Risqué Business

“Did I mention the hiring committee won’t even look at the applications until the fall semester?” Mindy asked. “Even though Belkin’s made his choice, it still has to go before the rest of the committee.”

Delaney pursed her lips. That would give her six months. She considered for all of three seconds. Change? Or invisibility? Bottom line…invisibility sucked.

“I’m in,” she declared, ignoring the warning blaring in her head, screaming that decisions made in anger never paid off. “How do I become visible?”

2

“YOU HAVE TO ADMIT, sex sells,” Nick Angel declared, leaning back in the butter-soft leather chair and folding his hands behind his head. “And I sell it better than most.”

“Sure, sure,” Gary Masters, Nick’s literary agent, agreed with a slow nod. “Nobody is saying you don’t do great sex, Nicky. The thing is, this new editor wants more.”

Nick puffed out a breath. This was the third meeting he’d had in two months over editorial changes. Nick wanted a solid relationship with this new editor. After all, he credited a great deal of his career success to his previous editor. Damned if he didn’t wish she hadn’t retired.

“More sex?” He frowned, then shrugged. As long as it didn’t compromise the ratio of suspense in his books, he didn’t mind more sex. He’d just cut back on that foreplay crap, hit them hard and fast with the hot-and-wild kink. “I can do that.”

“Not more sex,” Gary said, his voice a low rumble at odds with the sophisticated gloss of the office. “More emotion.”

Nick dropped his feet to the floor and frowned. He’d come to New York to meet with Gary, sign his next round of publishing contracts and take in some R&R before heading back to San Francisco. From the way Gary was tapping his pen against the stack of contracts on his desk, there was a little problem or five buried in those papers.

“He’s suggesting more emotion?”

“More like demanding.”

Son of a bitch. “Three books on the New York Times bestseller list and he wants to change the core of my work? You’re kidding, right?”

“Look, you don’t have to take the demand. We can counter the contract clause. Or we can shop you around. But…”

“But what?”

“Well, he’s really pushing the point. He’s backed it with plenty of industry facts, data and even some fan requests. You’re starting to lose your female fan base, which composes over thirty percent of your sales, according to data.”

Nick gave a bad-tempered grimace. He wrote erotic suspense, not romantic suspense. The only emotions in his books were fear, excitement and lust. Jaw clenched, he bounced his fist on his knee.

“Look, those numbers came from the publisher. How do you know they aren’t skewed to their advantage?”

Gary raised a bushy brow. “In the first place, I’m not some green newbie without a clue—I checked with my own sources. In the second place, I’ve had even more mail here requesting you tone down the meaningless sex and give John Savage a softer side. The female fans want emotions. Even your reviewers are starting to band together about this. One just slammed your writing in a national magazine.”

Nick shrugged his disinterest. Reviewers had their place, but it wasn’t behind his computer keyboard. He wrote for himself first and foremost. If he’d caved to all the people who wanted him to write differently—hell, to be different—he’d have quit long ago.

“Don’t scoff,” Gary warned. “I know reviews don’t mean anything to you, but this one has become a hot topic on the Internet. And your editor is freaking out. He’s sure your next release will tank. In fact, he even messengered me a copy of the magazine with the reviewer’s comments highlighted.”

Nick frowned. “Who the hell is this guy?”

“Gal.”

He rolled his eyes. Figured. Female reviewer, female fans. Leave it to women to demand more emotion. What was with them and their need to talk about, hell, to even believe in the fairy tale of love?

Nick sneered. He’d watched enough manipulation, pain and drama played out in the name of that nebulous love thing to know the reality. Emotions were simply a label for choices made in the moment. They were what people used to justify whatever it was they wanted to do.

Nick prided himself on his honesty, brutal though others might find it; he always stated in the beginning of any physical relationship that he didn’t play the emotion game. And yet, like his character, John Savage, women always figured they could change him. The only ones not interested in changing him were the ones interested in using him.

Just like this damned reviewer. Probably thought she’d make a name for herself by slamming his work, thinking if he caved to her review, she’d be set.

“So some mouthy reviewer wants to use my books as a platform,” Nick summed up with a shrug. “Let her try. It doesn’t matter to me, I’m not changing. John Savage is a solid character. He’s intense, he’s a man’s man. The last thing his stories need are foofy love stuff slopping around to mess him up.”

“Actually, she has a solid reputation in publishing circles. She’s gained quite a bit of notoriety over the last couple months, though.”

“Based on trashing my books,” Nick scoffed.

“Nah, trashing you was incidental. Her rise to fame is from a contest she just won. Risqué magazine ran the interview last month.”

When he raised a brow, Gary lifted a file off the corner of his desk and handed it over. Nick flipped through the contents.

Risqué. One of the top women’s periodicals in the country, it touted everything from sexual adventure to health and fashion. Huge doe eyes framed by a silky sweep of russet hair caught his attention. There was something in those carefully made-up eyes, a vulnerability, that tugged at him. Rather than dwelling on it, Nick ignored the glossy images and went straight for the text.

“Ms. Madison, don’t you feel modern fiction leaves quite a bit to be desired?”

“Oh, no. There is so much fabulous writing in the bookstores today. New authors are to today’s reader what Brontë was to her readers. Inspired, entertaining, talented.”

“Brontë could be termed romance?”

“Definitely. But the other genres hold just as true.”

“What about oh, say, erotica or suspense?”

“If those are your cup of tea, one of the best authors to read is Nick Angel. He’s done a commendable job of combining both eroticism and suspense. You can’t read his books without having a physical reaction. Definitely a pulse raiser.”

Nick grinned. He wondered how often he’d raised her pulse.

“Then as a literary expert, you recommend Nick Angel?”

“If you want a commitment-free read, definitely.”

Nick frowned.

“Commitment-free?”

“Well, his books are great, but not the kind you become emotionally invested in. The sex, while some of the hottest out there, is always distanced. There is very little empathy or reader involvement. It’s like watching a fast-paced television program. A lot of impact in a short amount of space, but not enough depth to make the reader care much about the characters. It’s similar to well-done pornography. Hot and sexy, yes—I’ll be the first to say it totally draws you in for the sexual payoff. But that’s all it is. Sex for the sake of titillation. It’s too bad Angel is afraid of emotion. If he brought in some depth, his books would be amazing.”

Afraid? Nick sneered. Who was afraid? Just because opening the door to emotions was the equivalent to being shoved into a pit of flesh-eating piranha…

“She compared my work to porn?” he asked, not wanting to think about the other irritating—if blatantly untrue—accusation. It wasn’t the first time someone had made the comparison to porn. But it was the first time it’d bothered him. It was probably those big brown eyes of hers.

“That’s the part everyone latched on to.” Gary’s narrow fingers tapped a rhythm on the stack of contracts. Nick scanned the man’s face. Angular, almost scholarly, the gray-haired agent looked like a wise monk. He had the heart of a shark and the industry knowledge of a wizard. It was thanks to him that Nick was where he was, career-wise. The guy knew his business.

He also barbequed a mean steak, kept Nick’s mother off his back and had pulled Nick out of the nightmarish hell that had been his life after his wife had publicly humiliated him during their divorce. Nick owed him. Even more important, he trusted him.

“Look, I know you avoid emotions. And you have good reason, given your past,” Gary said in a carefully measured tone. Nick just glared. He didn’t want to talk about Angelina. The woman had lured him in, then ripped his life apart. Even after finding out about her affair, he’d been willing to work things out. She hadn’t, though, as she’d proved when she’d hit the interview circuit to share with the world the deep, dark secrets of their marriage. And more to the point, their sex life. Thanks to her, his sales had skyrocketed in equal measure to his ego deflating. Her point, he was sure, since she’d snagged a tidy share of his royalties. That’d been all Nick had needed to assure him that giving in to emotion was a one-way ticket to being screwed over.

“I don’t avoid anything,” he denied adamantly. “I just think this publicity stunt is a bunch of bullshit.”

“Nick, just consider it. You know, give Savage a love interest. Make your editor happy. Appease some female fans. Head this off before it gets any bigger.”

“My character is already established, Gary. I’ve already done eight books. It’s obvious he’s not an emotional kind of guy. He works, the stories work. You can’t just go in, midseries, and rewrite his entire history and motivation. I’d lose my core readership.”

“I think you need to consider some changes, then. Even if they aren’t to the main character. Maybe a subplot?”

Nick tamped down the angry panic clutching at his gut. To write a character, he had to get into his head. The last thing he needed was to delve into an emotional pit.

He glanced at the folder, flipping through the stack of newspaper clippings. Instead of a picture next to her byline, this Delaney Madison had a book graphic. Odd. Most women he knew craved attention like they craved air. It was a necessity. Maybe it was a ploy to play up the makeover fame.

“Give me a chance to take care of this,” he said, getting to his feet. Looming over his agent’s desk from his six-two height, Nick rolled the folder and stuck it the back pocket of his jeans.

“What are you going to do?”

Nick headed for the door. His hand on the knob, he glanced back. “I’m going to teach Ms. Madison to think twice before she messes with me. By the time I’m through with her, she’ll publicly admit the way I do sex is just perfect.”

“YOU KNOW, YOU SHOULD TRY a different shade of eye shadow,” Delaney mused, her chin resting on her hand as she stared across the restaurant table at Mindy. “Maybe something in a gray instead of brown. I think it’d bring out your eyes more.”

Her glass of iced tea halfway to her mouth, Mindy stared, shock clear in her brown-shadowed eyes. Then she burst into laughter.

“You’re loving this, aren’t you?”

“Actually, I am,” Delaney confirmed, lifting her own glass to toast her friend.

This was the makeover results, of course.

She glanced at her reflection in the restaurant’s plateglass window. Even blunted in that poor excuse for a mirror, the change was still amazing. Her once wild carrot hair flowed in a smooth, russet bob, swinging a few inches above her shoulders. Cheekbones she hadn’t realized she owned accented eyes made huge and mysterious by the wonders of cosmetics.

She’d actually won! Sure, she’d figured her essay on “The Inner Risqué Woman” would give her an edge. But after that first round, the entire contest had depended on chance. But thanks to a combination of her essay, her obvious need of a makeover and some awesome luck, here she was. All made over.

Right after the drawing at the beginning of April, they’d done the makeover in segments, briefly interviewing her and running a “before” photo in the May issue of Risqué. Then for their June issue, they’d spent two weeks showing her the ins and outs of doing her makeup and how to actually style her hair to look the same as they’d done. And best of all, she mused as she ran a finger over the buttery leather strap of her purse, was her new wardrobe.

The shock of winning Risqué’s contest was starting to pass, but the shock of her own transformation was still fresh.

“I had no idea something as superfluous as makeup and fancy clothes could be so, well…”

“Sexy?” Mindy finished, grinning like a proud fairy godmother.

Delaney started to deny it. She’d never in her life aspired to be sexy. Oh, sure, she might have wished to be like the women Nick Angel wrote about. The kind that had a body worthy of using as an international weapon. But that’d always seemed as impossible as having tea with Frodo in Middle Earth. But now…

“Ladies, your salads will be right out. More tea?”

The women glanced up. Delaney’s cheeks heated when she realized the waiter’s attention was totally focused on her. Or, more specially, on her gel-bra enhanced cleavage. Again. This restaurant was a block from the college, and the guy had waited on Delaney at least a dozen times in the past. He’d never stared before. Maybe he was trying to figure out where she’d bought the new boobs?

Delaney squirmed while Mindy shooed him off.

“Yeah, maybe I’m feeling a little sexy,” Delaney admitted when he was gone. “But it’s a weird feeling. Uncomfortable. Like wearing a Halloween costume or pretending to be someone I’m not.”

Mindy shook her head so hard her kewpie-doll curls shook loose. “Oh, no, this is totally you. You’re a beautiful woman, I’ve told you that before. Now you have to admit it yourself because it’s staring you in the face.”

“As long as it gets me that promotion,” Delaney muttered, waving her hand in dismissal. Not realizing he was there, she knocked her salad out of the waiter’s hand as he tried to set it in front of her. He fumbled to catch it but half still ended up on the floor. With a dirty look he left, probably to get a broom. Apparently new boobs weren’t enough to excuse clumsiness. Delaney glared at Mindy, who didn’t bother to hide her snicker. “I told you, I’m not used to this.”

Mindy tilted her chin as if to say “watch,” and then gave the waiter two tables away a warm smile. He scurried right over. “Could you be a sweetie and take that salad back for a fresh one. And the sun is shining right through onto our table here, can you pull the shades down just a smidge, please?”

Delaney watched, awed as always, as Mindy wrapped the guy around her finger with a sweet smile and little flutter of her lashes. With a big grin to them both, he stepped over the spilled lunch and hurried to do Mindy’s bidding, tugging the shade down on his way.

“Instant obedience,” Delaney breathed. “Always. How do you do that? I thought maybe it was just a girly thing. But I’m wearing girly stuff now, all the way to my pastel panties, and I can’t get that kind of attention.”

“You’d better figure it out,” Mindy warned with a little frown. “You know the makeover is only part of what you need to get the promotion. Belkin can’t claim he’s hiring on looks, even if he is. He’s going to use the argument that he needs a charismatic, commanding assistant.”

Delaney’s jaw clenched. No. She’d gone through so much already, spent a month having her face and body analyzed like a freakish puzzle. She’d almost blown her anonymity when she’d slipped up in her “after” interview and told the Risqué people she was a book reviewer. The discussion turned to hot authors and next thing she knew, she’d opened her big mouth and critiqued Nick Angel’s books. Since she’d entered the contest using her pseudonym, she’d been worried her face attached to it would blow her cover. But Risqué wasn’t typical reading material for Rosewood’s students or faculty. Heck, it wasn’t even sold in bookstores or newsstands anywhere in the Santa Rosa area. It might be false confidence, but she figured her reviewing secret was safe.

She wanted that promotion. It was more than a job now. It was a symbol of her worth. To herself, to the college and to her father.

“You know,” Mindy said, picking at her nails like she always did when she was nervous, “I might have a suggestion that’d help you with that.”

“What?” Delaney asked slowly, eying the fingernails. As long as they stayed away from Mindy’s mouth, the idea probably wasn’t too crazy. It’s when she started nibbling on those things that Delaney really worried.

“My brother is the station manager at the local TV station. He mentioned last week their morning show is thinking of expanding their summer programming to include a critic’s corner.” Delaney’s stomach tightened when Mindy raised her hand to her mouth, pressing her thumbnail to her lip. “When I mentioned your name, Mike said he’d wait to post the job until I talked to you.”

“Me?”

“They’re looking for someone with a good handle on literature to do book reviews, discussions, that kind of thing,” Mindy finished in a rush, the words falling around the fingernail she was now diligently chewing. “It’s right up your alley. You do reviews already, love to read, and it’d be a great way to learn to become visible.”

“A TV show?” She couldn’t help it, she started laughing. “You’re joking, right? Me, on TV?”

She hyperventilated at the idea of having her driver’s license picture taken. Why on earth would she want to be on TV?

She’d make a complete ass of herself.

“It’s a great idea,” Mindy argued.

“No, it’s a crazy idea. What if someone saw me? I’m trying to hide that I’m a reviewer, remember?”

“It’s a San Francisco station, we don’t even get it up here,” Mindy assured her. “Besides, it’s a morning show, on the air during school hours. Who’d see it?”

“My father?”

“Does he even own a TV?”

No, but that wasn’t the point.

“Ahem.”

Both women turned startled glances to the tall, angular man standing by their table glaring at the mess the waiter had yet to clear. He turned his glare to Delaney. His eyes widened briefly, then narrowed with consideration.

Delaney grimaced. Professor Belkin. Then she glanced past him and felt herself turn pale. Her father. She’d been avoiding him, easy enough now that the spring semester was over. This wasn’t how she’d intended to tell him about the makeover.

She forced a smile on her suddenly stiff lips, but he didn’t respond. He didn’t even look at her, so engrossed was he in his discussion with a physics professor. Two feet away, and she was invisible to her own father. As usual.

“Ms. Adams, Professor. Perhaps they can bring you a bib,” Belkin said, his tone stiff and annoyed as he stepped over the scattered croutons.

He was obviously not impressed with her makeover, and even less with her dining skills. Delaney wanted to pick up a tomato and throw it at his departing head. Bet that would get his attention. It’d blow her ever-narrowing shot at the promotion, too. So she choked back her temper with a deep breath.

“TV?” she asked Mindy, blinking away the frustrated tears as she watched her father depart.

“Keep using your pseudonym,” Mindy advised. “Let Delaney Madison become the woman you’ve always wanted to be. Imagine the shock value when you waltz into the hiring meeting and wow them all with your newly acquired charisma and command of the room.”

The woman she’d always wanted to be? Her ultimate fantasy was to be a woman like the kind she loved to read about. Sexy, powerful, confident. The kind who could handle the most arrogant snobs and the hottest guys with the same panache.

Delaney knew there were a million reasons why TV was a crazy idea. But this was to improve her chances of getting the promotion. She’d thought the makeup would be enough, that it’d make her stand out. Obviously she needed a little more than a costume. She needed to learn to command attention. So she’d do TV and become Delaney Madison. Super Reviewer. Savvy, sexy and commanding.

Nobody was ruining this for her. No way, no how.

“SEX IS SECONDARY,” Delaney insisted to Sean Logan, host of the morning show Wake Up California. Despite the fact that she was almost hyperventilating with nerves, she managed a quick smile and strong, assured tone. Nothing like a good literary argument to put her at ease. After three weeks of her weekly fifteen-minute segment on “Critic’s Corner,” she still hadn’t gotten past the terror of being on camera.

“Yes, I want to be invested in a hot, wild love scene,” she continued. “I want to feel just as turned-on as they are when I read the character’s actions. But unless I care about them, unless I’ve already developed a connection to them, it’s just…well, bodies. Often messy, rarely appealing.”

“So what you’re saying is you want emotionally driven love scenes when you read?” Sean, the epitome of the all-American boy grown up, asked as he shifted in his chair.

“I’m saying all stories, to really draw in the reader, benefit from an emotional depth the reader can empathize with,” Delaney clarified.

While Sean tugged his bottom lip and nodded, she shifted in the hard wood chair, wishing she could take a deep breath. She assured herself it wasn’t nerves—after three shows, she had to be getting over those by now, didn’t she?—but it was just the bite of leather where her belt snugged around her waist. Why couldn’t fashion and comfort be synonymous? According to Mindy, her skirt was the “latest fashion,” which apparently meant uncomfortably short and tight.

“Tell me the truth, Delaney,” Sean said with a schmoozy smile, leaning toward her like an old friend about to share a secret. “Do you really buy in to all that romance…stuff?”

Delaney grinned at the last-second correction. Halfway through her first segment, she and Sean had gotten past the formal Q&A they’d started with, and relaxed into a casual conversation. Used to his technique now, she knew this was the sign to wrap up the chosen topic for this week’s segment—the romance genre.

“Romance is what makes the world go ’round,” she paraphrased. “The excitement of falling in love in all its varieties, the quest for happily ever after.”

“You really believe that? That romance has that much of an impact on the world?”

“Relationships, by whatever terms they are defined, are what drive literature. Both period and modern,” Delaney said, warming to her subject. “Jane Eyre, Romeo and Juliet, Wuthering Heights, they’re all examples of romances that have strongly impacted our literary history.”

Caught by something offstage, Sean’s eyes went wide.

Delaney noted the muted explosion of murmurs and rustles. Well used to impatient students, she continued her lecture on romance novels through the ages without a hitch, but let her gaze shift to the ruckus on the main set.

Oh. My. God. Could a woman have an orgasm at just the sight of a man? Delaney tried to catch her breath, but she couldn’t stop her racing thoughts long enough to remember how. Gorgeous. Pure male perfection.

Midnight hair, so black there were hints of blue from the bright studio lights, waved back from a face that would do a romance writer proud. Piercing eyes, a clear blue that made her feel as if he could see through her carefully applied mask all the way to her squirming insecure soul, narrowed when they met hers.

Delaney swallowed, sure the zap of sexual energy was just some weird reaction to the camera and lights. Or maybe an allergic reaction to the makeup. Did gel bras have a toxic effect when the skin got overheated?

“Well, well.” With a quick look at the producer, Sean gave a little nod, then said, “We have an unexpected guest joining us today. Ladies and gentlemen, Nick Angel.”

Delaney barely kept her jaw from dropping. Her gaze shot back to the hunk joining them onstage. She stifled a little gasp as his eyes met hers, energy zinging between them like lightning.