Grace Anne (2 page)

She took a step back, then
another. She was reaching for the robe that Becky was holding out for her when
she realized who he was. “Michael Cunningham of Cunningham and Cunningham, I
presume?”

“Yes.” He looked around the room
before looking back at her. “And you would be?”

“Grace Anne Waite of G. A. Waite,
as in Gracie Anne Designs. And I told you before, Mr. Cunningham, I’m not
selling my building.” She looked over at the people who seemed to have been
frozen in place. “Get him out of my building and burn the shots. We won’t be
able to use them. I’m sure he’ll sue just to get what he wants.”

“Now, see here. I need this—”

“I don’t give a good fuck what you
need. Get out.” She turned her back to him and started toward her office. She’d
been humiliated and hurt, but there was no way in hell she’d let him see it.

“This isn’t finished, Miss. Waite.
I get what I want and your little design business isn’t going to stand in my
way,” he shouted as Mark ushered him to the door. He continued to shout at her
then there was silence.

Michael Cunningham was her worst
nightmare and the sexiest man she’d ever seen, and tasted for that matter. She
stepped behind the curtain to change back into her street clothes when she
heard her door open.

“Go away,” she told whoever it
was. “I’m not going to come out until you leave the room.”

“Good, then you can’t get away. Want
to tell me why I have to burn the best pictures I’ve ever shot and the best
ones to come out of this building since…well, since forever?”

She closed her eyes and wanted to
scream at her friend Arnold to let it go. But she knew him well enough to know
that he’d stay there until she gave in or the next issue was due. She pulled
her shirt over her head and stepped out. He was sitting on the small loveseat. She
glared at him as he held up his camera.

“They can’t possibly be the best
pictures you’ve ever taken. You’re much too professional to use what could only
amount to pornography pictures taken in less than five minutes.” She sat at her
desk and pulled the first thing she could reach to her. Unfortunately, it was
the front cover mockup of the catalogue they were shooting.

“It was twenty minutes and they
aren’t porn. They are going to sell you more underwear than anything else you
come up with. Christ, the room was practically on fire with you two. I’ve never
seen you react that way…” He stopped talking when she glared.

“Forget it. He’ll never let us use
them no matter how good they are, and—”

He cut her off when he stood up
and came to her desk with his computer. “They aren’t good, Gracie, they’re
magnificent. Let me show you.” She sat back and let him set up on her desk. “I
thought at first I’d get some shots to tease you with. I thought the man was
just too pretty and, yeah, too handsome to do anything more than sell him
instead of your clothing line. Then he touched you and you…well, look. He’s looking
at you like he wants to have you for Christmas dinner and then maybe a little
bit into the New Year too.”

There were perhaps sixty pictures
on his screen. They were too small for her to make out what they were like this,
so he clicked on the first one and it blew up to full screen. She was standing
in front of Cunningham and they were looking at each other like sworn enemies
rather than what Arnold had said. Before she could comment, he started talking
again.

“I knew there was going to be
chemistry, I just didn’t know what sort. As you can see, the two of you look
like kids in a play yard ready to throw down the gauntlet.” He clicked ahead a
few more pictures to one where he is licking her neck. “Then he got into it. Or
better yet, he got into you. Christ, look at that face. You look sexy and
wanton. Like you could let him take you right then and there.”

She flushed knowing that she had
wanted him to. She had wanted Michael so badly that she’d forgotten that they
were in a room full of people, full of her employees, and that this man was
trying to kick her out of the building she’d worked very hard to get.

“It doesn’t matter. He’s a dead
end. Call the agency tomorrow and get someone else. And that guy that was
supposed to be here today, never use him again and put the word out. I don’t
want him fucking up another shoot.”

Arnold left her office and she sat
there for several minutes thinking about what had just happened. She had been
staring at the note on her desk to call her sister for a few minutes more when
she picked up the phone. Jazzie answered on the first ring.

“I’m going to have a baby,” she
screamed in the phone when she answered.

Chapter 2

Michael didn’t get a damned thing
done because of the woman. He didn’t even try and justify that he was thinking
about the building; it was her. Grace Anne, she’d said her name was. And it
suited her.

He thought of the way she’d fit
against his body. The way her mouth felt under his. He reached down and
adjusted his cock for what he was sure was the millionth time since yesterday. She
had even haunted his dreams. He glared at the report on his desk again. And
that was not helping one bit.

He picked it up just as his phone
rang. He tossed it down with a snarl and answered with a bark of his name. Thankfully,
his secretary was used to his moods of late and didn’t make a comment about it.

“There is a gentleman here to see
you, sir, a Mr. Arnold Malone. He said it was about your shoot yesterday. He
seems to be under the impression that you are a model.” She made a noise he was
going to assume was a cough and didn’t want to think about her laughing at him.
“Shall I set him straight for you?”

It took his mind nearly a full ten
seconds to remember what the man could want. There had been a photographer
there yesterday. Michael had been told several times that he’d been late and
that he wasn’t dressed the way they’d requested. Then Grace had come out
dressed in that sinful robe and nothing else and he’d completely forgotten. He’d
refused to sign off on anything they shoved at him until he’d had his lawyer
read it.

“Send him in. And Betsy, hold my
calls until I’m finished with him. Also, could you please find Matt and tell
him I need to see him, please? As soon as possible.”

He knew she’d do it so he leaned
back in his chair and waited. He had a fleeting thought that the man might not
have been the one from yesterday, but doubted it. He’d been both surprised and
annoyed that they thought he could be…

“Thank you for seeing me, Mr. Cunningham.
I was afraid you’d have no time for me and, well, I really wanted to get your
permission on these shots we took yesterday. They’re simply amazing. Gracie
said that I should trash them…well, we won’t go into what she really said. That
girl has a mouth on her, doesn’t she?”

Michael couldn’t have agreed more.
The woman had a luscious mouth and one he decided he’d like to get another
taste of. Before he could agree or disagree with the man, Matt, his long time
friend and personal lawyer, walked in.

“Matthew Gray, I’d like you to
meet…I’m sorry, I don’t believe I caught your name.” The man seemed to
positively glow with his smile.

“Arnold Malone. So happy to meet
you. Oh my, you should join your friend here and do some of the layouts that
Gracie has in her catalogs. She would sell…well, more than she does now and she
does sell a great deal.”

Michael sat when Matt did. He
brought him up to speed on why the man was there and asked him if he’d had a
chance to look over the releases from yesterday.

“There are one or two things that
I’m wondering about,” Matt said with a smile. “First of all, do you have any of
the shots that were taken of my cli—”

“That won’t be necessary. He doesn’t
need to see them to—”

“Oh yes,” said Arnold, completely
ignoring Michael in his desperate attempt to keep his buddy from viewing the
girl dressed the way she’d been. But when Arnold handed him the pictures Matt
burst out laughing.

“Christ, Michael, you didn’t tell
me she was a beauty. And she seemed to be…enjoying herself all wrapped up
around you like that. You don’t seem to be minding it so much either.” Matt
looked through several photos before he handed them to Michael with a wink and
a smile. “And what, exactly, does the woman sell? I mean, there isn’t really
much on her that is…marketable.”

“Oh no. Gracie Anne sells women’s
apparel. The kind that catches a man’s eye, so to speak and, from all accounts,
they do seem to do that with no problem. Gracie has quite a following, I’m
told. I’ve been doing her layouts for more than five years. She uses me for
promo shots and sometimes, like with Mr. C here, for remakes. When something
isn’t quite what she had in mind, or if the shot is simply just too off.” Arnold
handed them another file, this one with photos as well as descriptions, as he
continued. “This is the catalogue that goes out in a few months. She is always
two seasons ahead so that it can be finished and in the homes or shops before
the real season starts. Even though it is only May she is doing her Christmas
catalogue now. And in November we’ll shoot the spring one.”

Michael looked at Matt. “Miss
Waite owns the building that I want. She refuses to sell or even talk to me
about prices. I went there yesterday to see if I could talk some sense into
her. I ended up in those pictures instead.”

Matt looked at the catalogue and
then up at Michael. “Are you telling me that Gracie Anne Designs owns the
Washington building?”

Michael nodded and knew that he
was going to regret his next words.

“Holy fuck, man, no wonder she won’t
sell. She doesn’t just own the building, but from all accounts, she lives there
too.”

~~~

Grace was sitting at her desk
going over colors for the new line when she heard the stairs creak. She smiled.
In a few minutes her friend would be stumbling into her room and demanding
coffee. She was glad that Carol had come over, she just wasn’t so happy about
dealing with the morning after hang over she always had. Grace didn’t drink and
Carol thought it was her duty as her friend to drink enough for both of them.

“Sleep well? Or do I need to ask?”
She smiled when she glared at her. “Okay, I’m thinking that was a no. There’s
coffee brewing for you in the kitchen and there’s a croissant in the box on the
counter. By the way, it’s nearly noon. Don’t you have some sort of meeting
today to be at?”

“No. I canceled when you called. What,
if anything, are you going to do about that yummy man that you bitched about
last night? I’ve heard of him. Michael Cunningham is not a man to fuck with. Maybe
fuck, but certainly not fuck with.” Carol stretched out on the lounger in her
office. “Of course, if you did fuck him, maybe you’d feel a hell of a lot
better.”

“I’m just fine, thank you very
much. And I’m not going to let him fuck me in either sense of the word. Now,”
Grace said as she tossed a pencil at Carol, “go eat and drink and leave me to
this. I have to figure out which one of these fucked up pictures to use, come
up with a skimpy bathing suit for this princess to wear on her honeymoon, and
also figure out what sort of designs I can come up with for the spring catalogue
that comes on in fourteen months.”

Gracie had moved to New York right
after graduation. She’d been trying to go to California, about as far away as
she could from her parents, but she’d gotten on the wrong bus. And without the
funds to get her back she’d ended up on the streets.

She’d worked her way from the kid
who swept up after the cuttings, saving all the scraps she could, to what she
was now. In those early days she’d made her designs in miniatures, sewing
together the small pieces of trash to make what she liked. Years later, and
yards of fabric too, she was not only making more money than she’d ever dreamed
possible, but she owned the building she lived and worked in and she had people
working for her.

“Grace, I can’t find my shoes. Do
you know where they are?”

She turned to look at her as she set
a plate of pancakes on the table.

“I thought I took them off in the
living room. Now they seem to have taken off on their own. And do you have
anything for a flipping headache?”

She reached into her desk drawer
and threw her the bottle of aspirin. She’d worked late every night to get the
catalogue finished so that today was supposed to be her day. She was going to
get herself a big bed and all the trimmings, curtains, comforter, and also those
silk sheets she’d been eyeing for over a year now. They were flaming red and
she wanted them badly.

She was in her room dressing when
she thought of the catalogue. It wasn’t finished. It was Saturday and she
thought she’d be done with all this by now. There was still a shoot yet to
take. And she had no idea why she didn’t just let the guy from the guild pose
for the shot and be done with it. But she couldn’t. He wasn’t right; no one had
been right since that arrogant ass had come into her studio and fucked it up. She
was just coming down the stairs from the upper levels of the five-story
building when she heard Carol talking to someone. She detoured to the living
room to see who it was and nearly snapped her tongue off when none other than
Arrogant Ass was standing there.

“Here’s Gracie now.” Carol turned
when she growled. “She doesn’t normally sound like a dog, but she’s been
working a lot. Gracie, this is Mr. Cunningham. The one we were talking about
last night.” Carol wiggled her brows. Grace was not amused. “Well, I can see my
work here is complete. I’ll call you later, Gracie. Nice to meet you, Mr.
Cunningham.”

Carol made several gestures behind
the man. All of them having to do with sex. Grace wasn’t a prude, but some of
them, she thought, bordered on pornographic. She tried to ignore her and focus
on the man in front of her. “How did you get up here? There’s a code on the
door and I didn’t allow you in.” She glanced at the door to see if it had been
broken into. “I want you to get out before I call the police.”