The Bachelorette

“Never on a diet, eh? How refreshing,” Adam replied brightly. “So I can take you someplace tomorrow where they serve real food, instead of rabbit feed?” he persisted. “I know just the place. How about Crystal’s?”

Crystal’s? That was the most exclusive restaurant in Youngsville, Indiana. She’d never been there, but had heard one needed to wait a month for a reservation. Of course, not if you were a regular, as Adam Richards no doubt was.

“I’ve heard it’s lovely. Thanks for the invitation…but I don’t think I can have lunch with you,” Meredith stammered. She rose from her seat and hurriedly gathered her pad and coffee.

“Oh, why not? I think we can get a lot done over lunch,” Adam persisted. He rose, as well, and stood in front of her, blocking her escape route from the small room. He stood so close that when she looked up to answer him, she had to tilt her head back.

“Yes, I’m sure we’d get work done,” she said diplomatically, remembering that he was, after all, an important client. “But I believe I’ll be in a meeting that will be going on all afternoon.”

That was a lie. There was no meeting. But she didn’t know what else to say.

“How about Wednesday, then? Do you have a meeting on Wednesday?” he asked. His voice was soft, with a faint note of amusement, she thought. He had guessed she was lying to him. Still, she couldn’t understand why he was so insistent about taking her out to lunch.

“I…I have to check. I’m not sure.” Meredith hugged her sketchbook to her chest and decided to charge for the door. “I’ll call your office and let you know.”

“All right.” He nodded and smiled slightly, trying to suppress a huge grin, she guessed. He was laughing at her. Finding it terribly amusing that a woman would be so flustered by a simple invitation to lunch. She felt silly…but couldn’t help it.

She looked down, avoiding his gaze as she moved toward the doorway. She just wanted to leave, to get away from him and be alone. But then she did something even more stupid. In her rush to flee she spilled coffee on herself. She felt the warm liquid seep through her smock and sweater. She looked down and saw what had happened.

“Oh…darn,” she muttered aloud. She dropped her pad to the floor and placed the leaky cup on the table. With her arms sticking out on either side, she looked down to survey the damage. Her gray smock was dripping with coffee, a huge stain spreading on one side. She couldn’t bear to see what had happened to her pale sweater and skirt.

“Here, let me get that for you,” Adam said as he quickly bent to retrieve her pad. “I’m so sorry…did I bump into you or something?” he asked with genuine concern.

“No…not at all. I manage to create these little disasters all on my own,” Meredith explained. She still stood with her arms at her side, coffee now dripping from her smock to the floor.

“But I was standing in your way. You couldn’t get by,” he said, making an excuse for her. “Can I help you get that off?” Adam asked politely.

“Uh, no…I can manage, thanks.”

The moment of truth had arrived. She had to take the smock off, it was dripping on her shoes.

She carefully undid the snaps, then slipped it off her shoulders and rolled it in a ball to contain the wet spot. Her sweater, still damp from her soaking in the rain, clung to her like a second skin. It now had an ugly brown stain covering a large portion of the pale fabric. A hopeless kind of stain that would probably never come out, she guessed.

“Oh, well. Guess I need to go find another smock,” she said, trying to sound offhand about the fumble.

She looked up at Adam and saw a strange light in his eyes. A totally masculine glow that scared her to death. He hadn’t been staring at the coffee stain all this time…but studying her figure. She was sure of it. She was just as sure that he’d never expected that beneath her baggy gray camouflage there was anything worth looking at.

She thought she had long ago outgrown self-consciousness about her hourglass proportions. At that moment, however, it didn’t seem so. At least he didn’t ogle her, but quickly looked away, his expression once again returning to a friendly smile.

“Well…here’s your pad.” Now it was his turn to seem self-conscious and momentarily off balance as he handed her the sketchpad. “And take my card,” he added, handing her a business card. “On second thought, I’ll have my secretary call you later to set up another appointment.”

“That sounds fine,” Meredith said, backing toward the door. She held the sketchpad to her chest, though it offered little coverage. His secretary. Good. She wouldn’t have to make excuses to him. It would be even easier that way.

“Well, so long, Meredith. Thanks for your help,” he said as she left the room. “I look forward to seeing the stickpin.”

“I’ll have it made up for you soon, Mr. Richards…. And, you’re very welcome,” she added, remembering her manners. She also remembered that she was supposed to call him by his first name. But she didn’t want to. She needed to put some distance between them now, to put things back on a more businesslike level. She had finally reached the door and quickly turned and opened it.

“Goodbye, now,” she called over her shoulder as she left him.

“Goodbye, Meredith,” he returned. “See you soon.”

His soft, deep voice did not sound businesslike, or impersonal at all, she noticed as she raced away toward the elevator.

Two

Feeling totally rattled, Meredith hurried down the hall to her office, grabbed a clean smock from the closet and gathered up the sketches that were still spread across her drawing table. It was five to eleven and she had no time to review the drawings any further. At least she wouldn’t be late for the meeting, she thought as she dashed out of her office and headed for the large conference room at the end of the corridor.

Despite her unsettling interview with Adam Richards, Meredith managed to collect herself enough to give her presentation. As she took her seat, she could not recall a word she had said. It had all gone by in a nervous blur. Her friends, Sylvie and Lila, who both worked in the marketing department, were present and kept shooting Meredith encouraging smiles. She was sure they’d each drop by her office later to review her performance.

Judging from the reactions of the rest of her colleagues—especially the pleased expression on her supervisor’s face—Meredith knew she must have done well. Even the crankiest sales manager seemed excited by the new line. Meredith listened to the comments and noted the various suggestions made, all the while quietly swelling with pride.

Buoyed by her success, she returned to her office and ate lunch at her desk as she worked through the afternoon. The embarrassing moment with Adam Richards didn’t seem nearly as awful now. Meredith could practically laugh at herself…if it wasn’t for the ruined sweater.

Meredith had just finished her lunch when Lila called. Lila said she thought Meredith had done a terrific job at the meeting and that she absolutely loved the new designs.

“Nick was very impressed,” she added, mentioning her boss, who was the Vice President of Overseas Marketing and also happened to be Lila’s fiancé. “I hope the company puts them into production soon,” she added. “I’d love to have a set of the bands in time for our wedding.”

Lila and Nick hadn’t set a wedding date yet, but Meredith knew that they were so crazy about each other, it was going to be a very short engagement.

“Don’t worry, Lila. I can always make a set for you,” Meredith promised, “even if the company decides not to use the collection.”

Or, if Marcus Grey succeeds in buying out Colette and shutting us down, she nearly added. But she didn’t want to voice the gloomy possibilities, especially on such an upbeat day.

After she finished her call with Lila, Meredith realized that she’d never received a call from Adam’s secretary. She was surprised. He’d seemed so adamant about pinning her down for another appointment. His business card sat on her drawing table, tucked under a clip. She glanced at it but didn’t even dare think of calling his office. Perhaps he was the type of guy who seemed all excited at the moment about something…then, minutes later, was on to something else.

Oh, well, so much the better. Maybe he’d forget all about his custom-designed trinkets and decide to give out monogrammed umbrellas or tote bags. Maybe she’d never hear from him again.

The idea should have been heartening, but somehow didn’t sit well with her. Then Meredith’s musings were interrupted by a knock on her partially opened door.

Meredith turned in her seat to see Sylvie in the doorway. Sylvie usually visited her at work at least once a day, to chat and catch up. They also saw each other at home, since Sylvie was Meredith’s neighbor.

After they met, they realized they had many things in common. Though they both had a tendency to be loners, over recent months they’d become close friends. Like Meredith, Sylvie rarely dated and also looked back on her upbringing with mixed emotions. But, Meredith often reflected, unlike Sylvie, at least she’d been raised by two parents who loved her. Even if they didn’t love each other. Orphaned as an infant, Sylvie had no family and had been raised in foster homes. She’d left the system when she was eighteen and eventually came to work for Colette, Inc., where she was presently the assistant director of marketing. While such a childhood would have made many people bitter, Sylvie was just the opposite. Her bright, warm, upbeat personality easily won her friends and cheered everyone who knew her. She looked upon the company as her family, and it seemed that her co-workers loved her in the same way.

Everybody loved Sylvie…and loved to confide in her. Sylvie just had a way of finding out the juiciest company gossip. As Sylvie took a seat, Meredith was sure her friend had come to deliver the news about the takeover.

“You really wowed them this morning. Marianne already called a meeting about the ad campaign,” Sylvie reported, mentioning one of the marketing managers. “A full-page ad in a leading bridal magazine, for starters.”

Meredith usually met such news calmly, but even she was excited to hear that her designs were so successful. “Really? I didn’t even start the samples yet,” she mused aloud.

“Sounds like you’d better. What are you working on now?”

Sylvie peered over Meredith’s shoulder at the stickpin Meredith had designed for Adam Richards. Meredith had worked on it most of the afternoon and it was almost done. She felt the urge to confide totally in Sylvie about her meeting with the handsome, seemingly single, self-made millionaire, but suddenly stopped herself. She didn’t want to talk about him. Not even to Sylvie. She felt a giant lump in her throat even thinking about him. She was acting like a teenager.

She pushed the stickpin aside and turned back to her friend. “It’s nothing. Just a sample I need to put together for a client. Any news about the takeover?” she asked, hoping to change the subject.

“No really big news.” Sylvie shrugged and pushed back a lock of her shiny black hair. Meredith had often noticed her friend’s beautiful hair, a perfect match to Sylvie’s warm-brown eyes. “I think Grey has picked up a few more shares of stock, but he still has a way to go before he holds fifty-one percent.” Sylvie’s eyes darkened as she spoke about the company’s adversary and Meredith could practically feel her friend’s righteous indignation. “The word is that once he gains control of the company, he plans to destroy it. He just wants to see Colette wiped out. Nobody really knows why. Somebody has to stop that guy.”

“Yes, of course,” Meredith agreed with a sigh. “But who? It would have to be someone with an awful lot of money…or someone who could cause Grey to have a change of heart.”