It’s In His Kiss. Eve Devon

move, but then slowly he turned his head to look back at the banners.

      ‘Try to think about it from a female’s perspective,’ she urged. ‘And then think about all the other designer labels out there who sell lingerie.’

      ‘Okay,’ Luke conceded. ‘Maybe they don’t stand out as much as some of the big names, but those big names have a budget a quadrillion times larger than yours.’

      ‘You’re right about budget and I’m not looking to compete in that way yet, but tell me you don’t see that I could have made more of an impact with these banners.’

      Luke frowned. ‘When the live models come down the catwalk–’

      ‘That’ll help, sure,’ she said, cutting him off. ‘But the guest list Nora helped me come up with would make London Fashion Week weep with jealousy and I need every single guest to be wowed from the moment they walk in.’

      ‘So where does sex come into play?’ Luke asked and Sephy tried not to blow her second chance by getting caught up in a game of how many times she could get him to say ‘sex’ and survive it.

      ‘You have to understand that achieving sales starts way before a buyer even gets their hands on the product. It starts with selling an experience. The most effective way to do that is to either tap into the lifestyle they already live and make the buyer associate your product with it, or, provide a snapshot of a lifestyle they want to aspire to. A lifestyle that they’ll fantasise about so much that they’ll buy my lingerie to get a step closer to it.’

      Luke let out a low whistle. ‘You know, any lack of confidence you had about your ability to understand business and marketing is a crock. You have this stuff nailed.’

      Sephy felt his quiet compliment warm her through. ‘Um, thank you.’

      Luke shrugged like he was simply speaking the truth and cocked his head to the banners again. ‘So what is it you want these banners to sell to the women seeing them?’

      ‘Yeah, so, um…sex.’

      ‘O-kay.’

      ‘That’s putting it too basically.’ How could she explain that last night when she had seen him holding her bra it was as if the bra was saying ‘You want to buy me so that a guy with hands like the one holding me can take me off you,’ without, you know, having to actually say that to him?

      ‘Sex can be basic all the way through to advanced,’ Luke said drily, ‘I’m pretty sure I understand all the levels.’

      Sephy’s stomach bounced up to meet her heart. ‘I know you do. I mean,’ she licked her lips and went for broke. ‘I can see that you could sell … that experience. That’s why, and here comes the left-field part, I really need you to be in these shots with the models.’

      Silence while Luke’s eyes sought out, and then searched, hers.

      Then, finally, ‘Look, I’m flattered that you feel that these,’ Luke held out his hands, ‘and this,’ he said, pointing to his upper body, ‘fit the bill, but this isn’t something you fix on the cheap. You need to hire a professional male model.’

      Sephy winced. ‘I don’t have the money to do that.’

      ‘I’ll give you the money.’

      Damn it, she didn’t want him to think this was some long-winded game of getting him to help her out with money. If she hadn’t accepted any from her brother or sister, there was absolutely, positively, no way, she was going to take it from Luke.

      ‘I don’t want your money, I want you.’

      Luke’s square jaw went into granite mode and Sephy decided that what would help is if she quit saying she wanted him like that. It would definitely help her, because maybe deep, deep, deepest-down she could acknowledge wanting Luke, but she was never going to bring that up to a level where Luke gained first-hand knowledge of how rubbish she was at romantic entanglements. She valued the relationship they had too much.

      ‘All you’d need to do,’ she said, aiming for a no-big-deal tone as she steered determinedly away from a suggestion of ‘them’, ‘is stand behind the model and maybe put your hands on her hips, or something.’

      ‘You really think me simply standing shirtless with my hands on her body is going to sex up your lingerie shoot?’

      Sephy swallowed. ‘Yes.’

      Luke looked at her like she had lost it. Was it possible he spent so much time on his computer as creative director of his Zombie Freedom Fighter games that he had forgotten what he looked like?

      ‘Please don’t be insulted or freaked out,’ she begged. ‘Please, just think about it. I really don’t have time to source a professional model and Nora has a photographer lined up who will do the work ASAP at cost, to add to their portfolio of work.’

      Sephy could feel herself coming very close to batting her eyelashes or laying a hand on his and letting it linger, but she would absolutely not use her femininity to get this from him.

      ‘I can give you the money you need to sort this problem,’ Luke said slowly. ‘I can loan you the money if it makes you feel better, but get my kit off, put my hands on these models and sell a sexier image of your lingerie? No.’

      ‘Why not?’

      ‘And the fact that you even have to ask,’ Luke said, running a hand through his hair in frustration.

      Wait. Luke was now staring at her mouth. Had she just pouted? Oh God. She had. Pouting and Luke were verboten. Gentle flirting she could cope with, but she was always so careful not to let it become overt with him. His friendship was too important to her.

      ‘I’m a game designer, not a model,’ he reminded her.

      ‘If it’s your work you’re worried about, we could crop your head out of the shots.’

      ‘Sephy. Stop. You’re starting to sound desperate.’

      ‘I am desperate.’ Sephy mentally gave herself a slow hand-clap because that statement was hardly going to make Luke feel special.

      ‘You’re not desperate. You only think you are because you’ve got a quick fix in mind and you’re too tired to look at it with your business head on.

      ‘I am totally looking at this with my business head on. I admit it, okay? I got it wrong with this advertising campaign. Played it too safe. I should never have signed off on it.’ She shook her head slightly, as if to reject how overwhelmed, how under pressure, she felt to get this all right. ‘I can’t afford not to correct this mistake.’

      ‘Everyone who launches a business makes mistakes.’

      ‘Absolutely, but the ones who survive do so because they fix their mistakes. Come on, a couple of hours in the company of beautiful women. What’s not to like?’

      ‘No.’

      Sephy stared at him as the simple word dropped from his lips to land between them like a boulder.

      ‘Wow,’ she whispered. He wasn’t even wavering? ‘I thought that last bit would tempt you, at least.’

      ‘Don’t make me feel bad about this,’ Luke said, standing up.

      ‘No. Absolutely not. Sorry.’

      Luke stared down at her for a moment before turning to walk towards the ballroom’s double doors.

      All of Nora’s ‘just ask hims’ must have sunk in deeper than she suspected. She had really thought, after explaining it all properly to him, he would agree.

      His emphatic refusal had her reacting childishly. So childishly that as he reached the doors she heard herself emit a clucking sound.

      Luke turned around, his expression a mixture of thunder and incredulity. ‘Oh, you did not just make the sound of a chicken.’