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Chapter One
The flashing strobe lights, the hard-driving music, the energetic vibe pulsating through the air, through every inch of Staci Kay, were mere primers for the evening ahead.
Staci’s heart beat erratically and her pulse pounded in her ears as she finalized last-minute details before the curtain rose on her first-ever runway shoe show.
Elaborate, personalized invitations had gone out to global VIPs in the fashion industry—magazine editors, TV hosts, designers, bloggers, models, celebrities—with an overwhelming RSVP response.
It’d been a painstaking effort to coordinate the prestigious event on the heels of a production crisis for Staci Kay Shoes, but the Marketing and PR departments had fully embraced Staci’s vision for the rollout of the newest line of ultra-sexy, über-sassy, six-inch stilettos and had worked tirelessly to pull this extravaganza together.
And the timing couldn’t be more perfect. Two weeks before Valentine’s Day, so fans of her shoes could pick up styles to accentuate their date-night outfits.
Staci’s event crew gathered in the staging area of the Grand Ballroom at the luxurious Four Seasons at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor, prepping for the big reveal. Chaos ensued, but because of her brilliant team, it was organized chaos.
This evening’s models were Staci’s employees from both the Scottsdale hub and the Baltimore headquarters, because she believed wholeheartedly that there was no better representation of shoe-loving consumers than those most dedicated to the success of her company. The ladies who’d been selected for this rare unveiling were all experts in strutting their stuff in the skyscraping heels. All were now professionally primped to within an inch of their lives and dressed in gorgeous, daring, stunning clothes.
As was Staci.
“T-minus ten minutes,” said a perky Maxi Shayne, Vice President of Operations and a close friend of Staci’s.
Maxi was a lithe brunette with sapphire eyes and a feisty attitude. Staci had assigned her hot-pink platforms to go with her multicolored, geometrically blocked minidress.
“Just enough time for a glass of champagne.” Staci handed over a crystal flute from a nearby table. They clinked rims and sipped.
Lola Vonn, the Marketing Specialist who’d pitched the risqué campaign that had truly put the company on the map, joined them. She wore a tight, siren-red, one-shouldered dress to show off her Marilyn Monroe curves and fluffy blond hair.
Her platforms were covered with bold images of snapshots of various models—including Lola—posing for the web and print ads with the marketing slogan “Leave Your Shoes On” stamped at different angles across the canvas. Very clever. And apropos, since Lola had been the one to coin the phrase for all of the promo. She tapped her glass against the others and said, “This is so exciting. I can’t tell if I’m about to barf, or break out in song and dance.”
Staci laughed. “Please, let it be the latter.”
Staci’s signature accessory was her long, sleek, dark-auburn hair that complemented her tawny eyes. So she’d chosen all black for herself tonight to highlight her trademark features. A chic business suit with a super-short hem that was slightly flared and pleated low on the sides, paired with metal-spike-heeled stilettos. Thin silver chains were wrapped around and dangling from her ankles, with charms in the shapes of whips, handcuffs, and riding crops attached to them. She also wore black leather gloves and crimson lipstick.
Her boardroom-to-bedroom dominatrix look was an inside joke among the three ladies. Maxi and Lola thought Staci was a take-charge whip cracker behind closed doors. She went along with their perception, not having the heart to tell them no man had been tied to her bedposts (or had even been in her bedroom) in so, so long. It was too disheartening an admission. A reality she preferred to neither face nor dwell on.
“May none of us pull a Carrie Bradshaw and end up flat on our faces,” Maxi stated.
“‘Fashion roadkill,’” the trio said in unison.
“Best line ever from Sex and the City,” Staci declared.
“And Heidi Klum just stepped right over her and kept on swinging those hips down the runway,” Lola tossed in.
“That’s exactly what I’d want any one of us to do,” Staci contended. “Keep the action moving. If Kerri Strug could pull off an Olympic-winning vault with a strained ankle, I expect you girls to pick yourselves up, dust yourselves off, and keep on strutting!”
Both women glared at her over the rims of their glasses.
“I’m kidding! Of course!” She laughed again. “I’d be horrified if anyone got hurt out there.”
“That’s more like it,” Maxi said and took a deep drink.
“Everything’s going to be fantastic,” Staci assured them. “We’ve practiced. And we’re all used to being in front of the cameras. We did the ads for Lola’s campaign. We’ll score our own gold, I have no doubt.”
“Ah…There’s the fearless leader we all know and love,” Lola quipped. “But this is a live audience we’re talking about. A raving, maniacal audience from the sound of it. And Alex will be out there…” She pulled in a long breath. Her creamy cheeks turned rosy. Her sky-blue eyes glowed.
“Oh, geez,” Staci murmured into her glass of champagne. Then she hitched her chin and said, “Don’t melt in your Staci Kay shoes, girlfriend. He’s hot, yes. But you’re sharing a bed with him in a suite upstairs tonight, Miss Soon-to-be-Mrs. Alex Reed, so backburner the lust, huh?”
Then Staci shot Maxi a pointed look. “You, too. I know your sexy PhD is also out there in the crowd. Don’t get distracted by those chocolaty irises of his and trip all over yourself.”
“You had to go and mention chocolate, didn’t you?”
Maxi was a dessert fiend. Staci knew the only thing Maxi craved more than sweets was her Director of Operations, Dr. Ryan Donovan.
Staci should have known better than to mention either.
“Stay focused, my friend,” she said to Maxi. “Stay. Focused.”
“And who did you invite to cheer you on?” Lola asked with wagging brows.
“Oh, yeah, right.” Staci rolled her eyes. “Like I’m going to have a single breath left in my body at the end of the evening for moaning or dirty talk. Not a chance. This girl’s gonna kick off her heels and fall into bed. I’ll be asleep in two seconds.”
“Where’s the fun in that?” Maxi deadpanned.
Staci said, “We barely made it out of crisis mode with the manufacturing bottleneck, and I turned around and spearheaded this launch. I just might spend the entire weekend here at the Four Seasons, huddled under the down comforter, ordering room service, and binge-watching angsty teen eighties movies.”
Maxi and Lola exchanged a concerned look.
Staci sighed. “Come on, seriously. Do not worry about me. I am over-the-moon ecstatic about this new line and how we’re unveiling it. So let’s finish our bubbly, because it’s showtime, ladies!”
The three ceremoniously touched rims once more and polished off their champagne, just as the show’s manager started issuing orde
rs and everyone hopped to.
This is it. The moment when my shoes take the world by storm!
The adrenaline pumped. The excitement escalated.
This was Staci’s dream come true. Taking her company to the next level.
No.
Launching it into the stratosphere!
She grinned at her friends. “Let’s go prove to that chomping-at-the-bit crowd what sexy Staci Kay shoes are all about!”
* * *
“Oh. My. God.”
The door of her suite had barely closed behind Staci as she collapsed into a chair in the entryway, next to a narrow table. She unclasped all the chains at her ankles and slipped out of her shoes. No lie, her feet were killing her after spending hours in the stilettos for the prelaunch events and circulating out front with the guests, then working the staging area to keep everyone’s spirits up and nerves calmed, then strutting her stuff on the runway, then mixing and mingling more at the after-party…
Holy hell.
