If the Red Slipper Fits.... Shirley Jump

making.”

      A tide of anger rose in Caleb’s chest. Give up his mother’s company? Sell her decades of hard work to this buffoon? “I will never sell to you. I won’t sell you so much as a thread of my mother’s company.”

      “I always thought you were a bad businessman, but never a fool.” Frederick K shook his head, making the white cloud dance. “And I’m so rarely wrong.”

      Caleb pushed off from his desk and towered over the other man. “Get out of my office.”

      “I’ll see you at the shows in a couple of weeks,” Frederick K said. “Unless of course you’re smart enough to quit while you’re behind.” He gestured again toward the slip of paper.

      “I’ll be there,” Caleb said. “And LL Designs will be the one getting the buzz this year. Not Frederick K.”

      “Delusional,” Frederick K muttered again, under his breath, then he walked out of Caleb’s office. Caleb was tempted to slam and lock the door behind him, but he didn’t.

      The man had been right. He’d taken the pulse of LL Designs, and found it weakening by the day. A smart businessman would have taken the offer of a buyout, pocketed the cash and walked away. Then this entire burden would be on someone else’s shoulders and he’d be free to pursue his own career again, rather than the one he’d inherited.

      He could be free. Of the worries. The stresses. The too-heavy burden of being CEO.

      Caleb picked up the single sheet from Frederick K, dropped into his office chair again—

      And sent the paper through the shredder.

      The elevator seemed to take its sweet time bringing Sarah to the top floor of the steel-and-glass building that housed LL Designs. She’d hemmed and hawed for a good ten minutes about whether or not Caleb Lewis had been serious or just looking for a way to get back at her for all the gossip columns. Either way, she couldn’t be sure without taking him up on his offer.

      Offer, ha. It had been a dare, couched in friendly terms.

      He wanted to see if she was willing to step into the lion’s den to find out if he had her missing stiletto. It was possible, she had reasoned, that the entire thing was a set-up. That Caleb Lewis had used the wanted poster to formulate a ruse that would make a fool out of her. And in the process, exact a little revenge for all those columns.

      But then she came back to the look on his face when he had seen the poster. He knew something—and she was not leaving here until she found out what it was.

      The elevator doors opened. Sarah’s steps stuttered when she saw who was waiting for the car.

      Frederick K.

      The designer was talking on his phone—barking into it, really—and didn’t even notice her as she passed by him and into the corridor. Not that he ever had. Frederick K was the kind of guy who talked to his people, and told them to talk to all the “other” people. Those who existed beneath his stratosphere.

      Had he been here about the shoe? Had Caleb Lewis double-crossed her? After the elevator doors closed behind Frederick K, Sarah breezed straight into Caleb’s office, bypassing his assistant’s desk over the woman’s objections. “Did you sell me out?”

      Caleb stared at her. “Sell you out? To whom? For what?”

      “I just saw Frederick K leaving here. Did you tell him?”

      “About the shoe you lost?” A grin darted across Caleb’s face. “Now, why would I do that?”

      “Because that’s the kind of man you are.”

      The grin disappeared, replaced by a scowl. “You have me all wrong.”

      “I wrote the stories, Mr. Lewis. I did the research. I know you.”

      He came around his desk, until mere inches separated them. His woodsy cologne teased at her senses, tempting her to draw closer.

      She didn’t.

      “You’re wrong, Miss Griffin,” he said, his voice low and quiet. “I’m not the man you have portrayed on your pages.”

      His gaze met hers, and her thoughts stammered to a stop. Every time she came into contact with the owner of LL Designs, Sarah forgot her own name, never mind what she was going to say.

      He had a way of riveting his attention on her, making her feel like no one else existed in his world at that moment except her. But she knew better—she herself had put together the gossip pages that linked Caleb Lewis to every runway model in a five-mile radius. A smart woman would avoid entangling herself with a man like him. He had heartbreaker written all over his face.

      “Why am I here?” she asked. “If this is some kind of ruse—”

      “Don’t you want to know where that shoe is?”

      Did he have it? Or know something she didn’t? Her heart skipped a beat. She put a smile on her face, hoping diplomacy would bring him over to her side—and get her the information on the stiletto that much faster. “I know my articles on you haven’t been that flattering, and I appreciate you being so understanding about this shoe … fiasco.”

      He perched on the edge of his desk and crossed his arms over his chest. “I never said I had it or that I would give it back, just like that.” He snapped his fingers.

      Damn. He must have the stiletto. Then why wouldn’t he admit it?

      What did he want?

      “One shoe doesn’t do you any good, Mr. Lewis. Certainly—”

      “Quid pro quo, Miss Griffin. You want something and so do I.”

      She glared at him. “If this is some twisted way of propositioning me, I assure you—”

      Laughter burst from him. “I assure you, this is not about sex.”

      Her ego smarted at the words, and heat climbed her neck. Well, geez. He didn’t have to be so blunt about it.

      Why did she care what he thought about her? She had no desire to be part of Caleb Lewis’s model harem. But stills …

      It’d be nice to have him notice her. Just for ego’s sake. That was all.

      “I want ink,” he said.

      “Ink?” She pushed her glasses up on her nose, acutely aware that in her jeans and dark-brown cowl-neck sweater she didn’t exactly scream sex goddess. Surrounded by images of the stunning women who wore LL Designs’ latest creations, she felt out of her element. Particularly with Caleb Lewis zeroing so much of his attention on her. Attention that clearly had nothing to do with sexual desires.

      Was that because her brown sweater made her look about as sexy as a loaf of bread? Or simply that Caleb was sticking to business only? Still, his questions, his directness, unnerved her. Sarah was usually the one behind the scenes—not the one in the scene. “Isn’t that what Office Depot is for?”

      “I don’t mean printer ink,” Caleb said. “I mean a story. On my company.”

      Suspicion rose inside her again. He knew what she’d written—surely he read Behind the Scenes—why would he want her, of all people, to write the story on his company? One that he undoubtedly expected would put a positive spin on the struggling design firm?

      “Why me?”

      He leaned forward. “Because contrary to some of the … fluff—” In his tone she heard the struggle to use a euphemism for his true feelings about those columns. “—you have published in the past, you are the best writer on staff over there. And though I may have disagreed a time or ten with what you’ve written about me,” at this, a grin whispered across his face, then disappeared so quickly she wasn’t even sure it had been a genuine smile, “I have found your writing to be smart and witty.”

      The compliments