Kitabı oku: «The Corporate Marriage Campaign»

CHAPTER ONE

THE sound of a key clicking in the lock roused Darcy just enough to make her moan and turn over, but not enough to make her aware of where she was—which was why, when Dave came through the front door a few seconds later, she was sprawled on the carpet next to the couch she’d just fallen from.

Dave stopped dead, his briefcase still swinging. “What are you doing down here?”

Darcy rubbed her neck. “Sleeping, apparently.”

“Was it too stuffy for you upstairs last night? Maybe we need to put an air conditioner in.”

“As far as I know, it’s fine. I haven’t been up there.”

Dave raised an eyebrow. “Are you nursing a hangover?”

“No, David—not unless they’ve started putting something alcoholic into tea bags.” Darcy pushed herself up into a sitting position against the front of Mrs. Cusack’s desk. It was plenty solid enough to lean against; there was no chance that the massive desk would slide out from behind her. “I finished up a dozen job applications—they’re right there, all ready to mail—and the last thing I remember, I sat down for a minute on the couch to admire the stack. I must have been more tired than I thought.”

“How late were you up?”

Darcy shrugged. “I remember noticing 3:00 a.m., but I was still making copies then so it must have been a lot later when I actually crashed.” She gave an enormous yawn and grumbled, “This isn’t fair, you know. If I’m going to wake up with the same symptoms as a hangover, I should at least have the fun of a party to remember. I’m going to bed.”

“Uh, Darcy…”

“I don’t like the sound of that, Dave.”

“Mrs. Cusack called me at home this morning. She isn’t going to be coming in today, so I wondered if you could fill in.”

“Again? I suppose her sinuses are still acting up.”

“I told her it would be all right, because you’d be here. Sorry.”

“Does it appear to you that ever since I came back to town, your secretary has gotten into the habit of calling in sick a couple of times a week? That’s not a complaint, by the way, just a comment.”

“She thinks you’re taking advantage of me, living rent free in the penthouse.”

The penthouse. It was Darcy herself who had named it that, back when Dave had bought the little cottage to house his fledgling law practice and moved into the half-finished attic in order to ease the strain on his finances. She hadn’t expected then that she’d ever be living there herself, even temporarily.

“Well, it’s not exactly the Ritz—but whatever Mrs. Cusack thinks, I appreciate having the accommodations.” Darcy shook her head, trying to clear it. “And I’m happy to lend a hand. I’ll pull myself together here in a minute, but some coffee would sure help.”

“I’ll start a pot.”

“Well, go easy on it. The battery acid you call coffee—”

“It’s guaranteed to wake you up.”

“David, your coffee would wake up a corpse. Do I have time for a shower? Not that you want me greeting clients without one, after I worked most of the night.”

Dave checked his wristwatch. “I’m not expecting anybody for an hour or so. If you like, I’ll make sure the hot water runs out before then so you won’t be walking through the waiting room wearing a towel.”

“That’s such a comfort. So generous of you to help me out.” Darcy pushed herself up from the floor and headed across the minuscule hallway to the cottage’s single bathroom. “Though the way I feel at the moment, a cold shower might be a better idea.”

She stayed under the spray as long as she dared, then wrapped her hair in a towel and slid reluctantly back into her sweats. Where was her brain, anyway, that she hadn’t run upstairs for some fresh clothes before she stripped off?

It was going to be another long day, she reflected. But with her applications finished, she really had nothing else to do but mail them and start assembling the next list of potential jobs. Staying busy with Dave’s clients and paperwork was better than having too much time to think about her own situation, anyway.

And it felt good to be able to help Dave out a bit in return for all he was doing for her right now. The penthouse might not quite match up to its grandiose name, but it was a place to sleep and store her stuff till she got herself established again. And since he’d refused to even consider charging her rent, the least she could do was pitch in around the office. Once this was over—as soon as she had a job again, and her own place, and a bank account—she’d do something really nice for Dave…

She was so absorbed in her thoughts that she had walked halfway through the waiting room toward the stairs before she realized that a man and a woman were standing in the center of the room, looking around as if they felt lost.

Had she been in the shower that long? Surely not, because Dave hadn’t been kidding about the hot water supply. So either his clients had arrived far earlier than their appointment, or this was an unexpected addition to his day. Did he even realize they were here? If they’d just walked in, and he hadn’t heard the door…

“Hi,” she said. “Can I help you?”

The man turned to face her. His raised eyebrows said that he doubted very much that she could be of any assistance at all. No surprise there, Darcy thought. In her baggy, mismatched sweats, stained with india ink and acrylic paint, with her hair piled in a makeshift turban, she no doubt looked more like the cleaning lady than the confidential secretary she was supposed to be today.

Especially in comparison to his own elegant good looks. He was made for a courtroom, she thought—tall, broad-shouldered, dark haired, with a profile that looked as if it had been chiseled by a Renaissance master and a pinstriped suit that could have been fitted by the same loving touch. He was looking down his classic nose at her, obviously waiting for her to justify her existence.

Well, it was all right with Darcy if Mr. Elegance found her unappealing. She’d had her fill of guys who were gorgeous and knew how to use their looks to advantage. Packaging wasn’t everything.

“You’ve taken us a bit off guard this morning, I’m afraid,” she said. “We weren’t expecting you.”

“I phoned right before we came over,” he said curtly.

The voice matched the rest of him, Darcy thought—deep and rich but with a hard edge.

That’s great, she thought. He must have talked to Dave while she was in the shower, and now Darcy looked like either a liar or an idiot. Where do we go from here?

She let her gaze drift from the man to his companion, and blinked in surprise. Who went out in public these days wearing a black picture hat with a heavy veil? Grieving widows? Movie stars? Someone who had no idea what a cliché she was wearing?

Even more surprising, Darcy thought, was why hadn’t she noticed that attention-grabbing hat before now. Surely it should have jumped out at her the instant she laid eyes on the couple. Not that Mr. Elegance wasn’t worth looking at all by himself—but it almost seemed as if he’d been trying to get in the way, as if he’d been deliberately trying to block her view of his feminine companion.

Dave called from the kitchen, “I’ve got it, Darcy. Just as soon as I get the coffee poured I’ll be in. Show them into my office, will you?”

Darcy took a step back and with a purposely theatrical gesture invited the couple toward the back of the house, where Dave had converted one of the cottage’s original bedrooms into his office.

If he’d been expecting clients, it wasn’t obvious—at least, the clutter looked just the same to Darcy as it had yesterday. Dave had dropped his briefcase into one of the two chairs supposedly reserved for clients, just as he usually did. Darcy fished it out and set it atop a pile of law books on the credenza, and then tried to clear off enough space on the desk so he could set down a tray.

Just yesterday, she remembered, she’d told Dave that he should rearrange the front room—currently the law library—enough to put in a desk. That would create a public office, an attractive and restful place to meet with his clients away from the disorder of his working desk. He’d told her that the clients he was most interested in didn’t mind untidiness, and Darcy hadn’t argued the point because on second thought she’d realized it would only give him another flat surface to fill with clutter.

Dave came in carrying not a tray but three foam cups, full to the brim with steaming and very black coffee. That was Dave, she thought—straightforward and without an ounce of pretension.

She wondered what Mr. Elegance thought of the service, and shot a look at him from the corner of her eye. “David, perhaps your guests would like cream and sugar?” she suggested gently.

“Trey doesn’t use it,” Dave said. “But I don’t know…” His gaze rested on the woman in the hat. He looked worried.

“Cream, please,” she said softly. “I don’t think I can drink it so hot.”

“Would you get the cream, Darcy?” Dave asked. “But first let me introduce you. This is Trey—”

“Smith,” Mr. Elegance said.

Darcy was still watching Dave, feeling bemused by the concern in his face as he looked at the mysterious lady under the picture hat, and she saw his eyes widen ever so slightly. Someone who didn’t know him well might not even have realized he was startled, but Darcy wasn’t fooled. Dave’s client was lying, and Dave knew it.

Of course, who wouldn’t be suspicious? Smith… Honestly, couldn’t the man come up with a better alias than that?

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Smith,” Darcy said dryly. “We get so many of those among our clientele, I hope you won’t mind if I have trouble keeping you straight from all the others. And Mrs. Smith, I presume?”

“Come on, Trey,” Dave said. “This is my sister Darcy. She’s helping out on short notice today because my secretary’s sick.”

Mr. Elegance—or Smith—looked Darcy over from head to toe.

She’d never felt more like a dust mop in her life. Which was a ridiculous reaction, she told herself. Just because he was beautifully attired in a hand-tailored suit didn’t give him any right to judge her costume. “Actually,” she confided, “I dress this way because it makes the criminal element among our clients feel right at home. I was going to wear my Property Of Cook County Jail jumpsuit today, but I’m afraid it’s in the laundry. If you’ll excuse me, I’ll go get the cream.”

The cream was at the back of the refrigerator, still in the big plastic supermarket jug, and of course, she couldn’t find anything to serve it in. If Dave had ever owned a cream and sugar set, she couldn’t remember seeing it, and the only alternative was yet another of the ubiquitous foam cups. And of course she couldn’t find a tray. So she put the cream jug and the sugar canister on a pizza pan, along with a couple of spoons and the last of a package of paper napkins she found crumpled in the back of a drawer.

She was just starting through the cottage toward the office when Dave called, “Darcy! Bring some ice, too!”

Ice? What next? With any luck, Darcy decided, she might manage to get upstairs to dress sometime before noon.

At least there was an ice bucket—which she supposed said something about Dave’s priorities, or perhaps those of his clients. She tipped out the receipts which had collected in the bucket onto the kitchen counter, rinsed it out and froze her fingers dipping cubes from the ice maker.

“Isn’t it a little early for cocktails?” she asked as she backed into the office.

Then she saw why Dave had wanted ice, and she almost dropped the pizza pan.

The mysterious woman in the picture hat was mysterious no longer. At least, she wasn’t hiding her identity anymore, though Darcy would bet there was quite a story behind the blackened eye, the bruised jaw, and the angry-looking cut on her upper lip. No wonder the woman had said she couldn’t drink her coffee hot.

Darcy set the pizza pan atop Dave’s desk, pushed the cream and sugar off the dish towel she’d used to cover up the discolored surface of the pan, dumped the ice into the towel, and held it out to the blonde. “Car accident?” she said. “Or—something else?”

“Something else,” the blonde said. “Thanks.” She cradled the towel against her cheek.

Mr. Elegance held out a hand. “I’m Trey Kent,” he said gruffly. “This is my sister Caroline. Dave assures me you’re able to keep a secret—and now you know why I was concerned about that.”

“Yes,” Darcy said. “If I can help in any way—”

“That’s what we’re here to discuss with Dave,” Trey said.

Dismissed. Darcy felt like saluting.

They were still behind closed doors when she came back downstairs a few minutes later, dressed in heather tweed slacks and a short-sleeved sweater. She was leaning over Mrs. Cusack’s desk, reviewing the day’s calendar, when she heard the doorknob of Dave’s office give its characteristic groan, and she pushed the calendar aside and hurried toward the kitchen to make another pot of coffee.

Not, she told herself, to avoid coming face to face with Mr. Elegance again. She couldn’t possibly care less what he thought about her.

The telltale loose board in the hallway creaked, and a moment later Trey Kent was standing in the kitchen doorway, the sopping-wet towel in his hand. He was holding it gingerly, as if afraid it would drip on his perfectly creased trousers. “I think we’re finished with this, Ms. Malone.”

Darcy took the towel, wrung it out, and hung it over the faucet. “I hope it helped.”

“You were very kind.”

She waited for him to go back to Dave’s office, but instead he leaned against the front of the cabinets and folded his arms across his chest. “My sister’s wedding is scheduled for the middle of December.”

And why are you telling me about it? “Really? Now that just goes to show why Dave’s the lawyer and I’m the part-time secretary, because I’d have guessed she was here for a restraining order, not a prenuptial contract. Unless of course it wasn’t the fiancé who did this to her.”

“It was. And she won’t be marrying him.”

“Well, that’s good news. Most battered women are so off balance about the whole thing that they blame themselves for getting beaten—and they don’t even consider filing charges.”

“Can you blame them? Taking the whole thing to court is complicated, inconvenient, unpleasant and time-consuming.”

Darcy looked at him thoughtfully. “Don’t forget embarrassing,” she said coolly. “Especially for the family.”

“Not to mention risky for the victim who stands up against an abuser.”

“So is that why she’s talking to Dave instead of the district attorney—because you’d rather handle it all quietly?”

“Not quite. We have an appointment with the district attorney later this morning, but I brought Caroline to see Dave first so he could tell her why it’s absolutely necessary she not back down and let Corbin go free to do it again to someone else. But I’m sure you don’t need the legal process explained to you.”

Darcy bit her lip. “Oh. I thought—”

“It was quite clear what you thought, Ms. Malone. In the meantime, however, this whole thing has left us with a problem.”

“Us?” Darcy asked. “I assume you’re speaking generically, because I don’t feel that this is exactly a personal difficulty for me.”

“A problem for Caroline and for me. And for the Kentwells chain.”

Darcy snapped her fingers. “Of course. Kentwells—the department store group. No wonder your name sounded familiar. Trey Kent…let me think. You’re not actually named Trey, are you? You’re Something, Something Kent the Third—that’s where they got the Trey.”

“It’s better than being called Junior as my father sometimes was.”

“No contest there. So what is your name, really?”

“Andrew Patrick Kent.” He added, sounding reluctant, “The Third.”

“All those nice first names and you don’t use a single one of them. Such a shame.”

“Has your brother ever told you you’re impertinent?”

“Frequently. But since I’m not officially working for him, he can’t fire me, you see.”

“He said you’re not working at all right now.”

“On the contrary.” Darcy reached for a mug. “I’m working very hard to get a full-time job. In fact, one of the applications in the stack on the desk, waiting for the mailman to pick it up, is addressed to the head of marketing at the Kentwells stores. I put my best samples in it. Of course, I put my best samples in all the packages I send out.”

“Marketing,” he said thoughtfully. “Dave said you’re trained as a graphic artist.”

“You know, it sounds to me as if Dave was doing more talking about me than about his client. That’s not like Dave.”

His gaze flickered. “I asked him about you.”

“Really? I don’t suppose you’d care to tell me why you wanted to know?”

“I might be able to pull some strings for you.”

“Why would you want to?” Darcy asked bluntly. “Why would it even occur to you? The impression I made this morning can’t have been anything to make you want to help me out. Or do you mean Dave asked you to give me a hand?”

He didn’t answer. “You have a certain potential.”

“Oh, I get it. You’ll find me a job with your competitors so I can create chaos for them. Or are you just interested in getting me out of here so I can’t gossip about Caroline’s problems? Of course it’s a little late to prevent me from talking about what happened this morning, if I wanted to. Not that I would, because I can keep a secret.”

“Dave assures me you’re the soul of discretion.” His voice was dry.

“But you don’t believe him, so you want to cut a private deal to keep me from blowing my mouth off.”

He didn’t answer. “I’d like to tell you about my problem, Ms. Malone. Or may I call you Darcy?”

“I guess I can’t stop you from calling me whatever you want. But before you tell me all the gory details about Caroline, you should know I don’t counsel battered women or the guys who beat them up.”

“I have no intention of telling you the details, gory or otherwise, about Caroline.”

“Then what on earth can I do for you, Trey?”

He seemed to flinch at the name. Darcy had expected he would, and that was exactly why she’d used it.

“I started to tell you earlier,” he pointed out. “If I might finish my explanation?”

Darcy handed him a mug of coffee. “Sure. I’ve got nothing to do but listen.”

“When Caroline first set her wedding date, the stores’ advertising department decided to take advantage of the fact. What they came up with is a sort of hybrid of royal wedding and advertising blitz.”

“Interesting combination.”

“They’ve planned a three-month-long program of print and media ads showing the bride and groom choosing everything for their wedding and their new home.”

“From an engagement ring to a lawnmower,” Darcy murmured.

“I don’t think they thought of the lawnmower.”

“Then your advertising department is obviously in need of some fresh blood.”

He winced.

“Sorry,” Darcy murmured. “I guess that’s probably not a good image right now, considering Caroline’s bruises and that scab on her lip.”

“At any rate, the ad space and time have already been scheduled, the merchandise which will be featured has all been selected, and the photographers are booked to take the pictures. In fact, they started two days ago.”

“I begin to see the dimensions of the problem,” Darcy murmured. “You’ve got all the pieces of a campaign and now the stars have winked out on you.”

“That’s about the size of it.”

Darcy sipped her coffee. “I don’t suppose you could be lucky enough that the fight between Caroline and her fiancé was over another man? Then you could just blot out the current guy from the photos and substitute the head of the new one.”

“No,” he said. “We’ll have to start over.”

“Of course you’ll have Caroline’s split lip to contend with—though I suppose you could photograph her only in profile, until she heals…”

“Are you always this irreverent?”

“Generally, yes,” Darcy admitted. “Though perhaps I should point out that it isn’t my intention to be disrespectful to Caroline and the trouble she’s having.” Only to you. Why are you telling me all this, anyway—Mr. Smith who wanted so badly to be anonymous?

“Dave suggested we use someone else.”

“You know,” Darcy murmured, “I’m always amazed when it’s the expensive attorney who comes up with the obvious answer and thinks it’s brand-new and original.”

“Yes, I’d already considered the possibility of making a switch. The question, of course, is who to use instead.”

Darcy shrugged. “Doesn’t the store have a bridal registry? You could call up the couples who are already listed and ask if they’d like some free stuff in return for using their pictures.”

“Those people are already well into the process. They’ve made most of their decisions already. The whole point of the campaign is the excitement when a bride and groom look at all the options the store makes available to them.”

“And then they’re going to choose exactly the merchandise you’ve already decided to feature? Sorry, I suppose I’m being irreverent again.”

“Plus we need to start shooting again tomorrow—we’re already well behind schedule—and that doesn’t leave time to do background checks on the people who are already listed in the bridal registry.”

“Investigate them? Whatever for?”

“Considering why I’m here this morning, I’m surprised you have to ask. We narrowly escaped putting a batterer into a prominent spot in our advertising. I’d hate to find out after the fact that we chose a bigamist or a sex offender instead.”

“You’re just about as big a cynic as Dave is. Okay, how about Dave?”

“Dave?”

“Salt of the earth. He wouldn’t exactly be royal wedding material, but the ads would have the advantage of looking like real people.”

“Real people?”

“Yes. Pardon me for saying it, but I think the average customer of your department store is likely to have a little trouble picturing herself in Caroline’s size three bikini. Your sister’s gorgeous—or she would be without the bruises. But she looks like a model. Whereas if you had a normal-size, normal-looking bride and groom—”

“Someone like Dave.”

“Sure. Why not ask him how he feels about it?”

“I did. He said he was more accustomed to dealing with mopping up the other end of a marriage.”

“How long have you known him, anyway? Surely it doesn’t surprise you that he’s a bit jaded after all the divorces he’s handled. Maybe he just needs a little encouragement to settle down. Give him a nice gift package, a little publicity for the law practice…”

“He also said he wasn’t dating anyone.”

“Now, that’s malarkey. He’s always dating someone. The current girlfriend called here last night, as a matter of fact. Which reminds me—I forgot to tell him that Ginger phoned.”

“Yes,” Trey said dryly. “I see now why you said you’re good at keeping a secret.”

Darcy made a face at him. “The point is, if he told you he wasn’t dating anyone, he was pulling your leg.”

“You didn’t let me finish. Actually, what he said was that he wasn’t dating anyone he would consider for an instant in connection with the word ‘bride.”’

Darcy blinked in surprise. “Now that makes me feel a little crazy. He harped at me all the way through college about how I should never even go out for a slice of pizza with a guy I wouldn’t consider marrying. Now he’s dating someone he himself thinks is inappropriate—”

“I thought you said you’d talked to her. She must not be so bad if you think she’s all right.”

“Well, I’ve only been back in town for a week, so I haven’t actually met her. Now I can’t wait to see what he means.”

He shifted restlessly against the cabinets. “If we could stay on topic, Darcy.”

“Oh. Sure. Well, if you can’t find a bride and groom, you could always turn the whole thing into a public service campaign to promote awareness of domestic violence.” Belatedly, Darcy remembered the picture hat, the veil, the alias. “Though I guess Caroline wouldn’t want to go quite that public, right?”

“There would also be a little matter of slander if her ex-fiancé’s name came into it.”

“Technically, slander doesn’t apply—not if you’re telling the truth. At least, I think that’s the case, but maybe you should ask Dave about slander and libel.”

“I don’t need to. After the trial is over, Caroline can be the poster child for battered women if she chooses—but in the meantime, I still have a problem.”

“Well, Dave’s very resourceful. I’m sure he’ll think of something.”

“He has thought of something. Me.”

Darcy wondered why that particular solution hadn’t occurred to her. Not because she’d assumed someone like Trey Kent was already taken, because that possibility hadn’t even crossed her mind. There was an air of independence around him which said that no woman—other than perhaps Caroline—had a say in what he did. But it was odd how she’d known that without even stopping to think about it.

“Well, it’s not exactly a unique solution,” Darcy mused, “but it works. Marry off the prince instead of the princess. After all, one royal wedding is pretty much like another. And for the good of the store, surely a little thing like getting married probably wouldn’t be any big deal to you at all. Problem solved. More coffee?”

“I have no intention of getting married.”

“Oh? What have you got against marriage?”

“Nothing in particular. I just wasn’t planning to walk down the aisle anytime soon.”

“So you’re just going to play the part? If that’s all it takes, then why not hire actors?”

“You said yourself it would be much more believable if the models were real people.”

“Well, yes, it would. But isn’t it a little shady to pretend?”

“Who does it hurt?” Trey asked coolly. “The only difference is that on the last page, the happy couple will ride off into the sunset separately instead of together.”

“You’ll keep up the fiction all the way?”

“Right up to the end of the campaign—and then cut, stop the action. It won’t matter to the customer who’s looked at the ads. She’s already had her thrills along the way.”

“I don’t know,” Darcy said doubtfully. “Customers can be funny that way.”

“Look, it’s no different than if Caroline and Corbin had made it all the way through the ad series and then he hit her the night before the wedding.”

“Except that you’re planning the exit before the engagement ever gets off the ground. Of course, if you’re going to be convincing to all your customers, you’ll have to play it very close to your chest right up till the moment when you don’t go through with the wedding. And that could be a problem.”

“Interesting that you think so. Tell me why.”

“Because if you’re acting as if you’re serious in public, the woman you choose as your supposed bride might get the idea that you really are. Serious, I mean—no matter what you tell her in private.”

Trey nodded. “That’s exactly what I was thinking. In fact, Dave pointed out that it could end up in something like a breach-of-promise case.”

“He would say that. Skittish guys all think alike.”

He lifted an eyebrow at her. “Skittish guys? You saw the problem just as quickly as Dave or I did.”

He’d caught her on that one. Darcy shrugged. “So I guess that makes me a skittish girl.”

“And that’s why…” He raised his cup and sipped. The silence drew out.

Darcy felt her breath catch and wondered why she was feeling so anxious. All this had nothing to do with her. Or did it?

“That’s why,” Trey said very softly, “Dave suggested that my supposed bride be…you.”