His Brand of Beautiful (2 page)

A set of pins like Lacy’s would have helped far more.

“That’s the oldest trick in the book. It won’t fly with me.” But there was husk in his voice that belied the words.

“My brother will never forgive me if I stuff this night up for Lacy. I’ll never forgive myself.”

“You’re not
crying
are you? It’s just a party.”

“It’s not
just
a party. It’s a Hen’s Night. It’s like a… female rite of passage.” She glanced out from beneath her lashes. “Please?”

He cursed into his collar, ran a hand through his hair and for a few seconds the briefcase danced with the green swing coat hanging on her coat rack. Then he let out a sigh that sounded like the whoosh of an old‐fashioned bellows. “Okay, fine. I’ll play party host.

But you’ll owe me.”

“Absolutely. Anything. You’ve saved my bacon.” She bounced from the wall, stretched on tiptoes and pulled his head down to peck his cheek.

“You did say
anything
, Christina?”

The muscles of her stomach clenched. She wasn’t certain he moved toward her, but it was as if she
felt
his weight lean forward. Felt it through every cell.

“Sure. How about a bottle of our best Shiraz? It’s my father’s last vintage.”

“It’s not medal‐winning wine I want.”

Heat clawed up her throat, something low in her stomach flipped, and for all of two seconds she let herself consider it. Lord knew it had been a while...

“Clay Wines don’t do wine shows. Wine shows are for wankers.” It came out a little sharper than she’d intended, considering he’d just saved her bacon.

His dark eyebrows arched.

“Sorry,” she said sweetly. “Should I have pardoned my French?”

“Hell, no. Call a spade a spade.”

He raised his hand as if he might touch her cheek and she couldn’t hide her flinch.

Cobalt eyes mocked her. “Don’t take up cards, Christina. It’s too easy to call your bluff.”

He said it like he thought he knew her and it rankled. She opened her mouth to tell the arrogant son of a—

“Seven. Eight. Nine.” The chant arrowed from the kitchen and it reminded her this was no time to argue the point.

“Leave whatever you don’t need in my bedroom. Maybe lose the jacket—” his black look made her stammer “—or not. Hey, I’m only trying to set the mood. Outside the front door, turn right. Don’t trip over the firebox. I’ve got French doors under the patio and they open into my lounge. The easels are in there.” She backed down the corridor. “Remember you’re playing a Billionaire Businessman.”

“And if the real entertainment shows up?”

“We won’t complain if there are two of you.” She pivoted and skipped away, an extra sway in her hips. His eyes burned into her back, she could feel them. Like a white‐hot brand where her black velvet top plunged.

Lily Malone

Tate shut Christina’s bedroom door just shy of a slam. At least it stopped the party smells.

Hairspray. Food. He’d missed lunch. With the door shut, a new scent filled his nostrils, light as rainforest orchids. Her scent. He could still feel the soft shape of her lips on his cheek.

An up‐lamp on the rear wall washed soft light over her bed but left the depths of the room in shadow. From the bed to the floor, discarded outfits avalanched and in a corner an old‐fashioned hat‐stand lofted hats and scarves from antler‐like spikes. There was a dressmaker’s dummy on a table in a corner and a sewing machine so high‐tech, it had a damn touch screen on the front. For a second, that threw him. He hadn’t picked Christina for a seamstress.

He glared at the rain sheeting beyond curtains she’d only half closed. He’d so much rather be kicking off his weekend by loading his boots and swag in the Jeep and heading North, until bitumen met gravel and gravel met track, and he was deep in the red sand and rock of the Flinders Ranges. He’d bet the sun was shining up there.

Water dripped down his neck.

No such luck. He had a keynote speech to finish for Jancis—make that keynote speech to
start
— and a flight to Sydney Sunday to address the Annual Marketing and Public Relations Association Conference. He hadn’t been to the AMPRA talkfest in years and Jancis Woody was the only person on the planet who could have got him anywhere near the damn thing now.

“Christ, I need a holiday.” Tate dumped his briefcase on her bed.

How else did he explain the last five minutes? Any sane man would have walked out at “Hi Nate”.
Not him
. His sister‐in‐law always said the Newell boys were suckers for a damsel in distress and it looked like Bree had him pegged. He couldn’t slink off like a rat in the night. Not now. Not after he’d agreed to help.

Professional courtesy. Look where it got him.
Thanks, Ruth
.

“All Christina wants is a half‐hour brand consultation. That
is
your area of expertise, Tate,” his office manager had said. “You’ve had reception screen her calls for months.

Christina’s always nice about it but I can tell she’s sick of being given the run‐around. You can at least try to look like you want her business. Adelaide is too small to burn your bridges. The Clays have clout.”

And that settled it. Being nice to the person who answered the phone always earned his clients—even prospective ones he didn’t want—a big, fat, gold star in Ruth Landers’

book.

Tate didn’t care how renowned the Clay family was, or how well connected. He didn’t want to work for them. He’d done his research. Christina’s blog was filled with the kind of marketing spin he hated: Chardonnay sales that threw profits to Greenpeace; Grenache that pledged to rebuild habitats for an endangered frog. It wasn’t about true philanthropy. It was about publicity. Selling more wine.

Two screens of those do‐gooder headlines and he’d logged out in disgust.

Tate shrugged his arms out of his jacket and kicked off his shoe— a little too vigorously. It tumbled under her bed.

He swore and bent to retrieve it. Groping across the carpet, his hand hit a paperback instead and knocked the book out. The blonde on the cover had his interest in a heartbeat.

White bed. White bra. White stockings. Tate opened at a dog‐eared page.

Jesus
.

Blood rushed to his groin. He had a sudden flash of Christina on the bed beside him, her body bare and beautiful, lips moving as she read aloud from the page.

He shoved the book back like it burned his hand.

“She’s not your type, schmuck.”

Christina was soft, manicured, city. Put her under the Australian outback sun and she’d wilt like a glasshouse fern.

He stared at the door, at the fluffy white robe hanging from a hook in the Baltic pine.

Smart thing to do would be walk right out through that door
. Problem was, he didn’t feel like being smart. Not right now.

His eyes lit on an empty packet of fake fingernails on her bedside table.

“Fake it, till you make it,” he told himself, loosening his tie.

****

When Christina entered the kitchen, heads snapped up. One look at the expression on her face was enough to get every woman churning through her handbag in search of lipstick.

“He’s
that
good, CC?” said Lacy Graham, twirling on a chrome‐legged bar stool at the kitchen bench. A black velvet cap with
Hens’ Night
scripted in shining sequins squashed her dark curls and from the stem of her champagne flute a red and white tag fluttered, marked
Bride‐to‐be—Refill now
.

Christina gave Lacy’s shoulder a squeeze. “Thank me any time. You’ll be
so
glad I didn’t leave it at dinner and dancing. That would have been
so
tame.”

Marlene Langton, a thick‐bodied woman with hair the colour and texture of a fluffy tabby cat, put her fingers to her mouth and whistled.

Lacy poked her tongue at her colleague. “Don’t get too excited, Marls. I am so
not
pulling his zip down with my teeth.”

“Finish this and you might.” Annabell refilled her sister’s glass.

“No one’s pulling zippers down with their teeth,” Christina said with finality, parking her own Hens’ Night cap on her head without needing a mirror to get the angle just right. If anyone attacked Tate’s zipper she was pretty sure she’d have to kiss her brand consultation goodbye.

Christina retrieved her glass, tapped her fingernails on the flute just to hear the crystal peals and thought about the scratch of stubble she’d felt when she kissed Tate’s cheek.

Lacy narrowed her eyes thoughtfully. “What’s your story, CC? I haven’t seen that look on your face in years; not since—”

“Leave it, Lace,” she said, anticipating Lacy’s next words.
Not since Bram.

“You know he’ll be at the wedding, don’t you? Michael couldn’t
not
invite him.”

“I know. It’ll be fine, don’t worry. I promise not to throw my drink over him.” She took a sip of champagne.
Flat
. The rest hit the bottom of the kitchen sink and fizzed as it slid down the drain. She didn’t want to think about Bram. It was more fun thinking about Tate.

And stubble. And zippers.

Lacy’s smile broadened. “You sly dog. And with
my
stripper too. I should take a spotter’s fee.”

“Stow it, Lace. Between the new brand and this charity run you’ve conned me into, who has the energy for a bloke?”

Lily Malone

Lacy laughed. “You Clays are obsessed. Michael makes me brainstorm brand names every night before bed. I’m sleep‐talking wine brands.”

“Did he tell you the latest?”

“Where is this gorgeous stripper when I need him?” Lacy pleaded. Then she sighed and waved her hand: “Oh, go on then. You won’t give up until you get it off your chest.”

“I thought we could tie the new brand to a program sponsoring Aboriginal kids—”

Lacy nearly choked on her drink. “Are you sure, CC? That’s a pretty touchy subject.”

“And this is why I need a brilliant strategist! Most people will think exactly how you just did, Lace. But my idea is to use the brand proceeds to sponsor a work experience program for Aboriginal kids. Let’s say kids from Alice Springs could come down to our vineyard and spend a month with us in a workplace program learning new skills. Something like that. What do you think?”

A champagne cork exploded in the adjoining room. Lacy gulped the last of her drink.

“I think: thank you God for saving my poor brain. That’s my cue.”

Lacy ripped through sheets of butcher’s paper covering French doors and hurled them open. The girls poured around her shoulders into the lounge, squealed at the squadron of artist’s easels squatting like teepees on the carpet, squealed again when they spotted the man in their midst.

“Well
hello
Handsome…” Marlene said, stopping in the centre of the room like she’d walked into a bus.

Christina almost tramped Marlene’s heels. She peered around the bigger woman’s beefy elbow.

“Ladies.” Tate stepped from her white leather couch, a champagne bottle in one sinewy hand.

The beautiful blue silk shirt was unbuttoned and it billowed as he walked, flaring around a desert dune six‐pack and the long lines of a sculpted chest. His tie hung loose over his shoulders. Liquid frothed as he poured champagne for each guest.

There was an easel near the French doors where torn butchers’ paper curled to the floor and Tate gestured Christina to it with an open hand. As she turned, his thumb kissed her spine.

“And here I was worrying you might not be up to the gig. You should give up your day job. Man, you can
act
!”

“Don’t you know the number one secret of any public performance? You just imagine your audience is naked.”

She had no witty retort.

Christina reached for a tube of paint to give her hands something to do so they wouldn’t bury themselves in the smatter of crisp hair across his chest. The cap came away in her fingers and a toothpaste‐curl of blood‐red paint oozed from the tube like a scrawling red worm. The tube clattered from her fingers to the tray and the cap bounced and skidded to the floor.

“What’s wrong?” His eyes probed.

“Nothing,” she said, just a little too fast, fighting the bloody memories now trying to claw their way out of her head. The paint looked like—

No. I’m not going there.

She tapped her watch and pulled on her brightest smile. “I hate to be boring but we’d better get this party started.”

“I don’t think you could ever be boring,” he said, and his eyes locked on hers as he shrugged out of his shirt and turned away, spearing his shirt and tie at her couch.

Christina was certain hers wasn’t the only jaw to drop.

“You!” He beckoned Lacy, straddling the nearest bar stool. “Come meet your canvas.”

It took Christina a few seconds to match his words with his actions but Lacy had it figured in a heartbeat. She slipped between his legs. He placed a paintbrush in her hand, guided it into a thick whirl of paint then levered the loaded brush towards his abdomen. The movement held the latent power of a building‐site crane.

A custard‐yellow ribbon inched across Tate’s stomach. Lacy finished with a flourish, reached for a clean brush and a new colour, and with those actions, every woman in the room started attacking her easel like a budding Picasso.

In minutes, Lacy had painted a riot of colour on Tate’s chest. He almost sacrificed his suit pants—would have—if Marlene hadn’t rushed forward to tuck a towel behind his waist.

Twenty minutes later he called a halt. “Okay ladies, down tools. Let’s see what you’ve done.”

Christina clutched her paintbrush in her hand, stared at her easel and wished the brush was a magic wand she could wave to make it all go away.

“You’re strangling your brush. Hold it loose. It will lengthen your stroke.” Tate stepped around her easel. “I give up. What the heck
is
that?”

“It’s supposed to be my perspective of Lacy’s back between your legs. Go on, you can say it. It looks like a jellyfish.”

“Call it abstract, no one will know,” he stared at her masterpiece. “I thought you said your mother was an artist?”

“Saffah
is
an artist.” Then she clarified: “She’s my stepmother, actually.”