It Takes a Rebel (7 page)

necessary.

Men were like cats, she observed, pretending to study her watch. The more you ignored them, the more they wanted your

attention. She forced herself not to listen to Jack Stillman's words, although his baritone was impossible to shut out. Someone

had found a photo of the '85 UK football team among the cluttered bookshelves, and there he was, Jack pointed out as everyone

crowded around, then launched into a story about the fellow who sat next to him. Within seconds, everyone was laughing.

Oh, brother
. Alex took a deep gulp of coffee and scalded her tongue. "Dammit!"

Her expletive coincided with a lull in the laughter and seemed to reverberate from the dark walls. Everyone turned to stare,

including Jack, whose eyes danced with amusement as she ran her tender tongue against the roof of her mouth. She had the

strongest urge to stick it out at him.

"Problem, my dear?" her father asked, strolling into the room with all the casual ease of a man who owned the floors, walls

and ceilings. At last everyone fell away from Jack Stillman end headed toward the table, scrupulously avoiding the chair

opposite Alex, reserved for her father, of course.

"No," she said somewhat thickly, walking around the table. "Allow me to introduce Mr. St.—"

"Jack Stillman,"
her father cut in, pumping the visitor's hand, his broad face creasing in a grin reserved only for the most

privileged.
"Jack the Attack."

Alex wanted to heave.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Tremont," Jack said, looking duly humbled.

"Aren't you in top form," her father said. "Nice suit, son. One of ours, I do believe."

Jack nodded and smoothed the sleeve of his charcoal-gray suit. "Your private label."

She'd been so distracted by the change in his appearance, she hadn't noticed he was wearing one of the most expensive suits

they carried. Brownnoser.

"Nice tie, too," her father continued with an appraising nod.

Over his crisply starched white shirt, Jack was sporting a tie identical to the gray and navy barber-poke striped one she'd

fingered earlier this morning, one in the line her father had scoffed at, but suddenly thought was "nice."

Her father turned to the assembled group and beamed while clapping Jack on the back. "He wears our clothes. The man is

talented and smart."

They obliged with a round of laughter while Alex fumed. As far as she was concerned, the man was a fraud, and his

presentation would undoubtedly reflect his ineptitude. After all, clothes did not make the man.

"Shall we start the meeting?" she asked over the din, irritated when Jack sat next to her father. Darn it, she should have

separated them, she realized too late. Luckily Tess arrived with the presentation easel, so Alex directed her to set it up on her

end of the room. Her secretary loitered, casting sideways glances at Jack Stillman until Alex cleared her throat meaningfully.

Once the door closed, Alex took a deep breath. "Okay, everyone, let's get this over wi—" She stopped abruptly, feeling a

flush creep up her neck as surprised looks darted her way. Alex hesitated, half afraid her father would jump to his feet and

assume control of the meeting. But his face was remarkably placid.

"I mean, let's begin," she amended smoothly. "As you know, Tremont Enterprises is looking for a new advertising agency to

take the company into the millennium." Pausing for effect, she tried to inject just the right amount of doubt into her tone. "Mr.

Jack Stillman of the Stillman & Sons Agency is here today to convince us that his small, family-owned business can handle an

account the size of Tremont's."

At the tightening of his jaw, she saw her veiled barb had hit home. "Mr. Stillman, perhaps you can tell us more about yourself

and your company." As she took her seat, Alex gave him a tight smile that said she would reveal him at the earliest

convenience for the con man he was. "After all," she added, "not everyone was treated to the, um, enlightening reception I

received yesterday."

His smile was sublime as he stood and launched into a brief background of his family business, including his and his

brother's degrees from UK, and the recent addition of a large regional natural food manufacturer to their client list. Distinctly

unimpressed, Alex was hiding a yawn behind her hand when he looked her way. "But I'm glad you brought up your visit to my

office, Ms. Tremont, because it dovetails perfectly into my presentation for today."

She realized he was waiting for a response, so she obliged with as little interest as possible. "Oh?"

Jack's mouth twitched as his gaze bore into her. "You see … my plan worked perfectly."

As his words sunk in, Alex sobered with a sense of impending doom. "What plan would that be?"

He stroked his chin thoughtfully as he walked around her father's chair. She caught a glint of silver in his hair when he

stepped through a shaft of sunlight. "What was your impression of me yesterday, Ms. Tremont?"

The dark walls of the room suddenly seemed closer, and the hairs at the nape of her exposed neck tingled. "The truth?"

His eyes glittered. "Absolutely."

Alex pursed her lips. How could she best put into words that she found him to be a very base individual who might be more

at home digging a ditch and ogling female pedestrians than playing at running a business? Studying his smooth, too-confident

face, she decided that Jack Stillman needed to be taken down a notch. Or three. "Frankly, I found you to be rather odious."

Eyebrows shot high around the table, accompanied by sharp gasps and a titter or two. "Alex!" her father admonished, but she

didn't break eye contact with Jack. This was personal.

Her opponent's smile was patient. "Why?"

In her peripheral vision, she saw heads pivot back and forth between them, but as far as Alex was concerned, she and Jack

were the only two people in the room. An invisible tunnel connected them across the table. She felt an alarming draw to her

energy, as if the space wasn't big enough for the both of them. With effort, she matched his smile. "You mean other than the fact

that you were rude and boorish?"

Bodies shifted.

He spread his large hands. "My apologies if you were offended, but I believe you were reacting to something other than my

words."

"Such as?" she asked dryly.

"My appearance?"

Alex blinked, but didn't reply.

"In fact," Jack said, walking around the table toward her. "You didn't recognize me when I arrived today, did you, Ms.

Tremont?"

Irritated, she crossed her arms. "You do look quite different, Mr. Stillman."

He turned to address everyone else. "Just so you'll know, when Ms. Tremont came by yesterday, I was wearing cutoff shorts,

a Hawaiian shirt and a tool belt."

What was he up to? "You forgot the bad tie and the fact that you were barefoot," she supplied, shoving her shoulders back

into the stiff chair. Chuckles circled the table, but she remained stoic.

"Ah, you are observant." He graced her with a charming smile, then gestured to himself, sweeping his hand down his torso as

he walked closer still. "Would you say my appearance today is an improvement?"

Hot anger shot through her, and her eyes traveled the length of him as if they had a mind of their own. Standing almost within

touching distance, Jack Stillman was one gorgeously put together man, but she wasn't about to give him undue credit for lucking

into a favorable gene pool. "Anything would be an improvement."

His answer was a devilish grin of concession, which drew more light laughter from the table.

Alex didn't appreciate being put in the hot seat—especially when she'd planned to be wasting Jack Stillman right about now.

"Mr. Stillman, I assume you have a point?"

"Ah," he said, raising a finger and lifting the portfolio he'd leaned against the wall, then placing it on the easel. "My point is

that a certain old saying has credence." With a flick of his wrist, he unsnapped the little strap that held together the worn leather

portfolio, and Alex stifled a scoff. A large hand-painted color poster showed a man in a football uniform throwing a pass,

cheering fans behind him.

Jack lowered the panel to reveal another poster showing the same man wearing chinos and a casual shirt flipping burgers on

a grill, a couple of admiring women standing nearby with umbrella'd drinks. The next poster showed the man in a suit carrying

a briefcase and checking his watch as he hurried somewhere, again with a couple of female on-lookers. The fourth poster

showed the now shirtless man reclining in bed, wearing boxer shorts, a woman's hand resting on his shoulder. Her midsection

stirred at the intimacy of the moment translated by the simplicity of the picture. She guessed he'd shown great restraint in not

depicting two women's hands.

Her eyes strayed to Jack, unnerved that he seemed to be gauging her reaction. She kept her expression passive, and glanced

away, not about to reveal that the picture conjured up images of Jack Stillman himself reclining in bed with a lover. She

banished the disturbing thought and forbade herself from making such appalling slips in the future.

"My point, one that Ms. Tremont can attest to, is—" he encompassed the room with a tantalizing smile and flipped down the

poster to reveal a slogan in neat black block letters "—Tremont's. Because clothes
do
make the man."

Alex thought her head might explode on the spot.

* * *

risky, but he had nothing to lose. It was fourth down with long yardage, and he'd been scrambling to find a seam in the end

zone. The deadly look Alexandria Tremont gave him, however, was akin to taking the pigskin right between the eyes. Now his

only hope was to escape the game without further injury. He eyed the distance between her and him, versus him and the door—

could he make it?

The room crackled with expectant silence, then Al Tremont suddenly burst out laughing, clapping his fleshy hands. "I
like
it."

Jack exhaled the breath he'd been holding as the others, as if awaiting their boss's cue, began to hum and nod their approval.

Heath Reddinger seemed noncommittal, but from what he had observed when he'd followed the secretary into the room,

Reddinger and the fetching Alexandria were involved romantically. The thought stirred a different kind of competitive urge in

Jack's stomach. Now Reddinger darted looks toward his ladylove, waiting for a glance of … permission? Poor sap.

Apparently Alexandria wasn't influenced by her father's favorable opinion. "Excuse me," she said in a crisp tone as she

swept her gaze over her colleagues. "Excuse me!"

Jack suspected if she'd had a gavel within reach, she would have banged the table top, but everyone fell silent and gave her

their attention.

She pressed her lips together, as if gathering her composure, then spoke, her voice rich and controlled. "Frankly, I think the

ad is a bit sexist. After all, our typical shopper is
female
, and we can't afford to alienate her."

"We wouldn't be alienating her," Jack said, speaking as if he were already part of the Tremont's team. He withdrew a

television commercial storyboard of a woman shopping in the men's department. "Instead we'd be saying, 'Come into Tremont's

and outfit your man in style.'"

Outfit your man?
She narrowed her eyes at him. "I repeat for the benefit of the hard-of-hearing, I think the idea is sexist, and

if I were the customer, I would be offended."

Jack felt perversely compelled to provoke her, although he wasn't sure why. "But you, Ms. Tremont, are not the typical

female customer." Reciting from memory the demographics hastily gathered from Reggie over the taxi driver's cell phone, he

said, "Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the typical customer is both younger
and
married."

He had hit a nerve—maybe two.

While Alexandria turned a becoming shade of crimson, Al Tremont laughed again, slapping his knee. "He's got you there,

Alex."

Alex. The name suited her, Jack decided, then he plunged ahead. "She is also less educated and less successful," he added,

hoping to placate her, although from the set of her mouth, he hadn't. "But she spends a disproportionate amount of her

disposable income on clothing. I think we can entice her to spend even more of her own money—" he grinned "—or someone

else's—"

More laughter sounded, accompanied by nods.

"—buying clothes for her man."

"Clothes for her man?" Alex's tone was heavy with disdain. "Mr. Stillman, that thinking smacks of chauvinism."

"Maybe," he conceded. "But how are menswear sales?"

"We don't divulge sakes figures to outsiders."

"Menswear sales are lousy," Al Tremont offered.

"But improving," Alex insisted, gripping the edge of the table and shooting her father a withering glance.

"I assume profit margins are higher for men's clothing to compensate for the lower volume," Jack continued, trying to smooth

the brewing disagreement between father and daughter. "So it makes sense to target an underselling, high-margin department.