Various States of Undress: Virginia (3 page)

“Thanks,” Virginia said automatically. When she reached out for it, her fingers brushed his and she jerked back. His eyes twinkled in response.

“There's a children's benefit tonight. Half the people you need to meet will be there. Will you go with me?”

She stared at him, and her mind screamed, “Fat chance!” But then something strange happened. A look crossed his face. It was vulnerable . . . as if he had just asked her to the high school prom, knowing that he didn't have a chance in hell. And then it was gone, replaced by that half smile that was beginning to drive her crazy.

“Okay,” she heard herself saying. “I'll go with you. But as for the business arrangement? You have a lot to prove.”

“So do you,” he murmured. “Let me give you my info.”

She pulled out her notebook and handed him a pen. He scribbled for a moment, glancing up briefly as the paparazzi crept out from behind the trees, with zoom lenses, no doubt. Tilting the notebook close to his chest, he finished writing and closed it before handing it back. With a wink so quick she wasn't quite sure it had even happened, he turned and walked down the sidewalk. She watched him go, a slow smile lifting her lips as he stepped through puddle after puddle, seemingly unaware that his shoes were getting soaked.

Chapter Two

T
HE SIDEWALK WAS
a wet concrete ribbon winding through Central Park and Dex hyper-focused on it—he kind of had to since he was experiencing tunnel vision. Forcing himself to walk slowly, he shoved his tingling fingers into his suit coat pockets and blinked a couple of times. He'd met Virginia Fulton—and he'd
winked
at her? Ouch. But worse—before he'd winked, he'd said all kinds of crazy shit. Brilliant.

Dex groaned aloud and kicked a rock out of his path. It wasn't as if he hadn't met celebrities before. After all, there were quite a few A-list movie stars who frequented Cameron's on Fifth Avenue, and he'd stood mere feet from Hollywood royalty who were draped in Cameron's signature sapphires. He'd been able to keep his head during those occasions and even make some semblance of witty conversation.

So why was he so starstruck by Virginia? She wasn't an Oscar winner. She'd only been famous since her father had announced his run for the presidency, and Patrick Fulton had only been in office for a little over a year. During that time, Virginia had moved to New York and promptly become the “it” girl for fashion trends and, unfortunately, also the “it” girl for the clubbing crowd. She was a loose cannon. Naïve about her celebrity and—despite her education—kind of vapid. Or so he'd assumed—until he met her.

“She had me pegged within two seconds, and I thought she was going to be dumb,” he muttered to himself. “Damn, I'm the dumb one for
assuming
she's dumb.”

But the second he'd laid eyes on her, her gorgeous smile had yanked the breath right out of his body, and he'd gone from his usual reserved and careful self to some weirdo wheeler-dealer in five seconds flat. It was hard not to stare at her full lips or the soft wispy ends of her hair blowing across her high cheekbones. To cover his nervousness, he'd talked—a lot—and right now he couldn't remember half of what he'd said, aside from accidentally propositioning her, offering her a business partnership, and then following all of
that
horror up by asking her out on a date. Who
was
he?

He scratched his head. “No matter what she thinks, I'm not a pervert. But how was I supposed to exercise good judgment right after I'd been crotch-frisked?”

There was a strangled “Oh!” from nearby, and Dex jerked his gaze from the sidewalk to offer a pained smile at a lady who gave him a wide berth as she hurried by with a wire push-cart.

Sighing, he trudged on, exiting Central Park onto Fifth Avenue, walking down to Sixty-Third Street, and, as he got lost in the crowds on their way to the zoo, the initial shock of meeting Virginia in person began to wear off a bit. The “real” her had certainly surprised him, though—that sexy, slightly raspy voice, the way her full lips had quirked up ever so slightly in a disbelieving smile—even sexier—and the intelligent, determined glint in her brown eyes. That glint had been what struck him the most—and he'd known right then that he couldn't let her walk away completely. That glint was why he'd made her an offer, wasn't it?

Well, whatever it was, Dex was going to do something about cementing it—right now—and he blew out a breath as he walked toward Park Avenue. It was finally time to force his hand with Dexter Barton Cameron I. The legendary old man was known as DB to his friends, not that he had many. But to Dex, he was Granddad.

The man was ninety years old and held onto the reigns of Cameron Enterprises with a death grip. Dex winced—okay, death grip was a grim way to put it—but it wasn't that far from the truth. Granddad was wrongly convinced that Dex would be a weak leader, just like Dex's father had proven to be. Dear old Dad had a silver spoon permanently shoved into his mouth; he was lazy, selfish, and divorced several times over. He'd never been CEO material and hadn't lasted in the job more than five years. Granddad still ran things—or he would until Dex proved himself worthy to take over. Dex needed to make that happen before his younger sister, Ariel, clawed her way into the job. She was ruthless, which Granddad liked, but she was also reckless. Dex was cautious, which Granddad didn't like, and it was the reason the old man had been holding back, waiting for one of them to dazzle him. He'd been dangling a carrot for almost a month, driving both Dex and Ariel crazy.

A month ago, in mid-February, Granddad had announced that one of them would get the opportunity to open Cameron's first international location in London. Whoever got the job—which involved the building, the grand opening, and the successful management of the property—would become the new CEO. But before either of those things could happen, one of them had to make a bold move. Prove readiness for the next step up in the corporation.

Ariel had tried to do that two weeks ago by going to an auction and buying up what she thought was an incredible lot of diamonds for an even more incredible price. Except that they'd been fake. She'd covered her ass, but she didn't know that Dex had found out about it. She'd probably try something equally crazy soon, and Dex could either let her implode or he could make his own bold move. He preferred the latter.

Dex reached the street corner and paused. In front of him stood the building that contained the penthouse apartment that had been in his family for the past seventy years, and he'd been on his way inside when the Secret Service had discreetly approached him and asked if he had a moment to meet with Virginia. He hadn't had a moment, but he'd been too intrigued to decline. Now he was late for his weekly meeting with his grandfather, but it was worth it. He'd met Virginia and realized that she was the ticket to his future—which was so much better than walking into this building thirty minutes ago with his stomach in a knot because he had no new plans to present. Dex would have been one week closer to losing to Ariel.

Every week his grandfather demanded that Dex report in, and, inevitably, the old man said the same thing:
If you want to be CEO, you need to prove yourself
. But so far, all of Dex's attempts to do just that had been met with indifference.

Today was going to be different, that was for damn sure. For weeks, Dex had been working on an idea to pull Lilah's into the twenty-first century—give it a fresh new image, make it profitable, and bring back its status as a shopping landmark—but he hadn't presented the idea to his grandfather because he knew that he wouldn't be able to pull it off without something, or
someone,
very compelling to blast the dinosaur of a department store into the news. Meeting Virginia Fulton was like finding the last piece of a puzzle. As long as she clicked into place, he would be golden. He ought to wait until she said yes, obviously, but he was desperate to make a move.

Desperate. That about summed him up because even if he got to go to London, it would be years before he actually got to take over as CEO, since Granddad didn't want a CEO under the age of thirty-five. Ariel would have to wait even longer, but both of them were willing to wait. Why? Dex was pretty sure Ariel's focus was only on winning, but he was thinking of his future. His family name. His reputation. He knew that Granddad wanted to keep control of the company until the day he croaked and beyond, but the day Dex turned thirty-five, he meant to have Cameron Enterprises and run it his way—family-friendly, progressive, and open to fresh ideas. As he paused in front of the ornate façade of the apartment building, he took a deep breath to psych himself up.

Nodding at the doorman, Dex walked into the marble lobby and, after stopping at the concierge desk to announce himself, rode up to the penthouse floor. The shiny brass elevator wall reflected his tense face, and he tried to give himself an encouraging smile. He looked like a ghoul, so he faced forward, staring at the doors until Virginia's beautiful face popped into his head.
She
wouldn't be nervous, would she? She'd just barrel in and lay it on the line, like she had earlier. He could do that too.

Granddad
would
agree to the plan for Lilah's because the man had a huge ego about his legacy. Plus, once upon a time, that store had been his dream—it was the foundation of Cameron's, and it was named after Dex's grandmother, the irrepressible Lilah Cameron. She'd been dead for ten years, but her personality—her essence—had been so huge that some days Dex had to remind himself that his grandmother was actually gone.

As the doors dinged open, he jerked forward like a wind-up toy, his footfalls echoing across the travertine floor in the entryway.

“Hello,” he called out.

Judy, the housekeeper, peeked out of an archway, her half glasses resting low on her nose. “Morning, Dex. It's nice to see you, honey. You're kind of late, aren't you?” Her voice held a commiserative thread of warning.

Dex kissed her on the cheek and offered a pained smile. Common sense told him that he should have called when he knew he would be late—and more than that, brought an actual proposal on paper—but if he'd done those things, he'd have had to stand there for fifteen minutes in silence while Granddad flipped pages and shook his head. By the time
that
was over, Dex would have been a wreck. It was better this way.

From a parlor to the right, DB cleared his throat. “Judy! Quit your incessant gossiping and show him in here. I haven't got all damn day.”

At the gravelly bark of his grandfather's voice, Dex's heart went into warp speed, and he rubbed his chest with the flat of his hand. “Morning, Judy.” He glanced past her sympathetic expression and sauntered into the parlor. Usually he stopped a few feet from his grandfather's wing chair, like a subject bowing before a king, his feet rooted in the thick Persian rug. Today was different. Today he'd met a daughter of the president of the United States and had most-of-the-way convinced her to enter a business partnership. He could handle this.

Giving the man a light clap on his thin shoulder, Dex sat on a stiff sofa and leaned back, crossing his legs. “How are you, Granddad?”

The man stared at him with sharp green eyes—the same eyes Dex saw in the mirror every morning. He didn't say anything for a moment, and then those eyes went narrow. “Something's happened with you. You're different.”

Dex forced a shrug. “I'm the same man I was last time you saw me. I'm just not in a bullshit kind of mood today.”

“Good. I hate bullshit and you know it.” DB leaned forward. “So get to the point.”

“I'm ready to take over as CEO and I have a plan to prove it.”

Again, his grandfather didn't speak for a moment—the man was famous for sitting in silence, waiting for the other person to get uncomfortable enough to blurt out exactly the wrong thing. Dex stared at him and threw an arm over the back of the sofa—clenching his hidden fingers into the carved wood trim.

DB finally broke eye contact. “It better be good. Don't waste my time on another uninspired proposal. Nothing about you so far has been CEO-worthy, kid.”

Resentment rose quickly, closing Dex's throat again, but he clenched his teeth to keep from retorting. He'd only seem petulant if he did that, and he wasn't a kid anymore. He was a twenty-seven-year-old man with an MBA, for fuck's sake, but so far, DB hadn't been very impressed no matter what Dex did—and he'd done a lot. He'd worked at Cameron's in accounting, PR, HR, and—currently—advertising. He'd been smart, calculating, and responsible. What more did the old man want?

“I want inspiration,” DB said, poking the air with a finger as if in response to the silent query.

Dex locked stares with him. “Then here it comes. I plan to make Lilah's profitable. I'm going to rebrand it and bring it back to glory.”

“Lilah's?” DB blurted out. He let out a barking laugh, but it didn't quite cover the surprise in his eyes. “What does that have to do with expanding Cameron's into the UK?”

“My idea is completely relevant. If I can turn Lilah's around, I sure as hell can open a corporate office and a string of retail locations in London.”

DB stared at him for a moment. “What the hell do you know about Lilah's?”

“I know it's a relic, and that's not what Grandmother intended. It's been neglected since she passed away.”

That was met by more silence, and Dex knew he'd thrown down his trump card early. It was a gamble.

Finally, the old man nodded. “Maybe. But you're going to have to do cost analyses, hire people who know what they're doing, and—”

Dex's cell phone pinged. Normally, he would apologize and fumble to turn the thing off. But that would break his momentum, wouldn't it? So he didn't move. It pinged again—and Granddad narrowed his eyes to slits. Damn. Slowly, Dex loosened his fingers from the back of the sofa and reached in the breast pocket of his suit. “Excuse me,” he murmured, flicking open the screen. His eyes widened at the texts in front of him. They were from Virginia, telling him simply that an unmarked SUV would be waiting for him behind his building this evening. Then she'd texted a smiley face. He almost smiled back at it but caught himself.