The Billionaire Date. Leigh Michaels
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to raise overall. Perhaps, if she tried hard enough, she could convince herself that was a positive note.
“You mean...” Susannah gave a shriek that rattled the brass and crystal chandelier above the conference table. “Then he was asking you for a date?”
Alison’s head appeared around the door. “I can hear you two all the way in my office,” she pointed out. “What in heaven’s name is going on in here? And if it’s some sort of party, why didn’t you invite me to join in the fun?”
“Because it just happened,” Susannah said. “Very unexpectedly. Jarrett Webster popped in out of the blue and—”
“Did not ask me for a date,” Kit cut in hastily. “Look, this is private and personal, and I really don’t want to—”
Susannah nodded wisely at Alison. “She doesn’t want to talk about it.”
“Do you think that means she has something to hide?”
“No doubt. I’ll have to think what the secret might be, though. If it isn’t business and it isn’t a date, then—”
“Stop it!” Kit said firmly. “Both of you!” She turned sideways to slide between them and out the door, and the last view she had as she started up the stairs was of two astonished faces in the doorway of Rita’s office.
Then the irrepressible Susannah said, “Kit’s just a little touchy today, wouldn’t you say, Ali? I wonder if that means she’s in love?”
Forty-eight slow and painful hours crept by. By Friday afternoon, Kit still hadn’t heard from Jarrett, and she was beginning to hope that somewhere, somehow, someone had told him what had really happened to mess up the fashion show. If he learned that she hadn’t been responsible for the mix-ups...
Not likely, she told herself. Who was going to admit it, after all? Not Heather, that was sure, or her mother. And neither chance nor divine providence was apt to step in to change his mind and rescue her, either.
Even if he did learn the truth, Kit might not be entirely off the hook. Unless he was man enough to apologize, which she frankly doubted, she might not even find out that he’d seen the light.
And in the meantime, she didn’t dare take a chance on waiting. She couldn’t put off the necessary work for another moment.
She’d opened her big mouth and now she was going to have to back up her boast with action. Three lousy weeks and ten thousand dollars to raise.
Kit knew all the tricks. Professional fund-raising wasn’t particularly difficult, and in a city the size of Chicago ten thousand dollars wasn’t a great deal of money, either. Except that it was a whole lot more difficult to raise money for an amorphous general cause like fighting domestic violence than for a specific one like putting a new roof on a women’s shelter. Why couldn’t the man have been more precise?
“Because,” Kit muttered, “it would have been helpful if he had, and he knows it.”
So how was she going to pull it off?
Susannah, she knew, could come up with that amount in a matter of days for her favorite museum—but the museum had a mailing list of supporters. And a couple of months ago Alison had reached out and touched Chicago’s corporate trusts and charitable foundations, and in mere hours she’d raised enough money to fund a video production on the benefits of living and working in the Windy City.
Kit had her contacts, too, but she didn’t think simply calling them up to ask for money would be likely to solve this problem. She suspected Jarrett wouldn’t be particularly thrilled if she handed him a few big checks. Too easy, he’d probably say. The money would no doubt have been donated anyway, without her interference.
That would be a technical success for Kit, but one that wouldn’t mean much. Under those circumstances, Jarrett might not actually carry through with his threat to use his contacts against Tryad. But unless he was wholeheartedly convinced, he certainly wouldn’t do the firm any favors, either. And if a man with Jarrett Webster’s influence and power so much as raised an eyebrow when Tryad was mentioned...
“Let’s face it,” Kit muttered. “He doesn’t have to bad-mouth us. All he has to do is sow a little doubt. A cynical question here and a hesitant look there, and our clients will start looking for cover.”
The fact was, Kit realized, that raising the money she’d promised wasn’t really the primary goal of this campaign. Impressing Jarrett Webster was, because if she didn’t succeed in swaying him, she’d lose the battle—no matter how much money she handed over to his precious cause.
The good news, she told herself, is that you don’t have to impress him on any personal level. Considering the way she’d started out, that would be downright impossible.
She reached for a pencil and a pad of graph paper and wrote in block letters across the top, How to excite Jarrett Webster.
Then she stared at the blank page and tapped the eraser against her cheek.
New money—that was what she needed to set the arrogant Mr. Webster on his heels. If she could come up with ten thousand dollars from ordinary people who otherwise wouldn’t have made a donation, money that would have been spent on things instead of good causes...
Her pencil moved slowly across the page, doodling a row of parallel lines.
She needed an event that would grab publicity—a month wasn’t long enough for a slow-building campaign. It had to be something flashy to intrigue the fickle public. And it must return entertainment or actual value to the contributors so they wouldn’t mind handing.over fairly large sums of hard-eamed money.
All of which was precisely what the fashion show had tried to do, she reminded herself. Well, she wasn’t stupid enough to try that again. But there were plenty of activities people would pay to attend. A formal ball, perhaps—though there must be a dozen already planned for the next few months. A banquet. A rock concert or maybe a symphony performance.
She could feel her blood pressure inching up. There was nothing particularly intriguing about any of those possibilities, certainly nothing that would generate the sort of publicity she needed.
Her intercom buzzed, and Rita announced, “Telephone, Kit. Line three.”
With a tinge of relief Kit tossed the graph paper aside. But as soon as she picked up the receiver, she knew who was waiting for her. Her fingertips began to tingle, and by the time she’d said hello the sensation had rushed all the way up her arm and leaped to her throat. Did the man give off an electrical current that had the power to surge through telephone lines and paralyze whoever was on the other end?
Jarrett didn’t bother to return her greeting. “When do you get off work?”
I don’t, Kit wanted to say. I’m going to stay here in my office forever, working round the clock like a galley slave for the rest of my life. “I’ll be finished in half an hour.”
“I’ll be waiting in front.”
The telephone clicked in her ear before she could argue. Or agree, for that matter.
Calling that man arrogant, she fumed, was an understatement of approximately the same magnitude as referring to the Great Chicago Fire as a backyard wiener roast!
One thing was certain. There hadn’t been anything in his voice that hinted of regret or apology. So was there any reason she should stick around? Since he hadn’t even let her answer his demand, much less tell him whether it was convenient to meet with him right now...
No, she decided. She shoved the pad of graph paper into her briefcase, along with a dozen folders containing other current projects, took her trench coat from its hook, wrapped a bright wool scarf around her throat and tried not to look as if she was hurrying as she descended the stairs to the front door. With any luck, she could-be around the corner and out of sight before he arrived—and all the way home before the half hour was up.
Though