat at the foot of the table that she noticed the huge run in her stocking. Her heart stopped as she realized that the jacket of her lilac Donna Karan suit, the one she’d bought specifically for this presentation, was misbuttoned, and that the contrasting aqua shell was inside out, the label clearly visible.
She might as well be wearing a sign that read “Delayed due to sex, doesn’t know how to dress herself.”
Shit, shit, shit
. She’d showered in under two minutes, thrown on her clothes, then touched up her makeup in the rearview mirror as she raced to the office. Obviously she should have taken that extra ten seconds in the hotel room for a full-length glimpse.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” she said, not even bothering to try to explain. What was there to say? “It’s inside-out day at Schwartz and Associates, didn’t you get the memo?”
Pulling her notes out of her Louis Vuitton carryall, she decided she’d be a very old woman before she allowed herself to go anywhere near the Ritz at lunchtime again. In fact, she’d give up the Ritz, and possibly sex, for life if Trey’s birthday orgasm didn’t cost her the opportunity she’d been waiting for.
Ross Morgan speared her with his blue eyes and a familiar tic appeared in his cheek, but it was her father’s gaze, filled with disappointment and resignation, that sent the chill up her spine.
Shelley wanted to point out that she’d only been ten minutes late. It wasn’t as if she’d blown off the whole thing, or not bothered to do her homework; she knew this client’s products like she knew the clearance rack at Neiman’s.
Her father gave her a “Don’t say a word or you’re grounded” look, and Shelley bit her lip and lowered her gaze while Ross Morgan directed everyone’s attention back to the storyboards in front of them.
As the meeting progressed, her research was quoted freely, and her ideas were presented and approved, but she wasn’t invited to speak. She felt like a child who’d accidentally used a bad word in front of the adults and been banished from polite society.
If Ross Morgan had been ten minutes late, he could have waltzed right in and still taken command of the group. But of course he would have been ten minutes
early,
not late. And he wouldn’t have jeopardized his career in order to give someone an orgasm. Not that he didn’t know how to give a woman the “Big O,” as she unfortunately knew after ending up in that supply closet with him during last year’s holiday party. But he never would have risked business for one. He was always in control of his considerable faculties; always focused, always so sure. How dare he turn out to be the son her father never had!
Shelley kept her gaze fixed on the exposed brick wall of the conference room and worried at her bottom lip until she tasted blood. Forty minutes later there were handshakes all around and Ross—not her—was promising to get things under way, to be in touch, expressing enthusiasm over the opportunity to work together. He promised that they’d be glad they’d put their advertising dollars with Schwartz and Associates.
As usual, she was the Schwartz in disgrace; he was the man in charge.
The Easy To Be Me people filed out of the conference room and the rest of the staff followed.
“Shelley,” her father said, “you and Ross come with me.” They followed in silence and sank into chairs across from his desk in the big corner office. Still silent, Harvey Schwartz studied them both.
“Daddy, I’m sorry, I . . .”
Her father ran a hand through his graying hair and sighed again. “Never mind, sweetheart. Perhaps we expected too much of you this time.”
“No.” When had her father ever expected anything of her? “I can handle this. I did the research, a lot of the ideas were mine.”
“Yes, Ross told me that.”
Well at least he hadn’t tried to snatch the credit. “This account is perfect for me.”
“Yes.” He smiled sadly. “But are you perfect for the account?” He let the question hang in the air. “Your prep work was first-rate, but you weren’t here when the time came to close the deal. You can’t pick and choose which parts of the job you’re going to do.”
Ross stared out the window, his expression making it clear he wasn’t going to weigh in on the subject.
So why was he there?
she wondered miserably.
Why was he always there being so damned competent? And why did she keep screwing up
?
“It won’t happen again, Daddy. Just let me have this account. Let me show you what I can do.”
Her father sighed again. He was forever chucking her under the chin like a child, or sighing over her. “I’m sorry, Shelley, but I just can’t take the chance. We’re talking billings of more than a million dollars. You can work on the account, but you’ll work under Ross’s guidance. He’ll decide what your role will be and how much responsibility to give you.”
His intercom buzzed, and his secretary’s voice squawked in the too-quiet room. “I’ve got to take this call. Why don’t you two sit down over a cup of coffee and hash it out? There’s plenty of work for everyone.”
But not plenty of room to earn credit for the success of this campaign.
Shelley followed her nemesis out of the office and down the long hallway. It would be easier to hate him if he’d just go ahead and be a jerk, rub it in, lord it over her. But he was always polite and completely professional. Well, except for that time in the supply closet.
Why couldn’t he be short and balding with a squeaky nerd voice, instead of tall and blond with that deep rumbly baritone? Life was so unfair.
Ross paused at the door to his own corner office. “So do you want to discuss this now, or would you like to go finish dressing?”
She was tempted to pull off the blouse and redress in front of him just to see the expression on his face. She hated that he was everything her father wanted and that she apparently was not. What was the point of trying to be professional? When no one expected anything of you, how long could you keep trying to prove them wrong?
“I’m as dressed as I plan to be,” Shelley replied quietly. “But my nails
are
a bit ragged.” She looked down at them as if they mattered then raised her chin a notch. “I don’t think we need to have this same old motivational chat, do you? You don’t really want me mucking around in this account, and we both know my father doesn’t really care whether I help or not.”