Tail.
His eyes dropped to Jackie’s feline accoutrements, amazed how his every thought already twined with images of her.
“Sounds good.” She nodded, a small smile curling her perfect lips.
He couldn’t be sure in the dim light, but he thought maybe she blushed.
Digging in his wallet for his business cards, he thought maybe she was just an old-fashioned girl. He’d heard they still existed. Women who didn’t sleep with someone on the first date. Women who still blushed.
Greg definitely approved. He just hadn’t pegged outrageous cat woman Jackie as one of those women.
He scribbled down her number on the back of one card and gave her another one in case she needed to reach him.
Who knew? Maybe she’d change her mind midweek and decide she couldn’t wait for the weekend.
Fat chance.
Greg had the feeling he’d lucked into meeting a woman who would be well worth a little time away from the office. A woman who wasn’t into playing games—despite the fact that she favored painting her nose pink and strutting through town wearing cat’s ears.
“You’re okay from here then?” Greg asked, not wanting to lose gentlemanly points this late into their evening together.
“I’m okay from here.” She backed toward her front steps, smiling.
No repeat good-night kiss. Greg couldn’t help the surge of disappointment. He’d been hoping maybe there’d be one more kiss to seal the deal.
Still, he wanted to roar with satisfaction that there would be more kisses, and who knew what else, in store. He had the feeling he’d have a hard time concentrating on his demo tape review tomorrow after the way she’d just set his veins on fire. But he only had a week to go to see her again.
Until then, he planned to stock up on dessert wine.
FROM THE SAFETY OF HER building’s well-lit foyer, Jackie tracked Greg’s progress down her street until she couldn’t see him anymore.
She’d made a date with Mr. Corporate and she was feeling pretty damn giddy about it. The memory of his touch would taunt her until next weekend.
She looked down at the business card in her hands, scarcely daring to believe her good luck. Flipping it over, she read the words printed there.
Greg De Costa. General Manager.
WBCI, Channel Twelve.
The card wavered in her suddenly trembling hand.
Oh no.
Jackie watched her fledgling career crash and burn right before her eyes.
Her bachelor party hero had turned out to be more than a ritzy member of Boston’s business elite. No, that would have been far too tame for her. She’d flashed her breasts at the man who held her professional future in his hands—the veritable god of the commercial jingle world, the Zeus of recording contracts in Boston.
No wonder his name had sounded so familiar to her. Jackie had just mailed him a copy of her demo last week.
Before she’d fawned all over him. Before she’d fallen out of her kitty costume and shown him more than any man had ever seen.
Before she’d totally blown her credibility as a serious commercial talent.
What was he going to think when he opened her application materials and discovered her name on a new demo? He was going to think what any man would think—that Jackie had gone out of her way to put herself in his path today. That she’d put on a show for him to help land a job.
Maybe she hadn’t been so lucky tonight after all.
Jackie squeezed her eyes shut, knowing she was going to have to do some serious tap dancing to maneuver her way around this disaster. But after failing at one career—her cherished dream of composing more complex music—Jackie refused to screw up another.
Later, she’d figure how she could still land the voice-over slot without looking like she’d manipulated Greg.
But first things first. She didn’t stand a shot in hell at that job if Greg unearthed her tape now. Before she did anything else, she needed to make a trip to WBCI to get her demo back.
Good thing Jackie was used to turning heads and causing a commotion. She had the feeling she’d have to do a little of both if she wanted to straighten out this mess.
4
WBCI SAT ON THE outskirts of Boston, a high-tech television studio in a less than stellar part of town.
Greg didn’t mind the long commute. His car had state-of-the-art German engineering to smooth the back roads full of potholes, and today, he had a gorgeous woman on his mind to occupy his thoughts.
What he didn’t have was a new voice-over talent for the station.
That failing clouded his mood as he pulled into his primo reserved parking space in front of the building. He hefted his briefcase out of the car, the dozens of nixed demo tapes inside adding considerably to its weight.
What he hadn’t heard on any of these demo tapes was a voice like Jackie Brady’s. Had his listening ear been prejudiced after the sweet seduction of her perfect pitch? Or had there genuinely been no good candidates for the station’s in-house voice-over vacancy?
He mulled over the question on the way to his office. The penthouse in this relatively short building was only on the sixth floor, but it didn’t matter to Greg, who preferred to spend time getting work done as opposed to gazing out the window.
Of course, no matter how much Jackie’s singing voice haunted his dreams and possibly biased his professional opinions, Greg had to be grateful there was no chance they would ever be working together. He’d seen firsthand how detrimental a personal relationship could be to a professional one. Ever since the meteorologist incident, Greg made sure not to mingle his personal and professional lives.
Therefore, no matter how much he kept thinking Jackie would be a great voice-over talent, he counted his blessings she was safely involved in another career. He would keep her and her cat whiskers in his private life and figure out another way to solve his station’s dilemma.
Exiting the elevator into the sixth-floor lobby, Greg sensed trouble brewing. More than half the seats in the small reception area were occupied by WBCI employees. Every single one of those employees looked up expectantly as he sought his office.
He almost had the door unlocked when the barrage of questions began. Ten seconds later he was swarmed.
The engineer from the editing room pushed her way to the front of the pack. She was poker buddies with the lady meteorologist who’d caused Greg so much grief and she didn’t waste any opportunity to give him a hard time. “Greg, I’ve got to polish up the department store commercials this week to show the client. Any word on an in-house person for the voice-over, or do you want me to freelance it out?”
“Same here, Greg,” called one of his right-hand producers from the back of the crowd. “I need a voice for the Pink Lady Club and you told me you didn’t want one of our news anchors to fill in for a risqué spot like that. Didn’t you say you’d have some talent contracted by today?”
Greg worked the lock behind his back while he doled out smooth assurances. “I’ve just got to iron out the contract details.” As the lock gave, he backed his way into his private offices. “Give me a couple of hours to nail things down and I’ll have a name for you this afternoon.”
He hoped.
Assuming he could put Jackie’s voice behind him for a few hours and concentrate on the few remaining tapes that might have