"How did you persuade Rick to keep your cats?" Carla carried in Jennifer's last box of books and dropped them on her living room floor.
"I didn't give him any choice. I just left them."
"He'll kill them. That's why I finally dumped that loser Harry. He actually kicked poor Sugar-face."
"Rick wouldn't hurt an animal. He doesn't let on, but I actually think he's starting to like them."
Carla shook her head. "That's even more crazy. If he likes cats and he likes you, why would you want to room with me? And don't tell me it's because I need taking care of. I've got claws too."
Jennifer's smile was bitter, but she could smile. "I'm not going to rescue you. At least not about that. On the other hand, you've got to meet Eric."
"I've sworn off men."
Jennifer could empathize. "Me too. Except now I know what I'm missing."
"Believe me, I know men."
"You know losers. They're not synonyms."
"So how come you're here with me then?" Carla demanded. "You don't just let guys like that walk away. He's a major hunk."
"Jennifer has a problem with men who don't need taking care of." Her mother peeked out from the coat closet, where she was hanging up Jennifer's scanty wardrobe. "A job is pretty much all it takes to make him ineligible."
Her mother sounded, Jennifer thought, like she thought the whole world needed to know her inadequacies.
"Mother. It's not like that."
Her mother shook her head slowly and made tisking sounds with her tongue.
"Come on out, girls," her mother invited. "I think this is as moved in as we're going to get Jennifer today. I've already checked in Carla's icebox and the catchings are slim. Let's go out to Super Scoop and I'll buy you both ice cream."
"Only if you let me pay," Jennifer said. "Eric gave me an advance yesterday. I'm rich."
With no arguments about that at least, the three women gave up unpacking Jennifer's meager belongings and headed for the ice cream parlor.
"Did I tell you I sent my resume over to tattoo.com?" Carla asked. "The girls in the Cat Rescue League think it's the coolest thing. I even got a temporary tattoo."
Jennifer stuck a spoon in her sundae, closed her eyes, and luxuriated in the rich sensation of hot fudge, whipped cream, and maraschino cherries. Life, Jennifer reflected, always looked a little better over chocolate.
Tasting Rick had been like that, Jennifer realized. Except not fattening. If only she'd had the chance to explore a little more, to learn if he really did have a tattoo and if so, where he'd hidden it.
"Earth to Jennifer." Her mother's voice cut into her private daydream. "Are you with us?"
"Uh, yeah. Carla was saying she got a temporary tattoo."
"That was five minutes ago."
"Busted." Jennifer needed to get her daydreams under control. "What were you saying?"
"I was telling your mother that they pay you a thousand dollars if they select you to model it." Carla pulled back her sleeve to show a cute lizard-dragon on her shoulder. "Do you know how many cats a thousand dollars can rescue? The girls in the Cat Rescue League want to have a special section where they'll model. Tori says she'll wear a thong and put a kitten tattoo on her butt."
"They don't think it's incredibly low-class?"
"Are you kidding? Tattoos are the coolest. Especially temporary ones."
"I think those semi-naked poses are demeaning," Jennifer said. She knew she sounded prissy. She wasn't even sure she was telling the truth. Maybe she was just hurt because neither Eric nor Rick had invited her to model.
"For a thousand dollars, you can demean me as much as you want," Carla insisted. "According to the web, Rick modeled some of the early tattoo designs himself."
"Guys are different. They don't think about people ogling their bodies." All of a sudden, Jennifer felt the need to hurry home and log onto her new computer. How had she missed hearing about those pictures of Rick? With any luck, she could find his tattoo secret without having to indulge her weaknesses.
Carla shrugged her shoulders. "Guys don't think much at all. I can't believe Rick didn't ask you to marry him when you said you were moving out."
Jennifer's mouth dropped open and she had to consciously clamp it shut. In her wildest fantasies, she hadn't imagined actually marrying Rick. Had she?
Trying to think, Jennifer stuck her spoon into her sundae glass and stirred around the soupy mess her ice cream had turned into. In melting and blending together, the sundae had lost its appeal.
"We don't have that kind of relationship," she finally told Carla. "We're just friends."
"Famous last words for people who don't make things happen," her mother observed.
"Dad would have a fit if I told him I was marrying Rick Engle."
Her mother grabbed Jennifer's arm and yanked her around. "And that's so important? We're not talking about your father's life here. We're talking about your life."
"Maybe we could talk about someone else's," Jennifer suggested.
"You just need to get Rick's attention," Carla stated authoritatively. She looked contemplative for half a second. "You could get a tattoo on your butt and then let Rick see it."
"I hate tattoos."
"You don't like the big tattoo on Rick's arm?"
Jennifer's head whirled. "He doesn't have a tattoo on his arm."
"Not now, it was temporary. But you should check out the site a little more carefully. Look for the flying dragon tattoo. That hunky arm belongs to your Rick."
"He isn't my Rick."
"That's what we're trying to fix."
"But--"
"Here's what I would do." Carla lowered her voice and leaned toward the other two women. "I'd wrap myself up in ribbons and nothing else, with a big bow across my breasts. And knock on his door in the middle of the night."
"What possible good would making an idiot out of myself that way do?" Jennifer asked.
Carla giggled. "It could get you laid."
Jennifer didn't like to think of it quite that way, but she did like to think about it. "Sex isn't our problem. Our problem is that he's a success and I'm not. It's the twenty-first century, and I'm not going to latch onto a meal train. I want a partner."
"At least you admit you want somebody," Sally said. "That's progress."
If she hadn't been making this kind of progress, maybe she could have stayed with Rick.
"So what's the deal with your New York trip with Rick?" Carla asked. "What a perfect opportunity to accidentally lose your room key. Especially after a swim or something." She looked contemplative. "You do have a thong bikini."
"I don't have a thong bikini; I wouldn't wear one even if I did, and I'm certainly not going to make myself look like a complete ditz by knocking on his door all wet and drippy. It's a bad idea and it wouldn't solve our problems."
"Trust me," Carla disagreed. "It's a very good idea. Getting laid by a hunk could solve just about any problem I have in my life. I don't think you're that different. Your only problem is, you won't do it."
With her mother listening, Jennifer didn't feel like explaining how making love with Rick had caused, rather than solved problems. Besides, the idea of knocking on Rick's door with nothing on was pretty funny. His face would turn purple.
"I'm not going to New York to have sex," Jennifer explained. "Rick, Eric, and I are meeting with the Hudson Media Group. They're--"
"You're kidding," her mother interrupted. "They produce all the soap operas. Do you think you'll meet Sophia DiGratten?" She looked suddenly worried. "I heard she just got divorced. I wouldn't let your Rick within fifty miles of that woman."
As long as Jennifer could remember, Sally had been a soap opera fan. She honestly seemed to think the characters in those shows were real people.
"Rick isn't going to act in a soap opera," she explained.
"Sophia DiGratten isn't a character, she's an actor," her mother explained. "She's so popular she got promoted to Vice President of the network.
"Oh." Jennifer tried to remember whether there'd been a DiGratten on the agenda.
***
"This could be our big break." Eric tried to whisper over the roar of the airliner's engine without much success and ended up shouting. Fortunately, the first class cabin was pretty much owned by tattoo.com.
"We don't need a big break," Rick reminded him. "Tattoo.com is self-sufficient."
Eric nodded. "Still, the publicity could be worth millions. I mean, Hudson Media is major league." He clicked on his notebook computer for a second, then passed it over the aisle to Rick. "Somebody had to leak this article to the Wall Street Journal. I know for damn sure it didn't come from our staff."
Jennifer sipped on a cup of coffee. She seemed perfectly cool and collected despite sitting only inches from Rick. Unfortunately, he couldn't say the same for himself. He was in the state of perpetual arousal he seemed to find himself in whenever Jennifer got near.
The terrible thing was, he could have switched seats with Eric. It would have been easier on him, and probably made the flight a lot more pleasant for Jennifer.
"What do you think, Jennifer?" he asked. "I'm not sure I see the connection between tattoos and soap operas."
Jennifer cleared her throat. She'd gone out on a limb in her first week of work pushing for this meeting. He wanted to know whether she'd done it out of sound business strategy, or because she wanted to go to New York.
"Eric is right about the value of the publicity," she answered. "But it's more than that. Hudson Media has tried to enter the Internet market twice and stumbled both times. They need to move forward with a non-traditional approach. You don't get more non-traditional than an e-tattoo social media empire."
That was the main reason he'd agreed to go along. Still, it pleased him that Jennifer had recognized the situation. "Here I thought you hated the Internet."
She frowned. "I do my job."
Obviously he'd managed to hurt her feelings. Damn.
"All right, so that's why Hudson Media wants to do business with us," he said. "Still, what do we get? How many soap opera fans will be running out and getting tattoos?"
"Two things," Jennifer answered. "Temporary tattoos are a big hit with women from all backgrounds. Did you know that they make up seventy-three percent of the unique visitors to tattoo.com?"
"Yeah." He didn't manage the day-to-day business, but he watched the numbers.
"They also make up ninety percent of our temporary tattoo purchases."
"Now that I didn't know." He should have looked for the female angle earlier. What else had he missed because of his mental blind spots?
"Besides, only thirty-eight percent of our revenue comes directly from tattoos. We've got to start thinking of ourselves as an entertainment and social event company. Tattoos are a part of our ‘live dangerously’ image, but they shouldn't limit what we do."
Despite himself, Rick was impressed. Over the past few months he'd started broadening the site focus. Jennifer had picked up the need in a week-and-a-half on the job. "Impressive."
"Jennifer is a quick study." Eric was always willing to defend his employees, even though, in this case, Jennifer didn't need defending. "She has a valid point about Hudson's interest," Eric added. "Besides, think what we could do with a few million dollars."
That brought up the heart of the issue. "Money doesn't come without strings. I don't want to give up control to a bunch of New Yorkers."
Jennifer laughed. "Sometimes you sound a lot like my father. He goes on about how Yankee-Easterners, as he calls them, are out to ruin the country."
Being compared to her father should have bothered him. Still, whatever you said about Tom, at least the man was a Texan. Rick grinned. "That’s only part of it. The big deal is, they're still caught up in television."
Jennifer nodded. "And we can't let them suck us into the mindset. If we do a deal, we've got to set the direction."
For a woman who had been an unsuccessful sales clerk two weeks previously, Jennifer seemed have stepped up to a high level of public relations savvy in record time. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to change her attitude toward him. Their one night of pleasure hadn't been repeated, despite Rick's not so subtle attempts at seduction every time Jennifer showed up on his doorstep to take care of the cats.
"Bottom line," Rick concluded, "We're agreed. If we can keep control, we'll look to do a deal."
"Right," Eric and Jennifer said simultaneously.
Rick looked at her. He liked this confident and smart version of Jennifer.
Rick opened his laptop. "I've updated the prototype we discussed last Friday." He didn't bother adding that the extra hours from not being able to sleep had helped. "Let's run through it one more time."
"It'll blow them away," Jennifer said after studying his work. Her voice had that throaty quality that had always riled him up. He shifted the notebook on his lap and wished he'd pulled down the meal tray.
"You've been busy," Eric commented.
"I have to earn my pay too."
The remainder of the flight passed quickly, with Jennifer and Eric making minor suggestions in market positioning, but with fundamental agreement on the strategic recommendations and artistic direction.
Still, Rick couldn't help wondering whether the positive vibes he got resulted from being on the right track, or from the gentle warmth he caught from Jennifer's body.
After the usual rough landing in LaGuardia, they headed for their hotel.
"Want to finish this up in the bar?" Rick suggested. After four hours sitting three inches from Jennifer, he wouldn't be getting to sleep any time soon.
Jennifer yawned. "We've got it down pat."
"I agree, let's call it a night," Eric said. "Bags under our eyes won't make a good impression on Sophia DiGratten."
"Who?" Rick asked.
"Sophia DiGratten. She's Hudson Media's V.P. of strategic something. They think she hung the moon. She's also their biggest star. You know, the one with the dark hair and enormous, uh--"
"I don't watch much TV"
Eric shook his head. "Sometimes you amaze me, buddy. Sophia DiGratten just happens to be the biggest thing to hit the young American male since Pamela Anderson. We're counting on you to use that male magnetism to win her over."
"Better shine your shoes and polish your smile," Rick told him. "Because my male magnetism evaporated."
***
The buzz of her alarm clock awakened Jennifer from a groggy sleep.
She reached out to smack the snooze button but the radio wasn't where it was supposed to be. Instead of popping it directly, she caromed it off the nightstand and onto the floor.
As much as the loud crash, missing the button yanked Jennifer to a slightly higher plane of awareness. This wasn't her clock radio. That meant she wasn't at home. Where was she?
A vague memory of flying from Dallas to New York popped into her conscious mind. Right. She wasn't hung over, she was suffering her normal reaction to late-night flights.
But she was in New York for a meeting. What was she doing in bed?
She reached for the clock radio, found its electric cord, and yanked the whole thing into bed with her. Seven o'clock. How had it possibly gotten so late?
Her brain still wasn't fully functional, but the shot of adrenaline got her body into action. She practically flew from the bed, splashed water on her face, turned on her shower, and started to yank off her P.J.'s.
A thump at her door stopped her. Could Rick have decided he needed to tell her something before the meeting? Maybe he was already waiting.
Leaving the water running, she opened the door and peeked out.
No Rick.
The morning newspaper lay just outside. Apparently that explained the thump.
She bent down and reached for the newspaper but couldn't quite grab it without sticking more than her arm out the door.
She glanced up and down the hallway. Nobody coming. Trying to move as quickly as Rick had when he'd been practicing his Taiwan Bo that day she hit him with the fish, she slipped outside, grabbed the newspaper, and turned--just in time to see her hotel room door close.
She was locked out.
For twenty seconds, she just stood there. This couldn't be happening. Especially after Carla had teased her about locking herself out on purpose.
She took a deep breath and fought back her momentary panic. She could deal with this. There was a house phone at the end of the hall near the elevator. She could call the lobby and get a maid up here to open her door with no one the wiser.
She headed down the hall.
The elevator dinged and she heard the door slide open. Male voices emerged.
Panic took over.
Jennifer ran down the hall and pounded on Rick's door.
***
Rick took another sip of his coffee and then clicked the last link. He'd researched Sophia DiGratten and was impressed with what she'd done for Hudson Media since she'd moved into the front office. She had a sharp mind behind those soft curves.
A frantic sounding hammering on the door broke through his concentration.
He stood, put the computer on the desk, and opened the door. "Yeah?"
"There's someone coming. Let me in." Jennifer pushed past him.
"Out for a little walk, were you? Your outfit is very New York."
Jennifer looked down as if seeing herself for the first time. She looked very attractive in her shorty pajamas. Each inhalation threatened to free her attractively full breasts from the confines of the snug black silk.
"I got the employee discount when I worked at Schilling's," she told him. "Not that it's any of your business."
"It might be slightly my business. This is my hotel room."
More than half of Jennifer's blush would have been hidden if she'd been fully dressed. He could barely resist the temptation to toss her over his shoulder and carry her to his barely used bed.
"I told you there was someone coming down the hall. I had to come in here before they saw me."
"I don't count?"
"You've already seen me naked."
"I remember."
"Wipe that silly grin off your face and call housekeeping."
"Sure. Want me to order champagne?"
"I swear, can't you men ever think about anything but sex?"
He considered, then shook his head slowly. "Guilty, I'm afraid."
"I'll make the call then." She walked over to the phone near his bed, bent over and picked it up.
Her black panties barely covered a delightfully pert bottom. Damn.
Rick unzipped his suit case and yanked out an extra T-shirt and tossed it in Jennifer's direction. Then he switched the shower to all cold and stepped in without bothering to strip off his own T-shirt and jeans.
The water carved icicles into his body. In Dallas in the summer, you could take a bath in what came out of the cold side of the sink. New York was obviously a lot closer to the North Pole.
"I'm sorry I busted in on you like this," Jennifer told him through the bathroom door. "I made an idiot out of myself and I took it out on you."
Rick found the terry robe the hotel provided, pulled it on, and stepped out of the shower stall. For the moment at least, the cold water had done its job although he wasn't sure how long that would last once he saw Jennifer.
"Did you see the shirt I tossed you?" he called.
"Uh, yeah. I put it on."
"Good." It was probably safe from him to come out of the bathroom.
Jennifer still looked good enough to eat, but he thought he could retain his sanity at least long enough to get her back to her room.
"They'll be here in a few minutes," she told him.
"I hope so, as much as they're charging us. Uh," he glanced around the room looking for something to talk about other than how absolutely appealing she looked in his T-shirt. "Do you want a cup of coffee?"
"I'm going to make us all late, aren't I?" Her words tumbled out way too fast, as if she couldn't make herself stop talking. "This could be a big deal and I'm ruining everything. I hate it when I do that. You gave me a chance and you've worked so hard on that prototype and Eric has all of the financials and I'm just running around like an idiot with no clothes on." Her chin wobbled and her face took on a look that was simultaneously blotchy and absolutely precious.
"If you cry," Rick warned her, "I'm going to kiss you. This is your last warning."
"I'm not going to cry. I'm going to spit." Still, Jennifer actually giggled. "Oh you, uh, you man."
"You'd better believe it."
"It's too bad I don't want to be your little pet. I think you'd take good care of me."
"You have no idea."
Jennifer had a real problem with this pet thing. He would have thought the success she was already having in the job would give her more confidence. It had about some things, but it hadn't helped with the idea of a relationship.
"A cup of coffee would be nice," she told him, finally answering his question.
He poured, then found a couple of slices of toast left over from the breakfast he'd ordered in an hour before.
"See if you can force these down. You need to eat."
"You're always taking care of me, aren't you?"
Rick had been around long enough to recognize a no-win situation. If he was nice to Jennifer, she thought he was treating her like a pet. Being a jerk wasn't a good situation either. Besides, caring for her pleased him.
"Sit down and eat," he ordered.
"Yes sir."
She finished the toast and downed half the coffee. "We are going to be late, aren't we?"
"Probably."
"I know. I'll take my shower and get ready here. When the maid comes, you can get my clothes from my room."
"I'm not sure--"
"If I don't get started, we'll be even later." Without waiting for an answer, Jennifer headed for his bathroom. "If you peek, I'll turn you from a rooster to a capon," she warned.
Damn.