Striptease. Alison Kent

not to share that fact with all of America.”

      “All of America?” Chloe shook her head. “Sugar, you are way too optimistic. It’s a series on female entrepreneurs, remember? We’ll be lucky to show up on PBS.”

      Sydney waited for the silliness to subside. “The producers have contracted a local production company to work with the show’s host, Ann Russell. She’ll be meeting with each of us over the next few days and setting up her schedule for interviews in the office and for the at-home segments, as well. Any questions?”

      Sigh. A local production company. Yes, there was more than one. But there was only one best. And even that one had more than one cameraman. But once again only one best. And Melanie knew that when it came to gIRL-gEAR, Sydney Ford never settled for less.

      Melanie’s good-mood balloon deflated. She’d known two months ago that the man was destined to cause her grief. She just hadn’t thought the probability of working with Jacob Faulkner again would come so soon. And what had Sydney said? At-home segments?

      She rubbed her thumb over the smooth, frosted glass in her hand. “Who’s contracted to do the filming?”

      “Avatare Productions.”

      Lauren jumped to the edge of her seat. “Hey, they did my wedding video. Excellent choice, Syd. Anton and I finally watched the tape Sunday afternoon and the edits were amazing. Brought tears to my eyes, seeing it all as if it was happening again.”

      “I didn’t choose them but after witnessing the crew in action at the wedding and reception, I did suggest to the producers that they request the same cameraman who ran the show.” Sydney frowned. “I never did catch his name.”

      “Jacob Faulkner,” Melanie said, and all eyes turned her way.

       2

      SITTING BEHIND THE DESK in her black-and-white office and feeling uncharacteristically frustrated, Melanie flipped through the catalog of gift items left by the sales rep who’d stopped by the office this morning. The list of possibilities she’d jotted on her legal pad was decidedly short.

      She’d promised to get back to him within the week, but knew it wasn’t going to happen. Just like last year, her gOODIE gIRL gift line wasn’t hurting for product. What she was desperate to find was merchandise for gIZMO gIRL’s electronic stock.

      Affordable, practical and, yes, admittedly trendy items. So many of the gIRL-gEAR Web site visitors were teens with no source of income save for an allowance or baby-sitting money or, at the most, what they earned working after school for minimum wage.

      And Melanie was having the worst time pinning down workable inventory. Her target price bracket meant sales reps offered her cutesy with no substance or functional with no style. She wanted it all. Her customers, no matter their age or earnings, deserved it all. And, she admitted, the challenge of providing it was one of her favorite parts of the job.

      Not every girl was completely appearance or fashion conscious, yet plenty were—and were turned off by any design that hinted at boring practicality. And even if there was no consensus on what constituted cool, the pressure to conform was still hard to escape.

      Melanie had been lucky in that her own early ventures into geekhood had met with moderate peer acceptance. Though she’d promised her two best friends that she was just as excited as they were about cheerleading, she’d ended up blowing off too many practices and had been kicked off the squad.

      Her girlfriends had thought she was out of her mind, preferring to spend her time in the career center’s computer lab, but the guys she’d hung with thought she was cool, if a little bit weird. Most were fairly weird themselves, outcasts and loners, but smart as hell. Ambitious, too. She’d liked that about them. Liked it a lot.

      She’d enjoyed reaping the experience of their knowledge and sharing her own, as well as showing them up whenever possible—a good little feminist in the making. One as secure in her ability to write a batch file as her cheerleading buds had been in their tumbling skills.

      And she owed that confidence to her mother and her grandmother, the two women who’d raised her. They’d taught her not to believe anyone who tried to convince her that it was a man’s world, after all. Taught her that a smart woman never let on that she held the upper hand. Keeping the true balance of power under lock and key made for a much more…satisfying outcome.

      Melanie leaned back in her office chair and used the eraser end of her pencil to push her glasses back into place. Grinning solely for her own benefit, she admitted to loving the idea of leading a guy around by the…nose and having him clueless that he wasn’t in charge.

      Then she grimaced. To accomplish that feat she’d need a major personality makeover, because she didn’t have whatever that thing was that turned men into mindless mush. She was too in-your-face, and their face wasn’t where most guys wanted a woman to be.

      Swiveling her chair to the left, she studied the frosted-glass figurine that had yet to make it to the shadow box in her bedroom. For the moment, it sat on a shelf of the bookcase built into her office wall. The statuette epitomized what guys wanted.

      The stylish elegance of Sydney Ford. The sweet femininity of Lauren Neville. The uninhibited nature of Macy Webb. The curvaceous sort of earth-mother figure with which Chloe Zuniga had been blessed.

      The very same one Melanie would love to have had if genetics hadn’t predetermined she be built like a board. Well, not a board, exactly. She did have all the requisite spheres and orbs. But where Chloe was lush, Melanie was simply…spare.

      She supposed her boyish figure, her left-brain thinking and her reputation for saying what needed to be said made a perfect combination. And if a certain arrogant cameramen had a problem with a woman who knew her own mind, that was too damn bad.

      Stabbing the pencil’s eraser at the tip of her nose, she swore she would not sign any of Sydney’s release forms or contracts if Avatare honored her request and assigned the documentary shoot to that annoying Jacob Faulkner.

      Uh-uh. No way. Melanie had no desire to spend the next few weeks working in close quarters with a man who had nothing more going for him than the fact that he revved her up, making her want to take his, uh, stick shift for a spin—

      “Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to play with sharp objects? Might poke your eye out, pierce your jugular, jam it up your nose and into your brain. Stuff like that.”

      Well, well, well. Nightmares did come true. She swiveled her chair around to face the doorway, where he was standing. No, not standing. Slouching. Lazy as a slug. Gorgeous as a summer afternoon with nothing to do.

      Her chest grew tight as she struggled to breathe normally. He wore another black T-shirt today, this one more structured, designer quality, tucked into a pair of khakis that fit him even better than had the dark indigo jeans. His abs were absolutely incredible.

      Oh, but life was unfair. He had his arms crossed over his chest, his shoulder against the doorjamb, one ankle over the other and the toe of that black biker boot braced on the floor. She wanted to slam the door in his face only slightly less than she wanted to run her tongue down the center of his torso.

      “Don’t move,” she ordered, taking aim with one eye and throwing the pencil dartlike toward him. The point caught him on a downward arc and barely even grazed his chest. “Damn. I was hoping that would fly up your nose and into your brain.”

      A videotape held in one hand, Jacob bent to pick up the pencil, straightened and gave Melanie a look that was half smirk and half smile. “I wasn’t sure you credited me with having a brain.”

      Slowly, she closed the useless gift catalog. Her concentration had been shot before he showed up. Now it lay gasping on the ground. Even so. He might have been put on this earth to ruin her life, but he was not going to ruin what was left of her day.

      Now, now. It’s hardly his fault you can’t get him out of your mind. It wasn’t even his fault for having gotten under her skin,