“Yeah, I know. It didn’t really feel like a business kiss when he laid it on me.” She tossed the little hat she was playing with back into the basket and flopped onto the armchair behind her. She dropped the sarcasm. “I’d be a fool not to meet with him, at least. This is the first time someone’s come to me about a job, instead of me pitching to them. It’s taken six years to get to the point where we’re almost a real player in the industry. And Ruben is ready to call the show tonight. More than ready, really. He’s bored being the assistant stage manager.” She tucked her feet beneath her loose floral skirt. She’d felt very peasant-girl-come-to-do-the-laundry when she got dressed this morning.
“You know it takes time to build up a business reputation,” Grace reminded her.
“I know. And between the outfit and the make-out session, I may have started Carving Bananas on the road to a reputation for something other than business.” She frowned and pulled a final onesie from the laundry basket. “Not that I can take the job if I get the Broadway show. But still, options are nice.” She folded the onesie and dropped it on a pile. Straightened the pile until it stopped listing to one side.
“Hey, he kissed you.”
That was Grace. Always on your side. Maxie smiled.
“I provoked it.”
“So, show him you mean business. You’re good, Maxie, and if this guy has any kind of business sense, he’ll be able to see that in no time at all. There’s really only one question.”
Maxie arched a brow at her sister-in-law and cocked her head to one side, listening. She’d taken advantage of Grace’s acumen when she’d first had the idea to turn her habit of filling her family members’ basements with discarded props from the shows she stage-managed into a business. Anything Grace—who hobnobbed with the movers and shakers of Chicago with ease while running her restaurant conglomerate—had to say was worth hearing.
“He’s seen Go-Go Girl Maxie, and the anti-glamour, can-you-really-tell-she’s-a-woman, Opening Night Maxie. Who he’s going to meet tonight?”
It was a good question. Maxie sank back into the cushions and tapped a fingernail against her bottom lip, staring across the room, seeing nothing at all.
Who indeed would Nick Drake meet tonight at Nomi, in the spare white environment of one of the city’s best restaurants? There would be two-hundred-dollar bottles of wine, no doubt, and tiny and intricately constructed morsels of food speared on metal sculptures or some such.
Who should be sitting across the table from the classic businessman in a bowler hat, metaphorically speaking?
He’d found her a bit loose the other day, perhaps. Uncontrolled. And he seemed like a man who had a thing for giving orders, and having someone else take them.
That would be a problem. On several levels. Maxie considered herself the person most capable of dishing out the orders in any given situation. Nothing personal, but she knew the most efficient way to handle things and had become convinced that being in charge was where she belonged.
He liked control. Perhaps he wanted to see more of it from her...
Well, she would show him her idea of control.
* * *
Nick let a sip of Cabernet roll over his tongue, the heat and fruit and spice building in his mouth like a kiss. His entire week had been hectic, not the least because he’d been unable to shake thoughts of Maxie Tyler and her conflicting personas out of his brain.
Who was he kidding? The only things stuck in his head were memories of her mouth, spicy and hot and open to him, her body, so small but a powerhouse of lean muscle, pressed against him, and her eyes...
In more than one meeting since that morning, he’d caught himself blinking at a room full of silent observers, only to realize that he’d once again lost focus, sunk in the memory of those deep dark eyes locked on his.
The fact that no one else knew what he was picturing did nothing to quell the embarrassment.
His usual self-control was failing him.
He wasn’t sure what had possessed him to suggest dinner after the breakfast meeting had offered up such unpredictable fare. Aside from his momentary indulgence in a purely physical attraction, the entire interaction had been beyond the pale. Much like the rest of the time he’d spent on this latest obsession of his mother’s. Par for the course for her, although he’d spoken to more than one contact in the arts world who swore that this playwright actually had the chops to write an award-winner. Still, there would be no shortage of local gossips eager to tear this latest eccentricity to pieces. His own involvement only drew more attention to his mother’s whims, as Nick’s business activities were reported on as a matter of course in the business press.
Not that Maxie Tyler wasn’t intriguing. The World War II history buff didn’t fit with the flighty theater drama queen he’d anticipated from someone who would show up in costume to a meeting. Maybe stage managers were a different breed.
He glanced at his watch and sighed. Every theater person he’d met so far was absolutely reliable in never showing up on time. Ironic, that. Since they’d agreed to meet at eight and it was now five minutes to, he figured he had about half an hour of quiet anonymity to enjoy at the restaurant’s bar. He’d have some time to sip this robust wine and throw off a little of the week’s tension. The details were falling into place on his latest venture capital deal—and the kids who’d started this new company were brilliant—but he never relaxed until a deal was done.
Actually, even then he didn’t relax. After all, someone had to make sure the businesses in which he invested grew at the proper pace and in the correct directions. And that someone was always him.
He lifted his glass and scanned the room, from the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Chicago Avenue to the host stand at the entrance. And promptly choked on his Cabernet.
Damn.
Boots again.
He watched her brush past the hostess with a brief word and imagined he could hear the pounding bass beat of a movie soundtrack with each stalking step she took across the room to where he waited, glass still lifted to his mouth.
And he’d been worried about his self-control.
She looked like someone who asserted control—no, let’s be accurate here, domination is the word that comes to mind—over others as a way of life.
Who would have thought that a woman showing barely an inch of skin below the neck could look like a walking sexual fantasy in midnight black?
A form-fitting black leather jacket with a stiff military collar hugged her torso from the shoulders to the swell of her hips. The narrow black skirt would have looked prim if it weren’t so tight, right down to where its edge brushed the top of her boots. And if he’d ever believed that stiletto heels were the height of sexiness, he was rapidly changing his opinion in favor of these black boots that laced up the front in a style more reminiscent of a motorcycle gang than Milan.
Heads turned to follow her all the way across the crowded bar as she arrowed a straight line to the empty seat he’d saved beside him. He had a moment to regret the way she drew attention just by moving. Nick was always happier staying in the background. She swung one hip up onto the high chair and held out a hand.
“Ms. Tyler.” He squelched the urge to wolf whistle. That he could dredge her name up from his stunned brain was amazing.
“Nicholas Drake.”
Her low voice was quiet enough that he needed to lean in to hear her. He didn’t remember taking her hand in his, but when she smiled and glanced down to where he still held it, he dropped it and set his wine glass on the bar, happy enough to break contact with her for a moment. He couldn’t think when he was touching her.
At his