Gentlemen Prefer... Brunettes. Liz Fielding

      ‘You turned down Nick Jefferson for me? Lady, you need to get your priorities right.’

      ‘Just because the man makes me sizzle, Beth, doesn’t mean I have to leap onto the plate and hand him the mustard.’

      ‘He does make you sizzle, then?’

      ‘Only in the same way as your average movie star.’

      ‘Oh?’

      ‘You know. You go to the cinema and while the lights are down he’s all yours. Then you go home. Men are safer that way.’

      ‘Don’t you find safety a touch boring?’

      ‘Not at all. Besides, you heard the man. He has an incurable weakness for blondes.’

      ‘I know. Tall blondes at that. The cool Grace Kelly type. One has just taken up residence in the Jefferson Sports marketing department and I hear the guys are laying odds on how long it will take her to succumb to the Jefferson charm. But do you know something? For all the lovely blondes Nick’s chased and undoubtedly caught in the last few years, he’s never actually been tempted to marry one of them. Doesn’t that tell you something?’

      ‘That they’re smart?’

      ‘You’re not that cynical, Cassie.’

      ‘Oh, yes, I am.’ The onlooker saw more of the game and she’d been an onlooker for long enough to know that she’d made the right decision. But she was human enough to be interested in a little hot gossip. ‘He’s never even come close?’ she asked.

      Beth shrugged. ‘He bought a lovely cottage just outside town a few years back and everyone got excited about that, assuming he was going to take the plunge.’

      ‘And?’

      ‘It turned out he was having fun with an interior decorator at the time. I suppose she just wanted something to practise on and he was inclined to indulge her. Once she’d finished with the cottage she moved on.’ She grinned. ‘Or maybe he moved her on.’

      ‘That sounds more likely. After all, why would he bother to marry anyone when he’s having such a good time?’

      Beth frowned. ‘Nick isn’t like that.’

      ‘No?’ Cassie shook her head. ‘He’s a good-looking man, Beth, and maybe he’s as nice as you say, but I like a little more bottom to a man.’

      ‘Bottom? He has the cutest butt—’

      ‘Substance. Gravitas,’ Cassie interrupted quickly. ‘Nick Jefferson is a cuckoo. A very charming, very beguiling cuckoo, no doubt, and I can see the way your mind is working. But I’m a swan—so don’t even think about it.’

      Beth’s forehead wrinkled up into a frown. ‘A swan?’

      ‘They mate for life.’ It was an excuse that had served her well enough until now, but her fingers strayed to lips still tingling from that unexpected kiss. Then she saw Beth looking at her with an expression that mingled sympathy with just a touch of exasperation, a look that said five years was long enough to mourn for anyone. ‘I know, I’ll probably end my days talking to my cat,’ she said, quickly, before Beth said it for her.

      ‘Possibly, but that’s no reason not to have a little fun with the cuckoos, or even the ducks, while you’re waiting for another swan to come along. I imagine swans do look for another mate if the first one... It’s not too late to call Nick back and tell him you’ve changed your mind about lunch—’ She began to move towards the door.

      ‘Stay right where you are, Beth Winslet. Nick Jefferson is not my kind of man.’

      ‘He’s every girl’s kind of man,’ Beth said with a grin.

      ‘Exactly. And he isn’t about to saddle himself with one when he can have the whole gallery, now is he? So, where am I going to take you for lunch?’

      Beth continued to challenge her for another thirty seconds, then she threw up her hands, conceding defeat. ‘I should be treating you,’ she said. ‘I can’t believe the number of people you brought into the shop this morning.

      ‘And some of them even bought a book,’ Cassie said with a grin as she signed the books left on the table.

      ‘I know you hate these things. It was good of you to give up your morning.’

      ‘It was the least I could do. After all, catering for your wedding changed my life—’

      ‘Lunch with Nick Jefferson might well have done the same,’ Beth pointed out. ‘Have you ever considered the possibility that I might be your fairy godmother—?’

      ‘You’re not suggesting that Nick Jefferson is Prince Charming?’

      ‘Heaven forbid. I wouldn’t wish Prince Charming on any woman. Just consider... He lined up all the beauties in the land so that he could take his pick of them. And then he chose Cinderella by the size of her feet. How sad can you get?’

      ‘Well, when you put it like that...’

      ‘I do. I have to admit that you do have the daintiest little feet I’ve ever seen—but I have the feeling that Nick looks for a little more than that in a woman.’

      ‘Blonde hair, super-model looks?’ Cassie suggested.

      ‘Well, what do men know? As your fairy godmother my advice would have been to let him take you to lunch.’

      ‘I’d advise you to hang up your wand and quit while you’re ahead, Beth. Now, I’ve discovered this great little place down by the river. So, what do you say?’

      ‘Thank you?’

      ‘That’ll do nicely.’

      Twenty floors above them in the Jefferson Tower, Nick Jefferson was facing a problem of his own. She was approaching him right now across the marble floor of the lobby. Tall, slender, with platinum hair that emphasised her glacial beauty, Veronica Grant was a distinctly superior female and since she’d been brought in as a consultant to work with the marketing department she’d had every man who worked at the headquarters of Jefferson Sports drooling over her every word, even the ones old enough and married enough to know better.

      Not that she gave them any encouragement. Professional to her fingertips, she confined her conversation strictly to the job in hand. She appeared to be quite unaware of the testosterone rampaging in her wake as she walked through the building.

      Appeared to be. Nick Jefferson was not entirely convinced about that. There wasn’t a woman yet born that oblivious of the ripples she caused as she walked across a room. Not when the ripples were of tidal-wave proportions. It had to be an act. Didn’t it?

      The temptation to find out was almost irresistible. After all, his name headed the list of odds in the ‘Ice Queen Stakes’ that some clown had posted in the men’s room—hardly surprising in view of the fact that his family owned the business and that he was still, despite his thirty-three years, one of the few men on the list without at least one failed marriage behind him. A situation he was in no hurry to change. He’d seen the bitter aftermath of too many marriages that had ended on the rocks to be eager to rush into wedlock.

      Not that his name seemed to impress Veronica Grant. She treated him with the same rather distant politeness that she bestowed on everyone else.

      He wondered if she knew about the list. He’d ordered its removal the moment he’d seen it, well aware that the female thought-police of the typing pool would pounce on such political incorrectness with glee. But things like that had a way of getting around; which meant that simply asking her out to dinner the way he might any other new colleague was likely to be met with a certain amount of suspicion. He was well aware that more than one of his colleagues had made the mistake of being too eager. Her response had been a polite but definite ‘No, thank you’. No excuse. No face-saving suggestion that she was busy, or involved with someone else. Just a plain, unadorned ‘no’.