The Intern Affair

  Chills danced down her spine as she laughed and threw him a teasing look. Somewhere in the distance, she heard Nick’s camera clicking and ticking.

  “Out of the frame, Cade,” Scarlet snapped, nudging him away. “I’m trying to get a shot here.”

  “Don’t worry, Scarlet,” Nick called from his spot a few feet away. “I got the shot. You’ll love it.”

  “Glad I could help.” Cade winked, and as he continued into the EPH building, he called to Scarlet, “Let her keep that sweater, okay?”

  Jessie watched him disappear into the building, his broad shoulders filling up the doorway, his golden hair grazing the back of a very expensive suit jacket.

  “Oh, that’s adorable!” Scarlet exclaimed as she studied the digital image captured in Nick’s camera. “Look at this, Jessie.”

  Scarlet held out the camera and Jessie peered into the screen on the back. Nick had caught Cade leaning down as though he were kissing Jessie’s hair, his gaze aimed squarely at her breasts.

  “Just look at your face,” Scarlet said, jabbing Jessie with a little elbow.

  Nick had captured her teasing, flirtatious glance and the flash of unadulterated lust on Cade’s face. It was, for “Color Me Charismatic,” a perfect shot.

  “Don’t forget the face blur,” Jessie said. “‘Color Me Charismatic’ is anonymous.”

  “Are you kidding?” Scarlet waved her hand in one of her flamboyant gestures. “That’s just to protect us from lawsuits. You can sign a model release. This shot is so sexy. You know, if I didn’t know better I would say you’ve missed your calling as an actress. You look downright infatuated with Cade in that picture.”

  “I took an acting class in college,” she said quickly. And she’d barely passed. She hadn’t been acting infatuated. She was.

  Cade dug his hands deep into his trouser pockets and squinted down at the scene far below his office window. Although he stared at the splash of red-and-orange flowers spilling across the median strip, all he could really see was the vision of Jessie, her yellow curves and auburn hair and green eyes dancing as she flirted with him.

  The same vibrant woman he’d kissed over dessert…and in the cab…and at her door. She was everything bright and alive and attractive.

  He’d always thought she was pretty and spunky, but after spending all that time talking to her, he was just mesmerized by her. What was it about her?

  He peered at the flowers below.

  Had there really been lilacs in that cement garden last spring? He’d never noticed the flowers on Park Avenue before. Was it possible he walked down that street every day and never noticed lilacs in the spring, or the colors of the trees?

  I even wear lilac perfume sometimes.

  His intercom buzzed and Chloe Davenport’s distinct voice broke his reverie.

  “Fin’s waiting, Cade. In her conference room.”

  Damn. He glanced at his watch and realized he was ten minutes late for a management meeting. What the hell was the matter with him? He was staring out the window thinking about trees and flowers while his very future hung on Charisma’s balance sheet.

  He reached over and hit the speaker to respond to Fin’s assistant. “I’ll be right there, Chloe.”

  “She’s got two things on the agenda,” Chloe added. “The P&L from last month and the staff assignments for September.”

  “Will do.” From his credenza, he picked up the file folder he’d been looking at yesterday, right before Jessie Clayton came wafting into his office and turned down the shadowing assignment.

  Some fact-finding mission he’d gone on last night.

  He still didn’t know any more about Jessie’s reasons for avoiding Fin than he did when the evening began. He’d tried a dose of seduction and it backfired. Instead, he’d been the one damn near seduced.

  By the time he watched her slip into the door of her apartment building, he’d forgotten why he’d asked her out for drinks and dinner and could only think about how much he enjoyed the evening with a charming, sweet, energetic young woman who talked about flowers.

  Damn, that wasn’t like him. But, still, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d enjoyed himself so much. And then when he got out of that cab and saw her on the street this morning, her hair blowing, those clothes hugging her curves, her expression lost in some fantasy…

  He grabbed his phone and dialed. Chloe answered on the first ring. “Finola Elliott’s office.”

  “Tell her five more minutes,” he said quickly. “I have to make one call.”

  “Make it fast.” He could imagine Fin’s assistant rolling her blue eyes or crinkling her nose in distaste.

  “I will,” he promised. And he meant it. Because if he gave this too much thought, he might talk himself out of it. He could tell himself he was just trying to get to know Jessie Clayton better, for business reasons, but he knew that was an excuse for a little more time with her.

  He started calling immediately, until he found what he wanted. It took him a full ten minutes to convince the man on the other end of the phone, but once he got a commitment, Cade grabbed the files he needed and headed to the conference room connected to Fin’s office. He used the hallway entrance, which gave him the chance to glance over to the editorial cubes and peek at Jessie’s empty chair. She might still be down on the street shooting “Color Me Charismatic”…or right around the corner in The Closet getting changed. Sliding that big black zipper down over the lace of that—

  “Earth to McMann.”

  He turned back to the conference room doorway at the sound of Fin’s impatient voice. “Sorry, Fin,” he said with a little laugh. “I was just checking out the action in the cubes. It’s Friday and you know the natives tend to lose their focus.”

  At the head of an oval mahogany table, Fin brushed a sleek strand of auburn hair over her shoulder and gave him a smile that made her eyes sparkle like Tiffany emeralds. “You seem distracted, Cade. Are you sure you’re not the native losing his focus?”

  “Get real, Fin.” He pulled out a chair and dropped the financial files on the table, glancing at the wall where the first few finished pages of the January issue had been hung for the staff to review. “The next issue’s going to be great, Fin, but the monthly numbers aren’t nearly as attractive.”

  She frowned and flipped open the file, studying the spreadsheet. “Not hopeless, but you might want to get on Liam’s calendar for a chat.”

  “I already did.” Not that he needed to schedule a meeting with EPH’s top financial executive. They’d been friends for so long they were more like brothers.

  Fin looked up from the spreadsheet, all sparkle gone from her eyes. “We are going to win this, aren’t we, Cade?”

  “Yes,” he said with total assurance. “You’ve earned it, Fin, and we can do it. We were the leader at the six-month mark, so if we don’t make any mistakes between now and the end of the year, we should be in.”

  She nodded. “We have to stay completely on task. No distractions, no mistakes.”

  And that, he reminded himself sternly, should really include dalliances with interns under the guise of figuring out her motives. The job of running Elliott Publication Holdings was the brass ring that Fin, a certified workaholic driven to success, wanted more than anything.

  But Patrick Elliott wasn’t basing his decision on who wanted the job the most. Like every decision the patriarch of the Elliott clan made, the answer lay in the bottom line. Whichever editor-in-chief produced the most significant profit margin for the year won the prize. So the competition for advertising, subscribers and cost-cutting had never been fiercer among the executives who ran The Buzz, Snap, Pulse and Charisma magazines.

  And Cade wanted that honor as much as Fin did. Not only would it mean an automatic promotion for him, but he deeply respected and admired Fin, and genuinely believed that EPH would be a better company with her at the helm. Plus he loved nothing more than the challenge of avoiding any errors and winning the game.

 
As she looked back at the file, he studied her. There was always an undercurrent of sadness to Fin, like she worked with such fury and concentration because it helped her escape. As long as he’d known her, she’d had extremely strained relations with her parents, especially Patrick. Of her brothers, only her twin, Shane, the editor-in-chief of The Buzz, seemed to share a close relationship with Fin.

  Fin looked up at him, and Cade expected her to comment on the numbers. But her eyes softened for a moment instead. “You will make an excellent editor-in-chief when I move up to EPH, Cade. I can’t imagine a person more qualified to run this magazine.”

  He recognized motivation when she dangled it in front of him. “Thanks, Fin. We’re a great team. We can do this.”

  “We will,” she said decisively, and they launched into an hour-long review of every line item on the spreadsheet.

  As always, Fin asked question after question, rarely satisfied with the first answer, always digging for a better solution. And when they were finished, she seemed satisfied that they’d attacked the numbers as best they could.

  “I’ll make a point of talking to Liam,” Cade said as he closed the financial files.

  “Yes, but in the meantime, keep a very tight rein on the January issue. We have three months left, Cade. A lot can happen in three months.”

  “I know,” he agreed. “Are you ready to move on to staff assignments?”

  She nodded and after they’d reviewed responsibilities for upcoming issues, Fin pulled the last item from his staffing file. “It’s September,” she said. “Don’t I get to wear a new shadow this month?”

  No mistakes. That was his rule. So how to handle the issue of the shadow intern? “Maybe under the circumstances, you’d rather not. Some of your meetings this month will be extremely sensitive.”

  “We could do a half-day shadow,” she suggested. “I’ll schedule my confidential appointments for afternoon. I like this program, Cade. We don’t pay the interns and we have to be sure they are rewarded and trained.”

  “No argument there.”

  She glanced at the list of five intern names in his file.

  “Have you picked one yet?”

  “I have one or two in mind.” One in mind constantly, as a matter of fact. “But I’m still interviewing.” Interviewing. Yeah, that was a good word for it.

  “Who’s your top choice at the moment?”

  Why lie? She was his top choice. For a number of things.

  “Jessie Clayton.”

  Fin raised one beautifully arched eyebrow. “We’ve discussed her before. She’s made a science out of avoiding me. Have you figured out why?”

  “No, not yet.” But he would. “Anyway, Scarlet has her on a big assignment for the March issue and I’m not sure if the timing will work out for the shadowing project.” And she turned the opportunity down. But something in him wanted to protect Jessie, so he purposely kept that piece of information from Fin.

  “I like her work and Scarlet raves about her ideas on layout and design,” Fin said, looking hard at him. “But you mentioned last month that you wanted to do some digging into her background.”

  “I did. She checks out. I don’t know why she avoids you, but she has done excellent work at the magazine.”

  “None of the other interns stands out this year,” Fin said, looking at the list again. “She seems to be popular and smart.”

  And smells like a spring garden. Cade cleared his throat and took the file from Fin. “I’ll find the right intern for you by next week.”

  Fin seemed to accept that as they packed up to leave. Just as they stepped into the hall, a sudden burst of female “Ooohs” and “Ahs” erupted from the sea of cubicles.

  He looked down the hall to see the receptionist carrying an oversize bouquet of lilacs toward the editorial cubes.

  Cade managed not to smile. The florist had given him a hard time but he knew, in New York, you could get anything for the right amount of money. He stepped a little farther into the hall, just in time to see the priceless look on Jessie’s face when the vase was placed on the corner of her desk.

  “My, my, my,” Finola said from behind him as she observed the scene. “Looks like our intern has an admirer.”

  “No surprise,” he commented, purposely casual, as he watched Jessie open the card. “She’s a very pretty young woman.”

  Fin looked hard at Jessie, whose infectious giggle was almost drowned out by her colleagues’ comments and jokes. “It’s hard to tell. She never takes those silly glasses off.”

  As Fin walked away to pick up a message from Chloe’s desk, Jessie read the card to herself and smiled. She shook her head when someone tried to take it, holding his invitation to her chest without sharing.

  Then she looked down the hall, toward the conference room, straight at him. It was nearly imperceptible, but he caught her tiny nod.

  As Finola flipped through her messages, she asked, “So are you doing anything this weekend, Cade?”

  “As a matter of fact, Fin, I have a date tonight.”

  She glanced up, curious. “Someone special?”

  “Very.” He couldn’t wipe the smile off his face and, of course, Fin was too classy to pursue it.

  Four

  Jessie dodged across 57th Street with a few other intrepid New Yorkers, and the cab at the corner slowed for her. Maybe it was the yellow sweater…or her decision not to hesitate.

  The thought made her smile, something she’d been doing since the arrival of the most incredible bouquet of lilacs, and a note that took her breath away.

  Meet me at Columbus Circle at 6:00 tonight for some wide open spaces and a horse…New York style.

  Lainie had taken the lilacs home for her, and, being a true friend, hadn’t even teased Jessie about who might have sent them. Nor did Jessie reveal the truth to Scarlet or any of the other Charisma associates. Somehow, she managed to get through the afternoon, then swapped her white blouse for the yellow sweater and blessed her decision to wear nice black slacks to work.

  Dressed for a date she hadn’t known she was going to have, Jessie made her way to Columbus Circle in the midst of the late Friday-afternoon bustle of New York City.

  A troupe of break dancers wowed a crowd at the corner, their thumping beat of hip-hop music guiding Jessie’s determined steps. As she headed toward the hub of activity known as Columbus Circle, she let her gaze travel up across a sea of high-end stores that dominated the busy area and up the towering skyscrapers that loomed over Central Park West.

  For a second, her steps slowed as she scanned the crowds of people for a six-foot-tall hunk with golden hair and mesmerizing gray eyes. There were plenty of men that height, but none who took her breath away. None who gave her stomach that roller-coaster dip. None who made her whole being shiver in anticipation of a kiss or a touch, the way Cade McMann did.

  A clip-clop of horse’s hooves approached from behind. Still not used to the hansom cabs and the turned-out ponies who pulled them through Central Park, Jessie paused to check out the dappled coat of a jaunty mare pulling a bright red carriage. At the reins, a young man in a tuxedo smiled broadly at her.

  But when he stopped and Cade leaned forward from the carriage seat, Jessie sucked in a breath of total surprise.

  “Here she is,” Cade said to the driver, who immediately stopped the carriage so Cade could get out.

  For the second time that day, she stood speechless on a street corner staring at Cade.

  He indicated the horse with a flourish. “The closest thing I could get to Oscar in New York City.”

  All she could do was laugh, shake her head and take his hand. “You’re too much.”

  Helping her into the carriage, he said something quietly to the driver, then settled in next to her. Very close to her.

  “I just don’t want you to get so homesick for horses and open spaces that you run back to Colorado.”

  She took a deep breath, the familiar scent of horse mixed with the not-yet-familiar scen
t of Cade washing over her like the late afternoon sun.

  “Your evil plan is working,” she confided with a contented sigh. “Thank you for this treat.”

  “You’re welcome.” His gaze dropped to the zipper, which wasn’t nearly as low as Scarlet had wanted it that morning.

  “I see you took my advice and kept the sweater.”

  And the magic bra, which, from the look on his face, was still creating optical cleavage illusions. “Scarlet said I’d earned it after my impromptu photo shoot.”

  He draped his arm behind her and lowered his head to hers. “You looked gorgeous this morning. Still do.”

  More warmth spread through her and it had nothing to do with the setting sun. “Thanks.”

  “You seemed to see pretty well, too.”

  She drew back and blinked at him. “Excuse me?”

  “I was forty feet away from you when you spotted me on the street.” Slowly, he slid the glasses down her nose. “You don’t need these, Miss Clayton.”

  There was something so intimate about the way he removed her glasses. Something so sensual about being inches from Cade with nothing on her face to come between them. Anyway, it wasn’t as if he was going to look at her and suddenly declare, “You have Fin’s eyes.” She was being too cautious.

  “They’re a fashion statement,” she said softly, taking the glasses and closing them. With a sly smile, she reached over and slid them in the pocket of his suit jacket. “I can keep them off for you.”

  He rewarded her with a sexy wink. “I’m honored. Now, would you like some champagne?”

  “Champagne?”

  Reaching to the floor of the carriage, he flipped open the top of a wicker basket to reveal a bottle of champagne in ice, two crystal flutes and a few covered containers.

  “Are we celebrating something?” she asked, taking the empty flute he handed her.

  “Friday night? Horses and open spaces?” He drizzled a few drops of golden liquid into the glass and it fizzed with the same burst of excitement that bubbled in her blood. “Take your pick.”

  “I think I’d like to celebrate how different you seem,” she said.