His Brand of Beautiful

His Brand of Beautiful

Lily Malone

His Brand of Beautiful

Lily Malone

Christina Clay only wants the best when it comes to her family’s iconic Australian wine company, and Tate Newell has the best marketing brain in the business. But there are some people in the world Tate doesn’t want to work for and Clay Wines’ eccentric chief executive is high on his list. Christina collects causes like some women collect shoes, and every time she opens her mouth, he’s reminded of the one person he wants to forget.

Sometimes, to get a woman
out
of your head, you have to let her in.

Before Christina can say
Crocodile Dundee,
she’s in a two‐seater plane flying into the heart of central Australia to visit Tate’s childhood roots: the remote cattle station his family still own and run. It’s a ‘research project’ he says, to see just how ‘wild’ she wants her new wine brand to be.

Battling the demons of a previous miscarriage, Christina soon has a project of her own in mind when it comes to Tate, and less than a day into her outback research trip, her ovaries are ticking
.
She wants a baby and a brand. And in Tate, she’s found the one man who can give her both.

About the author

Lily Malone is a journalist and freelance writer who discovered, after years of writing facts for a living, that writing romance is much more fun.

She wrote
His Brand of Beautiful
after the birth of her second son, taking inspiration from the once‐in‐a‐century‐floods that filled Lake Eyre in outback South Australia in the summer of 2010‐11.

Lily juggles writing with the needs of a young family, and when she isn’t writing, she likes gardening, walking, wine, and walking in gardens (sometimes with wine).

You can visit Lily at
www.lilymalone.wordpress.com

Lily Malone

With thanks to friends and family who believed in me, my critique partners, the supportive members of Romance Writers Australia and the writers of so many wonderful blogs on writing craft who helped me on the way.

To Kate Cuthbert and Escape Publishing, thank you for the opportunity, and to my editor Abigail Nathan, I am forever grateful for your help in making this book the best it could be.

Christina Clay cracked her front door wider and craned her neck for a better view of the tank parked in her street. If she used every inch of the three‐inch heels, plus a little extra
bounce
, she’d discovered a hole through the camellia leaves that let her see the driver’s side window and the dark head inside it.

She re‐checked her watch. What was Nate‐the‐Stripper waiting for? A drum roll?

Sunshine?

An oncoming car passed, headlights glistening over blacker‐than‐black road. The splash of its tyres drowned out her Chili Peppers CD and the champagne giggles coming from her kitchen.

She’d watched the vehicle slow in front of 225 Three Oaks Lane, reverse back against traffic and slot into a park that looked too small for a shopping trolley. Got it first time, too.

Now the dark green beast sat beneath an epileptic streetlight, shucked‐in between Marlene’s silver Renault and the tomato‐red mini‐van with
Mr Loh’s Grocer
painted on the side.

Why a part‐time stripper needed a vehicle like that to get his drums around a city like Adelaide was anyone’s guess.

The interior light flashed on in the tank and a face grimaced skyward.

Chili Peppers hushed. In the silence, laughter butterflied up the corridor. She’d left the girls playing pass‐the‐parcel and from the sound of things the game was heating up. She had her fingers crossed Lacy’s mother won. She could just imagine Eileen Graham’s face if it was she who opened the last layer of wrapping‐paper and discovered the set of fluffy pink handcuffs and the leopard‐print whip.

The music kicked in.

A pair of pointed black shoes planted on wet road. Long, suit‐clad legs followed and the rest of his body unfurled from the driver’s door, a thick wedge of briefcase last to exit.

Christina wondered if he’d remembered an umbrella. Then again, maybe he was like her —

didn’t own one and just took the chance.

The tank’s tail‐lights flashed orange and she heard a
blip‐blip
. Christina cracked the door wider. Wind whipped the smell of wet bitumen into her face, fluttered the silver fringe on the Spanish shawl pinned to the wall.

A burst of rain slapped the iron roof over her head, making her jump.

Please weather, don’t be an omen.

In the next breath she chided herself for being so cynical. Mikey and Lace were brilliant together. Just because
she’d
signed off marriage for life didn’t mean her two favourite people in the world — her brother and her best friend — wouldn’t find happily-ever‐after wedded bliss.

The stripper prowled across the road to her front gate, where purple and gold balloons spun and jostled. He threw it open and didn’t wait for it to clang shut and she lost him then as he ducked beneath the high tangle of camellia branches she never bothered to prune.

The security sensor clicked beside her ear, plunging her yard into stark white and bruised shadow and Christina was on tiptoes again, straining forward, eager now to see his face.

Lily Malone

His hand shot up to shield his eyes and she groped for the sensor switch. Softer yellow porch light spilled from the verandah.

Her dancing heels faltered.

Nate‐the‐Stripper had a face that looked like it had forgotten how to smile. Dark fish‐hooks and dagger points curled in his fringe and at his temple, a fat raindrop quivered like it didn’t dare slide. When he stamped on her doormat she was reminded of the bulls she’d once campaigned to save one long‐ago summer holiday in Spain.

She pasted on a smile, sucked in her stomach and held out her hand. “Hi Nate, I’m Christina.”

His palm was smooth and warm in the millisecond before he dropped it. His gaze travelled to her cherry‐painted toes and bounced up again. “I think I’m under‐dressed.”

She waved him inside. “No.
No
. You look
great.
I
love
the suit. Italians do it best, don’t they?” The gush in her voice made her cringe but if gushing cheered him up, gush she would. Lacy’s Hen’s Night had to be perfect. She’d promised her brother.

The Chili Peppers cut out again. Feminine cheers filled the void and someone shouted, very clearly: “Way to go, Eileen.”

Nate took a half‐step back, blocking the door Christina was trying to shut behind him. A champagne cork exploded and his head snapped up faster than a fox.

“Did you bring your own music?” She asked, TV‐host smile in place.

“My own music?”

She nodded.
Maybe I should speak slower. Strippers aren’t known for brains
.

“No. I didn’t bring music. I didn’t realise
music
was one of your requirements.”

Her smile slipped, just a bit. Whatever this guy’s problem was he’d better snap out of it, and soon, because right now he demonstrated all the chutzpah of a Buckingham Palace Guard.

“The music’s no problem. I’ve got lots of tunes to choose from. It’s up to you, you’re the expert. You can’t miss Lacy, she’s the one with the cap and the red dress. Legs up to here,” Christina indicated her waist. “Now, if you want to leave your briefcase—”

She froze, one of the perfect cherry‐painted fingernails she’d spent an hour assembling, pointing at her closed bedroom door.

Nate’s face was like thunder.

Christina swallowed. “Are you okay, Nate? Can I get you a drink? I can bring something right back. What’s your—”

Did he just snort?

“Miss Clay, there’s been a mistake.”

“I beg your pardon?” She smoked him with her best glare. No way was he wriggling out of this now, she’d paid her deposit.

“Do I really look like a stripper to you?”

“Actually,
yes
. We ordered the Billionaire Businessman.” She crossed her arms over her chest and a caterpillar‐row of bracelets clanked on her wrist.

He held her gaze for a long moment, slipped a hand in his shirt pocket — a beautiful blue Italian silk a shade brighter than his eyes — and extracted his business card. “Christina, I’m Tate Newell. Outback Brands. Tate,
not
Nate, I thought I misheard you earlier. We have an appointment.”

Something rolled in the pit of her stomach. “Yes we do.
Next
Friday.”

He fished in his suit pocket, found his mobile and scrolled. “Here. Christina Clay.

5.30pm, May 24. Initial consultation re: Clay Wines’ brand.” He held up the screen. “I thought those balloons on the gate were your idea of a joke.”

“A joke?”

The corner of his lip curved. “I thought you were celebrating that you’d finally got me out here, Christina. That the five hundred phone calls worked.”

Two thoughts flashed through her mind:
Dear God. This party’s going to hell in a
handbasket and Dear God. My new brand
. What she said was: “It wasn’t five hundred.”

With that, her brain started working again, only it couldn’t decide whether the best thing she should do was say
shit
or
sorry
and it was still trying to work that out when a voice hollered from the kitchen: “Don’t start without us, CC.”

“Just a minute,” Christina yelled back down the hall and her hand shot to her temple.

“Shit.”

Tate chuckled.

Her gaze snapped to the suit‐clad body making her hall feel small.

Male.

On the premises.

It was a short list.

“Blind Freddie could see what you’re thinking. N.O.” He shoved his briefcase into his opposite hand and leaned his weight toward the door.

“Wait! Tate? Please? I’m trying to think outside the square here. Could you help a girl out?”

“You’re not thinking outside the square. You’re outside the damn hemisphere.”

“You don’t have to get your clothes off. It’s just a paint party. It’s my step‐mother’s idea—she lent me all the stuff. There’s just an itty‐bitty room full of easels and amateur painters,
very
low key. You’re a graphic art guru. I bet you’re a dab hand with a paint brush.”

The words tumbled from her lips.

“
CC
! While we’re young, hey?” Marlene’s voice foghorned up the hall and Christina knew she wouldn’t sip champagne and wait. Marlene would come and investigate.

There was an echo of cheers. The girls getting restless.

“Please? It’s my best friend’s Hen’s Night. It’s the only one she’ll ever get.” She ignored the small voice in her head that wanted to add:
I hope
.

Tate exhaled. “I can’t believe you’re playing the guilt card.”

“You
should
feel guilty. I’ve been trying to meet with you since February. Every time I called, your receptionist fobbed me off. I don’t think you want my business at all.” She stabbed her finger at his chest. It felt good to be on the offensive. “If you hadn’t been avoiding me, we would have had this appointment weeks ago—months ago—and no way could it have got mixed up with tonight.”

His Adam’s apple bobbed in his throat. “
You
can’t keep a diary straight and that’s
my
fault?”

She stomped hard on her temper. Tonight, as everybody kept saying, wasn’t about her, and if Tate Newell walked out she was up the creek, sans paddle, in more ways than one. She could kiss Lacy’s party and her new wine brand goodbye, because right now the odds of a follow‐up appointment with Tate were slim.

“Ready or not, CC, I’m counting to ten…” Marlene’s voice boomed up the corridor.

It was time for plan B. Or was it C? Twirling a finger in her hair, careful not to snag the nail, Christina let her body melt back, left heel planted square against the wall. Silver Lily Malone

links on the chain around her ankle draped beneath the hem of tailored black pants. Her favourite lime‐green skirt—one she’d sewn from a set of recycled cushion covers—made a layered sash around her hips. Her silent inventory told her she should look okay, as long as he didn’t go for waifs.

But his tour of her body was disappointingly brief. It just didn’t take a man long to get his eyes up and down when you only stood five‐foot‐four in bare feet. The heels helped.