What Was I Thinking?

WHAT WAS I THINKING?

Ellen Gragg

Mainstream Romance

Sweet Cravings Publishing

www.sweetcravingspublishing.com

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A Sweet
Cravings Publishing Book

Mainstream
Romance

What Was I
Thinking?

Copyright ©
2014 Ellen Gragg

E-book ISBN: 978-1-63105-170-8

First E-book
Publication: April 2014

Cover design by
Dawné Dominique

Edited by Susan Toth

Proofread by Courtney
Karmiller

All cover art
and logo copyright © 2014 by Sweet Cravings Publishing

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED:
This literary work may not be reproduced
or transmitted in any form or by any means, including electronic or
photographic reproduction, in whole or in part, without express written permission.

All characters and events in this book are
fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is strictly
coincidental.

PUBLISHER

Sweet Cravings Publishing

www.sweetcravingspublishing.com

Dedication

For my
husband Gene, who always believed in me and supported my dreams.

Thanks to my
daughter Kate for all of her help and support.

Special
thanks to my sister Heather, who persuaded me to go back to writing after I’d
given up.

The Cravings
Ebook Club

The Cravings
Paranormal Ebook Club

Have you heard about the newest idea in
ebooks, the ebook club? Secret Cravings Publishing has two ebook clubs, The
Cravings Ebook Club or the Cravings Paranormal Ebook Club, and we invite you to
become a member.

As a new member, you will receive
Trouble
With
a
Cowboy*
by Sandy Sullivan and
Blood
Kisses**
by H.N. Sieverding FREE, just for joining!

You’ll also receive
4 BRAND-NEW EBOOKS
, specially selected by our Editorial Director,
every month in a variety of genres for a total price of only $9.99 for all 4.
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and you’ll be able to enjoy your books
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One of several privileges
of club membership.

*
Trouble With a Cowboy
,
a western, erotic romance:

18 wheels had her heart until one hard-up cowboy found her
kickin' up her heels and propositions her to take his bull to Vegas.

Jacie Hawkins drives big wheelers for a livin'. Something not
a lot of women do. Littleton Oklahoma is just a dry stopover for a few hours of
rest and relaxation at the nearest bar. Jacie needs to find a hot cowboy to
release some of her pent up frustrations on for the night, but wannabe's aren't
her style.

Tucker Marshall needs a big-rig driver to haul his prize bull
to National Finals Rodeo and he needs one fast. Who would have thought he'd
find one shootin' pool at the local bar dressed to kill and takin' numbers?

Can some slashed tires and an ornery bull bring two
hard-headed people together for some fun in the sun and a little more?

**
Blood Kisses
(Nightwalkers 1)
, paranormal erotic romance:

Ashleigh
Brown, the author of the popular Nightwalkers series, lives a quiet life free
of the limelight.
 
She keeps her real
identity secret by writing under the pen name, Victoria Allure.
 
She soon finds herself in a bind when she's
kidnapped by a group of handsome vampires seeking Victoria.
 
She then agrees to meet their Master, who's a
huge fan of her books.
 
But instead of
meeting him, she accidentally crosses paths with her rock star crush.
 
He is the sexy muse behind Nightwalkers and
the man she based the hero in the series upon. She would do anything to meet
him but little does she know her crush has a secret...

We
will try to match your books to your
preferences,
however, if you’re a major paranormal fan, we suggest you join the Cravings
Paranormal Club. Everything is the same except that three of your four books
will be paranormal. The remaining book will be of a different genre.

As a club member, you will also receive:

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ooks
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We hope our Secret Cravings books will
delight you each and every month.

Best wishes,

Beth Walker

WHAT
WAS I THINKING?

Ellen Gragg

Copyright © 2014

Part 1: Modern Life

Chapter One

Gibson Girls and Suffragettes

I was bored and my dress was too tight. I was
wearing a ridiculous getup, slumped in an uncomfortable seat, and sitting
through another screening of
Surf Cops
,
trying to hide my reactions from the rest of the people watching in the
darkened room and, most of all, from my boss. It was a popular show, with big
audience numbers, it’s true, but the demographics were all wrong for our
product.
Titan Allied Products
International sold high-end cosmetics, not products for fourteen-year-old boys.
It was another day that I wondered why
TAPI
recruited MS-degreed chemists like me and my friend Beth to their marketing
department.

TAPI’s
marketing approach was a mess.
They—we—I’m supposed to remember that—just could not get the right appeal to
the target customers, and everybody knew we were flailing.
Thus
this big meeting.
Top management had decided they needed fresh ideas,
and had finally realized you don’t get fresh ideas if you keep listening to the
same tiny group of people.

They had invited the whole company to a
“marketing summit” at a fancy hotel here in St. Louis, the hometown of the
venerable company. Anyone who worked for the company, anywhere, in any
capacity, could pitch their idea for a new marketing direction. Those of us who
were actually in the marketing department were required to attend, but anyone
else who submitted an entry could have expenses paid to attend. The prize would
be leading implementation of the winning campaign, working in a nice office in
headquarters, and, if the campaign actually saved our sorry bacon, maybe a
permanent promotion.

I had to admit it was an interesting approach
from management. Not many outsiders had tried, but rumor had it at least one
janitor was gearing up a presentation, as were a few of the regional sales
staff.

But the
Surf
Cops
idea from one of the in-house marketing staffers just underscored the
fact that there were a
lot
of lame
ideas out there, and sitting through marketing presentations isn’t much fun for
a chemist.

The meeting had only gotten worse, right on
schedule. The projector went dark, the lights were flipped on, and my boss, the
energetic Campbell Frazier, had stepped to the lectern, to make
his
pitch. He called me and his other
human visual aids to the front to participate. I minced forward in my
ankle-length shirtwaist dress and high boots, as Frazier explained. “Our
product is geared toward the smart, educated, liberated woman. We need to show
our commitment to her…and that our commitment has
always
been to her.

“Addie, here,”—I managed a tight-lipped smile
for the audience as he pointed to me—“is dressed as a suffragette protesting at
our own World’s Fair, in 1904.” I waved my protest sign, right on cue, and he
moved on to the next exhibit.

“Lindsey is a lady
autoist
, driving on her own to Automobile Day at the fair.” His
administrative assistant, wearing a duster coat and goggles, beamed and waved.
He droned on. I zoned out. When our presentation was over, all the costumed
women introduced and explained
,
we trooped back to our
seats, to the sound of applause.

It was going to be a long night, but I couldn’t
stay zoned out. Beth was one of the participants, and she was nervous. “You did
great,” she whispered under the applause.

I crossed my eyes at her, and she stifled a
giggle. Scientists do not giggle, even when teased or nervous.

“Campbell’s idea is better than mine. I don’t
know what I was thinking. Do you think I could just cancel?”

“No! You cannot!” I whispered
fiercely,
and apparently too loudly. Lindsey gave me a
schoolmarm look from under her veiled driving hat. I fished out my cell phone
from its hiding place in my waistband, typed out
Yr idea best. No gvg up
!
and
held it low, between my right leg and Beth’s left,
nudging her ribs so she would look down.

She looked, smiled tightly, looking more as if
she were fighting back vomit than actually happy, and refocused on the front,
where Pete Ogilvy was doing something with dancing lollipops. Pete was another
scientist-turned-marketer, but he and Beth didn’t seem to mind as much as I
did.

Pete was nice, but he wasn’t counting on me for
personal support, so I used the time to surreptitiously type out another
message, this time with all the letters, and in all caps.
CHEMISTS DO NOT THROW UP IN PUBLIC! GO CHEMIST CHICKS!
I held it at
the ready, and nudged Beth to look at it during the applause for Pete.

She gave me an almost-real smile, took a deep
breath, and stood up as her name was called.

I thought her presentation was good. Polished,
smart, and it actually said something about our products, about what made them
different from competitors, and in terms that didn’t talk down to the
customers. Instead of costumes, song-and-dance, or extravagant advertising, she
was advocating a focus on our chemistry and explaining its value. She was also
suggesting explaining the value in terms that assumed the women who bought
cosmetics could read, do math, and reason. It would have appealed to
me
, to Beth, and to my own best friends,
but it clearly didn’t appeal to the rest of the people in the ballroom tonight.
Watching the reactions in the audience and on the judges’ panel, I tensed like
the mother of a four-year-old who had forgotten his lines in the Christmas
pageant.