“Spontaneous is better, Cole.”
“Spontaneous?” Sweat dribbled down his temples. This was way more nerve-racking than he’d expected.
“Just relax, be yourself, and speak from the heart. Go!”
Oookay. “Yes. Well. I’m Cole. I’m an attorney—business law, specializing in mergers and acquisitions. Benjamin, Langford and Tuttleman, or ‘BLT, hold the mayo,’ we like to say.” He laughed—which came out in a snort—and felt like an idiot. His cell phone chimed from his breast pocket. He lifted a hand. “One sec.”
Janie shot him a look, but when he heard Rob Tuttleman’s voice, he was glad he’d taken the call. Tuttleman wanted to meet with Cole and Trevor McKay, one of his competitors for partner, about an important case that had fallen through the cracks. A crucial break for Cole. “Terrific…looking forward to it,” he said into the phone. “We can meet as soon as I get back in about…” He glanced at his watch, then at Jane, who looked stern. Dates aren’t billable hours. “I’ll buzz you when I get back.”
He hung up, determined to hurry this along. “Sorry. Where was I?”
“Holding the mayo. Let’s talk about you as a person, not a lawyer. Go.”
“Let’s see. I’m dependable…loyal…faithful. Hell, I sound like a St. Bernard. What else? I’m looking for a woman who wants to join her life with mine.” That sounded hopelessly drippy.
The clink of jewelry signaled the arrival of the receptionist—Gail was her name, he thought—and he was relieved by the interruption.
“Sorry, but I have Harold Rheingold from Inside Phoenix on the line, Janie. It’s about the article.”
“Oh. I should take this.” She looked apologetically at him.
“I can do the Close-Up,” Gail said, bustling to the camera, her large bosom jostling for air behind a tight purple blazer.
Jane looked uncertainly at him.
“We’ll be fine,” he said, figuring the woman couldn’t possibly have Jane Fall’s intensity, sense of mission or intuition. He’d get Gail to cut it short.
Once Jane was gone, Gail pushed a pencil into her piled-up red hair and looked at him over half-glasses trimmed in rhinestones. “You’re one lucky man to have Janie Falls on the case. She found my husband for me, you know.”
“You were a client?”
“Nope. I was interviewing for the receptionist job and Wayne, the light of my life, was installing phones. Before he could say ‘Can you hear me now?’ Janie had matched us. And Wayne is the song in my heart, let me tell you. She’ll find you yours.”
“I hope so.” He did. He craved a bond with one special person. Yeah, getting married would help his career, but what he really wanted was someone to grow old with. Someone to stand side by side with, facing life’s challenges, enjoying its triumphs. A soul mate, corny as that sounded, though he’d never say that out loud to anyone.
Gail bent to study him through the viewfinder, making him feel like a bug under a microscope.
“I think I should explain what I’m looking for in a mate,” he said to hurry her along. If they knew what he wanted, the women could self-select. He didn’t want to disappoint anyone.
Gail tapped a finger to her lip. “Not sure that’s compelling, but we can always edit it out. Okay…action!”
Action? They were in Hollywood now? “I’m hoping for someone comfortable enough in her career that she can be flexible about mine. There are social events and charity projects related to the firm, so she should enjoy that. She should also be an independent thinker, a self-starter and a team player.”
“Hon, do you want her to marry you or work for you?”
“Oh. Sounded like a job description?” On the other hand, too many couples got caught up in chemistry and learned later their lives didn’t mesh.
“You’re not putting in an order at the Wife Factory. Try selling her on you.”
“So I should explain that I’m—”
“Not the ‘self-starter, team player’ bit. Give me something tender and sensitive.”
“Yes, but—”
“Even independent, self-starting team players want roses and poetry. I’ll walk you through it, don’t worry.”
Gail swung into action, directing every aspect of his performance, from his body angle, facial expression and vocal quality to the words he used. She yelled “cut” and “action” until he had a headache, before finally declaring it a “wrap,” and offering to show him the “rough cut.”
He didn’t have time. He was hopelessly late for the meeting with Tuttleman and McKay. Besides, he couldn’t bear seeing what she’d gotten him to say. He’d blurted the Sunday-morning-and-the-Times fantasy and confessed his deepest hopes. What sensible woman wanted a sweaty, desperate lawyer blathering on about melding two lives into one?
He’d need a redo. With Jane, this time, not Gail Ford Coppola, who kept saying, “Go deeper, no, deeper, give me the inner Cole.” He hoped to hell his computerized personality inventory netted him Potentials, because all the inner Cole would earn him was therapy.
2
“OF COURSE I’ll come out for the retreat,” Kylie said to Garrett McGrath, her future boss, swerving to miss a minivan. “And the account meetings are no problem.” Her heart pounded high and tight from the near-accident and the stress of easing the impact of her delayed start date in L.A. Plus, if she didn’t get the artwork on her front seat to the printer in ten minutes, her client’s grand opening would be ruined.
“Just think of me as a satellite office for these few extra weeks,” she said, wishing Garrett had waited just an hour to return her call. Who knows what other promises she’d make in her frantic effort to survive the drive and make him happy? She’d already promised two trips to L.A. and an entire weekend for the firm retreat.
“That sounds workable,” Garrett said in the melodic drawl that had been the voice of America’s cushiest toilet paper in the eighties. She’d mollified him, thank God, but how would she manage all he’d asked, along with closing out her own clients and rescuing Janie?
“We need your fresh voice in the room, Kylie.”
Hearing those glorious words from the genius of Simon, McGrath and Bellows, she knew she’d do it if it killed her. She honked at a woman applying mascara at a green light, then barreled after her on the yellow.
She’d come to Garrett’s attention by winning a national ad award for her campaign for an effective handgun-locking device. He’d searched her out and offered her the chance of a lifetime.
Saying yes had meant closing down her two-year-old agency, but the honor had been too great to reject. The professional validation was enormous and she hoped to learn tricks to compensate for her weaknesses. Besides, she told herself, with the prestige of a few years at S-Mickey-B, as the firm was affectionately known in the marketing world, she’d draw clients like flies when she reopened her practice later on. The month-to-month financial struggle had been more daunting than she’d expected. She wasn’t that sure of herself.
“Just clear your conflict fast,” Garrett said, “so we can have you all to ourselves.” His words made her heart swell with pride and squeeze with pressure. Her already-knotted stomach turned inside out with all she had to do.
At least she’d made progress promoting Personal Touch over the past week, including scoring a profile at a trendy rag with the right demographic, but neither she nor Janie had yet gotten the suit-happy client on the phone. Soon she’d have to look at hiring an attorney. Big bucks they didn’t have, dammit.
She