Various States of Undress: Virginia Read online

  Giving the man a light clap on his thin shoulder, Dex sat on a stiff sofa and leaned back, crossing his legs. “How are you, Granddad?”

  The man stared at him with sharp green eyes—the same eyes Dex saw in the mirror every morning. He didn’t say anything for a moment, and then those eyes went narrow. “Something’s happened with you. You’re different.”

  Dex forced a shrug. “I’m the same man I was last time you saw me. I’m just not in a bullshit kind of mood today.”

  “Good. I hate bullshit and you know it.” DB leaned forward. “So get to the point.”

  “I’m ready to take over as CEO and I have a plan to prove it.”

  Again, his grandfather didn’t speak for a moment—the man was famous for sitting in silence, waiting for the other person to get uncomfortable enough to blurt out exactly the wrong thing. Dex stared at him and threw an arm over the back of the sofa—clenching his hidden fingers into the carved wood trim.

  DB finally broke eye contact. “It better be good. Don’t waste my time on another uninspired proposal. Nothing about you so far has been CEO-worthy, kid.”

  Resentment rose quickly, closing Dex’s throat again, but he clenched his teeth to keep from retorting. He’d only seem petulant if he did that, and he wasn’t a kid anymore. He was a twenty-seven-year-old man with an MBA, for fuck’s sake, but so far, DB hadn’t been very impressed no matter what Dex did—and he’d done a lot. He’d worked at Cameron’s in accounting, PR, HR, and—currently—advertising. He’d been smart, calculating, and responsible. What more did the old man want?

  “I want inspiration,” DB said, poking the air with a finger as if in response to the silent query.

  Dex locked stares with him. “Then here it comes. I plan to make Lilah’s profitable. I’m going to rebrand it and bring it back to glory.”

  “Lilah’s?” DB blurted out. He let out a barking laugh, but it didn’t quite cover the surprise in his eyes. “What does that have to do with expanding Cameron’s into the UK?”

  “My idea is completely relevant. If I can turn Lilah’s around, I sure as hell can open a corporate office and a string of retail locations in London.”

  DB stared at him for a moment. “What the hell do you know about Lilah’s?”

  “I know it’s a relic, and that’s not what Grandmother intended. It’s been neglected since she passed away.”

  That was met by more silence, and Dex knew he’d thrown down his trump card early. It was a gamble.

  Finally, the old man nodded. “Maybe. But you’re going to have to do cost analyses, hire people who know what they’re doing, and—”

  Dex’s cell phone pinged. Normally, he would apologize and fumble to turn the thing off. But that would break his momentum, wouldn’t it? So he didn’t move. It pinged again—and Granddad narrowed his eyes to slits. Damn. Slowly, Dex loosened his fingers from the back of the sofa and reached in the breast pocket of his suit. “Excuse me,” he murmured, flicking open the screen. His eyes widened at the texts in front of him. They were from Virginia, telling him simply that an unmarked SUV would be waiting for him behind his building this evening. Then she’d texted a smiley face. He almost smiled back at it but caught himself.

  “What is it?” DB demanded.

  “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” Dex said evenly. He slipped the phone back into his pocket. “Don’t worry, Granddad. You can count on me to do everything by the book, including hiring the right people.”

  “Like who?”

  Dex didn’t answer. He couldn’t say a damn thing about Virginia. The deal would be off the table because his grandfather had surely read about the notorious First Daughter—hell, only last week, the New York Times had run an op-ed piece about her new position at the helm of the Owlton Company. The acerbic columnist hadn’t been very enthusiastic about her chances for success—citing a recent incident at a club in which she’d drawn pictures on a shirtless bartender’s chest with a Sharpie. Allegedly, the bartender hadn’t minded a bit. For a second, Dex felt a pang of jealousy.

  “Speak up,” Granddad demanded.

  Dex’s heart began pounding, but he resisted the urge to look away from the old man’s sharp gaze. He had to say something to keep his grandfather from meddling—and not just for the short term. If Virginia didn’t agree to work with him, it wouldn’t matter, but if she did? He’d have to keep her involvement quiet until they’d made headway at Lilah’s. Then his grandfather couldn’t throw a fit without looking like an ass, and that old man enjoyed his sterling reputation far too much to risk it by publicly disparaging the president’s daughter.

  Plus—and this was just a gut feeling—DB would despise Virginia on sight because she bore a striking resemblance to Lilah. Not necessarily physically, but Virginia had the same hell-on-wheels smile and the same careless confidence—the very qualities that had driven DB nuts about his late wife. For some reason, DB had tried to quash those qualities in Lilah—almost as if her sunshiny nature had distracted him from being his dour, miserable self. Dex knew his grandfather had loved her, but he hadn’t treated her well.

  “If I tell you who I intend to hire,” Dex said slowly, “you’ll start micromanaging me, which won’t allow me to prove myself. Then I’ll be back to square one and you’ll be frustrated, tired, a few months older than you are right now, and—with all due respect—we both know you can’t live forever. You can’t run Cameron Enterprises forever. So give me a fair shot. I don’t want a safety net, and I’m sure as hell not asking for one.”

  This time his grandfather didn’t answer, so Dex nodded and went on. “I’m going to turn Lilah’s around completely on my own, make it financially viable, and when I do, you’ll send me to London. Do we have a deal?”

  “Maybe. Unless your sister can come up with something better before you do.”

  It was all Dex could do not to mention Ariel’s disaster with the diamonds and seal her fate. But dammit, Dex had come this far on his own, and telling on his sister like a little boy wouldn’t really be winning at all. He’d just be a dick. So he shook his head. “I doubt she’ll come up with something better, but that’s not the point. The agreement I’m offering is about me and my worth to the company. I don’t want conditions.”

  “You’re in no position to negotiate,” DB said. “So I suggest that you get busy.”

  Dex grit his teeth. “Do we have a deal?” He stood up to offer a handshake, and his grandfather scowled at him but grabbed the proffered hand in a clawlike grip. A death grip. “Fine. We have a deal.”

  “Excellent.” Without another word, Dex turned on his heel and walked out of the room, straight to the elevator, his chest heaving. Judy stood there, her round face split by a grin.

  “I’ll be damned,” she whispered as she punched the elevator button for him.

  Dex tried to return her grin, but his face felt a little frozen. “The only person who’ll be damned is me if I don’t pull this off,” he whispered back.

  “You have a plan?”

  “Yes. And it’s so incredible, you wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” This time the grin came more easily. “Cross your fingers for me.”

  The doors whooshed open and Dex walked into the elevator. When he turned around, Judy raised her arms and shook her crossed fingers in the air. “Go get ’em.”

  As the doors closed, Dex leaned heavily on the wall, his still heart pounding but his mind already skipping ahead to tonight—envisioning Virginia in an elegant evening gown, holding his arm as they walked in to the Children’s Museum of Manhattan. Barring any unforeseen paparazzi disasters, she’d be the star of the night at the exclusive gala, and he planned on treating her like a princess. Her reputation would skyrocket. How could she resist his offer, then? He’d do whatever it took to make sure she didn’t.

  Chapter Three

  “YOU’VE GOT TO be joking.” Virginia raised an eyebrow and turned to look at Dex, who shifted uncomfortably in the seat next to her. It was hard to ignore how hand
some he looked in his tux—how the satin lapels lay against his broad chest, how the cummerbund lay smoothly against his flat waist, how the white of his shirt emphasized the sharp angle of his jawline—but she did her best to keep her so-not-amused stare pinned on his face and raised her other eyebrow. “If I actually cared about your opinion regarding my fashion choices, I might be insulted.”

  “I’m not trying to insult you. I merely commented that you’re not wearing an evening gown,” he responded.

  “Well, I’m sure Versace would beg to differ.” Virginia resisted glancing down at her short cherry-red dress and instead looked out the window of the SUV again. Tuxedoed men strolled alongside their wives through the entrance of the Children’s Museum of Manhattan. The women were all wearing floor-length gowns in varying shades of safe black—very expensive, of course, but very safe—and some of them even had furs to ward off the chill of the night. They all looked old and bored.

  She gave in to an eye roll. “I’m not a fossil like those people, and when you texted me back earlier, you told me this event was carnival-themed.” She paused. “So there’s nothing wrong with what I’m wearing. Besides, ironically, despite the theme, there won’t be any kids attending.” Just a bunch of dried-up society women who would descend on her like a flock of vultures. The exact type of person who, in the past, had judged her the most and found her lacking. Virginia felt resentment rising inside even though she hadn’t met a single one of them yet. She knew the score—and she didn’t appreciate having her anxiety compounded by Dex’s disapproval.

  As she watched, his gaze swept over her, lingering on her legs for a moment. She crossed them, and he jerked his head straight forward. “Those fossils are the people you need to impress,” he reminded her. “Plus your dress is . . .” He waved his hand. “Um, strapless.”

  “Ooh, strapless—a style women have been wearing for fifty years. Come on, Dex—don’t be ridiculous.” Still, she bent her head and glanced down to make sure her cleavage wasn’t too eye-popping. Unfortunately, it was. She was pretty well-endowed, and the tops of her breasts were only a couple of inches from her face. Maybe if she sat up and straightened her back . . .

  Dex’s eyes widened. He coughed and rubbed the side of his jaw. “Did you bring one of those . . . fabric square things? You know, a scarf or something?”

  “By ‘fabric square thing,’ do you mean a wrap?”

  “I guess.” He gave her a crooked smile. “I don’t know what they’re called. See why I need you to help me with Lilah’s?”

  Virginia glanced at the dimple in his cheek. “I’m still considering your offer.” And she was—but the more she thought about his offer, the better it looked. There really weren’t other viable options to pull the Owlton Company from the ashes, aside from asking her dad to help her find contacts. He would do it too, but then she’d get that icky feeling she always got in the pit of her stomach when she couldn’t see things through on her own. She’d had that feeling too many times, and she was so sick of it. Plus, she’d always wanted to work in fashion. But if she threw herself into working for Dex, how could she manage to get Owlton back off the ground at the same time? The truth was, she needed him to quietly introduce her to these people. It wasn’t as if she couldn’t do it herself—she could wrangle an invitation to just about any hoity-toity benefit in the city. But with Dex by her side, meeting the people she needed to know would go a lot more smoothly, and she’d have a better chance of making Owlton successful without too much media attention. It was one thing to make the news for acting crazy at a club, but it was something else entirely to make the news for being a failure at running a business. She was tough, but that kind of criticism, that blow to her ego, would crush her.

  “What are you thinking?” Dex asked. “You know I can help you.” His voice was placating, and it only served to ratchet up her apprehension.

  “I said, I’m still considering. Is that okay with you?”

  He held up his hands. “Sure.” After a pause he nodded toward the museum. The light from the large windows cast a glow onto the busy sidewalk. Outside, a few passersby stopped to look at the society party in full swing. Inside, people holding drinks mingled among clumps of balloons and brightly colored posters. “We probably ought to go in.”

  “Probably.” Virginia swallowed, suddenly nervous. It wasn’t as if she hadn’t been to events like this before. She’d been to many on her dad’s campaign trail—and nothing could compare to the splendor of an inaugural ball—but at those events, she hadn’t been trying to launch a business she knew nothing about. Plus she’d been surrounded by family. Here, she wasn’t surrounded by anything but her Secret Service agents—and her boobs were falling out. What had she been thinking, wearing this dress?

  “Yeah, we should go in,” she echoed, but she didn’t move. The agents in the front seat turned their heads in anticipation. Virginia shook hers slightly, and they turned back around. She scooted closer to Dex to whisper, trying to ignore the sudden warmth that emanated from his body, and she leaned in—not too close—she didn’t want to give him the wrong idea. But his gaze slid to hers, and when she saw his lips part and his nostrils flare, she leaned away, even as a thrill shot through her middle. Good God.

  “Dex. Let’s be crystal clear,” she whispered. “Aside from the fact that I am who I am, why do you think I could help you with Lilah’s? Especially since you don’t approve of my fashion choices?” She gestured to her dress.

  He shook his head and then nodded, his voice low. “It’s not that I don’t approve. You look . . . very pretty.”

  “But?” she coaxed.

  His leg began bouncing up and down. “I don’t know how to phrase it without pissing you off.”

  “Try.” She placed a hand on his thigh and pushed down gently. It stopped moving, and a second later, he placed his own hand—large and warm—over hers. Neither of them moved for a second, but instinct screamed at her to move her hand—now. She slid it away quickly, over the warm wool of his trousers, and reached for the small beaded bag sitting on the seat next to her. “Speak up.” Her voice was sharper than she’d intended, and she tried to soften it with a smile as she snapped open the purse and reached for a compact mirror.

  “Speak up?” Dex shook his head. “I’m not a child.”

  “Obviously,” she muttered.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. I’d really like an answer to my question before we go inside, though,” she said casually as she reapplied lip gloss that was already perfect. Glancing up, she saw that her agents were busy scrolling their phones, and she felt a flash of gratitude. They overheard everything, but for her sake—when she really needed them not to—they tried to pretend they couldn’t hear.

  Dex glanced at her. “What was the question?”

  “Why do you want me to help you with Lilah’s? Because neither of us are dummies, and my status as a First Daughter can only carry the project so far. If I screw it up, all people will talk about is how stupid it was to use me.”

  “I don’t plan to use you,” Dex said, his voice full of conviction. “If—”

  She cut him off with a laugh that came out uncomfortable, possibly even vulnerable. Dammit. “Of course you do. You said it yourself in the park. When—”

  “Let me finish,” he interrupted. “If you would shut up for a minute, I’ll explain.”

  She stared at him. “You’re telling me to shut up?” His blue eyes snapped with irritation, and as he shifted, his tall frame filled the space next to her, blocking out the lights of Columbus Circle behind him. Without warning, she got a mental image of him leaning forward, his eyes on fire, his sexy mouth coming closer and closer to hers. She tore her gaze away.

  “Yes, I told you to shut up. I didn’t make my offer lightly, Virginia. I have a good feeling about you, and this afternoon, I went online. What I found about you only confirmed it. I know that you studied fashion merchandising at the Art Institute of Chicago. I know that you have a degree in art hi
story from Kent State. But I have no idea why you moved schools or changed majors—why would you do that?”

  She opened her mouth to answer, to tell him the lie she always told people—that she’d wanted a deeper education—but he waved his hand and continued.

  “I can’t read a magazine or newspaper article about you without some mention of your innate sense of style and the effortless way you present yourself. And yes, your education and your flair for fashion, combined with who you are, tell me that I’d be a fool not to pursue you.” He ran out of breath at the end and took a deep one, causing his chest to expand. “Does that satisfy you?” he asked.

  She stared at the studs on the front of his shirt but didn’t answer. She had to ask one more question—and forced herself to look up at him. “What about my reputation? Aren’t you worried?”

  He hesitated. “Your reputation is up to you. So what do you say?”

  She wanted to say yes. It was on the tip of her tongue, but she found herself shaking her head, though the thought of transforming a department store practically made her mouth water with possibilities. Like Dex, she’d also gone online this afternoon, and though she hadn’t found a website for Lilah’s, she’d seen a handful of dated photos. The building was huge—ornate; at least it had that going for it. The fact that it didn’t have a website was disconcerting, but that could easily be dealt with. Still, she needed to gauge how things went tonight. “I’d need to see Lilah’s first.”

  “Fair enough.” He sounded a bit disappointed, and it suddenly occurred to her that he probably wanted to announce their partnership at the gala. Well, too bad. As if reading her thoughts, he nodded at her. “I won’t say anything to anyone tonight. About our possible deal.”

  “Better not.” She reopened her snack-sized purse and pulled out a tiny silver bundle of tissue-thin silk crepe. When she shook the delicate evening wrap open, the tiny rhinestones scattered across the surface winked in the dim light. Tossing it over her cleavage, she reached behind her neck for a hook and eye and settled the fabric over her shoulders to form an elegant short cape. “Let’s go.”