it measuring him. But behind the attitude lurked the guy who ran one of the most successful marketing campaigns the country had ever seen. This was the guy who could sell cookies to Girl Guides, he was just that compelling.
As she often did when she met new people, Cara pictured how she would light him. If ever, one day, she had the chance to do so, it would be all about shadows, taking advantage of those fantastic cheekbones and that straight nose. She would brush his hair back a tad further, knowing that he would only curl up more inside himself and make himself that much more intriguing. The carefully constructed remoteness, the seriously attractive mystery, the gorgeous depths of those navy-blue eyes…
‘Don’t you need to take any notes?’ Adam asked, his hands stopping mid-demonstration of how a mobile phone was built.
Cara snapped back to the present with such a jolt, her elbow slipped off the table and she had to catch herself before her chin followed in its wake.
‘Are you OK?’ he asked, lifting from his seat, reaching for her, his expression bright with surprise.
Bad. Bad Cara. What on earth had she been doing, daydreaming like that? Her attention had become wrapped in the words of some strapping stranger when her focus for the next two weeks should be blissfully caught up in the ins and outs of the most challenging and significant job of her life.
‘Yes, I’m fine,’ she said. ‘And no as well. I don’t need to take notes. Really.’ She jabbed furiously at her temple. ‘All stored up here.’
‘So are you a Cary Grant fan?’ he asked as he poured her a glass of wine.
Cara fought to remember a single word of his conversation and came up blank. ‘A who…what?’
Adam’s eyes narrowed. ‘Cary Grant. Chris’s favourite actor? He’s in The Philadelphia Story, His Girl Friday…’
Cara shook her head hard to clear out the soft and fuzzies that had gathered therein. ‘Sure. Of course. I love Cary Grant. I think he’s marvellous. I can even do an impression if you’d like.’
‘No need. Really.’
She fully deserved Adam’s bemused smile.
‘So to recap, Chris is a great guy who loves Cary Grant, collects bells—’
‘Shells,’ Adam corrected, pouring himself a glass of wine.
‘Shells,’ she said without missing a beat. ‘And shells…sells telephones for a living.’
Adam nodded slowly. ‘In a nutshell, yes. And he deserves a toast, don’t you think, for being the one to bring us together for this lovely lunch?’
‘Who?’ Cara asked, the soft and fuzzies winning hands down. ‘Cary Grant?’
Adam laughed, his head shaking, his eyes bright with amused confusion. ‘Why the heck not?’ He lifted his glass. ‘To Cary Grant.’
Cara had had enough. Another second of this conversation and she would probably forget her own name. She stood, dropped her napkin to the arm of her chair and then didn’t know where to put her hands. ‘You’ve been a fantastic help, but it’s time for me to be…elsewhere. Thanks for lunch. And I guess I’ll…see you ’round like a rissole!’
Before she could plant her foot deeper in her mouth Cara took off. She weaved through the tightly packed restaurant tables with her mind on the task ahead. Get to the television station. Meet Chris. Do the best job she could. Keep said job. Take home pay. Own St Kilda Storeys. So long as she kept that mantra going through her head, she was unstoppable. Surely?
Adam Tyler and his dreamy, distracting blue eyes did not come into the mantra once, so the bigger the distance between the two of them, the better.
Adam remained seated, debating internally whether it was better to watch her walk away, her lithe hips swinging as she mastered her outrageous shoes, or to watch her from front on, her lovely face so animated, her hands forever moving with nervous energy, and that huge flower bouncing about atop her head.
He dragged his interest away with some regret.
So, it looked as though Chris was going to be The Billionaire Bachelor. He cringed again. But that would have to be the last time. He had no choice. He was going to have to join bloody Chris on the set for the next two bloody weeks and act as babysitter to his bloody best friend.
‘Sex sells,’ Cara had said. He knew she was spot on. And if that feisty employee was anything to go by, he had the unsettling but mounting feeling that this show was going to produce fireworks…and that it would be in Revolution Wireless’s interest to be seen to be lighting the match.
CARA went home to St Kilda Storeys, her beloved apartment building that would very soon be truly hers. There was a note from Gracie on her apartment door. She took the steps, two at a time, to Gracie’s top-floor apartment and knocked.
Cara heard scuffling and snuffling as Minky got to the door first. Gracie was looking after the fluffy, almost-white, Maltese Terrier while their fellow Saturday Night Cocktails gang member Kelly and her husband Simon were out of town visiting friends in Fremantle.
Gracie finally opened the door with a wriggling Minky in her arms. ‘Well?’ she said.
‘I got the job.’
Cara was lost in hugs from Gracie, and tiny lapping kisses from Minky.
‘I knew it!’ Gracie said. ‘Or at least I wished and hoped super hard!’
Gracie grabbed Cara and steered her toward the small old couch that took up half of the tiny lounge. ‘I have ten minutes before I have to be at work. So tell me all about…everything.’
‘I can’t, actually. It’s all seriously under wraps.’
‘Even to me?’
‘Especially to you.’
Gracie had the good grace to nod. ‘Good plan. I can’t keep a secret to save my life. Keep it to yourself. So tell me something else. Who did you meet? Anybody famous? How about that guy who hosts the movie review programme? He’s a bit of a hottie.’
‘Wrong channel.’
‘Oh, yeah, right. Anyone else I can brag about?’
‘Umm, not really. Though you’ll be pleased to know that I did have an interesting lunch with this one guy…’
Cara went on to fill Gracie in on the important points of her lunch date—no names mentioned, of course: the ominous stare, the powerful grace, the serious good looks worthy of a menswear catalogue.
‘Armani or Target?’ Gracie asked, using their usual scale.
‘Armani, without a doubt.’
Gracie nodded in pleasant surprise. But either way the truth about this guy was immaterial. Cara was going to be holed up in a hotel for the next two weeks with way too much else to occupy her to care.
Adam went back to work.
Dean, the third partner in the Revolution Wireless giant, was pacing behind his desk. Where Chris was the ideas guy, and Adam was the salesman, Dean looked after the day-to-day blood, sweat and tears side of the operation, and it showed. His tie was long gone and his shirt sleeves were rolled up, his hands flying about him as he yabbered away into a telephone head set.
Adam took a seat at the desk and waited for the one-sided staccato conversation to finish.
‘Adam, my man,’ Dean said, giving his friend a hearty handshake, before resuming his pacing. ‘What’s up?’
‘It’s about Chris.’
‘And this dating show deal?’
Adam nodded.
Dean