She broke eye contact, as if she wanted to preserve her secrets. “Have a seat anywhere you like.”
“Okay.” He walked over to the sofa and sank down on the soft cushions. It would be an excellent make-out sofa, but he had a long way to go to overcome his previous reputation and be allowed to test-drive it.
“Are you hungry?” she called out again. “I have cookies.”
Sharing food with a business associate was always a good thing. He should keep his wits about him and remember tactics like that. “What kind?” he asked, remembering one of the other tricks of the food maneuver.
“Fig Newmans.”
He must have misunderstood her. “Fig Newtons?”
“Better. These are the organic version put out by Paul Newman and his daughter Nell.”
“Oh. Sounds good.” The cookies might be made from seaweed and tofu, but he’d eat the damned things. Urban chick or not, Erica obviously was still into the environmental stuff. He glanced at the magazines on the coffee table and noticed they were back issues of Mother Earth News.
He wondered if he had time to sneak back to the computer and read about her techniques for prolonging an erection. Not that he needed to read them, of course. He didn’t have that problem anymore. For another thing, focusing on the problem might even make it happen when he finally got his second chance. Now that would be a pisser.
“Here we are.” She walked into the room carrying a wooden tray with a pitcher of iced tea, two frosted glasses and a plate mounded with what looked like fig bars. “If you’ll pick up those magazines, I’ll set the tray there.”
He leaned over and scooped up the magazines. From this angle, if he made any kind of effort, he could look right up her skirt. He made no effort. Just watching the way her thighs brushed lightly together as she walked was causing enough damage. He couldn’t seem to concentrate on anything but sex where Erica was concerned.
First things first. He needed to sell her on the idea of expanding her newsletter. Once they’d agreed on that he could turn his attention to other things, and not before.
She poured the tea and sat in the chair on the other side of the coffee table. “So. You have a proposition for me?”
He wondered if she’d deliberately made that sound like a sexual challenge, as if she found it difficult to believe a three-minute wonder could manage a decent business proposal. Maybe his performance ten years ago was coloring everything for her, too. God, he hoped not.
Wrapping his hand around the cold glass of iced tea, he picked it up and took a swallow. Good, strong tea. He looked her straight in the eye. “I’d love to take you and your newsletter to the next level.”
Her gaze flickered. “My newsletter?”
At least she hadn’t laughed. If she’d laughed, he would have been toast. “I think you should consider widening your scope. Ramsey Enterprises could provide a support structure that would allow you to really try your wings and achieve greater satisfaction from your efforts.”
Hey, that sounded pretty good. Maybe he was better at business negotiations than he thought. He’d decided not to mention the weeklies until later on, after she was hooked on the idea. According to Jennifer’s info, Erica used to work for the Dallas Morning News. After being involved with a major daily, she might think a weekly wasn’t impressive enough.
She frowned in obvious confusion. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Then again, maybe he sucked at business negotiations. He sighed. “You have a great product. I think you could franchise it.”
“Oh.” She shook her head. “I’m not really into the newsletter. It’s just something I’m doing while I wait for the right opening on a big daily.”
He stared at her, unable to believe that this brilliant newsletter idea was a throwaway job. “But everybody’s talking about Dateline: Dallas. You have a hot commodity there with all kinds of potential.”
She shrugged and picked up a cookie. “Sure, it’s fun, but—”
“If you expanded into other cities, the sky’s the limit. Compare that to slaving away on a reporter’s salary.”
Her eyes flashed. “As if I cared about money. I want to make a difference, and I quit my job at the Morning News when I wasn’t getting the stories I wanted. The newsletter is tiding me over until a good job opens up somewhere else, but I don’t kid myself that it has any socially redeeming value. At least I print it on seventy percent post-consumer recycled paper, so that salves my conscience.”
Dustin was astounded. He’d never imagined that she wasn’t going to continue with this fantastic project. “It has lots of redeeming value,” he said without thinking.
“Like what?” She bit into her cookie with even white teeth.
“Like…being single is tough these days. Sexual marathoners, born-again virgins, cross-dressers. It’s a jungle out there. People need a guide.”
She chewed and swallowed her bite of cookie. “I want to deal with bigger issues.”
He had a feeling that saving Ramsey Enterprises wouldn’t count as a big issue with her. “So you’re not interested in what I’m suggesting.”
“I have to admit I’m intrigued, but I can’t see any point in talking about it when I’ll abandon the whole thing the minute I get the right job offer.”
Intrigued. He could work with that. Maybe he hadn’t bobbled the Hail Mary pass, after all. Maybe it was still hanging suspended in the air. “Any good leads on that job?”
She sighed. “No. With the economy still uncertain, people are keeping the jobs they have. Openings are scarce.”
“Then why not think about the franchise idea?”
“Because if I expanded, then I wouldn’t be able to drop it and run so easily.”
“We could anticipate that you’d be leaving, put people in place who could take over.” That would be easier said than done. Judging from the editions he’d seen, her personality was stamped all over it.
“Why are you so hot to do this?”
Now there was a loaded question. “What you’re doing is unique because it’s city-specific.” He had no idea where that term had come from, but it sounded professional. Thank God for his natural ability to BS his way through anything. The talent had served him well in college, and it might work here.
But talk about hot—all he had to do was glance over at her sitting in the chair with her long legs crossed, and he began to salivate. Desperate for some sort of oral satisfaction, he picked up a cookie and bit into it. Not bad. Tasty, even. But figs made him think of fig leaves. And fig leaves made him think of nearly naked bodies. And sex.
“What sort of expansion are we talking about?”
Surely she hadn’t just glanced at his crotch. He was imagining things. “Whatever you think you could handle.”
She nibbled at her cookie. “Fort Worth would be the logical first step. Then maybe Houston.”
“Houston’s good. San Antonio, too, maybe.” He watched her eat the cookie, watched as she licked a crumb from her lower lip, leaving it red and glistening.
“I’m not saying I want to do this,” she said, “but I wouldn’t mind having a little time to think about it.”
“Take as long as you want.” Yes, the Hail Mary pass was still in the air.
“Are you heading back to Midland today?”
“Not necessarily.” He didn’t plan to let