Slow Hands
Leslie Kelly
A two-time RWA RITA® Award nominee, eight-time Romantic Times BOOKreviews Award nominee and 2006 Romantic Times BOOKreviews Award winner, LESLIE KELLY has become known for her delightful characters, sparkling dialogue and outrageous humour. Since the publication of her first book in 1999, Leslie has gone on to pen more than two dozen sassy, sexy romances. Honoured with numerous other awards, including the National Readers’ Choice Award, Leslie writes sexy novels for Blaze®, and single-title contemporaries. Keep up with her latest releases by visiting her website, www. lesliekelly.com, or her blog, www.plotmonkeys.com.
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To the fabulous Plotmonkeys gang, including Katie, Jodie, Paula, Donna, Pat, Jeannie (and Zoey!), Tina, Kelly, Cher, Ev, Vero, Ardie, Jane, Estella, Elisa, Fedora, Kim, Stacy, Kathy, Bailey, Jaci, Patty, Michelle, Liza, Shari, Cherylann and so many more. Hanging out with all of you in The Jungle makes me smile every single day. Thank you so much for your friendship and support!
Table of Contents
Prologue
“OH, MY GOD, I CAN’T DO THIS, it’s hopeless! We’re not going to be able to pull it off.”
Penny Rausch heard the panic in her partner’s voice and struggled to keep her own alarm under control. One of them had to stay calm. Otherwise they were both going to lose their minds…not to mention their fledgling graphic design business.
“Calm down. We’re almost there.”
Janice, her partner and more-than-slightly ditzy younger sister, thrust her hand into her spiked blond hair, sending it into even more crazy directions than it had been before. A highly sought-after graphic designer, Janice had no head for business, but wow, was the girl creative…and not just with her hair. Her graphics were incredible. Her drawings collectible. Her fashion sense wildly imaginative.
Too bad she was pretty helpless in nearly every other aspect of her life.
“I dropped the file. The last six photos went everywhere. Just shoot me now.”
She looked utterly exhausted, with dark circles under her eyes and a haggard hollowness in her cheeks. Janice was usually very precise about her appearance, but right now her yellow T-shirt was stained with something that was either ketchup from today’s fries or tomato sauce from last night’s pizza.
They hadn’t left their office in thirty-six hours. Not since Janice’s expensive, nearly brand-new computer had crashed, taking most of the files for the high-end, glossy brochure they were producing down with it. And almost taking down their company, too.
Because if they lost this job—creating the programs for a ritzy charity bachelor auction scheduled for next week—they were finished. They wouldn’t make the already-late rent, or keep the power on, or cover the printing bill. They’d be out of business overnight, after only being in it for eight months.
“We can handle this,” Penny insisted. “We’ve come this far, we’re almost there.”
“Maybe we could contact Mrs. Baxter…”
“No. Absolutely impossible.” They could not let the snooty Junior League socialite know they’d had yet another mishap in the design job. No way. They were already on probation, thanks to a few hiccups—like Janice’s case of the flu and a flood in the office. If they admitted to the computer crash, the woman would kick them to the curb for good.
“I can’t even tell them apart anymore,” Janice wailed, waving toward the table laden with photographs and copy. “Looking at one gorgeous man after another, hour after hour…”
“Tough job.”
“It’s not funny. I thought we were in the clear when we found the backup set of hard copies. Why didn’t we put the bachelors’ info on the back when we made them?”
The biographies of the bachelors being auctioned off to support Chicago’s needy children had been on the backs of the originals. But the originals had gone back to the penny-pinching auction organizer, Mrs. Baxter, once they’d been copied and scanned. Now they had the scans on disc, and they had the hard duplicates. They even had the printed