The Elliotts: Bedrooms Not Boardrooms!

Liam silently swore. His mind had been on Saturday night and the phone call he shouldn’t have made. Pretty damned stupid of him to throw fuel on a fire he was trying to put out. “What’s up, McCann? Spit it out.”

Cade’s direct gray gaze said he wasn’t fooled by Liam’s evasion. “Okay, if you want to play it that way. You’ll have to lay your cards on the table eventually.”

“Cade—”

“I want you to be my best man when I marry Jessie next month.”

Jessie Clayton was the Charisma intern who just happened to have stunned them all with the revelation that she was Aunt Fin’s daughter—a daughter Fin had been forced to give up for adoption twenty-three years ago. Until Jessie had revealed that shocking secret, Cade had questioned her loyalties and suspected her of being a plant from another magazine.

No doubt about where Aubrey Holt’s loyalties lay. Liam rolled his shoulders, but the knot at the base of his neck didn’t ease. “I’d be honored to stand up with you, Cade. Being your best man means I get to give you one hell of a bachelor party.”

“I’m all for that. Jessie might not be. But no naked women. I have the only one I’m interested in looking at.”

“What about the rest of us?”

Cade leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees and clasping his hands. “Want to talk about her?”

Her. Cade didn’t mean Jessie. “You’re offering to give me dating advice? Last month you were asking for it.”

Cade snorted. “And some good you were.”

“Hey, I told you to go for it.”

“Well, I’m telling you the same thing. Last month I was battling the current and trying not to get sucked into the love whirlpool. Looks like you might be in the water this month. Don’t fight it, man. Let it pull you under. You’ll be glad you did.”

Love? Hell no. He’d only spent a few hours with the woman. But lust? Oh, yeah. He had a bad rash of that and it itched 24/7. “I can’t.”

“Why not?”

“She’s—” Damn. He hadn’t meant to let that slip. “Because the only problems I’m having are EPH problems. She’s been a bitch of a mistress since January, compliments of Patrick and his damned competition.”

Cade shook his head. “You’re lying through your pearly whites, pal. When you want to talk, let me know. In the meantime, see if you can clear your calendar for the weekend after this one. Jessie’s father’s throwing us an engagement party in Colorado next Saturday. I’d like you to be there. I don’t want to be the only city slicker on the ranch.”

Liam looked at the stacks of files and reports on his desk. With his workload, dropping everything and flying to Colorado sounded insane, but it might be worth it if putting some mileage between him and a certain female could get her out of his head. “I’ll be there.”

“I’m heading for the cafeteria. Coming?”

“No, I have an errand to take care of.” A fool’s errand.

Aubrey stood in front of her father’s desk, feigning calm she didn’t feel. Why had he requested this late afternoon meeting?

He kept her waiting while he scanned the blueline in front of him. Checking the magazine proof was the production manager’s job, but her father tended to spend a lot of time looking over everyone’s shoulders—especially hers. He second-guessed each decision she made, which made the rest of the staff do the same. He claimed he hadn’t gotten to the top by letting others do all the dirty work, and delegating wasn’t something he enjoyed.

Finally, she asked, “You called?”

He put the blueline aside, revealing the folded newspaper beneath it. Aubrey’s tension eased. She suspected he’d seen the photo in the society section. He should be pleased. She and Buck Parks had done exactly as he’d requested and garnered a little free publicity from not only the newspapers but a few celebrity magazines as well.

But that wasn’t an approving smile on her father’s face.

“You sat beside Liam Elliott at the dinner. What did you learn?”

She concealed a wince. Yes, Liam’s face was easily recognizable in the picture. She’d hoped her father wouldn’t notice. “Um, nothing. Buck was my date. I talked to him, not to Liam Elliott.”

In fact, she’d done her best to ignore Liam throughout the mediocre meal and the soporific speeches afterward. Her best hadn’t been good enough. She’d been hyperaware of each shift of his body. And any change in the ventilation of the stuffy banquet hall had wafted his cologne in her direction. As if that weren’t bad enough, his phone call Saturday night had only worsened her preoccupation. Warmth swept through her at the memory. She bit her lip and vowed once again to quit thinking about him.

Very slowly her father lowered the paper. “You missed your chance at lunch. You could have redeemed yourself at the gala. How many times do I have to tell you? Never let an opportunity to find out what the competition is doing slip by.”

A heavy blanket of failure settled over Aubrey’s shoulders. “Yes, sir, I understand. But Liam Elliott is tight-lipped about EPH. You couldn’t pry him open with an oyster knife. I can’t—”

“There is no such thing as can’t, Aubrey. Something is going on at EPH. Patrick Elliott runs a first-class armada.”

He extracted a page of handwritten notes from one of the neat piles on his desk. “Patrick’s son Michael has been out of the office more than he’s been in while his wife has undergone chemotherapy. Michael’s oldest son is running Pulse. Patrick’s second son, Daniel, has stepped down as editor-in-chief of Snap magazine in favor of his youngest son. Patrick’s daughter, Finola, suddenly has had a secret offspring emerge from the woodwork, and Elliott’s granddaughter—one of the twins—has taken off with a rock star and left her ex-fiancé engaged to her sister.”

He lowered the paper and focused hard eyes on Aubrey. “That’s only the news my clipping service has found in the papers. For this many ships to be adrift in Elliott’s port there must be a storm stirring the water. I want to know what kind of storm and when it’s expected to make landfall. Find out.”

Flabbergasted, Aubrey gaped at him. “I’m the VP of single copy sales not an investigative reporter.”

“I’ve given you a direct order, Aubrey. You know Liam Elliott. Use him as your inside contact.”

Use him. “I—I don’t think I can help you.”

“I didn’t ask you to think. Do it,” he commanded in an end-of-discussion tone.

My family’s in enough turmoil without throwing an affair with the enemy’s daughter into the pot. Liam’s comment echoed in Aubrey’s head. Her father’s obvious disappointment in her tempted her to throw out this tidbit to prove that she wasn’t a complete failure, but she was no Mata Hari who slept with men and then shared their secrets.

“I’ll see what I can find out.” But she wouldn’t—couldn’t—go back to the source. Advertising sales directors maintained high-level contacts within advertising agencies. She’d speak to Holt Enterprises’ sales directors and get them to pump the clients they shared with EPH. If there was anything amiss at EPH, maybe some of the advertisers had noticed. And then she’d collate that info and report back to her father. That way she wouldn’t be sharing anything Liam had told her in confidence.

Asking for the report still felt dirty, though.

Her father turned back to the proof, dismissing her without words—an all too familiar experience. Aubrey headed for her office. There were days she hated her job. This was one of them. She reached the threshold of her office and stopped in surprise. An exquisite floral arrangement in a crystal vase sat on her desk.

Roses and Asiatic lilies in the palest pink filled her office with a heavenly scent. Who would send her flowers? Other than the obligatory bouquet her father sent on her birthday, which had been months ago, she never received flowers. She hurried forward and inhaled deeply before extracting the card buried in the lush greenery. Aubrey slid a fingernail beneath the envelope’s sealed flap and extracted the card.

“The color of the flowers reminded me of your dress and their fragrance reminded me of you. Thanks again for your help with the painting. L.”

Liam. Her dress for the gala had been beaded pink silk. He remembered. Aubrey pressed a hand over her racing heart. She glanced at the bold handwriting and then scooted behind her desk and dug in her purse for the business card she had yet to throw away. The bold script was identical. He’d written this note himself rather than anonymously phone it in to a florist. Why that mattered she didn’t know.

Don’t turn this into something romantic, Aubrey. It isn’t and can’t be.

Now what? Should she e-mail Liam and thank him for the flowers? She didn’t dare do that from here where all incoming and outgoing e-mail was saved on a huge server, but she could from her personal computer at home. Maybe she should send a polite but distant thank-you note via U.S. Postal Service. Or should she call? Again, not from here and not the wisest choice since hearing Liam’s voice weakened her knees and her resolve to resist him.

Until she could make up her mind, Aubrey tucked both cards in her purse and tried to keep the telling smile off her face.

Liam Elliott had no business sending her flowers.

And she had absolutely no business being tickled pink to receive them.

Why torture yourself? Do what she said. Throw the thong out and get some sleep.