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“Yes. This project is really important to the magazine. You’re on a tight deadline And you’re new to this. I’m sure you can understand that Joe and I discussed this and decided we’d feel better if one of us were on-site with you in Paris.”
Susannah cocked her head again. He knew she was trying to decide whether or not to believe him, but what could she do even if she didn’t? She was here. He was here. That, therefore, was that.
“Then why did you come? Why not your brother?”
“Joe’s in Miami. On business.” That much was true. It wouldn’t serve any point to add that Joe’s business involved a much-deserved two weeks of sun and fun with his latest redhead. “I, on the other hand, was able to free up the next few days.” Matthew smiled ingratiatingly. “So here I am.”
Susannah nodded. So here he was, she thought. Here he was, and she still wasn’t sure if she’d wanted to throw herself into his arms that first minute or if she’d wanted to have one of the Sexiests shove him into the corridor so she could slam the door in his face and pretend she’d never seen him.
Her throat constricted.
Who was she trying to kid? The only thing she was certain of was that her heart had gone into overdrive when Matthew stepped into the room. She’d missed him. Oh, how she’d missed him…
“Susannah?”
She looked around. Zeke had come sidling up behind her. He was looking at Matthew as if Matthew were some strange species no one had ever seen before.
“Yes?”
“Is this guy who he says he is?” Zeke asked out of the side of his mouth. “’Cause, if he isn’t, you just say the word and—”
“He is,” Susannah said quickly. She smiled and put her hand on Zeke’s arm. “He’s definitely who he says he is. Let me introduce you. Everybody? This is my boss, Matthew Romano. Mr. Romano—Matthew, this is Zeke McCool, Stefan Zyblos, Bart Fitt and Alejandro Rio.”
The Sexiests stepped up, one by one, and gripped Matthew’s hand. He wondered if it were deliberate, the hard press of fingers and flesh, decided it was, and gave back as good as he got.
“Delighted,” he said, and smiled.
“You came close, Romano,” Alejandro Rio said.
“Close?”
Rio flashed Susannah a hot, dark and dangerous smile. “We weren’t going to let you push our lady around, were we, compadres?”
Matthew smiled, too. “I’m sure you weren’t.” He stepped forward and slipped an arm around Susannah’s shoulders. He felt her stiffen, but she stood her ground. “And I’m happy to know that my lady was so well-cared for in my absence.”
Susannah swung toward him. “Your lady?” she spluttered.
The warning was clear. Matthew heard it in her voice, saw it in the sudden blaze of anger in her eyes, felt it in the way she tried, suddenly, to pull free of his arm. But he’d gone too far to stop now, and besides, he didn’t want to stop. Not with all the testosterone floating in the air.
“Susie, sweetheart,” he said softly, “I know we’ve always agreed on the importance of discretion, but these—gentlemen—are entitled to the truth, don’t you think? Besides, this is Paris. The city of lovers. Why should we pretend, hmm?”
And, still smiling, he bent his head and kissed her.
CHAPTER TEN
SUSANNAH sat at a table at the sidewalk café just outside Le Grand Palais, sipping what remained of a cup of café Americaine.
Two tables away, Matthew was putting Bart and Alejandro, Zeke and Stefan through their paces. It was an amazing sight. Any minute now, she expected the four Sexiests to roll over, sit and stay on command, and why?
Susannah’s eyes glittered with tightly suppressed anger.
Because Matthew Romano ordered it, that was why.
What ill wind had blown him back into her life? A few hours ago, Matthew had been the Unseen Publisher. Now he was in her space. In her hair. In her way. Just remembering the performance he’d put on in the suite made her want to shriek with fury.
“How dare you kiss me?” she’d hissed as soon as they’d had a moment alone, and he’d given her a look of schoolboy innocence and explained that he’d assessed the situation and immediately realized that instead of focusing their energies on the camera, the Sexiests would focus it on her unless they realized she was already spoken for.
“That’s ridiculous,” she’d snapped, and Matthew had patted her cheek indulgently, smiled and said she just didn’t understand.
It was, he said, a male thing.
A male thing, indeed, she thought sourly. It was a macho thing, was what he’d meant. With that one kiss, he’d established himself as the man in charge. Suddenly, he was an expert on photography, on style, on what would attract readers and what wouldn’t. And everybody believed him, from the Sexiests to the makeup guy. Even Claire had joined the enemy camp, judging by the way she sighed as she slipped into the chair alongside Susannah’s.
“He’s so creative, Suze,” she whispered “Isn’t it amazing?”
Susannah gave her a disgusted look. “Amazing.”
“And so handsome!”
“Is he? I hadn’t noticed.”
“And so sexy!”
Enough was enough. Susannah glared at Claire.
“How can you let him take you in?” she demanded. “The man’s a conceited, arrogant, insufferable egomaniac. And he’s about as sexy as an—an eggplant, compared to Alejandro and Bart and Zeke and—”
“Susannah?”
Susannah looked up. The arrogant, insufferable egomaniac himself was standing over her. If he’d overheard what she’d just said, he wasn’t letting it show. He looked as deep in creative thought as a Broadway director on a busy day.
“Are you talking to me?” she asked politely.
“Jimmy’s pointed out that we haven’t had you in any of the photographs.”
Susannah smiled with all her teeth. “Is that right?”
“I know you’d planned things differently.”
“Well, yes. Yes, we had. We’d spent days and days organizing what you’ve managed to tear apart in an afternoon…but don’t let that bother you, Mr. Romano. You are, after all, God.”
“Suze,” Claire whispered, and put her hand on Susannah’s arm, but Susannah shook off both the hand and the warning.
“So don’t worry about me not being in any of the photos. Don’t concern yourself with the hours of time that went into setting up this weekend. And, most especially, don’t bother yourself with how our readers will want to see me as their link to the four Sexiests. Please empty your mind of all concerns.” She smiled again, even more brilliantly. “You do have a mind, don’t you, Mr. Romano?”
It was, she was pleased to see, a direct hit. Claire made a sound like someone trying to swallow a whale, and Matthew…oh, yes. Matthew’s carefully assumed look of creative angst collapsed like an ice sculpture under the unwelcome attentions of a blowtorch, revealing the man beneath—a man whose eyes snapped with anger.
“She didn’t mean that,” Claire said quickly.
“She did.” Matthew’s voice was a study in control. “But I can understand her pique.”
“You can?”
“Of course Miss Madison planned this—this exercise with the greatest care.”
“Oh, she did,” Claire babbled, “she definitely did.”
Matthew’s jaw tightened. “A weekend in Paris with four—what was the word Miss Madison used to describe our finalists?”
“Sexiests,” Claire supplied. “We call them the four—”
“Sexiests. A charming description, especially for Miss Madison, who would have had a hotel suite, complete with her very own stag line, all expenses paid by me.”
“Paid out of my budget,” Susannah said hotly, “all of it necessary for CHIC and, just to remind you, Miss Madison does not appreciate being discussed in the third person.”
“Necessary?” Matthew asked with a smirk.
“Necessary,” Susannah said, kicking back her chair and standing to confront h
im. “We’ve been promoting this weekend and the sexiest man alive for some time. How you can manage to make this sound like—like some half-baked scheme I’ve come up with for my own amusement is beyond me!”
It was beyond him, too. Matthew stared into the enraged, beautiful face of his editor-in-chief. She was right on all counts, and he knew it This wasn’t a weekend. of fun and games, it was work. Hard work. He’d reminded himself of that as the CHIC crew had trooped from one shooting location to another, reminded himself of it as he’d watched Susannah have her hair fixed and her nose powdered…
Reminded himself of it as he’d watched the photographer pose her with the four hunks of muscle.
Oh, yeah, he surely had watched that, long enough so the images were probably forever burned into his brain.
Susannah on the steps of L’Opera, smiling for the camera as the four Sexiests gathered around her like piranhas in a feeding frenzy.
Susannah at a metro stop, laughing as Alejandro lifted her in his arms and whirled her in a circle.
Susannah in the lobby of Le Grand Palais, caught between Zeke and Bart as they each pressed a kiss to her blushing cheeks.
