Mr. Right Now

“Nina?”

With a start, Nina glanced up at Lizbeth, drawn from her daydream. “Oh, right. The meeting.” She reached up and raked her fingers through her hair. Though Lizbeth looked like she’d just stepped out of a magazine ad, Nina usually managed to run a comb through her hair on the way down her apartment stairs and dash on mascara and a little lipstick during her bus ride from her East Village apartment. “She wants everyone there?” she asked.

“Big news,” Lizbeth warned. “I think bad news, too, from the look on Charlotte’s face. She’s wearing the same clothes she had on yesterday afternoon, her hair is a mess and she’s got raccoon eyes from her mascara. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Charlotte looking like a roadside rodent. Maybe Daddy Danforth has finally cut the purse strings.”

Nina’s heart twisted in her chest. If the magazine was having financial problems then the first jobs to be cut would be editorial assistants. Her current position as fact checker was safe as long as Attitudes was still publishing. But her future as an assistant editor with the magazine suddenly looked bleak. “Are you sure she wants me there? I’m never invited to staff meetings.”

“She specifically asked that you come,” Lizbeth said.

Nina jumped to her feet, hope springing to life inside her. “Did she ask for me by name?”

“Yes,” Lizbeth said. “She walked in my office, told me about the meeting and requested that I be sure to tell Tina.”

Nina rolled her eyes and cursed softly. “Is my name that hard to remember? I’ve worked for Charlotte for nearly three years! She sees me at least four or five times a week.” She looked down at the bottle-green satin Chinese jacket and flowered skirt she wore. “I don’t look like I blend into the furniture, do I?”

Lizbeth considered Nina’s skirt for a few seconds and put on her best Southern drawl. “My mama did have some dining room portieres that looked a lot like your skirt.”

Nina strode to the door, pinching Lizbeth’s arm as she passed. “You’re so mean to me. I don’t know why you’re still my friend.”

Lizbeth fell into step beside her as they strolled toward the conference room. “Because I’m the only one who really appreciates you,” she said with a lazy smile. “And your whimsical fashion sense.” She gave her the once-over with her critical fashion eye. “All right, I love the jacket. There, are you happy?”

One thing Nina was happy about was that Lizbeth had forgotten the events of the night before. The last thing she needed was her best friend chiding her about the mistakes she’d made. Lizbeth just didn’t understand. She’d always had boys fawning over her and men falling at her feet. Nina had discovered boys a little later in life, so she’d been playing catch-up since she was eighteen. She sighed softly, glancing at Lizbeth. No matter how long she worked at it, she’d never catch up to Lizbeth.

By the time they reached the conference room, all the chairs had been taken by senior staff. Lizbeth and Nina stood against the back wall and watched as Charlotte called the meeting to order. Nina couldn’t recall ever attending a staff meeting before. Charlotte preferred to deal with her one-on-one and important news was usually passed on to Nina through office gossip, haphazard memos, or not at all.

“We have a problem,” Charlotte began. “A huge problem. I’ve called you all in here because, frankly, I don’t know what to do.” To Nina’s surprise, the normally icy Charlotte looked like she was about to cry. “I can’t go to Daddy, so I’m asking all of you for your help.” She sniffed. “I know I haven’t always been the nicest boss, but I can’t change that now.” Her voice trembled slightly. “Yesterday evening I had a visit from a representative of NightRyder, some Internet company with truckloads of cash. They offered to buy the magazine.”

A collective gasp sounded in the silence of the conference room, followed by a low murmur of whispered comments. Lizbeth turned to look at Nina, her eyes wide.

Charlotte ran her fingers through her mussed hair and Nina noticed the shadows beneath her boss’s eyes. She had been crying. “Don’t worry, the offer wasn’t good enough to accept. But the next one might be. And as you all know, this magazine has always operated on a…tight budget. And now that Daddy—I mean, now that my investors have decided to curtail their rather generous funding, the magazine is more vulnerable than ever. We have to tighten our belt, be more efficient and—and do all those other things you people do when we need to save money. I’m sure you know what they are.”

“Like cutting back on expensive business lunches at the city’s best restaurants?” Lizbeth murmured. “And throwing lavish parties for male models then writing them off against our photo budgets?”

“Shhh!” Nina hissed.

“Lena, where are you?” Charlotte demanded. Her gaze searched the room, but no one spoke up. The rest of the employees glanced nervously back and forth. “Well, where is my head of research? Lizbeth, I told you to bring her along. Where is Lena?”

Suddenly Nina realized that Charlotte was talking to her. She raised her hand nervously. “I’m here,” she said. “Tina, I—I mean, Nina. Nina Forrester.” She groaned inwardly and bit back a curse. Now she couldn’t even remember her own name!

“Tina, I want you to find out everything you can about this NightRyder company. It’s owned by someone named Cameron Ryder. Call whoever you call and get me something, anything, on this man. I need to know everything I can about the enemy before I face him again. Oh, and find out if he’s married.” She glanced around the room. “As for the rest of you, no more spending. Cultivate new vendors who will extend us credit. Sell more ad pages. And there’ll be no more free beverages in the coffee room!”

With that, she swept out of the room, leaving her staff to wonder whether they might be better off with Cameron Ryder at the helm of Attitudes. Nina and Lizbeth hurried out in front of the crowd, anxious to regain the privacy of Nina’s office. When they closed the door behind them, they both gasped and gaped at each other.

“I suppose we ought to start revising our résumés,” Nina said.

“You don’t actually think Charlotte will sell to this NightRyder guy, do you?”

Nina shook her head. “She’s not much of a business-woman and the magazine has always struggled. But then, maybe this Ryder isn’t much of a businessman.” She reached for her computer keyboard, then looked at the screen. The moment she’d walked in that morning, she’d typed up her two ads—the “coffee collision” ad for Mr. Right and the “Adonis” ad for Mr. Right Now, still torn between which one to place.

As she stared at the screen, Nina’s mind again wandered back to her encounter with “Coffee Man.” How many times had she brushed him from her thoughts, trying to convince herself there was probably something seriously wrong with him? Maybe he picked his teeth or burped after dinner. Maybe he hated modern art or detested the theater. He could have all sorts of disgusting flaws. Like all the other men she’d met, she’d probably have dropped him sooner or later, so what was the point even wasting brain cells on him?

A soft moan slipped from her lips. But he was incredibly intriguing. She suspected he had a body to match that gorgeous face, hidden beneath his staid attire. And though she usually didn’t go for the suit-and-tie type, he wouldn’t always be wearing clothes. A delicious shiver skittered up her spine and she couldn’t help but smile.

“Well? What have you found?”

Nina blinked, then glanced up at Lizbeth. “What? Oh, nothing. It’ll take more than a few seconds.” She shook her head and turned back to the monitor, hoping to hide the warm flush that had crept up her cheeks. “But I’ll let you know as soon as I do,” she murmured, closing the document that held the two ads.

Lizbeth started toward the door. “Good luck,” she said, the usual light and teasing tone now gone from her voice. “All of us are counting on you.”

She closed the door behind her, leaving Nina to her own thoughts. Though the business with Cameron Ryder was urgent, she allowed herself just a few more moments to think about her fantasy man. Maybe if she finished up her research for Charlotte early, she’d go back to the coffee shop after work. Perhaps, he’d be there, hoping that she might return as well.

And this time, she wouldn’t be such a dope. She’d catch his eye from across the room. And then she’d smile, a hesitant, but coy smile, with maybe a hint of surprise. Then a little wave, playful but not too aggressive. After all, she didn’t want him to think she’d come looking for him on purpose. No, it was best to play hard to get—but not too hard to get.

“So how do I do that?”

She glanced down at what she’d pulled from her closet that morning. It wasn’t exactly conservative, but she thought it was pretty. “Maybe Mr. Right goes for the kind of woman who wears conservative clothes and spends more than a few minutes making herself look pretty in the morning,” she murmured, worrying over a loose thread on her jacket. She tugged on it and a button went flying across the room.

Yeah, she was smooth all right. For all she knew, Mr. Right might have a Ms. Right waiting at home, someone beautiful and sophisticated. He might even be married! Not every man wore a wedding band. Since last night, she’d spun a whole fantasy around this guy, giving him qualities she wasn’t even sure he’d possessed.

“This is ridiculous,” Nina said. “Your social life is so bad that you’ve been reduced to dreaming up a relationship with a complete stranger, turning a few minutes at Jitterbug’s into two kids, a dog and a three-bedroom house in Jersey.”

With a soft oath, she brought up the computer screen that held her two ads. Pounding furiously on the Delete key, she erased her “Coffee Collision” ad. It was time to stop dreaming and take control of her life. Mr. Right was a silly fantasy. And Mr. Right Now would have to wait until after this crisis with NightRyder was solved. For the next few days, she’d have to focus all her time and energy on just one man—the mysterious and very dangerous Cameron Ryder.

THE MARCH WEATHER had turned brisk again, a cold, damp wind swirling around the city and smelling of a late season snow. Cameron pulled his leather jacket closed as he stepped out of the cab in front of the coffee shop. He stood for a long moment on the sidewalk, trying to decide whether to venture inside. The windows were fogged and the sound of music drifted out every time the door was opened, but he waited.

He wasn’t really sure why he’d come. He’d already decided not to use Nina Forrester for information about Attitudes magazine. Too many complications. Yet, he had still made a simple phone call to the magazine and learned she was a fact checker, a job that probably didn’t put her in daily contact with the editor and publisher, Charlotte Danforth, anyway. The information she might be able to provide would be marginally valuable at best—or that’s what he chose to tell himself.

“So why the hell am I here?” Cameron muttered.

Was it curiosity? He couldn’t deny that he’d found their little encounter over a cup of coffee surprisingly intriguing. Maybe it was the contradiction, the wide-eyed naif hiding a provocative siren. He reached into his jacket pocket and withdrew the ad she’d written. If he hadn’t taken it from her hand, he never would have put the two together. But then, he’d never been a very astute judge of the female mind. For a guy who didn’t have a real date until he was a junior in college, Cameron Ryder had been forced to learn fast, leaving several very pronounced gaps in his studies.

There had been women, a fair number of them since he’d started NightRyder, but never anything serious. He thought back to his days in college, to the fantasies of beautiful, sexy women, blond and leggy, with tanned and trainer-toned bodies. They were every misfit’s dream and over the past five years he’d dated—and bedded—a string of them.

But somehow, the reality had never lived up to the fantasy. Though many of the women were nice enough, there was nothing beyond the gorgeous bodies except the desire to capture a wealthy and powerful man. More and more, he’d found himself playing the role they’d wanted to him play, pretending to be someone he could never be, smooth and sophisticated, yet caught in a series of empty relationships.

So he’d stopped dating months ago, instead putting his energy back into the business. Nina Forrester was the first woman he’d found even remotely interesting in all that time. He exhaled, his breath clouding in front of his face, then pulled the door open. He hadn’t been inside more than a few moments before he saw her. She was sitting at a table over in the corner. She turned to look at some papers she’d spread in front of her and he silently studied her profile—the pretty nose, the lush lips, the golden hair that framed her face in soft tendrils.

Without thinking, he crossed the room and came to a stop beside her table. Suddenly, he wasn’t quite sure what to say. He felt as if he’d been transported back to that awful moment in high school when he’d worked up the nerve to ask the prettiest cheerleader out on a date, only to have her laugh in his face.

Cameron swallowed hard. “I owe you a cup of coffee.”

She looked up and for an instant, he thought he saw delight in her pretty blue eyes and a tiny trace of a smile curling her lips. “Hi,” she said, her voice breathless with surprise. She stood up quickly, knocking her hip against the table and nearly spilling her cup of coffee in the process. “What are you doing here?”

Cameron knew enough about women to play it cool. “I was just passing by and thought I’d give the coffee another try.”

“Oh, right,” she said, a nervous twitch of her lips passing for a smile. “I guess you didn’t get much of a taste of it last night.” She paused. “I should buy you a cup.” She motioned to the second chair at her table. “Why don’t you sit down.” Without another word, she hurried off. But a few seconds later, she returned, her face colored with a pretty blush. “How do take your coffee?” she asked.

“With just a little cream,” Cameron replied, slipping out of his jacket. He watched her return to the counter, then sat down and waited. When she came back with his coffee, he stood and pulled out her chair. But as she sat down, she caught her elbow on his arm and half the coffee spilled all over her papers.