Brief Encounters. Suzanne Forster

“Cute doesn’t begin to describe this guy. He’s sex on the cloven hoof, sent from the hottest region of hell to torment me.”

      “Wow, that good?”

      “Dark hair, blue eyes, the longest legs I’ve ever seen.” Including the third one. “Just my type.”

      “I didn’t know you had a type.”

      “I didn’t, either.” Swan sighed, perfectly aware that she would never see the man again. Lynne would have gotten his business card and his bank balance before she let him go. Probably a saliva sample, as well.

      “Well, it sounds like you’re having fun, you vixen. How’s the model search going otherwise?”

      “I still haven’t found anyone who can dance and unbutton his fly at the same time. I never realized what an art form that was. We should have called the modeling agency instead of letting Gerard recruit his friends.”

      “Well, then call the modeling agency.”

      “And how do you suggest we pay them?”

      “With the check you’re picking up tomorrow!”

      That prompted Swan’s second sigh of relief. Of course, they had money now. Maybe they could even afford to pay Gerard’s back wages. Oh, happy day. Now all she needed was for Lynne to come back safely and the show could go on.

      “Gotta go,” Lynne said. “Something’s moving and it isn’t me.”

      “Be careful!” Swan pleaded, but her partner had already hung up. And with the sound of Lynne’s voice went Swan’s elation. Somehow Swan was going to have to get through the launch party tomorrow night and probably the L.A. show on her own. The odds of Lynne getting back for either seemed slim. But Swan wasn’t alone. She had her indispensable Gerard—and some emergency funding to ease the pain.

      Thanks to Art Long, she thought. Lynne had been dating him for a couple of months now, and Art was the one who’d suggested they use the villa as collateral for a business loan. Lynne’s mom and stepdad had retired and moved to the Florida Keys, leaving her the charming, three-story mansion. Unfortunately, Lynne could barely afford the taxes, and her mother’s one condition was that she cover all costs in maintaining the house.

      Swan had moved in last year to help defray expenses and they’d converted the villa’s first floor into their design center and offices. But they were still running short every month. Then La Bomba, a trendy west-coast clothing chain, offered to show Brief Encounters’s wares exclusively and to promote them with a fashion show tour. It looked as if the struggle was over. But only in the long term. In the short term, their manufacturing costs had soared and they had yet to recoup any of the money. If the shows didn’t generate strong sales…

      Well, Swan wasn’t going to think about that.

      Art had pushed the paperwork through in record time, and now it seemed he was willing to participate in a bit of forgery, as well. Lynne had her ways, but Swan wasn’t sure she wanted to know how Lynne had managed to wrap a banker around her little finger.

      Swan’s crisis seemed to be over, so she quickly finished. Washing her hands, she glanced at herself in the oval mirror above the marble sink, but did not like what she saw. She looked exactly like what she was: a thirty-year-old woman who’d had to sacrifice most of her “me” time to keep a business afloat. Her aquamarine eyes were her best feature, but even their rather exotic almond shape couldn’t stop them from looking stressed and weary.

      Tired of fighting with her long auburn hair, she’d gone after it with a claw clip and it was now back where it belonged, sitting on top of her head. She was grateful for its rich luster, but she probably could have used a stylist—a few highlights wouldn’t have hurt, either. Still, all the sacrifices had been worth it, especially now. She’d come a long way since she and Lynne had joined forces. They both had.

      They’d grown up together, though under very different circumstances. Swan’s mother, Pat, had worked for Lynne’s mother as a housekeeper, but they were both single moms and had many things in common, which was probably why their working relationship had developed into a lasting friendship. Eventually Lynne’s mother, Felice, had remarried, but she and Pat had remained close. Pat still worked as a housekeeper for another very wealthy family. Her duties now mostly involved supervising the household staff. Whenever she could, she traveled to Florida to visit Felice.

      Swan owed much to her mother. It was Pat who had taught her to sew and to piece whole outfits together from whatever material was available. Swan took to it quickly, once fashioning slacks and a blazer from a corduroy bedspread. But her mother was also a cautious and fearful soul who believed that dreams were dangerous and pursuing them even more so. She’d never wanted Swan to do anything but follow safely in her footsteps. “It’s steady work,” she liked to say. “You’ll never go hungry or lack for a roof over your head.”

      Maybe that was another reason Swan felt the need to prove herself. Her doting mom was waiting for her to fail.

      Swan felt as if she were carrying Brief Encounters squarely on her shoulders right now, and everything she and Lynne had was at stake. It wasn’t just their business, it was this house, too….

      But if she didn’t stop thinking like that, she would never get out of the loo.

      She peeked up and down the hallway before letting herself out of the bathroom. Somewhere loose in this building was a dangerously attractive telephone repairman with a twitch, and she did not want to run into him again.

      SWAN HAD ALWAYS FOUND banks a bit stifling, but this morning was different. She was absolutely thrilled to be at the Manhattan Beach branch of First National Heritage. Her pulse was alive with excitement as she walked into the heart of the brick-and-marble building and looked around for the man she needed. Now, where was Arthur Long?

      She searched for a tall, lanky man with a heavily jelled crew cut and round Harry-Potter-like glasses. Swan didn’t know a whole lot about Art, except that he was a loan officer at First National and Lynne was quite taken with him. Art was cute in a bankish way, and he had a habit of looking you straight in the eyes and clasping your hand the way a minister would. Unfortunately, he reminded her more of a salesman than a minister. He talked fast and breathy, and he liked to slip your name into the conversation as often as possible, as if to cement the fact that you were friends, darnit.

      There he was, coming out of one of the bank’s offices. She waved and managed to catch his eye. He headed her way, all horn-rimmed spectacles and big wide smile. Probably a perfectly nice guy, she thought, wondering why she wasn’t lucky enough to be attracted to one of the nice guys of the world. Her first—and last—romantic disaster had been a limo driver, a bad boy down to his muscle-man T-shirts and unfiltered cigarettes. And now she was losing her mind over a telephone repairman who was too sexy for his tool kit?

      She could feel the heat rising all over again as she thought about what she’d done to him. What she didn’t understand was why she couldn’t get him out of her head. She’d even dreamed about him last night, and of course what had she done in the dream but give in to her crazy impulse and touch him. The entire vibrating length of him. What happened after that was the stuff of X-rated videos. It could probably have gotten them arrested in some states.

      “Right this way,” Art said, seemingly unaware of his client’s rocketing blood pressure as he guided her into his office. “Have a seat and we’ll have this taken care of in a couple of minutes.”

      Swan managed to sit in an overstuffed leather chair and return Art’s smile without giving away her breathy, over-heated condition. She forced herself to take in her surroundings. The size of the room and the quality of the decor were impressive. The desk looked as though it might be mahogany, and there was a matching credenza against the wall. Apparently Art was doing well. She was glad someone was. Was that gleam of gold on his wrist a Rolex watch?

      “I can’t tell you how much Lynne and I appreciate this,” she assured Art. “I just wish she could be here.”

      His